Currently she's not more braindead or challenging than most of the roaster League offers.
League Champions are not hard to play - you just have to get used to their kits.
IMO: Kata got a nice update and if there still is a problem a number change can fix it.
i think she's always taken skill to play effectively, thing is the people your facing are probably positioning realy bad vs her mechanics but they never look at themselves so you get the flak.
kata does take skill, she snowballs but thats what she's about, i misplayed vs a kata and got ganked (she got the kill) then she played really well and i got destroyed but also i did position badly whenever i died i underestimated her damage, people , well most blame the champ not themselves.
with her visible landing position though she can both punish or be punished, theres no excuse to get caught as you can SEE her landing location.
Her new kit definitely requires a bit more skill to utilize than her old one IMO.
Honestly anything can be called broken or braindead when you're getting your ass handed to you by it.
I think that may just be b/c of how frustrating she is to midlane against.
If you are midlaning vs
with any mage but
(for me this would generally be either
or
) you basically have to get in trading range w/ her to farm and she can fairly easily jump to you and chunk you hard and zip back out with a very short window for trading back.
Do I have an issue with this? Nah because assassins should have an advantage against squishy targets but I think the frustration is why people lash out (no one enjoys being denied farm or just slaughtered everytime they go back to lane).
And I would definitely say the new Kat is far less braindead than pre-rework where you could more easily 100-0 squishys w/ e-w-q.
According to statistics katarina is the champion it takes most games to get used to, of the new assassins. So technically she is the hardest of them.