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I am a Katarina main since beta and I would like to adress her issues

Auzyris··180 votes·29,084 views

Hello.

Allow me to introduce myself, I’ve been playing League since beta, I have been high elo since Season 2, currently Master tier, and I main Katarina since forever. I have played every version of Katarina, the first one when item 3072 was her core item, the second one when her Q would mark people and her W was a small AOE, and finally the third and final one that we have today.

I would like discuss Katarina’s state and focus Riot's attention on her current issues. As you may already know she's pretty bad in soloQ (2.2% playrate and 49.7% wr), she barely sees any competitive play and most importantly she doesn't feel nearly as fun anymore. I made a little comparison between her old and current kit in order to explain why the new one feels clunky and how she could be fixed.

  • Her strengths : The dagger mechanics with the Shunpo reset and outplay potential/mobility it offers. With this new passive she's less reliant on her ultimate to dish out damage.
  • Her weaknesses : She doesn't feel like an assassin anymore: her daggers are very predictable and easy to dodge or play around and limit her own ability to dodge unpredictably. Also, pre lvl 11 her shunpo cooldown does not feel intuitive to play with as you often have to wait for it to come off cooldown to perform a combo, time during which you end up wandering around without doing anything. She relies on Gunblade too much because you NEED that item in order to combo properly.

How to fix that ? Some ideas.

  1. Revert Katarina. A lot of Katarina mains that I know really enjoyed the smooth gameplay of old Katarina. It was easy to play but hard to master especially in high elo. Ward jump was great, her build was really flexible even for her abilities, she could go W max vs melee or Q max vs range. Of course she wasn't perfect, she had the same issues as current Katarina : situationally bad in teamfight, countered by CC, bad in lane etc... She also was hard to balance since her abilities were so easy to hit.
  2. Fix her current issues. Reduce waiting time for the dagger to land, maybe with a scaling on lvl for the delay to improve her late game teamfight. Reduce Shunpo CD in early when picking up a dagger and remove small cast time to make it more reactive, make her less Gunblade-dependent, give her the ability to ward-jump again.
  3. Give her the Ryze treatment. Rework her AGAIN ! I don't have anything in mind but it's an option imo.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think and please answer the poll on the post, I'm curious to know what you guys think. Katarina

228 Comments

Dat Kat68 votes

I've been asking for a revert on the boards for a long time on every katarina post, and every time I got downvoted for god knows why. Now everybody's wanting a revert and they're getting upvotes. Weird community this board gathers.

Kadexe40 votes

Probably because reverting her is an objectively bad idea. Old Katarina was far less balanced and lacking good counterplay if she got a few kills.

Dat Kat16 votes

What? are you serious? Katarina was by far the most easily countered champ, yet the most fun to play. Yes she gets kills, but that never really guarantees her win if the enemy team targets her on every tf. She was easily out damaged, out laned, and countered. It all goes down to individual skills and team play coordination. She needed good positioning for a good landing of her kit.

What her rework did is strip off the fun factor of playing katarina with a lot more unnecessary challenges to her gameplay. Her combos are slower, less effective, and simply unfit for the assassin role in comparison to other champs within that class. She's not half as fun as she ever was and that really is very sad.

I remember just before her rework was even announced, her playrate was pretty low and she wasn't even that much of a ban preference. She wasn't broken at all. Her rework served no purpose as intended what so ever.

Unvictus10 votes

Riot: “we are slowing down assassin’s burst windows”

You: “her combos are slower”

Also you: “her rework didnt serve it’s intended purpose”

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

I understand how you feel, I really do. I liked old graves a lot and whenever I had to play adc he was my go to pick. Now, I never play him.. I understand if you think her old kit was more fun, but myself and many others think her new kit is more fun. Fun is such a objective term. Not everyone is gonna be happy. When it comes to a gameplay standpoint however, we have to look at which iteration is better for the game health. Her current kit is much healthier for the game than her previous kit. Ward hopping was never good for the game and only caused frustration for enemies cause Kat could misposition and just get out of jail for free as long as she had a ward. Her old kit had no skill involved other than general game knowledge, literally no skill expression when it came to her kit itself. Not to mention how bland and binary her kit was. Riot said her W was an uninteractive and boring ability which lead to them changing it. I understand your frustration, I really do. But I don’t see Riot ever going back to her old kit, not with all of the issues that it came with.

Personally, I hope Riot understands that Kat players are a little upset and take what they deem the appropriate action. I think tuning her dagger drop rates and removing the E cast time is the right call and will make her feel much smoother to play.

Dat Kat11 votes

Except that I'm not even talking about her damage. Read my statement correctly and don't play around my words. I said her kit itself is slow, the cd's are too high, her w takes forever to land on the ground for whatever reason, her shunpo's cd is relatively high, making her vulnerable in every way if she even thinks for once to engage at a target. Like I wish they'd reduce her dmg, that she doesn't even have anyways. But atleast make her cd's somewhat relevant to her kit, she's so slow in every way. Specially early, this is how you play katarina early, stay under turret and pray for your jungler's attention. Period. Her rework is a total failure. Her playrate dropped dramatically, nobody likes her, the majority doesn't atleast.

When scarra, the once katarina god drops her. You know riot fucked up. I hate the new kat, the majority hates her too. She is barely relevant in this season's meta. Hell, I can't even recall when was the last time I saw a katarina in my matches.

VoraciousX17 votes

{quoted}

What? are you serious? Katarina was by far the most easily countered champ, yet the most fun to play. Yes she gets kills, but that never really guarantees her win if the enemy team targets her on every tf. She was easily out damaged, out laned, and countered. It all goes down to individual skills and team play coordination. She needed good positioning for a good landing of her kit.

What her rework did is strip off the fun factor of playing katarina with a lot more unnecessary challenges to her gameplay. Her combos are slower, less effective, and simply unfit for the assassin role in comparison to other champs within that class. She's not half as fun as she ever was and that really is very sad.

I remember just before her rework was even announced, her playrate was pretty low and she wasn't even that much of a ban preference. She wasn't broken at all. Her rework served no purpose as intended what so ever.

Her rework served the purpose of giving her multiple options of things to do in a fight, giving her multiple ins and outs, as well as making her actually able to be competitive at higher levels of play. Her and MF were both reworked for the same reason. They were pubstompers at lower levels but at higher levels they were unplayable. Now both are actually making their way to higher levels of play. I'd also argue that new Kat is a lot more fun to play than pre-rework Kat. You only had one thing you could do, and people knew exactly what that was: Q>E>W>walk away or stay and ult.

New Kat imo is by far more fun than old Kat and her new kit only needs some QOL changes, not any significant buffs or anything. She also feels really similar to old Kat. She still has her old W(in fact she can do it twice now), she still has her E, Q, and R. The only difference is her Q now gives her a second W instead of amping damage on anyone you auto attack or W. Her W now gives her instant movement speed with a delayed Sinister Steel, and her E can be used multiple times regardless if you get a kill. Personally I think Kat's rework is probably the second most similar to the champion any rework has done. The first being Warwick.

Marothennan9 votes

I just want her reverted because old Kat was less annoying to play against

Napoleon37 votes

me too bro

OtterlyLost48 votes

No? Let's not revert Katarina? The fact that this is upvoted and commented on so positively is also suspicious AF since I know every other "Revert Kata" thread has been vehemently downvoted and argued against.

She is fair the way she is; she's intended to be mechanically complicated in her current iteration which is why she has a 49(almost 50%) win rate. Old Katarina lacked a lot of counter play and was at best just a bronze stomper and at worst fucking insane. She should remain the way she is now.

Auzyris15 votes

Hey.

I played old Katarina in competitive soloQ and I could find ways to carry with a really simple kit when she was a "bronze stomper". 49.7% winrate is alright for a "hard to play" champion but she has a really low playrate and she's played a lot by OTP.

Also I mostly complain about the feeling I have while playing this champions, she's slow, clunky, predictable and I don't want to build Gunblade every games. The fact that she's "bad" is not my main issue with her.

Snowbrand16 votes

{quoted}

No? Let's not revert Katarina? The fact that this is upvoted and commented on so positively is also suspicious AF since I know every other "Revert Kata" thread has been vehemently downvoted and argued against.

She is fair the way she is; she's intended to be mechanically complicated in her current iteration which is why she has a 49(almost 50%) win rate. Old Katarina lacked a lot of counter play and was at best just a bronze stomper and at worst fucking insane. She should remain the way she is now.

Yea, dont do the same mistake as they did to the revert of lb. Even if the rework wasn't great, it was still better and healthier(and more fun from my own personal opinion) then the old one.

Sexy Daddy Sett 36 votes

Be smart Riot, make an ultimate skin on Katarina, revert her, and make as much money as Kha zix's new skin and buff [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

TalontedM76 votes

I say fix her current issues rather than reverting but YES ULTIMATE OR LEGENDARY SKIN!

I Ighni I27 votes

The old kata was the most funny champion I have played in league of legends

Sir Rouge19 votes

''As you may already know she's pretty bad in soloQ (2.2% playrate and 49.7% wr)'' Where are you getting this data?

According to lolalytics:

  • Plat+ : 52.2% WR (58.6% on best on champ WR), 4.7% PR
  • Dia+ : 54.1% WR (58.6% on best on champ WR), 4.0% PR

As for her gameplay, I understand if you think her current iteration just doesn't work and would want another rework. However, this version of kat is much healthier than the old Kat. We shouldn't randomly revert it. Also, this version of Kat is also doing much better in high elo than old Kat was.

NineTailedMystic17 votes

"bring back ward jump"

So make her impossible to interact with again?

KFCeytron16 votes

49.7% WR is fine. Reverting Kat to her previous kit, where W was just an instant undodgeable PBAoE with absolutely nothing interesting about it, is one of the worst ideas I've ever seen on these Boards. Kat's current kit allows for so much more skill expression than her old one that it's not even funny.

lil koda9 votes

kat mains just wanna do more damage with less thought

Auzyris16 votes

Kat mains want to play a champ that is smooth, not clunky and fun to play. >_n

Irelia, Akali and Aatrox are fun to play and does not feel clunky. Sadly their gameplay is overshadowed by the fact that they are slightly overpowered. [slayer-jinx-unamused]

lil koda10 votes

if you think aatrox isnt clunky to play, then idk what the fuck to tell you lol, the slow q's on a juggernaut esc champ feels so fucking aweful

Auzyris9 votes

It just take some games to get use to it but it's really a blast to play.

Naymliss12 votes

Kinda like Kat [slayer-jinx-wink]

Sire Hippington14 votes

Wierd, i always thought i was mostly alone with likeing old kat more than the new... The old kit felt so much smoother and with more options while beeing mechanically less stressfull...And even off builts like trinity bruiser actually did work well.

Unvictus12 votes

You lost me at “mechanically less stressful”.. so you want to be able roll your face on the keyboard...??

noted

BestPudgeNA2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sire Hippington,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=auI0Wh8B,comment-id=000c,timestamp=2018-09-30T23:17:27.377+0000)

Wierd, i always thought i was mostly alone with likeing old kat more than the new...

You're this is a reddit/katmains raid thread.

Tapette a Noobs13 votes

I totally agree with you

ForgetMeNotKeanu12 votes

Nearly 50 percent win rate isn’t “pretty bad”

Onandaga12 votes

To me it feels like most of the people in the "she's fine" camp are people who don't and never have had the slightest interest in playing kat and just want to keep her from ever seeing the light of day.

Unvictus11 votes

A revert is the worst thing that could happen in my opinion. Her new kit is way more fun in my opinion and requires much more skill. Why anyone would want to go back to her “face roll on the keyboard kit” is beyond me. Her old kit had literally no skill expression at all, with the exception of wait out enemy cc (a gameplay factor not exclusive to Kat). All that needs to happen is reduce dagger drop times as the game goes on and lower/ remove the shunpo cast time and boom, she feels smooth to play again.

Sugar Momma10 votes

What Katarina NEEDS is her previous splash art!!!

SilverJohnnyK9 votes

The problen isn't new Kat, it's one of two things:

  1. Riot has been constantly nerfing her damage since Season 7. Direct nerfs to her passive, Q and E.

  2. The nerf to the E cooldown.

In my opinion, I can accept the dmg nerfs or the cooldown nerf but not both. Given the choice, I'd prefer to have the cooldown back on her E so her kit feels fluid again.

Having no fun since Kat hit the trash heap, meanwhile Zed, Talon, Fizz, Ekko, Leblanc and Yasuo have all recieved massive buffs and have been allowed to remain OP. Smh..

JohnnyNeverSins9 votes

They reworked the assassins for a reason,to give players more time in order to react,yeah sure,BUT they fucking reverted Le Blanc and Rengar essentially for the same reason, katarinas Q doesn't feel like an assassin ability since it needs to land first and shit,and on top of that it's really predictable. Le Blancs Q needed time to proc l,so they reverted her. Rengars Q also needed time to finish the animation which for an assassin is not Ideal. My question is this,why revert certain champions to their previous "unhealthy" state because they were underperforming in their new state but leave some other struggling champions like Katarina untouched?

Napoleon39 votes

i liked old katarina more than new one i actually stoped playing katarina as a main kata who started maining her at season 5 and i stopped playing her after the rework shes just too boring and slow for me.

Hatt0ri Hanz08 votes

I'm 100% ok with this post, the old kata was totally better for players solo Q, the shunpo ward was an ability ultra important for kata players, for engage or escape fight, the new dagger system is very slow, and good player can predic where dagger go and move in opposite direction. and the old kata was totally fun with the reset W.

Riot has already back with some rework, like for rengar they comeback with old Q, so they can do same for kata.

Catastroclysm7 votes

Yep, Kat, like most champs, has gotten less enjoyable with each rework.

It's absurd how clunky she feels to play, seems they tried to top her clunkiness with the new Aatrox, but even that was unsuccessful.. And she feels horrible to play against as well. Just a stupid gimmick the entire lane phase, that is partially decided by the rng of her daggers landing position (this feels bad to lose to, and feels unrewarding to win against)

Also how can they remove her old w (which was perfectly fine) because it's 'uninteresting' yet have Kai'sa's Q exist. At least Kat's W forced you to get close to the target, in addition to Kat not even really needing abilities with exciting mechanics, due to her reset mechanic already filling that space.

Honestly the only good reworks that even come to mind in the history of league (post beta) are Eve's first rework, Sion, Nidalee, Poppy, and Swain. All other ones have either just added clunkiness, or made them into a huge problem. O.o

Vampire Diaries7 votes

I totally agree with this post. Everything that had to be said about new kat is told. I am also so happy that at last a post about katarina is so upvoted. Here is my opinion about katarina: i am a kat otp started to play in the end of s6. I managed to play old katarina for 3 or 4 months. I was firstly main garen but he wasnt really my playstyle i wanted someone who has mobility and does more damage and has a excape. So i was searching for champions with that and i found katarina. And ty god i did i really enjoyed her she was great. With the time i was struggaling but i learned what to max. Like q vs range and w vs melees. I also learned wt runes i had to take with katarina. I had many choises full ap or full mp and scaling health. And at last when i was actually starting to know how katarina was working i was so happy. I was wining most of my games it was awesome. But then rito decided to slow down assassins and they reworked her. I had to learn katarina all over again. And with the time i eventually did. To the point that i actually have 2.5 million mastery points on her. New kat is cool and so mobile. But since they nerfed the hell outta her i realized the problem with her kit. I liked new kat bcs she was broken i mean cmon who doesnt likes op champs but the nerfs came and yea they had to ofc . And i started to remember how old kat was working. She had terrible laning phase and laggs mobile but she was so smooth and a lot more fun to play. Also u could build whatever u prefer now u are so restrictee to gunblade in order to be relevant altho even if u get gunblade now u just have a bit more kill pressure u are still doing bad dmg intill u get ya shoes. U just have to be so fed to actually do something now or wait for ya teammates to get enemy low and just ks lol. She doesnt feels assassin anymore its more like mage. Yes old kat has her problems but at lest u can feel a lot fun playing her so smooth and the resets.... . So my point is new kat- mobile and cool but not fun and clunky, old kat- less mobile but feeling smooth a lot of fun playing her. I have so many mp on new kat but watching old kat plays i just prefer old kat. My ign is The Death Wizard in euw server if u wanna check my m points. Old kata was gold and i miss her :(

Elipo3 votes

"With the time i was struggaling but i learned what to max. Like q vs range and w vs melees."

This made me nostalgic.

Tomoe Gozen7 votes

Reverting Katarina would only bring back her previous issues, which was the reason she was reworked in the first place. So no, she wasn't a healthier champion previously, but now she is.

That being said, i'm still not convinced her current kit suits her completely and as you've said, the access to your fluent combo becomes available at level 11 and is too dependent on Gunblade. I much more prefer this version of her darting around the battlefield, picking up her daggers and doing her damage, which means way higher chances of success without being too dependent on her ult.

Her ult needs to have the same mechanic of dropping Kat's daggers on battlefield, depending on how long you've managed to channel it. If i'm already having to stop moving in order to deal AoE damage, i should have to be able to prime the battlefield to continue my combo depending if my ult channel was successful or not.

As it stands, Katarina doesn't feel as dangerous if people aren't stupid to walk over her daggers but reaching those damage numbers where your dagger pickups start hurting (when behind), is a pain in the ass.

Hiroyuki Romano7 votes

I used to play the old kat quite a bit and enjoyed alot but since the rework i just don't like playing her anymore.

Actually i don't think reverting katarina is the best solution but the actual katarina need some changes or a rework. Waiting the daggers to hit the ground, wait your shunpo when you take a daggers... new kata you have to WAIT and WAIT i hate that katarina so much. Leblanc got a revert, Fizz W got reverted too, why katarina need to be like that ? Do something to our lovely champion that used to be enjoyable to play...

Linna Excel6 votes

I didn't play Katarina that much, but I liked the old version more. I'm not sure I could play the new one even in normals. I'd prefer a revert perhaps with a GU, but if that's not possible I'd be fine if riot reworked her properly.

The midyear updates were largely terrible to every champion riot screwed around with. Unless there was a champ unequivocally improved by one of them, riot should just revert everyone one of those failed experiments. I mean look at Sej. Riot reworked her so she'd be better off in the long run, but she's unplayed and just received a round of nerfs.

Blåbæret5 votes

Lmao, solution 2 is basically asking for her to be a 100% win rate.

SHANK LUX MAINS5 votes

Old kat was fast, smooth, and rewarded you for making it out of her garbage lane phase with good damage and mobility out of lane, new kat is like rework lb, clunky, not really an assasin, and just feels bad to play. Kat was one of my mains at the time of the assassin rework and literally as soon as it hit I dropped her bc she wasn't katarina anymore

TekkenPlayer4 votes

early CD reset on shunpo really does feel clunky especially during (e,w) and it feels like I have to take about a million damage before I get to shunpo out of the trade. Her trading feels really clunky compared to other assassins

Masquerobot4 votes

I agree that her dagger takes forever to land. This change happened around the time Riot was obsessed with allowing reaction times for flashy champs like Kat and LB. Seems they've dropped that obsession with the new Akali and Irelia changes though so I completely agree the dagger should land faster.

Xeronic4 votes

Those win rates and play rates doesn’t say «bad in solo Q», but yeah she needs some work.

KÎŢŢΥKÂŢKÂŢÂRÎÑÂ4 votes

Oh my god another thread about this. i beg of you just stop.

KATARINA IS FINE NOW! she is strong (if u know how to play her), balanced assassin. I swear to god, the only reason people complain about kat is cause they can't get a single penta anymore, i promise you that is the only reason why people complain about her. Only thing that needs to be changed is Gunblade but not katarina. No one complained about her when she was pick/ban status in the assassin rework, but after she fell down and now is weak midlane people start complaining. Pathetic.

Catastroclysm9 votes

I, and many others complained immediately, because she is incredibly unsatisfying to play as, and against. It has nothing to do with power.

KÎŢŢΥKÂŢKÂŢÂRÎÑÂ2 votes

{quoted}

I, and many others complained immediately, because she is incredibly unsatisfying to play as, and against. It has nothing to do with power.

Hmmm i did not see you or any others in katarina subreddit, forums complaining about her after the assassin rework. hmmmmmmm. show a post around that time where you complained?

SpecterVonBaren3 votes

Oh yes now everyone wants a revert to Katarina because..... reasons? Same old "everything was better before!"

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