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Overcoming in-lane harass

Lennac·11/14/2014, 10:59:36 PM·1 votes·4,203 views

I've worked pretty hard on farming in the early game (my favourite role is top - though I'm still fairly new to League) and I'm fairly good at last-hitting to generate decent CS.

However, one problem that I run into fairly often is trying to overcome a matchup against a ranged champion, or a melee champion with a very annoying poke. The latest example I was playing as Shyvana against Katarina top lane. She would harass with her Q to try and keep me away from getting CS, it doesn't hit very hard but it's annoying. Whenever I would move in range she would activate this ability. If I didn't immediately move away, she would use her E.

I'm not trying to make excuses, I'm a new player. What do I do to counter this? And it has to be something more than simply getting armor because this began at level 1 and 2. If I recall I'll just lose the little farm that I do have and the xp from being in lane getting even further behind.

21 Comments

Lumus Avatar11/14/2014, 11:06:36 PM4 votes

First off, Armor won't help you. Katarina deals Magic damage, so you'd need magic resistance to reduce the damage. Second, that's kat's play style, her Q, Bouncing Blade, hits multiple targets based on their proximity to each other, then she uses her E to hit all of those targets. This hit consumes the debuff (shown as a smoking dagger above their head) which deals BONUS damage - much like your Flame Breath as Shyvana, only a much bigger burst of damage since the mark is immediately consumed.

I recommend getting tight on your movement controls. You have to make it look like you're going in so she uses the ability, then turn to stay out of its range. Once it's done bouncing, go in. Or you could zone her out first. The most troubling thing about katarina is that she is resourceless. She can fling daggers all damn day because it costs no mana. This means you have to use her cooldowns against her.

Corgski11/14/2014, 11:07:24 PM2 votes

This is where you become a better player. You need to determine if the extra CS is worth the harass you may or may not take. You take calculated risks during the entire laning phase. Also there will be match ups where you will be "countered" in lane and you just simply cannot do anything about it.

City of Toronto11/14/2014, 11:34:00 PM1 votes

As Shyvana vs Kat, you farm with your E (the ranged spell, I think), and you have to give up some CS. If she is out of position for even a second, you jump her ass and chunk her down as much as you can, even if you lose health too. That makes it so next time you can all-in her.

If she's spamming her Q, then that means the wave is pushing towards you, meaning your jungler can gank her. On your first back you buy a spectre's cowl, and you will basically be invincible to her thereon.

Onegarion11/14/2014, 11:35:24 PM1 votes

Itemization wise you should get a item 3211 if its AP damage since it will cause you to regenerate some HP after each hit of AP damage. If its an AD champ and you are playing as shyvanna one old start that could still work is a cloth/5 or item 1029 and 5 item 2003 . This lets you take some extra damage from them early on, but I'm not sure the viability or effectiveness since I'm not a top laner. In general though you want to get something that can get you more pots to stay up in health or find someone who can do a lot of early game damage. This way they are backing every time you come in their way. This doesn't always work, but with the right champions you can out trade them and not need as much sustain.

ChimeiTekinaNasu11/15/2014, 3:40:17 AM1 votes

Also, I just want to say. Some champions are annoying like that. Sometimes you got to let the wave push towards you and just farm under turret and have jungler come gank her for easy kill.

RiotRiot MechaMoose11/15/2014, 10:41:41 AM1 votes

The upside to something like that is, if Katarina is pushing your lane towards your tower, then your jungler or midlaner has more of an opportunity to gank. If you feel you can't safely CS without taking a lot of damage and getting into trouble, ask for help!

TDubH11/15/2014, 12:45:29 PM1 votes

Katarina is also fairly low health so if she burns her shunpo on you Pre-six then she will have 0 damage output the danger of kata lies in her cooldowns if you farm, retreat, Farm retreat, farm retreat then A. you're telling the katarina you don't know how play against her and B. the katarina's high cooldowns are unrelated... shyvanna's passive also helps against katarina, she's vulnerable to being attacked, and the only defence she has is shunpo which has a short DMGR, next time she shunpos onto you, you can E W Q and follow her as. E gives you an offensive power as shyvanna and kat is primarily not melee but assassin spellcaster W gives you chase which counters kata's W and hurts like a MOFO Q will proc your E again and deal a lot of damage... the result? you outtrade katarina meaning she has to pop more health pots than you and then at level you can kill her because shyvanna's ultimate counters katarinas when used on her. This is coming from a katarina main, believe me shyv's good against highly aggresive kat's

Gixia11/15/2014, 12:48:25 PM1 votes

That does seem like an annoying matchup. Personally, I've always found Shyvana is especially vulnerable to ranged harass (which is why I prefer playing her as a jungler), while Katarina gets to harass non-stop due to her being resourceless. I doubt I could give much experience on overcoming ranged lane harass in general since it's something I struggle with myself, but as an avid player of both Shyvana and Katarina I can at least give you advice for that matchup specifically.

Katarina's auto-attacks do pretty much no damage, and especially at early levels her E and W don't really do any damage either. This means that her Q is all she's really got. If she uses it, it can hurt, and she can and will try to push you out of lane with it, but everytime she does use it you've got about 10 seconds in which she essentially has no damage, so if you pick a fight with her during this window she's gonna take a beating. Though she can use her E to escape, she can only use it so long as she has a target to jump to. Before you engage, take a look at your minimap and see how close your next wave of minions is to arriving. Katarina's next wave of minions will be about the same place. If they're close, this means she'll probably be able to escape if you go after her. If they're far away, then she's not actually going to have anything to jump to to get away from you, in which case go after her. Save your R for when she uses her R to interrupt it.

Another thing is that, because Katarina's auto-attacks are so weak, she'll often be wanting to use her Q to last hit minions. It always bounces to the nearest target when she does this. So try to keep your eyes open for low-health allied minions and stay away from them so her Q doesn't bounce to you. In fact, by staying far enough away from a nearly dead minion, but forward enough to get aggressive, you can try and force her to choose between poking you or getting a last hit in. Regardless of which she chooses, again, her Q will be down for 8-10 seconds depending on what rank it is, which leaves you a small window to try and either do some damage back to her, or chase her away from the lane so she'll lose CS.

Finally, I'd suggest buying an early item 3091 if you can. It gives you MR to make her attacks do less damage, while also giving you some decent damage to fight back with, and it's (relatively) cheap compared to most other offensive items so you can get it fairly early. item 3211 is very good as well as a purely defensive item, as it pretty much completely negates magic-based poke damage.

llamasx11/15/2014, 4:58:17 PM1 votes

If you stand correctly and take bush control, she'll take more damage from minions than the damage she can do to you at low levels. I'm pretty sure shyvana completely destroys kat in an all in as kat can't kill you in a single round of her spells without poking you down, but she does have a lot more harass ability.
Assuming she's going AP, if you pick up an early negatron cloak you'll probably never die to kat again as shyvana unless you take a lot of free damage or are under leveled. If you have teleport, take that so you can get to lane faster.

Dark Topline11/15/2014, 8:25:31 PM1 votes

Ah, I feel your pain. Whatever you do, never go into a Nasus vs Quinn match-up. That's about as painful as it gets.

As to countering somebody who's got a heavy advantage over you in lane, play passive and risk losing a little CS in return to keep your health up. Why? Because so long as you keep that health bar up, will you stay in lane, continue to gain XP, and are unlikely to get tower dived.

Naturally it's a counter match-up, so there's only so much you can do. I'd suggest just playing it safe till laning phase is over and then to catch up in CS a little then. Also, if you need to abandon your turret for awhile to farm the jungle, I'd suggest you do so too!

Additionally, never not ask for help. Your jungler can always pop in from time to time and chase the top laner away from you. Unless you think you can kill your opponent off that gank though, I suggest you don't chase but rather continue to CS while your team-mate distracts their top laner.

CrimsonRakan11/15/2014, 11:12:03 PM1 votes

Haha I had the same problem. I was too as shivana against... A teemo!!!! I fed for the first few minutes but because shivana is a tank and teemo is not I ended the game pulling my team to victory. I started the game with Wits End and Sunfire cape. In the last quarter of the game I could 1v2 them.

Malah11/16/2014, 4:26:33 AM1 votes

There aren't many lanes which Kat will win, but Shyv is one of them. There's room for Kat to be unrepentantly awful, but if she knows how to use her E (jump) then it's physically impossible for you to touch her so long as she spams W and dances in circles around you.

Any push by her is neutralized by you using E to farm. Of course, Shyvana is infinitely more useful once the laning phase is over, and I'm completely fine with Kat winning a lane when she loses almost every single other matchup in the game.

Duke Anax11/16/2014, 5:29:05 AM1 votes

In such a situation you want to get a Hexdrinker and build Malmortius.

It's both defense and retribution, shifting trades in your favour.

The trick to Kat (and most other assasins) is to not get intimidated. Punish her for poking you.

You can't do much against her bladees, but when she uses Shunpo without taking the kill, she becomes an easy tagret.

Use that moment to blast her backside when she has to retreat.

Hyrum Graff11/16/2014, 9:09:58 PM1 votes

If you'd like, add me in game, and we can play a 1v1 where I'm Kat and you're shyvana, and I can walk you through things you can do better :)

The good news here is that, if you play this matchup right, you should be able to beat kat.