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Would it be OK if Katarina was healthier?

Solideus··1 votes·652 views

My friends disagree with me that she would be a problem, so many of you might as well, but I've always felt that having a Katarina on the enemy team is super frustrating. The main reason is that when she is ahead she can blow several people up in the blink of an eye, with no window to respond. Her abilities not being dodgeable and Shumpo having zero telegraph doesn't help much. The Katarina's skill matter so much more than the skill of her victims.

My friends say the "counterplay" is just "don't feed her", but often that is out of my hands, and after she gets a few kills it feels like all I can do is to stay as far away from her as possible.

I get that her ult is easy to shut down, her laning is weak and she can be very binary, so there's a lot she has to play around. But I'm not playing in diamond or anything, so there's no guarantee someone will be attentive enough to CC her the second it's needed. I would still have appreciated something like 0.5 sec cooldowns after a reset, even if that would make her clunkier. Right now she can just hover her mouse and spam her abilities hoping she kills something, and with a bit of luck that will secure her a multikill. She barely has the split second to make a split second decision herself. But then there's scrips...

I don't mind her getting buffs or new tools to compensate, it just feels unfair when there's no chance to react once she has found an opportunity to go in.

8 Comments

egoSniper4 votes

Figuring in reflexes, lag, and projectile travel time, it's not usually possible to stop a Katarina ult until about half of it has already channeled, and that's assuming she didn't just wait for you to waste all your hard CC on her teammates first.

Oh, and counterplay is 'just CC her' and 'don't feed her'? Come on guys... that's true of any champion.

Still, I would take her over a Master Yi any day. You want to talk about someone who always gets fed despite your best efforts? There it is.

Solideus1 votes

I have issues with lag sometimes too, that can really make it impossible to play against Katarina. (Or *as *her for that matter.)

A fed Yi is similarly imposing, but the key difference in my eyes is that he deals his damage consistently over a longer window of time, and his alpha strikes have noticeable downtime even when he gets resets. He has to attack a few times before he can Q again, and it telegraphs decently where he is going to land when the Q finishes.

However when used optimally Katarina get's her rotation out in no time at all, several times over.

58304318_DEL1 votes

Oh, and counterplay is 'just CC her' and 'don't feed her'? Come on guys... that's true of any champion.

Exactly, I hate when people use that excuse!

ModKnightsKemplar2 votes

Katarina has extremely strong teamfighting. That's her identity. She can't duel well (and therefore can't split push well), she can't poke well, and she has literally no cc. So it isn't as though she has no weaknesses. Your argument doesn't leave any room for alternate strategies. It's true that if you keep fighting a fed Kat, she will destroy you. But that has to be the case. Because if she can't do that, she is a worthless pick. No other strengths.

I get that it's sometimes frustrating to play against champs that have these sorts of power curves, but the game wouldn't be interesting otherwise. If you want every champion to have perfect counterplay against every other champion, in every team comp, then all champs have to be the same.

What I mean is, it isn't inherently bad for a champion to have that sort of power. Some champs should have very strong teamfight, and that's how they're going to win the game. If you want to fight them, even when fed, then you also need to pick a very strong teamfighting team. I don't see that as a weakness in game balance.

Solideus1 votes

I don't have anything against her having niche strengths, I'ts the fact that her window of interaction is very very short if executed correctly. It isn't as such *how * you're supposed to counterplay her or her power curve, it's that the opportunities to answer her have to happen in an unreasonable timeframe, at least in my opinion. Of course it goes without saying this is a bigger problem in lower level play, but not having a chance to react or beat her play-by-play means always staying far away is the best option, and that's no fun.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

I respectfully disagree. It sounds to me like you are still assuming the way to beat her is fighting. That's exactly what you need to reconsider. And if you think it isn't fun to run a comp that isn't based around teamfighting, then you should always pick strong teamfight champs. Like Katarina. But your allies won't always do that, and so learning other ways to win is important. For better or worse, that's part of mastering the game.

SouL1ess2 votes

It's true that if you keep fighting a fed Kat, she will destroy you.

wow it's not like Riot nerfed Talon's silence specifically for being too strong when having an advantage over the enemy.

I get that it's sometimes frustrating to play against champs that have these sorts of power curves

SPECIFICALLY why Talon gets nerfed. No one cares about his silence when he's behind, but everyone is up in arms when Talon is ahead. Similarly, Katarina sucks when behind, but once she has an advantage she dominates the game. What people complain about is her potency when ahead.

it isn't inherently bad for a champion to have that sort of power.

Riot's anti-snowball policy has nerfed all assassins. Assassin are supposed to have that sort of power yet ALL of them (including Kat) gets nerfed. Well Kat is back to being one of the top assassin again and she's being complained about. I doubt that she will, or should, get a nerf, but IMO Riot's stance contradicts your statement.

If you want every champion to have perfect counterplay against every other champion, in every team comp, then all champs have to be the same.

Unfortunately I think Riot is really taking a step in that direction, which baffles me the most.

ModKnightsKemplar1 votes

I agree. Everything I said DOES contradict the Talon nerfs, which I thought were unnecessary at best. It's okay for assassins to be able to burst people, and the mage/assassin in the game should be able to burst into reset into burst until the whole team is dead. I think that's okay. I'm not saying it's perfectly balanced; it may be that's it's far too easy for her to do that right now. But when the game goes great for her, that is exactly what it should look like.

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