Jungle Katarina is best Katarina

Introduction

Hello everyone! This is a guide for my all time favorite champion Katarina, but this time we’ll go a little anti-meta and stick her in the jungle! Katarina's ability kit is perfect for ganking. With a good team comp and the correct item build she can be very deadly. Whenever people play Katarina in Mid lane, they still roam bot and top a lot because they want the snowball kills. By placing her in the jungle, she recieves the opportunity of more global pressure and a higher chance of recieving kills or assists. 

However, Katarina by herself is not a jungle character. She requires some specific masteries, runes, and items to survive and do well in the jungle. In this guide, you will be able to learn hopefully new tips and tricks that will help you play this deadly assasin in the jungle.  

Preferred mastery trees

This tree is my main Jungle Kat tree because of the extra sustain it gives against the jungle minions. It gives you all the necessary stats to survive against the jungle creeps, and make you less squishy for teamfights. 

This tree  is my "All-in" tree. I take this one mainly when I feel like snowballing and am going against a squishy team. This tree is a good example of a high risk - high reward way of playing since you are giving away some defence for extra AP damage and more deadliness. Only play this when you feel very confident with Katarina's cooldowns and play style.

 

Rune Page

These are my preferred runes for Jungle Katarina. They provide good AD clearing for early game, and still gives that initial AP. Katarina's Sinister Steel (W) and Death Lotus (R) both scale with AD, allowing that AD to not be to waste in the mid through late game. 

9x Life Seals 

9x Physical damage Marks

9x Glyphs of Magic Resistance

3x Quintessences of Ability Power

 

Pros and Cons of Playing Katarina Jungle:

Pros:

• Fast jungle clear with Q+W combo
• Bursty ganking potential.
• Can shunpo to several types of units (enemies, allies, wards, minions etc..)
• Insane damage during team fights
• 2 AOE attacks and 1 ranged attack.
• No mana!  Blues for your Mages and extra clear time!
• After first back jungle becomes much easier.
• Passive (Voracity) is insanely good
• Snowball potential
• Is a red-head

Cons:

• Item Dependent
• Knowledge base champion (need to know when and how to ult correctly)
• Lacks CC
• Requires A LOT of attention and timing to play her correctly
• Scar on her face

 

Summoner Spells

 As usual, the classic Flash + Smite is the best fitting Summoner Spells for most junglers.

 

Ability Order

You can Max (Q) or (W). I personally prefer (Q) when jungling because of the extra magic damage it gives. However, start with (W) on your first level, it has a small cooldown allowing you to spam it more often.

Your (E) is used to engage/ disengage when ganking or in teamfights.

A little secret on Katarina's (E): When you cast Shunpo (E) on an enemy ward, it adds 1.5 seconds of visibility, so you can kill wards by yourself if you are fast enough. 

 

Jungle Path 

My preferred jungle path would be:

Golems (Stun passive OP) ---> Red Buff --> Blue Buff ---> Wolves ---> First Recall / pressure gank 

Pressure ganks are not meant to get first blood, they're meant to scare the opponent. Playing mind tricks on your enemies can be very important to win, especially with anti-meta rolls like this one. 

 

Build Order

Try building Hextech Gunblade after the glorious Ranger's Traiblazer (purple machete) or after Mobi boots. Hextech's active is really good for ganking lanes, giving Katarina the extra slow.  I also enjoy Sunfire Cape on Kat because of the extra tankiness and passive it gives. Since junglers tend to initiate team fights, you may want that extra armor.  Void staff can be replaced for Abyssal Scepter or Rylai's Crystal Scepter if needed. 

A situational item can be a Sightstone. Just like Lee Sin, Kat can be very ward dependant to initiate or escape properly, plus, extra wards always come in handy. 

If you aren't comfortable with the Ranger's Trailblazer, you can replace it late game for more AP or armor. 

 

Early Game

Katarina's early game (1-6) is mainly to get your buffs and pressure lanes. Try to avoid the Crimson Raptors (new Wraiths) before your first recall, they do insane amounts of damage, and will only slow down your clear time.

Mid Game

Katarina excells in the mid game. By this point you have hopefully bought your first item, or gotten yourself a kill or assist allowing you to pressure more. You should also start carrying wards for dragon and your jungle. Wards can also be used as a safe escape with Kat since you can use your Shunpo on them. Remember to not initiate until you see that the enemy team has used all their CC abilities that can cancel your ult. 

Late Game

Late game with Kat jungle is the same as late game with Kat mid. You simply need to stay behind your frontliners and go in when you are sure of at least 1 kill. Remember that her passive resets 15 seconds on all your abilities, meaning you can Shunpo in, do your combo, reset and Shunpo out. Warding Baron is very important, as well as denying the enemy any chance they get at Dragon. 

What to do if you're behind

Kat jungle can be hard to play since she's not made for it, but there are always ways to get back in the game if you do poorly at start. If you are playing against a good enemy jungler, they will try to gank you as much as they can, or you may die against jungle monsters. 

1) Warding

Warding your jungle and perhaps some enemy jungle camps can be very good to protecting yourself and being one step ahead of your adversary.

2) Play it safe

Don't gank as much and try to farm as much as you can to stay out of trouble. Inform your team before hand though, for they may be expecting ganks from you. 

 

Hopefully you enjoyed this short guide, you can add me or follow me on twitter @Neldonar to ask any questions or give any feedback. Thank you!