So why exactly was Karmas rework bad?

they made her a jack of all trades no particular niche.

old Karma had a unique gameplay based around Tethering yourself to an ally and using them as a catalyst for your abilities while also growing stronger at lower hp's making her a character that excelled with great brinkmanship and one that excelled with synergistic teamwork.

NEW Karma is basically just a mid-range mage with a shield tacked on. She does everything from crowd control to damage without actually having a really unique playstyle. No more extra AP @ low life. no more tether. no more gigantic burst shielding nukes or healing based on missing HP.

Shes basically just a poke damage/shield battery who spams non stop on her opponents while being incredibly frustrating to fight or chase down. in other words its about loss of gameplay Identity and transformation into a generic mess.

She feels completely overloaded and overtuned in what she does .I mean her Mantra Shield is basically a Sivir ult on a like 10 second cooldown. no really

look it up both Mantra shield and Sivir ult give 4 seconds of 60% movespeed however Sivir actually has to scale into it.

EDIT: http://imgur.com/uEfZL4r

1. Its incomplete. It doesn't have any animations for her casting her shield or when she runs fast, even though they are in the game's files.
2. Her playstyle is really oversimplified. She used to be a mage who could shield her team and still do damage, but now she's just a shield bot with a strong lane-phase
3. They removed her shield-bomb, a core part of her kit that many Karma mains loved, in patch 5.11 which caused her to become this boring shield bot support like Janna except with even less interactivity, at least from the Karma's part.

1. Duality theme not maintained, or at least drasticly lessened. Previously, her passive+Q/W/E all tied into this, now its jsut her W and a very, VERY minor part of her E.

2. Just came out of nowhere without so much as a heads-up to the playerbase. This along with Riot (Scarizard I think) ignoring most feedback for the PBE duration made a lot of people upset.

3. Speaking of making people upset, the fact that she was re-released in a pathetic state did not help people's opnion of the rework. I seem to recall it takign something like 8 straight buffs before she reached even a reasonable place.

4. Identity changed a lot. She went from a short-range battle-mage type to a midrange poke-mage.

Personally for me it's the drastic change of theme/character that left a bad taste and made me feel disappointed in what could've been considering how the recent reworks Riot had been quite successful in keeping a champion's identity intact while introducing new mechanics. Now granted Karma was reworked back then when Riot was pretty green with the rework process so I'll remain hopeful that they'll revisit her in the future to give her the treatment she deserves.

Karma went from a close-to-mid range mage to a long range poke enchanter/support. All her abilities could potentially deal instant AoE damage (with tether you have to maneuver around to hit everyone with it) and could heal AND "hurt" allies and enemies. Before Lulu there was Karma. She was the original champion with spells having dual uses. Only difference is that Karma's spells can do both simultaneously whereas Lulu has to pick one or the other. Heavenly Wave damaged and healed those in a cone. Spirit Bond hasted or slowed whoever she targeted and provided the same effects to those that got tagged by the tether with the addition of damaging enemies. Her Soul Shield, originally, would only shield one target but dealt damage to surrounding enemies. Mantra back then would unlock secondary effects for her abilities instead of enhancing the current effects. Passive gave her a boost in strength as she takes on damage to try and turn the fight in her team's favor. To unlock her full potential in fights, you'd have to literally be in the fights and position yourself so that your spell's dual effects are utilized. It's because of how her spells worked (and her range) that she teamed up really well with Tanks/Initiators/Melee champs.

Everything came together really beautifully to paint Karma as this unwavering spirit with some tricks up her sleeve. She was deceptively tanky with her passive and can easily turn the fights with her heals and shields recovering/maintaining her health as she dealt damage to her enemies at the same time. You could pull off unsuspecting and surprise comebacks with her old kit. Her lore enhanced the fantasy further by describing her as this elegant and harmless politician/negotiator who can maintain great composure during times of great duress. She could literally mediate and weather pain in any form, clearing her mind and summoning the will to keep fighting. With that otherworldly feat of hers she would inspire those around her to continue fighting and to push through. Her enemies came to respect her indomitable will, calling her "The Enlightened One". She was very unique in her previous iteration that people were upset she got turned into another mage/fighter with the rework.

Because they Taliyah'd her. Or rather, Taliyah was Karma'd to a less severe degree.

Old Karma from the stories I've been told used to have a very unique gameplay and identity but was changed to something more generic purely for the purposes or making her more appealing the the lowest common denominator, which is sad really especially given Riot's recent crusade to cement every champion's unique identity, Karma was ( ironically given her name) the original champ to have hers deliberately robbed form her.

Personally as someone who does enjoy current Karma, I would have fell in love with the old one and am saddened I never got to play it.

She became less of a masochist thats why lol She was the AP version of Olaf basically except she got AP for having less health.