Starter Items
If you are dealing with poke matchups where you must be more patient, take a slower approach, or need the extra health/healing to sustain longer in the early fight and skirmishes, I would consider Doran's Blade.
If you have a matchup where you can snowball or want an advantage over your opponent, that's when I consider going Long Sword. It's also efficient to go this route to complete your core items early.
Each of these starts can be very efficient but will depend heavily on who you are facing and what items you need to build for each matchup.
Core Items
Whenever you attack your target, the damage will be a percentage of its current health. When paired with Kraken Slayer and Kalista's Rend, it is an excellent choice for shredding tanks and certain squishy champions. It's also good for sticking close to targets and synergizes nicely with
on-hit builds.
My recommended core item for Kalista is Guinsoo's Rageblade. It enhances heron-hit item effects to be applied more often, and along with dealing additionalon-hit magic damage. A solid purchase for Kalista.
Picking up Runaan's Hurricane is excellent for clearing minion waves and is great when the enemy clusters together due to the additional bolts fired. Also effective when paired with otheron-hit item effects ( Blade of the Ruined King or Terminus).
Situational Items
With Bloodthirster, you'll stay healthy in combat and be able to trade well with the enemy. An excellent mid to late game option to survive poke lanes or to handle duels versus assassins or mages who could burst you down.
It provides Kalista with a necessary revive, helping you live longer while carrying in the game. Be mindful when dying with this item effect because after you trigger the item effect, you may die upon reviving again. Therefore, consider your positioning when taking this item.
Immortal Shieldbow is very efficient when looking for a balance of damage and shielding for Kalista. It's a solid dueling & skirmishing option, that doubles as an effective choice when up against burst or Assassin champion matchups such as Warwick, Akali, Zed, or Talon, who can deal tons of damage to you in a short window of time.
When paired with Jak'Sho, The Protean, Kalista's durability is improved during extended battles and skirmishes; combined with Conditioning, you'll be more durable during the game's later stages.
Kraken Slayer is very potent when playing as Kalista, granting additional physical damage, increasing in damage upon striking the same target. Combined with Rend, you'll gain improved kill potential during fights and skirmishes.
Lord Dominik's Regards is a great % armor penetration item for Kalista, while also being efficient into armor centric targets.
Efficient durability and sustain option to consider when dueling heavy magic damage threats such as Brand, Morgana, and Teemo. Also great into champions like LeBlanc, Vex, and Viktor, who have powerful damage output.
Great when dealing with crowd control/spell effects (except airborne, Smite, Ignite or Exhaust), champion abilities ( Warwick's Infinite Duress, Skarner's Impale, Urgot's Fear Beyond Death, Malzahar's Nether Grasp, Tahm Kench's Devour, or Sett's The Show Stopper) that would impair or displace you during combat. It is a practical option when you need to escape fights or dangerous situations easily.
However, due to its long active cooldown, careful ability blocking is paramount.
Mortal Reminder is a strong % armor penetration option with grievous wounds that applies after damaging your target—an excellent choice for dealing with Kayn ( The Darkin Scythe: Rhaast), Samira, Nami, Soraka, or Sona that have healing abilities or items.
When using Phantom Dancer with Kalista, you'll have more pressure and mobility in duels and skirmishes. Additionally, each attack will grant you on-attack ghosting, helpful for chasing targets within their minion waves.
With Phantom Dancer, you'll be able to stack spears on your target more efficiently and deal more damage overall when using Rend.
An excellent option to reduce the damage of critical strike auto attacks you recieve in combat. Handy when dealing with champions such as the marksman class, Tryndamere, Yasuo, or Yone who tend to build these items.
Statikk Shiv is excellent when you need to poke down enemies from a distance. The chain lightning effect is also helpful for clearing waves early on, exerting more pressure in fights and skirmishes, and allowing you to rotate to objectives sooner as Kalista.
Particularly helpful when facing opponents like Caitlyn, Ashe, Draven or Samira, where a cautious approach is needed.
With Terminus, Kalista gains increased dueling potential along with increased durability. It's a solid choice when fighting assassins or bruiser champions such as LeBlanc, Nocturne, Akali, or Zed. It also synergizes nicely with otheron-hit item effects.
With the execution from The Collector, you can snowball pretty hard in your games. Very useful for cleaning up kills in fights and ramping up gold for you to buy your items and reach your item power spikes sooner. Combined with Rend, kills during team fights and duels are much more straightforward. While not a must-buy compared to other snowball-oriented marksman, consider this option when dealing with a squishy enemy team.
Wit's End is helpful in duels and good against champions such as LeBlanc, Karthus, Akali or Ekko, where you need some light durability and trading power—synergizes with her otheron-hit options.
