Karma's Ability Changes are HORRIBLE - KILL Viability

Orbv·5/14/2015, 5:01:22 PM·5 votes·956 views

Q is a buff because she gets more frequent Mantras from it scaling. That's fine, she's already underplayed, this will make her very strong enough to get popular.

W being minion targetable is great. Jungle Karma is a thing, and healing off of minions makes it so much better,

Mantra'd W ---- RUINS Solo Lane Karma and CRIPPLES support Karma. She goes from 40% of missing health healed, to 20% of damage dealt..in 2 seconds. Then it removes 75/150/225/300 (+ .6 AP) bonus dmg in place of 10% total damage............

Karma before scaled her heal with both health and AP. Ignoring AP, Assuming Karma has 800 health but was brought down to half, 400. She would heal 160 health. The New Mantra'd W, would heal 20% of 60/110/160/210/260 + 1 Q 80/125/170/215/260. If both Q and W were rank 5, she would heal 104 health. At level 13, which is what she would be maxing 2 abilities, she is healing 104 damage no matter how close to death she is.

The 10% of damage dealt in 2 seconds makes no sense. That number is so miniscule compared to the amount that she loses, that you would need to coordinate to use it with a mage for it to have any relevance. 10 health every 100 damage versus 75 to 300 dmg scaling. Have fun having your team spend 3000 damage on a single enemy to make up the difference.

These changes should have been reviewed by many more people to help point out how ludicrous this is going to make her.

She's becoming a blur in the list of supports because she's losing her uniqueness. In place of damage, burst healing, she's getting her ability to kind of heal other allies something lower than herself and more frequest mantras to continue only using it for Q.

18 Comments

Avious5/14/2015, 5:53:11 PM6 votes

For all the damaging options they removed they should at least buff her Q or W scaling so that midlane Karma doesn't wither...

Vistha Kai5/14/2015, 5:10:38 PM5 votes

I say that as a guy who had Karma as 2nd most played champion last season:

If that's how Riot wants to help Karma, they should not help her at all.

Hupsis5/14/2015, 5:28:20 PM2 votes

They buffed passive so that solo lane Karma can be deadly more often.

R+W changes are probably still kinda unfinished. It seems like it doesn't scale with mantra ranks at all which is odd. Objective taking is so much more effective if you have your team with you. I think an increase to the base damage of W would be nice. It seems awfully low considering the mantra version increases it only by 10%. From 60/110/160/210/260 to 80/135/190/245/300 would be nice. Also it seemed like the first tick was't increased by the 10% damage bonus from the mantra when I tested it on PBE.

R+E change is nice. You are able to shield huge bursts with it. Played a game on the PBE and late game I shielded a full Nunu ult completely on one target and the others took like half of its damage.

Windfallen5/14/2015, 5:38:38 PM2 votes

I already maxed w last as support and mid lane karma. She traded this weird HP scaling heal and some bonus damage for a huge buff to her passive and empowered shield. Not to mention she's benefitting a whole lot from rank 1 w as a support. Can you imagine how beefy this shield will be? Its also got a bigger aoe shield for nearby allies. IThese changes are tentative and already looking good to me. She can't have her current w if it works on minions.

Sohleks5/14/2015, 5:08:58 PM1 votes

I wish mantra W would keep some bonus base damage, especially early game. As it is now mantra W is very powerful early game and does equal to comparable damage to mantra Q until we put more ranks into R. I want mantra W to maintain its usefulness for solo lane Karma early so it's not always about mantra Q all day. Mantra W having comparable damage early is not something I realized right away when I first played Karma and it's nice to know about this optimization of play.

Lorinne5/14/2015, 5:16:51 PM1 votes

I don't think it cripples support Karma at all. 10% damage to the target, still rooting them, and healing 20% of damage dealt to you and to any allied champion attacking is pretty good for a support. It's more beneficial to the team, as opposed to Karma herself, which is good for a support. Solo lane Karma will probably suffer, but I read that the changes were geared towards supporting so that's intended (although unfortunate). Her mantra'd W was kinda useless to supp Karma in the sense that it offered no benefit to her team only to herself; this change gives it more utility. Also, these changes aren't final. Depending on the PBE phase, the numbers will be tweaked. So don't sharpen your pitchforks just yet. lol