Kali - Destroy and Sustain

Hi! This is my second guide ever :) I play Kali fairly often and I have an elo hovering around 1600. I'm level 30 with around 300 games of Conquest guide. This is a Conquest focused guide, I don't play the other game modes that often.

Please leave a comment, thanks for reading! :)

Kali is a Melee DPS Assassin. Her job is to do lots of damage, and scale incredibly well into late game. Her job is to get kills, push objectives, and deal tons of damage.

I will go over why I chose the build I chose, how to use her skills effectively, how to creep/jungle with her, and how to use her effectively in Teamfights.

Starting Items

Warrior Tabi are the standard boots for physical damage dealers. They provide power, speed, and crit chance. Everything Kali likes :D An alternative to this would be Heartseeker but Heartseeker loses stacks upon death, which is a risk I'm not generally willing to take.

I prefer to buy two mana pots and one health pot because she has great healing with her Enrage and Blood Siphon

Early-Mid

Rage is an amazing item for physical carries. It gives power, attack speed, and critical chance. Again, everything a good Kali build needs. The passive of this item gives you stacking critical chance that doesn't disappear and stays until your next Crit. This means you'll be critting a lot more often.

Devourer's Gloves
Devo's gloves give you power and lifesteal, it's stacks don't disappear on death and provide even more power and lifesteal. This gives Kali more of the damage she needs, while also giving her even more lifesteal, which she already has innately. Most phys carries like getting a lifesteal item early, for sustain, but Kali has innate life steal and an ability, Blood Siphon that gives her incredible healing.


At this point in the game, if the enemy hasn't started building phys defense, they will soon. This item gives more phys power and attack speed, but also lowers the enemy's physical defense on each hit.

Mid-Late

This item is a great item because it synergizes so well with Rage. This item gives Crit Chance, power, and increases the damage of your crits by 50%. This means your crits will be hitting for insane damage.


This item may seem like an odd choice, but I prefer it over most other items at this point in the game. It gives great physical power, CDR, and even more physical power on your next basic attack after using an ability. The reason CDR is good on Kali is because her skills do so much damage. Her Blood Lash especially hits hard.

Situational

IF the enemy has a powerful healer, I'd recommend getting Brawler's Beat Stick to counter it. This also works as a counter to lifesteal if the enemy has a fed phys carry building lots of lifesteal items. This is an incredibly powerful item against Kali. If an enemy has one, you should fear them, your healing won't work in the middle of a fight if they're consistent with their auto attacks.

Demonic Grip is an item to get if your team has a fed magical carry. This item gives you Power, Attack Speed, and decreases the magical protection of enemies. That means you can help your magical carry a lot by reducing the enemies magical protection in team fights.

Witch Stone is a good item to get if the the enemy has a fed physical carry. It gives you damage and speed, along with physical protection and an aura which debuffs the enemy's attack speed and damage.

Magi's Blessing is a good item if the enemy has a fed magical carry. It gives health, mana, and magical protection, along with neutralizing an enemy ability every 45 seconds.

Soul Eater is a good item to buy when your team has a fed physical carry that's not you. This item gives you more lifesteal, attack speed, and health, but also provides an aura which gives you and your nearby allies physical power and lifesteal.

Titan's Bane is a good item to get if you just feel like the enemy has too much physical defense.

Kali Rage
This ability is an excellent damage and speed steroid, it is also your only escape mechanism except for your ultimate. I max this second because of it's great damage boost and chasing and escaping potential. Don't spam this, use it when you want to get somewhere fast, or when you're trying to get a kill. The extra physical power helps a lot and can win you fights.

Blood Lash
I get this ability first, and max it first. It's seriously that good, it does a ton of damage. It's a great pushing tool and is one of the main reason Kali is a viable mid. Use this for harass, for finishing, for teamfights, for farming. Spam this, this is the reason I get Hydra's Lament, because spamming this is so effective.

Blood Siphon
This ability is your go to for sustain and healing. It heals you a lot, and deals a decent little bit of damage. I take this second for sustain in lane, but I max it last because the healing is decent at level one and it is your least damaging ability.


This is a great ultimate, it has two main functions: finishing, and escaping. Either way, use this to end a fight. This ultimate might not hit as hard as your basic attacks, but it hits in a wide enough area that if an enemy is out of reach but still has a little health left, you can use this to finish the job. I recommend using Blood Lash to finish usually, but if that's on cool down, don't be afraid to use this to finish a fleeing opponent. It is an amazing escape tool because it break's CC and makes you immune to CC for 5 seconds. That's an incredibly long time, the longest CC immunity in the game. Use this to break out of stunlocks and get out of there. Also use this to stop an Ares from pulling you if you don't have Aegis.

Kali is an excellent jungler and pusher.

Blood Lash is your main tool, along with your auto attacks. What you want to do, is approach the wave of minions from the side and line your cone up to hit the archers and the melee minions. That's a function of all cone attacks that also applies to Blood Lash, they can hit an entire wave if aimed from the side of a wave.

Blood Siphon is not so much a farming tool as it is a tool to heal yourself off minions.

Kali Rage is generally not a good tool to use for farming, it has better purposes and a considerable cool down.

Frenzy is DEFINITELY not a farming tool.

Starting around level 4 or 5, you'll be able to solo buff camps with no Hand of the Gods easily. Your passive and Blood Siphon give you enough sustain to come out with full health and your physical damage and Blood Lash give you enough damage to clear fairly quickly.

Team Fights

In team fights, Kali plays the role of an Assassin. She has 3 main jobs, in order of priority which are:

Kill the Carries
Finish off low health enemies
Melt the tanks when it's all done

Basically, her job is just damage, damage, damage.

Killing the carries is your most important job, it's practically what this entire game revolves around. Let me make this clear though You Do Not Initiate a Team Fight., you literally have No CC. The only CC you could possibly have is artificial like Creeping Curse or Frostbound Hammer. You have no Hard CC like stuns or pulls at all. When a tank on your team initiates, that's when you go to work. Open up with Blood Lash and switch on Kali Rage and just start wailing on the carry. Remember to predict enemy moves and dodge while fighting. Make sure you stick on the carry though and keep wailing on him unless things get too rough, then get out.

Kill Stealing? HA, more like KILL SECURING. Unless the enemy is 3 HP standing in your base with your entire team right there next to him, don't be afraid to finish an enemy. You're a carry after all, you need food.

After everything's said and done, if all the enemies carries are dead and the team fight just finished, don't be afraid to melt those tanks, you're amazing at it. You should have plenty of damage, crits, and penetration to get the job done. Don't go crazy, it that Ymir is at full health under his tower, don't do it.

Ganking

Kali is a great ganker, but certainly for different reasons than a lot of great gankers. Kali doesn't have any CC to hold people down for like a lot of gank heavy characters like Thor or Hades but she does have tons of Damage and Speed. What you want to do is wait 'till the enemy is pushed up to your team's tower, then while they're pushed up you don't need CC :D Usually the same combo applies for ganking, open up with Blood Lash and switch on Kali Rage, then start wailing on them 'till they die.

Objectives

Kali is a great pusher, and an objective taker. From about level 13 she can solo Gold Fury if done correctly and not interfered with. If you're feeding and lacking items, don't do it. But if everything's going fine, go take Gold Fury for your team, it helps a lot.

Around level 16 or 17 with the proper items she can also solo Fire Giant. Same theory applies here as it does to Gold Fury.

Towers are also good objectives to push, just make sure you're not endangering yourself by setting up an enemy to gank you.

Pro's

Great Damage
Good speed
CC Immunity
Great Sustain
Great Pusher
Powerful abilities
Great Scaling

Con's

No leap
Squishy
No CC
Healing and Lifesteal is countered by

Divine Ruin and Brawler's Beat Stick

Kali is a great physical carry with lots of damage, sustain, and pushing capacity. She can be played in the mid or side lanes due to her great pushing and sustain. Her job is to focus enemy carries and finish fleeing opponents.

Good luck, and thanks for reading! :)