Now I know Kat needed changes but..

FacerollKatarina·3/22/2017, 2:16:16 AM·68 votes·4,093 views

Death Lotus (R) cooldown changed from 90/60/45 to 135/75/15

Wat?? I hope that 15 is bugged because her getting her ultimate refreshed after one kill would be actually disgusting..

47 Comments

Sexy Jack Rabbit3/22/2017, 5:28:24 AM27 votes

The point in it is that 1 Reset Early game shouldn't define the next teamfight.

Whereas Late game all she literally offers to her team is her Ultimate.

These changes weaken her Early-game, and buff her late game. She is supposed to be the teamfight AOE Assassin, but that's not possible late game when you're getting blown up in 1.5 seconds because your ult channel is so long. The change is actually a lot more logical then you're giving it credit for.

junglerboy163/22/2017, 3:25:29 AM13 votes

I think the significant thing about that is how hard they hit the CD early game, 50% longer at rank 1.

I see this turning her ult into the kind of thing that just cycles into her rotation late game, which actually makes sense since there are few situations where Kat wants to stand still and channel ult when she could be juking around and throwing daggers. This means when she first gets her Ult, it's gonna need to be a powerful kill tool but later on it'll morph into a more fluid addition to her burst that'll be more friendly for quick casting/cancelling, reposition and repeat. Even just a couple CDR items like Abyssal or Zhonya's and this'll probably become that much more desirable, especially since there's no mana cost to make you regret cancelling a partial channel.

Interested to see how this plays out.

RavenMagus3/22/2017, 4:53:13 AM10 votes

Wat?? I hope that 15 is bugged because her getting her ultimate refreshed after one kill would be actually disgusting..

Good thing it never kills anyone late game because of the 3 exhausts she's always facing on the enemy team.

Poske3/22/2017, 4:17:23 PM7 votes

The fact that most of the Boards think that the change is a buff is atrocious

Dessem3/22/2017, 2:20:24 AM4 votes

I think Riot wanted to ensure you can stay true to your name?

It's a 60s CD reduction on rank 2 and rank 3, so it makes sense from that point, and she does get a lot weaker in lane when her ult has a whopping 45s longer on the CD. Mid-game +15s CD (one additional kill for a full reset), might make sense to give her a big compensatory buff for the lategame?

Zephyrous X3/22/2017, 9:23:25 PM3 votes

I'm really hoping that everything on the PBE right now is an April Fool's joke

QuickenedBlade3/22/2017, 6:28:39 AM2 votes

Right next to the Lux CDs being lowered

freeloader253/22/2017, 7:39:21 AM2 votes

They really dont want katarina to have counterplay do they? Her resets in general are annoying af in lane because its pretty much imbossible to punish kata for mistakes. In lategame its at least possible to punish her for bad ultimates because she has some kind of downtime.

But with that change? They really want kata to have exactly 0 counterplay at all stages of the game i guess. im not saying shes op or something, only that i dont see how youre going to work around her perma available ult. either kata is strong enough to delete your whole team or shes weak enough so it doesnt matter, i dont like the idea of the game being decided by nothing but kata at the point she reaches lvl 16.

I'd much rather see them targeting the stupid low shunpo cooldown instead.

japhib3/22/2017, 8:20:18 PM2 votes

Here's her winrate/game duration graph from leagueofgraphs.com:

http://i.imgur.com/94c3Viv.png

(see http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/katarina )

I think Riot wants to make her be a bit less overpowered early in the game (bring down that 65% winate) and a bit more useful late in the game (bring up that 47% winrate past 30 minutes). If you look at the same graph for other champs that are supposed to be "early game" champs, like Renekton or Jayce, their early game winrate is usually lower than that and their late game winrate is usually a bit higher.

Gengar3/22/2017, 3:03:47 AM2 votes

Yeah because Katarina was already so strong at level 16 (late-game).

Unvictus3/22/2017, 12:14:46 PM2 votes

It's really only a huge nerf to her lvl 6. It'll make kat players really think before they use it during an all in. So she can't repeatedly kill her lane opponent if she gets a lead. Once you rank it up at lvl 11 it won't make that much of a difference in my opinion. Especially if you end up picking up some CDR through abyssal or zhonyas. If anything it'll widen the gap between good and bad Kat players. Early game that is. Not sure how I feel about ult reset on one assist.. that's just rewarding bad kat players for being bad. I'm a katarina main, and I'm not gonna deny she needs to be toned down slightly, but I don't think this was the right direction. Just a guess but maybe an early response to the impending tank meta that will come with the tank update? Just spitballing here

Standgrounding3/22/2017, 3:25:20 PM1 votes

Ok... well, late game she could doublecast her R like URF Demacian Beyblade Garen can E, and do the double damage because of two instances of her R running at once.

Fisher No Chains3/22/2017, 1:23:39 PM1 votes

Too bad that early game she doesn't even need her ult to kill squishies.

To me, it is a buff more than a nerf.

Imperial Japan3/22/2017, 7:30:38 AM1 votes

lmao right

Elikain3/22/2017, 6:44:06 PM1 votes

It's not Katarina's buff at early-mid levels. Her ult's CD is longer from lvls 6-15 but considering that her Update gotten her a much stronger ult, i guess that it may make sense. If she's getting kills and assists, this CD increase isn't that terrible. However, after lvl 16, she's deadly to face alone. But consider that her ult still has one glaring issue - it has remained easily interrupted by any form of hard CC/displacement.

Not to mention that Kat's build already has some CD in it, possibly glyphs + Intelligence mastery. Considering her passive's nature, her ult CD on early levels-mid levels currently might be too short. Hence this early-mid game CD nerf but a buff for her late game.