I'm not going to ask anyone to buff it, but I have trouble using it as a heal. I understand using it as a movement speed buff, which is what I normally use it as, but I wish there was an alternative build to mine that lets her actually use it.
I build
tear of the goddess
sorcerors shoes
guinsoos rageblade
nashors tooth
archangels staff
I haven't had a game go after that yet, but the last two would probably be situational, maybe a qss or black cleaver, rabadons, it depends.
but with this build, her heal is useless. is there something else I can do to make it better at healing without losing too much effectiveness? because I almost feel those four core items are necessary on her.

i don't know what to tell you, it's not useless by any means. Getting tear is a bad idea since she can't spam her abilitys and charge it up, if anything manamune would be better on her than AA.

yes, manamune+berserkers allows you to charge it up very fast. i get bout 2.5k mana by 30-40ish minutes (spam whenever skills are off CD, auto attacks). and it does give you AP from the AD you get anyways, and also makes farming a breeze. if you decide to go ap, grab a rylai's, it gives you permaslow, then rabaddon's. typical ap build for me would be nashors, berserkers, manamune, rylai's, rabaddon and lichbane. if i go AD, i switch rylai's and rabaddon's for 2 bloodthirsters, and lichbane for triforce.

Note: in either build, your heal is useless for its heal, USE IT AS A MS BUFF!!!

I might try that. I usually find TotG enough to solve all my mana problems, even if it's not as effective on Kayle as on others. And once I've got decent mana I spam all her skills whenever I can find a use for them. heal to get back to lane faster, E is almost always on, and there's usually SOME champion in range to use her Q on. I might try Manamune instead of AA though, since tear is usually enough to solve the mana by itself anyways and whichever I chose would simply be an extension of that...

Just use it. I get some AP on Kayle and I'm usually healing for 300 every 6 seconds by 25 mins. Thats pretty useful. Just spam it, it pains me to watch those Kayle kill compilations as every move is on CD except their heal.

A heal is a heal, even if its a bit impotent compared to its peers. I can honestly say I've saved more lives with the heal than the ult (and even more when I use them together)

Basically, don't be shy to actually use it as a heal. If you're getting the CDR you should be it'll be up and ready quickly enough.

rush manamune, the ad it gives is not too bad. and you do spam spells btw, your 'heal' is a MS buff, so essentially you have a permanant 433 MS (strangely enough, W CD is even shorter than its duration, you could have enough time to cast on 2 ppl).

what actually saves lives isnt the heal, its the MS buff so they can escape after you ult them (to the guy above)

ok, so... should I upgrade tear to manamune before boots?

well, technically you do get more bonus by upgrading it faster, i normally rush it. but not too much of a difference i guess, you could grab a lvl1 boots before upgrading to manamune, then lvl2 boots. my boot choices are mercs or berserkers depending on the enemy, i run cdr blues and utility tree so i ahve 14.89 CDR at lvl1, nashors pretty much maxes it.

oh and btw, if you didnt try, rylai's procs on kayle's E, making your autoattacks have an AoE slow, and i think it gives your Q an even more crazy slow.

sweet, thank you for the help. I'll definitely incorporate rylais into my build. seeing as she only has the one nuke and gets enough ap for e just off of overflow ad, I think I might start building her more ad centric. yeah, now that I think about it, I might rush the full manamune cuz' it's kind of cheap, and it'll give me a chance to see how good the other team is at using cc to decide which boots to get. thank you!

well, i'm not saying ap kayle is bad, its just i play kayle more ad based, its my build. you could look around for guides for ap kayle, the heal might be more useful there. but i still think not too worth building ap coz her rates are bad, the ap i get is just a nice bonus to have.