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Katarina's kit doesn't work. Here's why.

powerhowse·6/7/2018, 7:36:19 AM·1 votes·1,217 views

The current Katarina is designed to be an assassin who has high mobility and damage. She uses her daggers to deal heavy damage dodge skill shots because if she gets hit by too many, she's toast, and so she can get into and out of anything (unless she gets caught) but if she takes down her target when there's more kills to be had, she's godlike, but one piece of her kit stays from this description, makes it difficult for her to be effective against at least 60% of champions. The piece that doesn't belong in her kit is her ultimate.

 Her ult, Death Lotus, locks her in place until it does the damage it needs to in order to get that kill. It completely stops her much needed mobility and turns her into a target. In order for it to be effective, two conditions must be met: she needs to be close to her target, or in their path of movement (not likely, since it's better to avoid walking through her if possible), and she needs to avoid any hard cc.

There are two major issues with this. The first is in order to use this effectively against multiple opponents (which really the only thing that makes her passive useful) she needs to get close and stay close. Doing so severely decreases her life span and is guaranteed to provoke cc, drastically reducing her ult potential. Being a target means she must either avoid damage (she can't move while ulting) or deal damage swiftly after the kill. Her rework made this extremely difficult, as she must wait for her daggers to land before spinning with sinister steel. The vulnerability of Death Lotus was justified before her rework, her old q e w combo was swift and impossible to dodge, and she could easily overpower people after getting the first kill in a teamfight, but not anymore. What's more, over 70% of champions have abilities that can quickly stop her ult (I am including ults), therefore, since the only way to miss is to forget to aim, she is effectively countered by 70% of champions. I say countered because if kat could easily get kills without her ult and without being fed then she would be overpowered. The second major problem with her ult is that it does not synergize with the rest of her kit in any meaningful way. Let's look at it piece by piece. Her passive: her ult does good damage over time so that should get her kills right? And if its on cooldown her passive should get it back for her, ya? As i mentioned before, her ult refreshing cooldowns doesn't help if doing so nearly gets her killed, and in order for kat to kill without her ult, either she needs to be fed, or her target needs to be weak and/or injured and/or alone. This kind of situation is hard to come buy when the other team knows you'll try to take advantage of it. Sure, you could finish the job another teammate started, but if Katarina needs to rely on others to get her kills, then she's a failure as an assassin. Her q: the way her q and her ult work together to fulfill her role as an assassin is that they both deal damage. Her w: the extra speed might be useful for getting into position, but really Kat's w sets a dagger and helps her move. She can't move while ulting, the dagger is nice, but like with her q, it only helps by dealing damage. Her e: shunpo does help Katarina get into a good position to ult, but depending on who it's being used against, there is no good position to ult. Even if used against targets without hard cc, she still has to do enough damage to get a kill. Mid to late game, tanks and juggernaughts are tanky enough to withstand her ult even when not interrupted, therefore even tanks counter her. The fact her ult applies grevious wounds isn't even that useful. If needs grevous wound, morellonimocon no longer builds mana, so getting it's not a waste for her.

Some ways her ult might be changed:
Her ult (or another ability) could apply cc (all other assassins have some form of cc) She could be able to run with ult active She could be able to shunpo with her ult active (and nerf ult to balance) Her ult could throw daggers at people (that either land behind or on them, activating sinister steel) (and nerf sinister steel to balance) Her ult could be replaced by another ult, where she throws 2/3/5 daggers in a target direction Riot could make her a new ultimate. Recent champions that riot has been made have been as creative as they've been fun as far as they've been balanced. I bet if Riot made another, different, ultimate designed specifically for Katarina, they would do an excellent job of it.

In short, Katarina's ult does not synergize well with her kit, and so it should either be adjusted or altogether redone.

Please read this Riot

6 Comments

Steel Lady6/7/2018, 11:00:25 AM2 votes

Katarina's at a decent state in the game and I don't think that there's any problems with her whatsoever. The problem here is that you're looking at Katarina in the wrong perspective on gameplay. Since the assassin re-works pre-season 2016, the aim for Katarina's play-style was pretty clear, for her abilities to revolve around death lotus. I know, bold argument but hear me out.

Katarina is a mid-game carry, get ahead by then and you're good for the game, but fall behind, you're done for and irrelevant by the 25 minute mark. You can't make plays blindly jumping into targets as Kat, you have to pick your fights, she's a feast or famine sort of champ. As Katarina, your primary targets are squishies with low cc I.e: enchanters and marksmen, not vanguards or catchers. Don't try to dive a Trist with a Bard around but do a Caitlyn and a Janna, they're low CC and way slower than you are.

Regarding Death Lotus, you can't think about it as a Kennen ult or a Fiddlesticks ult, it deals significantly more damage in a shorter period of time, it isn't smart to jump into a team fight, ulting and waiting for the ult duration to finish, you have to catch them off guard and to ult when they least expect it and shunpo-ing to either the nearest squishy or the farthest dagger before they can react. Katarina is design to be a fast champion, also why she doesn't have a mana bar, think of her as someone like Tracer from Overwatch, she's way to squishy to be staying in the middle of team fights. Don't compare Katarina to someone like Zed, Talon or Yasuo who can dance across the battlefield and still leave a victor, she's way too squishy for that and has way less reliable escapes compared to Zed or Talon.

Katarina shines when you know how to make your picks, but she isn't someone you shred tanks with, that's your ADC's job. She's the perfect assassin in the sense that she's a backline demoness who can take down champions like Soraka or Karma who have way less resources to make quick reactions. In team fights you have to start there and work your way out.

Making Katarina's ult work while she can move is stupid and would be way too broken for her to be played at all. No she's not perma-banned nowadays but that's because of the nerfs she was slammed with the beginning of the season. Death Lotus was nerfed after the assassin update because people were spamming her ult and getting as many pentakills as their hearts desired. The way Death Lotus works now is that it's more of an early-play burst rather than an execute which most players believe. It makes Katarina way harder to play but at least she isn't a brain-dead champ.

Basically: Don't rely on your ult for damage, try to fit in as many q's and e's to proc your dagger passive and make successful eliminations, and remember to w before engaging for a safe escape.

<3

BobaFlautist6/8/2018, 10:48:50 PM2 votes

I mean, you basically just said that her kit doesn't function because she has some weaknesses/counterplay.

The thing is, teamfights aren't some super clean, choreographed dance where malzahar just sits on his ult waiting for Kat to ult, they're chaotic and hectic, with multiple engages/counter engages, people diving the backline while the frontline tries to peel them off, kiting, channeling, etc. Anivia should be the worst champion in the game, since her q is super dodgeable, her ult takes time to warmup, her e doesn't do real damage if she didn't hit Q or ult, and her W is useless against dashes - but she's not. She excels in teamfights.

Tesladin6/7/2018, 7:49:58 AM1 votes

probably re-done rather

DODGEORLOSE6/7/2018, 8:20:16 AM1 votes

tell that to diamond kat mains

CletusKassidy6/21/2018, 11:09:39 PM1 votes

Kat is garbage right now. End of story. She's the weakest assassin in the game by far.