So, Riot decides that Katarina's getting nerfed. This is what could be done instead.

Reintroducing Katarina properly as both an assassin and a team player

I play occasionally on the PBE as a tester, especially during testing times (when new changes or champions are being released on the test server), and I recently noticed that Riot nerfed Katarina’s ultimate. I played her with the changes and I feel that they just don’t do Katarina, a relatively weak champion already, any justice. I have to give my input. After all, I am a PBE tester as much as I am a player and champion concept creator. So after doing a little web searching, I found Riot Ricklessabandon’s explanation/context on the nerfs as follows:

Riot Ricklessabandon “I wanted to pop into this thread to briefly talk about the Katarina changes. i work on the live gameplay team and I'm owning her changes, so if you have any follow-up questions after this just let me know. Addressing the topic at hand, Katarina’s nerfs have nothing to do with maps or game modes other than classic 5v5 on Summoner's Rift—I cannot stress enough that we'd never use fgm data to influence balance changes—her changes have to do with her rise in power due to environmental changes (i.e., shifts in the meta) and some very relevant changes in the upcoming preseason patch. Regarding the former, marksmen tend to spike in power earlier than they did earlier this season, which has both encouraged earlier team fighting (and champions that 'turn on' early for those fights) as well as roaming bot to get your duo going earlier. Regarding the latter, changes to base stats and what we anticipate will be an increased focus on roaming and early team fighting/skirmishing (likely on the bottom half of the map) will be particularly relevant. Katarina loves all of this, and has been working hard toward 'perma-ban' status in various regions and divisions. Given all the data we have, as well as some conservative predictions of how the preseason changes will affect the game, we've decided to implement the nerfs that should be testing on the pbe right now. Again, if you have any follow-up questions feel free to ask!”

Although the context given explains the general idea behind Katarina’s nerfs, it doesn’t adequately address the problem that is Katarina in the first place. In order to properly fix the issue that is Katarina, she needs be given another round of changes instead of a nerf. In her current state, she contributes solely damage to her team in the form of highly spammable, high base damage, AOE magic-damage abilities. When she is able to pick up the pace in a teamfight with a kill or assist, her AOE magic damage potential doubles, triples, even quadruples. However, if she doesn’t score those, she’s left almost unable to keep up with other assassins or even single-target mages in her teamfight damage contributions – and damage is the only thing she can contribute to her team. As a result, Katarina is a very snowbally champion with inadequate counterplay in various situations, while almost completely useless in others.

Now, let’s put in some of the opinions of a known Katarina player. A little bit of extra looking up and I found Tiensinoakuma’s post on Katarina from a while back (Tiensinoakuma is an experienced, high-elo Katarina player), that highlight some of the most important strengths and weaknesses of Katarina. As mentioned before, she only contributes damage, but either too much or too little. That’s the first point a tweak or change would have to address. Another point is that it’s much more efficient to build tank items on Katarina because she can absorb damage for her team while dishing out high base numbers. Then, there’s the problem that Katarina doesn’t have enough counterplay for all the advantages she has over other champions (no resources, high mobility, AOE magic damage with high base numbers, no skillshots, etc.). And finally, there are the metagame changes that Ricklessabandon went over.

What could possibly be done for Katarina? Well, let’s go over the four main points drawn from Tiensi’s post and Rickless’s explanation one by one.

1. Katarina only contributes damage, but either too much or too little.

• If you’re a dedicated PBE tester, you’ve probably played Vel’Koz on the PBE when he was first deployed for testing. During that time, Riot discovered that he had the potential to snowball pretty hard, due to his high damage long-range AOE laser ultimate. As a result, they nerfed the ratio and buffed the base damage. For Katarina, buffing base damages is not quite ideal, because Riot envision Katarina to be an all-in kind of assassin, and high base damages only reward CDR and tank item builds. On the other hand, nerfing the base damages and increasing the ratios only makes Katarina more snowbally than ever. So what should be done then?

Options -Add counterplay to rewards and buff ratios -Limit scaling on tank items and buff bases -Keep her the same and nerf her ultimate so fewer people can abuse her

In this case, I feel that the first option would be the most appropriate one. Since Riot wants Katarina to be an all-in type of mage assassin, the best option would be to allow her to embrace that role.

-Decrease the base damage of all her abilities and increase the scalings on the abilities with counterplay potential. -Then, increase the counterplay potential of those abilities.

A short suggestion/example of this which also adds an extra window in which Katarina can contribute to her team by disabling enemy champions is as follows… * Bouncing Blades (Q)* -Katarina tosses a blade at her target to deal magic damage to that target. The blade then bounces to two additional targets within range. The last target struck is dealt significantly increased damage and slowed. Each bounce targets the farthest enemy champion within its range

First, decreasing the overall AOE damage potential of her Bouncing Blades is a good idea, given that her passive allows her to dish out insane AOE damage with little counterplay potential from her opponents. Hence, the number of targets is decreased for this ability. Additionally, Katarina can contribute to her team by exploiting weaknesses in her opponents’ formation. A skilled Katarina would, using the new bounce mechanic, be able to single out precise targets and prime them for death with the slow. On the other hand, opponents have every opportunity not to bunch up close enough for bouncing blades to hit more than one target to limit the ability of Katarina to contribute, if at all.

This also shows that adding counteplay to her abilities does not have to be in the form of adding a skillshot to her kit. It can be something as simple as changing the way her daggers bounce. If this change were implemented coupled with a base damage decrease and scaling increase (more for the ability’s last bounce), Katarina can be allowed to have both reset potential and high snowball potential, because her opponents can play against it. How would Katarina be able to successfully pull off her damage combos on good teams, then? Well, disables (crowd-control) from allies work wonders in limiting an opponent’s ability to counterplay against any champion, not just Katarina.

2. Her AOE base damages are high enough that building tank items is efficient on her. In this case, I’m going to flat out give my suggestion instead of listing options, and that is to decrease her AOE damage potential*. Now, before I can be assaulted by Katarina fans for that, I’ll say that her AOE damage potential as it is now is too high. Instead of giving her AOE potential right off the bat, I say implement it naturally with her passive, and give her other tools to compensate. How would we do that? Simple…

Sinister Steel (W) -Katarina spins to deal damage to very close enemy champions around her while gaining a movement speed boost. If she strikes at least one enemy champion, the movement speed boost is doubled. Cooldown is significantly increased.

-Sharply increasing the cooldown and decreasing the damage of her W ability is the solution. In return, she gains movement speed regardless of whether she hits champions, and some of the damage is shifted to the new shunpo instead. The cooldown change means she can more reliably use sinister steel as an escape tool when Shunpo is down, and Shunpo can be used freely to make plays, dodge abilities, or help Katarina make plays against her opponents. If she uses it to trade with her lane opponent instead of using it as an escape, it is equally effective because she has double the movement speed bonus to avoid her opponent’s abilities afterward. When it comes time for teamfights, Katarina can use it to deal tons of AOE damage, boost her movement speed to reposition herself to a place from where she can effectively channel her ultimate, or both with help from her passive.

3 & 4. Katarina is too effective as a tank and is more dominant in the current metagame than before. If her cooldowns are increased and base numbers are decreased, Katarina has limited potential to contribute to her team. That’s a problem for an assassin, so additional pathways for her to contribute have to be added, while factoring in her slowly rising dominance in the new meta.

Shunpo (E) Passive: Every X seconds, Katarina’s next basic attack deals bonus magic damage to her target. Using the active portion of Shunpo decreases the cooldown for this effect by Y seconds. The attack buff is visible as a colored glow on Katarina’s daggers. Active: Katarina appears at her target’s location and gains damage reduction from enemy champions for 1.5 seconds (static cooldown of x seconds; damage reduction scales).

Death Lotus (R) -Katarina channels, dealing magic damage to the four nearest targets. If there is only one target within range, Death Lotus deals increased damage. Range is increased.

-Shunpo’s damage is a problem because it provides Katarina with damage AND mobility AND damage reduction all at the same time. As a result, when Katarina resets, she can become an unstoppable monster too quickly. If her damage is instead shifted to an attack buff, her shunpo’s utility can be increased (and changed) to compensate. Instead of gaining reduction against all damage sources, she only gains reduction from champions, and it has an internal cooldown to ensure that Katarina players are still thinking about when to shunpo after they reset.

-Finally, Death Lotus can target non-champions, and deals increased damage to single targets. A range increase means two things as a result of this change. One, Katarina can channel more brush ultimates on unwary foes. Two, if Katarina wants to take full advantage of her single-target damage potential, she has to be in a good position to be channeling to only one target.

TL;DR In conclusion, If…

1. Katarina’s Q requires/allows for more action from Katarina and her opponents
2. Katarina’s scalings are increased and base numbers are decreased, but more counterplay is introduced in addition to the increase in scalings, especially on the abilities (Q and E) that are to scale so efficiently (in the form of bounce mechanics on Q and visible attack buffs on E)
3. Katarina’s W’s cooldown is increased and damage shifted to her E
4. Katarina’s E doesn’t deal instantaneous damage, but rather every X seconds.
5. Katarina’s ultimate requires more decision-making (multiple targets versus single target channel + positioning required for the decision)

Then… -Katarina can still dish out tons of AOE damage given good placement and timing, without being too snowbally. -Katarina can snowball, but still needs to successfully and skillfully land her abilities correctly in order to abuse the snowball potential -Katarina can contribute to her team even when she’s behind -Her assassination potential can be increased (on her ultimate)

Warmest Regards for reading, Cardi (NA)