Kat is a pain to play against

Meat Feast·Apr 7, 2018·35 votes·2,970 views

I wouldn't go so far as to say Kat is OP but laning against her is a chore to the extreme. Constantly keeping track of her teleport is painful, and if she gets ahead, she can chase anyone down with it.

What I would suggest to make laning phase a little less obnoxious would be to lower the range of her damage when she picks up her knifes. That way I wouldn't have to run to the over side of the lane everytime her knife lands somewhere.

Anyone else think Kat is overly annoying to deal with?

59 Comments

EyasHawkApr 8, 201825 votes

Diana : "No, No. Please come pick that dagger. I insist"

TempName54846Apr 8, 20183 votes

the part where diana gets absolutely shit on by kat makes this post interesting

BeatzBoyFTWApr 8, 20181 votes

This is assuming players would actually pick Diana over the overused Zed/Yasuo champs.

RainbowIceeApr 8, 20183 votes

isn't it a skill match up [sg-lux-2] Diana doesn't automatically beat her just because she can cancel her ult. If anything kat has an advantage because diana is melee so she'll get hurt by kay easy while she's going to struggle to land her Q on kat unless she's on top of her.

EyasHawkApr 8, 20185 votes

{quoted}

isn't it a skill match up [sg-lux-2] Diana doesn't automatically beat her just because she can cancel her ult. If anything kat has an advantage because diana is melee so she'll get hurt by kay easy while she's going to struggle to land her Q on kat unless she's on top of her.

Honestly doesnt feel like much of a skill matchup. Diana is my go to pick against most assassins.

For Kata: Diana's E makes Kata's all-in irrelevant since you can cancel her R. They are both melee but if you can land the Q then diana's ranged poke is superior to Kata. Diana with bone plating her shieled and electro can both facetank kata and win any trade, especially if you land the passive empowered auto. Kata needs to shunpo close to her daggers to deal any damage which makes it easy to mark her with your Q. The reset from your R once you land a Q also means that Kata cannot go for short trades then shunpo out since you can just R to her to re-engage. Diana's assassin build one-shots far faster than Kata and with the extra tankiness from the shield means that you cant lose an all-in even if you dont cancel her R.

OkumaApr 8, 20181 votes

This is correct! Diana with bone plating is obnoxious to play against. Coming from a Katarina main. I still feel like the matchup is a skill matchup tho.

TerozuApr 8, 20181 votes

Statistically speaking out of about 150 games, Kat wins lane, but Diana wins games. Though it's really close so yeah I'd consider it a skill matchup.

SlampieceHawkeApr 8, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Statistically speaking out of about 150 games, Kat wins lane, but Diana wins games. Though it's really close so yeah I'd consider it a skill matchup.

I feel like it is ALMOST a skill matchup. As someone who plays Diana quite heavily when mid, I've had Kat's just lane swap straight from the get go to avoid the matchup. I've also had some Kat's beat me too though I'm not the greatest Diana, but I do know the matchup quite well. I feel like a Diana and Kat of equal skill favors the Diana a little more though.

OkumaApr 9, 20181 votes

A lot of people think the matchup's a instant loss for Katarina, but it's not. It heavily relies on the persons knowledge of the opposing champion. Back in the day I used to panic when having to face a Diana, but I've come to realize the matchup isn't that bad.

ĘsdeathApr 8, 20182 votes

No it is not a skill matchup. Diana does automatically beat her, no questions asked. If both players are equally skilled, Diana auto-wins the match. Katarina's main form of damage comes from daggers, and during the early game she thrives at punishing players for standing on top of them (or by positioning her daggers correctly), something that doesn't happen with Diana. Diana literally punishes you UNDER YOUR DAGGER, her shield locks down your Q damage at levels 1, her shield also blocks any damage you might give after jumping to her (you will just take all the spheres and do nothing in exchange).

Literally, most guides and any kata main will just suggest you to simply play the lane safely and to rarely engage with her unless a great opportunity comes up, or just roam - You will not be winning that lane unless you are more fed than her.

0 HogapuApr 8, 20182 votes

You're wrong. I'm a Katarina and Diana main, and I always win as Kat agaisnt Diana. Later on the game tho, it starts being impossible for Kat to do anything. I've played this match up lots of time, agaisnt a dia4 Diana otp and she told me the same. Diana is an atual free lane for kat.

tieger05Apr 9, 20181 votes

{quoted}

You're wrong. I'm a Katarina and Diana main, and I always win as Kat agaisnt Diana. Later on the game tho, it starts being impossible for Kat to do anything. I've played this match up lots of time, agaisnt a dia4 Diana otp and she told me the same. Diana is an atual free lane for kat.

I'm a Diana/Kat main too (I'm just a bit more experienced on Diana). You're right, actually. After the Assassin rework, it's become more of a skill matchup. Diana doesn't counter kat as easily.

SuperspickApr 9, 20181 votes

Diana wins by default, because Kat can outplay Diana BUT if Kat never does outplay Diana, Diana wins. Diana can't outplay cause her kit goes in one binary direction, but if she doesn't make a mistake, Kat shouldn't be able to kill her.

Since the onus is on Kat to outplay just to lane (try to farm with autos midlane vs Diana, that's exactly how you lose), it's correct to say Diana is a soft counter to Kat. Hard counter would mean Kat can do almost nothing, which is wrong, because a well timed EW to dodge the Di Q is a great way to win a trade vs Diana, and it's not too hard to do.

What's fucked is Kat can build Hexdrinker and run Diana down if the latter doesn't respect the former. Kat then can't burst other targets on the map as easily, but she can survive Diana with relative ease itemizing that way.

Diana players like to think Kat can't win period, but Kat can pop Diana like a berry if Diana is behind/can't refresh W shield or just doesn't respect daggers on the ground.

MordepoolApr 7, 20187 votes

Play Mordekaiser.

Tails9016Apr 8, 20181 votes

Name checks ou- wait that actually works

YumaS2AstralApr 8, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Play Mordekaiser.

Does Mordekaiser actually work against Kat? I mean, he can't even interrupt her ult, and has poor base stats (hard to survive against an assassin if he just all-ins you if you aren't tanky enough)

RainbowIceeApr 8, 20181 votes

Kat is melee though allowing you a full kit rotation of harass vs her if she jumps in on you. Unless she levels enough for the shumpo cd to be too short but before that time you can make her dives risky.

MordepoolApr 8, 20183 votes

{quoted}

Does Mordekaiser actually work against Kat? I mean, he can't even interrupt her ult, and has poor base stats (hard to survive against an assassin if he just all-ins you if you aren't tanky enough)

Q3 is an interrupt in that it will kill her outright

And yes you can easily beat her in lane since you have sustain. The trick is not dying when she roams

Nut on my ButtApr 7, 20186 votes

She's pretty easy to lane against especially for ranged champs with mobility, but even without mobility she's pretty easy to play around. She's not going to win trades on you without proc'ing her passive damage on you, and until she gets gunblade, she has no way to guarantee its damage, and at low levels, her shunpo has a full 2 seconds of cd when picking up a dagger, which is a lot of time for you and your minions to batter her with autos if she goes in. If your minions aren't helping you win trades on her when she goes in early, then you are out of position.

ĘsdeathApr 8, 20181 votes

I gotta disagree with the part where you say: "She's not going to win trades on you without proc'ing her passive damage on you" - Electrocute is literally a dagger on top of you which is purely based on point-and-clicks. Literally, if she sees fit, she can simply Q E (behind) AA you and you will just lose a nice chunk of health with electrocute, and then she procs her dagger which is nothing really hard to achieve - I mean, seriously, it is an undodgeable combo that she will do either to execute you or to win any trades against you. If you happen to pick first and you picked a squishier champ, as soon as you get that combo on you you will have lost 40% of your HP (not considering the dagger).

Nut on my ButtApr 8, 20185 votes

Ok, she'll win trades against you even without her passive damage if you don't hit her back I guess.

And in lane, you can completely control whether you get hit by a dagger or not. The E W one might be hard to avoid if your reactions aren't so great, but the Q dagger is easily avoidable unless you're being ganked.

PokladnicaZlaApr 8, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Daddy Issues,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZkgO9oAE,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2018-04-07T23:56:30.870+0000)

She's pretty easy to lane against especially for ranged champs with mobility, but even without mobility she's pretty easy to play around. She's not going to win trades on you without proc'ing her passive damage on you, and until she gets gunblade, she has no way to guarantee its damage, and at low levels, her shunpo has a full 2 seconds of cd when picking up a dagger, which is a lot of time for you and your minions to batter her with autos if she goes in. If your minions aren't helping you win trades on her when she goes in early, then you are out of position.

So,if you're an ADC?

Nut on my ButtApr 8, 20181 votes

Lucian mid actually counters Katarina, but besides picks like that, why would you be laning mid vs an assassin as someone like Ashe?

Lady HammerlockApr 8, 20184 votes

I honestly wouldn't know how that feels like

Most of the champions I use would probably abuse, and win a trade if she tried that. Just abuse this by shoving her pre-6, if she tries to farm with a dagger proc, bully her.

FrostQueensPlaneApr 8, 20184 votes

Point and click is bad.....except when it's on assassins. When it's on assassins it's just counterplay player agency - repetoir

ShablagooApr 8, 20184 votes

Lol I hate post like these they are so dumb, I hate this champion because they annoy me. That isnt a reason to nerf her, also you play brand, which speaks volumes. The fact that the daggers bounce to a certain spot tells you that you should walk away from the point the dagger is going to land.

BlåbæretApr 8, 20182 votes

Yes, it is. Toxic gameplay patterns have been enough reason for Riot to leave champions in the gutter. Kat is definitely toxic and unfun to play against.

ShablagooApr 8, 20181 votes

Yes which is what happened to rengar and LB and they ended up reverting them. All this does is make the mains who play them hate riot and their own champion. Also that is the worse reasons to nerf a champion. I can understand if the champion is to strong and they nerf them shaco needed to have his ratios lowered because they were to strong. But this nerf a champion because they are toxic is something that a low elo player says, you know who else is toxic, teemo, but Riot doesnt nerf him because they know inherently that he isnt op he is just toxic, they have no reason to nerf a champion because of their kit because the kit isnt stront certain ppl are just annoyed by it.

NayzumiApr 7, 20183 votes

Play malphite.

C9 Squeeky Apr 8, 20183 votes

The daggers are in plain sight, no need to "track". If you sense they want to Shunpo to it, throw an ability there and hit her, especially if it's hard CC to lock her down and burst her. She is melee so poke her with autos and push her in.

DauntApr 8, 20183 votes

What I would suggest to make laning phase a little less obnoxious would be to lower the range of her damage when she picks up her knifes. That way I wouldn't have to run to the over side of the lane everytime her knife lands somewhere.

Yeah lets kill the champion because you don't understand how spacing works. While it might be exaggerated she's already in a worse spot than she was a few patches ago. She's only obnoxious if she's able to punish you for the mistakes that you make hence being better at lower elos. She's always gonna be a noob stomper while not such a good pick versus players that actually know how to play out midlane. Sorta like Zed.

Troll for TrumpApr 7, 20182 votes

They already did that

report yasuoApr 8, 20182 votes

Dude the range on the dagger is not even that big just stand slightly away from it and bait her lmao Kat's laning is not even good it's her roaming that's broken.

Violet FieldsApr 8, 20182 votes

It's more infuriating to play when she gets a triple kill with absolutely no cs.

YoNightmare7Apr 8, 20182 votes

Ban her i guess

UnvictusApr 8, 20182 votes

Her laning phase is actually the worst it’s ever been since her rework. They’ve lowered her shunpo base damage a lot and lengthened the CD on shunpo. I would suggest taking advantage of the fact that she’s a melee champ by harassing her when she walks up to cs. This should be super easy to do now and you can punish her hard when she goes to the kill the cannon. With cannon minions giving much more gold now it’s a huge opportunity to get some huge harrass in. If you can bait her into jumping to a dagger and you dodge the damage you have a good window to trade back with some good damage, because the shunpo CD nerf makes it so she has to to wait longer to get shunpo back up at early ranks.

koshkyraApr 8, 20182 votes

My problem with her is, like you said, the range on her shunpo AoE on daggers.

She can E to the very edge of the dagger and literally damage you from a good ~5-6 teemos away from the actual dagger.

BakedLotionApr 8, 20182 votes

Well yeah Kat's picking up the dagger and spinning. Of course it's gonna hit you.

It's not like the dagger has a mind of its own and spins

heroikcApr 7, 20181 votes

I do, but it could be because I try to fight her as Veigar. I'll try facing her as Corki or Swain, next time. But yeah, the spin and jumps are a bit annoying.

Radiant WukongApr 7, 20181 votes

I don't have a problem laning against her, but chasing her down is a task. I was 2/0 Wukong against a 0/2 Kat, she went to bush, I chased her to bot lane, 0/2 Kat picked up a double kill under their tower before I got there. I was able to kill carry/support (Kat died to tower).

5050BSApr 8, 20181 votes

Its her Dagger Indicators. They show on the ground a circle and new players think 'Ok that is the aoe she can hit me with.

But its not, its the area she can Kepo to and the AOE zone she can damage with is MASSIVE around HER.

Its not just misleading its LYING to you

UnvictusApr 8, 20182 votes

But once you understand how it works it takes no more than a few games to get used to. A lot of players don’t even use quick cast indicators, they just know the ranges on their champions abilities, this is no different.

VvVVvVApr 8, 20181 votes

If you see the other team pick Kat just pick Malphite.

Malphites passive absorbs a lot of her damage. Also from my experience using him vs Katarina they tend to not leap to their dagger as much because if they do your passive eats that damage then you just E them, followed by Q, W. You will win that trade. And your ultimate completely shuts hers down.

Als o you can keep her back by just poking her down with your Q...until shes low enough you all in her.

They eventually get frustrated and result to just roaming, hardly ever being in lane. Leaves you with a free tower and just pray to god your team doesnt ignore your MIA and danger pings.

Rico NastyApr 8, 20181 votes

Kat's playstyle is just inherently feast or famine and the definition of toxic, both for the player and the opponent. Idk if there's much you can do without completely scrapping her kit and starting from square 1.

SenorBobbersApr 8, 20181 votes

oh yes, soooo hard to try and not be where the daggers are landing as they take 2 seconds to bloody land, I mean its totally not as hard as one champ who literally gives you no time to react and then kills you with ult because he lands on top of you making it almost impossible to dodge his skillshots

notice me Sin piApr 8, 20181 votes

my go-to counter pick against katarina as a support is Alistar . I've initially been using Leona against her and save my Q for her ult, but kat will sometimes find a spot where I can't reach fast enough to prevent teammate death due to E taking some animation time, and I'd be contributing nothing to a teamfight. With alistar, I can just walk up to enemy team and press Q, and still have W, a 650 range point-and-click hard cc, available for canceling katarina's ult. Best part is kat will probably be pushed into my team if she tries but ult-less as well.

SlampieceHawkeApr 8, 20181 votes

Sometimes I might think it's a pain that her knife is zoning me in lane phase but then you have to think that there are many champs that can push her wave into tower quite well, rendering her roaming strength almost powerless. Her zoning helps shore that up a little bit. You could argue that some of those champions pushing her have mana pool's but then again so long as you're using your abilities sensibly, mana shouldn't be too much of a problem for them.

ŚhunpoApr 8, 20181 votes

Wait, but you're saying all of this and yet you haven't faced a single Kat in any of your matches.......Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, something's not right here.

Also you play Anivia, that matchup should be in your favor....unless you're telling me you try to fight Kat early on, in which case now I understand why you're losing to her.

On another note, your suggestion of lowering her dagger's damage range is reasonable, until you consider one thing.......it's delayed damage AND it shows you where the bloody dagger(s) will land. It's literally counterplay central if you learn to read her movements.

As with most other champions I'll say this, if you struggle against her, try and play her. Once you do that you'll realise she's not as overbearing as you think she is now.

tieger05Apr 9, 20181 votes

Diana

VekknaApr 9, 20181 votes

The issue with Kat is the same issue you see with other (mostly recent) champs that deal meaningful damage up front and then create a zone that forces you to move under threat of even more damage or an all-in.

Ekko Q (2.5 seconds) Galio Q (1.5 seconds) Azir Q (10 seconds) Xayah Passive/E (6 seconds) Taliyah E (4 seconds) Nasus E (5 seconds)

Part of why Kat is so obnoxious in lane is because she gets guaranteed poke with Q, then forces you to play around the zone for 4 more seconds.

Other champs are held to a different set of rules. Specifically, zoning skills are a choice between zoning OR dealing damage, or the zone deals very weak damage or has ramp-up time. For example:

Lux E, zone disappears upon dealing damage Morgana W, zone deals weak initial damage and ramps up Cassiopeia W, zone deals miniscule damage Anivia R, zone deals weak initial damage with delay on E crit Gangplank E, zone disappears upon dealing damage Ziggs E, zone can be destroyed by minions Zilean E, zone deals no initial damage Zyra W, zone can be destroyed with autos and stray aoe