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Let's talk about Karma.

Tapu Fini·7/25/2014, 12:07:12 AM·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

Boots3Pots7/25/2014, 2:24:39 AM3 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.