Boards›Gameplay

Changing Karma's Mantra'd W

Sassmast3r·7/30/2017, 7:30:30 AM·1 votes·545 views

Hey there everyone, Karma main with 250k mastery points on her. I've been maining her since ~early 2016, and while she might have had her ups and downs (lost her E damage on Mantra, W changes, E nerfs), she's been a solid pick for me regardless. Both in terms of her kit and thematic, I feel as if she's in a great spot, but there's one thing that has always confused me about her.

Karma functions very well in the support role, and is capable in mid-lane as well. She pokes people down with her Q (perhaps mantra'd), then when the enemy she wants to kill is low enough, she walks up to them with a non-mantra'd W, quickly nukes them with a mantra'd Q, and either uses her E to run away, or to run towards the enemy if she couldn't finish them off. Sounds cohesive, right? As support, you always mantra your Q early on, but as the game progresses into teamfighting, you have the option of your mantra'd E. However, where does mantra'd W come in?

Karma 's regular W roots an enemy after a brief delay. While tethers have a long history of being annoying to fight against (i.e. pre and post rework LB), I think Karma's is fair when not mantra'd, as it not only has a short root after a delay, but it doesn't do much damage, and it requires that Karma puts herself in a risky position with the prospect of being damaged while trying to root someone. Both in support and mid-lane, I find that she uses it primarily to root someone for the sake of landing her mantra'd Q (where her damage lies). I've never understood why Karma's mantra'd W functions like it currently does though.

Karma's current mantra'd W heals her for a percentage of missing health in the two ticks of damage (initial and final), as well as having an increased root. While the logic behind an increased root makes total sense to me, why would Karma ever use this heal? Karma is a poke mage and/or enchanter support. She shields her allies, has moderate amounts of CC, and does damage (arguably too much in the support role...lower base damages and higher AP scaling where?). But why in God's name would I, a poking mage who wants my allies to be shielded and tank damage/melee brawl for me, need a W that heals me for missing health as if _I'm the duelist? _

I propose a change to her mantra'd W. If players want health to remain a characteristic of her mantra'd W, when she uses mantra, her W should only works on allies, and (after a brief delay), heal them for a percentage of their missing health. This still requires the faux-strategy of having to position yourself with this tether (as its range isn't superb) to try to fully heal your ally without getting caught out, but it adds a support-ish aspect to an ability that I personally never mantra as a support main. I would definitely use this on my ADC early on, or even my late game bruisers/fighters, and the best part is that this works against the part of Karma that everyone hates; a support that does as much damage as a mid-laner!

What do you guys think? I'm sure her Q would require nerfs to balance her out with such a massive change to her W (its base damages would be lowered, and its AP scaling would be increased a tad to still encourage mid-lane karma to some extent). Otherwise, I feel this change would much better suit a champion who, for 6 years has consistently been problematic in the damage department. In fact, this even brings back the concept of tethering an ally, something many Karma mains remember back from 2011-2013. Feel free to leave suggestions below.

4 Comments

IxtaliKing7/30/2017, 12:43:47 PM6 votes

Hey Sassmast3r, 333k mastery Karma main here. Just wanna touch on a couple points:

While the logic behind an increased root makes total sense to me, why would Karma ever use this heal?

I agree that looking at her RW on paper, the increased root looks logical. However in reality it's just wasted power funnelled into something she was never supposed to be good at, lockdown. The fact that RW lost its damage component made this ability no longer optimal when building AP as your core stat, since it's better to just build HP for more healing. The increased root was never a good incentive to hug a threat for 2 seconds, whereas the damage was. I main Karma mid, but even as support I preferred the extra damage in lane, rather than 0.5-0.75s of extra root pre and post 6. Her full potential root is unlocked at 16 and frankly isn't worth the wait since you're not locking down a carry unless they've grossly mispositioned.

In regards to your question about why Karma would use this heal, the answer is to duel. Before Riot changed her mantras she used to be a really good duelist to pick into assassins. Even before her rework in 3.5, she had this identity. She's lost absolutely everything else that was core to her, I don't think she should lose this too.

Karma was never intended to be a "poke mage", she was just reduced to that as a result of Riot aimlessly messing around with her kit. Karma was meant to be a hybrid Battlemage/Enchanter, and her kit should do better to reflect that.

I propose a change to her mantra'd W. If players want health to remain a characteristic of her mantra'd W, when she uses mantra, her W should only works on allies, and (after a brief delay), heal them for a percentage of their missing health.

The idea of RW being able to heal an ally is something most Karma mains, both mid and support can get behind; but not at the expense of her self heal. When Karma targets an enemy with RW she needs the heal, and preferably more damage over an additional root. There's no reason Karma shouldn't be able to RW an ally to donate her heal to them.

Remember Mantra is Karma's defining feature, she has weak basically abilities and strong Mantra abilities to combo with them. Part of Karma's skill curve should be wise and enlightened decision making with her Mantra, and I think having the option to give up your heal for an ally plays into that nicely.

 I would definitely use this on my ADC early on, or even my late game bruisers/fighters, and the best part is that this works against the part of Karma that everyone hates; a support that does as much damage as a mid-laner!

Karma does this damage because she's actually a mage, that's her primary role. This only became an issue when Riot misguidedly pushed her down the Lulu/Janna shield bot route. Of course it's not fair for a champ to have high early damage, then fall back into a playstyle which revolves around cockblocking enemies with huge high uptime AoE super shields. Karma is a mage 1st, support 2nd, similar to Morgana, Orianna and Lux. Karma was designed to be both a solo and duo laner, and was reworked with the same goal in mind. For most of her existence she has been played most effectively in solo lanes, she's just been forced into primarily support by her 5.10 changes.

Otherwise, I feel this change would much better suit a champion who, for 6 years has consistently been problematic in the damage department.

I couldn't possibly disagree more. Karma has never been problematic in the "damage department" ever. Where did you get that from? People complaining about Karma's damage are more of a recent thing, since there are so many new players who think Karma is meant to be some kind of purist support. If Riot were to start removing damage from her now after everything else they've done to her, she'd be 100% finished, trashcanned.

In fact, this even brings back the concept of tethering an ally, something many Karma mains remember back from 2011-2013.

<3

Birbonius7/30/2017, 9:39:38 AM2 votes

Well,if you get dived or the one who focuses you is faster,mantra W saves you better than mantra E.

I play Karma mid in low elo,i tried tanky karma build and most times,if i had to protect only myself,the W heal was way better than E shield,and if you do W heal you can still use your non-mantra'd shield :D