Don't most complaints directed at Zed apply to Katarina too?

Chris Chiaki·Mar 21, 2015·53 votes·3,603 views

Zed is too safe in lane? Katarina has an escape that is 50 range longer (600 range ward) and on a 12 second cooldown as opposed to a 18 second. Did I also mention it costs nothing at all while Zed has to use 40 energy?

**Free harass? ** Katarina gets it too, it's not even a skillshot compared to Zed? Zed's Q costs almost half his energy bar at level 1? Katarina's does too...oh shit it doesn't.

**Zed can dive you? ** So can Katarina, get the reset then E out.

**He can farm easily? ** Oh wait what can this do? MAGIC DAMAGE: 40 / 75 / 110 / 145 / 180 (+ 25% AP) (+ 60% bonus AD)

Hmm, does it even cost anything? No.

Zed can teamfight? Wait no he can't, that's why he splits. Katarina can't teamfight either of course, I mean how else will she pick up pentakills?

Yes you can always CC the Katarina but then can't you also CC...the Zed? Does your team not have some hard CC, an Exhaust, maybe even Flash or Heal to escape Zed in teamfights.

74 Comments

LankPantsMar 21, 201544 votes

The main difference between Zed and Kat is that Kat actually has to commit to her kill. If Zed fucks up and picks a bad engage he can just return to his ult shadow, If Kat fucks up and picks a bad engage she dies.

That's not to say Kat doesn't have problems though.

JunkοMar 21, 20154 votes

If Zed does a good engage he kills 1 person. If Kat does a good engage she kills the entire team.

If Zed had to commit there would be no reason at all to pick Zed over Katarina.

SEKAIMar 21, 201516 votes

That's only if she's fed and your entire team is brain dead at the same time, in which case ofc, you should be punished.

Getting penta'ed by Kat shouldn't happen all that often, I can get the idea that she can wipe teams more easily in solo queue, but really, it's solo queue you kinda expect that for a champ designed for situational faceroll.

JunkοMar 21, 20152 votes

Why should i be punished for the Lissandra on my team going 0/5 against her when i'm playing another lane(well i was jungle, but Evelynn can't do shit against Kat)? We won the game purely because Katarina and Tryndamere on enemy team went afk for some reason.

SEKAIMar 21, 20156 votes

The problem is on that Liss instead of on Kat's power budget from what I can read. She could have easily R the Kat when she ulti's and W around Trynda when he is using his ulti.

As I said, as a faceroll champ, both of them are, solo queue is more in their favour as they require unorganised enemies to be godly. But I wouldn't say the champ in that case is being too powerful or something along the lines. Since this game is supposed to be balanced around mostly team situation after all.

ForgiveColourMar 21, 20154 votes

and guess which champ has 56% win rate across every single region (na,eu,china,korea..) ? The answer is not zed

1st HanarSpectreMar 21, 20159 votes

{quoted}

and guess which champ has 56% win rate across every single region (na,eu,china,korea..) ? The answer is not zed

Sejuani. Also Sion, Amumu, Heimerdinger and Blitzcrank. They all have higher win rate than Kat. Guess we should nerf the shit out of those too right?

Kariu RenaMar 22, 20153 votes

except you forgot to factor in the pick rate son

1st HanarSpectreMar 22, 20155 votes

[{quoted}](name=Camped by Dad,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gWzfI0jE,comment-id=0004000100000000,timestamp=2015-03-22T00:21:02.549+0000)

except you forgot to factor in the pick rate son

http://na.op.gg/statistics/champion/ Blitz, Sejuani and Sion all have higher pick rate right now. Amumu is only 1% behind Katarina. Son

RikariMar 22, 20152 votes

how do you screw up a kill when you deal 2k magic damage over 2.5 seconds with one spell and magic penetration

LankPantsMar 22, 20152 votes

2.5 seconds is a long time to not move. If you just stand there for 2.5 seconds in your ult you'll get CC'd and killed.

RikariMar 22, 20153 votes

and then you realise you only need the full 2.5 seconds to kill at level 6,after that its pretty much faceroll death

Nameless VoiceMar 21, 201519 votes

Katarina is annoying, but for entirely different reasons.

Katarina has a single gapcloser, which she needs to use to initiate for most of her damage combo - putting her at risk when she does so. Zed has two gapclosers, one of which (his ult) is always available as an escape, and severely limits counterplay by most enemies, similar to LeBlanc's W.

Katarina's Q has a much longer cooldown (10-8 vs 6s), and deals much less damage unless she procs the autoattack portion. Also note that magic damage is much weaker than physical damage early-game, because most champions start with more MR than armour.

Katarina can dive you, yes. That's part of her kit. But she takes a bit of time to unload her damage (laning phase, when she needs to use her ult), and she can't get back out until you die. If she can't kill you fast enough, she will die for the attempt. Katarina diving is much riskier.

Zed has ranged farming - Katarina doesn't really. She can farm a little bit with Q, if she maxes it first, but the damage isn't great and it has a longer cooldown. Using W to farm puts her at more risk than Zed farming with skills.

Finally, Zed builds lifesteal as part of his standard build, and gets bonus AD from his passive to help it - which means that when he is farming with autoattacks (and open to harass), he's also healing himself. Katarina can't. Unless she builds Hextech Revolver into Gunblade or WotA, but that's really expensive, and spell vamp has much lower returns than lifesteal does.

No, Katarina's laning phase isn't a problem. She's one of the better-designed manaless champions in that regard - she has a weak early game and low base damages to compensate for no costs. The problem with Katarina is that later on, once she gets a lot of AP, she can unload her combo instantly, giving enemies little chance for counterplay, and if fed enough, can jump from enemy to enemy and do it all again.

ChamploogeMar 21, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Nameless Voice,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gWzfI0jE,comment-id=0007,timestamp=2015-03-21T14:25:42.663+0000)

Katarina is annoying, but for entirely different reasons.

Katarina has a single gapcloser, which she needs to use to initiate for most of her damage combo - putting her at risk when she does so. Zed has two gapclosers, one of which (his ult) is always available as an escape, and severely limits counterplay by most enemies, similar to LeBlanc's W.

Katarina's Q has a much longer cooldown (10-8 vs 6s), and deals much less damage unless she procs the autoattack portion. Also note that magic damage is much weaker than physical damage early-game, because most champions start with more MR than armour.

Katarina can dive you, yes. That's part of her kit. But she takes a bit of time to unload her damage (laning phase, when she needs to use her ult), and she can't get back out until you die. If she can't kill you fast enough, she will die for the attempt. Katarina diving is much riskier.

Zed has ranged farming - Katarina doesn't really. She can farm a little bit with Q, if she maxes it first, but the damage isn't great and it has a longer cooldown. Using W to farm puts her at more risk than Zed farming with skills.

Finally, Zed builds lifesteal as part of his standard build, and gets bonus AD from his passive to help it - which means that when he is farming with autoattacks (and open to harass), he's also healing himself. Katarina can't. Unless she builds Hextech Revolver into Gunblade or WotA, but that's really expensive, and spell vamp has much lower returns than lifesteal does.

No, Katarina's laning phase isn't a problem. She's one of the better-designed manaless champions in that regard - she has a weak early game and low base damages to compensate for no costs. The problem with Katarina is that later on, once she gets a lot of AP, she can unload her combo instantly, giving enemies little chance for counterplay, and if fed enough, can jump from enemy to enemy and do it all again.

I tell you now some diff.. First off riot made zed to have a strong early game ( and if you look at it zeds Q does not do a lot of dmg early) so that he could have a strong mid game and than fall off. Katarina has a decent early game while a deity like mid/late game. Katrina is the best team fighter in the game in solo q. Zed has near the worst team fight in the game with no survivability ones in the mist. Also you seem to think zed has 2 gap closers. Let me say this too you so that you understand his kit. Zed has 3 gap closers. summoner 4 and his rest. But here's the part where zed has a "safe gap closer". If zed uses his w to gap close to you. He no longer can activate that and risks it all. His cd is much longer than katas and does NOT REFRESH ON KILL. His ultimate yes is safer than his w. its a great gap closer and does decent dmg to a single squishy champion( lets be honest he's not going to be using his combo on anyone else besides the one he proced with ult). Kata does aoe dmg on...( GUESS WHAT. All her kit excluding gap closer) . So yes zed can make adcs/mids who aren't tanky or don't buy qss ( qss does not block 50% of katas dmg like it does on zed) . Note also that katas gap closer is both farther, deals dmg, givers her tankyness, resets, and has a lower cd.

1st HanarSpectreMar 21, 20152 votes

You have no idea what you are talking about. Katarina has a bad early game, a massive mid game and a medial late game. Her win rate drastically lowers as the game stretches out ( http://champion.gg/champion/Katarina ).

ThePlasticSporkMar 21, 201515 votes

Uh, yeah.

Most people that dislike her don't dislike her because of her ult, because her ult has huge amounts of counterplay. It's more the rest of her kit that's insanely obnoxious - free targeted harass, mobility, a combo that's nearly impossible to mechanically screw up, no resource, and resets for silly in 'n outs. Add to that the fact that her QWE, while relatively low damage, can be delivered in the amount of time most champions need to just cast a single ability in their rotation, and yeah, it's easy to see why she's disliked. Katarina and Zed are both pretty generally seen as "unfun" to play against, mostly for the same reasons.

SammystormMar 21, 20151 votes

I am confused how is this for the "same reason". Zed has delayed burst kat does not. Zed can split push kat can not. Zed has amazing wave clear kat does not. I mean what do they have in common other than both being assassins?

ThePlasticSporkMar 21, 20152 votes

They're both resourceless (really more effectively resourceless, in Zeds case, since his energy doesn't limit him at all) champions with ranged harass and strong mobility. Katarina doesn't need super strong waveclear because, like Zed, she can simply cast her abilities on waves whenever she wants while most mages have to be conservative with their own spells. Zeds waveclear also isn't actually that strong (his W Q E is NOT going to be destroying waves instantly for quite some time in the game), it's just that he will ALWAYS be able to use his spells on minions. Really, 90% of mages actually have better waveclear than both Zed and Kat, they just can't afford to use it most of the time, unless they're Xerath or Lissandra. Zed does NOT have "amazing waveclear", he just has "free" waveclear. This is pretty much best demonstrated by the fact that both Zed and Kat saw a massive surge in play following the mana regen changes.

They are both difficult to gank in lane (Zed just Ws away, Kat just shunpos to a ward or minion), and Kat even gets damage reduction from her E as well as movespeed from her W for better escaping.

Really, the main difference is that Kat is somewhat riskier because 3 of her spells are melee range and that her in n' out requires a kill or assist, but if a Kat player ever initiates a dive or some risky maneuver and fails to get the kill, that's mostly just a miscalculation of damage on her part. It's pretty much impossible to outplay Kat's QWE, because it's a targeted, effectively instantaneous combo.

I didn't say Kat and Zed were effectively the same champion. There's just a lot of crossover in regards to what people dislike about both - most of which have to do with the nature of how their laning phase works.

SammystormMar 22, 20152 votes

Kat's wave clear puts her in range of literally every spell in the game. Zed can stay back a hit minions with q all day. Zed is not resource less. Kat is. Kat has to sacrifice vision to escape ganks. Zed effectively loses nothing. Kat and zed are very different. Kat is more obnoxious for her front loaded damage. zed is more obnoxious for his ability to out play in any situation. Kat is super binary zed is not.

PubgamerAUMar 21, 201513 votes

The problem is, you either CC zed before he combos... in which case he just combo's after it, or you CC him after he combos... in which case what's the point of CC? He's already blown up your carry.

At least you can counterplay Kat's ult. She's vulnerable when she uses it. Zed is the complete opposite.

BeatzBoyFTWMar 21, 201526 votes

At least you can counterplay Kat's ult. She's vulnerable when she uses it. Zed is the complete opposite.

Stun Zed after he ults, typically means you just stopped a shitton of damage that could have been dealt to your ADC.

PubgamerAUMar 21, 20159 votes

No, because by the time you're able to land a stun on him, he's spammed both Q, E, and BotRK active at the same time, which is enough to explode a squishy.

stuartk11Mar 21, 20154 votes

{quoted}

No, because by the time you're able to land a stun on him, he's spammed both Q, E, and BotRK active at the same time, which is enough to explode a squishy.

If you do it after he turns up behind you, then he won't. You can CC most champions in the game to counter them.

XxxLumberJackxxXMar 21, 201512 votes

{quoted}

No, because by the time you're able to land a stun on him, he's spammed both Q, E, and BotRK active at the same time, which is enough to explode a squishy.

Place raka silence or cho Q under your ADC as soon as zed starts giggling.

NarasimhaMar 21, 201519 votes

Honestly, that's just bad reactions or bad location then. Its the easiest thing in the world to stun a Zed since his ult literally gives you time to set up and prepare for it.

Kitten of EvilMar 21, 20157 votes

Well or bad ping.

NarasimhaMar 21, 20155 votes

Bad ping kills indiscriminately. Unless you're on the East Coast. Then it has a vendetta against you.

Kitten of EvilMar 21, 20153 votes

Unfortunately, I am.

AuryielMar 21, 201510 votes

Zed is way safer than Kat in lane. He can W out as long as it's not on cooldown. Kat needs something to jump to, so either a ward or a unit, meaning she sacrifices vision control or you timed your gank poorly.

Kat's harass is pretty weak if all she does is Q you, plus it pushes the wave. Zed can control how much he pushes the wave.

Zed can dive you with a lot more safety than Kat thanks to the insane safety his R shadow gives you. Honestly, if Kat tower dives you and you die, you were hanging around with very low HP and you screwed up. Her burst is way lower than Zed's.

Kat's W deals less damage than a basic attack for most of the laning phase... It's really not that great at farming. Her only way of pushing a wave forces her to get into melee range of the creeps to detonate her Q mark. Zed can do that while staying at a safe distance.

Zed doesn't split push because he can't team fight. He split pushes because he can split push. He's extremely deadly in 1v1 situations and will force you to send one of your members to stop him. More than likely, stopping him actually means slowing him down, otherwise you risk dying to him and having your team lose an objective because they're fighting 4v5. Kat cannot do anything other than team fight. She SUCKS at everything other than killing champions. She's one of the worst champions when it comes to taking objectives.

Honestly, when dying to Zed, you probably got outplayed thanks to the slew of tools Zed has at his disposal. When dying to Kat, you probably just screwed up (the obvious exception being when her team just dished out massive AoE damage and you're all low enough to die to a QEW).

The way I see it, Kat punishes mistakes. Zed makes plays. The ONLY thing Kat does better than Zed is killing multiple low health enemies. Everything else, Zed does better.

p.s. I'm not saying Kat is weak, because she's not. But please, let's not start pretending to give her strengths she doesn't have.

Kitten of EvilMar 21, 20152 votes

I should have read these first before replying to OP. You basically said all I was going to say, and more. Well put.

Guy Fox TeemoMar 21, 20154 votes

You seem to think that everything revolves around laneing phase

AuryielMar 22, 20152 votes

What, the complaints raised about Zed and Kat in the OP are not all about laning phase except the last one? lol

Outside of the laning phase, Zed's safety is greater than Kat's to an even bigger extent than it is during the laning phase, because a lot of scenarios involve not having units to jump to for safety, like sieging and fighting over Baron/Dragon.

If Kat is harassing you past laning phase, you're hilariously bad.

If Kat is diving your entire team, please do slaughter her. If she's not alone, then it's not just Kat diving you and tower diving in team fights is really not that outrageous. A lot of champions can tower dive during team fights. Hell, a lot of them can stay away from tower range. Also, Zed's better at it than Kat.

As for farming, no chamion can be a viable mid lanner and be incapable of at least farming decently well past level 9. Complaining about that pretty much just means ''I want Kat to have a 30% win ratio''. Oh and Zed still does it better and with more safety.

And I briefly addressed Zed and Kat's roles outside the laning phase.

Everything I said holds value at all stages of the game.

Chris ChiakiMar 21, 20158 votes

Botrk is bugged and doesn't even off half the time.

If he's killing you with just R+E+Q then I think you're very, very behind and Urgot could probably do the same thing.

JunkοMar 21, 20152 votes

Urgot can actually outduel more champions than Zed can because of natural tankiness (shield+120 armor and MR), 15% damage reduction, armor shred and spammable huge damage skill that has potential to be targeted, and in case he ran oom during the fight he still has his AAs that will hurt like hell compared to yours.

SEKAIMar 21, 20155 votes

Problem stems from that Zed gets a out of jail card when he engages as a default, doesn't matter if he succeeded or not, while Kat has to kill somebody to get that.

And she is vulnerable during her burst unless she is so fed she kills everybody the instant she presses R but that's only natural on fed individuals, she only has 1 spell dedicated to both engage and disengage.

KàtarináMar 21, 20153 votes

katorina op gg

DJ Hatsune MikuMar 21, 20152 votes

Kat has one of the weakest laning phases in the game, has poor base damages, and minimal burst early game. Her escape is also targeted while Zed's is aimed. Literally none of these apply unless she has items which doesn't happen before mid game.

Kitten of EvilMar 21, 20152 votes

Not quite. Kat usually Shunpos in, while Zed has two ways to get in (W and R)... also, once Kat is in, she's stuck in unless and until she gets a kill. There's no half-assing it, realizing you messed up, and then pressing the panic button to get away. Also, while Kat has the potential to deal a ton more damage with her ult, it can also be shut down very early if CCed. Zed's ult still gives him 6 seconds to do damage even if CCed, and then press R, and /laugh away.

Guy Fox TeemoMar 21, 20151 votes

See she doesn't half to get a kill she just has to get an assist, in a team fight generally thers ONE person who dies extremlly fast on either team. and thats enough for kat to shunpo AGAIN if she needs to, and it resets her abilites and lowers her ult's cd. And dont give me that shit about her ult being CC'd. I fyou play Katarina correctly you dont just freaking engage the moment the fight starts thats stupid any champion would be cc'd and screwed. You wait lik 2-3 seconds then go in and I doubt many of them have their cc abilites up and then you just clean up the fight because you have resets.

Kitten of EvilMar 21, 20151 votes

See she doesn't half to get a kill she just has to get an assist

Well, they've attempted to fix that. Assists aren't enough now. She has to deal damage to the target within the last 3 seconds. Maybe it still needs adjustment, but resets are the only escape mechanism she has. They were looking at a change on the PBE that gave it a cooldown refund if she used it to blink to a champion, but they scrapped that.

You wait lik 2-3 seconds then go in and I doubt many of them have their cc abilites up

Then they were not playing well. Save at least one CC move for the assassin or burst damage dealer. For example, I was recently playing as TF and the enemy Vi ALWAYS saved her ult for me, even in teamfights where I always waited for Zac and Thresh to engage before following-up. That's smart playing on Vi's part -- people just assume CC spells will be used immediately, so if you save one for later, you can shut down Kat.

The problem is Kat destroys uncoordinated teams, which means she dominates solo queue at low levels... but against any coordinated team, she has a really hard time using her ult.

SammystormMar 21, 20152 votes

no they really don't

Kat has a terrible laning phase. Zed does not.

Kat can not wave clear.

Kat can not split push.

JJ H0GMar 21, 20151 votes

My AD Krit Kat disagrees about pushing and clearing waves.

Kitten of EvilMar 21, 20152 votes

Kritarina?

JJ H0GMar 21, 20151 votes

The shunpo shiv crits are real, man.

Potato DocMar 21, 20152 votes

I have a correction for you, Kat's Q doesnt take half of her resource bar, it takes all of it. (and so do the rest of her abilities) Get your facts straight if you want to make a complaint

DorkunedAurasMar 22, 20151 votes

Actually, Kat's got such hardcore mana problems that she's literally oom 100% of the time

junglerboy16Mar 21, 20152 votes

First thing I'm gonna say is this: I don't think either champs is broken or OP.

Now that that's out of the way, I'll discuss your points.

Kat's escape is situational. She can't get out unless there are minions to jump to. Zed's escape has a longer cooldown, but he can use it whichever direction he wants, and can also use it to juke by throwing shadow one way while running the other way.
Zed's poke is more reliable and longer ranged. His poke can consist of a full W>E>Q combo, allowing for harder poke and also the possibility of hitting twice, just Q, W>Q, or W>E. Zed can poke from 900-1400 range, where Kat has to be within 675 range for her harass, or has to rely on lucky bounces for anything further.
Zed and Kat can both dive pretty well, but Zed has a guarnteed escape and Kat does not, as per my first point.
Both can farm well, yes.
Kat has better teamfighting when considering only the ability to burst multiple people, but is less guaranteed a kill unless somebody else helps her get her resets going (or she is already very fed), however, Zed has substantially better target selection and 100-0 burst on a single primary target. His DPS is also pretty good which means he is by no means bad at team fighting, just not ideal.

Basically, they are comparable in their role, but that is about it. Kat doesn't have near as good a time farming under tower, Zed is half as likely to get pentakills in teamfights, Zed is safer, Kat snowballs harder, one has no resource, the other only has a resource if you are bad at playing them, etc.

deadlychuckMar 22, 20152 votes

Something to note about zed compared to kat, is that zed has the advantage of being AD. Meaning that despite mostly relying on skills to do his damage, he also has consistent damage on par with that of most AD champions, due to his bonus added from his W.

YossarianSenseiMar 22, 20151 votes

Difference is Zed requires some skill, Kat = roll face over keyboard pentakill EZ gg