Boards›Gameplay

Small needed Karma Changes from a 670,000+ Mastery OTP

Bladeleaf·5/28/2018, 11:25:00 PM·2 votes·1,880 views

A quick Legend for those who don't want to google Karma's kit:

Q: Skillshot poke. W: Tether that roots in 2 seconds if not broken. E: Shield + Speed boost. Mantra: Her Ultimate empowers Q, W or E.

  • Mantra - Q: deals has more damage+AoE+Range(Also hits twice)
  • Mantra - W: heals Karma twice if tether isn't broken
  • Mantra - E: shields for more and part of the shield + speed boost goes on allies

Karma's Rework put her design wise in a healthy place. She has a unique kit, a unique ult mechanic and I don't think she needs a rework at all. What Karma needs are small number tweaks and I can explain why.

Karma's current kit has great synergies, each ability works with her other abilities to pull off several possible combos.

  • You can E to land your W and Mantra Q. Ensuring both hits of Mantra Q land.
  • When you're not focused you can Mantra E your ally, pick up the speed boost in combination with a Q to slow your enemy and land your W. Then Q when the W ends to add 5 seconds of cc, a shield and speed boost.
  • Or if you're a tanky Karma (or maybe just trying to survive the gank) You can Mantra W and use E+Q to stay at the perfect range to land the heal.

These things work great together. Each Mantra choice has a useful combo with strengths and weaknesses. For example when you are alone you don't want to Mantra E. When you are in a teamfight and not being focused you don't want to Mantra W. And Mantra Q is inferior to both in their niche situations.

So far everything's healthy. What's not is Karma's numbers. The reason people feel like she's a bad poke mage is because Karma has only one ranged ability (like old Nidalee.) That one poke ability does not have enough damage tied into it.

Which is fair, getting Mantra Q'd for half your life is not fun. It's a low CD ult with decent range and AoE. Paired with her speed boost Mantra Q can be hard to dodge.

What needs to change is the second hit on her Mantra Q. Every champion hit by Mantra Q can walk out of it even without boots, but if Karma or her team forces you to stay in with CC or by making you not walk in a straight line, then you deserve to be punished for it. Hard.

The other thing that needs to change is the damage on her W. Maybe also reduce it's casting range (NOT it's tether range) a little to emphasize the All-In nature of using Karma W offensively. Having almost all of Karma's damage baked into her Q is unhealthy. It takes away her dueling potential in bot lane and solo lanes and makes her too vulnerable to mages who out range her. You aren't adequately rewarded for dodging skillshots and going in close. (Against some mages like Syndra you're actually punished for using your W.)

So that's my two cents from a Karma OTP.

12 Comments

jocomotion5/29/2018, 12:23:54 AM3 votes

What about changing her % missing health RW heal to something similar to Ekko, where the heal is flat, but increases by x% per x% missing HP. This way support and mid lane Karma can more effectively use RW while tank Karma has a harder time abusing it.

I’ve just seen a LOT of people recommend that.

IxtaliKing5/29/2018, 12:49:17 PM2 votes

Karma's rework definitely put her in a healthier place (at least initially), it's what they've done since that's problematic. As for having a "unique" kit, I don't see it:

Q - Basic linear skill shot with slow. W - Point and click LeBlanc snare. E - Shield with a MS buff. R - Makes basic spells stronger. A cheaper Heimer Ult without her duality theme.

As a whole her kit is functionally very similar to Lulu:

Q - Linear skill shot slow. W - Point and click disable or AS/MS buff. E - Shield with on-hit buff. R - HP buff with knock up and slow.

Karma is basically the solo-lane version of Lulu.

Karma's current kit has great synergies, each ability works with her other abilities to pull off several possible combos.

I agree, but don't you think those combos could be expanded upon? Karma's kit and title (Enlightened One) promises deep decision making, but doesn't deliver nearly as much as it could. At the moment Karma's kit is shallow, and requires inflated numbers to keep her afloat.

What needs to change is the second hit on her Mantra Q. Every champion hit by Mantra Q can walk out of it even without boots, but if Karma or her team forces you to stay in with CC or by making you not walk in a straight line, then you deserve to be punished for it. Hard.

Are you suggesting a damage increase on the second half of RQ?

The other thing that needs to change is the damage on her W. Maybe also reduce it's casting range (NOT it's tether range) a little to emphasize the All-In nature of using Karma W offensively. Having almost all of Karma's damage baked into her Q is unhealthy. It takes away her dueling potential in bot lane and solo lanes and makes her too vulnerable to mages who out range her. You aren't adequately rewarded for dodging skillshots and going in close.

This is yet another issue introduced by the 5.10 changes. The damage component on RW allowed Karma to be more of a dueling threat and gave her an incentive to stay within retaliation range of her enemy. The extra root we have currently carries no such incentive and does little for her in terms of gameplay, beyond legitimizing her tank build.

So while I can see why you'd think she only needs some number tweaks, fixing her will require more than that. At the very least she needs the small mechanical changes Meddler mentioned previously, as she's too heavily dependent on numbers to be functional.

Raiokun5/29/2018, 11:29:19 PM2 votes

Good luck. I do enjoy seeing the same 10 people in the comments but the way league is heading the only changes I see coming up for Karma is some hard sheild nerfs.

5.10 fucked her hard, and because of the current mana changes she's now unplayable in mid due to a lack of attention (Morg Annie Brand Zyra and even freaking Zil got buffed) Riot hasn't replied nor I think looked at these forums anymore. But the ideas that I see do hold some water and give her some presence/diversity. It just sucks that we don't get a single 'We're looking into this' reply from anyone. Maybe another two years?