Katarina/Strategy

Skill usage

 * Katarina's main combo is, followed by into . 's movement-speed boost is also effective in escaping retaliation.
 * If you are close enough, a safer alternative would be -->  (to proc the mark) -->  (escape to a minion, champion, or ward).
 * When facing a team with healers, use in order to hit as many enemy champions as possible, hindering their healing capabilities.
 * can easily escape, , , , , or even an enemy by using  on a unit that's out of range. She can leave the area of effect of special abilities unless she is affected by an interrupting crowd control effect like a knockup, stun, silence, etc.
 * can use to, , , , , ,  plants and  so keep an eye on the battlefield and coordinate with your teammates to give you an easy escaping route.
 * Using on an allied or enemy  or  will reveal the ward.
 * will always place her on the opposite side of the target from her current location. This is a buff for chasing enemies, but can put you in some less-desirable spots as well.
 * With quick reactions, can be used to dodge skill shots like  and.
 * When the enemy is low on health behind their tower, consider a into  combo, as very few champions can withstand the onslaught at critical health. Plus, you can Shunpo out again if your kill was successful. An inexperienced player may not expect the sudden tower dive, though a stun will shut you down quite quickly. Make sure you have enough health to make it out alive.
 * This strategy can also help you in team fights. If you see an enemy who has low HP, you can in, kill them, and then  out right away. Be mindful of stuns.
 * A surprise can turn the tide quickly. This is best used in coordination with hard AoE crowd control, as not having any form of crowd control can leave Katarina vulnerable during . If your team can keep enemies from escaping, Katarina can put out tons of damage.
 * Remember that many forms of crowd control will interrupt, specifically any stun, silence, taunt, fear, knockup, or knockback. Enemy tanks will save their crowd control abilities such as or  specifically to stop you.
 * Additionally, moving during the cast time of  will also interrupt casting, so once commited to the casting, remain stationary for the full duration.
 * Try waiting until the other team is already engaged with your team before using followed by.
 * also hits enemy champions which are stealthed. Furthermore, it becomes usable when a stealthed champion approaches, so keeping an eye on its icon may notify the player of incoming ganks.
 * is one of the few manaless champions and is based entirely on cooldowns. Use this to your advantage by using spells whenever possible.
 * makes for an excellent last-hitting spell as it keeps you at a safe distance while allowing for easy farming and doubles as a harassment tool. Try to time the skill to kill as many minions as possible with a single use in order to avoid having the skill on cooldown when other last hits become available. For easy harrass, use it on the minions as they're lined up walking into lane so the last bounce jumps to the enemy champion in the back.
 * becomes an even more effective farming tool when farming under a turret. From early to mid game, it does just enough damage to allow easy auto-attack last hits on caster minions once they have taken a single turret shot. However, the same is not true for melee minions. Cast on the caster minions once the melee minions have been killed to utilize this strategy to the full effect.
 * and can be used to quickly and effectively farm minions while directly under your tower, especially at higher levels. Wait for the tower to fire at minions once or twice before jumping in for the last hit.
 * ' channel is not interrupted by using summoner spells, with the exception of and.
 * ' channel will be interrupted if you activate items such as, or , so use these items first.  will also cancel the channel, but can be used to prevent significant damage.
 * is deceptively strong. A full combo of abilities does nearly as much damage as a fully channeled  to the target, allowing Katarina to snowball quickly after her first kill/assist and clean up very effectively at the end of a teamfight. Alternatively, getting a reset on  can allow her to escape a bad situation.
 * should never be used haphazardly in team fights, as it is incredibly easy to interrupt. It is important to carefully time your ultimate so as to exact its full potential; thus try to delay using  until after your opponents' crowd control abilities have been exhausted in order to channel it fully.

Build usage

 * Because does not use mana, any item that includes mana or mana regeneration is inefficient if built on her.
 * is very useful due to her lack of other forms of crowd control. The 35% slow on  followed by an immediate  makes it harder for enemy champions to leave her range before she's finished channeling.
 * Although two of her skills scale with her attack damage ( and ), all four of her abilities deal magic damage, so magic penetration is very useful.
 * is therefore the preferred choice of boots, regardless of whether you're doing an attack damage or ability power build.
 * Although both and  scale from both ability power and attack damage, the ratios across her entire kit heavily favor ability power. In particular,  is her safest and most reliable ability for farming and harassing and scales only on ability power.
 * In addition, since and  only scale off of bonus attack damage and since ability power costs less gold than attack damage, she will deal more damage through her spells when building ability power than she will when building attack damage.
 * Since and  are both point-blank-AoE abilities,  must take more risks to take advantage of attack damage.
 * The combination of offensive and defensive stats on and  make them excellent choices for . In particular, the active on  can be used to try and bait out hard CC that might otherwise interrupt  and/or kill her.
 * used to be one of best items available for, but reduced AD ratios and a shorter channel time have made it less optimal. It's still a very fun item on her, especially later in the game when its huge cost is less significant.
 * makes naturally snowball, so you probably don't need snowball items like  if you're doing well, and won't get much value from them if you're not.
 * Building some survivability is a good idea, as is naturally fairly squishy and has no crowd control to keep enemies at a distance.  is a good choice for increasing durability. If you can time the active well,  can prevent a lot of damage, otherwise  can be a good choice.
 * Purchasing an early and/or a later  can allow for good sustainability within lane and after a fight. Use your  along with your  and  freely on a minion wave to gain health back and reduce unnecessary recalls.
 * Keeping one or more s in your inventory to drop and to can help you to make a quick escape, or to catch up to a fleeing enemy.
 * and an will make your  reset in two kills/assists, and also increases your ability to spam .
 * Katarina benefits greatly from the ability power and cooldown reduction of and . These items are both particularly useful against tankier opponents.
 * As an assassin (and because of ),  is countered by tanky opponents. A or / will help you burst or harass down these challengers respectively.

Countering

 * lacks any ability to heal herself. It is a good idea to harass her in lane at early game to make her underfarmed and underleveled.
 * Picking champions that have targeted abilities, such as and, are strong counter picks to  because she relies a lot on dodging skillshots with.
 * Much like, is a devastating AoE and single target threat, but she entirely lacks crowd control, making her an easy target for ganks if she doesn't have  up and it is easy to kill her if you move fast as she has very few other reliable options to escape.
 * Similar to ,  is extremely devastating, but is instantly shut down by CC. However, is at least protected from his target's retaliation, while  is still easy prey for champions with strong or delayed crowd control like, ,  or  himself.
 * Putting yourself into untargetable status allows you to entirely ignore as she completely lacks DoT damage, likely ruining . Champions who can reliably do this are,  and.
 * As can't disable her to prevent the activation of her ultimate,  can simply use  upon the start of her combo and ignore  as  lasts longer or the needed time at all ranks to ignore
 * Saving your crowd control in order to interrupt can negate a large part of her damage.
 * Prepare for a next round of abilities right after she kills or assist into someone.
 * The full round of abilities deal almost as much damage as a fully channeled  on a single target so don't expect  to be extremely reliant on her ultimate for damage.
 * has a short to medium cooldown at all ranks, and with one or two kills or assists she will have it very quickly. With enough cooldown reduction can even channel it twice in a teamfight. As such, killing her is likely a higher priority than killing any other team member, perhaps even the enemy AD Carry.
 * Even though some of them scale with attack damage, all of abilities do magic damage. They can always be countered with magic resistance, regardless of whether she's doing an attack damage or ability power build.
 * Moving away from a minion wave when she throws can help you dodge it.
 * is one of the few assassins to have a weak laning phase, she cannot sustain well, has only 1 ranged spell to harass with and is extremely squishy, instead she shares a similar power curve to, her late game being extremely powerful as her  is a powerful onslaught which will decimate three of your team members if not stopped. Prevent her from reaching late game!
 * When facing her in team fights, save your hard crowd control when she begins channeling her  as this would likely leave your entire team at half health if left to channel.

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