Katarina/Strategy

Gameplay

 * Champion Spotlight


 * Recommended Items

Tips

 * Playing As
 * Try waiting until the other team is distracted with fighting your team, and use to teleport into the fray and unleash a devastating.
 * Using on an allied Champion, minion or ward can be a great escape tactic.


 * Playing Against
 * Katarina's abilities deal magic damage, so even if she's building Attack Damage items, get magic resistance to counter her.
 * Try to save a disable for when Katarina uses her.

Tricks

 * Ability Usage
 * is one of the few resourceless champions, being entirely based on cooldowns. Use this to your advantage by using spells whenever possible.
 * main harass combo is >  > . 's movement speed boost is also effective in escaping retaliation.
 * If you are close enough, a safer alternative would be >   >
 * 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.
 * allows to roam effectively between lanes and shave off 15 seconds off the cooldown of  for each assist or kill she gets in the roaming phase. This allows her to contribute to lanes outside of her own and come back to her default lane with no decrease in pressure.
 * Leveling at level 1 is typically desirable to safely farm to level 2, as  has few safer options.
 * Maxing it first gives more safe, guaranteed harass against ranged opponents in lane, as well as giving it a marginally shorter cooldown.
 * 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 harass, 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.
 * is rarely leveled first in lane but may be leveled second or third. In rare circumstances where seeks to clear a jungle buff, it can be leveled first for more overall damage against it.
 * Maxing it first increases the movement speed buff for early laning and will help kite damage from early aggression laners like  or.
 * can be used to 'extend' her autoattack range and can be used to trade 1 or 2 auto-attacks and kite away safely against melee champions like or  in early levels.
 * is rarely leveled or maxed first and is only taken to escape surprise jungle invades in the first few minutes of the game.
 * 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 s,, , , , ,  plants, , ,  and trinkets 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  out again if your kill was successful. An inexperienced player may not expect the sudden towerdive, 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.
 * 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.
 * When facing a team with healers, use in order to hit as many enemy champions as possible, hindering their healing capabilities.
 * A surprise can turn the tide quickly. It is best used in coordination with hard AoE crowd control, as not having any form of crowd control can leave Katarina vulnerable to hard CC 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, polymorph, suppression silence, knockup, knockback or forced actions (taunt, charm, flee or fear) Enemy tanks will save their crowd control abilities such as or  specifically to stop you.
 * Moving during the cast time of  will also interrupt casting, so once committed 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.
 * ' channel is not interrupted by using summoner spells, with the exception of and.
 * ' channel will be interrupted if you activate items such as a, or , so use these items first. will also cancel the channel, but can be used to prevent significant damage.
 * 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.


 * Item Usage
 * is a mage/assassin who, unlike many other assassins, is capable of bursting down multiple targets at a time thanks to her great mobility and multi-target kit. As a mage, can eliminate towers quickly with aggressive pushing and constant presence as a high-damage threat, and as an assassin, she can impede enemy healers with her ultimate and excels at surprise attacks against clustered targets. Her strongest build attributes are ability power, magic penetration, and movement speed.
 * + 4 s are the standard starting items for . The increased movement speed allows her to avoid skillshots more easily in early laning.
 * + 5 s is an alternative start that is also seen often. The armor will mitigate some auto-attack harass and physical damage abilities together, which may help against champions like.
 * is generally the only other common starting item and may be taken against champions like, whose early harass rely mostly on auto-attacks.
 * Don't start with . Despite having ability power, the mana regeneration component of this item is completely useless, so this item is a waste of gold.
 * Because of 's weak early laning, it may be advisable to just build an early into a  or  into a  to survive against heavy burst dealers like  or, respectively.
 * If the has not been completed yet, it can be worthwhile to hang onto the  it until it is certain that either an  for the mid-game or a /, as late-game defensive items, is desired.
 * More often, are more reliable as a starting item as the increased magic penetration and movement speed will allow her to roam more quickly, snowball off kills in other lanes, and bypass her weak laning.
 * Consider the enchantment to further strengthen her roaming speed or clean-up potential.
 * 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.
 * Building some survivability is a good idea, as is naturally fairly squishy and has no crowd control to keep enemies at a distance.  and  are nice choices for increasing durability. If you can time the active well,  can prevent a lot of damage, otherwise  is a good alternative.
 * Purchasing an early and later a  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.
 * This is typically a last-resort option and should only be bought if a lot of damage is being sustained in lane. Buying this item will allow you to clear your minion wave and immediately farm nearby jungle camps without losing too much health to the jungle creeps.
 * 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.
 * Keep a in your inventory to  to. This can help you to make a quick escape, or to catch up to a fleeing enemy.
 * 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.
 * Furthermore, since and  are both point-blank-AoE abilities,  must take more risks to take advantage of attack damage.
 * Because is resourceless, building items with mana and/or mana regeneration is inefficient on her.


 * Countering
 * is the ultimate hard counter to . First, during the early game, can constantly harass her. Any attempts from  to harass back will be a waste of time due to his ability to heal himself with . Despite him being mana based and having high mana costs,  also allows him to cover those costs fairly well. All of those make him a very difficult opponent for her during laning phase, but that is not what makes  the hardest counter to her. It is his massive amounts of crowd control, massive tankiness, and burst:  has 2 CCs capable of countering Kat's ult (although only  is reliable enough to interrupt her, as  is delayed). With 's massive HP pool and ability to build semi-tanky, he is more than capable of surviving 's burst, and retaliating. Due to  dealing true damage,  can't even defend herself by purchasing a . 's presence during teamfights can completely nullify 's presence late game.
 * lacks any ability to heal herself. It is a good idea to harass her in lane at early game to make her under-farmed and under-leveled.
 * Be careful not to be hit by an auto attack or after being hit by  as it will activate the secondary damage.
 * Picking champions that have targeted abilities, such as and, are strong counter picks to  because she relies a lot on dodging skillshots with  and she is less effective against tanky opponents. , , and  are particularly good counter picks because they can out-trade her before level 6 and can still become very tanky.
 * Because she is a reset-reliant assassin in teamfights, it might be a good idea to grab a later on.
 * 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. While  is on cooldown, she becomes vulnerable to a gank as long as you or your jungler have both an immediate gap-closer and CC. She can escape from junglers like  rather easily because of the movement speed buff from , but has a harder time against junglers like  and.
 * 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 long enough 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 gets a kill or assist as all of her abilities' cooldowns are reduced by 15 seconds from . After two kills,  will be on a 10 second cooldown and after three kills it will be off cooldown.
 * The full round of 's 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 back 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 's 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.
 * If she has built a, building health items will become more effective than magic resistance once you have more than about 50 MR.
 * 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. Her late game is extremely powerful due to, which will decimate up to three of your team members if not stopped. Prevent her from snowballing, even in the late game. All it takes is one or two kills at any point in the game for her to become a threat.
 * When facing her in team fights, save your hard crowd control for when she begins to channel her . This will leave her in an extremely vulnerable position and strip her of her main damage source.
 * Catching her off-guard or out of position can leave her without enough health to engage in the teamfight, giving your team a huge edge.
 * Always keep an eye out for during team fights as she will do her best to sneak around your team's front line and  to a squishy carry sitting in the back line.
 * Because of this threat, picking ADCs with hard CC such as, , , , or and saving their CC for when  uses  can be quite effective.
 * ADCs with escape mechanisms such as, , , , and can also be effective against  if the player has quick reactions to escape  while it channels before taking any significant damage. Not only does this deny Katarina a kill and, thus, a reset of her abilities, but it leaves her extremely vulnerable to damage from all members of your team.

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