[Rework concept] Katarina

Reddit thread: https://redd.it/4c3jnl A lot of Katarinas problems come from her being very 1-dimensional in that she sucks all game or kills everyone. Part of that is because her passive is very strong when shes winning and getting kills and kinda useless if not.

I propose a new system based on the thief class from Guild Wars 2

Initiative.

Initiative is similar to energy in League. Using skills drains it and it regens relatively quickly. The biggest different is that the initiative system has 0 cooldowns. And I think it's perfect for a champion like Katarina.

Now by 0 cooldown, I mean a very small one, like half a second so she's not too op.

Her skills would mostly be the same, except having 0 cooldown. So let's get down to details.

Her old passive, Veracity, would be replace with Initiative

• Initiative - Katarina starts with 9 points of Initiative, gaining 2 every time she levels her ult (9, 11, 13, 15). Using skills consume Initiative, and popping her mark gains Initiative, 1 from minions and monsters, 2 from champions. Kills/assists also give a large chunk(like 10) of Initiative to her. Optional: Initiative can Overcharge. If you're at max Initiative but pop a mark, you'll still gain the initiative, but the new initiative is now considered an overcharge. It will go away after a few seconds. The overcharge can be handled a couple ways. One is that all overcharged initiative falls off if you haven't charged or used initiative in the past few seconds (kinda like Graves True Grit passive). Or they can be kept track of separately where the first charge falls off after a few seconds, making the max amount depend on how fast you can accrue them, but you better use them fast cause they fall off just as fast.

• Bouncing Blades - Pretty much the same, except 0 cooldown. Costs 2 or 3 Initiative. Damage will be less so you can't just spam it and kill someone from afar. Mark will do more to compensate, giving you more reason to get physical. Also you can only pop mark with Auto Attacks. A possible change could be mark stacking as well, making for something like Kalista with a satisfying large pop.

• Sinister Steel - Costs 3 Initiative, 0 cooldown, otherwise it's the same.

• Shunpo - Costs 5 Initiative, 0 cooldown.

• Death Lotus - I've thought up 2 versions for this. one is that it costs 7 Initiative, making it more risky to go in and use it. The second is that it is a channel, where it drains Initiative as it goes until you're empty. Drains 2-3 Initiative per second. Requires a minimum of 4 to start.

If a Katarina can manage this system well, she should be able to do much more interesting plays without having to rely on her opponents dying. Although she'll still have her resets if they do.

The biggest benefit is that it'll be 1000x easier to balance than what she has got going on now.