Boards›Gameplay

Thoughts on the Katarina rework

Comedian·1/21/2015, 9:23:01 AM·1 votes·808 views

Before I start I would just like the preface that I've been maining Katarina for over three years now and she has gotten me to platinum (yes I know I'm cancer)

At the moment on live Katarina has an abysmal laning phase unless you're playing against Karthus or you're in bronze league (anyone past silver knows how to lane against Katarina). But she is still a strong champion due to her amazing late game potential in team fights if she is positioned correctly. That being said he late game still isn't perfect if the other team is paying attention and remembers to save some sort of hard cc for her ult.

Let's take a look at good parts of the rework first

**-Auto attacks -Base Attack Speed: .658 >> .625 -Attack SPeed Growth: 2.74% >> 2% -Attack Delay: Katarina's Basic attacks come out ~46% faster. -Katarina's basic attacks now reset auto attacks **

Essentially they're making building straight ad more rewarding by allowing Katarina to follow up her abilities with an auto attack and another after a reset which will tie into her W getting ad scaling.

Q - Bouncing Blades DAMAGE (1st hit): 60/85/110/135/160 (+45% AP) >> 60/70/80/90/100 (+30% AP) DAMAGE (2nd hit): 15/30/45/60/75 (+15% AP) >> 20/55/90/125/160 (+40% AP)

This change I've actually wanted for a long time. It's the same damage trade off akali uses on her Q ability to make it have more damage but you have to actually get in close and combo in order to get that damage. Hitting the ability does less initially but popping the mark does more damage bringing the overall damage higher.

Now for the bad parts :(

E - Shunpo DAMAGE: 60/85/110/135/160 (+40% AP) >> No longer deals damage DAMAGE REDUCTION: 15% at all ranks >> 10/15/20/25/30% COOLDOWN: 12/10.5/9/7.5/6 >> 15 seconds at all ranks NEW: Now refunds 80% of Shunpo's Cooldown after blinking to a champion that she hasn't Shunpo'd to in the last 9 seconds Cooldown refund will trigger on both enemy champions and allied champions The 9-second lockout is removed if Katarina gets a reset vis her Passive

By removing her damage from Shunpo Katarina is going to have an even harder time in her lane phase trading against champions with any sort of targeting ability. Yes Katarina is getting more damage from her Q now but because it has been moved to her mark and not the initial hit that means in order for her to do a proper trade she has to go all in. Without the damage from shunpo her having to get that close to the enemy laner to do any damage will 9 times out of 10 result in a lost trade due to lack of damage and CC (she never had CC before but she made up for it with having damage).

**W - Sinister Steel DAMAGE: 40/75/110/145/180 (+25% AP)(+60% Bonus AD) >> 60/75/90/105/120% Total AD(+25%AP) **

This change kind of feels insulting. Lower overall damage on core abilities (ult was nerfed recently as well) then remove the base damage on her W and replace it with ad scaling. This essentially forces Katarina players to build items like gunblade which will give out mediocre scaling and a two wasted stats. The life steal will barely be used outside of minions and Katarina's abilities are all aoe so the spell vamp only works at 33%. The only single target ability she has just had it's damage removed so she has no single target spell damage outside of auto attacking a champion that is marked by q.

Overall thoughts Due to all these changes Katarina is going to be forced into building more tanky and buying stats that don't scale as well to compensate for her early game getting even worse than it already is. So we'll probably see the comeback of haunting guise -> gunblade rush in order to not die to everyone.

On top of all this a big portion of her damage is being lost by having her biggest core item being removed next patch "DeathFire Grasp"

1 Comments

Zair Umbras1/21/2015, 10:59:20 AM3 votes

Actually, because of this entire change, Gunblade will make her do about the same amount of damage if not more. The AD with the new scaling on her W makes it incredibly viable, the 60% AP ratio on Gunblades active will also help a lot, her R has a 3x AD ratio, making the Gunblade even MORE worth it. Her E is also making her even more tanky, so her late game makes her incredibly scary. Her Q got buff to compensate for her E taking a nerf. Her E now refunding so much of it's CD also means she can harass in lane finally. Yes, that's RIGHT. HARASS IN LANE PROPERLY. You can Q+E+AA+W and then E away to safety since it now refunds 80% of the CD. 80% of 15 is 12, so it'll be on a 3 sec CD, allowing you to get off some good damage and still having the ability to escape afterwards.

Also, to say a Gunblade is a bad item is actually an insult to every Katarina who's mained her forever. She used to rush a Gunblade because it gave her incredible sustain AND damage. It wasn't until S3 was released and Scarra decided to play Super Tank Katarina that changed her build. People rush DFG now because it's a powerful item, too powerful really. Gunblade compares just as easily with it's incredible AP ratio on it's active, giving 65 AP and 45 AD, and of course the sustain it can provide.

Much like any rework, we will have to actually wait for it to be properly released to test it. Most thought Sion's rework was horrible, but he's a top tier Top champion. People thought Dodge removal would make Jax useless, he was prominent anyways. Evelynn took nerf after nerf after nerf and she's still played. Hell, we can even look at Kassadin's rework. He's still pretty scary. All we can do is wait and see if this new kit needs some changes or if it'll be fine.