How To Deal with Katarina?

Ramuhdo·May 5, 2015·1 votes·1,607 views

Since I started playing this game a while ago, Katarina is a champion I am always nervous about. Now that she's free week, I expect to see more of her, and I figure it's about time I start asking for some tips to deal with Katarina.

At first I assumed her high difficulty rating implied she, like Ezreal, would be subject to missed skillshots and everything, so I tried dodging. Then someone explained to me her abilities are point-and-click, so I figure any attempts to dodge her attacks stop at "don't be near minions when she Q's". I understand that the best thing against her ult is CC, but sometimes you wind up with teams with no CC. Since I play Blind Pick most, I also don't really want to feel forced to play a champ with anti-Katarina CC just because there's a chance she might show up.

So I'm looking for ways to fight her without relying on CC. Since she does massive amounts of damage with the cooldown reduction and straight-forward click-and-destroy playstyle, I usually shy away from her if I play a fragile champion, as I feel getting deleted by her instantly would just help her more in the teamfight than I'd be helping my allies. I feel like there must be some items that can help me deal with her.

So to make a long story short: what items do I build against Katarina, and what do I do to fight her without relying on CC?

EDIT: Thanks everyone for all your advice! I've fought Katarina a few times now, and I've found she's much easier to deal with following everyone's advice of early aggression and shoring up HP to deny her resets. I've bought Anivia, and when I play jungle I gank the hell out of Katarina and shut her down. :-)

22 Comments

DedriusMay 5, 20153 votes

Picking a mid without CC against Kat is just silly, a lot of strong mids have CC so you should definitely think about picking one. If you really don't want a champ with a lot off CC go for a long ranged champ that can farm and poke from a distance.

aaronautumnMay 5, 20152 votes

If you're mid, play someone who is agressive, they don't even need to have cc, just someone who can force her to keep her distance and make her miss out on farm and xp. In the case of team fights, don't clump together and save your strongest abilities for her. A good Katarina will come to a fight late when everyone has used their cc and burst, make sure to keep that in mind when fighting.

RamuhdoMay 5, 20151 votes

I guess my fear is my greatest enemy against Katarina, then? I tend to be incredibly cautious and stay out of click range, but I'll try being more aggressive and zoning her. I usually go Kennen or Kayle mid, are those suitably aggressive to deal with Kat's advances?

aaronautumnMay 5, 20151 votes

I think being aggressive with Kayle or Kennen might not be as effective as if you were playing Leblanc or something, but I think it's possible. If you're concerned about poke, start boots and hp pots. Until she has shunpo you can easily be aggressive with very little retaliation.

RamuhdoMay 5, 20151 votes

Which champion(s) would you recommend for early lane aggression? I was looking to round out my mid mages with a champion who can be a bit more daring and aggressive!

Stray KatMay 6, 20151 votes

I actually main Kayle, and love facing Kat with her.

Pre-6, start E followed by Q or W, depending on need(I usually go W against Kat to heal her Q poke).. From there, I just stand in her minion wave - If she gets in range, hit her with a few E/AA hits. If she uses her Shunpo, Just press W and run back a step or two, hit her with Q, and AA her to death with E. Use W whenever needed for the speed boost OR heal(I use it for the speed more often against Kat). If she jumps on you post 6 with her ult, use your ult, hit her with Q, hit her with a few AA(E), use W for the speed boost/heal after your ult is down and she's running, proceed to shove E hits on her as she runs away powerless.

I'm by no means pro or anything, but I almost never have trouble with Kat as Kayle.(One plat Kat main wrecked me awhile back, but she was damn good lol.)

SerevasMay 5, 20151 votes

I highly recommend switching over to draft pick, it allows you to avoid that situation or to be able to go into it with a counter ready.

Now if you don't feel like doing that, no worries, you can start running Exhaust as your summoner spell, as it'll gimp her damage by I think 40% if I remember correctly.

When going into a teamfight, ping her position, and try to get your team to focus her. Removing Katarina from a fight prevents her from getting any resets, and deleting your team. It's also likely that the enemy team's threat level to your team decreases dramatically.

Furthermore in lane you need to play aggressively, throw skill shots at her, beat on her as much as possible, playing passively will let her know you're afraid, and she can take advantage of that pretty easily.

RamuhdoMay 5, 20151 votes

Thanks, I'll go try playing Draft mode more. I've played it a few times the past few days, as I like the idea of being able to outright ban Katarina if I don't feel like dealing with her. I tend to be stuck playing the support role, though. While I don't mind playing support, it kinda sucks sometimes when people pressure you into it and don't want you playing otherwise. (Not that blind pick is any better, but it sucks when you call "Kennen mid" and Kennen is banned second because "I'm mid", quoth team captain.)

Like Aaronautumn, you advise aggression, so I'll try to be more aggressive and less afraid. I usually hang so far back I might as well be lobbing my Q from Africa, so I'll try to be closer. Won't her Q harass/poke me, though?

SerevasMay 5, 20151 votes

Yeah it's okay to take the Q harass, as long as you dish something back at her. Kennen or Kayle aren't picks I would necessarily advise.

What I typically do is take the harass and bully her back, just make sure to win the trade, but if she's getting fed I take the Q and back off until the mark is off of me.

Mandang0May 5, 20151 votes

Pick someone who deals well w/ Kat
Pray your other lanes ward and don't give Kat kills
Pray that your other lanes know to leave a fight when they're low rather than give Kat resets
Pray that their team has no one else that needs to be CC'ed/focused in a fight
Pray that your team doesn't slip up on the above tips even once

So... you can pick whoever you want to 'counter' her, but it's mostly just praying that the matchmaker has given you a team full of smart teammates. Good luck with that.

PhantomGrave12May 5, 20151 votes

silence her

YOUGOTKILLEDBROMay 5, 20151 votes

In my opinion the best champion in my opinion if you are going mid to counter her is: Anivia Anivia is one of the best mid laners in my opinion. She can easily block kats e with her w and can combo into a q with that. She is also impossble to tower diver with her passive. Keep in mind she is harder to play.

RamuhdoMay 5, 20151 votes

I've been eyeing her for a while as a mid champ I'm interested in, but given that all my IP is being eaten by runes, it'll be a while before I can afford her. Thanks for the advice, though!

Being harder to play isn't really an object for me. I've played DOTA2 for years, and I've found League champions are a lot more intuitive.

WaffletimewarpMay 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

In my opinion the best champion in my opinion if you are going mid to counter her is: Anivia is one of the best mid laners in my opinion. She can easily block kats e with her w and can combo into a q with that. She is also impossble to tower diver with her passive. Keep in mind she is harder to play.

I can agree with this, Anivia also has a crapload of damage if you can combo her q/r and e.
However, she's made of paper and fairly immobile, so if you're outside your tower, you are in major danger.

Cho works, he's tanky, has massive cc and nasty amounts of sustain.

Drunk RummateMay 6, 20151 votes

Ban her. She's silly even in high ELOs.

People will tell you to CC her but with resets she'll dodge anything not targeted and she can Zhonyas Hourglass the stuff that is.

And the people telling you to shut her down in lane are silly. Even if you set her 20+ cs and a couple kills behind, she'll get a couple kills in a teamfight once she has 2+ items and just start killing everyone from there.

KazaashiMay 6, 20151 votes

Malzahar and Fiddlesticks pretty much shut Katarina down in lane. If you can pick one of those into her, she will have a VERY bad day.

Byakuya KuchikiMay 6, 20151 votes

try and learn a champion with basically impossible to miss instant cc(lissandra w for instance) (irelia e) or someone who can harass her extremely hard and keep her out of lane 24/7

Poro PrincessMay 6, 20151 votes

Hi! Add me! I'm a support main but I love playing Kat, I can give you some tips on how to play and counter her c:

ClaviatureMay 6, 20151 votes

Galio is free and does pretty well against her.

Poptart EvelynnMay 6, 20151 votes

The best way to beat kat outside of picks is in the store.

item 3026 item 3102

Ask your team to build ga's mid game and that will prevent her passive allowing you guys to focus her down early if she comes in or just completely ignore her as you win 5v4.

Trust me I main Kat and the most frustrating thing is item 3026 as a kat player. When we go in we look to go in with a reset and if you have ga I wont engage on you.

iluvalarMay 7, 20151 votes

item 1028

Extra HP is the answer to assassins in any game in existence. If a developper was making a game where the assassin could 1-hit even people who build defense, it would make any effort into building said defense worthless and would kill a large part of the gameplay. The game would become "who clicked first" based and become quickly boring for anyone with a taste for strategy.

It's true for any assasin but it's even more for kat, because the first champion who survive her burst prevent her to reset her abilities. So just dont die to kat and you're good.

Skia AsteriMay 7, 20151 votes

If your team lacks a good way to deal with her, only team fight if you can kill her first or know she is too far away to join the fight. Until then try to make plays when and where the other team is not grouped. Or for a beefy tank to zone her off from the fight, as she becomes far less dangerous if she does not hit multiple people with her abilities to set up for more resets.

Really it is more important to keep her from using resets to get extra rounds of her abilities in because they can have higher DPS than her ult is the resets come in fast enough because her W and E have no cast time and she will not be stuck in one place for an extended time.

PS: Kat's sister Cassiopeia can build more defensively and out damage Kat. At full rank her E has slightly higher DPS from base and AP scaling (before counting her passive) than Kat's full rank ult.