Stats and build experimentation on hardcore with katarina.

[TheGiantBreast]

Hey everyone. I'm not sure if anyone still plays this game, but I have been mucking about, mostly with katarina and a little with anjali. It's funny, how your character build plays and its relative success is dependent on stats interfacing with the perks you choose for abilities, and yet how these stats behave seems to differ depending on the ability, so you can't really intuit viable builds based on description. With the exception being glass cannon builds that stack attack/agi/doom. But who likes to endlessly kite and use 1 ability. Not me at least.

I think I've probably restarted like 10 times or so, experimenting with different builds (all hardcore), and its been fun, but also weird.

I had this idea for a really off the wall build: stacking chaos dots on dual pistols and crit chance with doom for damage. The idea is that all the dots ticking would add on the doom when they crit. Unfortunately doom does not work with chaos stat dots like chaos:fire etc. In fact, doom seems to behave totally differently depending on the ability. This is all experimentation early game, so maybe there is a threshold of doom, but by and large kat's dots don't seem to get much benefit from 65 doom on a ring. Heatseeking shot seems to add the number flatly, and flintlock rifle seems to double it?!

Anyone else mess around and find stuff out? This aspect of stats applying wildly differently to various abilities makes trial and error the only way to suss out decent builds (unfortunately I never knew there was a respec option until after all this experiementation) .

Also don't use the thorned rose aura: completely negates block (and possibly armour), and doesn't appear to apply chaos stats (vamp, elemental dots, doom). Not sure whats going here, but the ability actually seems to make you worse off having activated it.

Interestingly ward does apply the chaos:element damages to enemies, but I don' think her dot (caress of suck) does. Empowered caress of suck has this random dispersal patter that gives it enhanced suckiness. The only use I see for it is in dealing with a solo boss to nerf its damage. Stacking it, along with chosen prey debuff, and maybe the hounds debuff might work. Especially if you've got some chaos:weakening going, but there is so much time/build allocation to set that up that its likely not worth it.

Stacking armour with kat seems to be fairly effective by pumping zone of sanctity to start. So far going all out on armour and spamming heartseeking shot has been a breeze with some kiting. I also feel like chaos:weakening is pretty awesome. Seems to be significant in its reduction of damage. Not sure if it scales with a higher number, but i am going to assume that it just improves the dot (which is silly).

I also found that putting more than 1 point into the soul thief appears to be useless (maybe there is a difference with a larger health pool, or huge damage, but at that point some chaos:vamp is more effective). Soulthief maxed out, with +20% healing, still generally only returned 1 per damage action. That being said, if you have a crapload of dots going you can get some moderate lifegen going on. Crows feast in Call of the Hunt behaves in the same way. I found the increased armour to be much better if you want to get up close and personal.

Haven't really found a way to use block with katarina, her dots are mainly to cripple and take to long to cast. But there is a talent for it, so somebody might have a good idea.

From where I stand, it seems like supporting flintlock is the most optimal build. I would love to find out otherwise.

[Garzhad]

No DoT effect benefits from Doom at all, only direct damage. The only Chaos stats that are useful are Ice(freezes enemy in place) Withering/weakening(increase damage dealt/reduce damage taken)and vampire(heals you ofc); the damage dots do too little damage for them to be worth the loss of more crucial stats. You only need 1 point of ice/weakening/withering to get the status effect to apply, which is what is useful; the point value is just the damage dealt by the dot, not the effect.

Block and armor are useless in Hardcores higher levels when mobs start hitting you for 900+ damage and bosses will 1-2 shot you anyway. Dodge dodge dodge. Never block; enemies hit hard enough in hardcore that you can never get enough armor/block to make a difference and blocking will just eat all your focus. Your abilities are the only thing good for damage mitigation, since it's a flat % off the total damage.

Katarina needs to focus on Agility, will and doom. Combined with Call of the Hunt +agility prof and Thrill of the Hunt, with a high base crit chance, you can spam empowered heart shots pretty much indefinitely with virtually guaranteed crits, in addition to keeping up your buffs and barriers.

Can just hold down flintlock fury till the enemies clump up, then mow them all down with a single emp HS to instantly refill power and focus.

[TheGiantBreast]

Yes you are right about the chaos stats. Although I really did not enjoy the rifle heart seeking shot gameplay, you are right that it is the easiest way to play katarina.

However, you are wrong about block and armor. You can run a successful block build with Anjali, probably Lucas as well. But you've gotta stack armor,block, vit and vampire. I much prefer to block rather dodge, timing is more important, and you are able to use empowered abilities more frequently for most of the game. Although you are right that there are some bosses (Ranjani) that you have to dodge most of her stuff. But for the bulk of the game (haven't beaten it) you are pretty good. Just have to be diligent about shopping for tank gear.

[Garzhad]

Originally posted by TheGiantBreast:

Yes you are right about the chaos stats. Although I really did not enjoy the rifle heart seeking shot gameplay, you are right that it is the easiest way to play katarina.

However, you are wrong about block and armor. You can run a successful block build with Anjali, probably Lucas as well. But you've gotta stack armor,block, vit and vampire. I much prefer to block rather dodge, timing is more important, and you are able to use empowered abilities more frequently for most of the game. Although you are right that there are some bosses (Ranjani) that you have to dodge most of her stuff. But for the bulk of the game (haven't beaten it) you are pretty good. Just have to be diligent about shopping for tank gear.

If you want to play like a turtle at the expense of other better stats, that's fine. On Kat with mostly agi and will armor of stamina, with agility weapons of resolve and stacked doom, nothing lives long enough for block or armor to matter; dodging is still more effective versus everything as it is always better to Avoid damage than take it, and with a 40-50% base crit rate with up to 70-80% on uninjured targets with the talent and CoH, you will ALWAYS have full orbs due to the crit talent; you don't need to block at all, and with chaos vampire and her lifestealing abilities health is never an issue. I tend to rely on Flintlock Fury and HS primarily, use curses on bosses and warding to keep groups away long enough to buff before they get mowed down, and use empowered CoH so that we All have ridonkulous crit chances. FF is absolute MURDER on bosses, and you can refill focus/orbs easily with a well placed empowered HS wherever it's needed.

Reinhart plays almost the exact same way. Except he gets orbs Even Faster with his Geometry and CD, but his focus regen is slow so he has to pause in his rampage to build up more focus now and then. Unfotunately in our 3-man game i've dropped him in favor of playing Kat, because a bug with the Creative Destruction ability was creatively ripping my comrades a new poopchute; rather than Healing allies caught in the blast, it would constantly crit them and annihilate them. Took us awhile to figure out why Lucas died nearly instantly in most engagements lol; 1,000 damage crit waves would melt his face. That's when he gave the ability the nickname 'Death farts'. And thenceforth i'd just yell 'farts incoming' when I was about to unleash it so he knew to GTFO the way. It worked, but was still annoying since he couldn't do Anything while I was mowing them down or he'd die too.

Lucas, especially in coop paired with people with a ring with bloodletting on it, utterly destroys things. At lvl 30 in our current game, windshear followed up by a hemorraghing BD hits everything for 3-5k damage. His focus is effectively Infinite; he can regenerate tons from both hitting and being hit and his focus Regen ability restores 300 focus over 30s, so he can just constantly windshear and blade dash and whatever else he wants.

Our Anjali is similar to Lucas in the infinite Focus department with her crit ability and high crit%. She can spam the battlefield with her flame pillars for damage and crowd control through her talents, then when they clump up or she gets surrounded, trigger fall from heaven to not only avoid getting hit, but then fall down like a meteor of pwnage and obliterate everything in a wide radius with a 3,000dmg AoE that procs AoE knockdowns. With vampire, her lifesteal and healing abilities, keeping her alive is not problem either.

We all have rings/amulets with bloodletting, ice, withering and weakening which is where we put all our enchants(stagger, warding, doom, vampire). The Chaos stats Effects do not rely on the Amount(which is only the damage the dot part does) so 1-3 points in those is all you need to trigger ices Slow effect, and the attack weakening and damage increasing effects of the others. Coupled with the stagger our AoE attacks All function as hardcore crowd control, simultaneously slowing, stunning, withering and weakening on top of other effects.

They quite literally do not live long enough, nor with the capability of, doing damage, and even if they do the vampire/lifesteal outpaces it. This is a game where the best defense is very much an overwhelming offense, as it will obliterate trash mobs Before they can do damage and it greatly hastens the one-shot boss fights which means less chances for them to get a lucky killshot in on you.

Regarding bosses, it's not just Rajani, but most of them. Even if you stack armor/block they tend to one-shot you through it anyway, even with 3070hp at lvl 30. Fought Molochi yet? You'll hate him. He has insane amounts of health and one-shots you, and it's a two-stage fight so you have to kill him TWICE with No Save inbetween. All your stacking of block and armor will do is make you take 10x longer to kill him since he'll kill you in one hit anyway.

[TheGiantBreast]

To each his own. I found the incessant roll dodging to be much less fun then timing blocks and using empowered abilities. I only got past the frost mountain mine place, and ranjani was the only boss up to that point that I couldn't face tank with block on Anjali, with Kat I was full agi/will/doom and rolling around. Like any ARPG, going glass cannon or full damage is the fastest way through the content, I just don't prefer that approach. My experiences are also from single player, with friends around as meat shields its much more pleasant to go full damage.