I Fail To See How the Rework Improves Karma or Her Mage Identity
What the rework is doing in regards to how Karma interacts in a solo lane and as a Mage:
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Taking away the ability to be more aggressive with auto attacks and skillful with weaving auto attacks into getting Mantra up quicker. This was honestly probably one of the only things in the VGU kit that actually made Karma more interactive and gave her more to do. As a solo Karma main I liked throwing out my abilities and Mantra abilities, but also having to weave in auto attacks to get my Mantra back up. Instead this was taken away for a passive that functions like a Frost Queen item passive that brings Mantra up more often. The interaction Karma once had was 10x better than a passive that just rewards the Karma player for sitting in the back until the new passive is up again.
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Front-loading more damage on the initial hit of Mantra Q. When Karma could actually land a successful Mantra Q on an enemy, it hit like a truck. The reason why Karma hits so hard is because all of her power had to be budgeted into Mantra Q because it is technically her only straight forward damaging move. The problem with Mantra Q has never been the damage but the functionality and how bland it is. Mantra Q is Karma's only real damaging move, it is blocked by minions and everything first hit, it has a fixed range that cannot be placed on the ground, and the second tick of explosion damage is hard to pull off without hard CC. Karma's only heavy hitting and damage move requires her to be in the right position, if she or an ally can land any form CC, and if there are no minions in sight.
Riot Game Developers haven't touched the functionality of Mantra Q ever and have done nothing but buff the ability into oblivion. The ability got a stronger slow, the second tick of explosion damage was increased, and the initial damage of Mantra Q was buffed previously. The Developers have literally tried everything to make this ability work, but number buffing the ability again is the answer.
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Mantra W will still lack the hard CC Karma needs to actually be relevant as a mage. Let's be real here and say that the reused concepts from Old Soraka and Zilean are a better idea than the Mantra W on enemy cast that they are just number buffing. It's really a slap in the face when there was so many possibilities they could have done with the ability itself, but the only thing Riot Game Developers did was give it a better ally function. Karma still has hardly any damage options, the heal on Mantra W really doesn't require any skill to pull off, and Karma will continue to have irrelevant CC compared to every other champion in the game. The Mantra W change does nothing but bolster Karma even more towards the Support role and force her to sit in the back and refresh cooldowns and shield.
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Mantra E exists on item actives and champion kits. Developers are literally missing out on the opportunity to do almost anything unique with Mantra E but they don't want to. I don't know why they think this is the most amazing concept on this champion to keep around, but it clearly hasn't been working Karma's favor for the past couple years. The ability has been reworked, nerfed, and buffed more than anything else in the kit. It's not working. SHIELD BOMB DOESN'T NEED TO COME BACK BUT SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE TO THE ABILITY TO MAKE IT MORE UNIQUE AND INTERESTING TO KARMA AND THE GAME. We literally have champions that can shoot abilities and auto attacks off of shielded allies, shields that grant attack damage, shields that allow the user to dash to allies, shields that shoot out and come straight back, shields that explode with damage, and so much more. The only concept Karma can have on her shields is massive AOE protection with a speed steroid. It's really not that special when the effect can be replicated on two item actives.
What to do:
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Give Karma some sort of auto attack passive and just move her current passive over to her ULT. The auto attack interaction with Karma's current passive feels fine, makes her more involved in fights and in teamfights, and actually requires skill to manage Mantra effectively. I don't see why Riot Games is removing this part of the champion that actually feels good. I mean we are getting a new passive that just promotes her to sit in the back until Mantra is up again. How interactive and fun to play with and against is that?
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Don't even think about front loading any more damage into this ability. Mantra Q doesn't need any more damage. The functionality and how this ability works needs to actually be addressed. Actually having the ability to land Mantra Q in a more skillful and unique way would solve the problem of the ability. Make Mantra Q ground targetable, lessen the range on it a little bit, remove the healing on Mantra W enemy cast and put it on the explosion of Mantra Q that heals Karma and allies inside of it, and increase the explosion damage of Mantra Q late game when AP is built. For Karma to even have a chance to compete with other mages and push like them, she needs to actually be able to push. Front loading more damage into the initial hit of Mantra Q does nothing but make her a poke mage that has to actually wait for the opponent to make a mistake. Changing the actual functionality of Mantra Q and giving it another purpose solves the problems with the ability. I don't know why we think the current form of Mantra Q with just another number buff is being called as a healthy alternative for the champion. It's not.
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Keep the horrible Mantra W mechanic on allies. I don't care at this point. What I care about is the lack of actual hard CC for Karma on Mantra W and the fact that they are literally doing almost nothing on the ability itself on enemy cast. Out of all the options this ability could have had and what could be changed, it's just receiving another number buff. The ability itself is literally the most underused ability in Karma's entire kit for a reason. Besides the abused healing from Mantra W, the ability is lackluster and horrible in comparison to the possibilities it could actually bring to the game and Karma.
Examples: Damage redirected tethers. Karma could have the ability to redirect damage being done to her back at enemies through some sort of interesting tether connection. She could have the ability to tether to an ally and then quickly tether to an enemy or even a minion to redirect damage away from her ally.
A pulsing Mantra W that grows in CC and damage the longer Karma is connected to an enemy.
- Mantra E needs to be completely changed. It's a horrible concept and it needs to go or Iron Locket of Solari needs to go. There will never be any difference in Mantra E or the item active on Irion Locket of Solari no matter what Developers do to Mantra E. The ability has been number buffed into oblivion and then nerfed, it is not unique, it is a game health issue constantly, and promotes Karma to do nothing but be a shield bot.
Examples: Damage redirected shields with no AOE shields or speed steroid. When placing a Mantra E on Karma or ally, damage done to Karma or the ally will be redirected back at the attacker and a brief slow will be applied.
Bringing back shield bomb in some manner.
Placing a massive shield on the ground that sits in one spot.
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We seriously need to do better as a community and hold these Developers to a higher standard. They spend months and years working on the same champions but neglect and can gives two crackers about actually addressing problematic champions. This is especially the case of kits and reworks they know are not very good. This Karma rework will result in her being exactly in the same spot she is in now and getting a revert. Bottlenecking Karma into the Support role and not actually addressing the horrible functionality of some abilities, lack of unique concepts for Karma and the game, and lack of damage options and hard CC is not addressing a single problem with this champion. The rework is doing nothing but number buffing the kit again for the 16th plus time and giving Karma a gimmick instead of an actual properly functioning and unique kit.
