Starter items

Core items

Offensive items

Defensive items

Situational items

Introduction
This will be a guide based off my own experience and how I feel Katana should be played from the jungle stand point. Using her damage and combos to net you kill or your teammates. Will quickly stomp your competition early game and shut down their jungle quickly.


Backstory
Universe of Origin: Prime

Alignment: Hero

Tatsu Torou2019s idyllic, but brief, marriage came to a sudden end in a single, tragic night. Her husband, Maseo, and his twin brother, Takeo, were both members of the Sword Clan, one of the clans in the Yakuza criminal organization.

Takeo confronted his brother over a matter involving the clan and in the struggle Maseo was killed by his own sword, the Soultaker. This ancient Katana, one of the clanu2019s relics, was said to contain the souls of those it killed among other mystical qualities. Tatsu witnessed her husbandu2019s murder and collapsed by his body, overcome with grief. Takeo fled into the night.

When Tatsu finally came to her senses, she took up the Soultaker and swore revenge against not just Takeo, but the Yakuza and criminals everywhere. She goes by the name Katana, in honor of the sword she wields and which she believes contains the soul of her beloved husband.


Base Stats

- Health (475)
- Attack Damage (52.0)
- Power Damage (0)
- Attack Armor (16)
- Power Armor (30)
- Move Speed (379.5)
- Crit Chance (0)
- CD Reduction (0)
- Atk speed (0.66)

Personal Tier List

Jungle - A Tier
Lane - B Tier

Why abilities in this order?
To better understand the character you must first breakdown why the skill tree leveling for the guide is the way it is. The reasoning behind leveling "Kendo" is because you will be using all the base values from the combination skills such as the bleed proc of Soulbend and damage. Spirit Wave damage scales better than "Slash" Alone. Most will say it clears faster but the idea behind this is that your ganks are powerful and you are not relying on buying cool down reduction to generate constant quick Slash damage. This opens up room for you to build attack damage and deal more damage early game as "Katana" has really solid burst damage in combinations. "Cross step" should not be a priority till you noticed more damage coming through or falling further behind during mid to late game. You want to rely more on your passive "SoulTaker" life steal/Damage build up instead of the damage reduction you receive from "Cross Step". Essentially you will be able to run into a 1v2 or 1v3 and walk out based on life steal and damage alone.

Skill Combos

[WQ|E] - Soulbend (Damage&Bleed) Combined with a few autos to extend it to max damage is really strong during long fights or ending with before an opponent tries to escape with little to no life. This will be one of your mid combo damage dealers if an enemy wants to trade blow for
blow. It is also your follow up after doing the [QW|E] Initiation before a gank.

[QW|E] - Vendetta has a very very low damage output because it holds a charge for a slow. It is used to support her lack of strong cc on ganking. Not very useful to clear waves or to deal a lot of damage but it is a good way to chase down a prey on the run.

[QQ|E] - Spirit Wave is great for clearing jungle and waves specially at low levels. The damage is really good as well as the range when you can not dive the tower and the enemy has a little bit of life while sticking around. Useful and versatile for harassing enemies under tower or in lane.

[WW|E] - Shadow Step Combo only has very few uses . Closing gaps, moving faster through jungle, and escaping. Do not use for ganking unless running a more aggressive denotate.


Mods & Augments

Mods
- Accelerated Soultaker Katana is one of the mods because of the stacking being doubled is a faster acceleration to more damage and lifesteal sooner for the early game. This also loses 50% of the stacks unlike the other one which is way to high risk reward specially when team fights roll around.

- Empowered Joe Chill's Revolver pretty much speaks for itself. 75% crit damage is just absurd in any game. This item will have you chipping away at your enemies life bar like a mad man.

- Rapid Coda Blade is really solid and is usually a first go to offensive item after the core to pentrate through power armor being built. This mod will only help stop those with lots of hp regen and or lifesteal take a hard blow to their kit.

Augments

After Doing extensive theory crafting and testing this fits the mold best for early game pressure.


MANTLE - The Crit and atk spd will benefit you in trading in long combat once you get Chill Revolver. Plus crit will stack on to the 75% that is to come.
+3.5% Attack Speed (G)
+6.25% Critical Damage (G)


HEX - The extra damage will help with clearing. Crit will apply to the revolver later on.
+2.41 Attack Damage (G)
+6.25% Critical Damage (G)


FALCON - Is another important Augment as we are sticking with the early game in mind. No scaling needed! Plus more atk spd to clear faster and trade better in jungle.
+2.41 Attack Damage (G)
+3.5% Attack Speed (G)


KAI - More atkdamage is the goal for early game. We do not want any scaling and this will put us at 7.23 extra atk damage on top of h base (52.0) Now being at 59.23 You are in a really good spot. This also gives you 1.5 atk pen which isnt ground breaking but all the other augments do not give you as much damage nor does it give you a good trade off.
+2.41 Attack Damage (G)
+1.5 Attack Penetration (S)

Pros
- Strong Early/Mid Game
- High Damage
- High Mobility
- Fast Jungle Clear
- High Sustain

Cons
- Weak late Game
- Falls off late game
- Average Ganking
- Low Vitality (Lowest HP bruiser in game)

High Level Threats

- Solomon Grundy can throw a huge wrench into Katana's ganks. With her having very low vitality if she ganks him with out caution she will expect to lose a lot more in the exchange or even get thrown out of the gank wasting a whole lot of time.
- Superman Is a solid jungler & lane opponent who can trade well and CC katana from engaging or chasing down a teammate. He also has a good ult to change the tides of battle and counter gank her ganks specially if low and fails.
- Zatanna Everything about her kit will put fear into any jungler but mainly katana considering she has a form of sustain that helps her with ganking but when zatanna is on the scene she can magically pin katana in one place and take all her resistances away. Thats a big no no so be careful entering a lane against a zatanna.
- Arcane Green Lantern Having High Vitality his ability to soak damage is really high but he also has good counter gank tools. Stopping you with his knight or pinning you down once the fight starts with shackles. It will be tough to dim this lanterns light and his lane partner.
- Gaslight Catwoman Although you wouldn't think GCW to be a strong counter she actually has really High Damage output and this is hard for katana to deal with considering she has to touch her target. Having the ability to go invisible it is tough even for this samurai to land some hits. Be careful when chasing or fighting this cat in the jungle.
- Atomic Wonder Woman With lots of damage and a slow like yours. AWW has just as much damage as you but lower vitality. Her early game is strong like yours but if left alone for to long her mid to late game will eat katana alive if they meet in the same lane. This is a most avoid early game fighting till you have ult and some solid items. She can best you in the jungle.

Low Level Threats

- Flash is down here because his early game is not as strong as katanas early game. He essentially can not just steam roll her early cause of her sustain and damage out put and combinations. His ability to escape is still rough as well. Late game His ult can be dashed out of and can be reengaged with her own ult to make him lose stacks of speed.
- Stargirl Although she is an amazing Blaster she has to use a ton of skill shots to hit and her cosmic blast leaves her very open to ganks and to massive damage as she can not move during the use of it. Dodging some skill shots with cross step will net you easy confirmed kills in team fights and ganking her.
- Arcane Supergirl Not my cup of tea but she suffers from the inability to escape well and once again skill shots are the death of this character. One of the higher damage output blasters but requires loads of security to stay safe and struggles to most gankers who have a slow with damage.
- Mecha Superman Does not really have much to stop katana's damage. Most of his skills play off of interaction with the environment to buff himself up and are skill shots that she can dodge with cross step. Meeting him in the jungle should not be a worry nor in a lane.

Core Item Breakdown

Marauder Knife this is the main strong jungle item. For Katana she does not benefit after level 2 upgrade since she does not use will. While ganking and farming you should upgrade this to level 2 for better clearing. After getting the core items & one defensive or offensive item you can rid of this item.

Soultaker katana is very important because it is a stacking item. (Yes it does lose stacks if you die) This is a really good item if your ganks are not going as planned (Even better if your ganks work). The scaling from the item itself will allow you to do a lot of damage, clear faster, and trading with the other jungler level 1-6. Cost is cheap and goes well with "Marauder Knife". Also it scales well into the early/mid game. Not so much that well for the late game.

Joe Chill's Revolver is a very strong crit item and if you get to know me well I love RNG based items. Chill Revolver compliments katana very well and with her constant autos she will be hitting crits left and right even if its only 25% Chance. Most junglers will not have any real defensive items early/mid game and this is a great item to trade blow for blow or to gank and watch a good chunk of your opponents life disappear. (This will be making laners use their stolen powers very quickly or prematurely)

Huntress Crossbow is the final build to the core which allows you to get rid of the Marauder Knife to upgrade into your next item. This item will help clear jungle fast as well but not only that the atk spd and damage compliment the other items. You should start to see an atk spd trend going on here. 4% of a targets health can be quite a lot against tanks. This will help with the mid game shredding of tanks. Most tanks will use all skills and stolen powers to keep their carries alive that this item will tear a whole through their health as most tanks have a ton of hp. Life steal is a big part of your kit and this will allow you to sustain dueling the other jungle as well.

Gank Paths

Heres a general idea of the ganking paths that you can take.

Early Game
The key to Katana being really strong is being patient in the early game. Your essential goal is to farm and occasionally gank lanes. Upgrading To max is the goal so that your damage scaling and life steal kicks in. Counter Jungle is key as long as the jungler you are countering is not a high output damage dealer pre-level 3. Usually characters like Gaslight Catwoman or Atomic Wonder Woman Have really strong early games that are hard to completely force them out of the jungle. Focus more on level 2-4 ganks and then focus on getting level 6 afterwards so that you can dish out a lot of damage under their towers if need be to get the final blow. Try to avoid big cc lock down lanes.

Mid Game
By now you should have your three core items. Once you have these you can start to solo the other jungler and take more camps from them. Do not be afraid to use Cross step to get around a bit more. This is a good point to really start hitting the lanes and push really hard. If you are taking a ton of damage and you are diving a lot to get kills. Do not be afraid to get one of the defensive items such as Entropy Aegis for health and armor. If you feel you are ahead at this point time to beef up your damage. Most will go straight into Coda Blade but if you are fighting against a more squishy team you are going to want to go for more of the Claymore and Shade's cane build to blow them up and sustain just as much.

Late Game
There is a quite a few things to know about the late game. Lets start with being ahead. If you are ahead with the core items and 2 offensive items finish off with either RA'S AL GHUL'S ROBE or Suit of Sorrow's. One defensive item will keep you in fights a lot longer and between these two items they will support your team when you are getting focused. If fighting a tankier team make sure you have the Atomic Axe in your build. The penetration will be so vital to shredding tanks.

Tips/Tricks

- Try not to focus to much on ganking every lane. Level 2 and level 3 are good ganking times and if that fails or you have not countered ganked or been counter ganked. Try to focus more on farming. Then swing back to a lane at level 6 with a bit more damage.
- Never be afraid to go into the enemy jungle side. You have good damage and you also have a good wave of escaping. Use these abilities to your advantage.
- Ganking paths should not hinder you. Do not be afraid to blow up a car to get to the lane and gank. You have tools other than your stolen powers.
- Diving a turret early game is a big no no when you have spirit wave.
- Diving turrets make sure you plan an escape route and cross step your way out.
- Do no give up on chasing a target if it does not put you in danger because most of the time you will catch them.
- Trust your damage and orb walk out of Auto Attack Range and punish them with Slash


This concludes my katana guide. If you guys have any questions or concerns or any feed back please do not hesitate to say! I will be updating this guide and any other ones I make in the future.