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The real problems with Katarina

BuPhDwhuln·3/16/2015, 9:40:49 PM·113 votes·8,335 views

I will be upfront about this : I dislike Katarina. I dislike playing against her, I dislike playing as her and -- if she wasn't rather absurd in many cases -- I would dislike even having her on my team.

Katarina has seen a rather high increase in popularity of late (at least for my games) and while it has caused me quite some irritation, it has also given me the rare opportunity for insight, given me the chance to ask the ultimate question : "why do I dislike Katarina so much?". It hasn't been the shortest road -- I've analyzed her kit, her numbers, her identity, just about everything I could think of -- but I ended up considerably wiser in regards to her, even if somewhat against my will by having her in so many games.

Taking a look at Katarina's numbers, you'll notice that they're actually fairly low in everything except her ult.

Q : 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+60%) W : 40 / 75 / 110 / 145 / 180 (+25%) E : 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+40%) R : 350 / 550 / 750 (+250%)

These bases are actually considerably low in comparison to other mages and the ratios aren't super amazing. Her ultimate is basically where all of her damage is loaded on paper, and that's incredibly inconsistent because she's easily interrupted during it.

However... the paper doesn't tell the whole story.

Katarina's animations allow her to use her entire kit effectively instantly. In the span it takes for a normal mage to do one of their spells, Katarina can do all three of her basics + the first tick of her ult.

This comes up to 575 (+125%) damage in your face nearly instantly, not even including her ult. All of her basic skills also reset fully with her passive.

Katarina isn't scary because of her ult, she is scary in spite of it : she functions just fine without her ult and it's quite simply the overkill on top or the cleanup button. Even without considering that a good portion of Katarina's damage is going to be completed because of the cast times, reaction times, and often travel times of the CC in question, the CC is only going to stop her ult, not the instant 575 (+125%) single-target damage, which is what really kills people in a majority of cases.

The other problem that not many people may notice is that she has one of the longest range targeted gapclosers in the game : 700 casting range, and there is only one other champion that also does it instantaneously (Talon). 700 casting range means that there is effectively never a time that an ADC -- or even most APCarries -- can deal damage to her without the threat of a near instant 575 (+125%) damage, to say nothing of if she kills another teammate and uses them as a springboard : Katarina extends her zone of threat considerably far without much counterplay beyond "don't be low enough to die" and "don't even try to get close enough to deal damage". All of this while functioning perfectly fine with only one stat (AP) : her passive supplies free CDR, she has no resource to speak of, and her Shunpo assists with her resilience (not that she doesn't build Abyssal / Zhonya's anyway).

I can't imagine how she would function if her animations were overly lengthened. I can't imagine the nightmare it would be to try to lower her damage below what it is even now to be balanced without being worthless. But I can imagine a Katarina with a shorter gapcloser so that she's actually putting herself in noticeable risk to try to do everything instead of extending her zone of threat beyond the enemy's. I'm of a mind that 625 range -- the range on Zed's ult, for ease of visualization -- would be a much better alternative and easier to balance around.

TL;DR -- reducing Shunpo's range would bring her more in line without gutting her terribly.

135 Comments

The5lacker3/17/2015, 1:26:59 AM50 votes

...Holy shit, a Kat nerf I'm actually in support of.

67chrome3/16/2015, 10:13:50 PM11 votes

TL;DR -- reducing Shunpo's range would bring her more in line without gutting her terribly.

I'm not really agreeing with Kat being OP or annoying to play against (having an assassin that actually wants to team fight and ward places is pretty cool when you're a support IMO), but at least you're keeping the nerf realistic and built a solid argument around it.

Most melee champions cast things faster and faster than ranged champs though, the base QWER for all champions (and base AD per level scaling) is almost identical between melee and range, leaving lower cast times as the main divider between melee feeling like they do proportionally more damage than ranged champions.

Lissama3/16/2015, 10:31:34 PM10 votes

Where did you find these numbers? http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Katarina Q : 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+60%) nothing wrong Sinister Steel (W): 40 / 75 / 110 / 145 / 180 (+ 25% AP) Shunpo (E): 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+ 40% AP) Full damage: 575 (+125%)

Kamiroo Wolf3/17/2015, 2:42:16 AM8 votes

It's unfortunate that if you look at the entire front page of gameplay & balance, there isn't a single Rioter reply.

Leti the Yeti3/16/2015, 9:42:20 PM7 votes

I think think gutting gap closers for squishy champs who relies on getting right next you... to be pretty terrible :x

LBX Xenoni3/16/2015, 10:47:31 PM7 votes

I will never tire of the line, "Don't be low enough to die." So much Karthas comes to mind.

Beyond that however, I can see the concern of always having to be on guard around an enemy...

Nameless Voice3/17/2015, 2:33:09 AM7 votes

You've made a good analysis, but I don't see that reducing her range will change the reasons that she's frustrating to play against.

As you said, there are two things about her that are frustrating:

  1. She can unload her entire combo instantly, which isn't such a huge problem until she gets ahead and fed, when it's suddenly a huge amount of burst and;
  2. She can use her reset mechanic to keep repeating that instant burst combo.

The thing is, I have absolutely no problem with Katarina in lane in a 1v1 situation. Her damage during the laning phase is fairly low, and she takes a good bit of skill to play in lane. The thing I don't like when playing against her is the combination of the two points above later in the game, especially if she's managed to get fed.

I don't think you can change the instant nature of her kit without destroying her (apart from the forced cast time on Q before she can Shunpo which someone mentioned earlier, that would be fine.) What you can change is the nature of the resets.

I don't quite like to say this, because I actually love playing Katarina, and it's fun clean up a fight and get a pentakill, but... full-reset mechanics don't provide good counterplay. Now, her using Shunpo to escape after killing someone is a strong part of her identify, and you couldn't take that way, but she would be a lot less frustrating if she didn't also immediately get most of her damage combo again. I'd consider changing her passive to this:

Whenever Katarina kills or assists in killing an enemy champion, the cooldown of Shunpo is reset, and the cooldown of Death Lotus is reduced by 15 seconds.

(I'd get rid of the 3-second limit again, it's no longer necessary.)

She'd still have jumpy reset play, but she'd have to wait a few seconds between bursting each enemy down, which would feel a lot fairer to play against.

The problem here is - this would massively change her playstyle and would also be a fairly large nerf, so she'd probably need some kind of buff somewhere else to compensate, but I can't think of anywhere to add healthy power back into her kit.

BeatzBoyFTW3/17/2015, 11:11:56 AM5 votes

Tbh, Katarina should be the one to receive the Kassadin range nerfs. She's resourceless anyway, it's justified.

kcStranger3/17/2015, 3:07:59 AM5 votes

I'm no expert, but that actually seems like pretty solid analysis. +1

Malix Farwin3/17/2015, 9:07:10 AM4 votes

your nerf suggestions are sound however riot.....

Katarina

Base HP reduced to 510 from 560
HP growth per level increased to 83 from 80
Base HP regen per second reduced to .9 from 1.5748
mjack333/17/2015, 2:42:30 AM4 votes

Katarina is a problem at lower elos because the players suck. She's one of those champions that is really well balanced.... except for the fact that you have to actually know what you are doing and work as a team when playing against her.

OoohCreamy3/17/2015, 1:30:07 AM3 votes

you know i see two things that could bring her down to par, either remove the movement speed of the W or give it a cast time, as of right now she can w>r almost instantly or my fav e>w runnnnnn! gives her less spammy ability in those huge fights, and enough time to cc her ult while not making her utterly useless

LankPants3/16/2015, 10:52:53 PM3 votes

I think another major problem is that she can W->E and the damage from W comes out at her new location without any animation, Kat really doesn't need any method of animation cancelling built into her kit.

Daen3/17/2015, 5:34:27 PM3 votes

Disclaimer: I have been playing a lot of Katarina recently; I'll try to be as unbiased as I can.

To an extent I agree, though Katarina is a very complex champion to look at. She snowballs extraordinarily hard, but if she gets behind it's very difficult to be useful to your team. Arguably she can clean up some kills in a teamfight and become relevant again, but that's very team reliant. She also has zero utility, and is one of the only mid laners with that distinction. All Katarina has is damage, and this is both what makes her unique and what makes her a problem.

Reducing Shunpo's range would hurt her, for sure, but it doesn't address the core issues you brought up in your thread. Even with lower range she would still have the instant 575 (125%) burst combo, and it wouldn't change any of her teamfight capabilities other than initial engagement.

SmokingPuffin3/17/2015, 10:25:24 PM1 votes

Be very careful here. Range nerfs on all-in champs have a gigantic effect. Witness the results of recent Akali nerf, or slightly less recent Diana nerf.

ThinkTG3/17/2015, 5:29:11 PM1 votes

I am down for a Kat nerf, as a Ahri main it would make my life way better