Why is Katarina, a snowball that when played around can carry games considered completely unviable in the LCS?
Katarina has a poor laning phase but doesn't really fall off late, when played around her in solo queue at all ELOs she can carry games for teams very easily. She can roam bot lane and very easily pick up kills and during the later stages of the game in team fights, if your team focus's out the enemies with CC and keeps them CC'd or away from Katarina she can deal huge amounts of damage very quickly. It seems like in an environment like the LCS teams would have the synergy necessary to keep champions that can shutdown Katarina in fights off of her, so why is it that she is considered a poor pick and see's very little play? Why don't teams try building a CC heavy composition around her similar to what was done with Kog Maw a lot recently?
Best Answer
You've actually listed precisely the reason why she isn't used in professional play. Yes, Katarina can snowball like nobody's business but hard CC and coordinated teamplay, which professional teams will have in loads, can and will shut her down. While Kog'Maw faces the same issues, he has the benefit of range whereas Katarina needs to jump into the enemy team to deal her massive ult damage.
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Why isnt Katarina played in LCS?
Crowd Control absolutely destroys Katarina. Past a certain soloQ rating (diamond or so), people stop playing the champion because enemy teams just pick a stun-heavy comp and focus Kat every fight. That's no fun at all to have to play against. In the same light, Katarina provides absolutely no crowd control of her own.How do you do a snowball on Katarina?
Her Q, W and E abilities have very low AP scaling. For Q it is 40% scaling for initial cast and 20% scaling damage bonus when the mark is consumed. For W and E it 25% with 60% AD scaling on her W. Her ultimate also has a 25% AP scaling for every dagger.The BEST Katarina Laning Tips and Tricks - WIN EVERY LANE!
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Answer 2
While I agree with everything @Yuuki has said, I think it is important to point out that it takes one knock up, stun, silence, etc. to make Katarina almost useless in a fight. If her ult gets interrupted, her damage contribution drops very significantly, and she needs the damage to get resets. For her to get a full channel off on her ult, the other team will have to be cc'ed for a lot of the time, something which can be very hard to do. Basically, she is a bit too one dimensional and easily countered.
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