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Riot, you need to reconsider the Katarina changes on PBE.

1st HanarSpectre·3/23/2015, 7:00:32 PM·7 votes·1,795 views

Riot, you need to reconsider the current nerfs on the PBE for Katarina Katarina. Let's preface this post by saying that yes, I am obviously a Kat player. She is the first champion that I saved my hard earned IP to buy, way back when the best build for her was sorcerer's shoes & five bloodthirsters due to bouncing blade only scaling from AD. I have seen her called useless through many patches, OP through many more, and have stuck by her for most of my summoning career, even if I strayed from her every now and then, she was always one of my comfort champ that I always enjoyed playing, and while it's unlikely that it will make me drop her, I still feel that these nerfs are too harsh for our favorite red head.

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

-Firstly, at 510 HP, Katarina will be the lowest health melee unit in the game. The closest melee is at 517 (Yasuo Yasuo, who has a shield passive) and then it goes to Sion Sion at 542 (who has his shield that allows him to farm up health). Not only will she have the lowest amount of health as far as melee goes, Only 15 champions in the game will start the game with less HP; Anivia Anivia, with her egg passive. Heimerdinger Heimerdinger, with his passive regen and zone control. Lux Lux, with her shield and long range abilities. Zyra Zyra, with her long range zone control. Sona Sona, a healing support. Ezreal Ezreal, long range ad carry. Janna Janna, support with shield + CC. Nami Nami, Healing support with CC. Veigar Veigar, who used to have crazy burst and an instant stun, currently suffering from the nerf kneecap drill Vayne Vayne, ad carry with crazy scaling. Zilean Zilean, this one is a bit surprising, yes he has his ult, but with no heal or shield, I feel he should get more HP. Cassiopeia Cassiopeia, massive lane bully with healing on mana restoring twin fang. Lissandra Lissandra, massive cc and damage. Brand Brand, used to have humongous aoe burst, nerfed but still has good aoe damage and safe farming. Velkoz Vel'koz, long range poke.

All ranged. Every single other unit in the game starts with more HP than Katarina if this changes go through. Now that's not all. The vast majority of those units will actually start Doran ring, which gives them an additional 60 health. The only doran item with 0 wasted stats for Katarina is the shield, but this leaves her with only 1 potion to go to lane, and due to Katarina's extreme vulnerability to harass, she simply cannot go to lane against most matchup with only a shield & potion as you have to trade health for CS in Kat's early game.

-The Hp growth is meaningless, it takes her until level 17 to offset the massive nerf to base health. Katarina is not a late game champion in the first place, while she can do well, her win rate % drastically lowers as time passes by (http://champion.gg/champion/Katarina/). Yes, it's true that she currently has a fantastic mid game, that's her only time to shine. She cannot split push like Zed, she can not siege, she cannot poke and she is neutral as far as objective control goes. Nerfing the early game this badly will make it very hard for an item starved assassin to get the damage she needs to kill her targets

-The regen is a suckerpunch considering she already lost a lot of early health. At her new value of 4.5 HP/5 Katarina will be one of the lowest regenerating unit in the game, Only 5 champion will have less HP/5 than her, Gnar Mini-Gnar, who gains health on transformation. Soraka Soraka, who can restore some health by hitting starfall. Riven Riven, shield ability, and benefit from lifesteal. Mordekaiser Mordekaiser, shield passive. Rengar Rengar, with healing on his empowered roar, and benefits from lifesteal.

All combined, these are very serious nerfs to Kat's early game, she already has to trade health for CS against most of her matchup, and still fall behind because her only ranged ability, bouncing blades, is not a reliable farming tool and will push the wave in her enemy's favor everytime, further denying her CS. Katarina's only source of health is potions and her base regen as spellvamp is useless on her, since only her shunpo isn't cut down to 33% effectiveness. Having on of the lowest health AND health regen, is just too much of an indrance for a melee champion, very susceptible to harass and with poor farming skills and wave clear until she already has 2+ items.

This is not all though. With the introduction of cinderhulk and recent jungle change, tank junglers have risen greatly in popularity, With Sejuani and Amumu surpassing Katarina's pickrate AND winrate. These are the two biggest rising stars at the moment, but not the only ones, Volibear now sits at 53% winrate and a 8% pick rate (to kat's 12%). This change, is in itself another nerf to Kat. All of those champions are units that she cannot burst, that can crowd control her and interrupt her ult, and can also prevent her from killing their teammates. You need to put the current PBE nerfs on hold Riot, until you assess how hard she is already getting hit by the return of the champions that counters her the most.

36 Comments

mvargus3/23/2015, 7:19:42 PM4 votes

Sadly I have only one response.

HIT HER HARDER WITH THE NERF BAT!!!!

I absolutely despise Katarina in her current state and the idea that she'll become ultra squishy early game is something I want to cheer. She's not a balanced champion and perhaps this will force the kind of changes that will make her fun to play against. Right now she just takes 1-2 kills and she will start snowballing. These nerfs will allow teams to mug her multiple times early and delay her from snowballing long enough for everyone to get some kind of defense against her burst.

Personally I'd love to see the other mid-game snowballs see similar changes to make them much less oppressive and omnipresent.

VOlCE3/23/2015, 7:48:10 PM4 votes

I don't believe Kat needs a nerf or buff of any kind where she currently stands. She is pretty difficult to work with early game, relying heavily on skill and placement rather than op burst or sustain to farm and stay alive in lane. Yes, yes, we all know she has crazy as hell damage potential and everyone on here who doesn't play Kat is always like RITO PLEASE NERF - but that damage is what makes her... well, Kat. It makes up for her inability do accomplish really anything else for the team. That damage is the only thing going for her, as she has no form of waveclear/sustain/shields/buffs/cc/gods, really anything else whatsoever. I mean, other mid/late-game assassins have some form of sustaining themselves in combat. Akali has 2 slows, Zed/Talon benefit from lifesteal (don't even get me started on birdbutt's silence either), both Yi and Fiora can become untargetable (hell, Yi even has his annoying electric toothbrush heal), Diana has both a shield AND cc AND can be built as a bruiser without giving up combat potential... People flipping their lids because of Katarina's damage and e should shaddap (said with all love) and focus her down, as she already has NO MEANS OF DEFENDING HERSELF. Health nerf? I mean really, cc her once and she's most likely going to die already, she doesn't boast of much resistance. Hint hint most mid laners have a form of cc hint hint. More hint hint most tanks do as well and should make Kat their priority in a teamfight. She already is a huge target in any position on the map, and half of her appearances in teamfights result in a 2 second death of her anyways (most Kats shunpo in for postioning, relying on scoring at least one kill/assist to escape afterwards - stun/cc/just get away from her and she can't gtfo). I don't see how this health reduction and regeneration decrease will help balance her in any manner. She's already squish, and as harped on before has no means preventing a beating in progress. What more advantages do you want the enemy to have over her?

I apologize for the rant, but as a mid laner I have never had a problem against a Katarina. Am I terrified as all hell to be matched against an avid Kat player? Frickin' every time, but I believe heavily in learning the importance of counter-play instead of whining for a nerf on champions you don't like to be matched against. (My moonmoon has taken too many hits; I can only imagine the Kat mains discovering yet ANOTHER unneeded nerf on their baby).

Zero Suit Senpai3/23/2015, 7:09:44 PM2 votes

She'll still poop on lower level play and be largely ignored in competitive, as she is currently. Her strength is that she can make the most out of one person being out of position in a team fight, which inevitably happens in disorganized low level play.

In organized competitive play she is pretty much unpicked. In lower level play, she'll still be picked for the same reason. This will just make her laning phase harder than it already is (which is unfortunate), but I think riot sees it as a necessary buffer for her inevitable snowball off of the first teamfight.

SpongebobIsLife3/23/2015, 7:23:51 PM2 votes

I completely agree. I don't like the way riot has been approaching Katarina recently, and this is definitely not the way to go about it. Why make her horrible early game even weaker? So she can't snowball? So that she'll be absolutely useless? What happened the last time Riot nerfed the base hp of a popular melee mid laner (Yasuo )? His win rate completely plummeted and they ended up buffing him, because believe it or not a 50 hp nerf is a lot early on. Little tweaks to katarina's kit aren't going to solve the problems she has. If you want to fix her, you are going to have to completely rework her.

Darth Valer3/23/2015, 7:25:28 PM2 votes

Katarina has huge pickrates and winrates even in Diamond/Master/Challenger. She can probably be kept at bay by an organized team, but in soloQueue she's still the unfair carry everyone hates. I think she can profit too much from too little mistakes gaining levels of power unavailable to most, more honest, champions. Thus I gladly join the angry mob which wishes to see the redhead witch burnt at the stake. May her reign of terror shy away from our good land.

M Schumacher3/23/2015, 7:26:37 PM2 votes

just delete her instead

skill-less champ

Phife3/23/2015, 7:02:35 PM2 votes

relax, those nerfs wont do anything to her.

killd0zer3/23/2015, 7:06:33 PM2 votes

Good, she should be squishy as hell.

She has a instant blinkstrike, and no fucking resources.

HeraldOne3/23/2015, 7:54:12 PM2 votes

[deleted]

Poptart Evelynn3/23/2015, 8:03:17 PM2 votes

These changes are in the wrong direction I agree.

It's a bad nerf because it's the reaction to "I can't zone her out of lane and she will become huge". It's a feeling you get vs Kat when you can't shut her down or bully her out of lane. So they are nerfing that but in reality you shouldn't feel that way towards any champion. You shouldn't be like "Well I didn't win the first 8 minutes so gg wp." That's just wrong and shows she has issue elsewhere in her kit.

But hey, they can nerf her this way if they want but it wont do a damn thing to fix her real core issues.

Leaf of the lake3/23/2015, 8:10:49 PM2 votes

These nerfs target her in a place that she'll still feel like katarina when all things are said and done. Do you want them to gut her damage output so she can't kill things anymore? They're accentuating her bad early game, to make it easier to shut her down before she becomes unstoppable. This means that yes, you're going to struggle more early on, but by mid-late game, if you play well, you should be just as strong as before, just a little bit easier to kill. I assure you that the hp not breaking even until lv17 is intentional; they want her to be easier to kill, and to receive less natural tankiness from snowballing.

Sooko3/23/2015, 7:34:29 PM2 votes

Riot doesn't want to touch her kit, so they nerf her base stats instead even though those are not the problem.

This has happened to Yasuo, even though his ban rate was definitely not due to his HP being too high.

Its strange but it repeats itself.

Gearne3/23/2015, 7:27:20 PM1 votes

I would argue that katarina can cs from a distance with her q very safely, and can disengage easily with (ward e). The health changes were warranted in that regard because she has the POTENTIAL to play very very safe. However, the meta is evolving with tankier junglers and long ranged ap mids to the point where katarina is already falling off, so perhaps the changes were slightly overzealous. Btw Katarina not strong in the late game? Seirously?

Darth Pixy Misa3/23/2015, 9:36:23 PM1 votes

A real kat balance, would be to give her a energy resource. Give her 350 energy, and make all her skills cost 50. Then make her passive reduce all CDs by 20, on champ kill, and give her 10 energy per unit killed, and 50 per champ kill.

The5lacker3/23/2015, 7:03:07 PM1 votes

How would you feel about this as a Kat nerf:

Shunpo Damage Reduction removed Range reduced to 600 from 700

This would reduce her threat radius and little bits of hidden power without turning her into tissue paper early game, and grant people more opportunity to play around her rather than just hope they can nuke her from range. Thoughts?