Hi. My name is Linn and I'm a summoner from the EUW server. I've been playing League of Legends since mid-season 5. Currently I'm a Diamond 5 midlane main, with much love for Katarina. She's the champion I've played the most and the champion I find most fun. The reason I made this guide is simply because I thought it would be a fun experience and maybe I would start following my own advice and learn something too. The guide is not 100% complete and I'm still updating and working on it to be as good and informative as possible. If you decide to read the full guide and is not just stopping by for a quick view on a build; I'm sorry for any mistakes regarding my english, I'm doing my best and I hope my points and advice gets through.

There are notes written for runes and masteries, I will not be making a more detailed version unless it's highly requested.


Here's the link to my OP.GG:
http://euw.op.gg/summoner/userName=J%C3%A6vel

Here's the link to my Twitch:
https://go.twitch.tv/linnuminati

Katarina. The high burst, high mobility, squishy, high risk high reward, ADC-killing machine. Katarina is a high skillcap champion with a rewarding playstyle if mastered. She's most known for her resets, once a good Katarina gets her resets rolling, she's unstoppable. Her dagger-system makes her unique in her playstyle and hard to master - this is why she's so fun. Along with for example Riven and Yasuo, Katarina has so many options and combos, she's able to outplay loads of different scenarios and turn a bad situation into an amazing outplay. You're able to carry games on your own , all you need is bait (your team).

To have a guide on Katarina I'll have to talk a little about what makes Kat, Kat. Her passive; Voracity. Whenever an enemy champion dies within 3 seconds after Katarina have damaged them, her cooldowns are reduced by 15 seconds (A full reset on all abilities except her ultimate). Along with her resets, you have her dagger-system. Whenever Katarina picks up a dagger, or catches it with Shunpo, she slashes through her nearby enemies and reduce Shunpo cooldown by a certain %, scaling by level. This is Katarina trademark and the main reason that she is feared throughout the rift.

I hope my guide will be able to help you on your Katarina journey.

As most champions (except Fizz, hate that champion), Katarina has some great qualities, and some bad ones.

Pros:
- She has no manacost. Most champions in League of Legends rely on mana. Katarina doesn't. You can spam your abilities as much as you want and not get hurt for it in the same way as manahungry champions. In midlane, most champions has a manapool, use this to your advantage.
- 1v1 Potential. Katarina has one of the strongest all-in-1v1s early in the game IF you understand the dagger-system. Her 1v1 potential is great and a huge threat.
- AoE damage, most of her ability is AoE-based, which means you're not only good in 1v1 skirmishes, you're also a great teamfighter. Considering League of Legends is a teambased game, Katarina being able to bring strong AoE damage to a teamfight makes her unique as an assassin.
- Waveclear, Katarina has great waveclear and can fast-push a lane easily. This makes her roaming potential a great threat.
- High mobility and outplay potential. If you know how warding works and are able to keep track of the enemy jungler; in theory, you shouldn't die in lane. Her Shunpo makes it hard for skillshots to hit, along with the fact that you carry flash. You can reset your shunpo multiple times with your kit, which makes room for outplays in 2v1 scenarios.

Cons:
- Squishy. You are extremely squishy. Often you rely on a frontline to tank all CC and soak damage for you, and this is SoloQ, you don't get what you ask for. You're a glasscannon with the potential to do ALL the work, or NO work.
- Hard to catch up if you fall behind. Do NOT fall behind, if you're in an unfortunate matchup or get camped by the enemy jungler really hard; do not tilt and engage on something that is extremely risky. The worst thing you do as an assassin is putting yourself behind and making yourself a waste of space. Go equal or wreck your lane. Simple as that.
- Melee. You're melee. I don't think I need to add on much to that. Ranged champions have an advantage, speaks for itself. Just learn how to play around your weaknessess and dont get poked out of lane that often. You have your Q to farm with if necessary.
- Not a tank melter. This is League of Tanks, if the enemy team has a lot of tanks, don't expect to be the carry of your team unless you get a huge lead. Your kit is built for you to kill squishy, vulnerable champions. Remember that before you end up using all your abilities on Maokai.
- CC. CC kills you, don't get CC'ed. My advice is to get a good look on the enemy team when you spawn ingame, get a view on what CC they have and what you have to look out for in teamfights. Dont engage on a teamfight until you've seen these abilities have been used, unless it's a 100% kill, then get your resets rolling.

You will ALWAYS, a 100% of the times you play Kat, bring Flash as one of your summoner spells. If you play LoL from before, you'll know this, if you don't; you'll learn why by playing more.

Ignite - Burst. You want that early kill pressure. You want that lead and you want that extra damage.

Exhaust - Good vs for example Zed or Yasuo, but personally I still prefer Ignite.

Cleanse - Fine if you're facing for example Annie or Twisted Fate, I'd still go Ignite though.

Teleport - You don't need it, but if you're against high mobility mages like Twisted Fate, Kassadin or maybe even Ahri, it could be optional. I'd still go Ignite though.

I will not be talking much about Katarinas abilities, as reading about them is not as efficient as watching gameplay of them. I will be adding a couple of videos regarding her abilities and combos further down in the guide.

Your laning is the key to your further success in the game. You cannot fall far behind, and if you do; ask for help to get back up to at least equal with the enemy laner. You have an extremely strong all in once you are level 3. Farm till then, follow up on early ganks from early-game junglers, for example Ezreal, Lee Sin or Twitch. It's not the end of the world if you miss some CS in the early levels, the point is for you to get to your powerspike-levels and take advantage of them. If you hit level 6 before your enemy midlaner - bully them, burst them down and force them out of the lane, it's worth it even if you dont end up with a kill from it. The whole point of laningphase, is to end up being the one with the dominance, if you burst your enemy, they will remember the damage you did, and their playstyle will adapt to how scared they ended up being from your all-in. Punish mistakes and keep track of cooldowns. For example if an Anivia throws out her Q, but misses, punish her for it, you will more than likely win the trade. The same goes for Ahri Q or E, her Q is her main damage, once its down, she doesn't have much to stand up with.

With Katarina you don't want your wave to be pushed all the way in to the enemy turret. You want it either closer to yours, or in the middle of the lane, that way you'll have kill pressure on them, and their jungler will have none on you. If you do end up pushing the wave into the enemy, make something happen outside your lane, do not just wait till the next wave shows up. Pretend that you're going to roam, make the enemy midlaner leave their lane and their experience under their turret because you are missing, get deep vision, anything that will make you benefit from the CS push.

If you want to know more about lane control and minions, here's a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEX7JxeKCxg

Katarina has a great roaming potential, and is somewhat known for it. This is also why boots come in handy early on Katarina. Roaming isn't just to get YOU fed, but also to help out your lanes and get objectives. Always remember that objectives is what wins games - not kills. It's important to not just walk out of the lane you were roaming to if you end up killing the laner - objectives is key.

However, if you see your enemylaner is missing or you can tell that he/she is roaming to one of your sidelanes, make up your mind if it is worth for you to follow. If there's a situation botlane that might turn out gamechanging, please do follow, if it's not quite sure what's going to happen, please do follow. Better safe than sorry. But, if you can tell that the roam will be a waste of time, push out your lane and create some pressure, either forcing your enemylaner to come back and defend, or go to the opposite sidelane and create pressure there. The important part is that you observe and make a decision based on what you know or assume will happen.

The reason why Katarina is so feared, is because of her potential in teamfights. A quick search on YouTube will serve you the most beautiful clean-ups Katarina can give. But, to wreck and create chaos the way those Katarina-players do, it's important to know the strenghts of Kat. You need to know when to go in, when to keep the resets going, when to get out and have a quick break and back in again. Observe, what abilities has been used, what can CC me if I go in now, and so on. Because, once you're cc'ed - consider yourself dead. Your job isn't to assassinate one target in a teamfight, your job is to completely destroy the full enemy team, and you can't do that if you're dead. So, observe.

Yes, you can engage teamfights, but it's not extremely smart, and you'll definitely need a strong team holding your back, or at least Zhonya's Hourglass.

Now, for the end of this guide, I'll post some links to videos or streams that will definitely help you improve as a Katarina-player.

Thank you for reading my guide, I hope it turned out to be somewhat helpful. If you got any questions or whatever else - please shout out.

The best Katarina-streamer out there, Katlife, his stream is very informative, and he's good at communicating with his viewers, he also made a vid-guide on Kat, so check out his YouTube channel if you're interested:
https://go.twitch.tv/kat_life
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD55o2LYTynwAp5JomjsEow

Video showing how Katarina abilities works, all basic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7IvpyGgkj4

Some Kat-combos worth checking out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMCvpvLRjvA