Skill usage

• If you do kill an enemy, remember that  Voracity refreshes her cooldowns by 15 seconds, and since  Shunpo's cooldown is lower than 15 seconds (at all ranks), you can use it to get out of range or follow up with another combo.
• Katarina belongs on the battlefield, as her  Voracity rewards you extra gold for kills and assists. Try ganking more than you would with other champions
• When facing a team with healers, use  Killer Instincts and try to time your  Bouncing Blade in order to hit as many enemy champions as possible, hindering their healing capabilities.
•  Killer Instincts goes on CD as soon as you activate it, so its cooldown refreshes while you have the buff. You can practically use your  Killer Instincts on both  Bouncing Blade and  Shunpo if you activate it, wait for it to nearly expire, then throw your  Bouncing Blade, reactivate  Killer Instincts and  Shunpo in.
• Try using  Killer Instincts' active and  Shunpo before activating  Death Lotus to increase your survivability during the channeling time. You can also use it when running away to stop potentially fatal damage.
• Katarina can easily escape  Bullet Time,  Absolute Zero,  Grand Skyfall,  Cannon Barrage,  Cataclysm, or even an enemy Katarina's  Death Lotus by using  Shunpo on a unit that's out of range. She can leave the area of effect of special abilities unless she is affected by a Crowd Control effect like a knockup, stun, silence, etc.
• Katarina can use  Shunpo to Sight Wards, Vision Wards,  H-28G Evolution Turrets,  Jacks In The Box,  Demacian Standards, and  Noxious Traps, so keep an eye on the battlefield and coordinate with your teammates to give you an easy escaping route.
  • Using  Shunpo on an allied Sight Ward or Vision Ward will reveal the ward.
•  Shunpo will always place her on the opposite side of the target from her current location. This is a buff for chasing enemies, but can put you in some less-desirable spots as well.
• With quick reactions,  Shunpo can be used to dodge skill shots like  Flash Frost and  Enchanted Crystal Arrow.
• When the enemy is low on health behind their tower, consider a  Shunpo into  Death Lotus combo, as very few champions can withstand the onslaught at critical health. An inexperienced player may not expect the sudden tower dive, though a stun will shut you down quite quickly. Make sure you have enough health to make it out alive.
• This strategy can also help you in team fights. If you see an enemy who has low HP, you can  Shunpo in, kill them, and then  Shunpo out right away. Be mindful of stuns.
• A surprise  Death Lotus can turn the tide quickly. This is best used in coordination with hard AoE crowd control, as not having any form of crowd control can leave Katarina vulnerable during  Death Lotus. If your team can keep enemies from escaping, Katarina can put out plenty of damage.
• Remember that many forms of crowd control will interrupt  Death Lotus, specifically any stun, silence, taunt, fear, knockup, or knockback. Enemy tanks will save their abilities such as Shen's  Shadow Dash or Rammus's  Puncturing Taunt specifically to stop you.
  • Try waiting until the other team is already engaged with your team before using  Shunpo followed by  Death Lotus.
•  Death Lotus also hits enemy champions which are stealthed. Furthermore, it becomes usable when a stealthed champion approaches Katarina, so keeping an eye on its icon may notify the player of incoming ganks.
• Katarina is one of the few manaless champions and is based entirely on cooldowns. Use this to your advantage by using spells whenever possible.
  •  Bouncing Blade makes for an excellent last-hitting spell as it keeps you at a safe distance while allowing for easy farming and doubles as a harassment tool at higher levels with its increased bounces. Try to time the skill to kill as many minions as possible with a single use in order to avoid having the skill on cooldown when other last hits become available.
  •  Shunpo can be used to quickly and effectively farm minions while directly under your tower, especially at higher levels. Wait for the tower to fire at minions once or twice before jumping in for the last hit.
•  Death Lotus' channel is not interrupted by using summoner spells, with the exception of Flash and Teleport.

Build usage

• The first thing to note is that due to Katarina having no mana but relying on abilities is that certain ability power items are less efficient.
• In addition, due to her cooldowns, having some cooldown reduction is a good idea, whether you get it from runes, masteries, or items. Her innate makes cooldown reduction less useful for her main abilities, although cooldown reduction is reliable, while her passive relies on getting kills. However, if you plan on using her ultimate a lot, more cooldown reduction actually makes her passive more useful, since it is reducing the cooldown of her ultimate by a larger percentage.
• Rylai's Crystal Scepter is very useful due to her lack of other forms of crowd control. The 15% slow on  Death Lotus makes it harder for enemy champions to leave her range before she's finished.
• Although two of her skills scale with her attack damage ( Bouncing Blade and  Death Lotus), they deal magic damage, so magic penetration is always useful.
  • Sorcerer's Shoes is therefore the preferred choice of boots, regardless of whether you're doing an attack damage or ability power build.
•  Bouncing Blade and  Death Lotus scale from both ability power and attack damage, making hybrid builds effective. However, remember that her base damage and attack speed are not as good as those of other hybrid champions and scale less on level.
  • Note however, that building a few attack damage items will make you less reliant on your abilities, allowing you to still do damage if you get silenced or are waiting for cooldown.
  • Also, since those two abilities' ratios for attack damage are about double the ratios for ability power, only Rabadon's Deathcap or Mejai's Soulstealer does as much raw damage as a good attack damage item, such as The Bloodthirster
• Hextech Gunblade is a core item of any hybrid build, as it provides large amounts of both attack damage and ability power. In addition, it gives significant regeneration power and a crowd control ability. However, due to its cost, rushing a Hextech Gunblade leaves you much squishier early game.
• Lich Bane can greatly increase your autoattack damage output as well as give you increased movement speed for greater mobility.
• Both Mejai's Soulstealer and Sword of the Occult can work well if you are performing well, but carry high risks.
• Building some survivability is a good idea, as Katarina is naturally fairly squishy and has no crowd control to keep enemies at a distance. Rylai's Crystal Scepter is a good choice for increasing durability. Banshee's Veil can help ensure a successful channel of  Death Lotus by blocking a disable.
  • Purchasing an early Hextech Revolver and/or a later Hextech Gunblade can allow for good sustainability within lane and after a fight. Use your  Bouncing Blade along with your  Shunpo freely on a minion wave to gain health back and reduce unnecessary recalls.
• Keeping one or more Sight Wards in your inventory to drop and  Shunpo to can help you to make a quick escape, or to catch up to a fleeing enemy.

Recommended builds

Summoner's Rift recommended items Starting Essential Offensive Defensive Consumables

Summoner's Rift recommended items Starting Essential Offensive Defensive Consumables

Countering

• Katarina lacks any ability to heal herself. It is a good idea to harass her in lane at early game to make her underfarmed and underleveled.
• Saving your crowd control in order to interrupt  Death Lotus can negate a large part of her damage.
• Even though some of them scale with attack damage, all of Katarina abilities do magic damage. They can always be countered with magic resistance, regardless of whether she's doing an attack damage or ability power build.
• Moving away from a minion wave when she throws  Bouncing Blade can help you dodge it.