BoTRK Titanic Hydra Katarina Build Guide

Weird Pick #139

November 2020

This new Katarina AD Tank build players are running is absolutely insane! Ever since Katarina's skills were given on-hit abilities, she's able to utilize items like Blade of the Ruined King and Titanic Hydra procs on her spells to great effect. Not only is she nearly unkillable, but she also gets a number of additional...fascinating effects...

Guide to Playing BoTRK Katarina

Check out the details on runes and builds below!

How to Play BoTRK Katarina

Abilities: Q, E, W then prioritize R > Q > E > W
Summoner Spells: Ignite
Flash
Teleport
Starting Items: Long Sword + Health Potions
Strategy: Standard Katarina playstyle, but this build makes you much more tanky than usual. It also gives you more tank-killing potential.
Core Items: Blade of the Ruined King
Sorcerer's Shoes
Titanic Hydra
Riftmaker
Lich Bane
Cosmic Drive

BoTRK Katarina Runes Setup

Primary: Conqueror, Triumph, Legend: Haste, Coup De Grace

Secondary: Conditioning, Overgrowth

BoTRK Titanic Hydra Katarina Build Guide rune page

How It Works

Blade of the Ruined King

Stats
+40 attack damage
+25% attack speed
+10% life steal

Passive
Mist's Edge: Attacks deal a percentage of enemy's current Health as bonus physical damage On-Hit.

Clawing Shadows: Attacking a champion 3 times Slows them by 30% for 1 second.

This item does a lot of work for Katarina. Death Lotus [R] applies on-hit effects, so Mist's Edge rides along on the daggers and turns her ultimate into percent health damage against whoever on the other team has the most of it. The life steal matters just as much, because it means she heals through the whole channel instead of merely surviving it. Clawing Shadows is the smaller bonus, but three attacks into the same target isn't a hard ask mid-fight, and the slow is often what keeps them standing in the ultimate long enough for it to finish

Titanic Hydra

Stats
+40 attack damage
+600 health

Passive
Cleave: Attacks deal physical damage on-hit and to enemies behind the target.

Titanic Crescent: Empower your next Cleave to deal bonus physical damage On-Hit and deal bonus physical damage to enemies behind the target.

This item looks sooooo troll but ends up being incredibly nutty. The damage boost on-hit applies on her ultimate (just like every other on-hit), and gives her ultimate cone damage in all directions. It also makes Katarina very tanky and difficult to kill.

Massive Omnivamp and Damage
Combining Riftmaker, Conqueror, and Blade of the Ruined King gives Katarina an absolutely incredible amount of lifesteal, making her impossible to kill without crowd control. Her damage is also just as high as you'd expect from Katarina as an AP champion, but with the added bonus of dealing percent based damage via Blade of the Ruined King for maximum shredding.

Potential Pitfalls

Slightly Lower Burst Damage

This build deals plenty of damage, but overall Katarina does get higher scaling from AP. This means if you're into quick one-shots you may not find as much satisfaction from this build. This also means that the enemy team has slightly more margin of error for throwing CC out before you annihilate their team.

Countering BoTRK Katarina

Picking champions with strong crowd-control and building grievous wounds would do well in anti-Katarina comps.

Conclusions

BoTRK Katarina is extremely strong and has few real weaknesses. This build in particular gives her a lot more utility and stats than most Katarina players are used to having. After playing this build a few times I'd say this might actually be stronger than the Lich Bane/Nashor's Tooth/Riftmaker build since it makes her incredibly hard to kill.

Suggested Tier: High Tier 1

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BoTRK Titanic Hydra Katarina Build Guide | Weird Pick #139 | Runes Items Build Guide

Weird Pick #139