Hello everyone!My name is DB77(short for summoner's name,"Deathbringer77")and here's my Katarina guide. Although I might not be Platinum or Gold or anything but I've learned a lot from other guides here and played a lot with Katarina,that said,I hope I can be of help to my dear readers.

Of course the reader of this guide (even the one's have not ever played LoL!) know Katarina as one of the best assassins throughout the game.Her high burst of damage knows no bounds.Can deal a nice heavy chunk of damage in a split second.And probably one of the most feared and most annoying champs in the game(I mean of course after that Teemo biatch)

So now lets get to work!

Pros:

• Strikes fear into the enemy when picked.
• Spectacular harassing ability.
• Her counters are usually difficult heroes and least picked.
• Her combos are efficient and deadly.
• Through her high burst of damage, can wipe an entire enemy team within 20-30 seconds.
• Has awesome escaping capalitites.
• Her ultimate is among top damaging ultimate throughout the champs (Highest damage after a fully charged nunu's ultimate to be precise)
• Is excellent in taking down squishy targets with high efficiency both pre-6 and post-6
• Is able to save herself from early ganks most of the time.
• And most importantly,she's damn resourceless!Meaning that you do not have to worry about mana or even energy costs at all!

And of course every champion has it's downside ...

Cons:

• Her low HP is really annoying throughout the entire game.In other words, she's considered extremely squishy.
• Is able to escape ganks,but if you're caught, you're most probably dead.
• Can be really hard to master.
• Being an assassin usually makes her the priority target for junglers,meaning you'll be having a harder time than your opponent in laning phase, trying not to get caught.
• Cannot take down tanky champs unless they are below a critical amount of hp.And most importantly , tanks can easily kick your *** just because you can't kill them.
• Her ultimate is interrupted in countless ways,making it harder to land than usual ulties.
• Is highly inefficient against champions with high magic resistance values.
• (This might seem a bit ridiculous but it is true) Since she is picked in too many games, your moves and of course your combos are predictable,making them easier to dodge for the enemy.

As obviously can be seen Bouncing Blades is maxed out firstly.This gives you the ability to harass your opposing mid laner and get CS.In hard circumstances where you're facing a ranged,high-damage AP mid (e.g:Le Blanc) try to get the maximum CS you can since you won't be able to harass them without having yourself damaged.Some people rush for Sinister Steel as the first ability to max out and their reasoning mostly is something along the lines of : "Well of course the cooldown is waaaaay lower than bouncing blade,range is also not bad and can be spammed easily to damage all the surrounding enemies. oh! and you get that badass MS bonus after casting it nearby an enemy champ"
In answer to that,I could say:"Damn right it's cooldown is lower,range is good and can be easily spammed BUT the damage is lower than your Q and also the your Q has a nice (+45% AP as damage) which can be highly useful for harassing.In addition to that The Q's range is by far, much better that your W and that's another reason to call it your ultimate harassment tool.So to put it in a nut shell,GENERALLY,your Q is a better option to max out before your W.
Put a single upgrade point into your E for all of it's usage (early game) is the semi-flash ability it gives you.You can use your E to shunpo to virtually every thing including (but not limited to) :enemy champ,friendly champ,enemy minion, friendly minion,monsters,teemo's Noxious Trap,Thresh's lantern,every kind of ward you can find, etc.)
And of course put an upgrade point in your ultimate skill whenever you can since that is what actually makes Katarina the most feared assassin.
Before I forget I have mention about your passive ability "ferocity" this is another ability,Katarina is well-known for.As stated in the ability descriptions,whenever you get a kill or an assist within 3 seconds the cool down of all of your abilities is reduced by 15 seconds.That means you can cast all of your (Q),(W)and (E) abilities a second time to keep the death fire soaring! Learning how to get used to this is what makes Katarina a tricky assassin.

Katarina's skills -fortunately- are pretty well made and can create lethal combos even during the laning phase.So here's some of the combos I often use:



1.Harassment combo:

Q (Bouncing Blades) >>>> E (Shunpo) >>>> W (Sinister Steel) [Can also be followed by a basic attack if the conditions are not intense]

Notes: This is your main combo and of course your basic harassment means.It's pretty simple, just follow the instructions above! You (Q) your opponent and place the mark on them,then you (E) them to get close enough to land you (W) and then you (W) to consume the mark , dealing additional magic damage and most importantly gain the movement speed to get back to safety and do the combo all over again.


2.Harassment Combo #2

E (shunpo) >>>> Q (Bouncing blades) >>>> W (Sinister Steel) [Can also be followed by a basic attack if the conditions are not intense]

Notes: This combo has the same usage as the first one,yet it does have some advantages and disadvantages. Using this combo,you can catch you opponent off guard since they expect you to do the 1st combo and in addition to that,cast range of your shunpo is slightly bigger than your Q,making it easier to land.Nonetheless,you risk exposing yourself to enemy for a second and a half more than the first combo.


3.Post 6 killing combo

Q (Bouncing Blades) >>>> E (Shunpo) >>>> W (Sinister Steel) >>>> R (Death Lotus)
[Your (R) can also be chained to "Harassment Combo #2" but it is not really recommended]


4.Post-first-kill combo(a.k.a killing machine!)

[Chained to your "Post 6 killing combo"] >>>> E (Shunpo) >>>> W (Sinister Steel) [2nd kill] >>>> E (Shunpo) >>>> W (Sinister Steel) [3rd kill] >>>> E (Shunpo) >>>> [Optional: W (Sinister Steel)]>>>> R (Death lotus)[4th and 5th kills]


Notes: this combo shows how you must proceed after hitting the first enemy in a total of 5 enemies.Having scored your first kill,your Q,W and E are now available for use again (Ferocity is the best!) and thus,you continue with E>W>E>W until you get enough kills to cast another R; the enemy team are now most likely banging their heads on the wall and throwing keyboards at each other and probably saying "WTF?!?!? noob bot lane OMG report!Who feeded kata OMFG OMG I report Evry body ... " aaaaand it goes on like that.


Extremely Important NOTICE!:
Never,ever,ever,ever,ever,ever,everrr stop your E>W>E>W>... to cast your Q.The animation wastes way too much time than you can afford to lose.Only in cases where you can secure a kill using the damage from your Q, you are free to have a go at it but in other cases,definitely not.
(Author's note:Trust me I've tried that before and lost a probable triple or quadra only to get a double kill ... )

Most of the things you need to keep in mind about items can be seen in notes for items but there's a few more thing that can prove useful:

If you're playing against high AD champs or exposed to ganks where you're dealt a nice chunk of damage in a matter of few seconds, rush for zhonya's instead of Luden's Echo or Rabadon's Cap.(e.g: when you're facing a Zed you should definitely rush for Zhonya's)


Normally I would prefer Rabadon Cap over Luden's Echo but there quite a few situations where you actually feel the need to buy Luden's first.It is absolutely cool to choose one over the other.(e.g:consider a case of an enemy -pesky!- teemo, where he might be always getting away with below 250-300 hp or so and can't seem to kill him with a single Q.Here, instead of buying Rabadon you go for Luden's so you're able to finish that bastard off)


As also stated in the "items" section, do not buy mejai's unless you know for sure that your racking up some serious amount of kills and it doesn't seem that your built-in killing machine is going to stop anytime soon.(I myself achived 1067 AP a couple of days before with a fully stacked mejai's)


I also have to point out the fact that among the items labeled "never ever" , You actually can get rylai's only for it's stats if you feel you need to get more powerful, as it offers another nice 100 AP and a adds a little bit to your HP.But remember these are extremely rare situations and IF you decided to buy rylai's be definitely sure to make it your last item to buy.

There's not much here to explain the runes choice and (in my opinion of course) do not Recommend any other rune choice except for the one mentioned in the notes.And the rune choices are pretty self explanatory.It follows the saying, "You need AP , we get you AP!" and also I included some armor seals so it reduces your squishiness a littls bit.I think that would be all for now.

It is of course very well known to every one reading this why most of the masteries are chosen out of "Offense" section and thus, I explain the reason for utility and defense masteries.

I put some mastery points in the defense section only to reduce your early game squishiness so that you can survive more and farm more confidently.

And that utility point reduces "Recall"'s cast time by one second which has saved my *** quite a few times to be honest.(And you know, it feels really cool having jinx chasing you halfway across the map and finally she loses you in the bushes amd try to recall and dodge her Mega Death Rocket thing by a milisecond. seriously you should try that, you can actually feel something burnt after your escapade xD)

Creeping and farming is really easy for Katarina since she has a unique ability made exactly for the occasion.(which is you Q of course)
For the best farming results (pre-6) firstly wait for the wave of minions to clash.Then wait for them to lower their HPs.Now cast your Q on the minion with highest remaining HP next to a minion with lowest HP,with a little bit of practice you are able to kill two(or more) of the minions by a single cast whereas putting a nice mark on the others to secure them within your next couple of basic attacks. In post-6 phase (by that I mean when you have some strong AP items such as luden's) you simply use your Q even before the minion wave arrives. Then shunpo the target with highest HP and cast you W when you placed yourself where you can hit them all,there you go!

That was about all of my knowledge about Katarina. I hope you guys can put it good use.Please feel free to post your feedbacks,any suggestions , any match result, anything.
I won't ask any of you readers to upvote my guide, because I know there are so many guides better than mine in here.All I'm asking for is that just bear in mind that this guide is my first experience and please,please,please before downvoting tell me your reason and let us argue about the problem, if you didn't feel satisfied downvote my guide but if I took your advice and edited my guide, you might wanna reconsider your choice!
Thanks to you all for reading this "needlessly long!" guide.


P.S:This is the initial release and since my PC is not available at the moment I've been writing the whole thing using my cell phone,therefore you should understand how hard it is to edit the text and all.So keep in mind that this post is going to be updated with better reading capabilities and visuals.Also I understand that there may of course be several grammatical mistakes and typos so please tell me if you find anything.


P.S2:The match ups written above are picked from usual mid laners.Nevertheless, I'll add more matchups as soon as I gain enough experience to be able to write about them.

GL&HF and GAME ON SUMMONERS!

-Initial Release

• 4/8/2015 : Added some visuals and fixed a couple of typos + added a few matchups.