There are four main uses for this skill: Body blocking for your carry. This doesn't just apply to Kestrel's Glimmershot Spitfire walk on top of your carry with this up.





This doesn't just apply to Kestrel's with this up. Deflecting large chunks of damage back at the enemy while taking minimal damage yourself. On overdrive this has a 4 second cooldown. If you have 255% cooldown acceleration then that drops to 1.6 seconds. This makes it pretty much impossible for most enemies to kill you, unless they're Skye. However be careful, the downtime of this ability is increased the more it deflects. I'll explain more below.





On overdrive this has a 4 second cooldown. If you have 255% cooldown acceleration then that drops to 1.6 seconds. This makes it pretty much impossible for most enemies to kill you, unless they're Skye. However be careful, the downtime of this ability is increased the more it deflects. I'll explain more below. Dealing decent early game damage with the bubble's burn damage. Speeds up clearing of the double backs before you get a Stormguard Banner





Speeds up clearing of the double backs before you get a Proccing aftershock. As mentioned above, watch the 1.5 second aftershock timer to gain maximum benefits.

Let's talk about the exact mechanics of this ability.



The burn damage is crystal and is split into 2 ticks per second. This is only currently significant against Ardan who will take decreased damage from this thanks to his Julia's Gift Merciless Pursuit



The cooldown on this ability is made up of two parts and starts ticking from the moment that you use the ability. The first part of the cooldown which cannot be reduced by cooldown is the 6 second duration of the bubble. The second part is the (at level 5) 4 second cooldown which can be reduced by cooldown acceleration. With 255% cooldown acceleration, the time between stormguard bubbles is reduced from 10 seconds to 7.56 seconds. This may not seem like much, but consider that making 4 deflections will reduce the duration of the bubble by 0.5 seconds each leaving you with 4 seconds of protection. You now have 3.56 seconds of downtime instead of 6 seconds. Stormguard Basically, having the duration of thereduced by deflections does not let use it again sooner!



So how much damage is deflected? Well first of all, the ability description should read that it deflects damage above 10% of Catherine's base health instead of 77 (+7 per level) which is a rounded off approximation (it's actually 77.2 + 6.7 per level), and it also misses out some key pieces of information: Damage is reflected as crystal damage regardless of source. This means that deflected damage is reduced by enemy shield, and also benefits from Catherine owning Broken Myth Eve of Harvest





This means that deflected damage is reduced by enemy shield, and also benefits from Catherine owning Damage reflected is calculated before armour and shield. This means that buying armour and shield does not reduce the damage that you deflect. If your enemy has 300 weapon power and you are level 5 then your base HP is 1040 meaning that you deflect all damage above 104 back to the attacker. The base crystal damage deflected will therefore be 196, and if the attacker has 100 shield, they will take 98 damage from your deflection if they are the only target in range.





This means that buying armour and shield does not reduce the damage that you deflect. If your enemy has 300 weapon power and you are level 5 then your base HP is 1040 meaning that you deflect all damage above 104 back to the attacker. The base crystal damage deflected will therefore be 196, and if the attacker has 100 shield, they will take 98 damage from your deflection if they are the only target in range. Damage taken after being cut to 10% of Catherine's base health is then further reduced by her defences.

In the above example Catherine doesn't actually take 104 damage as that 104 damage is then reduced by her armour, to 52 if she had 100 armour. Hypothetically, if the bubble was permanent and you had 200 armour and no health items, it would takes 30 basic attacks to kill Catherine as each incoming attack can deal no more than 104 base damage, and that 104 base damage is then reduces to just 34.7 damage. Now you see why she's so tanky?





In the above example Catherine doesn't actually take 104 damage as that 104 damage is then reduced by her armour, to 52 if she had 100 armour. Hypothetically, if the bubble was permanent and you had 200 armour and no health items, it would takes 30 basic attacks to kill Catherine as each incoming attack can deal no more than 104 base damage, and that 104 base damage is then reduces to just 34.7 damage. Now you see why she's so tanky? Damage deflected is split evenly between nearby targets. If there a bunch of minions around you, you will deflect much less damage back to you attacker as it will also be split up among the enemy minions. I have not yet tested if there is a limit to how many targets you can deflect to, but in any case it is enough to significantly dilute your damage if surrounded by lane minions.





If there a bunch of minions around you, you will deflect much less damage back to you attacker as it will also be split up among the enemy minions. I have not yet tested if there is a limit to how many targets you can deflect to, but in any case it is enough to significantly dilute your damage if surrounded by lane minions. Damage deflected has a range of 10. This was an easy one to test as it's just very slightly less range than Blast Tremor which has a range of 11. If there are no targets within 10 units of Catherine then Catherine will still take reduced damage, but won't deflect anything.





Image: Range shown is the 11 range of Blast Tremor







This was an easy one to test as it's just very slightly less range than Blast Tremor which has a range of 11. If there are no targets within 10 units of Catherine then Catherine will still take reduced damage, but won't deflect anything. Image: Range shown is the 11 range of Damage can only be deflected onto targets that you have vision of. So you can't deflect damage onto people hiding in bushes with this, or around walls if you don't have vision over it. Confirmed in practice mode as I could not deflect minion miner damage over the wall to the two small shop minions until I placed a scout trap over the wall.





So you can't deflect damage onto people hiding in bushes with this, or around walls if you don't have vision over it. Confirmed in practice mode as I could not deflect minion miner damage over the wall to the two small shop minions until I placed a scout trap over the wall. If an enemy is hit by deflected damage you will draw lane minion and turret aggro. Be careful activating this when trying to down a turret. If an enemy pokes you and is hit by a deflection the turret will focus you instead of the minions. On that note, be careful around the Kraken and minion miner too. You could incur the wrath of the Kraken on your team if you deflect damage towards it during a jungle teamfight. It's helpful in these situations to know that it has a range of 10!





Be careful activating this when trying to down a turret. If an enemy pokes you and is hit by a deflection the turret will focus you instead of the minions. On that note, be careful around the Kraken and minion miner too. You could incur the wrath of the Kraken on your team if you deflect damage towards it during a jungle teamfight. It's helpful in these situations to know that it has a range of 10! This ability has no effect on turret damage. I often see Catherine's retreat from turrets after taking too much damage and put on Stormguard





I often see Catherine's retreat from turrets after taking too much damage and put on Is there a maximum number of targets to which damage can be deflected? According to this post on the official forums the damage is deflected to 3 targets max prioritizing heroes. I'll go with that unless I find out otherwise.

An interesting scenario with Skye which I alluded to near the top of this guide in the threats meter is the case where Skye has a level 5 forward barrage and 278 crystal power. Catherine has 1509 base HP at level 12 meaning that anything above 150.9 base damage caused a deflection. 278 crystal power is the tipping point at which Skye reaches 1510.5 raw DPS on her forward barrage. Forward barrage deals 10 ticks of damage and can therefore cause 10 tiny, insignifcant deflection within a single second, effectively deleting your shield. This is with target lock but without broken myth stacks. If she has 6 BM stacks then she only needs 194 crystal power to reach 1512.5 raw DPS. The meta build for Skye right now is Frostburn, Broken Myth and Eve, a total of 225 crystal power. Yup, good luck out there against Skye.