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Katarina Build Guide by

Katarina - The Shinigami

Updated on

7.4

366

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366 50

4,892,110 Views

160 Comments

Katarina Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (160) More Katarina Guides

Runes:

Domination

Electrocute

Sudden Impact

Zombie Ward

Ravenous Hunter

Inspiration

Perfect Timing

Magical Footwear

Spells:

Flash

Ignite

Items

Starting Items

First Major Buy

Offensive Options

Defensive Options

Boots

Ability Order

Katarina Passive Ability

More Katarina Counters

Introduction

Hello! I'm cyberskull a.k.a Sword Art Natsu and I play on the EU West server. I've been a League of Legends player since 2010. My highest division was Platinum IV (Season 3 and Pre-Season 4) and I finished Season 5 in Platinum V on my main account as well as Gold V on my second account. The roles I've played the most are Top Lane and Support but I play all lanes and I am decent in all of them. Right now I am playing mostly Jungle and AD Carry.

If you have any questions for me ask them via:
- Skype (terminator_xp)
- PM on Mobafire
- Tweet at me on twitter (@SwordArtNatsu)
- League (Sword Art Natsu, EU West and HeavenlyRegalia, EU West)
- Ask.fm (ask.fm/Sword_Art_Natsu)
- Retrospring (https://retrospring.net/SwordArtNatsu)

Anyways, welcome to my guide for , the Sinister Blade! This is definitely not an amazing guide or anything. It is just a decent guide by an average League player. If you're looking to pick up as a champion or just learn a thing or two about her (like what to build or what runes to get) then keep on reading!

is an Ability Power focused Champion who excels at Assassinating high-priority targets and killing off an entire enemy team thanks to her passive. She's good at bursting squishies and damaging everyone thanks to her multi-target/AoE spells. She's also a good pubstomp champion for low rating games but you need to know what you're doing and you need to know how to carry your teammates out. Also, she can be played both mid and top depending on her opponent.

Why play you ask? She has a cool personality, she looks cool and she's not that hard to play. The only thing that is hard about her is getting out of laning phase and knowing when to go in and when not to once you're team fighting. Also, it takes some time to master her as with all champions. Hopefully this guide will help you out in becoming a better player~!

Special thanks to Janitsu, the person who made the guide graphics in this guide. You can check his Graphics Shop by clicking on the link below

Junatsee's Graphics

Pros / Cons

spaaaaaaace

Pros

+ Resourceless Champion
+ Multi-Target Ultimate
+ Easy to pick up and learn
+ Decent at farming
+ Good roamer
+ No skillshots

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sinister steel

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Cons

- Ultimate easily interrupted
- Squishy
- Often focused if she starts snowballing
- Melee
- Her kit has no built-in CC

Runes

Domination

Electrocute - Katarina's fast combos apply this rune with ease. The damage is quite good. Although there are some other decent options in this slot, I think Electrocute is the most useful rune on Katarina. Her primary role is to deal as much damage as possible and this rune helps with that.

Sudden Impact - This rune is basically a spike in your damage when you proc it. With magic resist being so low early on in the game, the effectiveness of this rune will help you out a lot especially in the early game.

Zombie Ward - This basically provides extra vision for you which is always helpful. Vision is key in League of Legends.

Ravenous Hunter - As you get kills, you'll start to heal by doing damage with your abilities. Quite useful for prolonged laning phases.

Inspiration

Perfect Timing - A free stopwatch?!?! JUST GET IT!!!!

Magical Footwear - Free boots as well?!?! YES PLEASE! The downside is that you won't be able to get boots before the 10 minute mark. But that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Summoner Spells

- Helps you make plays, escape and/or position yourself for your Ultimate. This Summoner Spell is a must for .

- Ignite lets you get kills and Katarina is a champion for killing. One thing to note is that you can cast ignite while using so if you use your ultimate on someone, tag him with ignite and he escapes on really low health you'll probably grab the kill unless he gets really lucky and survives with 10 hp.

Alternatives:

- Good for shutting down someone in a team fight. I don't use it a lot but it's decent on . I'd most likely take it when going Top Lane against a bruiser that relies on auto-attacks (, , , etc)

- After the 4.5 Patch, Heal is quite strong. It's basically a mini Shurelya/mini-Ghost with a heal. If you're in a tough match-up, for example, you can take heal just to survive the laning phase.

Skill Sequence

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

1 point in your Q at lvl 1 is good because if you're planing on invading your Q will bounce to people and deal damage to everyone nearby. If you pick up your dagger it'll do even more damage. Even if you're not invading getting a point at lvl 1 in your Q is still good for the harass/last hitting so I recommend doing that. The point in E at lvl 2 is so you can escape early level ganks. Finally grab 1 point in your W and then max out Q.

Skill Explanation

(Passive): This passive is what makes or breaks a player. Properly using it can get you easy penta kills. I recommend learning your cooldowns at all levels if you want to abuse this passive as much as you can.

: This is your bread and butter spell. You'll be using it for poking, 1v1 and farming.

Tips and Tricks

Smartcasting this ability will help out a lot if you get a reset from your passive.
If you don't want to push, don't harass your opponent with this spell if he's near his minions. Self-explanatory but forgetting not to do it is easy so try not to forget.
Great tool for farming. After your get some Ability Power, Q-ing and then picking up your dagger can easily clear minion waves.

: - The spell that adds to your damage a lot if you can use it well.

Tips and Tricks

Use this in combination with your Q to farm easily.
Abuse the short burst of movement speed this ability gives you. Use it to juke more easily or to heavily increase your damage.

: - Your gap closer and escape tool. Grabbing your daggers puts this on a super low cooldown meaning you can be very mobile with it.

Tips and Tricks

Can't be used on wards anymore. But it can be used on minions, monsters, enemies and allied champion pets.
Be careful when using Shunpo. It is your only escape tool. You don't want to Shunpo into an enemy just as his entire team is coming from the fog of war.
As with your Q, it's a good idea to smartcast this ability for any potential resets you might get from your passive.

: - Your low cooldown ultimate. It deals a ton of damage if you can get off the full channel but it is easily interrupted.

Tips and Tricks

Not all types of Crowd Control can stop Death Lotus. Knock-ups, knock-backs, silences, stuns and pulls can interrupt it. Slows and snares can't stop it.
The ability doesn't have huge range so make sure you position yourself properly when casting it.
Zhonya's Hourglass will stop your Ultimate so DO NOT cast it when Ulting.

Items

Starting Items:

(and pots) is the standard start on Kat since it's better than Doran's Shield (Doran's doesn't allow you to buy any pots) and it allows you to dodge skill shots more easily. For example relies a lot on poking you in lane with her Q and charming you with her E. Boots can help you dodge her abilities. (and pots) should be taken only if you're facing an auto-attack reliant bruiser or a heavy AD Assassin like , , , .

Offensive Items:

A great early game item for Katarina that gives her sustain (allowing her to survive lane more easily) as well as a lot of 1v1 potential. You can rush this item. The AD it gives you also does't go to waste as Kat's AD ratios are somewhat decent.

Luden's is great on Kat. The item itself was nerfed a bit and it's not as strong now but it's still good on Kat. It basically gives you a lot of damage + some handy movement speed. You'd want to get this item in most situations.

I recommend always buying it because it's that good of an item on AP Champions.

Good item on Katarina, especially when the enemy team has a lot of magic damage. I recommend buying it when there are at least 2 heavy magic damage dealers on the enemy team. You could even rush it as your first item over Luden's Echo.

When they start stacking Magic Resist, you must get Void Staff. If they're not stacking any heavy Magic Resist, you can replace Void Staff with an item of your choice.

I do like this item on Katarina but you need to buy Rylai's along with it in order to maximize its effectiveness. So I think items like Deathcap, Void Staff and Abyssal Scepter are better than this one.

Really good item if you know how to use it properly. It can add to your burst very well and let's you easily kill squishies. The dash is also useful for escapes.

Defensive Items:

Like with Liandry's Torment, I do like this item but you need to buy both Rylai's and Liandry's in order for it to be worth it and that requires a lot of gold and farm. If you're playing Top Lane Katarina, it's a good idea to go with the Rylay's + Liandry's combo. The item was buffed quite nicely so even if you're not buying Liandry's it's still a good item.

A more reliable defensive item than Guardian Angel. If you start snowballing, the enemy team will try to focus you often. Zhonya's is helpful in such situations.

If you die at the wrong place and at the wrong time, the bonus life you get from this item is pretty much useless. The defensive stats are okay but Zhonya's Hourglass is just more reliable than this item and it gives you better stats.

I wouldn't really get this item over Zhonya's Hourglass but if you're playing against a Syndra or a Veigar then it's perfectly fine to get this item instead. The reason being, they both have stuns that could get you killed very easily. With Banshee's you can avoid the stun and avoid getting picked off.

Farming

Farming is really important for almost any champion. Early game isn't very strong and can have trouble farming but after level 4 it gets easier. I usually farm with the following combo:

Use Q on a minion wave (which will bring most of them at low hp), get them all clumped up near your dagger and pick it up to finish them off with your slash. Simple right? Yes it is but don't forget about the enemy mid laner. Be careful if he tries to harass you while you do this. And also try not to take too much damage from the minions.

Late game farms extremely well and easy so I've got nothing to say about that.

Early Game

In the Early Game you should prioritize farming above all else. If you can get a free kill that's great but don't stop farming just so you can harass. Your early game damage is not that great so there's really no point in being too aggressive (and missing farm while doing it). If you're about to get ganked use your W and your E to escape as best as you can. You can start being more aggressive after level 6 but that's your call.

Roaming is also an important part about Katarina. If the enemy mid laner is pushing you too hard then stay in your lane and farm or try to kill him. However, if he's not, push the lane all the way to his turret and find a lane to gank.

Team Fights

In Team Fights your job is pretty simple. Deal as much damage as you can, stay alive for as long as you can and cast your Ultimate at the right time. Once her enemies start dying, can kill an entire team thanks to her passive. Don't run into the enemy team like a fool and cast your Ultimate right away only to get CC-ed and killed. You're still useful without it but you're way more useful when you do use it properly. Try to go in when you see someone low and you're sure you can kill him and get the reset on your cooldowns. After that, proper target selection and quick reactions is what you'll need in order to kill the remaining enemies.

Extras

In this chapter I'll just be adding stuff like videos, photos, etc. so the guide will be more fun and interesting.

Redmercy Video:

Bleach song for playing Kat:

Katarina's Champion Spotlight by RiotGamesInc:

A video on Katarina provided by ImpureFeel q0p

A Katarina kill compilation provided by Halwadar

TheGMG's Scores while using this guide:

pablomittens' scores while using this guide:

Emikadon's scores while using the guide:

Vocaloidas' scores while using the guide:

Fun facts about Katarina:

- Katarina was designed by Coronach.

- Katarina's family name, Du Couteau, is derived from French, which means "Of the Knife".

- Katarina is the sister of Cassiopeia, making them one of five pairs of sibling champions. The other siblings champions include Kayle and Morgana, Garen and Lux, Nasus and Renekton, and Darius and Draven.

- Katarina's Shunpo is possibly a reference to a fictional technique in the popular manga series Bleach. Its name is Japanese (written as 瞬步) and means "Flash Steps," indicating that the person can move between two spots in the blink of an eye. (like I said xD)

- Katarina's dance references from the last dance scene in the movie Napoleon Dynamite

Source: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Katarina_the_Sinister_Blade/SkinsTrivia

Special Thanks

Just wanna thank everyone for the 10 000 views. You guys are awesome! When I made the guide I didn't expect such positive votes so I'm glad I did actually make this guide.

Update: Seems like I hit 20 000+ views so thank you guys! You're awesome =D !!

Update #2: 80 000+ views and 2nd place among the Katarina guides..really..I'm a happy panda c: ..thanks guys!

Update #3: 100,000 views...I'm so proud ;_; thanks guys!! <3

Update #4: 500,000 views.. o.O ...if I make it to 1 mil I'll kill myself out of happiness...jk but thanks for so many views guys! You're the best!

Update #5: We're almost there..almost..1,000,000 views. Yay! :D

Update #6: Woooohooo!! :D 1 000 000 views. Thank you all!

Update #7: 2 000 000 views O.O holy moly..Thank you~! ^^

TL;DR - Thanks for the positive votes and the 1 million+ views! Special thanks to Sr Cookie, jhoijhoi, ImpureFeel q0p, ilke994, pablomittens, N0YKK, effinvices and Janitsu.

Summary

Thanks for reading my guide! I hope I helped you out in becoming a better Katarina player! I know that my guide isn't the best Katarina guide but it's okay (in my opinion) for average players (like me) so I really hope you liked it!

Please comment and rate. Tell me what I can change or what needs to be done to improve the guide. Once again thanks for reading and good luck on the Fields of Justice