Katarina, the Sinister Blade [A Rework]
Hello again League! Thought I'd hit the boards again with another champion rework that's simple yet elegant. Hopefully it'll inspire creative ways of thinking about Katarina and her potential as a reset assassin. Since this is a quick post of ideas, I'll go over each ability in detail briefly to share with you the thought processes behind their design and/or change. Here goes.
Katarina, the Sinister Blade [A Rework]
**Voracity (Passive): **Katarina’s cooldowns are reduced by (Shunpo's cooldown) seconds each time she scores a kill or assist on a champion she’s damaged within the last two seconds.
-Nothings been changed much here. The main difference is the way her abilities reset. Instead of being reduced a flat amount, her abilities will be reduced by the cooldown of the reworked Shunpo. This means Katarina players will have to make a conscientious choice over whether or not to upgrade her Shunpo, especially during the early phases of the game, since doing so will slightly reduce the effectiveness of her passive compared to her other abilities. The goal of course is to make Shunpo's cooldown relatively the same throughout the game, regardless of Katarina's level or the number of points she's invested into it. At most, the cooldown of Shunpo will by reduced only by half seconds per level.
Bouncing Blades (Q): Katarina throws a blade in a line, dealing damage to the first target it collides with and then bounces up to three more times to nearby targets. The last target struck by the bouncing blade takes an additional 20% damage as true damage, but only if the blade has bounced at least once. Scales with ability power.
-Bouncing blades is now a skillshot, but remains a targeted bouncing ability once it strikes its first target. The change is really good for veteran Katarina players. You'll still be able to pull off lane-minion bounce mechanics 100% of the time if you know Katarina's Q like you know your own hand, and you'll be rewarded for landing the last bounce of your ability on the enemy laner with some minor bonus true damage.
Sinister Steel (W): Katarina spins, throwing three daggers in a triangle formation onto the ground. The daggers deal magic damage and slow enemies hit for one second. Since the daggers arrive at different speeds, enemies can be hit by more than one dagger if circumstances permit. Scales with bonus attack damage, not ability power.
-This ability was completely reworked into a mid-ranged AoE. Katarina can toss three daggers onto the ground in a triangle formation. Think three circles, in a triangle, on the ground. Visually, picture something like the beginning of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzHrjOMfHPY. The daggers fly into the ground to damage and slow enemies hit. The old Sinister Steel had to be finely tuned (in other words, completely useless against a single enemy) because of its huge AoE damage potential with almost no counterplay when combined with Shunpo and Voracity. This skillshot version suits Katarina more, allowing her to throw blades in line with her knife-throwing assassin theme whilst giving opponents a chance to react even when Katarina manages to take advantage of her foes and reset.
Shunpo (E): Katarina blinks to the target location, stealing movement speed from all champions near her arrival location for half a second.
-Shunpo is a free ground targeted blink that steals movement speed from nearby champions when Katarina arrives. This effect will allow Katarina to pounce on her enemies and use them as pedestals while escaping (and laughing). Its damage is completely removed. Using the movement speed steal, Katarina can decide to make a clean escape after a kill or move ahead of her opponents in a fight to position for her reworked ultimate.
Death Lotus (R): Katarina throws blades with unrivaled speed in a 120 degree cone facing a certain direction. Death Lotus targets the two/three/four nearest units within its range and deals massive amounts of magic damage over 2.5 seconds. Enemies that have fast dashes/blinks and/or move extremely quickly can dodge the blades, since the individual daggers are automatically aimed skillshot projectiles. And since it is a channel, it can be interrupted.
-Finally, Katarina's new ultimate is almost a skillshot. Instead of being 360 degrees, it's only 120 degrees and has to be aimed. Once Katarina starts spinning, however, the daggers will do their magic and automatically fly in the right directions right into the faces of Katarina's enemies. Faster champions with Flash or dashes will be able to dodge individual daggers to decrease the total amount of cumulative damage from daggers that they take, but ultimately moving out of Death Lotus's range or cone of effect is still the best option. With Death Lotus requiring more accurate positioning, its range is increased to allow for channeling of the ultimate from afar (and effectively cut off escape paths with proper positioning and timing).
Good night, Cardi