Heartsteel Katarina build with runes and items. Heartsteel Katarina guide offers in-depth how-to play, skill order and tips. Play Heartsteel Katarina build in League of Legends Patch 26.2!
Ghost for extra mobility and chasing - great for staying on top of enemies and farming more Heartsteel procs.
Exhaust
Defensive option. Exhaust for peeling against enemy divers and assassins and protecting your carries.
Ignite
Offensive option if you are feeling spicy. Grievous Wounds + some damage. Good in early fights and you can score some kills, but reduces your going-in potential. Especially later.
You rush Heartsteel #1 and stack as much HP as possible.
You build items that scale and benefit from HP, then add Armor and MR depending on the enemy team.
Playstyle
Rush Heartsteel and get tons of HP. 💪
Auto attack everything to get stacks - your HP depends on it. ⚔️
Adapt your tank items to what the enemy team is throwing at you. 🎯
How to play
Heartsteel Katarina
Katarina can have great engages too! Buy Randuin's Omen, Shunpo (E) into an enemy team and use active for heavy AoE slow!
General
Getting started
You rush Heartsteel #1 unless it is going to be hard to proc it - they are all ranged and just poke you. Then you start slow with Guardian's Horn instead.
Guardian's Horn is a surprisingly good item for its price. You can keep it for a very long time (or even have it as 6th item).
Item Order
Item Order after Heartsteel is flexible. You need to see what you need in particular game:
Get Overlord's Bloodmail for more damage and AD.
Get Warmog's Armor as anti-poke item (helps you stay in lane) and for some sweet HP.
Get Unending Despair, if there are prolonged fights in which you can stay near enemies (or enemies near you). The items gets better, the more HP you get.
Get various Armor and/or MR items to counter enemy team.
Get Titanic Hydra for more fun, more damage and some survivability.
During fights
Your main damage and power comes from auto attacks - Grasp of the Undying and Heartsteel.
This is auto attack oriented Katarina build, so do it! Especially if running with Titanic Hydra or Sundered Sky.
You can prioritize switching between champions in the fight, just to farm more Heartsteel procs.
Remember to consume your Heartsteel procs!
Adapting
You need to adapt your items to the game. Enemy team heavy on AP? Buy MR. They heavy on AD? Buy Armor. You need some damage? Well buy that.
Sundered Sky is very good damage item for this build (as #2-#4 depending on the game). It scales off your HP. It gives damage and pretty good sustain in fights. Remember to switch targets to maximize the effect!
Runes
Second Wind scales off with your HP, so it is going to be powerful sustain rune. You can use it by purposefully triggering it by letting enemies poke you a little or walking over some harmful spells.
Remember to consume your Grasp of the Undying procs!
Tips and Tricks
Champion
You can elevate your Katarina play just by not looking at the Daggers, but facing away, then using Shunpo (E) to them.
Riot
Picking up Daggers will significantly reduce Shunpo's cooldown.
Try waiting until the other team is distracted with fighting your team, and use Shunpo to teleport into the fray and unleash a devastating Death Lotus.
Using Shunpo on an allied Champion, Dagger, or minion can be a great escape tactic.