[Champion] Katarina - Page 4

On July 29 2011 09:00 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
cdr is kinda redundant imo, all it helps you do is throw more Qs in poking situations. not that useful. kat's primary source of cdr is her passive, so kill people.

gunblade is a great item on katarina, but i find you're much too squishy with just a revolver. the giant's belt in the rylai recipe really, really helps. at level 6-7 katarina has enough natural damage for a burst kill if you've harassed them a bit, even then the amp tome or two (or even the revolver itself) won't increase your damage very much. having more hp and therefore more survivability after those levels in lane makes you much stronger than that period between the very modest damage increase of revolver and the massive damage increase of gunblade

as far as boots go, sorc all the way. shouldn't be out of position to be hit by errant cc and aoe slows etc. much better off getting sorc boots + some endgame defensive item like banshee's veil, which has a direct effect on your ult's duration in teamfights. merc treads don't really help beyond running away when you get caught out of position

edit: i should mention i use 21/0/9 and mpen/armor/scaling mr/mpen & flat hp quints

On July 29 2011 09:59 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
gunblade makes her very strong 1v1 or 2v2. if you're in a game where you'll have the opportunity to fight 1v1 against some champs (they're split pushing, you're split pushing, they wander the jungle aimlessly, etc. pub stomping.) then it's probably her best item.

if you're not terrorizing the enemy in small skirmishes then definitely get a deathcap instead lol

On July 28 2011 16:53 Attakijing wrote:
good advice r04r

I have been playing low level games all day with a noob friend, man kat is fun as hell when youre playing against bad people. I can see why she would be useless in decent elo's though.

But i don't get why people always build rylai's on her. it seems like only her E does the full slow and you are usually supposed to use that as an escape. i guess so that you E in on someone and ult them? But then couldn't you just build more ap to do effectively the same thing, i.e. more damage?

On July 29 2011 09:31 sRapers_ValkS wrote:

hmm, I've always found gunblade, and any other AD/hybrid items on kat quite lackluster. you don't autoattack much at all and the only place AD comes into play is on your q, which IMO isn't realllly worth it. Straight AP for me!

Also 21/0/9 is reallllly ballsy, i'd be much too scared to use it - especially when crit damage/aspd/armpen/crit chance are fairly wasted on her. Havoc would be nice though. To help out in lane I go 9/21/0, taking the magic pen thing in offense.

On January 11 2012 03:18 wei2coolman wrote:
I've been playing a lot of Kat recently, like 40 games in the past 2 weeks.

There are some things that I've been doing that seem to been working to great success.
Rushing WotA, I prefer it over gunblade because A) double wota meta, b)it's cheaper, and better sustain imo c)rylais already slow, and you have shunp, you shouldn't really need the hextech gunblade slow.

I also like playing glasscannon Kat with AD.
So this is my usual build, boots 3pot-4pot, to sorc and revolver, to wota, then to Bloodthirster, rylais, another BT or voidstaff.

What I've been trying in mid is starting dblade first (depends on matchup in mid or top). it helps with last hitting, and the increased damage on dagger is great for poking.

Everyone probably thinks i'm trolling with this build, but it works pretty fucking amazing for me.

there are some reasons as to why I prefer AD kat over AP kat.
1) if you're gunna be leveling up dagger, the Ad ratio on dagger is >>>> AP, and it helps midgame farming by a lot.
2) the damage output from the dagger throw has way more total damage output compared to shunpo, because of the bounce, in teamfights, not to mention the increased damage out put means increased spell vamp.
3) The increased midgame farm also means extremely fast BT stacks, that means you'll be getting full use of your BT very quickly.


There are different gameplay changes by going AD, you'll be focusing on your dagger, a lot more than shunpo. The only time you should be using shunpo is if A) if you get a kill with it, and B) if you're setting up your ulti. Right after you get a kill, you want to shunpo out right away, and then continue spamming your dagger.

On January 11 2012 03:18 wei2coolman wrote:
I've been playing a lot of Kat recently, like 40 games in the past 2 weeks.

There are some things that I've been doing that seem to been working to great success.
Rushing WotA, I prefer it over gunblade because A) double wota meta, b)it's cheaper, and better sustain imo c)rylais already slow, and you have shunp, you shouldn't really need the hextech gunblade slow.

I also like playing glasscannon Kat with AD.
So this is my usual build, boots 3pot-4pot, to sorc and revolver, to wota, then to Bloodthirster, rylais, another BT or voidstaff.

What I've been trying in mid is starting dblade first (depends on matchup in mid or top). it helps with last hitting, and the increased damage on dagger is great for poking.

Everyone probably thinks i'm trolling with this build, but it works pretty fucking amazing for me.

there are some reasons as to why I prefer AD kat over AP kat.
1) if you're gunna be leveling up dagger, the Ad ratio on dagger is >>>> AP, and it helps midgame farming by a lot.
2) the damage output from the dagger throw has way more total damage output compared to shunpo, because of the bounce, in teamfights, not to mention the increased damage out put means increased spell vamp.
3) The increased midgame farm also means extremely fast BT stacks, that means you'll be getting full use of your BT very quickly.


There are different gameplay changes by going AD, you'll be focusing on your dagger, a lot more than shunpo. The only time you should be using shunpo is if A) if you get a kill with it, and B) if you're setting up your ulti. Right after you get a kill, you want to shunpo out right away, and then continue spamming your dagger.

On January 11 2012 06:40 Shiv. wrote:

First of all, I'd like to say that I have played the majority of this game as Katarina, I'd guess about 300+ games. I get her like I get no other champ, and I really really love her.

Why I think your build isn't good:

WotA does not give her more sustain than Gunblade. The 5% are overshadowed by 15% lifesteal, especially since you seem to be building AD (which is also bad, I'll tell you why.). Then, you build Rylai's, which is a bad item on Katarina (assuming you are going mid) in more scenarios than not.

Okay Shiv, nice, you now have basically been a dick so far and told me what I do is bad but didn't tell me why, well fuck you!

No, no. I'm getting to it.

Katarina is the epitome of an Assassin. You have no Shroud to hide until your bruisers arrive if you went in too early, as your Shunpo will most likely be on cooldown, and you have no ability to undo your Shunpo or even use it twice in a row (why hello there LeBonk.). What you want to do is look for the perfect moment to jump into a teamfight, most likely the point where all major CCs have been blown and you are able to help your team gib someone. Your whole usefulness as Kat in a team fight is reliant on you and your team being able to blow up someone as quick as possible without being caught.

Why is that? Her passive. Voracity is the single most important ability Katarina has, and knowing how to utilize it correctly makes or breaks a good Kat. The possibility to reset your cooldowns and use your skills lets you deal retarted amounts of damage in a teamfight. It's really hard to explain HOW good it is, but trust me, it is. It is also the reason gunblade is an awesome item, part of the reason Rylai's is bad and the biggest reason building AD isn't good.

If you build Rylai's, you spend 3000 gold for basically 80 AP and a bit of HP. The HP isn't needed (again, assuming you went mid), mainly because if you ever seriously get caught on Katarina, you'll die no matter what. The slow is mediocre since it only gives the 30% on Shunpo and it does not offer enough killing potential. Gunblade meanwhile offers a superior slow (you won't desperately need it one more than one person because of your passive), a 300 damage on click burst (an amount of damage Rylai's does not even slightly offer), and it's the one item in the game that gives you the most damage increase on your ultimate before retarted amounts of AP+Deathcap. Gunblade gives you the possibility to practically GIB someone right from the get-go with a decently placed W-E-Gunblade-Q-R. It's all about the timing WHEN to do so. 80 AP don't do all that much for your damage, especially if you consider how low her ratios are and she basically relies on the ability to use her skills so often due to her passive. By the time you get it, you realize you're tankier than you need to be and don't deal enough damage.

Also, because of her passive, you get to use Shunpo multiple times during a fight. That's the reason biggest reason AD is bad on her. You basically ignore her ability that scales the best with AP, and that damage you miss out on adds up during a teamfight.

You say you like to get WotA+BT. That combination offers you 50 AP, 25% Spellvamp, 60-100 AD and 15-25% life steal for 5100 gold. Gunblade gives you 70 AP, 40 AD, 20% Spellvamp and 15% life steal for 3600 gold. Taking into account how often you won't have a fully stacked bloodthirster, I think I don't need to bring out any math to make you realize how much superior Gunblade is over WotA+BT.

I'm sorry if I sound like a dick or if that post reads a bit confusing, I didn't intend to insult or offend you and I'm realllllly tired. I just wanted you to show the way I'm sure Katarina is supposed to be played.

Also, you can read scarra's thoughts on how to build her here. He's the most accomplished Katarina player there is..

On January 11 2012 07:29 wei2coolman wrote:

Well if you have multiple shunpo's you also get multiple dagger throws.... from the passive. The whole WotA over gunblade is a choice to help the other AP's on teh team. I've always been able to keep BT stacked fairly high, perhaps stack gunblade + BT? that's what I was thinking as well... Also I think your shunpo point is void, mostly because your over all damage output will always be higher with dagger and ulti. than just the low AP ratios between all 3 skills.

and thanks for your input.

On January 11 2012 08:31 Shiv. wrote:

Sorry, but you are wrong. It's a choice of cost efficiency.
Also, my point is not void at all because of Shunpo's superior scaling. As I said, Gunblade is the item that increases your ult damage the most and you only get to use that once per teamfight. The overall damage output will NOT be higher with Ulti+Dagger, because, as said, Ulti only works once per teamfight and the combined AP scaling on BB+Shunpo is better than BBs AD scaling.

Then, Kat is a snowball champion, and by the time you have WotA AND Bloodthirster, the enemy team will shrug your damage off anyways.

On January 11 2012 08:40 Frolossus wrote:

pretty sure deathcap gives more after the gunblade nerfs
if not then it gives more after a single other AP item