Passive - Divine Ascent

Kayle's passive is what makes her an excellent late-game scaling hypercarry. Essentially, at levels 1, 6, 11 and 16, you gain specific bonuses.

Level 1 - "Zealous" - your basic attacks grant you stacking attack speed up to a maximum of 5 stacks. At 5 stacks you also gain a little bit of bonus movement speed. This level 1 bonus is deceptively strong in lane (especially with Doran's Blade), so use it to your advantage!

Level 6 - "Arisen" - you gain bonus attack range, turning you from melee to ranged. This is great in lane as you now have a slight advantage in melee matchups, giving you extra poke range and an easier time at farming.

Level 11 - "Aflame" - now, at 5 stacks of Zealous, you get fire waves that deal damage in a small area in front of your attack. Additionally, your Starfire Spellblade auto does splash damage around the target.

Level 16 - "Transcendent" - you gain the permanent full effects of all earlier passives; maximum stacks of Zealous, bonus movement speed, fire waves, and in addition you also get a slight increase in attack range.

Advanced Tip: Stack up Divine Ascent before fights for the extra attack speed and movement speed! You can refresh the stacks on minions, tower or jungle camps if you're chasing someone, for example.

Q - Radiant Blast

Kayle's Q is a line-ish skillshot which damages, slows, and shreds the resistances of both the first enemy hit and enemies behind it. The range is a little tricky to get used to, but for reference, you can actually extend the Q range by taking advantage of the fact that it hits enemies behind it. Here's a good video to explain what I mean.

This extended range makes Kayle's Q a great tool for poke in lane as well as farming from a range. It also makes for surprising your opponents! I like to put at least 3 points into Radiant Blast for easier farming and waveclear as well as extra poke. This makes Kayle's trash early game lane much more manageable.

Advanced Tip: Hitting Radiant Blast is important for the armour and MR shred as well as the extra damage and slow. This makes it a great tool in short trades. Generally speaking, if you miss Q, you lose the trade. So use the cooldown wisely!

W - Celestial Blessing

Kayle's W is very simple. It's a targeted heal ability which grants both you and an ally a small heal and a movement speed boost.

It's great in lane for healing up from trades and also good for chasing enemies down or escaping from them. The movement speed is also very useful in teamfights as it helps you kite a lot better.

I recommend using self-cast for this ability to cast it quicker! By default in the settings this should be Alt+W but you can change it to whatever you like.

Advanced Tip: The mana cost on Celestial Blessing is quite high, but in lane, trading that mana for the heal is almost always worth it. Heal up from poke to help survive laning phase and don't be afraid of the long cooldown!

E - Starfire Spellblade

Kayle's E is essentially a ranged auto-attack reset which also grants extra execute damage. At level 11, this attack deals splash damage around its target. Passively, upgrading this ability also grants you extra on-hit damage.

Before you become ranged at level 6, Starfire Spellblade grants you a single ranged attack. This allows you to farm from a distance or poke during the laning phase.

Take this ability at level 1 at all times! It's what makes Kayle's level 1 power so strong, and even if you don't trade level 1, you can use it to farm from a range in lane.

Advanced Tip: Using the auto reset is a very important part of Kayle's kit and mastering it will maximise your possible damage. With Press the Attack, an auto-E-auto will strike your target for lots of damage in a short burst. Remember that you can use E directly after auto attacking!

Additionally, use Starfire Spellblade at the end of a fight rather than to initiate it. It deals bonus missing health damage so will execute your targets!

R - Divine Judgement

Kayle's ultimate is the defining part of her kit! You can cast it either on yourself or an ally, granting them invulnerability to all damage for a short period of time, as well as splash damage around them!

Note that you cannot cast this while you are CC'd! This means that if enemies catch you, you have no way of saving yourself. Try to time the spell by using it just before you get CC'd to prevent follow up damage.

It's best to use Divine Judgment as a way of giving you more damage in a fight, rather than as a way of saving yourself when you're low. Divine Judgment gets the most value when it blocks the enemy's biggest source of damage which is easiest to dodge, for example a Darius Q at max stacks (instead of his R), or an Aatrox Q3.

Advanced Tip: I like to use Divine Judgment as an extra burst tool to help one-shot. Opening a fight with a self-cast R is a great way to deal a large chunk of damage. Don't be afraid to be aggressive with R!

Finally, casting Divine Judgment will refresh all stacks of Zealous (your passive). This is a niche tip but can be useful in specific situations, such as very long extended fights.

Q Max

E Max

Note that you don't necessarily have to max one ability over the other to the fullest - you can also mix it up by putting in a few points into Radiant Blast before maxing Starfire Spellblade. In difficult lanes it's even worth to max Celestial Blessing second for the extra heal and movement speed!

Kayle doesn't have many difficult mechanics with her abilities, and so a lot of her skill expression comes from the timing that you use them. This will come naturally over time with practice.

Levels 1-6

Levels 6-11

Levels 11-16

Levels 16+

Press the Attack

Arcane Comet

Other Options

Starting Items

I like taking this into every matchup. It's very good for surviving lane and trust me when I say it's a godsend! The burn will also proc Riftmaker quickly so it's excellent in fights.

Doran's Blade is quite good into matchups where you're confident. The lifesteal is decent, but you'll have fewer potions. Also, the extra damage makes you have an excellent level 1.

This is a situational starting item where you'll need the extra mana regen for more trades. It's great with the Arcane Comet build.

This is a great starting item for lanes where you'll be poked out, like into Teemo or Quinn. It gives you excellent sustain.

A very situational item that I love going into matchups where you know you'll be free farming, like Singed or Shen. It's excellent if you plan on playing passively throughout the lane and want to avoid fighting.

Core Items

Boots

These boots are the best to build on AP Kayle as you won't be building much attack speed in your items. Being an auto-attacking hypercarry, it's what you need!

Mythic Options

A very solid all-round good mythic item to take. It gives you healing, damage, health and ability haste, which all work very well on Kayle. It also helps in extended fights.

This is a good mythic to take on AP Kayle as well if you'd rather be auto-attacking more. The extra attack speed you get is really good for Kayle so it's a good alternative to Riftmaker.

Defensive Options

Stopwatch is broken in teamfights! This item is excellent and will definitely save you from many tough situations. It also allows you to make more aggressive plays.

A situational item that's great into heavy AP compositions, or into champions where you need to dodge one ability to win the fight like Morgana or Malphite.

Offensive Options

This is a great last item to take on Kayle and you can even sell boots for it as it grants you some bonus movement speed. It gives you so much burst potential.

A great buy into healing-heavy compositions, although you can also replace it with Mortal Reminder for a bit more attack speed instead.

A good magic pen item that gives you lots of damage. I wouldn't recommend building this over Lich Bane or Void Staff, but the extra health and shield damage can be nice in certain situations.

An excellent item for great late game damage and it will shred tanks and squishies! You can build this anytime but it's best for snowballing potential.

I like selling my boots for this item in the late game as it gives you extra attack speed and movement speed. It's a good all-round item to build.

Tier List