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An idea for a Karma rework to solidify her identity

Koechophe··4 votes·1,181 views

There's been a lot of talk on the boards about Karma recently, specifically that her rework was something of a failure (we all kind of knew that) and that her kit is bland. This is my idea to spice it up and bring home her identity. I would love to play this kit. (sorry if I offend any Karma fans, I know you two are important).

Passive: Duality With every basic ability, Karma alternates between Darkness and Light. While in Darkness, Karma's basic abilities only effect enemies, While in Light, Karma's basic abilities only effect allies (including herself). Casting a spell in Dark mode puts Karma in Light mode, and vice versa.

Mantra'd abilities affect both allies and enemies, and work regardless of Darkness and Light.

Q: Inner Flame Cost: 60 mana Cooldown: 7/6.5/6/5.5/5 seconds

Darkness: Karma fires a bolt of energy that explodes on contact with an enemy, dealing 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260 (+ 60% AP) magic damage to all allies hit and slowing them by 25% for 2 seconds.

Light: Karma fires a bolt of energy that explodes on contact with an allied champion or minion, healing all allies hit for 20/35/50/65/90 + 6% (+1% per 100 AP) of their missing health. If Karma is within the explosion radius, she is healed as well.

Mantra: Soulflare Karma fires a bolt of energy that explodes on contact with the first champion hit. Enemies are dealt an additional 25 / 75 / 100 / 175 (+ 30% AP) magic damage, and allies are healed an additional 20/40/60/80 + 1 (.5% per 100 ap) health. After colliding with a champion or reaching its maximum range, Soulflare leaves behind a zone that slows all enemies inside by 50% and deals after 2 seconds, deals 50 / 150 / 250 / 350 (+ 50% AP) to enemy champions and heals allied champions for 25/100/150/200 + 6% (+1% per 100 ap) of their missing health.

W: Focused Resolve Cost: 50/55/60/65/70 mana Cooldown: 12 seconds Darkness: Karma forms a tether between her and an enemy champion, dealing 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 (+ 90% AP) magic damage over the duration and granting true sight of them. If the tether is not broken for 2 seconds, the enemy champion is snared for 1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8/2 seconds.

Light: Karma forms a bond between her and an allied champion for 2.5 seconds. While the bond is unbroken, Karma and her ally gain 10/12.5/15/17.5/20% total movespeed and 20/22/24/26/28% tenacity. Displacement effects that would pull either ally out of the bond instead deposit them at the outer range. An indicator is shown for the range of the bond.

Mantra: Reversal Karma channels for .75 seconds to form a bond between her and any champion within a 400 range, ally or enemy. Karma only gains the stats from one such bond.

E: Inspire Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana Cooldown: 10 seconds Darkness: Karma places volatile energy within an ally champion or minion that explodes outwards after .5 seconds, dealing 90 / 130 / 180 / 220 / 270 (+ 70% AP) damage to all enemies in a 500 range.

Light: Karma shields an ally, absorbing the next 90 / 130 / 180 / 220 / 270 (+ 70% AP) damage for 4 seconds.

Mantra: Additionally, Karma's hidden fans surround the target, causing the shield to grant 30/35/40/45% damage reduction while it holds, and fire an additional wave of damage out at 2 seconds, dealing 50% of the damage of the first wave.

R: Mantra Cost: No cost Cooldown: 45/43/41/40 seconds.

Karma empowers her next ability with perfect balance between light and darkness, allowing it to cause additional effects.

Goals: -Add more diverse gameplay that centers on the idea of finding balance. -Preserve Karma's ability to fit into almost any team comp, but make her generalization more about being able to adapt through gameplay instead of having super-general moves. -Bring back elements people missed (%of missing health heal, skill shot heal, shield bombing, fans in some way, shape or form). -Allow her kit to shine more in a support role, while preserving her ability to play solo lanes.

Notes: -Mantras are no longer reduced by spell casts (since that wasn't really interactive at all; it just encouraged you to do something you're already doing) making the cooldown significantly longer, and thus allowing them to be much more powerful. -Shield bombing is back, but in a different form: her E is always cast on allies, but half the time it does damage, half the time it shields. -Karma also has a skill-shot heal again, but you have to stand next to a minion or a champ to use it on yourself. -Solo-lane Karma would be interesting, has good waveclear through E but might struggle while in light form. I think it'd ultimately work well. -E is now a viable first-level option again, instead of being forced into always leveling Q. -Karma's W mantra-ult is like a much lower ranged morg ult, with less power, less damage, and less impact (snares instead of stuns, based on W levels which almost certainly would get leveled last), but with the added bonus of helping allies too. -%of missing health heal is back too, but takes finesse to use.

Over all, the kit is centered around balancing light and darkness, and finding enlightenment within.

Upvote and comment if you like it. Don't worry about the numbers, the idea is whats important here.

15 Comments

FurriesAreHot3 votes

There is nothin wrong with Karma

Koechophe6 votes

Except for the fact that her skills are all incredibly basic and there's no real reason to pick her over anyone else. There's nothing she can do that other utility mages (lux, zyra, orianna) can't do, as well as providing their own game-defining mechanics and moments.

Also, love how you didn't even read the post; you commented literally 15 seconds after it got posted.

Danyul Targaryen3 votes

{quoted}

There is nothin wrong with Karma

You obviously don't play her

Quepha1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Danyul Targaryen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3Zdy7EME,comment-id=00000001,timestamp=2016-03-10T13:21:16.197+0000)

You obviously don't play her

50% winrate in mid lane while also seen in the occasional pro game. That actually sounds like the IDEAL point of balance.

Danyul Targaryen4 votes

{quoted}

50% winrate in mid lane while also seen in the occasional pro game. That actually sounds like the IDEAL point of balance.

No one is saying she isn't balanced its that her kit is Boring and has no identity

Quepha1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Danyul Targaryen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3Zdy7EME,comment-id=0000000100000000,timestamp=2016-03-10T16:51:54.065+0000)

No one is saying she isn't balanced its that her kit is Boring and has no identity

I like her current kit.

Vanjie5 votes

This is the same person that attacked me. This imbecile likes the current Karma, which is fine. Unfortunately she/he isn't going to take ANY constructive criticism. All he/she is going to say is "Karma can still do that. Karma is fine she isn't boring. There is nothing wrong with Karma." When the entire community and Developers have said she is boring, bland and not unique. Don't take anything this rock head has to say seriously.

Quepha1 votes

{quoted}

This is the same person that attacked me. This imbecile likes the current Karma, which is fine. Unfortunately she/he isn't going to take ANY constructive criticism. All he/she is going to say is "Karma can still do that. Karma is fine she isn't boring. There is nothing wrong with Karma." When the entire community and Developers have said she is boring, bland and not unique. Don't take anything this rock head has to say seriously.

Sorry that you can't handle when someone states objective facts.

Danyul Targaryen5 votes

{quoted}

I like her current kit.

U don't play her

qetzel3 votes

I don't think this will work gameplay wise. It will lead to situations where your best move is to waste a spell to switch between darkness and light. It will also make Karma incredibly difficult - the mess up potential is huge! There might also be clarity options. Given that Karma will change so much in the middle of a fight it will be hard to work out how to deal with her. That isn't to say dealing with a champion should be easy - you should have to work for it - but some of the most frustrating champions to play against are those that it is hard to work out how to deal with them (for example, Heimerdinger's during the laning phase, Zed if you don't know that he will always appear behind you when he ults).

SilverSquid1 votes

I kind of agree.

It's not that I don't like the darkness/light element (I once wrote a champion concept about one too, with nearly the identical passive, but having resistances (black hair) or magic pen (white hair) in the different stances), but for it to work, you need to build the kit around it. Adding it to a kit, as tempting as it might seem, just won't do the trick.

Karma is about the spellchanging mantra. This is what we should build on. For a stance-switching mage you would need one basic ability to switch between stances without problem, that can be incoporated in combos. The mage I was working on for example made gravity cubes (on AA) that his other abilities interacted with. The other two basic spells could then be comboedeither way easily, as this spell would always do the same. The ult would just add another layer of depth to combining his abilities.

I scrapped it by the way, because the gravity cubes work too similarly to Syndra's balls.

What I am trying to say; I like the idea of making Karma great again reworking Karma and I like the idea of this light/dark stuff. But not on the same champion.

Rakka Kaze1 votes

If anything I like that the new bond acts as a form of anti-grab/divide.

My question is, would that mean that karma could DRAG her ally thresh-style if they were displaced+stunned, or would it simply break if she tried to move out of the bond range?

(The Two-Faced spells + full effect for mantra seems... interesting I guess.)

Valderis Vandala1 votes

I like your light/dark idea of switching between modes with every ability cast. I hope to see such a idea implemented in a champions kit one day but I don't know if I want to see it on karma.

Riot take notice please.

EDIT: Makes me think of that weird ying yang looking champion(s) concept I saw some time ago.

Quepha1 votes

This sounds like it fits into what Meddler said about "polarity kits" a couple days ago. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/9LeEYAbM-meddler-what-about-an-ultimate-that-can-knockback-or-vacuum-based-on-a-condition?comment=0001

They've also talked about how they don't really like the idea of skillshot heals

MisterShameless1 votes

Someone had an idea of releasing an evil version of karma to give a better ying yang idea. It was a simple idea, just give the evil twin the original karma kit, except make her w better.

Personally I enjoy the Karma we have today. She is perfectly balanced, but two things stick out. Her W is weak and she has bad wave clearing. I agree that they should improve her Q, but that will effect her role as support. One thing a lot of karma mains point out is that you risk pushing the wave if you are trying to freeze for what ever reason. What's worse, her only sure poke without pushing the wave is her W, which has short cast range with a good break range, but deals very minimal damage. They should focus more on fixing her W for any role by increasing the range of casting and breaking. I'm sure increasing the Q impact radius will be great for any other role, but for support for the reasons stated earlier.

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