Let's talk about Karma.

Tapu Fini·Jul 25, 2014·1 votes·1,002 views

I know, one of the more troubling residents of the League of Legends.

Karma's original kit was balanced around a few different factors. -Her passive, a "berserker" passive, on a mage, which led to very strong clutch plays, but also felt overwhelming when trying to finish her off. -Two mantras giving her the flexibility in a fight to use her skills as needed. Using a mantra was a question of "Will I need a different mantra later, am I getting most of this mantra by using it now, which skill or skills will benefit my team most?"

Karma's updated kit is balanced around one mechanic. -Getting your mantra up.

Gathering fire is a crutch to make up for her lackluster Mantra. In teamfights, rarely is Mantra going to be used outside of Inner Flame. Generally speaking, Karma will not be the priority target during a teamfight, making Focused Resolve a sub-optimal and greedy choice to use a mantra on, as it still provides its team utility without mantra. Teamfights are becoming more and more spread out in order to avoid AoE CC and damage, making Mantra'd Inspire extremely difficult to make the most of, while also sharing its now defining mantra mechanic with the somewhat common Talisman of Ascension. With nothing else to fall back on, Inner Flame is her best choice of Mantra usage both for its slow and damage.

Her kit lost its flexibility. Her Mantra is only viable on Inner Flame for teamfights, and very rarely Focused Resolve in a 1v1 situation. The only thing her kit offers her team now is a speed boost/shield, and even that is easily replicated.

This is not to say Pre-rework Karma was perfect, but her play-style was lost. She was turned from a team-oriented support mage (A role that was previously unused, and again has nobody filling) into a burst mage with a shield.

I do not feel she warranted a complete overhaul, the main issue in Karma's way was her pre-rework W. In the best of situations, it was a good slow with some minor damage attached, or a strong disengage, at worst, it was something shiny you stuck on someone and they didn't know why they were running faster. Its complete reliance on the knowledge of an ally to use at full potential dragged it down severely, as did its inability to damage its initial target.

To make Karma a healthy and fun champion to play again, there's a few changes I'd like to see made. Proposed changes give back some of her old berserker identity while retaining healthy gameplay.

Passive- Focused Resolve: When Karma receives damage from champions, she gains a stacking buff for 7 seconds. Each stack of Focused Resolve increases Karma's Damage and healing by X%.

Q - Heavenly Wave: Karma sends forth a physical projection of her spirit, dealing magic damage to units in a cone in front of her. Mantra Bonus: In addition to dealing damage to enemies, Heavenly Wave will also heal allies in the cone based on a % of their missing life. (Make it slightly thinner, and slightly longer than it was before)

W - Spirit Link: Karma forms a tether to target enemy champion, revealing and dealing magic damage to the target over 2 seconds at 0.66-second intervals. If the tether is not broken after the 2 seconds, the target is rooted for a short time. Mantra Bonus: If a Target is successfully snared, the overwhelming energy bursts out from the enemy, dealing bonus damage in an area and slowing all targets.

E - Inspire: Karma shields a target ally for 4 seconds and grants them bonus movement speed for 1.5 seconds. Mantra Bonus: In addition to casting the shield, energy radiates out from the shield, dealing damage to enemy units around Karma's target, and granting additional movement speed. (Lower the base shield movespeed, increase it when Mantra'd.)

R- Mantra: Karma empowers her next ability cast within the next 8 seconds, adding an additional effect. Empowered abilities share the same cooldown as their basic form. Karma generates a Mantra every X seconds, and may store up to two Mantras. Cooldown reduction reduces the time required to generate a Mantra.

Basically, give her some use outside of a nuke mage again. We never wanted a new Karma, just a better Karma.

I'd love to hear Riot's thoughts on this, as Karma was my favorite champion, both thematically and for gameplay, and she's a now a binary shell of her former self.

Tl;dr: Karma lost her identity and every aspect of what made her a unique champion in League. We need to find a happy medium between old and new.

9 Comments

Boots3PotsJul 25, 20143 votes

I swear I remember reading this in the past. Copy/paste from GD perhaps?

Anyway, I find that Karma is one of those champions that's strong but just under the current tier of top LCS champions. She's a great poke damage support and can still be played in mid fairly effectively.

I disagree completely with the notion that Inner Flame is her best Mantra skill that will be used most of the time. It's more situational than you think. Defiance, her Mantra'd Inspire, is very strong against both dive comps and AoE comps. It does damage which can catch people off guard when their team is grouped up (300 AoE damage not factoring in Karma's AP and enemy MR) and is a very nice damage absorb mechanic that can get paired with Locket quite nicely.

Her kit isn't as inflexible as you say, though it isn't super flexible either. Using Mantra on her W isn't ever going to happen in a team fight unless she's the last person standing and is fighting 1v1, so you're stuck with either her Q or E, and which one you use depends on the team comps and the situation you're trying to fight. If you're chasing/trying to pick someone off you're probably going to use Q for the extra burst + slow, if you're fighting an AoE or dive comp you're going to use E unless the fight is sloppy and too many people are spread out, in which case Q will probably take preference. There are very set-in-stone flow charts for what ability you're going to Mantra, but with the trade-off that if something changes rapidly you can't adjust accordingly.

You say you want to find a middle ground between her old version and the new, but your proposed changes boil down to "revert her back to her old kit, but with minor changes". I think the changes put her in a better place because she can put out decent damage while still providing the team with utility in the form of shields, move speed, and cc (albeit weak cc, it's good against diving champions because it's a nice incentive to make them back off to try and break the tether or be cc'd and likely destroyed). She can either be bursty or provide the team with utility or heal herself with her Mantra. She can also output very steady DPS so she isn't forced to add the burst with her Mantra like you seem to think she does. Her non-Mantra Q has a 5 second cooldown at max rank with no CDR and does 260 base damage with a .6 AP ratio. Her W also has a .6 AP ratio so you don't even have to max the ability second if you're playing AP Karma as it will get respectable damage without the increased base damage. So if she lands her spells over the course of a team fight she'll put out quite a bit of damage but still be able to give the team great utility.

Willahelm FulberJul 25, 20142 votes

Every karma I've ever seen has always prefered r-q over r-w or r-e, no matter what situation. On old karma, r-e was preferred but on occasion both r-w (engage/disengage with the speed up) and r-q (sustain) were actually useful. On new karma, it's all about the poke and not the massive aoe dps she used to be able to do. Perhaps as a change to old karma (as a rebalance so she doesn't deal too much safe damage) make her shield (perhaps only her mantra'd shield?) only target champions...?

Tapu FiniJul 25, 20141 votes

That's probably my biggest issue with the new Karma. The situations do arise once in a rare while to use something other than R>Q, but they're so uncommon that they hardly deserve an ultimate to work with.

In Heimerdinger, for example, each skill he can Upgrade with his ultimate has a use you can work out in almost every match, The Turret's sustained damage, the rocket barrage burst damage, and the AoE CC from the conc grenade, are all very widely useful. Having said that, Karma's Q is extremely useful to use a mantra with, and the other two are extreme niche cases.

I do agree that Shield Bombing on minions might be too powerful a denial tool, especially against enemy melee champions, when they're trying to farm. If her cone range is extended for Heavenly Wave, and her updated Spirit Link were to gain AoE damage, this may become overwhelming to deal with especially as a melee champion against her. I do agree that it shouldn't be able to target minions for this purpose, and it wouldn't lose its effectiveness if it could only target Champions (and possibly player-controlled units)

Tapu FiniJul 25, 20141 votes

There is a thread that I do take some inspiration from, particularly the berserker mage passive from, however much of the thread is my own, including the reworked skills; unfortunately it got zero attention there, so I thought I'd move it here while reds are around to see it.

Right now the problem I find is that, while yes, there are situations that something other than Mantra'd Inner Flame is going to be useful, their applications are very limited, and 95/100 times, it's going to Inner Flame.

Her old kit was not entirely at fault, and neither is her new kit. Neither of them are completely balanced and healthy, these changes take the best aspects of both and put them into Karma, while strengthening her identity as a Berserker-style support mage with complex gameplay decisions. It leaves obvious counterplay (dealing damage constantly makes her stronger, be ready to devote to a kill or lose a skirmish) and has the strength of situational adaptability in skilled hands.

Boots3PotsJul 25, 20141 votes

Right now the problem I find is that, while yes, there are situations that something other than Mantra'd Inner Flame is going to be useful, their applications are very limited, and 95/100 times, it's going to Inner Flame.

I find the Mantra I use most in team fights as Karma, whether support or full AP, is her E, not Q. When there's an all out team fight the powerful shield and boost to move speed tend to be more valuable than the slow and extra burst on her Q. Like I said earlier there are times to use her Q like when you're chasing them down and poking in a siege situation, or when the fight is sloppy and nobody is grouped up, but the slow and damage are not often enough of a reason to deprive your team of all the utility her Mantra'd E provides. I find it highly questionable that someone would play Karma by using Mantra'd Q in team fights "95/100 times". That's a lot of utility you're sacrificing for a chance at some splash AoE damage that E does a little of and a slow. I don't think there's a situation where I'd want to use Q over E in a straight up team fight where people are grouped unless the enemy team has 0 AoE.

Tapu FiniJul 25, 20141 votes

Unless the movement burst is necessary (again, replaceable with items) the shield is generally more valuable on one, maybe two of a balanced*** team's members. Mantra'd inner fire slows approaching enemies longer for your carries and self, which the shield and focused resolve can provide with or without mantra. I'm not saying the shield is bad, but the situation that you can make it worth using a mantra with is extremely uncommon. (vs. AoE+somewhat grouped fights, or as a group escape/initiate (once again, items can cover that base if you really need it))

Willahelm FulberJul 25, 20141 votes

If someone doesn't understand what Lavitz means by items, he's talking about Locket of the Iron Solari (AoE shield/MR damage mitigation) and Talisman of Ascension (AoE movement speed buff).

And, while I do see the advantages of r-e+locket+talisman, I feel that just the fact that you CAN replace them by items, they're much less useful.

For instance, "when I'm supporting and I see my opposing support has finished mobility boots, I rush mobility boots + alacrity enchantment so that I'm faster." is what I think about when people tell me that r-e+locket+talisman is more useful than r-q+locket+talisman in teamfight situations. The simple fact is that r-q is a zone, even if it misses.

Hyrum GraffJul 28, 20141 votes

Take a look at my reply to Lavitz above.

Hyrum GraffJul 28, 20141 votes

I find it highly questionable that someone would play Karma by using Mantra'd Q in team fights "95/100 times" -Boots3pots

I agree with this. I think what ends up happening is that, as karma mains, we use ult-q so much more often that we forget about our other mantras.

The reason I think we use ult-q more often isn't, though, that there are more scenarios where ult-q is better but just that (especially in lane) the scenarios where ult-q is better happen a lot more (namely, poking and finishing an opponent off with unexpected burst).

Mantra'd inner fire slows approaching enemies longer for your carries and self

It actually just slows them by more (25% -> 50%), not longer (1.5s on both).

replaceable with items -snip-

Alright. I'm going to do some math and argue against this one. For the sake of making things easy, I'm going to do everything at lvl 18 and with my only items being locket(2800G)/talisman(2200G) or FQC (2200G)/Rabadon's(3300G) respectively (I count those as equal because FQC can easily make up the 500 gold difference). Obviously this is in isolation, so these numbers don't necessarily prove anything, they just support my point (see what I did there? ;)

The numbers from the abilities are extra damage or shield you get on top of the basic ability (since you'll be able to use the basic ability, too). I do count the bonus AP from rabadon's and FQC towards my damage difference. This is why, for example, the bonus damage from ult-q is lower than the base bonus damage – because I'm considering the 133 bonus damage that you get on normal q from 221 AP.

|Item/Ability|||||Cooldown|||||Shield|||||MS|||||Duration|||||Aoe Size|||||Range|||||Bonus Damage| |- | item 3190 |||||60s|||||230|||||0|||||5s|||||600|||||0|||||0| | item 3069 |||||60s|||||0|||||40% Boost|||||3s|||||600|||||0|||||0| | item 3092 |||||60s|||||0|||||80% Slow (decays)|||||2s|||||225|||||850|||||140| |Ult-Q|||||25s|||||0|||||+25% slow|||||1.5s|||||250|||||950|||||42/392| |Ult-E|||||32s|||||216*|||||60% Boost|||||4s shield, 1.5s ms|||||800 shield, 600 dmg|||||800|||||433|

*44 extra shield on your target from AP

I think it's pretty clear that ult-e with rabadon's and FQC generally outclasses ult-q with locket and talisman. While a shorter duration, it gives around the same shield (bigger if you've build more AP - because of the multiplicative scaling with Rabadon's), speed boost, slow, and damage, over a larger aoe and from a longer range. This is at the cost of a longer cooldown on your slow (FQC), which can be gotten around by alternating ult-q and ult-e's (and ult-q will do more damage now); you also lose some tankiness from Locket and the MR/regen aura, but those are made up for by the bigger shield, IMO; finally, you lose 20% cdr, but I don't actually view this as a bad thing, since I can now buy a FH or Athenes without wasting cdr.

the shield is generally more valuable on one, maybe two of a balanced** team's members.

The shield absorbs more damage on people who are building resistances, so while it's true that keeping carries alive is a priority, it also allows the tanks/bruisers to be disruptive for longer.

As to focused resolve... yeah, it's only useful in a couple scenarios (solo lane low hp duels, resisting tower dives)