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Katarina Build Guide by

The Best Katarina Guide [In Progress]

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Guide Discussion (1) More Katarina Guides

Runes:

Domination

Electrocute

Taste of Blood

Eyeball Collection

Ravenous Hunter

Precision

Triumph

Coup de Grace

Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10% Tenacity/Slow Resist

Spells:

Standard Spells

Flash

Ignite

Items

Aggressive Start

Safe Start

Very Safe Start

Rush These

Average Build Order

Your Best Friend

Ability Order

Katarina Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Cho'Gath

Extreme

Oh god. Dont get me started on Cho Gath. If you dont kill him early, your lane will be a nightmare, because he will just become way too tricky to kill, and his ult was made for squishes like you.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

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Introduction

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Welcome

Hello and welcome to my guide on Warwick, the sinister blade. I started playing League of Legends during the middle of the 2013 season, and have been hooked since then. Although I’ve been playing league for a while now, I can’t honestly tell you I am a pro. However, I do know how to play Katarina very well. Because I don’t play very much ranked, I am sadly stuck in Bronze 3. Hopefully I will be able to pass on my knowledge to you.

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Why Play Katarina?

is broken, I’m just gonna let you know that right now, before you get all the hateful comments saying that you are playing a stupid, broken, unbalanced champion. If you don’t believe me take a look at the video below. Katarina is an assassin AP carry, meaning she has the ability to deal huge amounts of damage in a short burst. Katarina’s kit revolves around her being able to jump between targets, spam her abilities multiple times, and get out safely. This is due to her passive and . If you enjoy making your enemies rage-quit because they can’t handle your op-ness, then Katarina is the champion for you.

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How Katarina And I Met

When I first started playing League back in 2013, my go to champion was always . I learned how to play the game with her, and she really got me hooked on League, she was kinda like my first virtual girlfriend. While I was in my “Ashe Phase” I was really into ADC’s and marksmen, and I started to expand off of Ashe by playing other marksmen like , , and . I tried playing in other lanes, and dabbled in jungling for a bit, but I always came back to bot lane. Over time however, I started to get tired of bot, and I started to drift into mid lane. That is where I met my second virtual girlfriend, . Annie and I played game after game together, and fell into a deep love. I perfected my League skills while playing Annie. To this day, we still keep in touch and play games together occasionally. During the beginning of season 5, I was really interested in Katarina, and I liked the way she looked and what her kit was like. I saved up all of my IP to buy her. After a few games with Kat, I fell in love with her. I have played hundreds of games with her since then, and she is currently my third virtual girlfriend. I am just realizing now that it sounds nerdy and sad when I say “virtual” girlfriend, but you know what I mean.

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Pros / Cons

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Pros:

+Insane mobility built into kit
+Very strong laning phase
+Doesn’t use mana
+ resets make crazy plays
+Is an assassin
+Lots of annoying poke
+Doesn’t have any skill shot abilities
+Multi-target, high damaging ultimate
+Really strong ganks, if able to roam
+Awesome at team fighting
+ allows her to escape from fights

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Cons:

- can be interrupted.
-Has no escape if is wasted.
-Very squishy if building 100% damage
-Everyone will call you broken/unskilled.
-Has melee range in mainly ranged lane.
-You will be targeted very hard
-Only CC is Hextech Gunblade.
-Very vulnerable to CC.
-Falls behind if she doesn’t have kills.
-Hard to master
-Countered by tanky champions

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Masteries

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Wanderer : This just increases our already high mobility, and allows us to get back to lane faster or gank other lanes faster.
Secret Stash : Katarina has no sustain at all, these make our potions pack a punch and allow us to stay in lane longer.
Merciless : Katarina is a fantastic clean up champion, and this makes our cleanups even more devastating.
Dangerous Game : This helps us get pentas, and if you didn’t know yet Katarina is the queen of penta-kills. We can get up to a total of 25% of our missing health regained in one team fight.
Precision: If they enemy team is smart, they’ll start building MR as soon as possible, Precision combined with Void Staff will shred through a lot of it.
Thunderlord's Decree : Makes your poke and burst even stronger than it already is. So much better than all of the other 9 keystones in my opinion

Sorcery: Obviously more damage = good. We get a combined total of 5% increased damage with Double Edged Sword , so it’s a very nice boost
Double Edged Sword : As Katarina, your main duty is to dish out as much damage as you can in the shortest possible amount of time. If you are playing Katarina my way and with the right team comp, it is more important to deal damage than to take it.
Natural Talent : This mastery is a better choice than Vampirism because again you should be focused on dealing the most damage possible and nothing else. Also, Katarina’s kit is mostly multi-target, so the healing would be almost unnoticeable.
Bounty Hunter : Oppressor is not reliable, because we need CC to proc it’s effect, and even if we do, that is only an additional 2.5% more damage… we can do better. If we kill each unique champion on the enemy team at least once, Bounty Hunter gives us twice the damage percentage increase.

Summoner Spells

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ingite should be taken in almost every game you play as . This is simply because of the damage it adds to your combos. You can use it’s grievous wounds effect to counter an enemy with high healing capabilites (, , , etc.). Have you ever gone all in on an enemy, and then watched them walk away with 10 health or less at the last millisecond? If you had , you wouldn’t be having that problem. Overall, just increases your kill potential, and scares off anyone who would dare to try and fight you.

adds variety to the different plays you can make. Flash can help take lives, and save lives. Usually you would be able away if an enemy approaches you, but you won’t always have it up, so you need something else to depend on. You can use to get in range for a , and make completely unexpected plays. I am sure it has been shoved down your throat hundreds of times that taking flash is a necessity, but it can’t be stressed enough. I take flash every single game I play with Katarina, because the possibilities are literally endless.

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is another viable option, but I rarely take it. Katarina excels at roaming, because of her mobility and close proximity to the other lanes, and taking increases your roaming potential. Take and you now have a map-wide presence, and can be any where at anytime. Most importantly, teleport makes ganking other lanes a lot easier, because you can simply teleport to a ward and get an easy kill or two.

Champion Abilities

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Voracity (Passive)

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INNATE: Katarina reduces the cool down on all of her abilities by 15 seconds whenever an enemy champion dies within 3 seconds of being damaged by her.

DAGGERS: Whenever Katarina catches a Dagger or picks it up from the ground, she uses it to slash through all nearby enemies, dealing magic damage and reducing Shunpo’s cooldown
Daggers last 4 seconds before disappearing.

MAGIC DAMAGE:75 - 285 (based on level) (+ 100% bonus AD) (+ 55 / 70 / 85 / 100% AP)

COOLDOWN REDUCTION: 78 / 84 / 90 / 96%, at levels 1, 6, 11, and 16

My thoughts:

This is one of my favorite passives in the entire game.
There are two parts to being an assassin, being able to deal an insane amount of damage to a single target, and being able to leave the fight without a scratch. This passive lets you satisfy both parts: Shunpo into a fight, deal crazy damage with resets on every kill, and then shunpo right back out. All of this is because of your beautiful passive.
Voracity is your penta-kill maker.

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Bouncing Blades (Q)

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ACTIVE: Katarina throws a Dagger to the target enemy that bounces to up to 2 nearby unaffected enemies, dealing magic damage to each target.

After bouncing to its targets, the Dagger then lands on the ground opposite from where it struck the first target. The Dagger always takes the same amount of time to land from the time it hits the first target.

MAGIC DAMAGE: 75 / 105 / 135 / 165 / 195 (+ 30% AP).

My thoughts:

Poke is just so fun, it can make people rage, it can win your lane, it can make people die, it can win the game.
This is one of my favorite poke abilities in the game, because you don’t need skill to use it, it locks onto targets.
If coupled with a Shunpo and sinister steel, you can deal a ton of early game poke.
It also makes Katarina a strong wave clearer, but make sure you don’t push your lane too far.

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Preparation (W)

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ACTIVE: Katarina tosses a Dagger into the air at her current location, which lands after 1.25 seconds, and gains bonus movement speed that decays over 1.25 seconds.

BONUS MOVEMENT SPEED: 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90%

My thoughts:

Good wave clearing ability, if you stand in the middle of a minion wave and pick up the dagger
Using Preparation, gives you a burst of movement speed for over one second. Although this might not seem like a lot, it can be very helpful when you are being chased or if you are doing the chasing.
Use Preparation before entering any fight for an easy way out if something goes wrong

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Shunpo (E)

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ACTIVE: Katarina blinks to the target location around the target unit or Dagger.

If the target is an enemy, Katarina deals them magic damage. Otherwise, she deals the same magic damage to the nearest enemy in range.

MAGIC DAMAGE: 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 (+ 25% AP) (+ 65% AD)

My thoughts:

My personal favorite ability on Katarina, because of the plays you can make with it.
Dodge any skill shot and watch your enemy later rage about how broken Katarina is.
Take the enemy team by surprise when you jump onto squishies and delete their health bar.
Once you have gotten a kill or two, your passive allows you to jump right back to safety without a scratch.
Rest In Peace Katarina’s ward jumping - November 2016

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Death Lotus (R)

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ACTIVE: Katarina rapidly spins in place and channels for 2.5 seconds, throwing a dagger every 0.166 seconds to each nearby enemy champion, up to a maximum of 3 at a time, dealing them magic damage and applying Grievous Wounds icon Grievous Wounds for 3 seconds.

Death Lotus cannot be cancelled by movement and basic attack commands in the first and last 0.25 seconds of channeling.

MAGIC DAMAGE PER DAGGER: 25 / 37.5 / 50 (+ 20% AP) (+ 22% bonus AD)

My thoughts:

A game-changing ultimate right here. Take out an entire team in a matter of seconds.
The damage on this ability is insane. With rank three and 600 AP (that rhymed), you can deal a total of… drum roll please… OVER 2550 POINTS OF GODLY MAGIC DAMAGE. Keep in mind that this total is divided between three targets.
Sadly, Death Lotus has a significant downside in that it can be interrupted by knock-ups, knock-backs, silences, stuns and pulls.
[Helpful hint] The icon is usually gray, when you aren’t in range of a nearby enemy champion, but it lights up when you are, whether they are visible or not. Use this to your advantage when playing against an Akali, Shaco, or Rengar for example. Also use this to check an unwarded bush.

Items

Gameplay

Summary

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The Best Katarina Guide [In Progress]

Introduction

Pros / Cons

Masteries

Summoner Spells

Champion Abilities

Items

Gameplay

Summary

The Best Katarina Guide [In Progress]

The Best Katarina Guide [In Progress]

Recommended Items

Runes:

Spells:

Flash

Ignite

Items

Ability Order

Voracity (PASSIVE)

Bouncing Blades (Q)

Preparation (W)

Shunpo (E)

Death Lotus (R)

Threats & Synergies

Ahri

Anivia

Annie

Aurelion Sol

Azir

Brand

Cho'Gath

Diana

Fizz

Karthus

Kassadin

Lissandra

Lulu

LeBlanc

Malzahar

Lux

Morgana

Taliyah

Twisted Fate

Veigar

Vel'Koz

Viktor

Zed

Yasuo

Fiddlesticks

Introduction

Pros / Cons

Masteries

Summoner Spells

Champion Abilities

Items

Gameplay

Summary

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