So, why is Katarina allowed to remain untouched in her current state

Fisher No Chains·Mar 7, 2017·5 votes·518 views

But some other assassins aren't and get nerfed the istant they reach a 5% playrate?

Yes, I lost to a Kata, but this is not a random rant. I've seen streams and people play Kata and I think that she's disgusting. Her rework made her more unique and interactive? Maybe for Kata, but for the opponent trying to lane vs her it's a miserable experience. Good luck trying to hit her with anything since she's slippery as fuck. Good luck surviving her lv 2 all in without MR. Good luck pushing her wave considering she has one of the best (and resourceless) wave clear of all assassins.

Is that rework really a "super healthy" one? I don't know at this point.

/rant

8 Comments

Linna ExcelMar 7, 20172 votes

Katarina is actually harder to play now. She also kind of needs her team to do good enough of a job without her that she can jump in and get a reset.

Fisher No ChainsMar 7, 20171 votes

The problem is that she gets a E reset even if her team does nothing at all.

She doesn't even need her ult anymore to kill people since her damage and mobility are so high that a full rotation + gunblade is literally a free kill without even taking some damage if played well.

FreeVolibearMar 7, 20172 votes

I avoided Katarina for a long time because she looked too simple to play to enjoy. After the rework, I was still skeptical, but I banned her on occasion due to her obvious success in mid (not my first ban choice though). I recently had three of my mid choices banned when I somehow autofilled mid, and I finally gave in and tried Kat out. I wrecked my lane quite easily and roaming for quick kills was insanely easy. I even messed up the mechanics of her dagger toss and dash, but either another dash, or the easily forgiving damage saved me by netting me another kill. This champs is so easy and forgiving to play with such high damage and little downside. You could trade even death for kill and snowball so hard it's really surprising to me that this champ could ever seem balanced.

Chibi BronzlifeMar 7, 20171 votes

Katarina has a very high skill dependency requiring good mechanics and intelligent decision making. The difference between a good kat and someone who is just playing Kat because "she's op" is like night and day.

Fisher No ChainsMar 7, 20171 votes

That's for like the 80% of the assassins roster? I know she's hard to play and master, but once you've mastered her she's really hard to punish. Same issue with maybe LeBlanc, who's got nerfs since people understood how to play her, whereas katarina just got a 2MR nerf and that indirect gunblade nerf.

Chibi BronzlifeMar 8, 20171 votes

Yes, but Leblanc was nerfed not do to her assassination capability, but because she could basically miss half her skills and still walk away with the kill. The amount of skill actually needed wasn't matching with the intended difficulty of Leblanc. Katarina still requires hitting her abilities to get kills which means that if you see a kat in the game you can pick to counter with long ranged safe poke. It also means that your short range early picks have a level of risk to them as Kat is more a counter to the AD assassins than anything else.

FreeVolibearMar 7, 20171 votes

She's really not hard at all though... The only thing remotely difficult is placing her dagger toss. If you mess up a dash? Just toss dagger in the air and burst someone who tries to punish a poorly aimed dagger dash.

Chaos Milk TeaMar 7, 20171 votes

I like fighting new kat a lot more. I can look at the daggers and go: Hm, I'd better stay away from that. Or: Maybe I can bate her into jumping there....

Where she's going and what she can do is much clearer. She can't just face roll like she used to either.