Hi guys, If you are checking out my guide, then you are probably interested in Kalista Top. My IGN is BigCave and I have been a top main sense season 3. I recently got into playing AD Top lane bruisers who are ranged such as Quinn, Vayne, Sivir, and twitch, (look out for these guides in the future).

In this guide:
I will be covering

The build process
Runes
Masteries
and Game play

This is my first guide of hopefully many for different champions in the top lane and later, more champs in other positions on the team!

Pros

+Great late game
+Amazing kiter
+Great poke and harass
+Good vision coverage
+Fantastic overall mobility

Cons

-Needs good positioning in teamfights

-No true escape

-Vulnerable to ganks
-HARD TO MASTER
-Cannot use ult while in solo lane

(will discuss in the gameplay)

Superior Spells

Flash

Flash is your bread and butter Summoner Spell on almost all champions. It lets you dodge skill shots, re position, jump walls, juke people out, confuse the **** out of some dull minded rift crawlers, steal objectives, and escape from your friend after you stole his phone.

Ignite

This is another main sommner spell people take. Allows you to deny your enemie of gaining health through many sources by applying grevious wounds ( a must have for match ups against Dr. Mundo, Vladimir, or Swain.

Alternative Spells (Situational)

Teleport

This is a good spell. Use if you like Tele-Ganking other lanes or you need to get to lane faster. Also good for backdooring or rejoining with your team.

Cleanse

I would only take this spell if you are against a debuff top lane or a heavy cc top lane. Honestly I would just buy a scimitar if you needed a debuff cleanse not worth the loss of flash or ignite.

Core items

:

Blade of the Ruined King is Kalista tops staple item. This item give you: AD, life steal, tank shred, and dueling potential. This item has an amazing build path made out of cheap items, so even if your're behind in farm or kills, you can still build towards this item with ease. Rush it first, especially against someone like Darius, Sion, Malphite, or Singed. This item will let you shred through their hp bar instantly and heal greatly. Blade of the Ruined Kings active will increase your escape, dueling, and chasing potential. Rush this item first as your core item.


Kalistatops next main item is Trinity Force. Trinity Forces impact in almost all of your stats helps you in every way top. It gives you move movement speed on attack, Spellblade (really useful after using your Pierce), Crit chance, and many more areas. This is a good item for jumping around the battlefield FAST. always a go-to item for Kalista top.



Kalistas next main item is Statikk Shiv. Statikk Shivs crit chance works perfectly with the rest of her build. The crit proc on Statikk Shivs passive is insane when paired up with Infinity Edge. Statikk Shiv also gives you movement speed and attack speed, further increasing the amount of times you can jump.



Infinity Edge is your main heavy ad and crit damage item. pick this up after you have your Blade of the Ruined King and Statikk Shiv. This being because you need that early attack speed to boost your damage output on your Rend. The more spears in your target, the more damage it does! This item lets you deal 250% on crit which its really useful mid-late game.



Kalistas last main item is Youmuu's Ghostblade. Youmuu's Ghostblade gives you a great boost in attack damage, cooldown reduction, crit chance, armor pen, and also gives you a AMAZING active. This active is good for escaping, chasing, dodging, and massively increasing your basic attacks while increasing the amount of time you can use Martial Poise during the duration of the active.



Alternativly, you can substitute any of these items to better fit your play style or situation. These items just always work well with my play style of jumping everywhere while maximizing damage. you can substitute for a Last Whisper if you need more armor pen against a heavy armor team. I would still stick with your stable items, Blade of the Ruined King, Statikk Shiv, and Infinity Edge. Although Trinity Force really helps Kalista, but if you are having a tough time and need survivabilty, a Bloodthirster is a great buy. the shield will help you absorb a lot of damage and the life steal will help you gain more back faster.

As Kalista, maxing your Pierce is a grand idea. Maxing your Pierce first increases your poke potential, wave clear,(See Game play for more info) and over all damage potential. Pierce also puts a stack of your Sentinel, which allows you to, in combo with your Rend, for a long range slow!

Although maxing your Sentinel in a duo lane is a smart idea, because of the extra damage based on the enemies max health, you do not have a duo partner in your lane at all times to make this as effective as it can be. So, the next best option for Kalista top is to max your Rend. Rend is a perfect poking tool. through as many spears as you can until the enemy champ runs under tower and then activate the active on Rend. this will do massive damage if you have put a good amount of spears into them.

This will be the most important, and longest, part of my build guide. Kalista, being a duo laner at heart, has a kit mostly surrounded around having an ally in lane with you. Being top lane, you will not have a duo lane parter. "So this essentially means your Sentinel and Fate's Call are useless right"? WRONG! Your Sentinel will not do as much damage as it would in a duo lane, but you will have great vision over the enemies jungle and up and down river. Now for you ult Fate's Call. This is a tricky subject because it mostly depends on who your jungler pick or who your mid laner picks. For example, having a jungle Jarvan IV on your team means you should soul bond to him and when he comes in for a gank, use your ult Fate's Call to bring him up from the river because of its massive range. he then combos your ult with his resulting in a almost Garenteed kill. Another use for your ult is initiating team fights with your jungler or giving your soul bond a lift out of the heat of battle. Now, if you have a high mobility or combo driven mid laner like Twisted Fate, Talon, Azir you can set up some sweet plays. For example, your Twisted Fate uses Destiny up top and use combo with your ult and his Pick A Cards gold card stun. then follow up with your Pierce and then Rend allows for fast, easy, gold for you and him. In Azirs case, you cant ult him into the enemies front line, knocking them up. Azir then flashes behind the enemy team and ults them towords your team. This sets up a situation were the enemy team cant run back up lane to the safety of their base and has to split up and go through the jungle. your team can easily kill them as they fly through the air from Kalistas ult Fate's Call and Azirs ult Emperor's Divide. any stragglers can be picked off by your team.


Now we can go onto the basic top lane strategy. Start off your game with a doran's, Health Potion, and a Stealth Ward. these are the standard stable top laners best friend. start with your Pierce and farm while harassing the enemy solo laner. do not push up far until you get vision going from your Sentinels at lvl 3. once you have vision up, harass them and do not let them get farm. My standard harass combo goes like this, use your Pierce first and then use your passive jump. Follow up with a torrent of basic attacks until they start running. use Martial Poise in between each basic attack and Pierce throw. Use Rend after you have around 7-10 spears in them to get you that slow. Use your Blade of the Ruined King if you have bought it yet for the movement steal. Keep following your basic attacks up with Martial Poise. ignite and leave to die.


If the enemies jungler come into your lane for a gank. Express your dominance and kite them towards for turret. If they are greedy enough they might dive you. This is perfect for you. Use rend while the enemy jungler is under tower for the slow and dance around them with Martial Poise they will never come to your lane again. easy kills. just remember movement is your friend on Kalista. this is why attack speed items like Blade of the Ruined King, Statikk Shiv, and Trinity Force work so well with Kalista



In team fights help your tanks and bruisers take the front line or target anyone who gets caught out. use your ult Fate's Call to initiate a team fight. stay mobile and keep them away from your main adc. Always try to get a jungler on your team who is relatively tanky because of the lack of a heavy tank top. try to keep your ADC safe.

All in all, Kalista is a strong top laner who excels at harassing the enemy solo laner to the point were he gets no farm and will be useless late game. Another strategy to this is the enemy jungle will be forced to camp top allowing for your other lanes to win lane. Just like other ADC top laners like Vayne, Quinn, Twitch, and others, your team will be sacrificing a usually tanky initiator top to a AD ranged bruiser who wont fit into that category. The main goal of Top AD Ranged bruiser Kalista is to make the game a technical 4v5 because the enemy jungle will be so far behind, pushing lanes, and having high damage team fights.

Thank you for reading my long in-depth guide for Top Kalista!
-BigCave