Can we please buff Katarina?

Let's please talk about Katarina. I've loved Katarina since before the rework and she's never really been strong at all when I have played her. She has great skins, great particle effects, a great overall look and theme. To me, she defines Noxus. It's a shame though, because in terms of her abilities and play, she is heavily outclassed by other champions in the same 'role' as her. Take Kha'zix for example. Khazix has an aoe gap closer with decent scaling that increasing in range and allows for resets on kills after being evolved. Kha'zix has a low cooldown ability that does maximum %hp damage on an isolated opponent. Kha'zix has a slow that heals him and can potentially hit multiple enemies. This ability can help easily clear waves. Additionally, Kha'zix has a guaranteed slow on a basic attack when his passive is active, which deals bonus magic damage based on level. Kha'zix has the perfect kit for an assassin with just his three basic abilities alongside their evolutions. Then to top it all off, he has a stealth giving ability that increases his speed. The reason many people complain about Kha'zix is well, he's got such a fantastic kit for killing people.

Katarina has, well, not much of that. Her range is short, wave clear is unreliable and easy to deny, all of her damage comes from her scaling in her ulti which is irrelevant unless you can build items which you need gold for. Without damage you cannot get kills. Without kills or assisting greatly in kills you are not an effective assassin.

She's just...really not in a great spot right now. Loses lane to nearly every common matchup in the midlane. Incredibly easy to deny farm, as with many melee champions in the midlane. Incredibly risky harass which uses her only gap closer to be fully damaging. All of her damage is in her ulti, which could be fine if she had the tools in her kit to get gold for the items she desperately needs. She doesnt really become strong or even useful unless she has the necessary items. I mean Kat is an ap assassin in my book. She focuses on getting a kill, profiting off a reset on her escape, then getting out safely. At the moment, Katarina is an unreliable AP trist with a less useful gap closer that REQUIRES a target with WORSE AP scaling, lacks a dot to finish a kill that maybe escaped your initial burst with a flash, and an ulti that is easily stopped by any sort of cc and to top it all off, doesnt actually do that much damage in the time it is supposed to because most people will flash or use a gap closer to get away, or if they have cc, they will just save their cc for when you start your ultimate. Her kit just feels lackluster. Her abilities dont have huge range, and they dont have much damage to back up what they do. I'd honestly say that her best ability is her w right now because it's the lowest cooldown abilty with decent scaling for said cooldown and it scales with both ad and ap. That's said, considering the aoe is about the size of riven's stun and grants a very minimal speed boost in the early game. This makes you sacrifice wave clearing power in bouncing blades if you skill it more, along with less immediate burst damage from shunpo. Her kit just seems confused. It doesnt really excel at anything. It's mediocre at everything. But Kat has so much potential to be a top class assassin if you just give her the tools to do so.

What I propose is a small list of things. First, a simple adjustment to Katarina's ratios(increase them) OR add an ad ratio to each of her abilities. Originally, Katarina was a hybrid champion. Building gunblade on her was a completely viable because her main damage abilities scaled with both ap and ad. I honestly think bouncing blade should be given an ad ratio again WITHOUT a reduction to the ap ratio. Honestly, the damage isnt that huge on the initial hit. The explosion holds more of the damage(which is interesting considering assassins are usually bursty, but making her damage involve a second activation component is strange and not assassin like.) Doing this will bring Katarina back to her roots of being a hybrid assassin. Building ad won't be so troll anymore.

Another way to improve her is to make the 'marks' on bouncing blades explode on their own as they fade away, but for reduced damage(maybe 1/4th normal 'pop' damage). This allows for katarina to safely get some damage off in a trade/poke more effectively at reduced risk and to allow for decision making in an intense moment. Doing this will grant her the ability to keep up with trades in lane with the majority of normal midlane picks.

Imagine: Should I go in for this kill to explode my bouncing blade mark for more damage? I'm low on hp, but I think I can get this kill if I try.

To me, this is how assassins work. They should be given an option to go in for the kill and unleash their abilities, especially one RELYING on kills to get resets such as Katarina.

Finally, you could buff her Shunpo. Shunpo should have a higher ap ratio OR become a skillshot small aoe nuke, much like tristana's rocket jump, only reduce the range since it can be targeted anywhere, and less aoe. Shunpo literally means 'flash step' so it only makes sense that she would be able to go wherever she 'stepped' towards. This not only would give her an effective escape mechanism that isn't dependent on other units, it would give her some interesting play making ability. Shunpo over a wall into an unsuspecting enemy team who is low and ulti! then using the resets, shunpo again. In all honesty, I think this change would be most beneficial out of all of them. Ratios can be fixed but at her core, Katarina lacks an escape that isnt dependant on ally/enemy units. I mean I don't know how many times I've died simply because my ally wouldnt come close to me so I could shunpo to them. It's ridiculous. The best part about potentially making this a skillshot is that, well, it can be dodged. It allows for some counterplay.

The only way for Katarina to be a dominant force in any game is to secure several kills early on and snowball, but she lacks those tools to get there. I mean, I dont know how many time's I've gone all in with a jungle gank only to see my opponent walk away like it was nothing, through my ultimate and everything. She pretty much HAS to jump on a low hp target JUST to get a reset. God help you if you get into a fight with a full hp target because if you dont have ulti or they have cc and you dont have a ward or ally to hop to, you're royally f**ked.

The question you should be asking when thinking about playing Katarina is, why? Why should I play Katarina? I could play Zedd. I Could play Kha'zix. I could play Wukong, Pantheon, Talon, Akali, even Xin Zhao is a better assassin in my opinion(in fact, I recently had a game where I went 29-4 with mid xin zhao. I could never do that with Katarina.)

In the hands of two skilled players, the person with Katarina will generally lose. Without items, she has no sustain, no damage, no gold, no kills. Why play Katarina when everyone else can be more effective in their role in the midlane? Do I want to lose lane and effectively lose the game for my team? As of now, she can really only build one direction: Glass cannon with a zhonya's. Shame, because vlad can build hp for ap and deal more damage and be more of a threat in a teamfight alongside his pool with is a zhonya's that does damage...which is in his kit.

TL;DR: Kat needs buffs to her ability to farm, or to her abilities in general in order to keep up with the meta and other champions in a similar role.. Riot pls.