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Katarina Rework

Nahui·11/10/2016, 4:53:44 PM·5 votes·1,129 views

So I'm a little confused about her rework. I was, in no way, a Katarina player pre-rework, but we can all agree her direct kit was straightforward. The damage was defined and easy to deal. Now, her damage simply confuses me. In pbe videos from many streamers, they throw Q's, the enemy always sat on the dagger, they E to it and decent damage. Sure.

In reality, people don't bullshit like they do on PBE for shits and giggles and don't try and take free damage. They simply move away from the dagger landing on the ground. I'm struggling to figure out how to deal damage now. Her only damaging factors in her kit are Q, E, Ult, and passive with the daggers. Q has a terrible AP ratio and low base damage. E does alright single target damage, but is usually used to jump on daggers. Ult has a good sized CD and is a channel, and her passive deals great damage. But to use her passive I've found is nearly impossible. W's dagger takes too long to fall, Q's does as well. Between the Q animation and it flying into the air, all the enemy has to do is not be enar the dropped dagger and your damage has ended.

I like that she's not easy. Trust me. But even on a difficulty spectrum, I don't see any sort of reliable decent damage. She's so heavily telegraphed and I feel like her kit has heavy downtime. Once Q and W are used, all you can really do is auto for a little while unless you have your ult/appropriate to ult. And even using Q, it just requires so much repositioning, past just Eing on the fallen dagger. You need your enemy in proc range or else it was a useless action.

I understand her theme. She's meant to be this agile blademaster flipping around targets and striking from all sides. I can see her W and Q exploring this fantasy by being able to place daggers on either side of someone and pull some cool E-passive plays that sounds like lots of steel going off. It looks cool, I'm sure the damage is fine too, but that's like a stars align play, if you know what I mean. It's very hard to actually use the fallen daggers for damage.

8 Comments

Yooba11/10/2016, 4:56:41 PM2 votes

My opinion: Katarina is trash tier now and there is no reason to play her over any mage. She is harder to play maybe, but she is slow, boring, and weak now. If I was a Katarina main I would be really, really upset.

Seenan11/10/2016, 6:15:11 PM1 votes

Have you tried Q->E->W->ult? Rylai for bonus points. Theoretically, this'll proc daggers twice, and every ability.

Alphá Strike11/10/2016, 8:16:19 PM1 votes

I agree with everything in this post. Her kit is so situational and telegraphed. I was by no means a Kat main, played her occasionally. But now it's not worth it to play her. She cant even roam effectively anymore and Bjergsen mentioned it on stream as well when he was playing her. Not being able to ward hop anymore makes her a lot less safe when roaming. Katarina has become super hit or miss and unreliable that there is no reason to pick her over other mid laners that can do what you need them to do with a bit more reliability.

Talisid11/10/2016, 9:51:57 PM1 votes

IMO she needs to be able to toss her W dagger out to 450 range and the Q dagger needs to land closer to the target. This would make it much more reliable to set up daggers in locations where they are actually useful.

I feel like the Q bounce is designed to help her chase but any lane opponent can safely out trade you just by moving forward away from the dagger, so there's no real reason for them to run away (towards the dagger) unless you are fed.

With that said I think her teamfight presence is very strong but that's being held back by extremely poor ability to make good trades in lane against any competent opponent.

zaire9011/10/2016, 11:05:58 PM1 votes

i mained the old kat and i just wanted to see if i was the only one who had these same complaints without sounding like i was just complaining and i noticed on the streams i watched for her was that noone wanted to move away from her daggers which helped with the damage but i like the idea they had with the new kat but i feel like the daggers needs to fall faster, the q needs to fall closer to the opponent like directly behind them or something and lastly her abilities need to do more damage. i shouldnt be the same lv as an ezreal and struggle to kill him i kinda feel the same about lb she feels to slow but the burs seems a little weak but barely good enough to make up for the big delay with kat thats not there at all making her weak during laning and roaming