Updated as of 17/1/11~

Hi there. I keep seeing Kayle builds that are just plain wrong. You're a late-game DPS machine and literally nothing else. Nobody plays Kayle, pretty much for the reason that she's just too damn hard.

So if you're like me, and you want to play her, anyway, read on.

Solo Lane Kayle

This is the main reason I made this guide. To spell it out simply, don't play Kayle if you don't have a solo lane that isn't mid. This means making sure you have a jungler on your team and making sure some solo queue Vlad or Mordekaiser doesn't think they'd be way better at it than you. This is the one thing Kayle is good at, and the one thing that makes her worth playing: Other late-game heroes who need to farm need someone to protect them while they do, a "babysitter" like Taric or Janna. Kayle is her own babysitter. If I can hammer one thing into your heads with this guide, it is that.

With Flash, Ghost, Divine Blessing and Intervention, you have literally no excuse to die in the first 30 minutes and can effortlessly take on two enemy champs despite being very underpowered at the start of the game. If one of them decides to hit your tower, use your Q and E combo to ruin them. I've gotten plenty of early-game kills just because some tank or whatever got cocky and walked right up to my tower.

A big part of mastering this is being aware of Alt-casting. This is where you hold down the Alt key before you cast a spell with a selectable target, thereby automatically casting it on yourself. THIS IS A GOOD THING TO REMEMBER TO DO IF YOU ARE KAYLE. Additionally, mousing over someone else while doing this will cast the spell on them, so be careful about this.

Generally what happens is they'll switch to you when you start hitting them, at which point you want to wait till you're almost down to use Invervention and Divine Blessing, leaving them swinging at thin air. Chase them out while the tower hits and you can generally get kills pretty easy. This won't happen too much in level 30/ranked games, hopefully, or else it is questionable how those players got there in the first place!

If you find you're getting hit hard early game, don't be afraid to pick up a Meki Pendant. You'll be incorporating it into your Nashor's Tooth, anyway. Some people pick up a second Doran's Ring, which you can do if you want!

Farming

You are next to useless without items, so your team is just gonna have to tolerate it while you get farmed up. It is generally not even worth engaging in a 5v5 teamfight before you have your Rageblade and a Stinger, so if it comes to that, try to avoid doing much more than sitting at the back healing and doing interventions where you can.

I generally don't like to leave top until one of three things happens: 1) I get my tower down, in which case, I'll go push another lane, 2) I get low enough to warrant going back, in which case I'll pick up a Kage's Lucky Pick or two and 3) I've made about 4,000 gold. That is your TARGET FIGURE, with anything beyond that just being icing on the cake. Once you've got that much, you're ready to start being actually useful, which is always a nice feeling!

Get Dragon every chance you can. You can do a pretty good job of it solo once you've got your Rageblade done.

Boots

Obviously, you want Ionian Boots. No argument.

Cooldowns

So, cooldowns. You might have noticed that this build doesn't have any CDR runes for Kayle, and that is because you want the full 40%. Nashor's Tooth is essential.

The point of getting 40% CDR is it puts your ultimate on a 30 second or so timer. It sure doesn't compare to beta Kayle, but there is something about spammable invulnerability that is just so very rewarding!

Intervention

Don't be selfish and use it on yourself. There are usually much better targets, and you should always be keeping an eye on your carries' score in-between teamfights. If Miss Fortune, Twitch, Kog'Maw or whoever else is going 11/4, 9/1, or something close to it, drop this on them at the right moment and you've just won the match.

What is the right moment, you ask? It is as close to one second before they die as you can get. If it's Olaf, it might be less! Still, give yourself a big buffer when you're starting out, since this is easy to mess up and your team WILL rage at you if you don't do this right, but more importantly you've just underutilized a powerful, if somewhat flimsy, ultimate.

A lot of the time in solo queue, the person you use it on will spend its entire duration walking around in circles or whatever, but dealing with this mind-numbing frustration is part of being a good Kayle. Either explain to them you're going to use it on them next fight, or choose a better target. If you are the best target, target yourself!

Don't try to click the character models unless you know what you're aiming at. Cast Intervention via the portraits in the top left, to make sure you get the correct target.

Late Game

Flash and Ghost are going to start seeing more use as chasing tools than escaping tools, which is great for you. If an AP champ on the other team is fed, feel free to pick up a Negatron and turn it into something, based on whether or not they have a pile of stuns.

Finally, I like to pick up a Madred's Bloodrazor early if the enemy team has 3 tanks or more. You'd think it wouldn't happen, but it does~! You can also substitute Stark's Fervor, Aegis of the Legion or whatever you want for Guardian Angel if you feel the need, I just listed it as a generally good item for carries. Stark's is good on Kayle and Aegis is good on literally any champ in the game.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Kayle is pretty cool. Have fun with her.