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Ahri is a strong laner and her kit is great against Kat. You can outplay her with your shunpo since her E and Q are easy to dodge, but if you let her charm land it is extremely bad. Try to successfully roam and win drag fights and snowball from there.
Akali
Akali is as strong as Kat in Solo Q. Max W first and Pre-6 Akali shouldn't be a problem. Don't make mistakes in lane like dying, because Akali can snowball hard. A really nice tip against Akali is that you can reveal which way she is running through her shroud by using your ultimate, as it shoots the blades to where she is running towards. Try to make better ganks than her.
Anivia
Shunpo dodge her Q during laning phase and you should be fine as she will go oom. After level 6, you can try to outplay her by dodging her Q with shunpo and bursting her with the help of your jungler as she has bad mobility. You can also out-roam her very easily, so abuse that.
Annie
This lane is extremely hard because Annie can harass you easily and shut you down with her 1.75 sec stun which is most likely not outplayable. You will need to call your jungler to get you a lead.
Diana
A classic Kat counter in Season 2. Her kit is too good against Kat because her W blocks your Q poke, and her E can easily cancel Death Lotus. Try to farm and if you stay even with her, you can out damage her in small teamfights and try to get ahead.
Fizz
Fizz is actually not that hard of a match-up. If he goes aggresive, just poke him with Q and W and if he tries to E your Q, just bait his E out and use Shunpo to dodge his E and you can out trade him. His shark is easily dodged by Shunpo as well, so just make sure you dont get caught in fog of war and you will be able to survive.
Orianna
Orianna's early game is difficult to beat. Her passive-powered autos and her shield will out-trade your pokes easily, so try to farm and if she shoves into your tower, try to get your jungler to gank her and get a lead from there. You can outplay her in skirmishes by dodging her ult with shunpo, and a huge mind game will occur in the game where she is scared to use shockwave until you use shunpo cause she will miss an important skill.
Riven
Extremely strong in lane, has a shield to block Q poke, and has 2 CC to stop your death lotus. This is almost hopeless unless you abuse any mistakes the Riven player makes. Rivens can get cocky and all-in you by closing in the distance with her Q dashes, and just shunpo dodge her final dash and wait for her to use stun and just all in and maybe you can win the 1vs1.
Syndra
Syndra is stupidly strong in lane, and she has the power to shut down Katarina in team fights as well because of her long range Q+E combo stun. You will need to try to Q poke her while at the same time dodging her Q. You can outplay her as she has 3 skill shots, and make sure you don't go in a fight while she has her combo or you will get your death lotus canceled almost immediately and she will burst you 100-0.
Twisted Fate
Twisted Fate has little to no laning prescence. Just Q harass him, and side step his wild cards. Make sure you ward around mid so you know when he will make plays with his ultimate. Predict his ganks and move to where he is heading to. If you are going to roam while he has his ult up, make sure your ganks are calculated so (for example) if you gank, make sure you can get fast and easy kills or TF will counter gank you with his ult and you and your team will get behind. Make sure you can immediately kill the enemies, as he won't ulti in if his team is dead.
Veigar
His laning is not that great, just Q harass him. Try to predict when he will attempt to stun you, so you can dodge it and shunpo onto him and kill him. If you are low HP or he is able to kill you, just back off because unless if you have flash and luck, you will not outplay him.
Xerath
His early game harass can be devastating, but his weakness against Kat is that you can dodge all of his skills with Shunpo. Don't waste your shunpo and use it to dodge his Q's during lane. In team fights you can outplay him if you get resets and he will not be able to land anything unless he is hacking/using scripts.
Yasuo
If you max Q first he can block it with windwall so I would max W. Keep harassing him with W if he comes close. You can dodge his tornadoes with your shunpo, so smart Yasuo's will combo their tornado stack with their E, and that's when you can simply shunpo to a nearby minion or ward-jump to outplay him and go back in while he can't use his ultimate. Make sure you don't outplay yourself because he can windwall your ultimate.
Zed
Max W, dodge his shurikens, try not to use shunpo to do so unless you need to. Pre 6 Zed isn't that difficult to lane against, and this is probably the only lane I would recommend rushing hourglass instead of deathfire grasp because hourglass is just so good against Zed. Try not to take free poke or he will easily dive you with his great mobility when he shoves you in. You can out damage him in skirmishes so try to ATLEAST stay even.
Ziggs
Annoying lane, even though you can dodge his skills, his bombs have pretty low cool down and his passive-powered autos will chunk you. Try to out-trade him by using Q and shunpo dodging his bombs, and wait for your cooldowns before trying to fight him. You can catch him off-guard if he tries to follow your roam. Burst him extremely fast with deathfire grasp before he has the time to reactivate his W to cancel your ult or move his body away.
Zilean
I usually ban this champ cause he can deny your resets with his ultimate. Laning against him is no fun at all because his bombs are not dodgable with your regular skills. He can follow your roams with his E which makes him really fast, so you need to deny the enemy team's vision and sucessfully roam. If your jungler doesn't know what to do, Zilean can be a really stupid champ.
Jayce
His harass is strong, and he can cancel your ult with his hammer form E. Make sure you shunpo dodge every single one of his Q+E combos or else you will have to recall very often and you will get denied alot of gold/exp and they will start taking drag control by destroying your turret. If you are strong enough, you can wait until he uses his Q and shunpo dodge it and oneshot him. Early-midgame it's his most damage ability so if you dodge it, you can possiblty win the trade if you play it correctly.
My in-game name is Beef Tacos and I am currently a Master Rank player (100+ LP) and I found success in Solo Q by playing Katarina almost every game. I've played with Scarra many times and he found my Katarina very good, so I decided to make a guide.
Against most match ups:
9 Magic Pen Marks
9 HP per Level Seals
9 Flat Magic Resist Gylphs
3 Movement speed Quints
Against AD (Zed,Talon,Yasuo,Jayce,Riven,etc)
9 Magic Pen Marks
9 Flat Armor Seals
9 AP per Level Gylphs
3 Movement speed Quints
Katarina needs survivability as you will be soaking quite a bit of damage, and you need the movement speed because Katarina really needs the speed to get onto a good target and proceed to get resets. Movement speed quints are far superior against AP quints overall, as this will help you roam and snowball.
Masteries
Masteries
This setup may look a little weird, but it is actually the best setup because Katarina's weakness is her laning problem, and taking the AP mastery isn't as helpful as the AD mastery because Kat's basic skills don't benefit that much from AP, while AD will help you last hit and potentially trade with auto-attacks against certain match-ups. The rest are pretty standard mastery investments.
Items
Items
You want to get a deathfire grasp as soon as possible because that will enable you to start snowballing and get easy resets. This item can lead you to getting triple kills with ease. I would only rush Zhonyas as a second option if I am against Zed or if I'm just straight up losing really hard against a burst champion. For your second item, get either deathfire grasp or zhonyas depending on which item you didn't buy first. The reason why deathcap isn't as good for a 2nd item is because in team fights you will need the zhonyas active at one point and it will help you make cluth plays where you need your teammate to finish that low hp guy off so you can get resets, and zhonyas stalls for that short time so you can get out safely. I would only buy deathcap before zhonyas if the game is a stomp.
For more damage
If they stack MR
Very strong item in team-fights because it is basically a Quicksilver Sash and a Zhonya's Hourglass into one item. This item will basically remove cc from you because after you die there is a revival period. You want to dish out as much damage as possible and die with this item, so your team finishes the enemies and you have resets to go back in or get out.
Honestly do not like this item. Even if you have a double AP comp against a double AP comp, this item doesn't enable you to snowball in Solo Q. This can be a good choice for beginner Katarina players.
Many players like to rush this, but I don't like it because it delays your core items and early game fiendish codex+ hp pots can do the same trick as a haunting guise. Sure, it give's magic pen, but honestly it's not a good power spike. The Kat players in Korean Solo Q like to rush haunting guise into abyssal scepter and never buy deathfire grasp, but the meta there is different from NA.
Skill Sequence
Skill Sequence
Maxing Q first gives you the most burst possible and helps you clear waves potentially faster than maxing W, but I actually prefer to max W against melees such as Zed or Yasuo because you can harass them and easily run out with the burst of speed. Maxing W also helps you farm wraiths/wolves drastically faster. Shunpo does the least base damage and it's just a gap closer so max it last. = freelo. You get a powerspike each time you level your ultimate.
Spells
Spells
+I always take ignite flash. Ignite helps you have more killing power, and sometimes it gets you a reset that leads to multi kills. Ignite is basically a summoner spell that potentially deals 1000 because of this. I also take flash because many players can't react fast enough when a Kat flash shunpo's and oneshots them. I've seen some people take teleport and use it to get kills across the map to snowball, but I don't like it because your killing power in skirmishes become lower.
Pros / Cons
Pros / Cons
Pros:
High Burst
Best clean up potential in the game
High mobility
No skill shots
Easy to dodge enemy skill shots with shunpo
Can destroy people with low cooldowns
Easy to play
Cons:
Weak laning phase
Can lose alot of pressure if you don't stay atleast even
CC can shut her down in team fights. (Especially fiddle's fear, and rammus's taunt)
You need decent mechanics to be able to play her effectively
People may bash you for playing a "no-skill" champion
Unique Skills
Unique Skills
+ You can use a yellow trinket or wards to jump to them with shunpo, which is basically a flash for 75g or for free. Try to conserve flash because it wins you team fights.
You can use death lotus even if you don't see the enemy. So if your death lotus icon glows up when you are near a brush, you might be facechecking into danger so either ward that brush and go ham or just ward jump out immediately. You can also use this tactic to hit a stealthed twitch with your ultimate, or use it to locate and damage an Akali that is in her shroud.
Farming
Farming
If you are against a laner that can harass very well, you may need to use your Q just to last hit. It can be annoying since your Q un-intentionally shoves the lane towards the enemy. Try to farm up and if you max Q first don't bother doing wraiths unless if you know the enemy mid laner recalled because it can waste alot of time and you will take considerable damage. Honestly in Solo Q your farm shouldn't be that important on Kat because you just want to kill people and take control over objectives like Dragon and Baron since you have strong aoe dmg.
Team-fighting
Team-fighting
Katarina can get shut down in team fights due to her being very vulnerable to hard cc. Try to wait until someone is low so you can get a fast reset, or just wait til the enemy uses their hard cc on someone else. You can also surprise them by flashing onto their carries while the enemy CC champions are far away from the carries. You can also tell your support to buy aso you can go ham. Don't feel bad if you are waiting around the fight waiting for someone to get low. The key to Katarina is patience, you really need to successfully get resets to win the team fight.
Summary
Summary
This guide is not completely done yet, so more updates will come in the future. For now I hope you learned a thing or two about Katarina and good luck climbing the ladder. pictures soon to come lol
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