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Karthus: Not as underwhelming as you think.

Elindiir·8/8/2016, 2:15:33 AM·2 votes·745 views

Everyone I talk to says that Karthus is a crappy champion that has most of his value in his R. However, the more I play him, the more I realize that it is not his R that you need to fear, but the synergy between his passive, W, and E. The vast majority of guides I see show full AP as the way to go, trying to achieve 800 AP or so and tons of CDR to power his ultimate... However, this isn't where his effectiveness truly lies. When I look at his kit, I really begin to see that he is really meant to be the guy that walks in first in a teamfight, lay down a W in the enemy backline and letting your E supercharged by Rylai's, Liandry's, and Abyssal, along with a bit of Sunfire Cape damage.... and when they finally do bring you down, you laugh as you use your ultimate and continue with your swirling horror for another several seconds as a middle finger in defiance... and in the fact that they focused you instead of that Jhin, whose 4th shot suddenly hurts really badly... or that Master Yi, who cleaned up, or that Veigar that just ulted the poor guy that managed to survive....

Most do not see Karthus as terrifying, but do you?

(tell me your stories or your views on this subject and I don't mind criticism as long as it is constructive... I don't like it when people say things like "get gud", or "ur garbage" without solid backing. I do enjoy explained counter-arguments even better than agreements because i can be shown something from another viewpoint and can actually learn from such.)

6 Comments

Aeszarck8/8/2016, 3:17:40 AM2 votes

I think it's a combination of his simple kit that also unintuitively has an extremely high skill floor that makes him underplayed. He's a lot like Vayne, except instead of outplaying his opponents, he just needs to land skillshots, which isn't as exciting. What makes him seem weak is his laning phase. If you go read any middle laner Mobafire guide with matchups, you'll see Karthus down as an almost non-threat. Whether it's Galio, Katarina, Ahri, Brand, or Pantheon, a majority of champions crush him in lane. His poke is hard to land, his autoattacks have a considerable windup animation that makes AA harassing difficult, he's really slow, and has almost no solo kill pressure. His only crowd control is a slow, which doesn't stop flashes. He also has no burst combo. Getting to 35% health when facing a Xerath and then getting stunned means that you're dead. He can get a dead center Eye of Destruction hit, follow up with Arcanopulse, and then autoattack for additional damage. Karthus lands his Wall of Pain, and then uses Lay Waste. Over and over and over. Enemies can flash away, and even if Karthus flashes up to reengage, Karthus still isn't guaranteed the kill because he needs to hit a few more good Lay Wastes. This leads to him being a passive, middle ranged laner who might be able to force some champions out of lane with good harass, but rarely gets solo kills. He's prime for getting solo killed or ganked himself because of his lack of hard crowd control and slowness. So he seems to be an easy opponent.

That is, until late game. With the spammability of his Lay Waste and the impressive damage it causes with high amounts of ability power, Karthus can destroy teams easily. He also gets a lot of almost guaranteed team-wide damage off with his ultimate. He's a nightmare when fed or even just properly farmed. I think a lot of people forget about this late-game stage of Karthus and only focus on his abysmal laning, which makes him seem worse off than he actually is.

Cherysse8/8/2016, 2:33:28 AM1 votes

Oh finally someone that understands the power of Suicide Allahu Akbar Karthus, it can be specially obnoxius when the enemy has to push and they see that you are by no means afraid of them.