Hi, my name is Sindricus and I am an aspiring Katarina main. I have noticed a lot of people learn Katarina the wrong way, and take a lot longer than needed to become at least semi-decent with her. There are a lot of mistakes made by a lot of Katarina's, so i'm here to help you fix them. There is a lot that goes into learning the champion, and takes a very long time to master, but not that long to become decent. There are 6 parts to this guide, you need to read it in it's entirety, as there is a lot to go over but it is all pretty simple.

Pros:

High Damage Output
High Mobility
Strong Mid Game
Rewarding
Pentakill Champion

Cons:

Weak Early Game
High Skill Floor and Ceiling
A Lot Of Bad Matchups

This is easily Katarina’s weakest part of the game, but don't mistake that for her actually being weak early game. A smart early game Katarina is still a deadly Katarina, after all if you snowball as Katarina the game is over as you can roam and make the whole map your teams playground.

For the early game, you want to sit back level 1 and 2 and make sure you take as little damage as possible, as well as poking your laner down with her q, Bouncing Blades, as once you hit level 3 and 4 against a lot of champions it is definitely a time you are strong enough to go in with a simple e - w - q - auto - e - auto and an Ignite.

Otherwise you just want to make sure that you are good at getting cs under pressure, so that you can get your first core item, which is Katarina’s most important power spike, and is pretty much the only item she needs to dominate the game. Just let the wave shove in early game and farm under tower, get Hextech Gunblade and reach level 6, but make sure to definitely watch for if the enemy makes mistakes and take advantage of it. If you are 0/0/0 in the early game, but get Hextech Gunblade by the end of it and hit 6, you are set for the mid game, and if you get a few kills, even better….

This is Katarina’s strongest point in the game, from around the 15 minute mark to the 35 minute mark, Katarina can snowball out of control off one successful roam or just farming till Hextech Gunblade and mid game start.

In the mid game you will have Hextech Gunblade, and ideally your boots, and even possibly if you played lane well and picked up a few kills, meaning you are very ahead and now want to go Oblivion Orb and then Rabadon's Deathcap, you will have Oblivion Orb. This makes you able to 1 shot ANY squishy on the enemy team, including pretty much anyone except for the top laner most of the time.

At this point of the game you want to be looking for solo kills on your enemy laner because at this point Katarina is stronger than most mid lane matchups, or you want to shove lane and roam, warding enemy jungle, invading them, and ganking lanes, causing all your lanes to get ahead, pretty much securing the game.

For example, I come out of early game 3/0/0, and have Hextech Gunblade, Sorcerer's Shoes and an Oblivion Orb, as well as took mid turret. Now I am looking to go mid, clear the wave, and then ward enemy jg, possibly catch them out, and/or roam bot and get some kills, then help take that turret, back and repeat, this time gaining dragon.

When you extend your lead to beyond yourself in a game, that is when you truly carried your team, and is what wins you the game ultimately.

Team fights are also a huge factor in the mid and late game. In a teamfight, unless you are like 20/0/0 giga fed you never want to be the one to engage, unless you set up a Preparation dagger running away, an adc stupidly steps on it then you jump on it, burst the adc and then Shunpo out, other than situations like that you never want to engage.

Your main focus is to make sure that your team baits out all the important enemy cc and mobility abilities that can shut you down, for example if a Morgana is on the enemy team make sure your team baits out her q Dark Binding before you engage. After those abilities are used Katarina can come in and clean up EVERYONE, with a few combos and resets that let you blink to everyone and ult a few times, with no counter-play. This is why the practice tool is useful which you will read about in the “General Tips” section. Your main focus in the teamfight is usually the adc, but can slightly vary to whoever is the most fed or impactful on their team, then the adc, unless the adc is the fed one etc.

I feel like I have to put roaming as a whole other category, as it is of vital importance on Katarina and can win or lose you the game. A VERY USEFUL thing to keep in mind, is no matter what, the waves will crash into the middle of mid-lane EVERY 30 SECONDS. This is very useful to remember as you can set a timer for yourself in a way, to ensure that you can get a roam off and then still return to lane to catch the wave, or to help you in deciding if it is worth it to roam or not.

Speaking of whether it's worth it or not, that is what you have to be thinking about every time you roam, is what do you gain from it, and what do you lose from it. Obviously if what you gain is less than what you lose, don't go for it, but if you gain more, go for it.

Another thing I can say that no high elo Katarina’s ever say, is to not roam to gank a lane unless they are completely shoved under tower, roam to fight in the river, it is a lot more beneficial for Katarina as there isn't a tower that they can run to and there are a lot less options for the people you fight.

Many examples of roaming need to be given for this to be fully understood:

Example 1: The enemy bot lane is at the minion wave in the middle of the lane, and your bot lane is there as well, your wave is in the middle of your lane and you are farming. This is obviously a situation where you don't roam 100%. Your wave is in lane, so you want to get the farm, as well as if you attempt to actually roam, they can easily just run under tower and you lose the whole minion wave and plating on your tower. This is surprisingly something that A LOT of low elo players do, is they just leave there wave, go for a roam that doesn't work, and are now down in xp and gold, and have doomed their game.

Example 2: Your wave is mid, enemy bot lane pushed up to your tower. Here you should definitely push wave and then go for the roam bot and get a kill or two. You always want to clear your wave super fast with the one shot wave combo where you q, then e to where your q will land straight away and w, and spin your 2 daggers really fast, 1 shotting the wave, so you get the xp and gold and get to roam. Also lets say you do this as the 2 waves hit each other at 12:30, then you know when you roam you want to be back to your lane at 13:00 to catch the next wave.

Example 3: Your wave is mid, and your jungle and the enemy jungle start fighting for scuttle crab. In this scenario this usually happens very early in the game when you and your enemy laner don't have enough damage to push the waves, so this is a very good time to roam, because the fight is in river instead of in lanes, so you roam to help your jungler and get a kill or assist, and then just return to your wave, only missing 1 or 2 minions. Even if the enemy laner follows you, Katarina beats pretty much every champion in 2v2’s because of her AOE, so she is very effective in small skirmishes such as this.

There are a lot of different roam examples, and there are many other scenarios as well, but in all the scenarios you think about what you will gain and what you will lose and decide what to do from there. For example maybe you are really ahead and you see enemy jungle on a ward you placed earlier and so you decide to invade their jungle, that's another example.

Practice in practice tool by just buying Hextech Gunblade and Sorcerer's Shoes, turning off ability cooldowns, leveling up to level 6, and put 3 dummies in a triangle in any open area. Just practice e Shunpo - w preperation - q Bouncing Blades from dummy to dummy for 10 minutes.

Then practice e Shunpo - w preperation - q Bouncing Blades - r Death Lotus dummy to dummy for 10 minutes.

Lastly practice e Shunpo - w preperation - q Bouncing Blades - gunblade Hextech Gunblade - r Death Lotus from dummy to dummy for 10 minutes. Do all of this everyday, meaning half an hour of Katarina combo practice a day and your skill will greatly improve within the first month.

Against most matchups you lose early, but look for a level 3 to 4 all in, other than that just farm till gunblade and mid game.

Practice cs’ing under pressure in lane and under tower, because in early game that's pretty much what you do unless you can snowball and get early kills and roam.

Have fun with Katarina, she takes practice, but one game she will just…… click. You will feel rewarded when you get the hang of her and she creates a world of pain for the enemy team when you get fed.

I hope this guide helped. Keep in mind this guides items and runes will change when season 11 hits, but the way you play katarina will still be the same. Make sure to go follow me on twitch at twitch.tv/sindricus_. Thanks for reading!!! :)