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Locke vs Katarina

Locke
You
VS
Katarina

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Who Wins

  • Pre-6, Katarina has no reliable engage and relies on dagger throws that deal moderate damage without a full combo, so you have a slight edge if you land Q stacks and punish her dagger pickups with E — at level 3 your Q-E-W combo starts dealing meaningful burst that she cannot easily escape without Shunpo.
  • Post-6, Katarina's R becomes a serious threat since she can chain daggers into a full reset combo faster than you can set up your execution threshold, so you need your R placed preemptively to interrupt her channel or force her to disengage before she reaches lethal health.
Confused by a term? Check the Glossary

How to Trade

  • Your best trading pattern is to land two to three Q stacks on Katarina from range, then commit to E when she moves to pick up a dagger or overextends, immediately activating W to sustain through her retaliation while your empowered auto-attacks consume the nail stacks for burst.
  • Avoid initiating E without at least two Q stacks, because Katarina's mobility through Shunpo means she can disengage before you deal enough damage to justify the trade, leaving you with W's true damage cost and no kill pressure.

Wave Control

  • You want to maintain a slight freeze or slow push near your side of the lane, because Katarina has strong waveclear with her dagger bounces and will look to roam if the wave is pushed — keeping the wave controlled forces her to stay and farm rather than snowball sidelanes.
  • Use Q to poke her off the wave and stack marks passively, but avoid hard shoving unless you have vision of the enemy jungler, since Katarina's reset potential makes her a dangerous dive target when she has a numbers advantage.

Mistakes to Avoid

  • Do not activate W reactively after Katarina has already landed her full combo, because by the time you try to heal back the damage she will have already reset and repositioned out of your E range, leaving you low with W's true damage still ticking.
  • Commit to W during the trade, not after, so the heal and the damage window overlap with your nail stack consumption for maximum efficiency.
Created on 08/22/2026
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