Talk:Katarina/@comment-67.232.227.244-20130213024026/@comment-4929329-20130213214953

^I love Shadow Fiend, so I wind up playing Dota 2 quite often. He takes quite a lot of skill to play because he's a carry without a gap closer or escape mechanism, and he must get last hits and denies (essentially, last hitting your own creep so your enemies don't - this gives them less EXP than a regular minion death, so it's a tactical move as well). Rather than rant about Shadow Fiend, I'll link his wiki page: http://www.dota2wiki.com/wiki/Shadow_Fiend

So it might have sounded like my description of Shadow Fiend means he's for pro players only, but it's more about the skill gap. You see, SF can get shut down hard by competent players, and because his skillshot is FIXED you have numerous RAGE moments when you miss a lifesaving Shadowraze. Now, Shadow Fiend is a carry that has an ult that hurts a whole lot if you're near him, but he has no escapes to make this a truly epic move. So he's an extremely risky and frustrating hero to play sometimes, but he can become a killing machine when handled well. This is a great example of how skill factors into a champion:

Katarina is easy to learn. Yeah, her spells have small CDs and are manaless, as well as not being skillshots. However, her combo puts her into melee range, which means you have to know what you're doing or the enemy team shreds you. Yes, you deal a lot of damage, similar to Shadow Fiend, but it's a very risky kind of ordeal. The only major difference I'd like to point out is that risk-reward in Dota 2 should be viewed with extra caution, as dying causes you to lose money.

I tried to lessen my comment's size, but it didn't help much... I'm sure someone will find a use for this stuff. It's pretty unrefined, too.