League of Legends: Katarina Guide

Recently, whenever I’ve helped Scan Pro Gaming out, I’ve covered champions that were favored in the meta. For a while, I’ll step out of that comfort zone and cover a few champion which I feel are ridiculously strong but not favored by the meta. It’s those niche champions that either work well against a certain team composition, need a team composition built around them or are just all-round considered a mediocre pick at best. This one’s going to be about Katarina, the Sinister Blade.

Katarina functions as a high damage reset-based Ability Power caster. She is pretty much what the League designed to be their opportunistic AP Caster (alongside Master Yi being the AD version), and because she’s so opportunistic, she’s not favored in the meta. Most people that have faced off against a Katarina know that there’s a few things to keep in mind. First off, her laning phase isn’t the greatest. This coming from her innate lack of crowd control and her escape mechanic being a third of her damage output. Secondly, being an opportunistic AP Caster, she’s really hit-or-miss. If you time your engage poorly, you’re done for and you’ll get nothing out of it.

On the flipside, there’s more than one reason to pick her. First off, her damage and her post-6 ganks damage are immensely powerful. Her ultimate is probably the highest damage ability in the game – aside from perhaps Requiem – and killing three people late game means she gets a reset on her ultimate. Secondly, resets. It’s as simple as that. A team fight oriented wombo combo team comp is a free ticket to the Challenger Train if properly executed because of the sheer amount of damage her ultimate can deal and the resets she can get as a result. And because of this, you can never count a Katarina out of the game. She’s like a Nasus. Keeping her down isn’t nearly as effective as one would hope it to be, because of how good she can be in team fights.

So let’s cover her abilities briefly. Her passive reduces all of Katarina’s ability cooldowns by 15s on a kill or an assist. Simply put, it gives a reset on her basic abilities and a vast reduction on her ult. Katarina’s Q is Bouncing Blade, which throws a blade that deals magic damage, marks enemies hit and bounces to the nearest enemy unit up to 4 times, dealing 10% less damage with each bounce. Popping said mark deals an additional amount of magic damage. This is my least favorite ability by far due to its incredibly long windup time and slow bounces. These factors make it - though the most reliable source of damage (being single target) - the slowest source of damage. Katarina’s W is Sinister Steel, a point blank AoE ability that deals magic damage. It’s on a low cooldown and deals a decent amount of damage – about as much as a thrown Bouncing Blade – and provides a decent amount of movespeed upon hitting an enemy champion. Her E is Shunpo, which ports her to the far side of her target. If it’s an enemy, they take magic damage. Because it only ports Katarina and doesn't give her other buffs of any sort it’s generally considered her worst ability, but I believe otherwise. Not only does it serve as your primary and only repositioning tool, it also deals damage, and having a quick burst of magic damage on a roll of the fingertip (EW deals 340 base magic damage) helps you get those quick resets coming in. Last but not least, Kat's ultimate, Death Lotus. Katarina deals magic damage on a 0.25s interval to the three closest enemy champions. Immense power comes with immense drawback: it’s channeled. Getting interrupted drops your ultimate to cooldown immediately and reduces your damage by up to 60%. Granted that late game, assisting in three deaths means it’s back up (assuming 0% CDR applies), it’s still a pain if you don’t get it off fully during the early and mid game.

As far as runes go, there’s multiple options. I like to take Magic Pen Marks, Armor Seals (with one AP/Lv seal), a mix of MR and MR/Lv Glyphs, and flat AP Quintessences. These give a mix of resists for early game – because in all honesty, Katarina’s laning phase is junk against close to any enemy, and enough damage to output some if you receive a gank. Other viable options include a full Flat AP runepage with Magic Pen Marks or Scaling AP Seals and Glyphs instead of flats. It all depends on the matchup you’re in and how comfortable you are playing without resists, especially against enemies that have the ability (or abilities) to bully you around. Personally I prefer the first page, but I’ve been contemplating switching to Movespeed Quintessences because of the increased cleanup potential you get when being 4,5% faster than the opposition.

As for masteries, it’s standard 21/0/9 masteries that give me as many ability-augmenting masteries from the Offense tree and Movespeed and neutral buff duration increase in Utility. Itemization then. There’s basically three ways to build a Katarina. First up is Season 2, which makes sure to put the random AD ratios Katarina has to some use. This usually means getting a Hextech Gunblade and a random AD item – though a Mercurial Scimitar wouldn’t be bad at all. Sorcerer’s Shoes, Hextech Gunblade, Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, Void Staff, Rabadon’s Deathcap and a Zhonya’s Hourglass or anything situational as a last item (Mercurial maybe?) to round up the build. It’s outdated because there’s better build patterns, but it’s by no means terrible.

The second build is the one I prefer, which makes sure Katarina can survive a fight, instead of killing one person as fast as possible and hoping to survive the resets. I get Sorcerer’s Shoes, Abyssal Scepter and Zhonya’s Hourglass as my core, and then in whichever order I see fit I get a Rabadon’s Deathcap, a Void Staff and anything situational - which could be anything, really: Rylai’s Crystal Scepter, Deathfire Grasp, an aforementioned Mercurial Scimitar to get rid of pesky stuns or other crowd controls, Guardian Angel, Thornmail. Anything can fit, really. The core with tons of magic penetration and resistance negation is complete, and you’ll have hit about 600AP with the core of Abyssal, Zhonya's, Deathcap and Void Staff, so damage aplenty.

The last build is the one most challenger players prefer, which consists of Magic Pen and an itemized ability to murder a single person as fast as possible. This means Sorcerer’s Shoes and Haunting Guise as the core items, along with a rushed Deathfire Grasp. I see the Deathfire being a viable option because of Death Lotus’ ridiculous amount of base damage, but it’s awkward using it during your ult, and wasting it before going in is a waste of a 90 second cooldown if you don't get in range for your Shunpo. The rest of the build is the standard trinity of mage items, being Rabadon’s Deathcap, Void Staff and Zhonya’s Hourglass.

Playing Katarina is about biding your time. Unless you build the kill this guy and see where it takes me-build, you won’t be initiating anytime soon, so don’t count on that. Make sure you get a reset off and channel your ultimate as soon as the important disruptive factors are down (Thresh’s Flay, Syndra’s Scatter the Weak, those are the abilities you need to wait out). Keep track of low HP people and get as close to those people as possible as getting resets is core to playing Katarina in team fights. During the lane, be passive unless your jungler allows you to play aggressive via ganks, or play hyper aggressive if the enemy doesn’t punish you for it. And as soon as you hit 6, keep track of side lanes whenever your ultimate is about to come up. It’s a great asset if your allies can work around it and you. Should you fall behind, play extremely safe. You’re useless if you don’t get back on your feet, so keep an extra eye out in team fights and make sure to pick your time of entry right. Dying won’t get you anywhere, and even when behind, Katarina can turn the tide of a fight pretty significantly.

Hope you enjoyed the read. Coballz out.