Tear Stacking Katarina in Team Fight Tactics
This week's FOTM Friday focuses in on Katarina in Team Fight Tactics, who historically has been completely unloved. However, ever since Patch 9.18, she's gotten a few buffs that have made her...quite good. By stacking tear-based items on her, Katarina essentially gets a free ultimate off with a built-in healing reduction, perfect for dominating back lines.
Check out how players are using her below!
Check out how players are using her below!
Tear Stacking Katarina in Team Fight Tactics
This week's FOTM Friday focuses in on Katarina in Team Fight Tactics, who historically has been completely unloved. However, ever since Patch 9.18, she's gotten a few buffs that have made her...quite good. By stacking tear-based items on her, Katarina essentially gets a free ultimate off with a built-in healing reduction, perfect for dominating back lines.
Check out how players are using her below!
Check out how players are using her below!
Sample Team Comps
Imperial Blademaster Comp
Standard Assassin Comp
How It Works
Free Tear Items
Now that players are prioritizing Spatula, Recurve Bows, and BF Swords, almost nobody goes for Tear items. This means that you can pick up tears for free on the carousel and make your Katarina super strong.
Reduced Imperial Priority
After the Draven nerfs, most players don't prioritize going Draven anymore. This means you can generally pick up the rest of the imperials for free. Katarina especially has traditionally been unloved, meaning most people will question why you're going her in the first place...until you dominate your rivals with her!
Instant Stacks
Now that her mana required to ult is reduced from 100 to 85, this means that you can get her ultimate off almost instantly. Doing so will drop whoever her target is to zero almost immediately and drop healing reduction/frozen heart on whoever survives the onslaught.
Guardian Angel
If Katarina is your only assassin, a Guardian Angel may be good to pick up on her. After she drops her first damage burst, she'll likely be quickly focused down by the survivers. If you grab guardian angel and drop aggro, she'll be right back up.
Now that players are prioritizing Spatula, Recurve Bows, and BF Swords, almost nobody goes for Tear items. This means that you can pick up tears for free on the carousel and make your Katarina super strong.
Reduced Imperial Priority
After the Draven nerfs, most players don't prioritize going Draven anymore. This means you can generally pick up the rest of the imperials for free. Katarina especially has traditionally been unloved, meaning most people will question why you're going her in the first place...until you dominate your rivals with her!
Instant Stacks
Now that her mana required to ult is reduced from 100 to 85, this means that you can get her ultimate off almost instantly. Doing so will drop whoever her target is to zero almost immediately and drop healing reduction/frozen heart on whoever survives the onslaught.
Guardian Angel
If Katarina is your only assassin, a Guardian Angel may be good to pick up on her. After she drops her first damage burst, she'll likely be quickly focused down by the survivers. If you grab guardian angel and drop aggro, she'll be right back up.
Potential Pitfalls
Level Reliant
Going this Katarina build relies on nobody else doing the same thing since she's incredibly weak as a level one unit and not bad but not great as a level two unit. She can certainly carry if you don't get to level three, but expect a lot of survivors even if you get a full ult off during late game.
Vulnerable to Bait
Unlike Summoner's Rift Katarina, getting the first kill doesn't mean she starts jumping around with resets. If the enemy team catches onto your strategy and positions a throwaway unit Katarina may end up wasting her entire ultimate on nothing. On the other hand, you only have to move one unit and they have to move their entire team.
Going this Katarina build relies on nobody else doing the same thing since she's incredibly weak as a level one unit and not bad but not great as a level two unit. She can certainly carry if you don't get to level three, but expect a lot of survivors even if you get a full ult off during late game.
Vulnerable to Bait
Unlike Summoner's Rift Katarina, getting the first kill doesn't mean she starts jumping around with resets. If the enemy team catches onto your strategy and positions a throwaway unit Katarina may end up wasting her entire ultimate on nothing. On the other hand, you only have to move one unit and they have to move their entire team.
Conclusions
Ever since the meta shift over to items that don't include Tear of the Goddess in their builds, Katarina has become the perfect off-meta candidate (for now) to benefit from everyone else tripping over each other for the same items and units.