[Champion] Katarina

On November 08 2010 19:11 barbsq wrote:
in the spirit of a certain retired member of our community

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=129727&currentpage=790#15799

whatever did happen to him, did he just quit?

i'm back now.

On December 03 2010 01:38 Ruken wrote:
I rush Locket+Visage on her and own everyone these days. Riot prob nerfing it soon rofl.

On December 14 2010 22:12 cascades wrote:
AD kat easily better, since you can get rylais for her, and she pokes much better.

EDIT: Or rather, triple snowball kat best kat. That levi and that w.

On December 15 2010 02:28 sylverfyre wrote:
But she doesn't seem like a hybrid that wants a rageblade... or does she?

On January 03 2011 08:19 redtooth wrote:
WHY DOES SHE SUCK SO MUCH NOW.

On December 15 2010 11:05 GranDim wrote:
/ignore ally is such a beautiful and effective thing

On January 03 2011 08:19 redtooth wrote:
WHY DOES SHE SUCK SO MUCH NOW.

On January 12 2011 05:53 Mogwai wrote:

because they're trying to balance a hero with no CC away from the early game and towards the late game, lawl.

On February 20 2011 05:54 0123456789 wrote:
So I picked up Kat. No1 posted here in over a month.

She's a noob raper. Not that great vs non retards. I go Q, E, E, W, R>E>Q>W

Items, I go either Dorans Shield, boots, cloth armor x pots, or regen bead x pots depending on who I'm up against. Then I go rylais, Deathcap, and tankier ap items like abyssal or hourglass, into revolver, into void staff.


Summoners:Ignite, Ghost

Kat is all about raping noobs in the laning phase. Every1 underestimates her damage and try to trade hits with her or just flat out get raped. Under lvl 5, I use weq combo if opponent overextends or makes mistakes. I usually start the standard harass from 5 on if they're not dumb. Just WEQ and back to not draw creep aggro and back off after your combo is on cd. Rinse and repeat, and ignite to kill. Add r to the combo after lvl 6. ult has something like slightly over 40 sec cd, so you can spam it for dmg against tankier champs. Without some sort of nice heavy farm early, you're useless. Kat all about early domination.

You start dealing heavy dmg around early - mid game. Always use your ult after people use their stuns, and to as many people as possible. Or you just weq combo back up, rinse and repeat untill you can get ult off. Kat starts scaling down towards late game because fights start becoming 5v5 and people get smarter and save their CC. Kat is like a burst caster, and without her ult she becomes useless so get it off smartly for full duration. Not full duration mitigates dmg a lot.

On February 21 2011 15:49 BlackHat wrote:


Edit: Reading comprehension fail...

That said, what runes and masteries are you going with?

On June 07 2011 04:55 Misder wrote:
I'm having trouble early game with kat... I don't seem to do any damage, and I can't really harass until lvl 4, which seems late... help?

On June 07 2011 05:06 gtrsrs wrote:


no, that's about right. she doesn't have high damage output until her cooldowns start getting lower and she can be throwing daggers all the time

the key thing with *any* melee solo champ (especially a magical one, like katarina, kassadin, akali) is that you need to play extremely passively UNTIL you've hit your harassment sweet-spot. for akali this may be level 3 when she's got 2 levels of Q and her shroud to help zone. for kassadin it's closer to 5 when his Q starts doing appreciable damage. for katarina it's around 4 (if you use killer instincts to activate the damage reduction and shunpo->bouncing blade) or 5 (if you're just maxing shunpo and bouncing blade and the cooldowns are starting to line up better). until you hit that sweet spot, it is imperative that you stay at high HP and don't go for risky last-hits. 10 extra last-hits isn't worth it if you hit level 5 but you're at 300 HP and the enemy ranged mid has complete lane control.

so basically what i'm saying is you're playing her right. she's not a level 1 dominator. her strength is the fact that her skills have no mana/health/fury/heat/karma restrictions, they are only cooldown-based. so when you start getting lower cooldowns, you can start engaging more aggressively because you'll have your skills up quickly and have more sustained damage. until then, just play passively

On June 07 2011 06:07 Misder wrote:

k, so then when I hit 4, do I just harass as much as I can?

Also, is there any matchups I should definitely win? Definitely lose?

On June 07 2011 06:14 Frolossus wrote:
definitely win vs any ranged dps or skill shot champ such as ez/anivia/morg
there is nothing that you should definitely lose as kat

On June 07 2011 07:49 gtrsrs wrote:


there are plenty of auto-loses for kat

anyone that has a location-based or character-based skill will beat kat on virtue of her taking too much damage when she tries to shunpo. for example, rumble will fuck kat's shit up all day because every time she tries to shunpo on him he will turn on flamespitter. garen is another similar example. i also have a feeling kat would have a really hard time against orianna but i haven't played either side of that matchup yet. kat also auto-loses to malphite and kass IMO.

she is very strong against ranged dps, however. and i do agree that skillshot champs have a hard time against her since she can dodge via shunpo

On June 07 2011 04:55 Misder wrote:
I'm having trouble early game with kat... I don't seem to do any damage, and I can't really harass until lvl 4, which seems late... help?

On June 12 2011 15:40 Chairman Ray wrote:
I mained Kat for a while since she was so fun.

Kat early game doesn't have sustained dps or high burst dmg, but what she does have is a great poke with Q. I like to open QWQE and just Q the heck out of them. You have to get used to how Q bounces. Once you can predict the bouncing well, you can harass them safely from level 1. With the bounce range, you will outrange anything besides Urgot. There are a few matchups that I open QEQQ because I can EQ combo them without them hitting back for much. You should be able to send them back home once or twice before you hit 6, but if they refuse to budge, they'll probably be low hp and you can ult them down.

There are plenty of champs that shut down Kat pretty well though. Fiddle is probably the hardest counter, followed by Urgot. Tanky dps champs with a heal (irelia, xin, warwick, renekton, etc) are perfectly safe from Kat, but at the same time, they don't pose a huge threat, so it ends up being a farm fest.

On June 07 2011 09:34 Frolossus wrote:

lolno
kat doesn't shunpo TO a person directly unless they can't harass back
you just QQQQQQQQ all day

On June 13 2011 07:39 Misder wrote:


Then you max Q first? Is it worth going AP still if maxing Q?

On June 22 2011 12:56 Misder wrote:
With the new meta, are there any mages that kat can exchange blows with?

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

On January 11 2012 09:34 Ghost-z wrote:
@Shiv - I like your thoughts on Rylai's and I have had good success with this AP build:

Boots+3hp > Revolver > Boots2 > Rylai's > Deathcap > Gunblade > Zhonya's > Void Staff

What would you recommend I build instead of Rylai's in this setup?
I'm thinking that without the slow from Rylai's then I should finish my Gunblade before Deathcap. I am also considering building either Guardian Angel or a Banshee's Vail instead of Zhonya's. What are anyones thoughts?

On January 11 2012 10:26 wei2coolman wrote:
Okay I did some math, and I think Shiv is right, and I'm wrong , sadly enough I'll admit this...

On January 11 2012 10:26 wei2coolman wrote:
Hopefully my math is all correct, and you guys can sort of see the reasons why i like to go AD kat, over full AP kat

On January 11 2012 10:37 Shiv. wrote:

It takes a real man to admit he's wrong! I tried out all builds you can imagine on Kat and I found this one the most suitable for my play style and probably the best all-around balanced build.




I still don't really get it, as you might aswell get a WotA before your Deathcap and pretty much have all the upsides of your build, BUT: as long as you are having fun and it works for you and the way you play Kat, why not? It might not be the best build around, but I'm sure you can make it work. Again, I was really not trying to be a dick, just showing a fellow Kat player a different way to play her.

P.S. One reason I think AD Kat is weaker is that people tend to build a lot more armor than MR in most games and I never find the time autoattacking. Always Shunpo, never not Shunpo.

Edit: what happened to the Rylai's in your build?

Edit 2: some things to think about: BB rarely if ever actually gets 5 bounces, if you ever die, you just lost 80 AD, and I think you forgot to calculate the 300 damage from Gunblade on your final numbers. Still not saying AD is bad, but AP is a lot less reliant on staying alive and has harder burst potential, which, after all, is what you need the most in order to trigger your passive.

On January 11 2012 10:54 Shiv. wrote:
AD is probably viable, too, yeah! It is a lot better for most 1v1 scenarios I suppose, so if you find yourself going AD, might want to try to look for some people to pick off when they're alone.

On January 11 2012 11:18 Ghost-z wrote:
Wait why would you build WotA instead of Gunblade if you are going for AD Kat?

On January 11 2012 11:16 Ghost-z wrote:
Whether you're building AD or AP Kat all of your abilities deal magic damage. The only time armor would be counted is on auto attacks.

On January 11 2012 12:23 Ghost-z wrote:
One last question I have about Kat is which skill do you max first for AD and AP?

I usually build AP Kat and max Shunpo first since it scales the best with AP or do you max BB first on AP Kat?

Do you max BB first when playing AD? I can't imaging you wouldn't since shunpo gets no benefit from AD.

On January 11 2012 13:44 petered wrote:
A lot of people seem to hate utility tree but I think 9/0/21 is the best on kat. mostly for the 10% cdr, 3% spell vamp and 2% movespeed which I think help kat during laning a whole lot more than offensive of defensive tree.

True the other trees probably scale better, but to me kat is all about not getting pushed out of lane early then racking up kills mid game.

On January 11 2012 13:44 petered wrote:
A lot of people seem to hate utility tree but I think 9/0/21 is the best on kat. mostly for the 10% cdr, 3% spell vamp and 2% movespeed which I think help kat during laning a whole lot more than offensive of defensive tree.

True the other trees probably scale better, but to me kat is all about not getting pushed out of lane early then racking up kills mid game.

On January 11 2012 23:48 Shiv. wrote:

CDR on Kat is useless due to her passive.
Those are the best Kat masteries around in my opinion.

Nothing beats the offensive tree in terms of gold value.

MPen Reds, HP/lvl or Armor Yellows, flat MR blues, MS Quints.

On January 12 2012 02:27 wei2coolman wrote:

Hmm, I rarely feel like I need MS quints on kat, mostly because shunpo mechanics are already amazing, and that I don't feel that I'd be missing anything by not running them... I've been running AD quints with kat, just cause they scale better than AP quints for her, especially early game. I was also thinking of perhaps running mpen quints? Or would that simply be too much mpen to be useful?

On January 12 2012 03:12 Shiv. wrote:

MPen would probably not be too good. You have 28 MPen with your reds+Shoes, which is basically true damage to the enemy mid laner a majority of the time. If the enemy team starts stacking MR, you want a Void Staff anyhow which kind of makes the MPen quints obsolete. I don't like AD Quints because, well, I don't like AD Kat and I have no problems last hitting. I don't like AP quints because I don't need the early AP and 15 AP is nothing late game. I like MS because they are consistently strong throughout the whole game, from positioning, dodging skill shots and always staying as far away as possible from an enemy in lane to cleaning up mid game team fights to running away from nasty bruisers late game. Also, I like them because they let me catch people I want to Shunpo. It's a matter of preference, though. To new Kat players, I'd honestly suggest running flat HP because of her insanely weak early laning.

On January 11 2012 23:48 Shiv. wrote:
CDR on Kat is useless due to her passive.

On March 08 2012 04:32 BlasiuS wrote:
Kat is one of the free champions this week, so I tried her out.

I'm pretty noob (only level 12 on my first and only account), but I'm learning quick and Kat seems like a pretty easy champion to play, since she doesn't require any mana/energy management.

Based on what I've read in this thread and in other forums, AP Kat is the way to go, based on Shunpo's insane damage, utility, and short cooldown. Since the only thing limiting her abilities is CDR, I figured I'd try to make a build to max out CDR. But then in this thread I read this:

And now I'm confused Even though the passive resets everything (except Ultimate), it only procs when a champion dies; unless you're constantly killing champions all game, isn't it important to try and max CDR so you can use knives/shunpo/ult as often as possible? I would think this would be especially important in the early levels when Kat is supposedly at her weakest.

It also seems very useful late game to be able to shunpo every 3.6 seconds (lvl 5 Shunpo with 40% CDR).

On March 08 2012 04:39 Juicyfruit wrote:
What exactly would you build to get her CDR?

On March 08 2012 05:17 BlasiuS wrote:
I was thinking:

-CDR per level glyphs(8.1% at level 18)
-4 points in Sorcery mastery (4%)
-Ionian Boots of Lucidity (15%)
-Blue Elixir (10%)
-2 CDR quints (1.64% each, for a total of 3.28%)

total is 40.38%, however without the elixir (which would be most of the game) it's only 30.38%. After looking over the possible CDR items, the only thing I could see possibly being worthwhile as a substitute for the elixir would be Kindlegem early-> Hextech Sweeper later on. I've read enough guides to notice that Sweeper is never used by anyone, but: Sweeper is fairly cheap, gives AP, health, and CDR (all useful to Kat), its passive makes it easier to chase down people escaping in the jungle, and its active lets you clear out jungle wards(BONUS: very good against stealth-reliant characters like Twitch/Shaco). Getting the kindlegem after Gunblade would give you ~35% CDR, and once you reach level 18 you'd have the full 40% CDR.

Cons: requires 2 CDR quints, you give up Sorc Boots, and kindlegem delays what would normally be your next big item after Gunblade.

Not sure which is better. This is mostly theorycrafting, since I haven't played with her enough, but I'm looking to create a decent build with her.

On March 09 2012 00:41 Ghost-z wrote:
This is by far the greatest way to build Katarina and the guide is expertly written. She's been my main champion for most of my plays and even though I'm only level 26 I tear apart level 30s consistantly with her following this build guide.

http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/ilke994-feat-tiensinoa-a-2200-elo-katarina-179925

On March 09 2012 03:09 Juicyfruit wrote:
I don't really see the appeal of AP quints over AD quints on Katarina. You're trading 12 damage on shumpo for 7 less autoattack damage, and the latter is way more useful.

On March 09 2012 03:35 Shiv. wrote:

MS Quints are probably superior to both.

On March 09 2012 00:41 Ghost-z wrote:
This is by far the greatest way to build Katarina and the guide is expertly written. She's been my main champion for most of my plays and even though I'm only level 26 I tear apart level 30s consistantly with her following this build guide.

http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/ilke994-feat-tiensinoa-a-2200-elo-katarina-179925

On March 09 2012 06:03 BlasiuS wrote:
Ok I have been convinced that maxing CDR on kat isn't good

I have a question about her ult: Can you use Hextech Gunblade's ability while in the middle of using her ult?

On March 09 2012 06:44 barbsq wrote:


not getting rylais on kat is simply wrong imo.

On March 09 2012 13:36 MindBreaker wrote:
Am I the only person that goes AD Kat?

On March 09 2012 18:11 Shiv. wrote:

Scarra and anyone I've ever seen playing her successfully at a high level would like a word with you. Basic reasoning: you spend 3k gold on 80 AP and then wonder why your assassin isn't assassinating anyone. I've linked the reddit champion of the day discussion about her, where scarra explains a lot of things in depth.


Nah, wei2coolman does it, lol.
So yeah, pretty much. AD Kat is too squishy to stick to a target, you waste a precious 0.7 AP ratio on your Shunpo. Multiple times in a teamfight, that is.

On March 12 2012 09:11 wei2coolman wrote:
Both AD and AP are good. My feeling is AD scales better into midgame, AP does better in lategame.

On March 12 2012 10:01 Frolossus wrote:

AD costs too much and doesn't scale with E so it is the inferior choice

On March 12 2012 10:19 wei2coolman wrote:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=167141&currentpage=5#83

Read before commenting.

On March 12 2012 10:45 Frolossus wrote:

"if BT is at fulls stacks"
when does this ever happen on a melee champion?
the problem with that math is that he assumes that AD and AP are equal per gold which they obviously aren't AP is far cheaper per point than AD
death cap also makes all of your AP scale better into the game where for AD you have to waste gold on void staff/will or whatever to get stats you need

scarra also said that the reason to rush gunblade is for the most efficient damage output, bloodthirsters are not efficient

On March 12 2012 10:45 Frolossus wrote:

"if BT is at fulls stacks"
when does this ever happen on a melee champion?
the problem with that math is that he assumes that AD and AP are equal per gold which they obviously aren't AP is far cheaper per point than AD
death cap also makes all of your AP scale better into the game where for AD you have to waste gold on void staff/will or whatever to get stats you need

scarra also said that the reason to rush gunblade is for the most efficient damage output, bloodthirsters are not efficient

On March 12 2012 17:08 sylverfyre wrote:

You're still using every single stat on the void staff regardless of whether you choose AD or AP. You just aren't getting +30% AP on your voidstaff from the deathcap.

E effectively benefits from AD, because kat will auto her target pretty much instantly after shunpo, right? So you auto at LEAST once.
By the way, it looks like you ignored the math for 50% stacks BT, which really isn't all that bad, and isn't "never going to happen" like you claim fullstack BT will.

There's kindof a lot of intangibles with the AD style that don't math out well. The ability to pop a wave with Q (so you can roam, etc) is one, the loss of the slow on Gunblade is another, the better siege-poking with Q (more than just your primary target get greatly increased damage with WQ)


Why is CDR so hated on katarina? If you could have 40% CDR from items that dont feel gross on her, your ult comes off CD instantly after 2 kills or assists, opening the potential for essentially back-to-back ulting. I could see DFG working ok on her. Sure, you "waste" the mana regen, but does anyone [besides veigar] who builds DFG REALLY give a shit about that mana regen anyway? Nobody puts value on that, the value on DFG is in the nuke, the CDR, and the reasonable amount of AP. And DFG could help kat burst her way to that oh-so-important FIRST KILL of a teamfight so she can make use of her passive. If only her passive lowered the DFG cooldown...

On March 12 2012 17:19 wei2coolman wrote:


On the voidstaff issue, it has to do with peak power curves. There's no doubt AP is stronger late game compared to AD kat, but AD kat hits certain power points that AP kat can't.

On March 12 2012 16:31 wei2coolman wrote:


Did you not read the gold costs of my math?

AD with equivalent gold costs into mid games does more damage than AP.

EDIT: with the 900 extra = another BT, vs 1 more blasting wand

On March 09 2012 13:36 MindBreaker wrote:
Am I the only person that goes AD Kat?

On April 02 2012 14:35 Cloud wrote:
Does kat ult do damage while zhonyas is active?

On April 02 2012 15:29 Cixah wrote:
Kat's ult will stop once you hit the ZHG. I don't think rylai's is a must have, but I do think the Giant's belt is. The issue is that there really isn't much else to build it into unless you want to get a Warmogs which is even more expensive. Gunblade is a better slow mostly because as an assassin you can actually kill people that try to run from you, but for actually wanting to team fight (idk why you are kat) you'd want the Rylai's.

On March 09 2012 18:11 Shiv. wrote:

Scarra and anyone I've ever seen playing her successfully at a high level would like a word with you. Basic reasoning: you spend 3k gold on 80 AP and then wonder why your assassin isn't assassinating anyone. I've linked the reddit champion of the day discussion about her, where scarra explains a lot of things in depth.


Nah, wei2coolman does it, lol.
So yeah, pretty much. AD Kat is too squishy to stick to a target, you waste a precious 0.7 AP ratio on your Shunpo. Multiple times in a teamfight, that is.

On April 02 2012 23:18 jaybrundage wrote:

Can you link it again i cant seem to find it. I actually started playing kat because of watching scarra i would be very interested to see what he has to say

On April 06 2012 09:31 susySquark wrote:
According to this post by Riot, they are looking to tweak Katarina soon (TM). What do you think needs adjusted to make her more viable, without completely making her OP?

On April 06 2012 09:31 susySquark wrote:
According to this post by Riot, they are looking to tweak Katarina soon (TM). What do you think needs adjusted to make her more viable, without completely making her OP?

On April 12 2012 16:47 bovineblitz wrote:
I don't think Kat has a problem, her ult is good enough that the disadvantage of stuns/silences disabling it is fine. She's not a pure "ult and win" champ anyways, you shouldn't rely on the ult when you play her.

I honestly think she's a great laner as well, there's only a couple champs that can consistently beat her out in my experience (like Cassiopia).

On April 16 2012 21:42 Sufficiency wrote:
I find Kat really, really hard to play, because I have absolutely no idea how to lane with her... it's kind of like trying to lane with Evelynn, except I don't have mana... but my kit also does less damage.

The thing about Rylai's is probably right. I should try it out.

On April 16 2012 21:46 wei2coolman wrote:

laning with kat is pretty much based on who the enemy is. but general rule of thumb is to max q first, and use that as your main last hitting ability.

On April 12 2012 16:47 bovineblitz wrote:
I don't think Kat has a problem, her ult is good enough that the disadvantage of stuns/silences disabling it is fine. She's not a pure "ult and win" champ anyways, you shouldn't rely on the ult when you play her.

I honestly think she's a great laner as well, there's only a couple champs that can consistently beat her out in my experience (like Cassiopia).

On April 16 2012 21:58 GhostOwl wrote:


If Kat doesn't rely on her Ult, what skill can she rely on? Her shunpo is pretty good damage but it's only 1 skill. Her Q falls off in damage compared to her shunpo.

On April 17 2012 04:46 wei2coolman wrote:

Her Q only falls off in damage if you build AP. Ergo my teh epic AD build. Not to mention it pretty much prevents the entire enemy team from healing, in combo w/ her W.

Scarra on Twitter:
http://na.leagueoflegends.com/news/champion-relaunch-katarina-sinister-blade … Kat buffs. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH SO LUCKY THIS ISNT AVAILABLE AT MLG/REGIONALS

Scarra on Twitter:
I HAVE TO BUY NEW PANTS

On August 10 2012 14:28 Frolossus wrote:
Q sucks no because no AD scaling for gunblade
W feels like its trying to fix her problems in all the wrong ways and will feel very clunky in conjunction with the rest of her spells
nothing should provide incentive for a kat to shunpo aggressively in lane or you can expect to die
they already have nerfed her ult base once or twice i don't see why it should be nerfed again for a shitty W spell to exist

so lets see, they moved damage from her E to her W but nerfed her ult and Q hard to compensate and then call these buffs

On August 11 2012 01:27 Curu wrote:


Her lane is rape now. Q them, Shunpo -> W and walk away with super MS.

On August 11 2012 06:22 Frolossus wrote:
so i've been playing her on pbe and the only questions in my mind are currently, why is healing debuff not on Q still and where did the rest of my burst damage go? it seriously feels like she lost a good 1/3 of her burst for this W which is just another spammy spinny anyways

basically her shunpo is too weak right now to get any of the kills she needs to do any more damage in a team fight to begin with

On August 11 2012 08:03 Sufficiency wrote:
I am interested about the new Kat.

It seems to me that her main spell will still be her Q, but her Q no longer has AD ratio. So I think the optimal way to play the new kat is to build revolver (or perhaps wota) and go straight into death cap.

On August 11 2012 08:03 Sufficiency wrote:
I am interested about the new Kat.

It seems to me that her main spell will still be her Q, but her Q no longer has AD ratio. So I think the optimal way to play the new kat is to build revolver (or perhaps wota) and go straight into death cap.

On August 11 2012 10:05 CatharsisUT wrote:


Which is kind of disappointing, because Gunblade's active had such good synergy with her ult. Maybe people start moving back to Rylais? Going to have to mess around with it.

On August 11 2012 11:00 Sufficiency wrote:


I think with her ultimate nerf, and the speed boost from her W, CC might not be important on her anymore.

On August 11 2012 11:17 Frolossus wrote:

its a 1 sec ms boost on a 4s cooldown
not really that huge man

On August 13 2012 01:51 phyvo wrote:
Is it just me or does anyone else want to build SFC on new Kat?

I mean new W is basically SFC aura, and SFC stacking is overpowered, right?

On August 13 2012 02:51 Sufficiency wrote:


SFC?

On August 15 2012 14:49 MusicalPulse wrote:
Upset about this rework

Been talking about my friend about this for the past hour, and he has concluded that basically Kat is more of a tanky dps (due to W) instead of a burst assassin like she is now (which is what I loved about her). E damage is cut by 1/3, ratio is down to 0.5 from 0.75. Q no longer scales from gunblade, but is now 0.5 from ap. W is also 0.5. Total scaling is higher, but only at level 18. All of this makes her so that she does more continuous damage, but less burst damage. You basically go in, ult which does most of the damage now, and spam W and hope you can proc some marks. And you'll die faster too because its 20% damage reduction instead of 35% reduction (this is big).

Why Riot :'(

On August 15 2012 16:44 Seuss wrote:


You'll take more damage initially, but the key is that every single Shunpo results in damage reduction, rather than just the first. If you can cap CDR you'll reach 3.6s Shunpos, which is 83% uptime on the 20% reduction. So the 35% reduction is only better when you're tanking an initial wave of burst.

It's capping CDR that's the hard part.

On August 16 2012 00:16 Zato-1 wrote:

Not so sure about CDR on Kat though; before the remake, Kat played cleanup in teamfights, and due to her passive, her skills refreshed on kill or assist, regardless of how much CDR you had on her, so CDR was a shit stat on her. After the remake, I can't be sure just yet but I still think CDR should mostly be avoided... the bigger question for me is whether hybrid items (Gunblade) are still worthwhile now that 2/4 abilities scale only with AP, or if you should go for stuff like Deathcap -> Rylai's instead to get your slow effect. Also, if you want to go AP Kat, what to build early game? Doran's Rings waste a lot of budget on mana5, buying Dblades (like AP kennen does sometimes) gives you AD at a time when only one of your skills has an AD ratio, and if you're rushing deathcap then saving up 1600g so early in the game seems daunting... maybe you should go for Revolver anyway, but with the intent to build it into a WotA instead of a Gunblade.

On August 16 2012 00:16 Zato-1 wrote:

Not so sure about CDR on Kat though; before the remake, Kat played cleanup in teamfights, and due to her passive, her skills refreshed on kill or assist, regardless of how much CDR you had on her, so CDR was a shit stat on her. After the remake, I can't be sure just yet but I still think CDR should mostly be avoided... the bigger question for me is whether hybrid items (Gunblade) are still worthwhile now that 2/4 abilities scale only with AP, or if you should go for stuff like Deathcap -> Rylai's instead to get your slow effect. Also, if you want to go AP Kat, what to build early game? Doran's Rings waste a lot of budget on mana5, buying Dblades (like AP kennen does sometimes) gives you AD at a time when only one of your skills has an AD ratio, and if you're rushing deathcap then saving up 1600g so early in the game seems daunting... maybe you should go for Revolver anyway, but with the intent to build it into a WotA instead of a Gunblade.

On August 16 2012 04:29 Sufficiency wrote:
Also I think there is no longer any point in getting even hextech revolver. Might as well go for straight AP....

On August 16 2012 06:08 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
million dollar question, what does she look like? im at work D:

i would imagine sandstorm looks pretty well the same cuz it wasn't hair in the first place

On August 16 2012 06:08 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:
million dollar question, what does she look like? im at work D:

i would imagine sandstorm looks pretty well the same cuz it wasn't hair in the first place

On August 16 2012 07:14 Zato-1 wrote:

Actually, I liked the old Sandstorm Kat better

The way she moves her feet while walking towards the left or right of your screen is really cool now, the animation gives the impression of her running very light. On the other hand, the way she holds both her daggers off to one side as she runs definitely looks less graceful than her previous animation.

On August 16 2012 04:46 MusicalPulse wrote:
Would lich bane be any good? Goes with the mark.

On August 16 2012 07:26 Frolossus wrote:
really have no idea how you are supposed to carry with her right now cause her early game is so god damn terrible right now

edit: actually the way i'm viewing her redesign right now is that previously her kit was more tailored to the concept of dropping 1 person at a time. her new kit seems to be more AoE focused with all her damage being supposedly shifted into her W. the problem with this is that now its either kill everything or kill nothing and doesn't allow you to kind of hop in and chain a few kills with shunpo or something.

it very much feels like her new W goes completely against her passive and made her even more of a hit or miss character than she was before the rework

On August 16 2012 04:46 MusicalPulse wrote:
Would lich bane be any good? Goes with the mark.

On August 16 2012 14:32 Zato-1 wrote:

It's actually just the opposite.

Let me quote a recent post of mine on this thread:

+ Show Spoiler +

BB's direct damage remains more or less the same, Shunpo lost about a third of its damage, but you can recover that chunk of damage now by detonating BB's mark; taken together, BB + Shunpo deal about as much total damage post-rework as they did before it. Add Sinister Steel into the mix and and Kat's basic ability combo hits a LOT harder post-rework than it used to.

Then there's Death Lotus, which saw a 25-35% damage nerf and that's huge. As per my example in spoiler text, a full duration Death Lotus at level 18 with 400 AP used to do 204*10 = 2040 damage, now it would do 130*10 = 1300 damage, which means you're 740 damage behind. With that much AP, Sinister Steel can make up 340 damage or about half of the difference, but you still end up 400 damage short.

To recap: A full spell combo (assuming you channeled DL to its full duration) will now deal noticeably less damage. On the other hand, a spell combo of her basic abilities will be significantly stronger; this is what you get when you have DL on cooldown or if it's interrupted immediately. Her reliable damage (basic abilities) went up, while her maximum potential damage (if you hit a full duration DL) went down; that's the opposite of making Kat more hit or miss.

As a side note: BB cast animation seems a lot faster now and due to the mark it leaves, the order for using her abilities should probably now be Q -> E -> W -> R or maybe E -> Q -> W -> R, as opposed to the old W -> E -> R -> Q as the target's just getting out of DL range (with a gunblade clicky in between E and R).

Has anyone tried jungle Kat yet? WQWE makes for some pretty decent clear times, but I haven't tried it in any real games so far.


Note that you don't need to autoattack to detonate BB's mark, ability damage from W, E or R will also do it, so it's different from lich bane in that regard.

On August 16 2012 01:48 Sufficiency wrote:
I feel that the new Kat has problems in the laning phase. She can't poke effectively anymore with her Q, and going all-in with her E is OK, but she can rarely win the trades.

On August 16 2012 14:46 Shiv. wrote:

Poking with Q has always been a lottery, and you couldn't win trades with old Kat either, unless you consider waiting for TF to randomly use PaC on creeps, then ERQ him to be a trade. The issue with the new Kat is that because of how much damage you miss out on a full rotation, it will be hard to ever force a situation where you can kill the enemy laner unless they fuck up really badly. That being said, pushing out the wave and roaming is now more of an option than ever before, so maybe Kat players need to start roaming even more now.

On August 16 2012 15:23 Sufficiency wrote:


The old Kat can at least randomly bounce her Q onto the opposing laner, wear him down, then go in for the kill.

The new Kat can't really do that. The new Kat can, however, E in and trade with Q + W. But I find her trade underwhelming.

On August 16 2012 14:32 Zato-1 wrote:

It's actually just the opposite.

Let me quote a recent post of mine on this thread:

+ Show Spoiler +

BB's direct damage remains more or less the same, Shunpo lost about a third of its damage, but you can recover that chunk of damage now by detonating BB's mark; taken together, BB + Shunpo deal about as much total damage post-rework as they did before it. Add Sinister Steel into the mix and and Kat's basic ability combo hits a LOT harder post-rework than it used to.

Then there's Death Lotus, which saw a 25-35% damage nerf and that's huge. As per my example in spoiler text, a full duration Death Lotus at level 18 with 400 AP used to do 204*10 = 2040 damage, now it would do 130*10 = 1300 damage, which means you're 740 damage behind. With that much AP, Sinister Steel can make up 340 damage or about half of the difference, but you still end up 400 damage short.

To recap: A full spell combo (assuming you channeled DL to its full duration) will now deal noticeably less damage. On the other hand, a spell combo of her basic abilities will be significantly stronger; this is what you get when you have DL on cooldown or if it's interrupted immediately. Her reliable damage (basic abilities) went up, while her maximum potential damage (if you hit a full duration DL) went down; that's the opposite of making Kat more hit or miss.

As a side note: BB cast animation seems a lot faster now and due to the mark it leaves, the order for using her abilities should probably now be Q -> E -> W -> R or maybe E -> Q -> W -> R, as opposed to the old W -> E -> R -> Q as the target's just getting out of DL range (with a gunblade clicky in between E and R).

Has anyone tried jungle Kat yet? WQWE makes for some pretty decent clear times, but I haven't tried it in any real games so far.


Note that you don't need to autoattack to detonate BB's mark, ability damage from W, E or R will also do it, so it's different from lich bane in that regard.

On August 16 2012 18:52 Frolossus wrote:

she has less burst which makes it harder to secure kills and get resets which makes her even more snowbally then before right?