Katarina’s popular Divine Sunderer build targeted in new League of Legends nerfs
Riot GamesAs a new set of Katarina nerfs arrive on the League of Legends PBE, fans are up in arms over what they believe is a misguided attempt to take power away from one of her most popular build paths.
With the dust from LoL patch 12.10’s durability update beginning to settle, we’re beginning to see Riot target specific champions with adjustments to bring them in line after one of the biggest meta shakeups in recent LoL history.
One of these recent adjustments has been Katarina, who received a series of nerfs on LoL’s PBE on June 8 targeting her AD ratios and ultimate. It appears these changes are designed to draw power away from the popular Divine Sunderer Katarina build, currently her highest win rate build in all ELOs globally.
The build was already seeing play before the durability update, but the increased survivability of all champions on 12.11 has meant that one-shot high damage builds for assassins have been pushed even further out of priority.
Katarina changes on PBE:
* Dagger AD ratio reduced from 75% bAD to 65%
* E AD ratio reduced from 50% AD to 40%
* R on-hit modifier increased from 25% – 35% to 28% – 38%
* R AP ratio per hit reduced from 19% to 18%
* R AS ratio per hit changed from +80% total AS to +166.6% bAS pic.twitter.com/hIAxmCGi9b— Spideraxe (@Spideraxe30) June 8, 2022
The changes are divisive, and have left the community split over their necessity. Katarina mains insist that the changes are overkill and target viability for all Katarina builds, not just Sunderer.
Divine Sunderer
Katarina’s highest win rate build at all ranks as of June 8 involves rushing Divine Sunderer, a mythic item that grants bonus health and AD as well as bonus armor and magic penetration.
It’s a controversial build amongst Katarina players, with many saying it turns a character designed as an AP one-shot assassin into an AD bruiser.
Katarina’s current highest win rate build relies heavily on items that give both damage stats and defensives like health and armour, including Shadowflame, Zhonya’s Hourglass, and the infamous Divine Sunderer. She’s been a tanky fighter for a good few seasons now, and some of her diehard mains want to see her go back to a more glass cannon playstyle.
The initial announcement of the nerfs was met with skepticism from Katarina mains, with many players saying that they thought the nerfs were needed but weren’t confident in Riot’s ability to execute them.
Issues with the proposed nerfs
And now that the nerfs have officially been revealed, Katarina players aren’t happy. The general consensus is that these changes are too heavy-handed, and take power away from all aspects of Katarina’s kit, not just the parts that work with Divine Sunderer.
I've said the exact same thing for the past 2 years… Just remove on hit affects! The main issue is that she is able to build ad items in the first place. Her dagger AD ratio shouldn't need to be touched if we force her to only be able to buy Dorans Blade! https://t.co/YF6uXrC4cI
— KatEvolved (@katevolved) June 8, 2022
Their suggestions have been, instead, to nerf or remove the on-hit effects on her abilities and increase her AP ratios, improving her laning phase while taking some of the power out of her late-game survivability and damage.
With these nerfs only just having been released on the PBE, it’ll be a little while until we start seeing meaningful feedback on these changes. But one thing’s for certain – Katarina mains aren’t happy.
