LeoTessa's Krazy Kat Koshka guide by Neko

LeoTessa's Krazy Kat Koshka guide

By: Neko
Last Updated: Jun 20, 2017
121 Votes
Build 1 of 1

Koshka

Build: Krazy Kat Koshka

Ability Path

Bloodrush
Heroic Perk
Pouncy Fun
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Twirly Death
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Yummy Catnip Frenzy
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Threat Meter

Threat
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High
Show all
Threat Hero Notes
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  No Threat
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  No Threat
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Kestrel Keep her from using her Active camo at all costs, take some damage if necessary if that means she will lose her only escape and reposition tool. Otherwise, she can easily be killed.
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Ardan His ult can be reflex blocked, his BoB won't deal much damage. Only annoying thing is his Vanguard that will probably save an ally or two. A safe bet to invade usually.
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Adagio Support: he will probably not deal much damage, though his slow will be mildly annoying. Reflex blocking his ult already does so much against him, poisoned shiv spells his bane.
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Skaarf While he can poke a lot, you can also dodge a lot. Avoid getting spitfires thrown at you with your superior movement speed and avoid his ult at all costs.
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Fortress Support: hardly a threat other than for his wolves. In that case quickly reposition and eliminate them before further problems arise.
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SAW WP: Atlas him.
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Celeste Same deal with Skaarf, though she has a lot of vision to keep your ganks from occurring and much stronger CC.
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Lyra Her Bright Bulwark can potentially devaste you from dealing damage. Position correctly and have enough vision to keep her from using her ult to gank you. If necessary, reflex block her B. Poisoned Shiv can in fact be quite optional here.
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Catherine Akin to Lyra but with a more direct threat. She will attempt to stun you from ulting anyone and if good enough, from using pouncy fun (this will result in basically a immediate death since you'll be really our of position). Her silence is also pretty bad, though that should be left to the support to reflex block, or just war treads away and waste her ult.
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Baron WP will make your life hell. CP will make you cry from joy as you dodge everything. His dash will hardly keep you from stunning him, still, he deals an inmense amount of damage. Avoid his mortars because your life literally depends on it.
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Flicker You can either jump away from his skills are be stuck on them. Even though you're not the support, you should buy vision against him.
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Idris A sort of Taka with less escape but more outplay potential. Be the one to take the initiative when attacking him to keep him from having a barrier, dodge his chakrams and ult him only after he does. Atlas recommended.
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Koshka May the best Koshka win. Reflex Block each other's ult, build early shield and have more Twirly Death stacks than the other when fighting.
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Taka The archenemies of Koshka. He has a useful escape tool, and can block your ult. Will probably focus fire on the carry, so extended vision is preferrable. Heroes like Gwen or Baron that have a way to clear bushes are useful against him. Having Fortress as your support is a must.
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Samuel Samuel is slightly different than Celeste and Skaarf: he's much more mobile and able to dish out tons of damage in the process; not only that, he heals from it. Poisoned Shiv might be necessary, especially if he has an Adagio or a Lyra protecting him. Have your support Crucible his ult and do everything in your power to keep him from fighting in enclosed spaces were he excels.
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Adagio Carry: Slightly more frustrating to deal with, now he heals more and his B packs a serious punch. Buy Atlas and pray your carry builds a shiv.
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Glaive WP: While Koshka tends to have trouble with tanky heroes, Glaive is a rare exception. High HP means stronger Aftershock procs, his lifesteal is insignificant and his mana runs dry quickly, a reason to steal all his treants. Furthermore, simply stunning him when he tries to Afterburn your carry will his life hell.
6
Gwen Another hero that can simply ignore your stun. Atlas her if you know she won't cleanse herself right after. On the other hand, you may want to give up your ult just to be able to Atlas her. Choose your ganks wisely and have ample vision, because she can spot them easily.
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Ringo Stun him when he tries to ult (if not, reflex block it). Atlas him when he tries to use his Twirling Silver. Take his A for granted. Boom. Useless
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Skye CP Skye is a cat-and-mouse game. Either you're the one chasing or she's the one chasing. Taking Journey Boots is not a bad idea since it will let you quickly reposition from her Forward Barrage. Take Aegis against her late game, Ardan is a nice support against her.
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Petal Much like Skye, she will go in an immense poking fest with her munions, but heres the catch. If she is attacking, her munions are away. Quickly bring her down and don't let anyone in your team be perma slowed by her.
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Grumpjaw Extremely annoying early game monster. Your damage will be null to him because of his passive and his skills can damage you a lot. Focus on having your carry wear him down from afar, avoid him eating you, rush Atlas against his attack speed buff. However, overall this is a bad matchup just a bit below Alpha.
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SAW CP: have Catherine as your support to cancel out his Suppressing Fire and Roadie Run, focus building on shield and hp. Don't get yourself caught in his combos and reflex block his knife if necessary.
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Alpha The new Aftershock queen has left more than one salty Koshka. She is not only exceptional WP or CP, she can also heal from it and has a nice slow to back it up. Avoid stunning her when shes casting her ult, rush BM against her tankiness and play the tanky game yourself.
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Baptiste In the Unified Championship, C9 rolled over Team Solo Mid VONC's Koshka with this guy, he has 3 CC spells on his hand, he's quite the tanky guy and can easily immobilize or zone you out of your objective.
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Rona Much like Ozo, Rona excels whenever she can hit anyone, preferably stun her out of her ult, have your carry rush poison shiv, and use hit and run tactics.
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Vox For some reason he hasn't been nerfed correctly, not only is his late game damage ridiculous, he can poke and slow very easily. Don't try to Reflex Block his resonance, instead, Atlas him and burst him down.
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Ozo Ozo is the equivalent of a Krul that can dive in harder and heal much quickly. Fighting him means he will heal a lot. Hope your carry buys a poisoned shiv, use hit and run tactics and keep your carry alive at all costs. Reflex block recommended.
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Krul Krul is quite a deadly hero, not only can he reduce your damage and your burst, he can also keep you from escaping and fighting back, his 1v1 potential is nigh-unparalled. Rush Atlas against him, Poisoned Shiv on your carry and Aegis against his Spectral Smite. Reflex block his ult.
9
Glaive CP: CP Glaive has a 6-second afterburn cooldown, allowing him to quickly reposition himself and your team in the most chaotic of ways, Reflex Block is near useless when he can cast it so frequently. Not only does this make him burstier, CP Glaive can be played as a support, making your dives impossible.
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Fortress Carry: I swear, can he be less tankier? Gaining hp, fortified health, life steal and movement speed boosts for the whole enemy team will make your life hell when trying to burst him down.
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Lance Lance is the reason you probably lost that game, or that other one, or all of them. The low cooldown on his Gythian Wall makes displacing, peeling and stunning you so easy that carries will just take you for granted (for a good reason too)

Im back again~! Top



Hi all, my guide is back in business yet again (unless SEMC makes another useless nerf against Koshka) and I'll be updating everything on it. For the meantime, I'll post a roadmap of what I plan to do to have this guide completely remade. So without further ado, here are the objectives:
  • Add builds again. DONE!
  • Add threats. DONE!
  • Add a skill overview chapter. DONE!
  • Add a skin display section. DONE!
  • Add an item section.
  • Add pros and cons section. DONE!
  • Add a wall jumping picture.
  • Add a current meta-analysis.
  • Add an actually decent introduction.
  • Add a tips and tricks section.
  • Explain in depth how to employ Yummy Catnip Frenzy correctly.
  • Explain the importance of positioning and counter-positioning for Koshka.
  • understanding the importance of rushing defense in early game
  • Analysis on Shatterglass vs Broken Myth
  • Compare Journey Boots vs Halcyon Chargers
  • Add credentials.
  • Add a ToC.
  • Very dank pics
  • BB code upgrade

Random comments:
just realized the alliteration in my title is too subjective, accepting more ideas.
I can't believe that I forgot to update my signature in the forums to include Aesthehes artwork.
Oh boi 100 upvotes *tear rolls down*

Change-log:
  • May 21, 2017 - Started remaking guide!
  • May 22, 2017 - Finally got the code working on the abilities section. Added skin section too.
  • May 23, 2017 - Pros and Cons section being worked on.
  • May 24, 2017 - Pros and Cons finished!
  • May 26, 2017 - Finished the offensive items section.
  • May 28, 2017 - Started working on the defensive items section *groan*

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Bloodrush

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Koshka gains 2 move speed for 4s whenever she deals damage with her abilities.

Koshka's passive is part of what makes her one of the most mobile heroes in the game. With this skill, you can quickly reposition, chase and escape against other heroes. Additionally, it makes traveling between two points extremely quickly. Additionally, Koshka can also dodge many skill shots with ease (though some of them do require a certain degree of prediction). This is why I don't recommend buying Sprint Boots for your first item since you can basically activate them with every skill you cast.

This also makes her extremely efficient at moving between camps, leading to a higher clearing speed and gaining an Exp/gold curve against your enemies which finally makes up for early game snowballing and aggression as part of his kit.

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Pouncy Fun

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Koshka dashes to the target enemy and deals damage.

Your main gap closer for basically everything. Pretty straightforward and can be used in conjunction with Aftershock as a hit-and-run tactic. It should be noted that apart from your main passive, this is your only escape skill. You can jump over walls or at other minions and take advantage of a speed boost to escape. If an enemy has some skill to dash away, you may prefer initiating with Yummy Catnip Frenzy and waiting on using this skill so that they cannot escape or vice-versa. Usually maxed last.

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Twirly Death

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Koshka twirls, damaging all enemies around her. Her next 2 basic attacks within 5 seconds deal bonus crystal damage.
Empowered attacks have lower cooldown (0.5s) than her normal basic attacks (0.8s)

This is Koshka's bread and butter skill. This is where you deal most of your damage from and that's why you should always max it first. When you overdrive it, you get an even higher amount of base damage and 1 second less of cooldown on it.

Among the things that all Koshka players should understand is how to use Twirly Death correctly. In most cases, you should use it before hitting anything so that by the time you actually start dealing damage, you'll be able to dish out four TD stacks instead of two. This is almost doubling your damage output and should be learned as soon as possible. This is also what you should do at the start of the game before minions spawn, to make your clear time more effective.

Few people understand that Twirly Death can also be used as a finisher skill. Its range is slightly above Koshka's AA range, meaning you can get a speed boost or just straight up kill a low hp enemy with it. This means you can forgo waiting for your Pouncy Fun cooldown to finish and can be a deciding factor between getting or not getting the kill.

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Yummy Catnip Frenzy

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Koshka leaps at her target then launches into a flurry of slashes, stunning the target for the entire 2.2 second duration. Koshka will cancel her ult if the stun is Reflex Blocked.

Arguably one of the hardest skills to use correctly in competitive gaming. This can be easily reflex blocked, using it incorrectly leads to being rooted in a bad position, and you do not deal much damage during the duration of it. Not surprisingly, most, if not all players don't even bother maxing this. If you can count on that the enemy carry can block it correctly, consider either having your support sacrifice a skill, buy a Nullwave Gauntlet or use it on purpose so that they can't use it against more potentially devasting CC. Still putting a point into it at level 6 is advisable, three skills are still better than two and this opens up more possibilities.




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+ High mobility.
+ Fast clear speed.
+ Good against skill shot oriented heroes.
+ Murders squishies for breakfast.
+ Early game powerhouse.
+ Good counterjungling potential.
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- Squishy.
- Lack of escapes.
- Potato in late game.
- Crippling CC skill.
- Weak against tanky sustain heroes.
- Can't stand much CC.
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Koshka is a hero that can easily dominate the first four minutes of the game, setting up early snowballs which allow her carries to power farm into late game. She can easily dive in, kill or incapacitate, and escape. Given her mobility, she is able to quickly dodge skillshots, making her an effective counter to heroes like Kestrel, Skye, Skaarf and Samuel if played correctly. This also makes up for extremely quick farming (which can be done in your jungle or in the enemy's). She is also very useful against WP carries, being able to jump in and Atlas them with ease (Pro Tip: always use Atlas Pauldron before jumping into the enemy carry. All of this make her a useful assassin.

Still, this is without setbacks: being focused on, early shield and CC can keep her from reaching her power spikes and achieving her advantages. Taking her as the first pick in a ranked game is guaranteed to bring up defensive supports like Lance and Ardan, who will then turtle to late game. In fact, barriers are a living hell: a temporary source of hp that can take up a great part of your damage or even completely nullify it. To counter this, strategic positioning and counterplay are necessary.


Offensive Items

Shatterglass
Shatterglass is one of those items whose effectiveness on Koshka heavily depends on how much her CP ratios have been tweaked. That aside, this provides a much more upfront type of burst damage (though Broken Myth will out-scale it given enough time) and can be used to burst down carries in situations where time is not a hand. Still, and I can't stress this enough, BM is an item that will scale better late game in most situations. Furthermore, your clear time with this item is beyond ridiculous, something you may want to keep in mind.
Aftershock
Ah, one of the main staples in every Koshka build, not only is it cheap, it also pairs very well with the empowered attacks from your Twirly Death, amassing a huge amount of burst quickly. Truly an early game item. This item also makes up for useful Kraken steals given its single-target damage). Late game, any Aegis will keep you from chunking off your enemy's hp, so most players build a Broken Myth to pierce through, amplify your damage (which can go as high as 400 hp so you can imagine) and adds a massive amount of power to the game. Always remember that your damage can be further increased by adding time gaps of 1.5 seconds in your skills. Very late game, consider selling for more stable items.
Broken Myth
Broken Myth is the biggest late-game investment you can have because it simply increases your base damage and pierces. Aftershock and Shatterglass are prone to be shielded, this item only gets more effective. This item also magnifies the effect of Aftershock nicely. Meanwhile, this item does not increase the damage from a Shatterglass though they are still a relatively nice duo. Some players like to but this along with a Piercing Shard to shred through your enemy's shield with more ease, selling this item only when they can buy another T3.
Clockwork
Among the three offensive items, you'll take for Koshka (usually), one of them will have to sustain your mana issues. This is not mandatory but recommendable. Clockwork gives off less energy regeneration than Eve of Harvest but it can increase your total CP by 25% (which works well with Shatterglass). Still, the best thing about this items is its cooldown: allowing you to rapidly spam skills. This makes Clockwork a bad match for Aftershock since you usually want to time your skills for increased damage. This build is, in the late game, is even burstier than Aftershock builds.
Eve of Harvest
The other variation of a mana regeneration item is this. Eve is a much more defensive choice, allowing you to chalk up damage, something very useful if you're the only frontline of the team. This item virtually guarantees that you can have unlimited mana. Usually, I take this choice when I have to fight tanky heroes for some sustained damage (which pairs up nicely with Broken Myth).This item also provides a flat 50 more crystal power, which is why I consider it a half offense, half defense item. Also, this item pairs well with Aftershock, since the slash damage can quickly let you ramp-up hp. I take this when dealing damage is not as important as say, keeping your carry alive with plenty of Breaking Point stacks, as with the case of Vox and Gwen or when I want to stay alive long enough to deal more damage.

Defensive Items


Aegis
Most, it not all carries are probably going to buy Aegis at some point in the game, especially against Koshka. This item gives you a Reflex Block every 35 seconds (which is 10 seconds less than Crucible and Reflex Block, which is pretty useful against hard CC skills like Hellfire Brew, Aces High and Afterburn. Moreover, this makes diving in in team fights much easier and safer. The only scenario where I wouldn't buy this is against a double WP carry team, in which I would either buy Crucible or a Metal Jacket + Atlas Pauldron.
Atlas Pauldron
I tend to ignore Metal Jacket in favor of this item for Koshka. Her kit gives her ridiculous movement speed boosts and two gap closers, so slowing the WP enemy carry for four seconds is pretty recommendable. Not only should you be gone after that time, the enemy carry will hardly deal damage in the process. It also helps your support a lot, since it can now focus on building either a Crucible or War Treads, sort of like split building. Two Atlas Pauldrons can also be pretty effective to shut down late game monsters like Vox or Ringo.
Metal Jacket
Pretty useful against WP heroes that can poke you from afar (which is a pretty rare thing considering you're an assassin) Reduces damage A LOT while keeping you alive. I mainly take this against Gwen because her Skedaddle can cleanse her, and Vox because of his ability to jump around and avoid your Atlas Pauldron. When in doubt, take Metal Jacket as a safe bet. As a side note, this can also diminish Breaking Point stacks a lot when the enemy team is focusing against you, and a very useful, yet not exactly efficient counter against Tension Bow, where attack speed doesn't matter (Raw hp is more preferred).
FoR
Fountain of Renewal can be bought in the same case scenario as Crucible, but it can also do so much more. If the enemy team is not dealing consistent CP damage, or if more healing is necessary to keep your team alive, this is a pretty useful item. Regardless, Aegis is usually superior because it has a Reflex Block.
Crucible
You heard that right, Crucible can be very useful for Koshka in certain situations, like when the carry is dealing most of the damage and keeping him or her alive is essential. Also, it´s very effective against double weapon teams who still have crippling CC.

Boots


I prefer talking about these more at depth because they provide quite the tactical difference in games.
Koshka is such a mobile hero that for most part of the early game she doesn't need them at all unless the enemy team is equally mobile. This is why starting with two Crystal Bits is so effective on her. A good player should be able to use any damageable unit (minions, jungle mobs, kraken, the friggin' enemy turret) for a mobility advantage. This means that Koshka hardly benefits from Journey Boots because her passive is just that good. In fact, the only reasons an enemy should be able to run away from you is either because: This makes buying Halcyon Chargers an optimal purchase in most situations. Let's not even forget about the CDA and energy regeneration.

BUT this doesn't make Journey Boots necessarily a worse purchase either, having a sprint available every time the enemy attempts to run is invaluable. Additionally, your assassin play style means that you will eventually have to retreat back and wait for another opportunity to strike, 12 seconds will reset quickly. Heck, Journey Boots also mean that you can initiate and disengage and reposition with the same item. One strategy I like to use is Pouncy Fun at an enemy, Atlas them, and then disengage with these boots (dealing some damage in the process, thereby crippling the carry and allowing me to either focus on the more powerful jungler OR then letting the support initiate and apply Atlas again when the situation calls for it. As you see, you can't really use Halcyon Chargers for this.

Most situations vary too much for me to give you a clear answer, so adapt.

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