Karthus Wall of Pain Nerf

Hello all!

I'm a long time Karthus player, and he's my most played champ by far. When I read the patch notes of the most recent patch, I was dismayed, but I didn't think it would affect Karthus too much in game. After playing a few games with him, I have to say that the nerf actually affected him quite significantly (moreso in laning phase than late game, but still noticeable then as well).

For those of you that don't know the nerf, Wall of pain's "slow drops to half effectiveness after 1 second". While this may not seem like a huge change, it essentially makes Karthus' laning phase even harder than it was before. Karthus only takes 1 point in his wall early on too, meaning that the slow will essentially be nonexistent after 1 second. Karthus now has a much harder time calling in jungle ganks without any "real" form of CC anymore (the slow is nonexistent, try it in a custom). If you're up against an aggressive mid laner, wall doesn't really discourage them from diving you either.

Karthus as a champion has always followed the motto of "go neutral in lane, win late game". Nerfing the wall has made going neutral in lane even harder than it was before. It said in the patch notes that this nerf was also based upon allowing players to have an easier time dodging Karthus' Qs. Honestly, I can say with 100% certainty that good players who were slowed by Karthus' pre-nerf Wall of Pain managed to dodge his lay wastes quite effectively (they just had to move in unpredictable ways). The new deathfire mastery may have also contributed to him being nerfed, but with that mastery getting nerfed in the same patch, Karthus has been hurt in two ways now.

In summation, this Karthus change was not needed. Karthus isn't certainly doing poorly in this meta, but he's also definitely one of the top played mid laners (I'm looking at you Brand). The nerf just seems so arbitrary, just like the last Karthus nerf I can remember (a .10 AP ratio nerf on his E, which may be the only other change to Karthus in the past 3 years). I strongly urge you to either revert this change, or at least allow more time before the slow's speed decays to half.

TLDR: Unneeded Karthus nerf. Hurts him in all parts of the game. Arbitrary change in a meta where Karthus isn't at the top.

Thank you for reading!