League of Legends Champion Designer Shares Tips for Kai'Sa Builds

The gameplay designer for Kai’Sa, the newest League of Legends champion, attempted to help [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

League of Legends Kai'Sa
(Photo: Riot Games)

The gameplay designer for Kai'Sa, the newest League of Legends champion, attempted to help players out with item builds by breaking down what works best with each one of the champ's abilities.

If you haven't seen Kai'Sa's abilities, it's easy to imagine that a generic ADC build would work best. While that may be true at times, the champ actually boasts a fresh level of hybrid potential thanks to her abilities being upgraded based on her various stats. This means that players can build her like an assassin, a typical ADC, or could even add some ability power into builds to provide greater mixed damage.

Jeevun "Riot Jag" Sidhu, the gameplay designer who worked on Kai'Sa, started his boards post by saying that Kai'Sa isn't even limited to just one role, let alone a specific build.

"First off - Kai'Sa is intended to be a versatile champion," Riot Jag said. "The goal is for her to have multiple roles, playstyles, and builds. So, I'd like to give a bit of context on each of her abilities and how they achieve this. Always remember that you don't need to upgrade every ability every game, and most cohesive builds will evolve no more than 2 spells."

Kai'Sa's passive, Caustic Wounds, is one ability that makes her quite scary as a bot laner, according to Riot Jag. The five-hit passive stacks on enemies who are hit by Kai'Sa's basic attacks and Void Seeker as well as through allies' CC. This ability will net Kai'Sa a ton of damage from conventional ADC builds, but it'll be an essential part of any build.

Her Icathian Rain (Q) is where the builds start to matter more seeing how it scales with attack damage and cooldown reduction while also having some AP scaling. This damage is dealt physically though, so Riot Jag says that builds utilizing items like Essence Reaver, Infinity Edge, Duskblade, and other lethality builds will make the best use of this ability.

Those looking for hybrid builds with more AP will see those items take effect on Void Seeker (W) seeing how the move deals magic damage and scales with AP, AD, and CDR.

"Most builds will always get some value out of W (especially since it accelerates your passive), but AP builds scale this spell harder than anything and it becomes your primary nuke if you're starting out with items like Luden's Echo or Lich Bane," Riot Jag said. "This also has plenty of punch with Hybrid builds that utilize Hextech Gunblade or Guinsoo's Rageblade."

The last main part of the Rioter's tips applies to Supercharge (E), an ability that scales with attack speed and CDR. More attack speed means less activation time for Supercharger with items like Blade of the Ruined King and Statikk Shiv feeling best on builds that prioritize upgrading Supercharge. Killer Instinct's (R) shield scales with AD, AP, and CDR as well with the AD ratio being the best at later levels, so AD builds will allow for greater shields.

Riot Jag's full list of tips for Kai'Sa can be seen through his post on the League of Legends boards.

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