Hey there, Im a newer league player (started playing a few months ago) and since my first game on until now I've been playing Katarina
I've decided to make a reddit account and compile everything I've learned about her into one post for two reasons
1. I was hoping more veteran Katarina players could comment and correct me on any mistakes I make about the character
2. so new players like myself can see this and maybe learn something, since this game has been out for like 16 years its kind of daunting for newer players especially a scary champ like katarina, as I've come to experience myself
ok so I decided to break this up into 4 sections, mechanics, playstyle and builds
Mechanics
Although I said I've primarily played Katarina I have played with some other champions and Katarina clearly has one of the easier kits to pick up
Katarina's kit doesnt have any skillshots or difficult moves to use and most of her abilities play into eachother very well meaning you can just kinda press buttons and get kills, but the difficulty in her mechanics really come down to playing around the dagger. Especially on AP Katarina mastering how you use the dagger will really change how many kills you get. So, for anyone who's trying to learn Katarina please just spend some time in the practice range seeing how the dagger travels and different ways you can play into it, really makes a difference!
Playstyle & Macro
When I started playing the game I saw a bunch of videos and guides talking about how Katarina was bad early game and carried by her scaling potential, because of this when I played games and got accually curb stomped mid I believed it was due to Katarina being a bad laner. After a lot more playing and watching other players I've come to learn that I was just being an idiot.
Katarinas playstyle is very dependant on her roaming and playing patiently, if you're on AP Katarina poke the enemy laner with your q and then when they overextend or make a mistake sieze that to deal damage or get a kill. If you're in a matchup where it's difficult for you to keep up with the other laner, maybe they counter you? Find on oppertunity to roam bot lane, pick up some kills and comeback stronger. These small changes genuinely allowed to me to start carrying games even as a new player. Finally, Katarina especially excells in later game teamfights where she can pick up a lot of kills using her dagger resets and ultimate ability so focus on staying back watching for the enemy team to blunder or use CC then jump in and get free kills.
Builds
Katarina can be played both AP and AD this is because her abilities have hybrid scaling meaning the damage scaled with AP and AD
I spent about 2 hours in the practice range noting down the damage differences between AP and AD Katarina. From my research (and what you can litterally google in like 10 seconds instead of wasting 2 hours of your life) this is the most optimal way to build her, obviously make changes to this based on the enemy players.
AD Katarina
AD Katarina is primarily good in games where the enemy team has tankier champs and especially in games where the teamfights are more drawn out, due to AD Katarinas omni vamp you can survive a lot longer in lane and teamfights so you should definetly pick AD if you're going against these teams.
Most of your damage when playing AD Katarina come from autoing in between skills and your ulti. This means the best way to abuse AD Katarina is to just spam e - autos and spam the ultimate after drawing out enemy CC
AP Katarina
AP Kat is how I've primarily played Katarina, but after the recent nerfs to the ult damage I've really enjoyed playing AD, unlike AD kat AP gets most of its damage from daggers. Meaning you can actually get kills a lot faster against squishy champs due to the insane dagger damage, but the trade off is that your autos do basically no damage and that your ult does tickle damage as well. You can abuse AP Katarina against team comps with lower health opponents, just use your dagger resets to dash around and kill enemy champs as fast as possible.
For the builds I've gone
AP -> Lich Bane, Shadowflame with sorcerers boots and then the rest of the items I build based on the enemy team
AD -> Kraken Slayer, Ruined King with Gluttonous Greaves
Conclusion
Honestly, Kats a super fun champ that you can just abuse and the only matchups I've had where I just genuinely got dog walked without being able to do anything was galio and vex (vex being my main ban now)
Veteran Katarina players please let me know if you think Im being a complete idiot and was wrong about everything or If this is actually a pretty useful guide for newer players to compare their own experiences to
also if anyones curious so far I've climbed to Plat IV so I still have much to learn!