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Katarina Build Guide by

(13.1) Eriosun's MASTER Katarina Guide Season 12 UPDATED!

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Runes: CONQUEROR+MS

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Precision

Conqueror

Triumph

Legend: Tenacity

Last Stand

Domination

Sudden Impact

Relentless Hunter

Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+15-140 HP (lvls 1-18)

Spells:

1 2 3 4 5

FLASH+IGNITE

Flash

Ignite

Items

STARTERS

•HIGH SUSTAIN IN LANE (reccomended with *second wind* in the runes)

•SUSTAINED DAMAGE + LANE SUSTAIN

•HIGH SUSTAINED DAMAGE - LESS LANE SUSTAIN

•SNOWBALL POTENTIAL + LANE SUSTAIN

BOOTS ARE IMPORTANT!

•VS SQUISHY / RUNNING BURST-BUILDS

•VS HEAVY AUTO-BASED CHAMPS

•VS LOTS OF CCs & AP-DMG

BEST BUILDS ATM - Check notes for more infos

•DONT FORGET TO BUY IT FIRST BACK

•MUST WHEN SNOWBALLING

•CONSISTENT AND GOOD IN EVERY SITUATION

•VS HEAVY AD DAMAGE/AD MID-JUNGLE

•EARLY STOMP BUILD

•FULL DAMAGE - FIRST STRIKE/ELECTROCUTE

•AD BUILD VS KASSA/SYLAS/GALIO

DONT FORGET!

•VS LOTS OF MAGIC RESIST ITEMS

•CAN BE GAMECHANGER

Ability Order E MAX WHEN PLAYING WITH AD ITEMS AS STARTERS/PATHING AD BUILD

1 2

Katarina Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Fizz

Extreme

Fizz is a very hard matchup. He deals way more damage than Katarina does, and his laningphase is more consistent. He has a big escape as well so its also hard for junglers to help you out. DO NOT PUSH LANE EARLY LEVELS! Best option is to not trade him BEFORE LV3 and the optimal buildpath is ELECRTO+BONEPLATING+DOUBLEMR OR CONQUEROR+BONEPLATING+OVERGROWTH , starting DSWORD and trying to get advantage level 3

Braum

Ideal

ANY FRONTLINE ENGAGE CHAMP IS THE BEST SYNERGY FOR KATARINA, ALL YOU NEED IS SETUPS IN FIGHTS! Also Braum's passive works very nicely with Katarina. Katarina after season 11 Updates is incentred on ON-HIT DAMAGE. Every on-hit can proc Braum's passive. Ideally Braum is the best ally to play around with Katarina, If you ult on an enemy with Braum's passive mark applied you will instantly stun him! Same goes for Shunpo, wich also deals on-hit damage!

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Braum

Ideal

Champion Build Guide

IN-GAME COACHING

CLICK ON THE BANNER TO GET IN-GAME TIPS AND IMPROVE! I WILL GUIDE YOU REAL TIME WHILE PLAYING KATARINA!

Heeeey, welcome to my " KATARINA GUIDE". Im an Italian Master main.
I started playing in middle Season9 and peaked Diamond I in early Season10.
I know it sounds weird but, hold on, it wasnt my first experience on MOBA games.
I played DOTA 2 for years! So when switching to League of Legends I was still in my environment.

As I said , I come from Dota2, and in Dota details and game knowledge is a MUST.
That's why I decided to make a guide, I really like to speculate on the game details and share with you guys my experiences and knowledge.I really hope this guide will help you out and answer some of the questions that playing Katarina raised in your minds.

So, with all that being said, hope you enjoyed the guide, I will do my best to keep it updated and make sure noone will be missing out on new builds and playstyles.

Thanks for passing by, and enjoy spinning aroud with your kat ;D

Here's my stream, If you are interested you can pass by and say Hi
I stream almost every day and you can find me
HERE

Im also trying to make some videos im posting a lot of MATCHUP-GUIDES go check them out if you want , for now I edit them myself, you can find the channel:HERE

PROS

• Extremely fun to play
• Good scaling
• Insane mobility
• High mechanical skill-roof
• Rewarding when played correctly
• Insanely strong while snow-balling

CONS

• Very hard to master mechanically and macro wise
• Has barely any winning matchups
• Sensible to burst-damage
• Sensible to Crowd Controls
• Her mistakes are easily punishable
• Hard to get consistent high CS/m

BEST PRIMARY TREES

THE SELECTION OF THE KEYSTONE/RUNES HAS TO BE BASED FIRST ON THE LANE MATCH-UP AND THEN ON THE ENEMY GENERAL TEAM-COMP

Conqueror
as well all know is not a normal assassin, she can also be a half-bruiser and base her kit on sustaining more than only oneshotting. provides both sustained-damage and flat-damage in the teamfights. Also playing with will allow us to have a stronger laning-phase in some match-ups and open up solo-kill scenarios. This is why even if they have squishy enemy team compositions if Im facing a or I will still go for in order to get the best laning-phase possible

Triumph
is one of the best secondary runes on since it sinergyzes well with her resets, the small health % we gain back every kill or assist is infact crucial to keep our pressure in the teamfight and keep resetting on the enemy team

Tenacity
One of the biggest counters of are the CC's and Stuns. This is why is very important and can be a game-changer combined with or

Last Stand
as we already said can also be build as a some kind of bruiser , basing her build and runes on sustain stats. It's not rare to fight with low-hps and in those scenarios really makes the difference, trust me, you will be able to turn insane fights with the bonus damage you recive when is low-hp

Electrocute
is a very "standard" rune for and I suggest to use it when approaching the champion since in my opinion it will "forge" the player into taking short and good trades in the laning-phase without overextending or risking too much, so it can be a good pillar to give a new player his basics. Playing also becomes a good option when facing squishy comps, where our burst-damage is good both in laning-phase and in team-fights. Remember that the selection of the key-stone is based both on match-up and enemy team-compsition. For example if Im facing a , even if they have good amounts of tanks in the enemy team I will still go for in order to get the best laning-phase possible

Sudden Impact
is a keystone based on burst-damage and the best way to burst an enemy is with flat-magic penetration. procs after every dash/blink giving additional 7 lethality and 6 flat magic-pen empowering our damage on sqishy targets

Eyeball Collection
Flat-damage on a burst based build is also essential, will give us at full stacks +30 Flat AP

Relentless/Ingenious Hunter
is a very important rune, it allows us to properly roam around the map with the movement speed boost we get out of combat and also simplifies our target selection and positioning in the teamfights
instead has been recently buffed in the 11.21 patch and I found it usefull when playing games around . This rune will infact lower every item-cooldowns both passive and active items and when facing comps where is a must having your cooldown reduced of 30 seconds comes very handy!

BEST SECONDARY TREES

Bone Plating
is a very good secondary rune and becomes very important when facing burst-based match-ups like ,, etc.
Also a good use of is when facing . Most of the will start with level 1 and will punish when going for the first-wave minions. A good way to not only counter it but completely turn the trade in our favour is to start with as and abuse 's early-game strenght, we will let land his chains and trade back with Auto + + Auto, while will absorb most of the damage we will take, will lose half health bar from our combo!

Overgrowth
is a very good and consistent option when we talk about secondary trees, its a very simple and straight-forward rune. It gives us bonus HPs when minions die near us and when fully stacked at 120 minions also gives a bonus 3.5% maximum health. Im my opinon after the Defense health stat buff in the 11.21, combining them grants us over 400 bonus hp trough-out the game!

Unflinching
Becomes a very good option in the games where we need our Tenacity stacked at max. If we are running as Keystone and we can still go as secondary, in this way we are not forced to build and we can go for other options like or
In the cases we are going we can combine and to spike up our Tenacity and be able to play properly even in comps with a lot of ccs

•PERSONAL TIP:
The best tip I can give you in order to learn her is PLAY HER A LOT and also WATCH A LOT OF STREAMS/VIDEO
Watching streams and videos allows you to experience situations even if you didnt had the opportunity to play them yourself. I know is weird but for me, watching others really helped me out on gaining confidence on the champion and knowing what to do in almost any situation.

KATARINA TRICKS

•WALL-JUMP:
You can walljump with without any target on the other side of the wall. The wall doesnt have to be thick.
The trick can be executed by placing to the edge of the wall and before the Dagger drops you can on the very edge of the dagger, even if you dont see it you can still jump over it.

•LONG RANGE SHUNPO:
This trick allows you to instantly + on targets.
I use it mostly to surpise the enemy thanks to the very LONG RANGE, its basically instant if you do it in the correct way.
The trick is simply pressing both and and the same time on the target, it will automatically use both of the abilities and both their max range of usage. Trust me, noone will expect that much range of engage

•FLASH -> DISENGAGE:
Consists in using on a Q landed into a teamfight and instanly out , while leaving a W on the ground.
As a result, you picked up the Q resetting your E and you still have your W in the middle of the fight ready to be picked up!
In that way you can bait some CC/SET UP SOME DAMAGE on the first jump you make and then you can go back in on the W and START MAKING BLADES DANCE with

•AUTO+E+AUTO
Katarina's can be used as an auto-reset.
We can maximixe our damage out-put by resetting our basics with and taking off-guard enemy laners in the early schermishes
Auto-resettig is important in order to deal proper damage expecially in the laning-phase while we are playing with

•FLASH+Q+E+AUTO:
This is an insane combo , designed to take off-guard enemies when they are very low hps.
If done correctly you will give the enemy literally 0 reaction-time since is too fast to react.
The combo consists in using your and instantly casting your , when the cast-animation is completed proceed to + AUTO as fast as you can!
I reccomend to try this combo in practice tool several times before using it in-game

MATCH-UP GUIDES

I recently started to make some MATCHUP GUIDES where Im gonna explain everything about the matchup from the starting items , core first items , trades and lane tips
I really hope you will find this content usefull and will help you out troughout your path to become an insane player!
Remember, in order to be CONSISTENT its important to have good laning-phase and matchup knowledge foundation!
I will be posting both on youtube and on the guide as soon as I make new matchup guides!

KATARINA VS KASSADIN MATCHUP GUIDE

KATARINA VS ZED MATCHUP GUIDE

KATARINA VS SYLAS MATCHUP GUIDE

KATARINA VS FIZZ MATCHUP GUIDE

KATARINA VS DIANA MATCHUP GUIDE

LANING PHASE

Laning as Katarina is the hardest thing to do, BUT is also the MOST IMPORTANT.
Knowing how to lane into all the matchups is exactly whay you need to make sure you will be able to have an IMPACT IN EVERY GAME YOU PLAY!

Katatina is known for her weak laningphase , but if you wanna become a Katarina master you will have to adapt and manage to play around any matchup. You can check the champion threats , I explained overall how the matchups should be played (the hardest ones).

The basics of laning as Katarina are:

•WAVE MANAGEMENT:
Do not push lane for no reason, further you are from your tower, easier is for enemy midlaner to freeze the wave and easier is for enemy jungler to kill you with ganks. Also most matchups you NEED TO NOT PUSH EARLY LEVELS to make sure you have SPACE TO ALL-IN level 3
ES:,,,

•CSing:
Having perfect CS on Katarina is almost impossible, the only way you will find yourself in a position where you can CS properly is when you already snowballed on enemy midlaner , and you are the one in control of the lane-state.
In my experience IS NOT WORTH TO GET HARASSED FOR EARLY MINIONS, if you get outlaned before lv3 only to get a few CS more is absolutely not worth it.
MOST OF THE TIMES IS BETTER TO GIVE UP CS BUT MAKE SURE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO LANE PROPERLY AND DONT LOSE XP.(ES:Orianna matchup , you just give up everything and you lasthit only what you can, if you manage to get lv3 with a good wave position you can easily all-in and solokill)

•SAFE TRADING:
Trading in the midlane is one of the most important things.
We wanna make sure we are trading properly in every matchup in order to pull off solokills or let our jungler gank our lane.
For this reason , Im making a lot of matchup guides on my youtube channel, in English and with full explaination of the matchup plus the starting and core items.
So make sure you check them out!
A good way to trade properly overall is with Q+E+W+E(OUT)//(IN) , consists in landing a on the ground , picking it up and instantly dropping your , this will result in an instant DOUBLE PICKUP giving us an INSTANT RESET.
We can either commit and prolong the trade or on a minion behind us and take the trade

•MAP AWARENESS:
Having a good map awareness is crucial in order to use our roaming potential.
We have to know what is happening is side-lanes and what summoner spells they used in order to ROAM OR TELEPORT on the sides and take free kills!
Most of Katarina's Kills come from jungle schermishes or side-lane kills so its important to have the habit to check sides or jungle with our cam view, and taking as much infos as possible on the current state of the game and learning how to use those informations for snowball games!

•LEVEL 3 SOLOKILLS
In a lot of matchups giving up early first waves CS its important.
For example against , , , you won't be able to get close to the minions and last-hit them unless they have no clue of what they are doing.
Losing half-health for a couple of minions of the first wave is something we need to avoid.
Taking that much damage will get us too low , waste sustain and make us unable to follow up early schermishes due to our low hps.
doesn't have huge kill-pressure in laning-phase and most of her kills comes from sides / jungle schermishes, this is why is important to BE ALWAYS FULL-HEALTH IN LANE IF POSSIBLE in order to give us the possibility to get some kills in the early stages of the game!
Also we will be able to take solokills from level 3 , so getting there full-hp while having all pots is a good way to get solokills in lane.
and matchup for example are all about getting level 3 full-hp , from there you can perma all-in them if you manage the wave properly and open up solo-kill scenarios

ROAMING BASICS

Ok, remember that waves crash in the middle of the lane every "":30 seconds , DO NOT ROAM WHEN ENEMY WAVES ARE CRASHING UNDER YOUR TOWER
There's a trick to SHOVE THE WAVE PROPERLY, you need to wait the wave to fix to a position, then place a + IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WAVES, picking them up will instantly oneshot the casters and if you have enough damage the meeles as well, resulting in a 0.5 sec total shove. You will be then ready to roam and put pressure on the map! This works best with AP-Builds.
If you have + + YOU WIL BE ABLE TO INSTANLY SHOVE THE WAVE WITH THE TRICK I DESCRIBED UP THERE A lot of Katarinas waste a LOT OF GOLD AND EXP foundamental in order to scale properly and snowball only becaouse they see a single kill on the map.
A single kill is not worth, even if you get it, losing a whole wave is not worth 1 KILL , unless its a big shutdown of course.
I cant find the exact numbers from this patch of A WHOLE WAVE OF MINION GOLD AND EXP I'll make sure to inform myself on the details and update this section.

For now all I can say is , when you are attempting a roam MAKES SURE YOU SHOVED YOUR WAVE UNDER ENEMY TOWER AND TRY TO COME BACK INTO YOUR LANE AT "":30/"":00 WHEN WAVES ARE CRASHING!(every 30 seconds) Also make sure you know the position of enemy jungler and you are aware of the position of your own jungler, I know there are a lot of factors to consider, but with time and practice all these details will become AUTOPILOTED.
In my opinion when you AUTOPILOT and still manage to consider all these variations your skill level will increase exponencially!

Roaming doesnt mean we have to pull-off a sidelane gank every time MOST OF THE TIMES JUST LEAVING LANE AND PRETENDING TO ROAM GIVES YOUR SIDES ADVANTAGEyou can do that by just shoving the wave and sitting in a side-bush of the midlane if you already know there is nothing you can do on the map in that exact time, becaouse enemy midlane will ping you are missing, making enemy bot play safe and give space to your botlane if they are being pressured under tower, same goes for toplane pressure or jungle pressure.
Also pretending to roam can be an easy fix for the lane if enemy mid is freezing it.
Since you are faking a roam, the enemy mid will more likely shove the wave to potentially follow your roams.

TEAM-FIGHTING BASICS

is known for her TEAMFIGHT POTENTIAL , thats why after laningphase and roaming, the TEAMFIGHT is the last but not least thing to focus on.

Teamfighting as can be tricky, many META CHAMPIONS have a LOT OF CC AND
BASED ON WHAT YOU ARE BUILDING YOUR PLAYSTYLE IN TEAMFIGHTS HAS TO BE ADAPTED.
Exactly, what you build, makes your champion A DIFFERENT CHAMPION.
If we are talking about ONESHOT-BURST builds you will focus mostly on set on the ground in teamfights and you will on them ONLY WHEN A SQUISHY CHAMP OR A PRIORITY TARGET IS IN RAGE OF IT.
NEVER ENGAGE and NEVER COINFLIP FIGHTS, be aware of what cc's they have in their pockets and start projecting and immaginating what is going to happen when you pick up that .
Knowing what spells they have to stop you and considering all of them allows you to be prepared and have BETTER REACTION TIME TO SKILLSHOTS AND CC'S.

If we are playing instead on a BRUISER-LIKE BUILD where sustained damage is the foundament of the build, you will have to look for POKE , so daggers landed in positions that are not punishable but allow you to deal some damage before the teamfight and start stacking up your keystone/item passive (CONQ+RIFRMAKER+DEMONIC)
And you can also take a bit more risks since usually these builds allow you to build a lot of hps/resistances.

•ANALIZE THE SITUATION
Its important in every teamfight to analize the situation and predict what is going to happen before going in as

•WAIT OUT TARGET CC's/ESCAPES
Make sure to wait out target CC's and Escapes of the enemy team for example 's or 's

•TARGET SELECTION
Based on your overall damage-output choose a target to reset on

•FRONT TO BACK
Can be applicable to 's Kit, we can throw a on the frontline and land the on the groud trying to reach the backline

•BACK TO FRONT
One of the most common options, just ignore the frontline and rush for the high priority targets , its important to have a good positioning in the teamfight in order to flank properly the backline

•PRIORITY TARGETING
If you can't kill or get a reset do not go in.
Knowing your damage out-put is important.
This is where experience and practice pays out, make sure that whenever you are going into a teamfight you are choosing an almost *100% resettable target*.

•POSITIONING
Positioning as is quite important.
We have to make sure we are in a good spot to both join the fight easily and avoid getting instalocked from ccs or bursted down from high-damage spells.
This is where movement speed is important.
Lately im running in the runes even when going
allows me to have higher movement speed while approaching a target and facilitates the flanking part of the teamfights.
Its also easier to select the target thanks to the movement speed!
And overall having that movement speed boost troughout the game will allow us to also get more side-lane farm and be always the highest level on the map!

THANKS FOR PASSING BY, I REALLY HOPE YOU WILL FIND THIS GUIDE USEFULL

LET ME KNOW IN THE COMMENTS WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT AND IF YOU HAVE ANY BUILD SUGGESTION!

ALSO FEEL FREE TO PASS BY MY STREAM IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS I'LL BE GLAD TO ANSWER THEM!