New lethal tempo kinda nutty

I highly advise that you don’t just follow my guide blindly, and instead read and try to understand items, runes, and so forth, so that you can use your own intuition whenever it is necessary, and be able to understand why things work. By no means do I believe that I have perfect advice, so if something works for you, then keep doing it as long as you know why it works.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know, as I'm happy to improve this guide as much as possible.

To players that have never touched Kayle before, she is an absolute powerhouse late game that gets passive buffs when she hits levels 6, 11, and 16. Early game however, she is pretty weak, and most of the time needs to hit around 2-3 items before she spikes. AD Kayle helps her scale much earlier without much dependence on the rest of your team.

90% of Kayle's gameplay mechanics will boil down to keeping your passive up and fighting only in your minion wave early game, while focusing on cs the whole time. Kayle is a really good character to pick up if you want to learn wave manipulation and abuse because you are so dependent on it.

Kayle is very dependent on csing well, and hitting her lvl 11 and 16 power spikes as fast as possible, so splitting or just picking up as much cs and xp as possible is very important. Knowing your turret cs timings and being able to play safe and freeze lane are all necessary for her to succeed. Freezing lane is basically denying the enemy cs by keeping their minion wave closer to your tower. The most simple way of doing so is not attack minions unless you are csing them. If you want a more in depth guide I recommend this video for beginners.
Play Video

So why should you play Kayle? and what should you keep in mind? Here are some pros and cons for Kayle.

Pros:

-Insanely strong late game and sustain, can easily carry teamfights basically like an ADC
-She is a hybrid champion, and can be built either AD or AP depending on the game
-At level 16 she has one of the highest attack ranges in the game without using abilities
-Her ult is incredibly powerful and can turn the tide of a teamfight
-Very good at focusing down a carry
-Doesnt have to depend on mana or abilities to be effective in mid to late game
-Has a deceptively strong level 1 if you play right

Cons:

-Very weak early game, and very easily ganked
-Has no cc
-Can get bursted down very easily if stunned
-Dependent on others not to lose early game
-Hard to catch up when far behind in lane
-You have to be very patient in laning phase

P - Divine Ascent - This is what makes Kayle tick, and what gives her the insane power spikes at different levels. At level 1, she gains up to 5 stacks whenever she auto attacks, granting her bonus attack speed, and movement speed at max stacks. At level 6, she becomes ranged(525). At 11, while at max stacks she now fires waves with her auto attacks that deal magic damage, and her E now explodes and damages surrounding enemies. At level 16 she gains 100 attack range(625), and is permanently fully stacked. If you're not level 16 yet and you expect a fight may start, don't just idly stand by and wait for it. You need to get your passive stacks up in order to start the fight at your full power. Auto whatever you can and once you get full stacks, make sure to stall out anything that is alive so you can keep your passive up as long as possible.

Q - Radiant Blast - This ability shoots out a sword that strikes the first enemy hit, dealing damage to it, and all enemies behind it in a range. Additionally, it slows and decreases resistances by 15% for 4 seconds. This ability should mostly be used defensively early game because of the slow, but can also be used to poke somebody behind minions. Before level 6 though, you should only be using it either as a defensive ability, or as an additional ranged cs tool.

W - Celestial Blessing - Kayle heals an ally and herself, as well as granting both additional move speed(scales with AP). Kayle does not require an ally to cast. Mostly useful for sustaining in lane, chasing enemies down, helping with ganks, or running away.

E - Starfire Spellblade - Kayle empowers her next attack to deal additional damage based on the target's missing health. This ability works as an auto reset, so you can do some pretty decent burst with it late, or get PTA off quickly early. At level 11, it also deals damage around the target. This can additionally be used to hit enemies that are just out of range by targeting minions or a tower near them. This ability also passively makes Kayle's auto attacks deal bonus magic damage. This is the default max because it helps you cs early game when you dont have range.

R - Divine Judgment - Kayle targets an ally champion or herself, making them invulnerable for 2-3 seconds and raining down swords around the target after 1.5 seconds. While casting, Kayle cannot attack for the initial 1.5 seconds, but allies ulted can still do anything they normally would. This ult is super versatile as it makes you or an ally invincible, as well as dealing a load of damage. The lingering invincibility can give you a second to get some attacks in while still being safe, or can just be used to prevent a kill and retreat.

Basically all the runes are geared toward scaling or lane advantage.

Precision:

Lethal Tempo The new lethal tempo is really good on Kayle, as it basically just doubles her passive, and gives her bonus range. This helps in lane as it makes your extended fights a bit stronger when in the past you had to bank on poke to win the lane, although you shouldn't be looking for an all in still, this just helps you possibly win the enemy all in. It also scales really well late game with the bonus range (725 at level 16) and attack speed.

Press the Attack is still viable for poke matches such as against malphite, but new lethal tempo is too good to pass up.

Triumph makes it easier to sustain in team fights every time you get a kill, and the bonus gold is nice.

Legend: Bloodline gives you up to 9% bonus lifesteal, Legend: Tenacity helps you get out of CC quicker, and Legend: Alacrity lets you have more dps and 'snowball' early if you can win lane.

Last Stand helps you get a bit of extra damage as you get lower, which has good synnergy with your ultimate as well as increases your damage output, and in turn your healing, although Coup de Grace is also effective if you want to try and get some kills in fights early on or burst somebody down late game.

Domination:

Taste of Blood makes laning much easier if you poke a bit whenever it is up, as it heals you on damaging a champion. Don't go out of your way to use it, but whenever you see it up, you might as well poke them just to proc it. It gives you much better sustain in lane.

Ravenous Hunter grants you 6% omnivamp at max stacks, which gives you more survivability

Resolve:

Conditioning helps Kayle be a bit less squishy with the additional resistances, works well if you're going to build resistances such as boots or Wit's End

Second Wind Helps against poke matchups early game to mitigate a bit of their poke damage. If the enemy poke is on long cooldown, such as Yone's E, Bone Plating is a better option for this. It also helps if the enemy wants to all in, as it allows you to start stacking your lethal tempo and passive for the first few hits before they start doing full damage.

Overgrowth also helps Kayle be less squishy by granting her more maximum health over the course of the game.

Teleport is the most useful summoner on Kayle for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it can help you not lose too much cs if you get killed in lane and they push the wave to your tower. However, if the lane is just sitting in the middle of lane and you happened to recall or die, don't waste your TP to get back to lane. Secondly, it allows Kayle to participate in early objectives without wasting too much time that could be used csing. Third, if you see a big wave, or even just a cannon wave that is being unattended to, you could even TP to pick up the extra cs. While you have TP up it makes it easier to keep farming or split push with less of a risk of your team fighting without you. TP can also be an effective escape tool. If you get into a bush that doesn't have vision, and the enemy is looking for you, you can usually tp out before they are able to find you/kill you/stun you, but keep in mind that this is risky and you could both die and waste your tp.

I think AD Kayle is better toplane because she gets much more sustain and spikes way earlier than AP Kayle. AD Kayle is much better at focusing on specific targets and plays much like an ADC, and is basically a draintank late game. AP Kayle shines in teamfights when she has full build. If you are in lower elo solo queue, then AD Kayle is probably a lot easier to get snowballing as you aren't as dependent on your team to help you out early game, and you can instead help them out some. If your team has too much AD already though, then its probably safer to go AP Kayle. Also AP Kayle gets big nyooom if that's what you're interested in.

AP Kayle spikes much later than AD Kayle, but has much more carry potential in a team fight. While she lacks the insane survivability and lifesteal of the AD build, she still has enough omnivamp to have great sustain with Riftmaker, as well as the option of Zhonya's Hourglass. She also has a much better way of getting in or out of a fight as her W gives her a much bigger speed boost. AP Kayle is generally accepted as better if you can make it to late game without suffering many losses.

Basically with this build you want to rush Berserker's Greaves early into Vampiric Scepter so you have good sustain in lane. Once you get Immortal Shieldbow you can win most lane matchups, and once you hit 11 you can start to make a big impact in teamfights. From there the scaling only continues. This build is much more forgiving as it is much easier to catch up than with AP because you spike earlier.

Berserker's Greaves gives you better poking in lane and makes you have enough dps to be impactful in a gank.

Immortal Shieldbow gives you a huge power spike early because of the life steal, attack speed, and lifeline shield. I find that after you hit 6 and get this, you can win most matchups by poking down and going all in at the right opportunity.

Phantom Dancer basically does the same thing as your passive, stacking up to 4, as well as some mobility and ghosting at full stacks.

Infinity Edge for the powah. You can build Bloodthirster before this if you're having trouble staying alive in fights.

Bloodthirster after you get this item you basically just don't die unless the enemy team is extremely fed, or you get stun locked. It gives you 20% life steal as well as an additional shield which you should try to keep up.

The last item is very situational, but if there is no real need, then Lord Dominik's Regards can help you do more damage, or Guardian Angel if your team is depending on you to carry extremely hard.

The whole point of this build is that you deal a **** ton of damage while having an insane amount of sustain from Immortal Shieldbow and Bloodthirster. This kinda solves the issue of getting bursted down or focused late game, and Immortal Shieldbow can help you get through some cc so you can recover with your 40% lifesteal plus ravenous hunter omnivamp for all the AP damage.

This works well because by the time Immortal Shieldbow gets popped, you will have 11% bonus damage from last stand. Combine that with a simple aa + q + aa + e + aa and you can one shot burst basically anybody that isn't a tank while also healing yourself back up to basically full. Against tanks, PTA and Q enable you and your team to shred them much easier, and running Mortal Reminder or Lord Dominik's Regards can go a long way. Not to mention that she also has her ult to give her enough lingering invincibility to get a few autos off and heal up a bit if she's low, as well as the omnivamp heal from the ult itself. Basically, as long as you don't get stunlocked and bursted down, you win. So make sure you don't get caught in awkward positions and play around your team like an adc.

With this build you aren't very useful until you get 2 items, being Nashor's Tooth and Riftmaker. You want to rush Nashor's as soon as possibly for the extra attack speed and extra damage. Any other items wouldn't really work because they would only really help empower your abilities and not your autos. Riftmaker gives you the much needed survivability as well as power. You have to lane much safer than AD with this build, as you don't get much of a power spike first item, and falling behind is detrimental to your success.

Nashor's Tooth gives you additional attack speed as well as on hit magic damage. This helps you poke a bit as well as farm easier without being as helpless. You should still try to play very safe until you get rift maker, but you should be able to poke or trade somewhat evenly depending on the laner.

Riftmaker grants you with survivability in the form of omnivamp, and the mythic bonus of more omnivamp is very good for you. Without this item, Kayle would proabbly keel over and die from random stray abilities in a teamfight. It also gives you bonus damage the longer you are in a fight, which adds to the sustain, as well as lets you be more effective in teamfights.

Rabadon's Deathcap just gives you a bunch of AP. Nothing much to be said here other than you are now pretty powerful. Make sure that you only really engage in fights where you have your passive stacks full.

Lich Bane gives you a ton of burst on your E, as well as your other abilities if you can cycle them well. Try to space out your abilities between auto attacks to take advantage, and don't forget that your W procs it as well.

Zhonya's Hourglass lets you enter stasis, and is very useful if youre getting targeted by an assassin, need to dodge an ability, or need to stall for your team.

Most last items are situational, but I like to go with Zhonya's Hourglass most of the time. Lich Bane can also be replaced by Cosmic Drive if you need more sustained damage instead of burst, as it grants you cooldown reduction as well as some extra movement speed.

This build is better at team fighting because your waves deal tons of damage. Your W also helps you speed in or out of a fight or chase somebody down really easily along with an ally.