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Riot pls: Can we finally get an answer about Kat?

VaVahik·3/26/2018, 9:43:12 PM·3 votes·2,055 views

Can you share few words on the state ofKatarina Katarina? First Rengar and Leblanc get reverts that shorten their kill times, now you release Irelia that feels like she will become my new main instead of Kat and this makes my heart split in half. I know she is not considered an assassin anymore, but more akin to Fiddlesticks or Kennen (AoE mage that traded all utility/cc for mobility) , but she doesn't snowball games anymore AND at the same time, she is not very consistent in late game.

I will just post something I discussed with BelugaWhale during Thunderdome:

Her win rate dropped to about just 50% right now (And under 50% for any ELO range excluding dia+), while her play rate dropped by at least 2.5 times. Moreover, she doesn't have the early game dominance she once had (Her win rates are only positive between 20 and 28 minutes of game length , suggesting that she is both mediocre in lane and falling off easily.

Rengar and LeBlanc got their reverts and we are jelly. Not that we want old kat back (I don't), but we would love some QoL smoother gameplay. Of course, that pair had it most bad after assassin rework. However, once Kat got nerfed and the extra unneeded damage was stripped off her, her design problems became more apparent.

We don't think damage is the problem, kat had just superfluous damage ever since preseason 8 gave her domination tree that synergizes perfectly and is pretty flexible within, and we can run any of the 4 secondary trees depending on tastes. We knew she had to be nerfed damage-wise , and we love the ability to adapt that new runes give. It's just reliability/smoothness issues that make Kat feels less enjoyable, regardless of her performance (which we ignored so far , because well, she was OP)

Our main problem is dagger falling speed. Since Kat's E Shunpo CD got up, she is more about timing it right in the early game and that's fine, but come lategame, every time you jump on a Tristana/Vayne/Taliyah/Janna etc, you get pushed back and killed before you can even pick the W dagger unless you manage to miraculously predict their skills and Q>E>flash in a direction that makes you fly into your Q dagger.

The change BelugaWhale suggested was to reduce her dagger drop times at levels 6,11 and 16 quite significantly, in exchange demanding to hit two daggers to perform an ult-less kill. She is a Draven of mid lane, and his axes fall distances scale with his MS to account for that. Why can't ours get a similar QoL change?

Suggestion: drop the scaling down to 0.55 / 0.60 / 0.65 / 0.7 AP and 0.85 AD, and lower the drop time from flat 1.25 seconds to 1.25 / 1.10 / 0.95 / 0.8 seconds.

Since majority of supports/adc defensive options work instantly, this shouldn't be a problem and will keep Katarina's fluid feel from her midgame to lategame, where she still keeps dancing to get multiple daggers off , rather than fishing for unaware enemies or rely on her team's CC to even be able to damage anyone. This feels bad for both Kat players and those unlucky souls that step on a dagger once she gets a few items.

Please Make Katarina Great Again! [katarina-love]

25 Comments

Vekkna3/28/2018, 10:41:43 PM2 votes

There are a lot of issues with Kat, imo.

  • She's basically balanced around Gunblade active, which is bullshit
  • Her W is counterintuitive; you have a 1.25 sec MS buff and have to stay in a tiny area for 1.25 second to pick up the dagger.
  • She has too many level-based scaling thresholds on her passive (AP, E cooldown) that are just artificial exp gates to slow her gold snowball.
  • W delay should scale down with W rank or CDR

I also wish that her ult tossed a dagger on the ground when dealing damage to fewer than 3 targets. So 1 target tossed out two daggers, 2 targets tosses out one dagger, and 3 targets tosses out 0 daggers. That's obviously not an "issue," but it would certainly help her grabage dueling with AD melees.

SwiftKitten883/26/2018, 9:46:11 PM2 votes

i would LOVE for Katarina to be reverted.

back then she had ONE shunpo, she screwed it up she died...

now, you are never going to hit her with any form of skillshot...

dank jeff3/27/2018, 1:36:50 AM1 votes

Please Make Katarina Great Again!

im sorry but you sound like trump*[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]*

Kailyou3/27/2018, 3:03:37 PM1 votes

well i loved the old kata. hating new one. i just want the old kata back ...

Der Lindwurm3/27/2018, 4:49:40 PM1 votes

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Katarina gets totally reworked AGAIN (at which point I think they should just give her mana if she's so impossible to balance without it).

Can't help having my hopes up for what that might be like, though I ought to know better by now, as the trend is clearly toward more minigames and more contingencies. But, maybe it'll be something that'll make her less clunky and more of an assassin again.

EminenceVoid3/28/2018, 12:21:31 AM1 votes

how about make it that katarina can catch her W dagger "in the air". like when you E>W on an enemy champ, you have a kinda wait for it to fall which is...weird, let her catch it earlier if shes right under the radius of her dagger at all. That would fix alot of the delay kat players face (which i dont think is a huge issue imo). im just pissed about her early game nerf. She doesnt feel like an assassin anymore. Every other assassin can all in lvl 2 and get a kill and lvl 3 is a definite kill if you set up everything right, but for kat? she doesnt give that threat anymore. In fact she all about poking down so much. The thing with kat was the risk of jumping onto your enemy for a poke cause of ganks or how they counter it. Now you dont even get good damage off and usually end up getting out traded hard. I feel the damage reduction was way to big. Shes lost her assassin fear now.

Avocado S103/31/2018, 11:00:32 PM1 votes

Agreed , But like we dont want the old kat back because the low skill floor , like we want just to scale the speed of her E , the rework was so good . Like kat became more difficult to play and that's what i like because when u can play kat u are unstoppable (you can only take the lead at early-mid game , at late game kat falls because of the w speed is low) Riot PLEASE MAKE ME HAPPY TO PLAY KAT AGAIN ...

Vampire Diaries4/8/2018, 6:39:30 AM1 votes

Yes pls old kat is all what kat should be speed and reaction time. She was so good . Old kat had her weaknesses too if you fk up your shunpo your dead it was pretty much as skill shot new kat is the biggest fk you for immobile champs xd and she is way too easy predictavle and lets not talk about how clunky she is with the dagger fall speed and that cast time... Bring her back to when she was fun and actually being katarina her self

Poske3/26/2018, 10:02:10 PM1 votes

Rengar and Le blanc players are jelly?

Rengar got reverted BECAUSE OF FKING SWIM MEME... he became a worse champion. every rengar main I talked to didnt want the change

Le blanc revert makes me unhappy and I am the most loyal Le blanc player worldwide

The only thing which should change abuot katarina is input shit reggarding her E which causes bugs / doesnt work when queed with other commands

Katarina is one of the most successful reworks up to date