Kalista is a champion destined to have a low win rate in any non-professional setting. This champion’s design has always made it hard for Riot to balance it between different modes such as ARAM, summoner’s rift, and summoner’s rift in competitive.
A simple buff making Kalista viable in casual gameplay would completely break her in the pro play. To compensate for her weaknesses that show even in ARAM, today we are gonna go over the greatest Kalista ARAM build.
Best Kalista Items
Blade of the Ruined King
The greatest first item for Kalista is the Blade of the Ruined King. The main selling point of this item is its passive that gives a bonus percentage of HP damage on all auto attacks. Since we will be building a lot of attack speed, having this passive buff will massively impact our damage output.
Gunisoo’s Rageblade
The greatest second buy which will synergize extremely well with Blade of the Ruined King is the Guinsoo’s Rageblade. Guinsoo’s will give us pretty great base attack speed stats, and the stats will increase the longer we are in combat. Having high amounts of attack speed will enable us to shred enemies with our percentage of HP damage.
Terminus
There are a couple of options for our third item, but Terminus has the greatest win rate by far. Its selling point is the passive which alternates our attacks between light and dark mode. The light mode will grant us resistances such as magic resist and armor, while the dark mode will give us AP and AD. Having all these stats bundled up in one item is quite great and makes us covered in multiple areas at once.
Jak’Sho the Protean
After building a great base of on-hit/attack-speed damage, it’s wise to dedicate one of our slots to a sustain item. The greatest sustain for our build will be Jak’Sho the Protean. This item will grant us plenty of HP, magic resist, and armor. Having it equipped will make us a much harder target to take down.
Bloodthirster
A great item to finish off our build will be the Bloodthirster. It will give us another layer of damage, as well as a bunch of sustain from its lifesteal and shielding.
Boots
The greatest boots on Kalista are none other than Berserker Greaves. They will give us the very beneficial attack speed, as well as the opportunity to upgrade to Zephyr in the late game. Having the Zephyr option is quite great, as it’s basically free stats once we have passed a certain gold threshold.
Best Runes for Kalista in ARAM
- Hail of Blades
- Taste of Blood
- Eyeball Collection
- Treasure Hunter
- Triumph
- Legend: Alacrity
The greatest keystone for Kalista in ARAM is the Hail of Blades. It’s pretty easy to apply its full power in the ever-fighting ARAM landscape. The best rune to follow it up with is the Taste of Blood, which will be quite convenient for early healing.
Next up, I would take the Eyeball Collection and Treasure Hunter. These can be stacked simultaneously with each unique takedown, and they will give us the much-needed bonus damage and early gold.
Finally, I would finish off the rune selection with Triumph for healing after scoring a takedown, and Legend: Alacrity to additionally boost the attack speed.
Final Thoughts
Kalista is somewhat of a victim of her design which has reflected really poorly on her win rate in ARAM. To make the best out of her, following a true and tested build is a really good idea. With the proposed attack speed build, you can expect to have a significantly higher win rate by default.