Can we have a civilized conversation about where Karma is at and what needs to be done?

Let me preface this by saying that Karma has dropped in win rate this patch quite severely, and is now in the bottom of any champ for midlane performance, and the second to the bottom for support. This patch has seen a severe drop in win rate, and an even more severe drop in play rate. I'd rather not have a conversation about whether Karma needs work.

I would also like to avoid a conversation where people rage at Riot for a lack of changes, or where people glumly state that riot won't do anything, or criticize Riot in any way. I would much rather like to have a conversation on where Karma is at and what she needs.

Some problems that I can identify: -Identity crisis This has been brought up by several people, but it seems to be the biggest issue I can pinpoint. She has the Q of a poke mage, the W of a tank/diver and the E of a support, with an R that simply makes each better, and a passive that simply makes the R better. She has been played (with reasonably consistency) as a top, mid, support and jungle. Because she has so many things she's okay at, she shines at nothing, and there's nothing in her kit that makes her a particularly attractive pick. In short, she is so extremely generalist that she suffers some serious identity issues.

-Lack of high-impact moves With the exception of her mantra'd E (which has been so heavily nerfed it's not even funny) there are no high impact moments in karma's kit. Her performance is extremely consistent, with no real peaks. It's infrequent that someone would say, "Karma's ____ totally won that teamfight". This is particularly bad as a support, because most supports are extremely focused on having a high-impact ult, which Karma does not.

-Lack of skill ceiling Karma is an extremely mechanically simple champion. 2/3 of her abilities are lock on instant effect, and her Q isn't difficult to land, particularly with the Mantra. This is offset by its relatively low range and wide width, which makes it extremely easy hide behind minions and avoid it. Added to that, Karma's kit is extremely anti-kite and anti-engage in lane, particularly if the enemy is melee. She's loaded with an opportunistic heal, a "if you don't get away from me you're going to get rooted", a speedboost/shield and a slow. If karma is powerful, she is oppressive because she is simply too easy to optimize. So now, she becomes difficult because she is comparatively less powerful.

-Awkward itemization Karma's kit simply requires too many stats. CDR and some form of mana regen is a must, in order for her to be even remotely effective. But beyond that, her scalings would indicate that you need AP, but her W requires you to be tanky in order to be effective (rewards the HP stat for the mantra, not the AP stat, and requires 2 seconds in close proximity with an enemy champ) and her E would suggest heal/shield amp. So in order to optimize, you would need CDR, mana, hp, mr, armor, ap and shield/heal amp. That is not a fun prospect. Most often, players just end up ditching the W entirely, only using it as a counter-engage measure, because they can't be tanky enough to use it offensively.

Some possible solutions: -Cement identity around a primary function Old Karma was actually a lot better with identity than new Karma. She was a skirmisher and a battle mage (but she was always sold as a support, which is where the crisis actually came from). She had good clutch recovery and she occupied a role similar to swain or malz as a semi-tanky battle mage, but unlike them, a lot of her tankiness was because of her shield/heal which could be shared with allies.

If Karma is meant to be a utility mage, her W needs to be reworked into something that fits that paradigm and doesn't require such a close range. If she's meant to be a battle mage, her Q needs to be reworked into a lower range skill and her E needs to be given better defensive steroids (perhaps replace speed with armor/mr) or else transitioned into a shield-bomb that requires closer range.

-Remove CDR on mantra and make it more impactful One of the biggest aims of the Karma rework was to make mantras feel more impactful. This failed on several levels because Mantra is up pretty much as frequently (but without the ability to hold 2 in queue). As a result, mantra skills are nowhere close to ult-level of power, except for her E, which required a lot of nerfs because it was simply too powerful for how accessible it was.

This would also allow Karma to have an actual passive, which would help in the process of cementing her idenity. At least old karma's passive (more AP the more hp you were missing) was extremely consistent with her identity (as she had a % of missing hp heal and was a good kiter). Those common threads were wonderful, and are missed in the new kit.

Tl;DR Karma is clearly in a difficult position at the moment, and needs work. Let's discuss how she could be helped in a friendly, reasonable mannor