@Meddler do you have any plans for Katarina?

Despite what she says when you select her in game violence does NOT solve everything. lets try to keep this thread civil (b^_^)b

The passive nerf is a nice change but it doesn't really solve the core frustration players playing against her, y'know the 1-3 second pentakills like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6n2I22CpdA

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PLgn_5mNxg

or this montage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77_fAHU6zO8

you get my point. i think riot tends to agree that nobody likes that feeling of "where did my character just go" and i can assure you it happening to 5 players in the blink of an eye is only 5x more frustrating. is the lightning fast penta kills hard? i would certainly say so, but the point is they're not fun, and they're definitely something core to katarina's identity but are they really worth preserving? i was thinking about this when the topic of toxic identity's came up on the boards a few days ago, you said more often then not it's the execution of the identity that's toxic and not the identity itself (using pre rework soraka as your example) i personally don't think Katarina in her current state can be balanced or even fun to play against (thats just my opinion though) but i do think the height of her threat is something that makes games with her in them feel separate from games with any other assassin champion so i'm honestly a proponent of keeping the potential. but things need to change.

-Katarina makes a lot of sacrifices for having the reset potential she does, losing out on any utility, control, and a lower/to medium spell rotations worth of damage, her pre 6 kill potential is on the lower end and her kill power overly lies within her ultimate, all of these just to keep her and her reset spree's in check, and even then it often doesn't feel like enough,

-resource-less near unavoidable damage is obnoxious, its why we all hate Riven, 2 of her damaging abilities (Q and E) are targeted, her W is an AOE around her (you shouldn't ever miss this if you've used your targeted E before hand) and her R is the closest thing to a skill shot (a range based targeting AOE)

-difficult to appreciate power: do any of katarina's opponents know the exact working of her ultimate? according to lolwikia it can throw up to 30 daggers (each dagger being a separate tick of damage) and apply grievous wounds. how about Katrina's 15% damage reduction when she uses shunpo on an enemy? this honestly just feels like an overnerfed mechanic that's only really useful feeling in isolated situations.

-rage inducing factor: Katarina may not be a problem in higher elos, and is never played professionally but she's a royal headache in lower divisions where the common man dwell, and in those games do they get depressing. fast. katarina roamed bot and got a double kill? theres that pit in your stomach that feels like its gonna become one of those games, how about when she shows up at a dragon fight and because your leona used all her crowd control on the enemy ADC, you got aced and she walked away with a triple of quadra? the last game i played with a katarina had her walk out with over 30 kills

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1737139796/47168199?tab=overview

i bet it was really fun for her when you play a champion who snowballs so hard they just kinda take over the game, but there are 9 other players in that game and it wasn't fun watching it, it was like playing a bot game with that bot lane ADC who gets like 29 kills, not any fun for the other players on the team.

So those are my thoughts on katarina. probably nothing new here just wanted to know if theres any major changes coming to her soon, with the new splash art, and the new ability icons it got me thinking "at least somebody is looking at her" im not an advocate of just nerfing a champion so i never have to play against it, that's a poor way to look at game balance. instead i personally would like to see changes to her that would:

-offer her power you can truly appreciate outside of just raw damage: we've had those 30 kills katarina games but im not gonna pretend that there wasn't a 2/5 kat on the enemy team in another game and i bet it sucked for her to be so useless and behind since her champion can only do damage, so maybe a healthy fall back pattern? also some more visible utility on her E and R like maybe instead of damage reduction it was a shield?

-Adjust her play style to show more micro skill: all of katarina's abilities are fairly easy to land, being point in click or AOE around her, making her damage really reliable if unchecked, this makes katarina play less like an assassin and more like a tactical warhead, katarina's skill comes from knowing when to go in and having the key speed to actually perform at that speed (and the ping :P) i like the idea of katarina being a highly skilled assassin capable of taking out multiple targets in seconds but i don't think her current game play patterns do it right, when katarina gets the penta on my team it mostly either feels like my teams fault (not saving our lockdown for her) or her just being overly fed, if you give her more variables to manage during her murder spree attempt (skillshots for example) it will allow katarina to kill the enemy team in a way that makes her look like a masterful god of mechanics as opposed to somebody with good timing. MOST IMPORTANTLY: less reliable abilities means more pay off for landing those abilities! imagine a pre 6 laning phase where you can beat your opponent in lane (if you're legitimately better then them) instead of just waiting for your ultimate to go in, imagine bouncing blade (or whatever its variation is) doing respectable poke damage without having to detonate the mark, all because you might miss/hit a minion.

OFFT TOPIC: what if death lotus applied a mini versions of her bouncing blade stack(s) that could be triggered with her basic abilities, the longer you channel the more damage you'd do detonating them, it'd definitely be more visible but i think it would make kat players who hate relying on her ult mad, that and it'd probably be stepping on kalista's toes a bit. (just a side thought)

so yeah these are my thoughts on katarina and how i hope she's getting looked at in the near future, feel free to hate any recommendations im just here trying create some context on things people like and don't like about katarina, or at least the way i see it.

BLOOD FOR NOXUS