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Patience is a virtue - Kali

9 0 88,568
by SteveSmells updated September 9, 2014

Smite God: Kali

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Kali Build

Purchase Order

Build Item Devourer's Gauntlet Devourer's Gauntlet
Build Item Qin's Sais Qin's Sais
Build Item Warrior Tabi Warrior Tabi
Build Item Malice Malice
Build Item Deathbringer Deathbringer
Build Item Rage Rage

Actives

Build Item Greater Sprint Greater Sprint
Build Item Hand Of The Gods (Old) Hand Of The Gods (Old)

Optionals Items

Build Item Hastened Fatalis Hastened Fatalis
Build Item Potion of Power Potion of Power
Build Item Brawler's Beat Stick Brawler's Beat Stick
Build Item Bloodforge Bloodforge
Build Item Titan's Bane Titan's Bane
Build Item The Executioner The Executioner

Kali's Skill Order

Nimble Strike

1 X Y
Nimble Strike
2 13 14 15 16

Lash

2 A B
Lash
1 3 6 7 9

Incense

3 B A
Incense
4 8 10 11 12

Destruction

4 Y X
Destruction
5 17 18 19 20
Nimble Strike
2 13 14 15 16

Nimble Strike

1 X
Kali leaps forward, damaging enemies in the target area. Kali additionally heals herself for a percent of a single enemy's missing Health. Kali always heals from the target that would heal her the most.

Ability Type: Circle, Leap, Damage
Damage: 85 / 135 / 185 / 235 / 285 (+80% of your Physical Power)
Heal: 15% of target's missing Health
Range: 55
Cost: 60
Cooldown: 12s
Lash
1 3 6 7 9

Lash

2 A
Kali throws several blades, that converge upon the target location. Each does damage and causes bleed. Kali gains Physical Lifesteal against targets affected by this Bleed.

Ability Type: Area, Buff, Damage
Damage Per Blade: 37 / 49 / 61 / 73 / 85 (+20% of your Physical Power)
Bleed Damage: 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 (+5% of your Physical Power) every .5s
Bleed Duration: 3s
Physical Lifesteal: 12 / 16.5 / 21 / 25.5 / 30%
Range: 70
Cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80
Cooldown: 12s
Incense
4 8 10 11 12

Incense

3 B
Kali hurls her incense at her feet, exploding it. Enemies hit are Stunned, while Kali gains a Physical Power bonus.

Ability Type: Circle, Stun
Stun Duration: 1.2s
Physical Power Buff: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30
Buff Duration: 4 / 4.5 / 5 / 5.5 / 6s
Radius: 20
Cost: 60
Cooldown: 14s
Destruction
5 17 18 19 20

Destruction

4 Y
Kali becomes an unstoppable force of destruction, creating a damage aura around her. During this time, she can be reduced to 1 Health, but cannot die. She is immune to Knockup, Slow effects, and protected from Root, but still vulnerable to Stuns. If Kali is under 15% of her total Health at the end of the duration, she will heal to 15% Health.

Ability Type: Circle, Buff, Damage
Damage: 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 (+8% of your Physical Power) every 0.5s
Duration: 3.5 / 3.75 / 4 / 4.25 / 4.5s
Radius: 20
Cost: 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100
Cooldown: 90s

Introduction

Hi there, I'm SteveSmells, and this is my guide for Kali!

I've played Smite on and off for a while, but only started playing seriously in the last month. I decided that I wanted to get good with a fairly tough god and settled on the lovely Kali!

Now, like I said, Kali can be a pretty tough god to use until you get used to her, but once you do you will truly become the God Of Destruction!

The first thing that you'll discover when you start using Kali is that she is incredibly squishy. This is a major issue but, luckily, you've got a few tricks up your sleeve to deal with this weakness...

Pros & Cons

Kali is an incredibly powerful god, but she isn't without her problems:

CONS



Very weak early game - Kali's early game is absolutely terrible. Your attacks and skills are very weak, and you will be killed very easily. You will be relying on teamwork a lot until you have levelled a bunch and bought some decent gear.

Reliant on auto attacks - Kali's skill damage is very low. Even when you have Lash fully invested it won't be doing a lot of damage.


PROS



Incredibly strong late game - Later in the game you will be doing ridiculous amounts of damage to your foes, and you will have built up a kit designed around healing you and hurting them!

Ridiculous sustain - Again later in the game, you can steal massive amounts of life from your enemies, jump on them with Nimble Strike to heal up a bit, then finish off your Marked for Death target for even more healing!

Skills

Marked for Death

In my opinion this is the best passive skill in the game. It gives you a target, buffs you to help you kill them, and then heals most of your health when you deal the killing blow!

Nimble Strike

Nimble Strike has a multitude of uses; you can start fights, escape them, and chase with it! Not only this, but the healing ability shouldn't be overlooked as it is very effective at turning the tables when you're weak!

Lash

Lash is your only decent damaging ability, so you'll be investing a lot of points into it as fast as possible. You will be using this skill to help with clearing out camps, clearing waves of minions, and to help you destroy your enemies! The lifesteal is more helpful than you might think, and the bleed it applies can be the difference between killing a fleeing enemy and them escaping.

Incense

Incense is Kali's steroids, and it is an incredibly powerful skill. Whilst it stuns your enemies it buffs your physical power, allowing you to get off a few super strong hits. It is also useful in a pinch to aid your escape from a tough situation.

Destruction

Kali's ult is incredibly powerful and is part of why I love using her so much. It makes you invincible! With it you can afford to over-commit yourself if your enemy is close to death (or too close to their tower), and I cannot emphasise enough how useful a tool it is for escaping!

Items

Everybody will have a different play style, and the items that you use will reflect that. The purchase order listed above is what I use most of the time, but you can chop and change with other optional items.

Devourer's Gauntlet is always the first item that I focus on. It's important to start building up that lifesteal as soon as possible to increase your sustain and make yourself more useful. You can swap this out for the more expensive Bloodforge which gives more physical power but less lifesteal.

Qin's Sais is the next most important item on your shopping list. Kali's base attack speed is quite slow, so it's important to speed that up in order to become the true embodiment of destruction! Obviously the increased physical power and additional damage are a big help too!

Warrior Tabi is next on the list. Another increase in your attack speed, power and penetration, plus that much-needed movement speed boost. Alternatively you could opt for Hastened Fatalis, which doesn't boost your movement speed as much, but make it so that successful attacks don't slow you, which is perfect for chasing a foe down!

Malice comes now. By this point you'll be doing pretty decent damage with your basic attacks so it's time to start getting those crits!

Deathbringer is your penultimate item, again to work on those crits!

Rage completes the set. Once you have this item you'll be doing a crit on virtually every hit, and will be able to wipe out most enemy gods in just a few hits!

Like I said, this is the set that I use myself, but we're all different so play around!

Playstyle

For the most part Kali should be considered to be a jungler. I'm not even going to attempt to tell you how to jungle because I'm no expert! Instead I would recommend that you check out Subzero008's jungling guide: The Jungler's Handbook. Remember to give it an upvote!

Junglers have a few jobs to carry out:

Presence in lanes - Early in the game you won't be spending too much time in the lanes because you're too squishy. However, you do need to show a presence there to deter your foes, and to help clearing waves and pushing up on towers.

Camps - You'll be spending a lot of time roaming around the jungle clearing camps. Generally you'll want to start by clearing your speed camp to buff yourself, then focus on clearing other camps and leaving the buffs for the rest of your team. Mid camps are your main target though as they give the most experience, and also because claiming them for yourself prevents your enemies from getting them!

Ganking - By the time you reach the late game you'll be incredibly good at leaping out of the jungle and taking out enemies, but remember that it's also important to help your team with ganks early on!

This is just a basic outline of what you'll be wanting to do during your matches, but anything can happen out there so just play around and have fun with it!

Above everything else you just need to remember that teamwork is the key! You may be an indestructible queen of destruction, but if you leap head first into a big group of your enemies without backup then you will almost certainly not come out alive!

One final point - BE PATIENT! As I've said, Kali's early game is very weak so patience is a virtue. You'll start off slow, but later in the game you'll be ridiculously powerful!

Summary

I hope that you enjoyed my guide and that it was helpful for you! It's my first guide, so any constructive criticism is very welcome!

I will be playing around with Kali a lot more in the future and hope to expand this guide as I do so :D

Thanks for reading!

Credits

Jordenito - He wrote the guide that got me started using Kali, and I have adapted my style from that!

Subzero008 - For his awesome jungling guide!

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1
megakoresh (1) | July 14, 2015 1:28pm
Nice guide.
I like that you emphasise using Lash, many people forget about it.
Personally I am very unlucky so I don't like crit builds. Usually The Executioner, Hydra's Lament and Jotunn's Wrath work as good replacements for those crit items. When building a more sustainable Kali replacing Hydra's Lament with Frostbound Hammer worked well for me. Sometimes it's worth replacing Qin's Sais with Hastened Fatalis, for instance against gods like Chang'e.

Also I found that comboing the now buffed Fatalis with Frostbound can pretty much eliminate the need for boots altogether (for a Jungler that is, in lane you have to dodge enemy pokes, so boots are needed).

Try it, it may work for you as well. But this is a solid guide in it's own right.
1
Dracathio | February 16, 2015 6:32am
Alright so I tried your style of the build with 3 crit items, and going guants before boots or qin. Your right it does help a lot later on having full 60 stack. As I just helped my team win a conquest after we lost a member of our team and we went up against a crazy Loki and Thanatos with Nu Wa and Agni on the side. Was a pain to deal with, but we had Xb and Ymir. Was able to stop 3 of their guys with the high crit chance and through them back to their base in body bags for 45 seconds giving our team a chance. SO I may build upon this 3 crit items idea because it seams to do some major damage and help out late game.
1
MSFTS | January 23, 2015 5:53pm
This has won me so many games. Thanks!
1
SteveSmells | September 9, 2014 6:49am
Thanks for the comments Flint :)

I am finding a bit more now that lifesteal can be less of a necessity, but it all depends on your team. I queue solo 99% of the time, and we all know how difficult it can be to get some people to play like they should be ;p

When I've played around some more I'll add a build without lifesteal, and expand the guide in general :D
1
Flint | September 9, 2014 2:05am
Definitely given up the lifesteal items on Kali, found out tha tit was not that usefull, cause she naturally has some and if your team helps you with the first jungle camps, from level 2 you wont need other forms of sustain.
1
Flint | September 5, 2014 5:20am
Hello,
Nice aexplantion of the synergy between the different spells.
I like this guide.
1
cooliothex (1) | September 2, 2014 7:06pm
The BBcoding is fine. The gameplay section could be a lot more detailed imo.
In terms of items I find lifesteal from items not that necessary with Kali due to her built in healing and lifesteal, unless you're falling behind. So I usually just go boots first into qins. I find fatalis works wonders on her as well.

Also beads. Beads are required on Kali. When every other character has a stun and you can be stunned while ulting the gold is well worth it.

Just my two cents, and nice to see more kali guides on here.
1
SteveSmells | September 2, 2014 2:49pm
Thanks for the feedback guys!

The reason that I go for Devourer's Gauntlet before Warrior Tabi is that you need to start building up your stack on it as soon as possible. Movement speed is an important factor, but I find that Nimble Strike and Incense are good enough to help you escape early on.

With regards to buying Warrior Tabi before Qin's Sais, I actually tend to split my funds between the two. Lifesteal first, then attack speed and movement speed with pretty much equal urgency.

My reasoning behind using Devourer's Ganntlets over Bloodforge is that it costs much less. If I was buying it later in the game I would likely go for Bloodforge too, and in long matches swapping them out is always an option, but I do see what you mean. Also, Kali's attack speed is actually pretty slow until you have the items to speed it up.

Finally on the build, I did try out a physical penetration build and it just didn't work for me. I can definitely see its benefits but it wasn't my style. I';; keep trying though, and will add it as a second build if I can nail it down :D

The reason the item's section isn't fully complete (and teamwork missing completely) was just that I ran out of free time whilst writing it but wanted to get the guide out there before I lost interest in finishing it (I'm fickle like that...). Since the guide is up now though I have motivation to keep going with it :D

I'll keep working on it, and will likely do a big revamp once I'm more confident with the bbcoding.

Thanks again!
1
Devampi (105) | September 2, 2014 8:23am
not going to critizise much (not so in the mood)

your build. since qin's has gotten more expensive I would switch it with the boots because of the small pen boots and the movement speed allowing you to escape better in mid game or chase better.

Also the crit combo is good but I would sooner take more pen (executioner) instead of rage

also I myself like Bloodforge more then dev gloves on junglers. especially on someone with a fast basic attack. (bloodforge gives more power and lifesteal at max stacks (65 power (5 power more) and 30% ls (5% more ls then dev)) as kali you can easily sustain this power.

bbcoding is good enough (basic but taht's the least what needs to be in)

your item section isn't complete (discuss al items not ony what you build but optionals too)

also I miss the teamwork section you got the gameplay section though
1
arkarian93 | September 2, 2014 4:54am
One question: I have used Kali a few times, above all in Sieges Matches and a few conquests, so I believe you can buy Tabi Warrior at the beggining of the match so speed movement is so important to Kali to gank the enemies from the jungle, and above all to run out from the enemies with enough speed. What do you think about it?
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League of Legends Build Guide Author SteveSmells
Patience is a virtue - Kali
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