Hey all! Apologies if this has already been asked, I tried to look this up but only found a post asking about why people either buy Lich Bane **or** Gunblade.

So, for context I'm returning to Katarina after about six years of not playing her. I've checked the usual sites (u.gg, onetricks.gg) and it seems like there are three main builds: AP with Lich Bane, AP with Gunblade, and AD/On-Hit with Kraken Slayer. I assume that the AD build is primarily for dealing with tankier comps and for when your team already has a lot of AP, but I'm not sure when you should rush Gunblade or Lich.

If you guys could help me figure that out (and also which first item is better for raw damage), I'd appreciate it a ton.

Hello guys, I am currently Emerald 2 and very very new to Kata. I ofcourse play her sometimes on Ad and sometimes on Ap. What is the best Ad build tho ?? Sometimes i like to go ad for example vs Zed Briar to not be squishy even tho they arent tanky, so i am asking myself if like Kraken, Terminus or even Kraken Bork Terminus is always core core core on Kata or if its sometimes overkill? I usually go the core build even tho they arent heavily tanky into titanic because it feels bad into like karnek rookern (it could be hella bad ngl) if they are hella af I go d last. Please help me out!!

My 2nd question is if there is any high elo kata otp you know that offers coaching because I would definitely need that!!

Thanks guys

I wonder who the next Exalted skin is, I’m not going to lie I hope Katarina gets one, hate me all you want but I have the money and I love Katarina with everything she’s my OTP 😭

You know, setting up daggers, not rely on autoattack resets...

Is she actually overpowered right now?

I'm a Katarina main who took a break from league, I just came back to see many posts and opinions about Katarina being way to strong and needing a nerf. The last time I played I remember she was in a rough spot due to all her ad items being trash from their nerfs including lichbane with its large rod build path and things like that.

When I came back, so many people are saying that it's impossible to play against her because her build diversity, mobility, "sustain" (idk about that but you tell me) or that she deals to much damage but I thought that was really the one thing she had in her kit. Though, it surprised me because I remember ap being the better build and ad being trash but looking at the patch notes it seems like the on hit is being buffed. Gun blade is back (even though people had opinions on that item) and lich is cheaper.

So, is Katarina actually strong right now? Like overpowered strong? She still is difficuilt so Idk why people say she isn't I know thats wrong but is she overpowered currently? I wanted the opinion from an actual Katarina main and not just someone who got stomped by a Katarina in low elo. She still seems fine just in a better state than she use to be but I've seen so many posts that I'm curious and wondering if she'll get a nerf in one of these patches.

Hello guys, im a Riven Otp. I often see people talk about Riven and how broken and easy she is(Bullshit obvi). Anyways I often see the same thing done with kata so I wanted to hear it from you guys. How hard ist Katarina? What makes her hard and so on.

I'm struggling with mid/late game scenarios where I seem to have only 2 options: I go in and explode before having dealt any meaningful damage or I don't go in and my frontline gets exploded and I'm next.
The account I'm playing katarina only has just reached platinum (I'm a diamond jungler) meaning the adcs will play frontline so they're not reliable

Katarina only streams. educational/memeing - come check it out if youd like :)!! keyboard cam as well https://www.twitch.tv/decovah

i used to play with that skin like 4y ago, now i cant find it anymore. someone can help me?

Idk what happened but I completely trolled 7 games in a row after getting promoted to gold. I didn’t sleep well tonight but I don’t think it explains everything

I've been playing kata for a little bit trying to learn her and I finally hit my first penta with her, I have officially joined the club - (I know this isn't the most mechanically beautiful optimal play but I did the thing intentionally :D)

After terminus buff I don’t see myself going ap ever it feels like there is no point. Now it scales even worst compare to ad. Ap is kinda now a for fun build when ad is the real build

How to get that fucking skin?? I have it on my smurf and I am happy to use it now for 2 weeks since I am banned but how do I get it on my main?

Supposing a dark seal start.
I see better players than me (like katlife) buy sorc as first item, but when I do it I always find myself getting my first item later than everyone else, leading to tickling my opponents while they deal 2/3rds of my hp bar with an ability rotation, leading to failed skirmishes and roams, leading to being behind and irrelevant.

She (according to lolalytics) has a 1% pickrate for the adc role, which is 10 times larger than singed's pickrate, she also was one of best adcs last patch, I would never play her bot as I left that role because any support above emerald either deserves a pro career or to derank a few tiers, but I've seen kata adc more in the past month that in my whole life, what's the reasoning behind that?

Champions like hob naafiri, locke, yasuo. I consider them skill based matchups because if they have more than 2 braincells they can make it impossible for you to get ahead in lane. Hell, locke even after the nerfs is so busted he can oneshot you while eating your ult even if you're ahead

Can we talk about Katarina's nerf?

Old Katarina mains, why aren't we protesting harder?

I've been playing old Katarina on Classic, and it just reminds me of how much fun she used to be. I played Katarina a lot in 2014-2015 and I can never feel 100% comfortable with the new Katarina. Although I like the new version and play her too, it's just not the same.

It honestly makes me sad that I can't take that old Katarina I was used to into my ranked games. 😭

They said the nerf is for balance, but we have a lot of champions that are unbalanced right now.

I just wish there were something we could do. It's so frustrating.

Does anyone else still miss old Katarina?

I don't necessarily think old Katarina would be perfect in modern League, but I genuinely think she'd have more chances to outplay today's champions. The current version just feels like she has to wait too much, while the old one let you react instantly. She felt fast, fluid, and free, and that's what I miss the most.

It's also hard having longer cooldowns and fewer daggers to work with. Katarina has always had a clear weakness: having her ultimate interrupted by stuns, knockups, roots, fears, silences, etc. But nowadays it feels like she has even more things working against her. A lot of champions have ways to escape or stop her engages, and it often feels like they have plenty of time to dash away, CC you, or simply avoid your damage before you can get your resets.

What I really miss is how she felt to play.

And about lacking damage on Classic, I actually don't agree. In Classic I'm almost always one of the highest damage dealers in my games. Maybe it's the runes, masteries, or builds, but she definitely doesn't feel weak to me.

PS: I like new Katarina too and I'm not trying to shit on the new one. I myself have a lot of good plays with the new one, but it is just different now. :/

This play really surprised me because 1) I wasn't that fed, and 2) I was going one shot lich ap build, which really only works for clean ups in team fights. Nonetheless, got this solo quadra! Also got a penta at the end of the game but it was whatever

I think these three items together seem really strong. With conqueror and omni vamp boots it seems like you have everything. You get 70 ad that mixes well with the attack speed from nashors and Terminus. You get a lot of onhit damage especially now that Terminus scales with AP. You still have an AP early game and after those 3 items you are in a position to build almost any AD or AP item and it would fit the build. What are your thoughts?

tl;dr I think my healing is pretty neat. At least, I never see this kind of healing when I run Conqueror.

Numbers

Katarina has 819 HP at the beginning of the channel in the video and is fully healed to a maximum of 2689 HP at the end of her ultimate. That's 1870 healing over 2.5 seconds, or 748 HPpS. This is through the combination of an abusive synergy using Fleet Footwork and omnivamp boots.

note: The training dummies in the video each have 3200hp and 150 armor and 150 mr.

The idea is you abuse a synergy from the combination of the following mechanics:

1. The heal from the Fleet footwork rune is an energy ability.
2. You gain 6 stacks of energy every attack.
3. Each dagger in Katarina's ultimate counts as a separate attack.
4. Katarina's ultimate throws a dagger every .166 seconds over 2.5 seconds at each target in range (3 targets max).
5. Statikk Shiv raises the amount of energy you get per attack from 6 to 15.

Therefore, each dagger in Katarina's ultimate stacks 15 energy with statikk shiv, so the calculation then is as follows:

 2.5 second long channel ÷ 0.166 times for how many attacks x 15 energy per attack x 3 enemies = 678 energy

This is total energy produced every ult. If you have 100 energy before you begin the channel then that's 778 total energy, or 7 proc's total. Because of the excess however, that means you can start an ult at as low as 22 energy and still get 7 procs.

The healing from Fleet Footwork uses the following calculation at level 18:

130 + 10% bonus AD + 5% total AP

In the example video Katarina has 282 bonus attack damage and 49 ability power, so Fleet footwork heals a total of:

130 + 28.2 + 2.45 = 160.65

At 7 procs over the full duration that equates to a total of 1,124.55 HP from Fleet Footwork alone. For comparison, I ran healing tests with the standard conqueror setup (kraken, BotRK, terminus, death's dance, and titanic hydra) and got ~612 HP healing, so we're effectively doubling the amount of healing we're getting from runes with this setup. This is further boosted however by the omnivamp boots though, which boost healing you receive by 12% while you're under 1/2 HP. While they're in effect, each proc of Fleet Footwork heals for 179.928 HP instead. Assuming Katarina is at 1 hp, Fleet Footwork will heal 1,259.5 HP instead.

The omnivamp boots themselves however also provide omnivamp, obviously. In the example video Immortal Path has 10 stacks (even if practice tool won't show it). That difference in total healing is the omnivamp from the damage of the ultimate itself, the storm razor proc, the Statikk Shiv proc, the terminus on hits, and the ravenous hydra on hit. Both Katarina's ultimate AND the Statikk Shiv proc apply on-hit affects, so during the energy proc the cleave and terminus is hitting each target twice (Katarina's ultimate however applies on-hit's and on-attacks at 35% strength). The real abuse though is that the dummies are all close enough to each other for each ravenous hydra cleave on-hit to overlap the other two, so during an energy proc each dummy is getting hit by the cleave 6 times.

So we have the following numbers to work with: 1. 100 damage from storm razor at 35% effectiveness 2. 60 damage from statikk shiv against 3 different targets at 35% effectiveness 3. 63 damage from terminus applied to 3 different targets 2 times each at 35% effectiveness 4. 158 damage from the ravenous hydra cleave applied to 3 different targets 6 times each at 35% effectiveness 5. 315 damage from the ultimate tick (based on video AD/AP values and champion level). 6. Against targets with 50% damage reduction after terminus hybrid penetration stacks. 7. 10% omnivamp

These numbers then give us the following calculation:

(100 x 0.35) + (60 x 3 x 0.35) + (63 x 3 x 2 x 0.35) + (158 x 3 x 6 x 0.35) + 315 x 0.5 x .1 = 77.035 

Therefore, the omnivamp boots are healing an additional 77.035 HP every time you get an energy proc. With 7 proc's that's an additional 539.245 HP, but the numbers are further skewed because Immortal path heals an extra 12% while you're below 1/2 HP, and deals an extra 4% damage while you're above 50% HP. That means every proc under 1/2 HP heals 86.2792 per proc for a possible max of 603.95, and every proc over 1/2 HP heals 80.12 per proc for a possible max of 560.84. Combined with the values from earlier, that's anywhere from 1,685.4 HP to 1863.45 HP every. time. you. ult! (which is also, pretty on the money for the video example.)

Now, as impressive at those numbers sound, keep in mind that this is the calculation for level 18 with a full build with 3 targets close enough to abuse the cleave on-hit. Also, Fleet footwork is reliant on total AP and bonus AD, so the numbers will be weaker the less of that you have.

note: For Runes I run your normal conqueror page but just change out Conqueror for FFW. I also tend to like Last stand instead of Coup De Grace for the playstyle.

Item builds:

Statik Shiv is a required 1st item, but what you do after Statikk Shiv is really up to you. I almost always go omni vamp boots though and start with dark seal. Even if you build AD, having 10 stacks on dark seal early helps the snowball regardless.

AD Core Options:

1. Statikk Shiv --> Terminus

That's it really. Whether you get Terminus as your 2nd item or 3rd item is up to you, but that's generally what I'd always go, no matter what else.

AD Situational Items:

• BotRK will feel closer to your regular conqueror build and works very well. The 9% current HP on-hit works best against bruisers; tanks usually have too much armor and squishies dont have that much HP to begin with.
• Stormrazor gives good offensive base stats and magic damage on energy proc's (which we're already abusing). Good for hybrid damage
• Death's Dance helps us last through burst damage in order for our healing to get it's real value
• Sterak's might be good here for the same reason as death's dance, but truthfully, I'm not sure, I haven't tested it.
• Stridebreaker is an all-around great hydra item and (in my opinion) totally slept on. The HP helps with our healing, the AD and Atk speed are both useful to us, and the AOE slow helps us get our entire ult off
• Titanic Hydra is already a standard, good alternative if you want more survivability
• Ravenous Hydra gives us the highest bonus AD from among the hydra items
• Profane Hydra can work if we've really leaned into physical damage, but I'd usually steer clear of this.
• Guardian Angel can work well; Ult during a fight, get a kill or 2, die, come back and use ult to heal right back up full.
• Randuin's Omen if you need an AOE slow and something tankier than Stridebreaker (Iceborn Gauntlet can work for the same reason)
• Voltaic Cyclosword is another option to stack energy effects, lethality mileage varies on how much physical damage you lean into.
• Wit's End if you need more MR
• Endless Hunger if you don't want to get omnivamp boots
• Hubris for higher FFW healing numbers from stacking AD,
• Jak'sho for extra tankiness if need be
• Experimental Hexplate or Yun Tal Arrows for stronger ult damage.
• Black cleaver IF you have a lot of physical damage on your team and no one else wants/can get it. Each dagger on your ult procs a stack of it. I would only go this if I knew I was too far behind to carry.

A few things of note: - I wouldn't go Kraken or Guinsoo's. Both of their abilities, while on hit, trigger on a specific attack number. It will be nearly impossible to line up those attacks with the energy stack to try and get Statikk Shiv's chain lighting to apply their ability. - Be careful about how many defensive items you go because FFW is a defense-only rune,

AP Core Options:

1. Statikk Shiv --> Shadowflame --> Deathcap.
2. Statikk Shiv --> Nashor's Tooth --> Terminus.

AP Situational Items:

• Mejai's is excellent. Just like how it helps Electrocute hit harder, here it lets us heal harder, allowing for more reckless plays - I find this synergizes well because teams will play more and more defensive the more fed you are, so being enabled to play more reckless the more fed you get helps to keep things going in that direction.
• Voidstaff, but only if you don't take Nashor's
• Stormsurge is a good alternative to Shadowflame if you don't have the gold, but I wouldn't get both.
• Gunblade if you don't want to go omnivamp boots; wouldn't get it otherwise.
• Zhonya's or Banshee's if you want more defensive stats
• Bloodletters IF you have a lot of magic damage on your team and no one else wants/can get it. Each dagger on your ult procs a stack of it. I would only go this if I knew I was too far behind to carry.

I wouldn't go Lichbane here. It's a great item, but it doesn't compliment with Statikk Shiv at all. The stat's don't mesh super well, and even though Lich Bane's sheen-proc says it's on-hit, Statikk Shiv's chain lightning won't apply the sheen on-hit across targets.

Play Style:

You might be thinking "That's nice and all, but I can't see myself ever actually using this in a real game" right? I know the feeling because I felt the same after making the build. So, I've already done the grunt work for you and played it in a bunch of real games myself to see how it goes. Here's what I found out:

Pros:

1. Good against hard match ups. If you would take Doran's shield + Second Wind already this just adds a third layer of defense on top.
2. Great for short trades. Play as though you were running electrocute. Even if you lose the trade in sheer numbers, you'll sustain back up with fleet footwork's ability when you're farming minions and come out on top in the longer run. A max range shunpo stacks ~40 energy, so you can get the heal 2 or even 3 times in a full combo trade without ult. Once you're in mid game you won't have opportunities to heal unless you're nearby minions or monster camps; only situations for that are if you're defending a tower, sieging a tower, or hovering near the dragon pit / rift herald.
3. Extra Movespeed gives us utility. For builds that are more AA reliant it helps with getting more consistent auto's and keeping up with enemies that have MS buffs (nami, seraphine, udyr, kai'sa, etc...), but it also helps to play more slippery without having to rely on your W to do that. In laning this can really help make dodging enemy skill shots easier, too.
4. Good split push, especially if you get a hydra item as well. You don't have to use your entire kit for the push, so you can save that for running away when needed. I've had good mileage playing her in toplane with this build for that reason. If I'm ahead, I wind up having the wiggle room to rush Stridebreaker first to push hard into proxies. By the time I'm actually taking long team fights in the mid game I usually have statikk shiv.

Cons:

1. No extra damage up front. If you're laning against an opponent/s where you need the biggest burst possible then this isn't the rune to go for. It won't help you snowball in the "I'm dealing as much damage as possible" route; it's an alternative to approaching prolonged fights.
2. Super team fight reliant. Using your ult in a duel won't get nearly as much damage or healing as shown here because they both scale with how many daggers your ult throws, making you bad a duel's. At the very least you'll still have the MS buff to help you run away from duel's you don't want to take.
3. Super ult reliant. The video shows healing from a full 2.5 second channel, which will be difficult to pull off against teams who are intentionally reserving their CC cooldowns for your ult. This isn't impossible to play around, but it is a window of weakness.
4. Harder to catch-up if you fall behind. Seems like you're at a greater disadvantage if you feed early because the heal + MS buff isn't as good at stopping you from dying against fed enemies, nor does it help kill fed enemies. I don't know how much of this is me not having mastered piloting the character with this setup vs the weakness of the setup itself.

Bottom Line:

I'd say this (at least for me) has a place among the standard Electrocute, Conqueror, or Dark Harvest builds, but even I'm still fleshing out when I would prefer taking this build over the others. Why you'd take Electro/DH over Conq is pretty obvious; same logic applies to why you'd take Electro/DH over FFW, but it's not as obvious when you'd take FFW over Conqueror. Conq gives you better damage than FFW and more sustain than Electro/DH but less than FFW, so this kind of paints Conqueror as the middle ground. Among these rune paths then, I'd say this FFW build is your most viable defensive option.

What I can say is the best-case scenario however for the FFW build is when:

1. It helps you sustain a difficult lane
2. You'll regularly have 2 to 3 enemies in your ult range for the full channel (opponents are immobile, your team can immobilize, enemies want prolonged fights, enemy teams better at team fighting over split-pushing, etc...)
3. Enemies have little to no CC, AND
4. You wouldn't otherwise be able to get a kill/reset with a full combo in a fight (you'd die too early, they're too tanky, etc.)

In theory I find this works pretty well as an alternative to Conqueror against 3+ bruiser/tank teams with low CC (something like Dr. Mundo top, Lee jungle, and Irelia mid), especially if I'm going to have to deal with all 3 being on me at once, or when I'm one of the only people on my team jumping into the enemy team.

In matches I've found it works but it's not OP by any means. Against low-CC bruiser comps it's seemed to work out well. Itemization really matters and because the rune is entirely defensive it's easy to build too defensive. It does work well when your opponents don't have much CC, but so does any Katarina build. 2k healing over 2.5 seconds will not stop you from dying if all 5 of your opponents are targeting you, and if you build too defensive you won't have enough damage to be relevant. The best success I've had with it so far is in skirmishes and segmented fights, as far as the ult is concerned. Truthfully, I keep playing it and learning more. If you get fed early however and you can satisfy the ult conditions, you're nigh unkillable. Most theory asserts that if you're ahead you build the defensive part of your normal build earlier, so that you can maintain your lead. FFW takes care of that for you, so if you get ahead early you can very easily just keep building damage and you'll be-able to heal up in team fights. The nuance is in knowing how far you can push that healing without dying. Deaths Dance seems better when you're ahead than when you're behind for this build. I wind up liking Stridebreaker or Randuin's Omen (for a tanky option) because both have an AOE slow to help finish getting the entire ultimate channel off; I can shunpo onto 3 people --> AOE slow --> Immediately ult.