Please help keep this as accurate as possible! Top
I'm only human, and I make mistakes. If some fact in here is wrong, please let me know ASAP so I can help everyone learn and not hinder their progress with false information.
Welcome and Introductions! (You can skip if you don't care about pointless history) Top
I am Varnarian. I have been playing VG for over a year now, and I have mained roam since I started. The biggest thing for me when I started playing Vainglory was finding a way to carry my play style over from other games, but at the same time, evolving it enough so I could be very competitive in this new game environment. In the past I have played League of Legends, DotA2, Heroes of the Storm, StarCraft 2, and several other games. In any game that allowed me, I always played a supportive role. In LoL I mained support to the point I was unable to play any other role, WoW I was always a healer, DotA I got kicked from a few teams because I sucked in 4/5 positions, and similar stories in every game I've played.
When I was introduced to Vainglory back in January '15, I started out with a small handful of heroes (the free to play ones) and went into some matches with the person who introduced me. I played Glaive, Ringo, Koshka, and a few others. The one I enjoyed the most, out of everyone I played, was Fortress. Fortress was F2P at the time, and I was near the end of the week, so he was going to disappear soon. So I rushed in 2 hours of gameplay. Then 5. Then 10. Then it was 6 AM the next morning and I had to get up and get ready for the day. By the end of it all, I still didn't have Fortress (8k glory for a brand new player without chests is hard, at least for me). So I started playing other heroes. When I came upon Catherine, who was only 600 glory if i remember correctly, she was really freaking epic. She could rush into a fight, get out, go back in, dance on the enemies grave, and still have enough health to help finish off the other 2 enemies. I fell in love with her, and decided I would create my style of gameplay revolving around her.
I did my research, practiced too much for my own good, and about 6-7 months later, found a build online that seemed to work for me. I still use this build as the basis of mine, and if I could find it again, I would give credit where it's owed, but hopefully whoever made it will somehow know I appreciate them taking the time to make the build. OK, that's enough about me and my past. Let's get into the guide.
Pros and Cons of Catherine Top
Pros
+She has amazing maneuverability once you figure out her skills.
+Her
Stormguard allows her to stand in the middle of a fight and take almost no damage during the duration.
+Her passive, once built up, can allow
Catherine to forgo certain defensive items if her enemy isn't building correctly.
+Her ultimate,
Blast Tremor, can allow her entire team to initiate a team fight without fear of being melted by certain CP users
Cons
-Due to a nerf a couple patches ago, without high stacks of passive, she doesn't have as much sustain as tanks such as
Ardan and
Lance do.
-Her passive can only be stacked up by stunning/silencing enemy heroes. This means if an enemy is avoiding her until the abilities are no longer active, she will just be a burden late game.
-If Blast Tremor is reflex blocked,
Catherine and her team might have to leave the fight before it's even begun.
*Your A ability,
Merciless Pursuit, has several functions. It can be used to chase down enemies, allowing your team to secure a kill. It can be used to stun an enemy, allowing a teammate to escape deaths cold embrace. Another useful thing it can do is be use as a second pair of boots in an escape.
*Initiate fights using your ultimate,
Blast Tremor. That short duration where your enemies cannot use abilities can allow you to kill their carry very quickly. *WARNING* If the enemy roamer uses
Crucible to block your ultimate, you might have to delay the team fight for later. The best way to avoid this is to either surprise the other team with the ult (like from a bush or behind a wall) or to force the enemy roam to waste their
Crucible.
*If the enemy is using skill shots to burst down your team too quickly, it is entirely possible to through up
Stormguard and stand in the middle of it. This usually causes their team to have to reposition and gives your team enough time to regroup.
The Guide - Start of the Match Top
So the whole point of this build is to be able to constantly stun and silence your enemies so often that by the time they are ready to fight, you are already sitting on 30-50 stacks of your passive. Let's get into how this is done.
The start of the game depends on many factors. Who are you playing with? Are you in a pre-made party? Who are you playing against? Do you know the team or were they randoms in a queue? How confident are you in your ability with your current hero? Are you confident in your team? Is it the fourth Friday of the month or the nineteenth Wednesday of the year? If you go into every match exactly the same, you are guaranteed to lose a lot of them at high tiers.
The way my team starts the match is by quickly analyzing who they picked and how strong are they early game. If we think we can take them in a 3v3 at the start of the game, we will automatically rush their tri-bush (the bush next to the kraken pit, where the kraken spawns at 15 minutes) and go for a quick ace. As the roam, it is your job to make sure you get your team safely through the fight. If you don't think your team can make it, tell them to get out of there and try and bait the enemy away. 70% of the time the enemy falls for the bait to get first blood (which is 100g. Worth getting). If you started the retreat early enough, you should have plenty of time to escape, then move on with your jungler to clear your jungle. However, if you succeeded in the team fight, and managed to either kill them or make them retreat, feel free to take their fronts and the middle camp. Then proceed with your jungler to clear your jungle.
If at the start you choose not to fight in a giant team fight, proceed onto clearing with your jungler. I would recommend starting with the fronts so that they aren't stolen and your laner should be doing his own thing up top.
After one full clear of your jungle, doesn't matter if you chose to fight at the start or not, you should rotate (move) up to lane and keep watch there. Usually you want to let your laner continue to do his/her thing and collect stuns on the enemy laner and roam, but once again, it depends on the situation. However, unless your laner went back to base and your jungle is still in his zone, you should leave minion kills to your team. If you stay up in the bush that connects lane to jungle, you will collect plenty of ambient gold.
Stay up here in lane either until 4 minutes or until you need to return to base for health.
The Guide - Starting your build, and proceeding to mid game. Top
The first item you want to rush as almost any roamer is the
Fountain of Renewal. This item allows you to heal you and all of your teammates nearby for a very nice portion of health. This item alone can make or break entire team fights depending on how and when it was used. So naturally, when you return to base, you want to start building this right away. If you can't afford the entire item, go ahead and buy
Lifespring and either
Light Shield or
Kinetic Shield, depending on how much money you have. If you have enough for the entire tier 3 item, start focusing on getting your tier 2 boots,
Travel Boots. Return to lane with your new loot and resume the stuns. If you think a team fight is going to break out soon, don't rush past the halfway point without being willing to commit to the fight with your entire team.
As the match progresses, start going down to jungle shop if you accumulate more than 1500 gold. The faster your team buys items, the easier team fights will be. The whole point of mid game is to keep pushing the turrets and stop them from pushing yours. Everything else that happens is just preparing for that. Keep going, supporting your team, until you finish your build or until the match ends. If the match proceeds to 15 minutes, and no one has won or is about to win, welcome to the end game.
The Guide - The End Game Top
This is it. Everything you have done was for this moment. Clocks ticking up and the further it goes, the higher the risk. Kraken is sitting in it's pit waiting for the unlucky souls who must face it head on. Do you take the Kraken? Do you leave it until you ace the enemy? Do you bait them into your jungle? Do you chase them into theirs? Is rushing the turret a smart move? Do you sacrifice one player to try and take two of theirs? Anyone who has played competitively can tell you that all these thoughts and more rush through your head when the game reaches this point. Matches that go up to 20-30 minutes can be very stressful and no matter what, losing the match at that point in the game is a heavy blow that is hard to return from quickly.
If possible, it is often the best idea to ace the enemy before going for Kraken. Another option is to have a high sustain/damage hero (*cough*
Krul *cough*) solo it while the other two draw out the enemy team, but this should really only be attempted by skilled players. Capturing the Kraken won't guarantee you the match, and sometime just backfires. Something to keep in mind is if you capture Kraken, you want to be able to push down at least two turrets or else they get more gold out of the situation than you do (Kraken=500g, front 3 turrets=300, Vain Turrets=100). If they are just going to burst it down, it might be better to wait.
So this is it, the end of the game. Either you push them back and take their Vain, or they push you back and take yours. Either way, give them thumbs up, unless they AFK.
Final Notes Top
I once heard this really cool quote, "The game isn't about who makes the most mistakes or who makes the least mistakes. It's all about who makes the last mistake." I can't remember who said it, but it helped me continue playing, even when there were times it felt hopeless. In every match, even one that feels impossible, there is always going to be at least one opportunity to turn the entire thing around. You only have to find it. That should also serve as a warning. Even if you are completely destroying them, if you make even one tiny mistake, it has the opportunity to turn around on you in an instant.
Thanks for reading my guide, and I hope it helped in some way. See you on the Fold!
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