On Karma: FQC/DC > Talisman/Locket

There was a thread, Let's talk about karma, where I did some analysis that I figured some of you might be interested in. Here it is.

Tl;dr, Talisman+locket+ult-Qis very similar to FQC+DC+Ult-E. By almost any metric, the latter combination is better.

I think that, as Karma mains, we use ult-q so much more often than our other ults, that we forget how good they are, and just default to using ult-q all the time instead of making real decisions. I think we use ult-q more often because the scenarios where ult-q is better happen a lot more (namely, poking and finishing an opponent off with unexpected burst).

The argument against ult-e runs that if you're going to do that, you might as well just buy locket/talisman. Here's why that argument fails.

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| |- ||||||60s|||||230|||||0|||||5s|||||600|||||0|||||0| ||||||60s|||||0|||||40% Boost|||||3s|||||600|||||0|||||0| ||||||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.

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

If any of you don't understand how I came to a specific number or think I messed something up, leave a note in the comments and I'll look into it.