Does anyone else feel that Katarina is a bit "Face-Rolley" or at the moment?

DrMarshSwamp·Feb 1, 2015·9 votes·1,081 views

Perhaps it is due to me playing either "low-cc" or "low-mobility" champions, but Katarina's standard combo feels really unfair to me, along with most of her kit in general.

Most of her kit are abilities that cannot be avoided at all - Bouncing Blades is a point-and-click, Shunpo is a point-and-click teleport, and Death Lotus is a channel that attacks everyone around her in a certain range.

When faced with someone with CC or the ability to quickly get out of Death Lotus she is less of a threat, but with Champions lacking these things (Karthus, Mordekaiser, etc...) she is a much bigger threat, one that cannot be avoided by any other means than "Stay out of range".

13 Comments

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 1, 20154 votes

Kat and other champions like Riven have the issue of being nasty in Blind pick because they're very vulnerable to counter picks in Draft/Ranked. You're not the only one to feel that.

A few tips for Kat overall :

Her ult actually only targets 3 people max, so if you're in a 5v5 teamfight it's possible (luck of the draw really) to not be damaged by it.
Most of her poke damage is in her Q (Bouncing Blade) mark. While it is very annoying to be hit by by itself, if you force a trade with her right after the Q mark is off you will win most of the time.
Funny thing about bouncing blade is that if she wants to poke with it she's forced to push her lane. Be patient and careful with your last hits and she'll always be ready for a gank. To add: if you're about to get a friendly gank it's best to try and bait the E (Shunpo) just before your jungler walks in if you can take it.
Don't let her roam. No matter how well you do if she gets to another lane after they had a fight she'll clean up better than any janitor I know and bounce back. You can do this either buy pushing your lane hard (making her lose a turret while she's roaming) or by following her the second she leaves.

Apologies if you knew any of those beforehand.

AbyssphereFeb 1, 20154 votes

If you play a champ with no CC or escape then being vulnerable to assassins is something you have to accept. Karthus is no less vulnerable to Akali, or LeBlanc, or anyone really.

disregardableFeb 1, 20152 votes

No, actually, people seem to think Katarina is a really weak assassin right now because of her lackluster mobility. Personally, I think her kit could use a buff to make up for how vulnerable she is when casting her main source of damage. Literally just any silence ruins it, and it takes a long time to do full damage.

Sir ArmaMalumFeb 1, 20153 votes

To be honest I never really considered Kat an assassin, more of a in-your-face mage what with her E being the only real 'single target' ability she has.

Kat HeadFeb 1, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Sir ArmaMalum,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vYa0NeA1,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2015-02-01T08:44:07.569+0000)

To be honest I never really considered Kat an assassin, more of a in-your-face mage what with her E being the only real 'single target' ability she has.

She needed a dfg to be a single target assassin.

JunkοFeb 1, 20153 votes

because of her lackluster mobility.

Blink that can target wards, allies and enemies and resets on kill is lackluster mobility lel. And if that isn't enough Riot is gonna give her 80% CDR on it if she hasn't used it on the target before.

JacknifeFeb 1, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=The AFK Farmer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vYa0NeA1,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2015-02-01T08:32:54.523+0000)

No, actually, people seem to think Katarina is a really weak assassin right now because of her lackluster mobility. Personally, I think her kit could use a buff to make up for how vulnerable she is when casting her main source of damage. Literally just any silence ruins it, and it takes a long time to do full damage.

that's... kinda the point. It does ludicrous amounts of damage if left alone, which is why you need cc to stop it, otherwise she'll burst a squishy, get her resets and pentakill your team.

disregardableFeb 1, 20151 votes

It's a weakness that the stronger assassins in this meta don't have, same with the mobility. It's not like Zed and Akali do less damage for having less risk.

Leaf of the lakeFeb 1, 20151 votes

She's next on the chopping block. Her normal abilities are becoming weaker, but she's getting more mobility in shunpo (gets a massive cd reduction for jumping to an enemy champ). Her ult is gonna be just as binary as ever, though.

xNitoriFeb 1, 20154 votes

Those changes won't go through - the guy who posted them tweeted that they simply aren't practical.

Fed by Snu SnuFeb 1, 20151 votes

Yes, too much for my liking.

And apparently she gets a DFG compensation next patch as well.

Also, it doesn't make sense to have a linear 2 seconds burst when every skill has a travel time and she is guaranteed to do more damage than ANYONE else in the whole game just with 1 second channeling. (except maybe fiddlesticks.)

Her ultimate damage output shouldn't be linear, it should be loaded towards the finish of the cast.

Der LindwurmFeb 1, 20151 votes

I play Kat a lot, and thus know what Kat can and can't do. Enemy Kats find me maddening to play against as a result. They quickly discover they can't just burst me down by mashing a few keys. This wouldn't be an unusual thing at higher MMRs like it seems to be around 800 where I currently am.

That being said, I know a lot of players of the old Kat didn't like how her abilities were "dumbed down" in her 2013 rework and she became as dependent on her R to do serious damage as she is now. E still plays a key role in allowing her to procure resets by picking off stragglers, but you're not going to do any damage worth talking about with Q>E>W especially early in the game (later in the game Q becomes a bit more fearsome). She does have an advantage in that all of her abilities do damage and can all be dumped into an attack over just a few seconds (hence all the talk of "facerolling") but still most targets will be pretty unfazed unless she gets her R off and manages to hit each target with more than 5 daggers. In higher level play, her prey do NOT just stand in her ult like they tend to at lower MMRs.