Hello everyone I would like to start off by saying thank you for your time looking over my guide, although I am no pro I do have some experience in league. I hope that my guide will help you get a base understanding of Katarina, and that you may use my guide as a base from which you may make your own changes for whatever play-style suits you best.

why Play Kat: Katarina is truly a natural disaster on the enemy team; she swoops in from no-where dealing mass amounts of damage and just as she came in she leaves without a trace. Katarina is an AP Assassin most commonly played middle lane as it is her best lane and can wreak serious damage on the enemies.

Pros:
1. very mobile
2. Deals massive amounts of damage
3. Good at "cleaning up" after teamfights when low health enemies try to run away
4. If played correctly can bully enemies out of lane to start snowballing

Cons:
1. Very squishy
2. Very susceptible to CC (it ruins your ult and enemies will spam cc you till you die)
3. High risk-High reward champ if you get behind you'll have a Hell of a time recovering
4. Only had 1 means of escape (shunpo) so think carefully before using it

The runes that I use are just a basic setup that I use for mostly all of my AP champions:

Mark: Greater Magic Pen x9
Seal: Greater Armor x9
Glyph: Greater Magic Resist x9
QUint: Greater AP x3

This gives us:
AP +15
MR +12
Armor +9
MPen +7.8

If you are going up against an AP heavy team you can switch out the Seals of armor for additional MR however my setup is just a base setup I use as default for msot AP champs, please feel free to experiment to find the runes that you feel benfit your playstyle the most.

Just as with the runes the masteries I use are just basic for all AP champs and are not optimized for any individual champions. That being said I used an AP/Defense mastery set of 21/9 as follows:

Offense:
Row 1
* Fury (2)
* Sorcery (4)
Row 2
* Mental Force (3)
Row 3
* Arcane Mastery (1)
* Executioner (3)
Row 4
* Archmage (3)
Row 5
* Devastating Strikes (3)
* Arcane Blade (1)
Row 6
* Havoc 1

Defense:
Row 1
* Block (1)
* Recover (2)
* Enchanted Armor (2)
Row 2
* Veteran's Scars (3)
Row 3
* Juggernaut (1)

This setup is going to give a little bit of everything:
* AP
* Extra damage
* Extra Armor
* Extra MR
* Extra MPen
* Extra HP
* Extra CDR

pretty much all around stats that work toward the greater good.

Probably the most important part of learning a new champ or re-defining your play style is itemization.

My choice of items comes down to 1 core build and 2 variant items.

Core Build:
1. Sorcerer Shoes
2. Zhonya's Hourglass
3. Void Staff
4. Liandry's Torment
5. Rabadon's Deathcap


For the 6th item slot I generally choose either:
A: Abyssal Sceptor
2: Rylai's Crystal Sceptor


When to choose what:
A: Abyssal Sceptor is an amzing item early game for negating all AP damage your laning opponent is dishing out; if they are harassing you too much buying some extra MR for sustain might be necessary and Abyssal Sceptor not only gives you extra MR but also gives you AP making you deal more damage and gives you 20 MPen (technically it decreases the MPen of nearby enemies by 20 but same thing seeing as katarina gets up close for her kills)

B: If you don't need MR that much getting the Rylai's will give you 100 AP (and since your ult has over a 2 AP ratio that's over 200 extra damage on your ult right there), it also gives Hp which every champ could use however its best effect is its passive. Spell damage slows enemies. If you notice enemies are escaping your ult the passive on this will allow them down so they cannot run away as effectively which makes securing kills much easier.

*P.S.* For some reason the BB code wouldn't load the item pictures, only empty picture boxes so I had to remove the item picture coding.

*P.S.* Just because I have the items listed 1-5 DOES NOT mean that's the correct build order to always use. Make your own build order based on the situation. I generally prefer to rush void staff and liandry's first for the mpen and ap however a lot of people like to rush zhonya's first. Decide what it is you need to be successful and go for it.

Everyone has their preferences on how to sequence their Ability Points however I prefer a more aggressive approach:

1. Q
2. E
3. W
4. Q
5. Q
6. R
7. Q
8. E
9. Q
10. E
11. R
12. W
13. W
14. E
15. E
16. R
17. W
18. W

Your Q is going to be your main source of harassing your enemy from a distance as well as safely securing farm, making sure to max it first is a great way to make sure you can keep your lane opponent at low health all the time and secure tons of farm. After Q is maxed E is very important for the follow-up damage when you are ready to perform your combos such as QEW/QEWR/QER etc. At level 10 is say to upgrade E however you can upgrade W if you prefer but E is slightly more important.

Summoner Spells
1. Flash (standard spell, must have)

2. Ignite (optional) nice for picking up kills when your abilities aren't enough
3. Teleport (optional) being able to teleport in and surprise ult is very nice

I personally take Tele and Flash for mobility because being able to escape, chase down, appear and disappear without a tarce, is the job description of an assassin. Ignite is nice however if you're chasing down an enemy you cant quite finish because your ult is on cd; picking up a kill with ignite will refresh your cd's so you are free to use your abilities to pursue other enemies.

1. your Q is your bread and butter spam it. Seriously though use it to constantly harass your opponent from distance until they are low health and you can go in for the kill. Don't forget to use your Q to farm by targeting groups of low health minions.

2. If you cannot get into range of your opponent to use Q on them without risking taking too much damage then wait until they are in their minion wave and target nearby minions, it will bounce around a few times and if the minion is close to your opponent odds are it will bounce to them too allowing you to extend your range of harass.

3. Your E is a valuable asset allowing you to easily dive enemies however it is your ONLY means of escape, if you cannot secure a kill it might be best to wait up on going in or you'll risk not being able to escape their cc or an enemy gank.

4. Your E can also be cast on allies, allied minions, and wards. If you are being chased try to use it on an ally, an allied minion wave, or throw down a ward as far in front of you as yo ucan and E to it to escape those chasing you. However this also works on chasing down opponents, E to an ally or minion or ward that's closer to the enemy than you are and follow up with a Q and/or ult to secure a kill.

Thanks for your time reading my guide, I hope that it has helped you to better understand on of my favorite champions I used to main for the longest time. This was the first guide I made so I kept it simple and basic and I plan on making more over time. I would love to get feedback on what you think, if my guide helped you, or maybe suggestions. If you disagree with anything I said please voice your concerns and tell me what you do differently.