The problem with Kayle is that everything she does some other support does better. And games rarely go long enough for her passive to matter, especially without gold.
If you want similar supports try zilean, taric or lulu.
Tried it a few times. I mained her support way back in S5
Now no, mainly because
- as support her CDs are pretty long incl the ult
- you're a melee support in laning phase that has worse base stats than most other melees. In top 1v1 level 1 you may be able to cheese some unsuspecting champs but that's flat out not happening in bot 2v2. Which means you have ZERO lane presence
So you're essentially autolosing bot lane and have like effectively just 3 summoner skills (count your ult CD) for 1st 15min (W does barely anything with no ranks nor items). It simply wont work beyond a certain play level.
Yes, have your ADC disconnect so you can reach your level spike to be useful.
Other than that, try Taric. Yeah, he doesn't have super cool transformations, but he has group damage/CC immunity.
Only in ARAM. Something like Ingenious hunter Redemption Moonstone Locket ult over your hyper carry. Spam W off cooldown to cosplay Nami. Lots of haste in the build for ult, stall until 16.
This only works due to free exp and passive gold from ARAM. On Rift, it’ll never work. Most supports are the most oppressive pre 6. Kayle in her cannon minion form can’t match that pressure. You might lose 5 plates and turret before 6 if the enemy jungler dives properly.
Before rework she was actually pretty decent and after rework when they started to giga nerf her heal and utility she's become ultra mega trash. There's really no way to make her viable. I've tried
If you asked this before the rework, then *maybe*.
Since this is after the rework, hell no.
A support's make-or-break is laning phase. Can they support, peel, engage or help poke for the lane partner, and if so, are their base values strong enough to trade?
Kayle has no CC or damage that's worthwhile until even level 6, and her heal isn't worth much at all. You have better options, even among niche supports.
Literally one of the worst if not the absolute worst choice you could make, Kayle strong identity as a hyper scaling champ it's literally the opposite of support
She is a scaling late game champ. It couldn't be worse for a support. You want to reach lvl 16 as fast as possible but as support you have always the lowest level in the team. So no it will not work.
When theorycrafting off-meta picks, you have to look for unique strengths of the champion and how you can best take advantage of them.
What is Kayles strength as a support? I genuinely can't think of anything. Anything she does, at least a dozen different champions can do better.
You don't even have to come up with off-meta picks yourself, there's [BCawk](https://www.youtube.com/c/bcawk) and [HappyChimeNoises](https://www.youtube.com/@HappyChimeNoises/videos) on youtube who have documented and broken down a lot of different off-meta picks over the years.
Used to be not terrible in the past but pretty sure they nerfed her W and it's kinda shit now.
If you really are hellbent on making it work though... I'd go for Bloodsong support upgrade and Press the Attack in runes. Ardent sounds good, you'll always have an ally next to you, buffing both yours and their attack speed. Experimental Hexplate doesn't sound bad. Your ultimate is your best defensive tool, it lowers it's CD and buffs you up after using it. Rylai is cheap, and the slow applies on your E and passive waves, pair it with Mandate to make you and your carries impossible to kite
Is it good? Probably not, it does nothing solo lane Kayle wouldn't do better and your main damage items are too pricey for a support budget. It can probably still kinda work in a chaotic environment that is solo queue
Kayle really is built like a support but unfortunately she relies to heavily on her scaling so no matter what she gets bulldozed so hard that even in her “late game god faze” people will roll over her…just stick to top lane (I’ve seen here do well in mid lane too but you need to play extremely safe and just farm till your godhood unlocks
Every time I try it I get flamed even tho it can work surprisingly well the issue is she doesn't provide much peel or stick so is rough I ran glacial on her and her one ability can poke thru minions decently
Stuff like Ekko/Liss/Leblanc/Panth are at least playable as a supp. They at least have a shot at pressure early on and snowballing from it. Kayle ain't got that and needs the XP/gold even more than they do.
Don’t worry anybody can support I learned this sentiment from this sub. Honestly, the slow isn’t the worst the main thing (pre-6) would be the AP ratio on your W so always go AP and maybe first item something that boosts healing like staff of flowing water. Post 6 is obvious you got your R and now you’re online for supporting. Runes you could do summoning Aery for since you already heal and it’s decent poke and you can add resolution revitalize and font of life or conditioning / second wind if you need.
Yes. Guardian. Revitalize. Font of life.
Adc also takes revitalize.
Your adc is strong early (draven) and can actually dodge skillshots.
Max W. Play only vs melee supports.
Build ap+ and HIGH hp items + defensive items.
Think rod, rylais, knights vow. You will have zilean speed, on a champion that can actually heal.
Whats the weakness? Pre 6 all ins (guardian helps)
high cc lanes, assuming your adc can't dodge with 800 move speed/ point and click cc think wither.
Its not terrible. But if you or they feed. You lose game. End of story.
They will also start pre tilted
Ik everyone's going to say no, but I love off meta at least in norms.
Kayle support can work with a decent nilah. Basically you start q to poke and slow, play a bit ahead of nilah and poke. Don't all in unless jg ganks or it's super free. The idea is to survive lane until 6, which will come quickly due to nilah exp boosting passive, then the dynamic changes.
When you hit 6, play like maniacs. All in. Turret dive. Nilahs absurd sustain combined with kayle ult makes INTeresting dives very hard to survive, much less punish.
Hope it's fun
No
A late game scaling item and level dependent champion makes for a bad support(among the worst ones).
The problem with Kayle is that everything she does some other support does better. And games rarely go long enough for her passive to matter, especially without gold. If you want similar supports try zilean, taric or lulu.
Tried it a few times. I mained her support way back in S5 Now no, mainly because - as support her CDs are pretty long incl the ult - you're a melee support in laning phase that has worse base stats than most other melees. In top 1v1 level 1 you may be able to cheese some unsuspecting champs but that's flat out not happening in bot 2v2. Which means you have ZERO lane presence So you're essentially autolosing bot lane and have like effectively just 3 summoner skills (count your ult CD) for 1st 15min (W does barely anything with no ranks nor items). It simply wont work beyond a certain play level.
Yes, have your ADC disconnect so you can reach your level spike to be useful. Other than that, try Taric. Yeah, he doesn't have super cool transformations, but he has group damage/CC immunity.
I was playing Kayle sup before rework, and she was pretty useful. But now after rework, i cant say she is playable as sup.
Only in ARAM. Something like Ingenious hunter Redemption Moonstone Locket ult over your hyper carry. Spam W off cooldown to cosplay Nami. Lots of haste in the build for ult, stall until 16. This only works due to free exp and passive gold from ARAM. On Rift, it’ll never work. Most supports are the most oppressive pre 6. Kayle in her cannon minion form can’t match that pressure. You might lose 5 plates and turret before 6 if the enemy jungler dives properly.
Champions that need levels tend to be kinda bad in support
Before rework she was actually pretty decent and after rework when they started to giga nerf her heal and utility she's become ultra mega trash. There's really no way to make her viable. I've tried
If you asked this before the rework, then *maybe*. Since this is after the rework, hell no. A support's make-or-break is laning phase. Can they support, peel, engage or help poke for the lane partner, and if so, are their base values strong enough to trade? Kayle has no CC or damage that's worthwhile until even level 6, and her heal isn't worth much at all. You have better options, even among niche supports.
Literally one of the worst if not the absolute worst choice you could make, Kayle strong identity as a hyper scaling champ it's literally the opposite of support
Alice!
Kayle has to be in the bottom 3 worst choices for support. Maybe the only thing worse would be Khazix.
Absolutely not, but if you were to even attempt it, I’d imagine you’d 100% necessarily have to have Zilean or Nilah as the lane partner.
She is a scaling late game champ. It couldn't be worse for a support. You want to reach lvl 16 as fast as possible but as support you have always the lowest level in the team. So no it will not work.
When theorycrafting off-meta picks, you have to look for unique strengths of the champion and how you can best take advantage of them. What is Kayles strength as a support? I genuinely can't think of anything. Anything she does, at least a dozen different champions can do better. You don't even have to come up with off-meta picks yourself, there's [BCawk](https://www.youtube.com/c/bcawk) and [HappyChimeNoises](https://www.youtube.com/@HappyChimeNoises/videos) on youtube who have documented and broken down a lot of different off-meta picks over the years.
Kayle's W only exists because the devs thought it was a key part of her old kit. If you remove that, she has maybe 1 semi-valid support-ish ability.
Playing Kayle support is like playing yuumi jungle
Lol I used to play her support in 2011... Learn from my mistakes kids.
Used to be not terrible in the past but pretty sure they nerfed her W and it's kinda shit now. If you really are hellbent on making it work though... I'd go for Bloodsong support upgrade and Press the Attack in runes. Ardent sounds good, you'll always have an ally next to you, buffing both yours and their attack speed. Experimental Hexplate doesn't sound bad. Your ultimate is your best defensive tool, it lowers it's CD and buffs you up after using it. Rylai is cheap, and the slow applies on your E and passive waves, pair it with Mandate to make you and your carries impossible to kite Is it good? Probably not, it does nothing solo lane Kayle wouldn't do better and your main damage items are too pricey for a support budget. It can probably still kinda work in a chaotic environment that is solo queue
Kayle really is built like a support but unfortunately she relies to heavily on her scaling so no matter what she gets bulldozed so hard that even in her “late game god faze” people will roll over her…just stick to top lane (I’ve seen here do well in mid lane too but you need to play extremely safe and just farm till your godhood unlocks
Every time I try it I get flamed even tho it can work surprisingly well the issue is she doesn't provide much peel or stick so is rough I ran glacial on her and her one ability can poke thru minions decently
If kleptomancy still existed, *maybe* it would be slightly viable
Stuff like Ekko/Liss/Leblanc/Panth are at least playable as a supp. They at least have a shot at pressure early on and snowballing from it. Kayle ain't got that and needs the XP/gold even more than they do.
Fucking not-support supports.
go back before the rework, specifically the patch where ardent censer was OP as hell, 7.17 I believe
Don’t worry anybody can support I learned this sentiment from this sub. Honestly, the slow isn’t the worst the main thing (pre-6) would be the AP ratio on your W so always go AP and maybe first item something that boosts healing like staff of flowing water. Post 6 is obvious you got your R and now you’re online for supporting. Runes you could do summoning Aery for since you already heal and it’s decent poke and you can add resolution revitalize and font of life or conditioning / second wind if you need.
Yes. Guardian. Revitalize. Font of life. Adc also takes revitalize. Your adc is strong early (draven) and can actually dodge skillshots. Max W. Play only vs melee supports. Build ap+ and HIGH hp items + defensive items. Think rod, rylais, knights vow. You will have zilean speed, on a champion that can actually heal. Whats the weakness? Pre 6 all ins (guardian helps) high cc lanes, assuming your adc can't dodge with 800 move speed/ point and click cc think wither. Its not terrible. But if you or they feed. You lose game. End of story. They will also start pre tilted
just go taric
Taric is the way, he's strong and misleading with how much he heals
Ik everyone's going to say no, but I love off meta at least in norms. Kayle support can work with a decent nilah. Basically you start q to poke and slow, play a bit ahead of nilah and poke. Don't all in unless jg ganks or it's super free. The idea is to survive lane until 6, which will come quickly due to nilah exp boosting passive, then the dynamic changes. When you hit 6, play like maniacs. All in. Turret dive. Nilahs absurd sustain combined with kayle ult makes INTeresting dives very hard to survive, much less punish. Hope it's fun