Talk:Katarina/@comment-5763148-20150626162040/@comment-26227836-20150627001027

Katarina? Lane dominance?

Anyway, haunting guise into Zhonya's works pretty well atm. It'll probably still carry onto when they overhaul the AP items.

It's mostly preference based but the general rule is... build lots of AP. Magic pen isn't bad either but don't go stacking Sorc Boots. Sorc Boots, Abyssal, Haunting Guise, Rabadon's, Voidstaff, Zhonya's works for some people but I'm not a fan.

I never really needed Luden's as I use Movement Speed Quints and masteries but you can't really have too much Movement Speed. As for Luden's Passive, it does speed up the process for waveclearing. QW will usually clear the backline creeps in addition to melee after they've been weakened by your minions. Clearing the small Raptor is as easy as just throwing 1 Q.

Now, your enemies won't always know your damage output. You may or not know this but the amount of upfront burst damage you do affects what your opponent does when you QEWR/EQWR them.

For example, let's say you're level 6 and you see a Lee Sin at 75% health. You EQWR him and he freaks a little because he's at 25% health. Then he realizes that you basically don't do a whole lot of damage after your EQW and he doesn't need to W away, flash away, or Ult you. So, he bathes in your ult, pops his shield, and kills you.

Mid game, after your first item (let's call her Zhonya's) you QEWR on an enemy Vayne. She drops from 100% to 50% very quickly and might Flash away just because of the burst. OR she might man up and know that you don't do great damage after the initial burst and she may Condemn--->Flash to the side and kill you. If she didn't have condemn, she may have nonchalantly tumble and walk out of your ult.

Mid game, if you have Luden's a number of great things can happen. If you have 100 stacks on your Luden's and you EQWR, your burst damage is a little higher which could scare your target into flashing away. On the other hand, you could charge your Luden's to about 40 stacks, EQWR onto a squishy/low-ish health target and attempt to kill them. Some people won't expect you yet and get zapped from 100% to 50% then slowly milled to 40% to 30% to 20% to 10% health. When would you flash? Would you have flashed at the 50% health mark? Would you have flashed at the sight of Katarina? Would you flash at the 10% mark? Believe it or not, some choose to flash at the 20-10% mark. If Katarina's lucky, her Luden's could kill that target after they flash away.

This is all very very circumstantial but basically, Luden's is good for waveclear, chasing, fleeing, poke, and even getting into lane faster. Zhonya's is good for potential outplays, survivability, dodging, getting easy resets, armor, ending a game with ward-->Shunpo-->Zhonya's midair. Maybe after the AP item changes, Rabadon's rush will be a thing for manaless champions.