Kayle is one of the most versatile champions in the game, if not the most versatile. She is viable in Top, Mid, Support, Bot, and Jungle, but her strengths come out the most in Top & Mid. She is considered a Fighter but fits more into the role of a Marksman and plays similarly to one as well. She is a late-game, hard-scaling carry that can shred MR and Armor with her passive, become temporarily ranged with Righteous Fury and give a 2-3 second invulnerability with Intervention. She is also a strong duelist that can duel most tops, mids, and ADCs without much trouble. Some might call her a stat-checking champion, but being able to play her well really depends on your macro. Since her rework is coming in Season 9, get in on Kayle while you can, she's great to start climbing with!

Pros + Good wave clear + Point-and-click single target slow + Invulnerability with Intervention + High healing when building AP + Can shred MR and Armor + Great scaling champion + Very versatile item builds and playstyles + Very good duelist

Cons - Slow early-game - Falls behind hard if ganked or dies multiple times - Core items are expensive - Susceptible to CC and blind - Not actually a "right-click only" champion

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GHOST: Provides strong mobility in fights as well as the ability to disengage/engage duels. This is the preferred summoner spell after hard nerfs to Teleport.

FLASH: Standard summoner spell. Use this to escape, engage, dodge, etc.

TELEPORT - TOP/MID I honestly don't like taking this anymore after its nerfs and changes. However, this is still a viable summoner spell to take if your team composition leans toward a split-push style, or if you're in a farm lane where there'll be little to no aggression and you want to get a good recall and Teleport.

IGNITE - MID/SUPPORT: Alternative to Ghost/ Exhaust. Take this if you plan on playing aggressively during Laning Phase or if the enemy has healers like Soraka.

HEAL - BOT: Standard ADC summoner spell. Bot Lane: you can also take Ghost if you feel you don't need Heal.

BARRIER - BOT/MID: Alternative to Heal/ Ghost. Take this in aggressive lanes where where you need the short CD from Barrier to live.

EXHAUST - TOP/MID/SUPPORT: Standard Support Spell and alternative to Ghost. If you're solo-laning, take this to help win duels against powerful all-inners or stop burst from assassins ( Fiora, Zed, Talon, etc).

SMITE - JUNGLE: Standard Jungle Spell. If you don't take this and you're jungling, you should actually dodge the game or AFK for your team to remake.

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Passive

Holy Fervor

Kayle's basic attacks apply a stack of Holy Fervor for 5 seconds, up to 5 stacks. Each stack reduces the enemy's Magic Resist and Armor by 3%, up to a maximum of 15%.

• Can be stacked with basic attacks and Reckoning.

Q Ability

Reckoning

Range: Cost: Cooldown:

650 70/75/80/85/90 Mana 8 seconds

Kayle blasts a target, slowing them by 35/40/45/50/55% for 3 seconds and dealing 60/110/160/210/260 magic damage, increased by 60% of her Ability Power and 100% of her bonus Attack Damage.

• Don't use Reckoning to poke during laning phase due to its high mana cost and relatively low damage.
• If someone with a gap closer is chasing you, wait until they use it to use Reckoning.
• If you're being dived, make sure to use this, since the animation is hard to see especially in melee range. This will give you a free kill if they die to tower or try to execute.
• Always try to start an all-in or duel with Reckoning to apply the first stack of Holy Fervor, letting your first Righteous Fury auto attack deal more damage.
• Don't use Reckoning mid-fight unless you are able to animation cancel it
  • Auto attack --> Q (issue a move command) --> auto attack
  • If you can't do this effectively and 100% of the time, practice until you can, as it can be very useful.

W Ability

Divine Blessing

Range: Cost: Cooldown:

90 60/70/80/90/100 Mana 15 seconds

Kayle heals herself or a target ally for 60/105/150/195/240 Health, increased by 45% of her Ability Power, and gives them 18/21/24/27/30% more movement speed for 3 seconds, increased by 7% for every 100 Ability Power.

• Avoid spamming this in lane and later in the game. You'll find yourself being out of mana often if you spam this without Blue Buff or Manaflow Band.
• The Movement Speed boost and Health recovery will help surprise enemies during ganks / if you get ganked.
• Don't be afraid to use this on teamfights that are engaging or on low health. This will often give you free assists and hope from your teammates.

E Ability

Righteous Fury

Cost: Cooldown:

45 Mana 18/17/16/15/14 seconds

Passive: Kayle's basic attacks deal 10/15/20/25/30 magic damage on hit, increased by 15% of her Ability Power.

Active: Kayle becomes ranged for the next 10 seconds, doubling the passive effect's damage, gaining 400 range (525 total range), and splashing 20/30/40/50/60 magic damage to all enemies around her main target, increased by 20/25/30/35/40% of her Attack Damage and 30% of her Ability Power.

• At 30% CDR, Righteous Fury is always available as long as you have mana.
• Ranged auto attacks cannot be blocked by Yasuo's Wind Wall.
• Applies all on-hit effects.
• During this time, Kayle is considered range, so items and effects that have split values or effects for ranged and melee will apply ranged effects ( Wit's End / Guinsoo's Rageblade).
• Splash damage is applied through Counter Strike's dodge, Aegis Protection's block, Riposte's parry, and blinds.
• When ranged, Runaan's Hurricane can be used.

Ultimate

Intervention

Range: Cooldown:

900 100/90/80 seconds

For the next 2/2.5/3 seconds, Kayle or the targeted ally is immune to all damage.

• Used on a high priority target, usually yourself.
• Best to counter most assassins, including Zed's Death Mark.
• Cannot be casted under Crowd Control effects (stun, taunt, knockup).
• No cast time (can be used during other spells).
• Can't be used to dive the enemy fountain (that's unlucky).

This is a standard skill order for Kayle, maxing out Righteous Fury first since that's her bread and butter ability.

Variations:
During laning phase, you can choose to put an extra point into Reckoning or Divine Blessing (two points total) to help kite or survive.

If you don't think you need to use Divine Blessing when you reach level 3, put another point into Righteous Fury.

You can max Divine Blessing second instead of Reckoning if you feel like you need the extra healing, but be careful about spamming it if you do, since the mana cost is very high for Kayle.

You can put extra points into other abilities depending on your laner and how the game is going.

For example, against Jax I would put an extra point into Reckoning to help get away from him after he uses Leap Strike on you.

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Lethal Tempo gives you bonus attack speed (40%-110%) after 1.5s of damaging an enemy champion for up to 6s. At max level, this effectively increases Kayle's DPS by ~15%. This keystone scales really well into the late game.

Press the Attack makes an enemy take 8-12% more damage from all sources after being hit 3 times. This makes it easier for your team to focus down one person and is best used when laning against champions like Dr. Mundo, Cho'Gath, Maokai, and Shen. This rune is a very useful early game rune but is outscaled by Lethal Tempo; use whichever one you prefer.

Conqueror gives you 3-15 adaptive damage every stack up to 5 stacks. At 5 stacks, it converts 10% of your damage to true damage and you heal off that damage as well. This keystone works well especially against tanks, but is actually a viable rune in any matchup now because you can easily stack this in lane with Righteous Fury and Reckoning. Although the duration was nerfed (3 seconds for ranged, 8 for melee), this is an option that can still work.

Fleet Footwork heals you and briefly adds bonus movement speed when you attack at 100 charges of Energy. The healing is reduced if you attack minions while Ranged, but scales with AD and AP. This is effective in lanes where you need sustain against an opponent or need the burst of movement speed to survive.

Presence of Mind Legend: Alacrity

Presence of Mind: Due to giving back 10% of your ultimate's cooldown and its 20% max mana refund, this rune is insanely good on Kayle. Triumph is an okay alternative, but do not consider Overheal. Legend: Alacrity: Gives 3% attack speed and an additional 1.5% for every Legend stack you have (up to 10). If you're against a lot of CC, consider taking Legend: Tenacity. Never take Legend: Bloodline

Coup de Grace

Cut Down

All three of these runes are okay on Kayle. Coup de Grace is the best in most situations, as it also gives you bonus AD or AP after getting a kill/assist, but against multiple tanks, it's better to use Cut Down. Last Stand is a niche choice on Kayle as you will have to hold Intervention until you have less than 30% health to make the most of the rune.

Last Stand

Summon Aery is to be taken while playing Support, only. The rune deals good damage when poking the enemy bot lane with Righteous Fury and provides a useful shield with Divine Blessing.

Phase Rush is a good rune for top or Mid. It gives you 25%-40% movement speed after hitting an enemy with 3 unique attacks or abilities. For Top, it is recommended to take it against Darius or Nasus. For Mid, it is your preference to take it or not. Taking it will give you an easier time against champions like Ryze, Orianna, Ahri, and most other mages.

Manaflow Band Transcendence Gathering Storm

Manaflow Band: You can stack this rune by hitting someone with Righteous Fury while the rune is available. The rune allows you to spam Divine Blessing and Reckoning at max stacks, making it the best rune to take. Transcendence: Gives you +10% Cooldown Reduction at level 10. This helps Kayle reach 30% CDR (with Nashor's Tooth or Ionian Boots of Lucidity + Scaling CDR stat bonus) for 100% uptime on Righteous Fury. Gathering Storm: Gives you adaptive AD or AP every 10 mins. As a scaling champion that ends up carrying past 30 minutes, this is a great rune. At just 30 minutes, it gives you 48AP or 29AD.

Electrocute deals bonus adaptive damage to a champion after hitting them with 3 unique attacks. Good in ONLY the burst builds.
Dark Harvest deals adaptive damage to champions below 50% health and harvests their soul, increasing this rune's damage by 5. This is good as a scaling burst rune still and is still good for consecutive bursts in teamfights.

Cheap Shot Taste of blood Eyeball Collection

Cheap Shot: Deal a small amount of true damage to a champion that's movement impaired. Has great synergy with Reckoning. Taste of Blood: Heals you when you damage an enemy. This rune is great to help you sustain in poke lanes. Eyeball Collection: Stack this rune through ward kills and champion takedowns At max stacks, you'll gain 30AP or 18AD.

Ravenous Hunter

Relentless Hunter

Any of these runes are okay; it's up to you. Ravenous Hunter is omnivamp and will heal small amounts for doing damage with Righteous Fury and Reckoning. any on-hit effect that does damage any damaging active will also proc this rune. Relentless Hunter will allow you to rotate and get to lane faster. Ultimate Hunter is good if you don't plan on taking Presence of Mind secondary, as 15% CDR on Reckoning is great.

Ultimate Hunter

Grasp of the Undying allows you to deal 4% of your max HP every 4 seconds in combat, which heals you for 2% of your max HP and gives you +5 max HP. Although these values are reduced by 40% for ranged champions, this rune shines in a TanKayle build and provides great lane sustain.

Demolish Bone Plating Second Wind Revitalize

Demolish: Gives you stronger pushing power when building tanky. None of the other runes in this row are very good. Bone Plating: Helps your all ins and to survive enemy poke. Second Wind: You can take this instead of Bone Plating in poke lanes where Bone Plating won't be as effective. Revitalize: Enhanced heals and shields feels even better.

Kleptomancy allows you to gain gold and possibly a random item the next two auto attacks on an enemy champion after using a spell. This is a very cheese rune you should only take as Support.

Glacial Augment is an attack modifier that slows champions you attack for 2 seconds, with a short cooldown per champion. Again, this is a cheese keystone and should only be taken as Top or Support.

Perfect Timing Future's Market Cosmic Insight

Perfect Timing: Good for surviving dives, all-ins, and surprising your enemy. Future's Market: Allows you to reach your spikes or buy items faster. Biscuit Delivery: Helps you survive in poke lanes and increases your mana. Cosmic Insight: Gives 5% CDR on everything and increases your CDR cap from 40 to 45.

►Precision Secondary: It's your preference to pick between Presence of Mind and Triumph. PoM in my opinion is the superior rune in almost all cases because it gives you back mana, which allows you to spam Divine Blessing more, and refunds a portion of Intervention's cooldown. On the other hand, Triumph will help you survive a little bit more in fights and against things like Death Mark. The last rune slot is your choice from Legend: Alacrity, Legend: Tenacity, Coup de Grace, Last Stand, and Cut Down, depending on what you need.

►Domination Secondary: Domination should almost never be taken secondary, but sometimes you'll want Taste of Blood and Ravenous Hunter for the incredible sustain they give.

►Sorcery Secondary: Typically, you'll want to take Manaflow Band and Transcendence to give you the ability to spam Divine Blessing and Reckoning more often. If you don't need CDR in runes, you can go Gathering Storm, Scorch, or Absolute Focus instead.

►Resolve Secondary: Demolish will help you take turrets faster, but consider taking Bone Plating or Second Wind and Revitalize in poke lanes.

►Inspiration Secondary: While it doesn't give you 30% CDR or Gathering Storm like Sorcery, Inspiration allows you to reach your item spikes faster. Utilize Future's Market to go into debt for items and Cosmic Insight for extra CDR on everything and a higher CDR cap or Approach Velocity to chase enemies you've slowed with Reckoning. In lanes where you need health and mana sustain, you can take Biscuit Delivery or Time Warp Tonic as well.


Triumph:

• Restores 12% of your missing health after a champion takedown (kill or assist) after a 1 second delay.
• Also gives an additional 20 gold.

Presence of Mind:

• Takedowns restore 20% of your maximum mana and 10% of your ultimate's maximum cooldown after a 1 second delay.

Presence of Mind is a great choice for the late game. It does everything Triumph does (except the 20 gold), but better. Since it gives you back %missing mana, you'll always get back more than enough mana to use Divine Blessing multiple times. Plus, being able to use Intervention consecutively makes you a very big threat after teamfights.

Triumph is a good pick in most situations, as it will allow you to keep your health pool up through multiple takedowns in teamfights. It's also really good for clutch situations against a delayed-damage assassin like Zed and damage-over-time abilities/spells like Ignite, Darius' Hemorrhage bleed, Malzahar's Malefic Visions, etc.

Most of the time, I prefer Presence of Mind over Triumph just because of its late game power and sustain.

Lane Viability: Top / Jungle / Mid / Bottom Matchup Viability: All Stat Bonuses: Scaling CDR // Armor // Scaling Health //Sorcery or Inspiration? I tend to find myself taking Inspiration more when going Top, Mid, and Jungle, while taking Sorcery secondary more often Bot and sometimes taking it Mid. I prefer Inspiration for the buying potential of Future's Market.

Lane Viability: Top / Mid Matchup Viability: Nasus, Darius, and most Mid mages Stat Bonuses: Scaling CDR // Armor // Scaling Health

Lane Viability: Top / Mid Matchup Viability: Squishy teams and most Mid mages Stat Bonuses: Scaling CDR // Armor // Scaling Health

Lane Viability: Top Matchup Viability: Pantheon, other hard pokers, or when you feel like trolling Stat Bonuses: Scaling CDR // Armor // Scaling Health

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Doran's Ring: The default start for Kayle; gives good base stats and helps Kayle keep her mana up in lane. Dark Seal: If you expect to stomp the enemy, buy this. Even if you don't, you can keep it since it makes potions more effective. Cull: Bought whenever you will be sleeping (afk farming) through lane. If you don't expect your laner to do anything for 100 CS or if you lane is just a farm lane, buy this item. Recommended against tanks like Shen, Garen, and Cho'Gath, but not Maokai, Tahm Kench or Malphite. Doran's Blade: Alternative to Doran's Ring and is purely preferential. It gives worse base stats for Kayle and is a niche start.

AP Core

Nashor's Tooth: Gives you 20% CDR and more on-hit damage. Very good first item to have. This will help you reach/surpass the required 30% CDR to have permanent Righteous Fury. Guinsoo's Rageblade: Has great synergy with other on-hit items due to the Phantom Hit passive (apply on-hit effects twice).

The first two core items should take around 15-20 minutes to build, depending on how well your game is going. After you get these two core items, it's Kayle's time to shine! You'll start shredding through the enemy frontline and dealing massive damage to their backline.

On Hit/AD Core (Experimental)

Blade of the Ruined King: Very good first item against most meta top laners since they do stack health early during laning phase. Later on, you'll be shredding tanks and even squishies. Guinsoo's Rageblade: Has great synergy with other on-hit items due to the Phantom Hit passive (apply on-hit effects twice). When combined with a Blade of the Ruined King, you'll be shredding tanks and squishy enemies alike.

The rest of the build depends on your enemies and how you want to play agsinst them. Since almost every AP, AD, and defensive item is viable on Kayle, there's a lot of ways to build.


Damage Spikes

• Wit's End is a nice item to pick up if you're against multiple magic damage threats or if you want to shred some MR. Good pick up after Guinsoo's Rageblade.
  
• Rabadon's Deathcap is one of the best 5th or 6th items to buy as it will amplify the damage from Righteous Fury and Nashor's Tooth by a lot.
  
  
• Rylai's Crystal Scepter slows enemies, helps with kiting, and gives HP. Passive works with Righteous Fury.
  
  
• Lich Bane provides a nice burst after using any spell. Buy this if you want burst against squishy enemies and need more CDR.
  
  
• Hextech Gunblade is a niche item that's decent on Kayle since it provides a good amount of AD and AP. The passive lets you heal off your auto attacks and the AOE from Righteous Fury. Decent purchase if you need more dueling power.
  
  
• Runaan's Hurricane makes your Righteous Fury auto attacks split to two other enemies. Useful to DPS the entire enemy team, since Runaan's Hurricane will apply on-hit effects to the other targets.

Magic Penetration

• Morellonomicon is a situational item that I don't recommend buying unless you need Grievous Wounds.

Grievous Wounds
If there are enemies that have a lot of healing and you need Grievous Wounds, buy an Executioner's Calling after your first or second item, depending on how quickly you need it. Sit on this item until your 5th or 6th item and sell it for a Morellonomicon.

Defensive Items

• Dead Man's Plate also works surprisingly well as a 5th/6th item purchase. Gives a nice movespeed buff as well as a slow on enemies. Buy this if there most of their damage comes from AD. Item Slot: 5th/6th
  
  
• Randuin's Omen works surprisingly well as a last item buy on Kayle. Provides very good defensive stats against pesky crit users: crit damage reduction, health, armor, and even two slows. Item Slot: 6th | VERY SITUATIONAL
  
  
• Mercurial Scimitar's best function is its ability to escape from CC, which is the only reason to buy this. Item Slot: 5th/6th
  
  
• Phantom Dancer is a great dueling and chasing item. It's basically the Sterak's Gage of ranged champions since it'll give you a shield after you take a certain amount of damage. It gives attack speed and bonus movespeed when moving towards an enemy, and the crit is just an added bonus.
  
  
• Zhonya's Hourglass makes Kayle immobile for 2.5 seconds, which can allow the enemy to set up a CC chain. Very, very, very situational item. Even in games where it looks good to buy this, there are better options than 2.5 seconds of downtime. If you need to buy this, sell it after using it and buy another AP item. Item Slot: 5th/6th | VERY SITUATIONAL
  
  
• Guardian Angel is your chance to get 3 lives. Buy this ONLY as a 6th item and after the passive is used, sell this and buy another item. Item Slot: 6th | VERY SITUATIONAL

• Blade of the Ruined King lets you shred tanks with its %current HP damage. It also gives you the ability to kite enemies using its active. A good replacement for Nashor's Tooth if you want to play AD.
  
  
• Guinsoo's Rageblade is a core item for Kayle due to its Phantom Hit passive.
  
  
• Runaan's Hurricane will allow you to spread your on hit damage to other targets in teamfights and skirmishes.
  
  
• Black Cleaver lets the on hit damage from Blade of the Ruined King penetrate some of your enemy's defenses, increasing its damage. Cleaver is also a good source of health, CDR, and movement speed.
  
  
• Frozen Mallet helps you kite enemies and gives you a good chunk of health.
  
  
• Phantom Dancer allows you to duel and chase enemies more easily.
  
  
• Infinity Edge will give you a bit of crit chance as well as increasing your crit damage to 225% (instead of 200%).

• Mercurial Scimitar is the escape-CC item. Only buy this if there's CC on the enemy team that threatens you.
  
  
• Trinity Force gives all around decent stats and gives your first auto attack after a spell extra damage. Do not buy this if you already bought a Black Cleaver.
  
  
• Mortal Reminder is a source of grievous wounds. Only buy this if enemies have a lot of healing.

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A full AP build is better in most situations for Kayle due to generous AP scalings on Reckoning, Divine Blessing, and Righteous Fury. Due to the recent nerfs/changes to Guinsoo's Rageblade in patch 8.23, items considered "weak" on Kayle are now becoming more prevalent, including Black Cleaver, Enchantment: Bloodrazor, and ignoring Nashor's Tooth. There are times when you should go for an AD path, though. In a team that has 60% or more magic damage users already, you should be looking to build hybrid or full AD.

Buying AP

• More healing & movespeed with Divine Blessing
• More single-target damage with Righteous Fury
• More CDR items
• Generally costs less gold for full build
• A lot of viable AP items
• A lot of AP items also give HP/defenses
• MR is more effective against Kayle than Armor
• More expensive at 3 items (excluding T2 boots) ( Nashor's Tooth Guinsoo's Rageblade Rabadon's Deathcap)
  
• No more AP/AD scalings on Guinsoo's Rageblade -- loss of AP scalings hurt more.
  

Buying AD

• More damage with Reckoning
• More splash damage with Righteous Fury
• Turn into a Vayne with the best %HP damage item, Blade of the Ruined King
• Less expensive at 3 items (excluding T2 boots) ( Blade of the Ruined King Runaan's Hurricane Infinity Edge)
  
• Strong late game
• Easier to itemize against AD
• ~5% less DPS than AP builds in mid game
• Weak early-mid game
• Not that many AD items are viable on Kayle

You should always see what your laner is building and build against that as well. For example, if there's a Maokai rushing a Spirit Visage or Adaptive Helm, you should be rushing a Blade of the Ruined King. In the end, going AP or AD depends on a bunch of factors: your preferences the matchup, how the game is going, how you want to play, etc.

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This video by Skill Capped Challenger LoL Guides gives a great explanation on how to play the laning phase as a ranged champion.

You always want to set up a game plan before the match starts by looking at who you're against and what you need to do to win the laning phase and take them out of the early/mid game.

Generally, you don't want to hard push the first wave, but set up a slow push towards their tower, and then hard push when you have the tools to safely harass them under their tower.

In essence, you should be managing waves so your opponent has to take risks to CS and trade, letting you CS and harass without taking much damage back.


Keep farming and don't die too much. You should be split pushing at this point to pressure the enemy; your team engages and you can keep going, or run to the fight if you're close enough to help. If you're fed, you can keep splitpushing or group with your team to capitalize on your lead.

If Baron Nashor or Rift Herald is up, have your bot lane go Top or Mid while you pressure Bot. This usually leads to the enemy sending 2-3 people to deal with you, giving your team room and time to take the objective.

During this time, if a fight starts somewhere on the map and you're already pushed up to their T2/T3 tower, DON'T join the fight unless you know you can win the fight 100%, take Baron, and push with your team. In a situation like this, it's better to apply pressure for your team and take towers/inhibitors.


If you've reached this stage of the game, congratulations: you've made it. Assuming your team has been stalling the game and waiting for you to reach full power, it's time to lead a comeback (or close out the game). Through your efforts in splitpushing, there should be multiple low or missing towers that your team can push through.

You need to be grouping up with your team as much as you can and take objectives, specifically Baron Nashor dragons, and any remaining towers. Since the enemy is scary and you won't usually be able to take a tower in one go with your team, you should be whittling towers down through multiple waves. If you decide to group and push, you can choose to buy an Elixir of Sorcery for its extra true damage on towers, which will let you push much faster.

At this stage of the game, assume that your team cannot win a fight 4v5, so you need to be careful about splitpushing. If you think it's too dangerous, just keep grouping with your team.

In fights, assume you can one-shot their carries and that they will one-shot you after Intervention is used. Make sure this DOESN'T happen since your team will lose a lot of DPS and possibly lose the fight.

Late game, your main focus is on macro: keep track of the enemy's movements, ward up, and use any openings they have.

Remember that if you get caught, your team is most likely losing the fight unless you trade your life for 1 or more priority targets.

Teamfighting 101If you've ever been interested in playing ADCs, you've most likely heard of the Golden Rule of ADCs: focus whoever's closest to you. Although Kayle isn't an ADC, this idea still somewhat applies to her. Generally, in teamfights, you should be staying in the back and attacking whoever's closest to you. However, since Kayle has Righteous Fury and you'll sometimes pick up a Runaan's Hurricane, you'll be able to splash damage onto whoever's not closest to you as well, given that they're clumped up. Since there'll usually be more than one person closest to you and one/two high priority targets you need to kill, target selection comes in handy here. Good target selection is what separates experienced players and boosted players. In teamfights, you want to keep your calm and assess the situation: who's closest to you, who can deal the most damage to you/your team, and who can interrupt you from doing Kayle things. Generally, the priority list from highest to lowest is: ADC/Bot Lane, Mid, Top, Jungle, Support. If a high-burst champion/assassin like Zed is rushing at your team with Youmuu's Ghostblade, Flash, and Death Mark, you're actually pretty safe given that you have Intervention up and maybe a teammate with CC. If he's rushing at you with your ultimate up, you need to kill him immediately so you don't have to waste your ultimate on a teammate.

If a Bruiser/Duelist like Renekton is rushing at you with Slice and Dice and Dominus up, you should keep your distance since the threat he brings with his CC and damage from Cull the Meek is not to be underestimated. If you end up getting caught by champions like him ( Renekton, Jax, Irelia, Camille), you're most likely going to have to stay and fight with Intervention. If you catch any of these out of position in a teamfight, you need to kill them.

On the other hand, if a huge tank like Cho'Gath or Maokai is in front of you and you can't immediately kill them, you should ignore them most of the time and let your team deal with them. This'll open up an opportunity for you to rush the enemy's backline especially if they're focused on their tank, which creates pressure and space for your team to kill whoever's frontlining.

By assessing how much of a threat the enemy is to you, you'll start to see who you need to kill and be wary of.

Example:

Enemy

Ally

In this game, you'll come to the conclusion that the two biggest damage dealers are Vayne and Ezreal, who take top 2 priority.

However, since they also have a bunch of engage and CC from Braum, Skarner, and Ornn, you'll need to keep your distance as much as possible from them while receiving peel from your team. In this situation, you actually want to weave in and out of the frontline and backline while letting your team engage/peel for you, but if you see an opportunity to attack any of the two highest priority targets, you should be doing so. If not, you should be focusing down whichever enemy is closest to you so that they don't get an opportunity to lock you down.

In this specific scenario, if their team engages and the Vayne does Vayne things and uses Flash, Final Hour and Tumble to follow up on the engage, and she just happens to be clumped in with her tanks, you can choose to keep hitting their tanks to splash with Runaan's Hurricane and Righteous Fury, but the best option is to switch targets and focus her so she can't carry the teamfight.

If she runs away and leaves your range, you can Flash, Ghost, or Divine Blessing to chase after her as long as you've held onto Intervention or have another way out. Otherwise, the moment she leaves your range, you need to switch back to hitting whoever is closest to you.

Since your team has a decent amount of peel and CC as well from Malzahar and Thresh, you should be able to safely frontline to take down anyone they catch.


I'll be covering a few of the matchups that you go even against up to a major threat. If I didn't cover one, but you'd really like info on it, feel free to ask me in the comments.

Level 4/Skill Dependent - Irelia Irelia is an exremely mobile fighter that looks to go into the thick of things. In lane, she can quickly trade with you using her Bladesurge by getting resets on minions. To avoid this as much as possible, let her push towards you and freeze towards your turret, making it much harder for her to freely dash on you. Since you know when she'll walk up or use Bladesurge to last hit minions, predict it coming and hit her when she dashes or walks up. However, don't play too aggressively because she can quickly stun you with Flawless Duet. If you do not dodge this stun, you will surely lose the trade, since she can dash to you, auto, and then dash back out, leaving you with no way to hit her back enough times. If you ever fight her, dodging her stun is your first priority so she cannot use Bladesurge twice on you. If she ults, unless you're low and can't kill her for sure or don't have ult, you cannot run from her. Just stay and fight if you have ult, since you will outdamage her with Nashor's Tooth and Guinsoo's Rageblade. Play Video A short clip of the matchup, albeit played badly by me.

Level 5/Even - Renekton Renekton is a lane bully that'll heavily punish any mistakes you make, especially poor positioning. To make this matchup much easier, I recommend taking Fleet Footwork, which allows you to sustain a little bit more during laning phase and to help you run away from him when he uses Slice and Dice. For this matchup, I recommend letting him push the first 1 or 2 waves, and then freezing the minion wave near your tower. This'll protect you against his level 2 and 3 powerspikes, because you'll be safe near tower so he won't be able to play as aggressively. When the wave is frozen like this, punish him whenever he goes for CS. If the wave isn't frozen and is pushed up, unless you're extremely ahead, I do not recommend walking up to harass him. To escape his engage and stun's extra range, put an extra point into Divine Blessing at level 5 or level 8, usually at level 5 so you can be safer earlier. When playing against him, you cannot get cocky, play too aggressively, or make bad mistakes. If you're about even with him, he could easily turn and kill you if you get too cocky against him. I recommend buying a Rylai's Crystal Scepter against him.

Level 5/Even or Minor - HeimerdingerWinning against Heimerdinger is more dependent on you dodging his Hextech Micro-Rockets and CH-2 Electron Storm Grenade more than anything. During laning phase, you need to be wary of these two things and clear his turrets with Righteous Fury's splash. If you end up getting hit by one of these things and he has turrets up, you'll be taking more damage than you want to. This is mostly how this laning phase will go; whenever he puts up turrets you need to immediately clear it directly or indirectly with splash. Do not let him get the advantage with turrets. If the enemy jungler isn't really a strong early game ganker, then you should be pushing him in and pressuring him. Otherwise, you should be keeping the lane towards the middle of the lane. Having it close to your tower isn't really optimal, since he can harass you with rockets and his stun grenade from afar when you're under turret.

Level 6/Even or Major - XerathAn oppressive midlaner that'll punish you for walking up. Since Kayle has low base movement speed, if you don't react fast enough, he'll be guaranteed to hit his Eye of Destruction. Make sure to stand with minions so he can't stun you as easily with Shocking Orb. If you ever decide to all-in him, you must dodge his Shocking Orb or else he will deal unexpected amounts of damage to you with his full combo. When late game comes around, his only threats to you are his long-range poke and his Shocking Orb. Rushing a Wit's End or sitting on a Negatron Cloak against him is advisable.

Level 6/Even - Orianna Orianna is a control mage with immense teamfight presence with her Command: Shockwave. During laning phase, she's an oppressive laner that'll capitalize off your smallest positioning mistakes with strong harass with Command: Attack and Command: Dissonance. Thankfully, using these abilities take up a lot of her mana, so your only job during laning phase is to dodge her ball as much as you can while maintaining CS. Once she runs out of mana, she's free to be ganked or all-inned due to her immobility. On the other hand, she can set up ganks pretty nicely with her ultimate, Command: Shockwave, so you need to keep vision up at all times, keep track of her mana pool, and position well. Against Orianna, I recommend taking Ghost and buying a Wit's End at some point. In teamfights, you CANNOT be caught up in her Command: Shockwave, since you'll usually end up dying or being put into a 1v5 situation with extremely low health if you survive. As long as you dodge her long-range poke and ultimate, you can easily kill her with a few items.

Level 8/Major or Even - WukongHis laning phase is questionable. Do not push up or else he can duel you at his tower with a quick dash in, auto, Q, and clone out. You'll want the wave towards your tower or even frozen so he cannot do this as easily. He is a STRONG snowballer, so you don't want to give up any kills to him if you can help it. If you give up a kill or two to him, you want to play as safely as possible now so he cannot snowball any further. If he has Bone Plating, make sure to activate it immediately and back off a little or take off all three with Righteous Fury's splash. Also put a few extra points into Divine Blessing to help you sustain and heal up after he cheeses you. Against Wukong, you'll want to rush either Ninja Tabi or sit on two Cloth Armors and build them into a Dead Man's Plate or Zhonya's Hourglass later. Zhonya's Hourglass, despite being a sub-optimal item when considering Kayle's ult, is great for surviving his initial burst with his Ult combo ( Nimbus Strike, auto, Crushing Blow, Cyclone). Once you survive this initial combo, you have a higher chance of surviving a 1v1 with him as long as you didn't Intervention into Zhonya's Hourglass. Once you reach the mid-late game, this is how you should be surviving against him. Keep track of him at all times so he cannot flank your team with a full-team Cyclone; make sure to keep vision in your own jungle as well.

Level 9/Major - PantheonWhen playing against Pantheon, you need to first mentally prepare yourself in Champion Select for the oppression that is about to come. Then, you need to decide on how you want to play the matchup: you can either start a Corrupting Potion or Doran's Shield or go with Resolve secondary and take Second Wind or Bone Plating with Revitalize. If you really feel like you need it, you can take both of those options, but if you are being a brave player, you can take neither of them. Once you get into laning phase, he'll just be looking to poke you down with his Spear Shot and then all-inning with Aegis of Zeonia. To counteract this, you should freeze at your tower so he can't pressure as hard with Aegis of Zeonia all-ins. His spear range is in fact bigger than your Righteous Fury's range, so even if you freeze and last hit while at tower, he'll still be able to harass you. As soon as late game hits, he'll have fallen off hard and you'll have scaled hard, but you need to make sure you don't die during early-mid game to him so you can reach that point.

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Lethal TempoHelps a lot in ganks where your laner has CC and in skirmishes in the river. Scales hard into the late game, while other runes (like Fleet Footwork) wouldn't be as effective.

| Starting Items |

• Hunter's Talisman gives you a very healthy clear on Wolves, Raptors, and Krugs due to Righteous Fury's splash damage.

| Core Items |

• Once you get Stalker's Blade - Bloodrazor, your clears will become much faster and you'll start to deal a lot of damage, especially to tanks.
• You can also buy Skirmisher's Sabre - Bloodrazor if you need to reduce the enemy's damage when dueling.

| Full Build (on-hit) |

• This build abuses the %hp damage from both Enchantment: Bloodrazor and Blade of the Ruined King to shred your enemies, which is amplified by the effects of Runaan's Hurricane, Black Cleaver, and Guinsoo's Rageblade.

| Full Build (AP) |

• When you've reached 6 items, sell your Skirmisher's Sabre for another AP item ( Rylai's Crystal Scepter or Rabadon's Deathcap).

The rest of this guide for Jungle assumes you have decent Jungle knowledge and will be able to adapt to sudden changes in the game flow. If you need to read up on some Jungle information, check out PsiGuard's Jungle guide to learn about spawn timers, how to gank, common ward spots, etc.

You will always be starting at the side with RED BUFF. If your bot lane is on the Red Buff side, then have them leash you. If it's the top laner, start Raptors.

Starting at Red Buff:
Red > Raptors (clear or heal) > Wolves > Blue > Scuttle (blue side) > Gank/Pressure / Recall

Starting at Raptors:
Raptors > Wolves > Blue > Scuttle (blue side) > Red > Krugs > Scuttle (red side) > Gank / Pressure / Recall

ABUSE RAPTOR HEALING TRICK! Play Video
During your first and/or second clear, if you get low and you're near the Raptors, hit them once or twice with Righteous Fury active and you'll be able to heal back to ~75% HP, and you don't even have to fully clear them. This is because of the interaction between Hunter's Talisman and Righteous Fury's splash damage applying the burn & heal to all of the raptors, so you want to make sure you hit all of the raptors with the splash.


Recommended Camps to Smite:
Krugs, Wolves, Gromp, 2nd Buff

These are options for when to Smite. Since the first clear for Kayle will be slow and possibly take a long time due to your low attack speed, you should save your Smite until you absolutely need to use it. You should NOT Smite your first buff or second camp. You should ALWAYS Smite your second buff and another camp, preferably the 3rd camp you do (excluding Scuttle).

When jungling as Kayle, your focus should be to counter-gank, invade, or gank easy lanes. When you gank, you should be looking to follow up an engage with Reckoning and auto attacks or assisting with Divine Blessing. Even if your ally doesn't need it, help them in some way so you can shorten the timer on Magical Footwear. Make sure to keep track of the enemy jungler as well, and counter-jungle whenever they gank on the other side of the map. If you mess up ganking, you'll be put behind and forced out of the game until you catch up.

After level 6, ganking will be a lot easier, as you can set up strong dives with Intervention and take neutral objectives quickly with Enchantment: Bloodrazor.

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Press the AttackAfter 3 hits, this will increase the damage your support does to whoever you activated this on, so it's really good to take in a duo lane. Since ADCs are very squishy as well, the rune provides a good amount of burst. Optionally, you could take Lethal Tempo if you're playing the Manamune build.

Rushing Berserker's Greaves is still okay and will allow you to fight a little bit more. You should be mainly looking to mirror your support's movements, aka harassing with them and playing to their style. You can't really look to fight before you're level 6 unless your support has enough CC to make up for your weak early game. Look to harass whenever you can to prepare for a strong level 6 all-in.

Your first big item spike will come a lot earlier than most ADCs.

If you're against a non-marksman bot lane, you should be playing similarly to top lane: harass them when they go in for CS, but know that you shouldn't be overextending for a kill.

All this time, you should be pushing the enemy in to secure first tower.


Once you get the tower bot lane and are ahead of the enemy bot lane, you should be looking to spread your advantage to other parts of the map; group up with your team to make fights and small skirmishes happen while securing objectives: towers, dragons, Rift Herald, and Baron Nashor.

If you choose to splitpush, it's a little bit harder compared to Top Lane or Mid lane, but doable. Since you won't usually have Teleport unless you take it instead of Heal or Ghost, you won't have the same ability to pressure Baron Nashor like you usually do. However, splitpushing is still the same idea: if you're bot lane at the T2 tower and a fight starts mid lane at their T2, but you know you can't turn the fight if you walk over, stay and take the turret.

Once late game hits, you should be looking to teamfight as much as possible to take advantage of your strong late game.

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Kayle isn't really the best champion to be supporting with; there's a lot of other supports that outshine her or do certain things better than her. However, if you ever get auto-filled or think that a Kayle's Intervention would fill out a team nicely, here's how to play Support Kayle.

Summon Aery Summon Aery is the best keystone for Support Kayle. It gives you more poking power with its small amount of bonus damage and gives you more supportive abilities with its shield whenever you use Divine Blessing on an ally.

Manaflow Band Manaflow Band will increase your mana pool while at the same time giving you mana regen, which is huge for Kayle support since it lets you spam Reckoning and Divine Blessing during laning phase and late game without worrying about quickly running out of mana.

TranscendenceSince you'll be building a lot of CDR items that'll usually put you over the 40% cap, you'll be able to take advantage of going over it with the AP conversion from Transcendence.

ScorchScorch gives you a bigger presence in lane with its relatively low cooldown and reliable damage you can proc using Righteous Fury or Reckoning. You can also take Gathering Storm if you want to scale into the late game with it.

Revitalize Revitalize is the rune that makes the most sense for support. It'll increase the healing from Divine Blessing even more, so if you decide to take Resolve secondary, do not miss out on this rune.

Bone Plating Bone Plating gives you a little bit more survivability, especially in poke lanes or when your bot laner will rely on you to engage.

Font of Life Font of Life will let your allies heal off enemies you hit with Reckoning. I don't really prefer this rune that much, but it's good to help your bot laner sustain and could even turn a fight with its healing.

Second Wind Second Wind helps you sustain and heal up after getting hit by enemies. Very good choice to take into poke lanes.

Cheap Shot Cheap Shot is an aggressive rune that will let your next auto attack on the person you use Reckoning on to deal bonus true damage. This is great in early game for harassing, going aggressive, and could even turn a 2v2 with its bonus damage.

Zombie Ward Zombie Ward is great to have as a support, since you'll be clearing enemy wards a lot. This is a very good rune to help you go aggressive after clearing a ward.

Demolish Demolish helps you push with your team. Take this only if your laners aren't heavy pokers and you have lane priority.

• You'll want to max Righteous Fury last because your autos won't matter when you're supporting.
• W max is the standard way to go because it provides a lot of healing when paired with healing boost items like Ardent Censer, but you can also go Reckoning max if against a squishy bot lane.
• You can put a point into Divine Blessing instead of Reckoning at level 2 if you're against a poke lane or if your ADC doesn't have a strong level 2.

You should be starting Spellthief's Edge so you can deal extra damage whenever you harass with Reckoning or Righteous Fury.

During Laning Phase, you should look for opportunities to harass with Reckoning and Righteous Fury, especially if the enemy support is melee. Usually, you shouldn't be hard engaging unless your jungler is ganking. The best way to win the laning phase on Kayle support is to let the enemy engage or make mistakes and help your carry with heals, slows, and Intervention.

Rush a Frostfang on your first back alongside boots, if possible. If not, Frostfang and a Faerie Charm is acceptable, which puts you ahead for your next rush: Ardent Censer.

After that, you should be looking to build around what your team needs the most, which is usually a Redemption. If the enemy is heavy on CC and you need to cleanse your carries, buy a Mikael's Blessing. If not, think about building Twin Shadows for the slow or Athene's Unholy Grail for the extra healing power.

Later on in the game, you should almost never use Intervention on yourself unless you're baiting the enemy team or you would die otherwise. Remember that you can't heal your team if you instantly die!

In all other situations, you should always prioritize one of your team's carries if they're being bursted or being focused down. You can also choose to ult your bruiser/tank Top Laner or Jungler so they can initiate without worrying about dying.

In general, Kayle has good synergy with high, continuous DPS champions such as Vayne, Ashe, Varus, Kai'Sa. She has especially good synergy with Vayne and Kai'Sa because of their tendency to play aggressively, which she can support/save by using Intervention and engaging with a Reckoning slow.

You want to avoid ADCs like Miss Fortune, Ezreal, Kalista, Caitlyn, and Jhin because they can't take advantage of you as much as other ADCs can.

Supports like Nami, Lulu, and Tahm Kench are scary only because they can negate your Reckoning/ Righteous Fury poke and can stop you from using Intervention with their CC.

This picks well into beefier and/or immobile supports such as Soraka, Rakan, Janna, and Pyke because Reckoning's damage will deter them from engaging further.

Similarly, this is a great pick into immobile ADCs: Ashe, Jhin, Xayah, Jinx, etc.

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Thanks for giving this guide a read, and I hope you enjoy playing Kayle! If you're interested in joining the Kayle community, check out the Discord server/subreddit:
The information on this guide isn't absolute and a lot of Kayle mains have different thoughts about the champion and what's good on her.

If you have any questions you'd like to ask Limonada or myself personally, feel free to join my personal Discord server.

Special thanks to:
Henny - for helping with matchups and helping with the early game comments

Limonada - for commenting on items, matchups, and Mid Lane.

Other Guides

• Vayne: Hunt Them Down
• Kassadin: Reave the Cosmos
• Jinx: Get Excited!
• Olaf: A guide to Top Lane Olaf

February 21, 2019:

• Updated to patch 9.4
  • Changed text on Conqueror to match its new update.

February 6, 2019:

• Updated to patch 9.3
  • Changes to ADC kayle builds as well as some items in the main top/mid builds.
  • Updated ADC build paths
  • Updated the build text to reflect changes to crit items.

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