User blog comment:Elecissa/Future Katarina changes and all Katarina post/@comment-5331854-20150122134529

As someone who mains Katarina on the midlane, I actually like the changes. Many have pointed out that it's a shift in power and I think that's true, removing some of her early game poking power with the Q, but making her deadlier in close encounters, where she always had revelled in.

It also increases her skillcap. Sure, you can Shunpo out within ca. 3 seconds, but remember, that's a relatively long timespan in LoL (there's a reason why Morgana's Q is cancer for many players). Within these three seconds, Katarina wants to trade as good as possible, but if she's against a decent player, he'll save his bursts until Kata's DR vanishes while using his hard CC (if avaible) for the first second and the silence within the last second before she could Shunpo out. Combined with the fact that the Q is now a weak poke unless the mark is triggered, she will be close to her enemies more often. Also, given the constant Mobility Creep in LoL, she needs the double Shunpo just to keep up with the more recent champions (still, as a side effect, she might be able to escape ganks regularely if she overextends because of Quick E -> W [for speed buff] -> running -> Quick E to minion).

The rescaled W is kind of weird, but it might just mean that Katarina is now supposed to be 3/4 AP instead of hard-on AP. Nothing too much against that thought, but the item choice for hybrids is lackluster and there's nothing aside from Gunblade that would work with her well. (It did gave me the idea to grab a SotO with her, though, since she can utilize full stacks well without getting extremely weakened when she loses the stacks).

In any case, we'll have to see what will ultimately get out of PBE and into Live, but it'll be an interesting time of re-discovering our resident red-haired Penta-Pubstompress (I think that won't change with the new kit, just because she'll have to try harder to get fed doesn't mean she can't get fed easily anymore).