I am an ADC main but I plan on changing that and the next role that I find the simplest one is that of a melee champion. I have played with and against them and they have always done extremely well. I am kinda confused which one should I get. Kat or Shyvana? BTW I am level 12 at the moment. Please advise which champion to go for and why?
Changeling2 votesShyvana definately.
jaymc11302 votesKatarina is a pretty tough champ and doesn't play like a lot of melee champs. She's an in and out type of assassin and I wouldn't recommend it for a newer player. I would recommend Shyvanna, shes pretty straightforward playstyle wise and can fill more than one role as top laner or jungler pretty handily. If you really want to take on a challenge though, then by all means give Kat a shot. Shes not very forgiving, but she can be extremely rewarding and fun to play when you get her down.
FacerollKatarina2 votes
._. non-biased opinion here
PogChampEleGiggl2 votes
Sona Ping2 votesThey are completely different champions, no one can compare them and recommend because there's no ground for comparison between them.
Pick the one that you have played and liked more.
AyRe CoNteMpT2 votesi think we had the same thread yesterday or so... katarina is naturally weaker and has no control over her assigned lane because of how much weaker she is than other champions in the same role. her snowball potential is great but since she has no control, she can only snowball from cheesing people (aka they make mistakes and you abuse them for it) but you cant actually make anything happen by yourself.
shyvana is pretty much a jungler and shouldnt neccessarily be played in other lanes. she currently is one of the strongest junglers in the game with great early dueling potential (lvl 4+), excellent mapcontrol and scaling throughout the game. she is one of the strongest duelists and probably has the fastest jungle clear of all non-mage champions so you can always work out an advantage from clearing the jungle if there are no opportunities to fight favorable fights.
shyvana is currently mediocrely popular (5% popularity) so you can expect a shyvana in every 20th game. there are not many shyvana mains as its very hard to utilize her full potential but since she is naturally so strong, she is easy to pick up for players who havent played her alot.
TL;DR - shyvana is strong and can make things happen, katarina is weak and can only abuse enemies mistakes. thats why i recommend shyvana.
jaymc11303 votes[{quoted}](name=AyRe CoNteMpT,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Q9oLfbFz,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2015-12-21T12:36:28.934+0000)
shyvana is pretty much a jungler and shouldnt neccessarily be played in other lanes.
Actually shes relatively strong top lane, particularly in some matchups like when facing a Renekton. Her kit is actually better in lane than in the jungle as the clear allows for much higher income levels in lane than in the jungle. I've played her both spots for several seasons but I honestly still prefer her as a top lane split push duelist threat because of her extreme safety, fast push potential, and strong duel potential.
Aside from this the rest of your advice is pretty spot on.
AyRe CoNteMpT2 voteslol.
to sum it all up, even tho she can toplane some matchups, there is never a reason to do so.
PS: oh yeah and your 27 shyvana games last season impress me alot
jaymc11302 votes[{quoted}](name=AyRe CoNteMpT,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Q9oLfbFz,comment-id=000500000000,timestamp=2015-12-21T12:49:20.438+0000)
lol.
- she gains more gold from jungle than from lane
- there is a big handfull of toplane champions she cant even LANE against, including renekton, garen, darius and jax.
- even in the matchups she is favored in, as against all tanks, there is always a better pick that could do the same thing better.
- her perfect item is devourer, which not only gives her all the stats she needs but also, once sated, synergizes perfectly with the THREE on-hit effects naturally in her kit. she cannot utilize that item to its full potential in the toplane and thus misses out on her biggest powerspike.
to sum it all up, even tho she can toplane some matchups, there is never a reason to do so.
PS: oh yeah and your 27 shyvana games last season impress me alot
Lol. You don't know me and you op.gg'd an account that's been perma'd for 2 years. Happens a lot, part of my personal troll style, don't feel too bad about making this mistake. Hundreds of others have over the years.
Here's my primary: http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=likeamaws And just for kicks one of a dozen smurfs: http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=ev3carriesu
Feeling silly yet? XD
Its ok, all is forgiven mate, I catch a lot of people like that. I don't think I need to look you up, I can kind of tell from this statement alone your rough skill range:
- there is a big handfull of toplane champions she cant even LANE against, including renekton
She's historically been one of the best Renekton counters for years. She also dominates Garens if played properly, has zero issues against Darius. Jax can be tough post 6, that's for sure. I'll give ya that one.
The primary reason to play her top is really the reason's I stated earlier, shes not quite as strong there as back in early s4 or late season 3 before the base dmg nerfs to flame breath which really made her early lane phase pretty oppressive and sure devourer can be strong on her, but that item is pretty noobtrap. Particularly at the skill range I play at where focusing on farming the jungle tends to lead to a lot of losses as the enemy applies pressure far better. Which by the way is something top lane Shy does extremely well and is the biggest reason I'd play her there since laners acquire far more gold income from farm than junglers making her far more effective itemwise.
Any other questions? Seriously though, I don't take it personal, I post from this account for a reason so don't feel bad or like I'm trying to offend ya mate. It's just amusing to see newcomers who don't know me make this mistake.
Edit: Damn, I was surprised when I op.gg'd you to find a D2 ranking. Not too shabby, I had you pegged for high gold low plat at best given that you weren't even aware of Shy countering Renek.
AyRe CoNteMpT2 voteson none of these accounts you have many shyvana games. even tho you feel really good about your accounts it seems, you missed the point entirely - you dont play shyvana alot.
also the fact that you dont play shyvana but still talk about her matchups as if you played them countless times kinda bores me. everyone on the forums is like the biggest expert on everything they never played.
i know we are on different servers but it just so happens that my teams toplaner is a magnificent garen, darius and renekton main and if you'd ever get your hands on an EUW account, feel free to 1on1 him and see how shyvana does against these champions. i can tell you, no matter what you do, you cant lane. like you can literally not get farm. its unlaneable entirely.
shyvanas laning mechanics just dont give her enough options. she needs to get into melee range to lasthit, except if she uses her E, which potentially pushes lane. all of her trading requires her to push the lane and since, as i said, her csing needs her to be up close, every time she takes a cs she also has to trade for it (similar to fizz, for example). now since she has to trade and for her trades to come out ahead she needs to trade for an extended period of time, she is susceptible to getting all-inned.
now if we look at these matchups: garen has a much stronger all-in due to his W and R and there is absolutely no way shyvana can even touch a minion past lvl 7 darius can Q her for free so she has to all-in him every single time and then he can either slow her and walk away or just flat out kill her jax has the exact same mechanics as her but he can always disengage when he wants to and his all-in is stronger due to his stun, which she cant effectively dodge renekton can outpush her and trade with her without the fear of retaliation. he loses an all-in but she cant force an all-in fight because of renektons excellent trading and escaping potential.
matter of fact: she cant lane. this is also not limited to these champions.
jaymc11302 votes[{quoted}](name=AyRe CoNteMpT,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Q9oLfbFz,comment-id=00050000000000000000,timestamp=2015-12-21T13:25:19.008+0000)
on none of these accounts you have many shyvana games. even tho you feel really good about your accounts it seems, you missed the point entirely - you dont play shyvana alot.
also the fact that you dont play shyvana but still talk about her matchups as if you played them countless times kinda bores me. everyone on the forums is like the biggest expert on everything they never played.
i know we are on different servers but it just so happens that my teams toplaner is a magnificent garen, darius and renekton main and if you'd ever get your hands on an EUW account, feel free to 1on1 him and see how shyvana does against these champions. i can tell you, no matter what you do, you cant lane. like you can literally not get farm. its unlaneable entirely.
shyvanas laning mechanics just dont give her enough options. she needs to get into melee range to lasthit, except if she uses her E, which potentially pushes lane. all of her trading requires her to push the lane and since, as i said, her csing needs her to be up close, every time she takes a cs she also has to trade for it (similar to fizz, for example). now since she has to trade and for her trades to come out ahead she needs to trade for an extended period of time, she is susceptible to getting all-inned.
now if we look at these matchups: garen has a much stronger all-in due to his W and R and there is absolutely no way shyvana can even touch a minion past lvl 7 darius can Q her for free so she has to all-in him every single time and then he can either slow her and walk away or just flat out kill her jax has the exact same mechanics as her but he can always disengage when he wants to and his all-in is stronger due to his stun, which she cant effectively dodge renekton can outpush her and trade with her without the fear of retaliation. he loses an all-in but she cant force an all-in fight because of renektons excellent trading and escaping potential.
matter of fact: she cant lane. this is also not limited to these champions.
We may have to disagree on this, although professional play shyvanna would probably support my argument, particularly her win rate against renekton and particularly her abuse early this season with cinderhulk and smite/tp. You make some valid points, I'm not a shy main. I've probably got about 1000 shy games on other accounts that you certainly haven't seen but I definitely wouldn't claim to be an expert at the champ by any means. Just at the game in general seeing as I've got 35,000 games under my belt. And its fine we don't agree on this stuff, its cool. I still respect you and think you offered some pretty solid advice to a new player and that's a super thing to have done and this community thanks you for the contribution. We've also given the new player some high level insight to consider in regards to Shy in particular and this could be beneficial too so our little debate has had some unexepected positive results. I will admit I was impressed to see that ranking given the statement regarding Rene, for years I've always maintained you can tell more about a poster by the content of the post than by looking up something because you never really know what you might find but the post is right there in front of you and I'm practically, basically never wrong in my estimation of a player's skill level based on post alone, and the breakdown and analysis here in this post just reinforces that I whiffed on this one (by a lot) given its depth and detail (whether I agree or not with all the statements). If I've ever got a chance to hop on the EuW servers I'd love to play some with you and your mates, we could all have a good time and some pretty rowdy and passionate discussion. Been a pleasure to make your acquaintance muh man, I'm actually pretty new to the jungling role (as evidenced by the smurf account) and I hope you don't mind if I pick your brain in regards to that specifically in the future if I've got some questions!
AyRe CoNteMpT2 voteswow, who woulda expected such an insightful and respecting post? im positively surprised.
i know shyvana was very strong a few years back in a time where people played all these mundos and maokais top and they used renekton to "counter" the tanks and then they used shyvana to counter everything because she was so ridiculously strong. but that was like in season 3, right?
and for that exact reason she was mega nerfed. check out her patch history, her numbers almost super cut. the most drastical change that gutted lane-shyvana and also cinderhulk-jungle shyvana is that her W deals so little damage from its burn alone and so much damage from auto attacks which promotes auto-attacking shyvana alot more than tanky shyvana and this led to her laning being forced into extended auto-attack trades. also, the burn range of her W has been nerfed so she cant burn you while staying out of your auto attack range (similar playstyle to darius Q)
there have many changes been made and i was neither a toplane nor jungle nor even shyvana main back then. i was a total scrub trying to climb out of gold or something, so everything i can talk about is from season 5 onwards until now, and since i think we are all playing in the same patch, thats also the most interesting to talk about anyways.
also, this cinderhulk toplane thing was very interesting because it led to the biggest meta-bias ever. people thought it was actually viable when it was not. not even close. smite toplane allowed the toplaners to be able to push in the lane relatively safe because of how good their trading potential with challenging smite was. this in return allowed them to control the lane, go into the enemy jungle, steal camps and ward it up. this gave good mapcontrol which, if used properly by YOUR TEAM, was a very big advantage but it wasnt actually very strong for laning only because of a weaker early and midgame due to the lack of a summoner spell. with that, it was possible for pro teams to use it and use its ADVANTAGES to snowball games but that was almost impossible in soloQ due to the lack of gamesense of players and communication of teams.
this led to smite toplane having a whopping 37% winrate in platinum+ elo. WOW. that is like the worst winrate for an entire playstyle ever.
but all this cinderhulk-talk just as a sidenote as it doesnt really have anything to do with the thread. if you ever want to ask me anything about jungling, feel free to do so.
have a nice day
jaymc11302 votes[{quoted}](name=AyRe CoNteMpT,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Q9oLfbFz,comment-id=0005000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2015-12-21T14:10:11.773+0000)
wow, who woulda expected such an insightful and respecting post? im positively surprised.
i know shyvana was very strong a few years back in a time where people played all these mundos and maokais top and they used renekton to "counter" the tanks and then they used shyvana to counter everything because she was so ridiculously strong. but that was like in season 3, right?
Yep, this was when I actually played her a ton. She was extremely oppressive for about 4 or 5 months and they just gutted her. I didn't play her again for almost a year after the 3rd consecutive patch she got nerfed.
and for that exact reason she was mega nerfed. check out her patch history, her numbers almost super cut. the most drastical change that gutted lane-shyvana and also cinderhulk-jungle shyvana is that her W deals so little damage from its burn alone and so much damage from auto attacks which promotes auto-attacking shyvana alot more than tanky shyvana and this led to her laning being forced into extended auto-attack trades. also, the burn range of her W has been nerfed so she cant burn you while staying out of your auto attack range (similar playstyle to darius Q)
This change is something I don't think I really accounted for in my posts so far. I might have to reconsider some of the matchups if I cant just run into a wave of minions and aa you then run away and count on the flame cloak to auto farm and push for me while I trade with you just outside of aa range. It used to be hilarious to just be fast push farming and run a circle around an opposing melee laner and watch him melt while being confused as to whether to all in you or back off or farm or what. My playstyle in top lane appears to be a bit out of date...
there have many changes been made and i was neither a toplane nor jungle nor even shyvana main back then. i was a total scrub trying to climb out of gold or something, so everything i can talk about is from season 5 onwards until now, and since i think we are all playing in the same patch, thats also the most interesting to talk about anyways.
A lot of my shy experience, perhaps even the vast majority of it comes from late in season 3 and early in season 4 and for the 2 months she was broken this season before the cinderhulk and red smite nerfs. Those experiences may be less applicable than I expect given the current meta state and I am fully willing to concede this possibility.
also, this cinderhulk toplane thing was very interesting because it led to the biggest meta-bias ever. people thought it was actually viable when it was not. not even close. smite toplane allowed the toplaners to be able to push in the lane relatively safe because of how good their trading potential with challenging smite was. this in return allowed them to control the lane, go into the enemy jungle, steal camps and ward it up. this gave good mapcontrol which, if used properly by YOUR TEAM, was a very big advantage but it wasnt actually very strong for laning only because of a weaker early and midgame due to the lack of a summoner spell. with that, it was possible for pro teams to use it and use its ADVANTAGES to snowball games but that was almost impossible in soloQ due to the lack of gamesense of players and communication of teams.
Agreed, this was extremely difficult to pull off in solo q and my success with the style probably wasn't normal. I was always pretty comfortable proxy farming on shy and playing in a risky way safely. A lot of my success stemmed from the fact that I didn't have to coordinate too much, I just applied so much damn pressure I required the constant attention of 2 opponents allowing my team to take easy objectives elsewhere while I lead people on crazy wild goose chases if threatened. The playstyle was half proxy singed, half shyvanna and was extremely awkward.
this led to smite toplane having a whopping 37% winrate in platinum+ elo. WOW. that is like the worst winrate for an entire playstyle ever.
but all this cinderhulk-talk just as a sidenote as it doesnt really have anything to do with the thread. if you ever want to ask me anything about jungling, feel free to do so.
I'll definitely have questions, I've become a pretty good JG since deciding my old ass reflexes (I'm 30, they cant keep up with 18 year olds) made playing fast combo champs like Riven more difficult to do successfully than I wanted and I needed to find a role that allowed me to hide some of my weaknesses mechanically and utilize my strengths in team organization and communication and map awareness to greater effect. I worked pretty hard at it all season, but I've still got improvements I feel I need to make and I'm always picking the brains of other JG mains.
have a nice day
You too!!! XD <3<3<3
Singing Lark2 votesKat and Shyv are fundamentally very different champs. Their only similarity is both being melee.
Kat is usually taken mid lane as an AP assassin. Since you're melee and squishy, you're fundamentally weaker in lane than an other ranged champs mid. As a lot of other people have mentioned, Kat is very much about taking advantages of other player's mistakes and snowballing from there. You're main job in fights is to play cleanup crew, since your passive gives you resets the more people who are low and will give you resets, the better.
Shyv, on the other hand, relies heavily on auto attacking to kill people. You have mostly single target damage (asides from w) unless you're in dragon form. Shy usually goes in the jungle and requires quite a bit of knowledge about jungling to play well. (She's not the best ganker, but quite a good counterganker.) She's played as tanky dueler. It's honestly entirely up to you who you pick depending on what you like to play. I would personally recommend Shyv between the two, but there are definitely other melee champs that are easier that you could learn.
If you really want to get to know melee champs, I would suggest looking into playing toplane, as that is the lane where most melee champs go. (Some current popular ones that I can think of atm are Jax, Mundo, Gnar, Trundle, etc.)
Maximum Morde1 votesShyvanna is way hotter. Go with her.
jaymc11301 votes[{quoted}](name=Maximum Morde,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Q9oLfbFz,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2015-12-21T14:32:41.259+0000)
Shyvanna is way hotter. Go with her.
Lol, did you really downvote all muh new buddies posts?
So petty! Lol.
Still I'm super stoked I rated an upvote. WOOT! HOO YEAH BABY! <3
