Please stop playing Karma Support....

Stacona·Apr 11, 2016·3 votes·2,137 views

Karma support is the shit that tilts me and I am not even playing in the game, it is a terrible champion to play as support.

Yes Karma is a high damage utility mage, this does not mean she is a support, Orianna and Lulu are also utility mages but this does not mean they should support nor are they good at being pure supports. Because the thing about support is that you have to be strong without gold, that is the number one rule to whether a champion can support or not. Veigar and Annie can support because their base damages are pretty decent and you don't need gold to have high impact stuns and potentially game changing stuns, plus when you play them as support you can choose to suicide jump in just to initiate with their utility they provide or just peel with your stuns (trap/stun for Veigar) since they are also range mages.

Trundle can support because he offers a lot of utility and abilities that do not scale with gold, he can steal a tank's stats makes it squishy for his team to it faster while getting tanky himself, he can steal a flat amount of AD, and of course his pillars are just one of the strongest support abilities you can throw on a champion.

Karma is a great champion and all, but she needs her gold for high amounts of ability power for her shields and damage is effective in a game so play her mid or top, and for all that is good DO NOT play her as a tank there are a million better tanks out their and Karma is so much better as an utility mage with a bunch of AP.

This is here because I am sick of seeing this crap in LCS, all you get with Karma support is a reliability, a gimped champion that does not do anything. She cannot peel or initiate, she is a kiting utility mage and with significant AP she can protect her marksman with her shield while dealing s bunch of damage wtih Q spam and her tether into root into more Q spam (it is a 3.25 seconds root in the late and people are using her for an AoE shield and speed buff which can be done by Locket and the Golden Sun "PRAISE THE SUN").

Before anyone tries to play support Karma in solo queue because you saw the pros do it (WHICH HAS A MASSIVE LOSING RECORD BTW) please do not, just play Karma as a full ability power mage in either top or mid lanes.

19 Comments

Deep Terror NamiApr 11, 20166 votes

Karma is a really good support, comparable to Sona. If you say Karma is a bad support, then you can't say differently about Sona imo.

Unstoppable MonkApr 11, 20161 votes

To be fair, the description of AP laner disguised as a support (aka Sona) can apply to both of them. They are kind of the same class.

IcyPepperApr 11, 20161 votes

Like utility mages, comparable to Orianna and Morgana? Those two can function on their own, but they can also get a lot of power out of their kits when cooperating with their teammates.

Guyy FieriApr 11, 20161 votes

lol it really isn't that bad you just have to know how to play around it. You would need hard CC from top or jungle and your team may have (if you end up being a poke comp more than a team fight comp) wait to engage until some marginal poke hits the enemy. It's not bad, it just is very bad in the classic team comps and play styles that you see in solo queue

SexySoapTurtleApr 11, 20161 votes

How about no LOL. People take braum top and brad mid no one bats an eye.

StaconaApr 11, 20161 votes

Braum should only be played support, and Brand is a mid laner Brand is also a horrendous support why pick him over zyra, annie or veigar

SexySoapTurtleApr 11, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Braum should only be played support, and Brand is a mid laner Brand is also a horrendous support why pick him over zyra, annie or veigar

horrendous yet i still win games with him

Unstoppable MonkApr 11, 20161 votes

OP kind of wrong about Orianna since she's a combo / defense support. Orianna buff from maxing E is now more unique since Taric doesn't have an aura anymore. Before the ranged nerf on Warlords ADC it could mean a free lane.

For tanky lane karma he's kind of 100% wrong because at Diamond level she's an overbuff away from being a tank/bruiser that's more busted than Ekko.

OleandervineApr 11, 20162 votes

{quoted}

OP kind of wrong about Orianna since she's a combo / defense support. Orianna buff from maxing E is now more unique since Taric doesn't have an aura anymore. Before the ranged nerf on Warlords ADC it could mean a free lane.

For tanky lane karma he's kind of 100% wrong because at Diamond level she's an overbuff away from being a tank/bruiser that's more busted than Ekko.

Taric's new Bastion ability is almost exactly like Oriana's Command:Protect. It binds him to his ally, they get 12% of his armor, and when he first casts it, they get a shield for a few seconds.

As for Karma, she's what's called a Poke Support, who's prime directive is to drive enemies out of the lane by the sheer amount of damage she deals to them. Her Q deals considerable damage to the squishy ADC without anything more than the Spellthief Line (on top of a slow), and her W will stun if the enemy doesn't get out of her range, giving her a very adequate zoning tool. Then her E, which is a shield and a speed steroid, both useful to an ADC who needs to close gaps or escape. That's not even adding in the R and the extra damage it adds into her Q and W. Karma is a very good support, and she's been classified as one for a while now. She plays very differently from the likes of Lulu (a primary support, not a utility mage) or Soraka, but she supports none the less.

IxtaliKingApr 11, 20161 votes

her W will stun if the enemy doesn't get out of her range, giving her a very adequate zoning tool.

Her W is a root, if it were a stun the spell would actually be strong. Her W isn't nearly as useful against ranged champs as it is against melee champs.

Karma is a very good support, and she's been classified as one for a while now.

Karma being a "very good support" is a bit of an overstatement, when played bot her supportive aspects are mediocre at best since she's a generalist.

She plays very differently from the likes of Lulu (a primary support, not a utility mage)

Comparisons are always made between Lulu and Karma for a reason, the same things you might want to pick Karma for as a support (poking, peeling etc..), Lulu just does better. Granted Karma's RE is an aoe buff with a currently over buffed shield, Lulu's kit as a support just adds a lot more value. The fact that Lulu can also solo lane very well just contributed to making Karma feel a little redundant.

Ale non è maleApr 11, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Comparisons are always made between Lulu and Karma for a reason, the same things you might want to pick Karma for as a support (poke with no creep blocking, peeling etc..), Lulu just does better. Granted Karma's RE is an aoe buff with a currently over buffed shield, Lulu's kit as a support just adds a lot more value. The fact that Lulu can also solo lane very well just contributed to making Karma feel a little redundant.

Lulu is better at what Karma does on a single target, Karma is better than Lulu for multiple targets...Lulu isn't in a bette rposition at overall, she is just situational better or worse depending on your and enemy comps

IxtaliKingApr 11, 20161 votes

But what comp would you take Karma for that Lulu wouldn't do better in? (As a support)

Ale non è maleApr 11, 20162 votes

A comp that has to counter a strong AoE treat rather than a comp that goes for picks. Or just you are confident to pushe nemies out of lane, and Karma Q/empowered Q does it better than Lulu Q because higher damage/lower CD/lower mana cost, like I have just said above

Both champs are actually pocket/counter picks imho as support, I don't like much Lulu support because basically to poke the enemy you'll end up stealing CS from your ADC and you don't have a lot of safe CC (your W is short ranged, your ulti has ulti CD and your ally or yourself must be on top of the enemy you want to knockup)

IxtaliKingApr 11, 20161 votes

I know as a mid laner I take Karma to be more of a secondary protector, and defending against aoe threats is definitely a strength of hers. Karma is a lot less effective at defending against aoe threats from support though.

Ale non è maleApr 12, 20161 votes

Nah she is pretty good at that as support too. The problem is that as support she has reduced damage past a certain point unlike what happens with mid/top lane Karma and has no room to make mistakes, unlike other supports like an Alistair or Braum that can get away because of their tankiness, because she is so quishy that a misstep and you are gone, and that's why she is very limited to few selected AoE treats (example GP ulti)

Ale non è maleApr 11, 20161 votes

Karma support is not shit, but it made completely non sense with the way IMT was picking thoruoghout the entire series

Karma is good basically only for two things right now:

Pushing enemy support/duo very early out of lane if you can poke them really well with your Q/empowered Q hitting hit every time (and even killing enemies if you can get them get low enough), but if you start to fail or going OoM too soon you are pretty much basically f***ed and you give up a lot of power going forward in the game
Get the global shield and speed boost from empowered E vs some very strong AoE ability which you can protect against (Gangplank ult, Maplh ult, MF ult Ori ult and such) - or evenntually to engage, but it make no sense at the moment since then they could have just go fro Sivir who is super meta right now if they wanted that -

IMT didn't need to force the hand to get the big win early game surrendering power in late game because TSM has always been a good laning phase team even when they were struggling throughout the RS and they have very strong laners barring maybe Hauntzer who is good anyway and can just play tanks in this meta so it's not a problem, and instead IMT has always been stronger late by winning rotations battle and get objectives and winning teamfights And TSM didn't pick once those above mentioned AoE ulti except for the Maokai one, which is not powerful enough to justify Karma pick and TSM both games picked Maokai AFTER the Karma pick, so the almost blind Karma pick doesn't even have a justification

LintheApr 11, 20161 votes

Lulu is a great support. Poke + Shield + Speed buff + Polymorph + HP Ult. What more do you want exactly?

SirShaggyApr 14, 20161 votes

Karma support main here! I don't blame you for being annoyed at the unexperienced Karma players picking her up since she's been played in LCS. Most people don't seem to realize how to properly play a squishy but aggressive support champion. You might not make #LCSBigPlays but you do have to constantly make decisions with target selection, aggression, and your ult. Her playstyle as a support is very different from others which leaves a lot of players either being too aggressive and dying, or standing back doing nothing but shielding. Please don't think just cause you've been having some inexperienced Karma players in your game that she's not a support champ. She can be played extremely effectively in competent hands.

There are two types of Karma supports, AP poke-support hybrids and full support shield-karmas.

The kind that you seem to have a problem with are mage-support hybrids sent to the bottom lane. These are Karmas that build to dominate the early game with their extreme poke, but tend to have problems scaling since they rely on snowballing to keep their AP values relevant. They usually build Frostqueens and Banner of Command (and HOPEFULLY A FUCKING SIGHTSTONE) before going full AP. They also normally use Thunderlords for added damage in the laning phase.

While I agree that this build does fall off harder than a lot of other late-game supports, if done effectively it can easily snowball the bottom lane in her team's favor and even make her a carry herself. For a very long time this was the only Karma build I would play because I'm very confident in my abilities to get a lead going with her and from there pressure the entirety of the map. This build is a lot more greedy and risky if you're not the best Karma player or you pick it into the wrong teamcomp/matchup. This doesn't mean it isn't viable, it's just higher risk versus reward when compared to shield-Karma.

Shield-Karma on the other hand is less dominating herself, but scales much better and provides more utility for the team. Outside of Frostqueens and Ardent Censer she builds more for her allies, grabbing Locket for an added aoe shield and more supportive or off-tank items so she can better peel for her allies and be a nuisance to the enemy team. This build utilizes Windspeakers since it primarily relies around spamming her shields in teamfights. This build is great at allowing her team to follow-up engages, disengage, and provides deceptive survivability to her allies. It's insane how much a difference her multiple Mantra+E's make in extended teamfights later in the game. This build picks up a lot more later in the game when Karma has more points in her E and teamfights start breaking out.

Hope this helps!

creatureplexNov 15, 20161 votes

Yeah one argument annie and veigar are not supports just because people don't want to play an actual support doesn't make them supports they are mages that have a nice stun that's it! Karma is a support, so is Lulu, same with orianna they are supports they have very utility which is what makes a support a good sup not fucking annie and veigar which aren't supports that shit tilts me. I will never play with an Annie support or Veigar or any mage that does not have support under their shit, if they have support than yeah I'll consider it I'll even play with a Kayle or Fiddlesticks before I play with Annie or Veigar reason being I don't like kill lanes I don't like feeling like I have to get kills sometimes your countered. Veigar and Annie have one stun once it's used their is nothing supportive about them!