When it comes to winning games in League of Legends, few things can be more important than understanding your champion and building them correctly. Once upon a time, every champion had one concrete, never changing build, but with the introduction of the items rework many champions now have very flexible, varying builds that can change up from game to game. Nowhere is this more true than Kayle, who has one of the most versatile build paths in the game.
If you can’t decide between AD or AP for our ascended angel, or you don’t know when to take either build, this guide is for you.
What’s the difference between AD and AP Kayle?
The tricky thing about Kayle is that her playstyle and abilities synergize and scale with both AD and AP, making the decision of what to build a hard one. Generally, the consensus is with AD Kayle, you hit your power spike with fewer items, allowing the hard scaling champion to join the game much sooner. Conversely, with AP, it takes longer for Kayle to catch up to the rest of the game, but the payoff is much stronger.
This is clearly reflected in the pick rates of AD and AP Kayle. Kayle’s AD build is seen more in the mid to high play rates, showing that it’s played more commonly and in lower ELO brackets. Similarly, the lower play rate and higher win-rate of AP Kayle builds show that it is more commonly played by high-ranking Kayle players, and one-tricks.
That isn’t to say that AD Kayle is bad, just that players who are more comfortable with her and the game opt-in for the later payoff. In fact, AD Kayle’s early power spike is especially useful in lower ELO games, where snowballing is more prevalent and a comeback can be hard.
But how do these builds work?
AD Kayle Build + Pros and Cons
Kayle is, at her core, an auto-attacking champion. While she’s got some powerful abilities under her belt, the foundation of your damage comes from your ability to auto and kite your enemy to death with your ranged auto attacks. Because of this, the core of her damage benefits incredibly well from attack damage and on-hit items.
An AD Kayle build is built around this knowledge, and often makes use of on-hit items. While crit Kayle has certainly been played, she benefits more from items like Blade of The Ruined King and Wit’s End because of the powerful bonuses they give to auto-attacks.
Kayle is further benefited from these items due to the fact that her AoE attack waves apply on hit effects, so you can spread the % health damage from BOTRK to an entire group of enemies.
An AD Kayle build often revolves around Kraken slayer. The synergy between Kraken’s on-hit effect and your E’s ability to reset your auto-attacks is incredibly powerful, and the extra attack speed you get from the mythic passive compliments Kayle well. For a build like this, you will almost certainly need to take Lethal Tempo so that you don’t handicap yourself with an attack speed cap.
Pros and Cons of AD Kayle
+ Faster Damage: Kayle’s E adds 10% of her bonus AD and 20% of her AP to her auto attacks as magic damage. While the ap scaling is higher, it’s important to remember that auto attacks use 100% of your AD (before resistances) as damage, plus on-hit effects; By building AD items, you are directly adding to Kayle’s auto-attack damage, and getting a nice 10% extra damage from your E.
– Weaker Scaling: Though adding that AD directly to your autos is strong, you will lose out on damage in the long run. Kayle’s abilities scale much harder with AP, and this includes the powerful % missing health damage active on her E, which adds a whopping + 2% Missing Health damage per 100 AP.
– Less Utility: AP items come with a ton of helpful effects like Ability Haste that you’ll be missing out on with an on-hit build. Not only that, but without AP you’re missing out on the powerful heal and move speed bonuses from her W that you can only get with AP stats.
AP Kayle Build + Pros and Cons
Scaling is the name of the game when it comes to AP Kayle. This is, after all, the champion’s core identity; You sacrifice your early game strengths for the promise of power, and with patience, you eventually outclass everyone who once thought you were an easy target.
This is clearly reflected in her ability scaling. Kayle Q R and E scale with bonus attack damage. The word bonus is very important there; bonus attack damage only includes attack damage gained from items, not her base attack damage. That means an item like BoTRK, which adds 40 attack damage, would only add 4 damage to Kayle’s E.
Kayle’s ability power scaling is just higher, and there’s not really anything else to be said about it. While you may not get the immediate gratification of harder-hitting autos, late-game Kayle with an AP benefits from overall higher numbers on ALL of her sources of damage, including her auto attacks.
Speaking of auto-attacks, you’ll be using much less of them with Kayle’s E active. As mentioned above, this ability hits like an absolute truck with AP scaling, and can absolutely devastate an entire team caught out of position.
An AP Kayle build often makes use of Riftmaker, which has a powerful damage scaling effect and some nice healing to boot. However, you will often see this item built third by AP Kayle players, who rush Wit’s End and Nashors tooth first. Though it’s an AD item, the powerful magic damage effect from the Wit’s End passive benefits this Kayle build tremendously.
Pros and Cons of AP Kayle
– Later Scaling: It takes AP Kayle longer to get into the game than AD Kayle. This is partially why some people rush Wit’s End, as the effect gives you a much stronger early game than other AP items, which you will need a few of to really make the most of your kit.
+ Harder Scaling: When Kayle does reach the late game with this build, look out. An end-game Kayle is scary no matter what you build, but with AP items she is an absolute nightmare. I’ve seen games come back from certain losses because of one kayle, often going from 0/12 to 20/12 in just a few teamfights.
+ Better Utility: Not only does Kayle benefit from AP scaling on all of her abilities, but AP items come with more built-in powerful effects than most AD items do. Magic penetration, max health damage, move speed, etc are all far more abundant in an AP item build, with AD items focussing more on straight damage.
When to go AD or AP Kayle
No matter what build you prefer, it’s important to remember that Kayle is, above all else, flexible. You can make use of either build, or even one of your own, depending on a ton of different factors that vary from game to game. Her ability to flex around your matchup is something you shouldn’t take for granted.
If your team has too much AD or AP, take the opposite route to compensate. Need an early game advantage? Go AD. Trust your team to make it to the late game? Go AP and outscale everyone. If the team consists of a ton of tanks, you may find a Kraken Slayer + BOTRK build more effective than Demonic Embrace and Riftmaker.
The important thing to remember is that no build is perfect in every situation. Take what you feel works for your game, or what you’re comfortable with, and try not to second guess yourself. Kayle having a wealth of options does not mean your choice is wrong.
If you found this guide helpful, leave a comment below. For more League of Legends guides and builds, check out the League section of our website.
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