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RIP Karthus

Roy Stang··3 votes·619 views

Today Riot hosted a Q&A on their league community stream in regards to the balance of the game. After about 30 minutes of answering questions about Ahri and Riven they answered my questions about Karthus. Which was "will he be included in the mage rework". Meddler replied "he has an identity, he is a pretty good dude" unfortunately a 46% winrate is not good. Every champion has an identity, this doesnt make any sense to me. The real question is, is that identity actually BALANCED? I have mained Karthus since s2 and atm he is at his weakest point. A mid laner playing lux, talon, ahri, fizz and zed for their first time has more impact on the game than a player with 3k ranked Karthus games and is top 10 in the region. The main issue with Karthus is that he has no strong points in any phase of the game. His Q is too difficult to hit (yes even with Rylais) and it really doesnt do that much damage anyways. His W is pretty trash after the nerf. His E does pretty insignificant damage. His R is his ONLY ability that is somewhat OK yet it is too easily countered by a 1.3k item (hexdrinker) and steraks. It just really saddens me seeing Riot not caring about a champion and thinking he is "ok" when they obviously do very little research into him.

The "identity" of Karthus is to go in and die at a decent spot. Yet without any mobility this is incredibly difficult to do. At that point im relying on flash to do it for me. The passive is inherently flawed because you cant "carry" if your main component is to go in and die. This is the main reason its so hard to carry and get that win.

18 Comments

Miror B3 votes

As someone who mained karthus for a while, I definitely agree that something needs to change with him. Unlike other mid-laners, his power starts off incredibly weak and doesn't scale well at all even with tear/roa builds. His stickiness to champions is incredibly low, and even after he dies he can't actually do much due to the limited passive. If they really wanted to fix him, adding better scaling to his abilities and slightly changing his passive so it stops after 5 seconds of being out of combat would make him usable without making him OP. Karthus

Roy Stang1 votes

{quoted}

As someone who mained karthus for a while, I definitely agree that something needs to change with him. Unlike other mid-laners, his power starts off incredibly weak and doesn't scale well at all even with tear/roa builds. His stickiness to champions is incredibly low, and even after he dies he can't actually do much due to the limited passive. If they really wanted to fix him, adding better scaling to his abilities and slightly changing his passive so it stops after 5 seconds of being out of combat would make him usable without making him OP. Karthus

Nothing will change. Riot refuses to acknowledge that Karthus is an awful champ. I would love to see a response from them and tell them what I think because they honestly have no idea the state Karthu sis in right now.

Vesarixx2 votes

I may not main Karthus but when I have played him it didn't seem like he was in that bad of a spot, not necessarily in the best spot but not the worst either, his late game is incredible, if you can get there I found I was able to melt entire teams, actually I'm looking for some good team fight champions to add to my champion pool so I might start playing him more often now that you bring him up.

Roy Stang1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Raith alghul,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9yf9hAQX,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2016-03-03T03:54:12.006+0000)

I may not main Karthus but when I have played him it didn't seem like he was in that bad of a spot, not necessarily in the best spot but not the worst either, his late game is incredible, if you can get there I found I was able to melt entire teams, actually I'm looking for some good team fight champions to add to my champion pool so I might start playing him more often now that you bring him up.

Dude you're silver 4 and have never played Karthus. Why are you even posting?

Vesarixx1 votes

I played him a fair bit in season 5, I'm saying you seem to be exaggerating his current state a bit, he's not top tier by any means, but he could be in a much worse spot than where he is now.

Roy Stang1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Raith alghul,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=9yf9hAQX,comment-id=000400000000,timestamp=2016-03-03T04:33:19.277+0000)

I played him a fair bit in season 5, I'm saying you seem to be exaggerating his current state a bit, he's not top tier by any means, but he could be in a much worse spot than where he is now.

Gee! Good thing you played him in your super high skill silver 5 games! Please! tell me more.

Vesarixx1 votes

If your only argument is the other persons Elo, then you have a seriously weak argument.

[slayer-jinx-catface]

blackcat13001 votes

Be nice not everyone plays ranked.

This person just doesn't understand the what it is like to play Karthus against an assassin or with a jungle that ignores mid. Karthus is all about position, patience, Mana conservation and punishing your opponents mistakes.

Plus summoner 13 did more damage then summoner 14 and it is gone.

So many times they though I had no mana and Died and did he get any changes to his mana regen or bace mana or max mana no!

The other ap champs did not him. Then the wall nerf for no re-season except people found it annoying so it had to be made to be more like Echo's; witch has a higher base slow and is also a stun.

Ozag the Mighty1 votes

I've seen Karthus go top more than mid lately, I dunno why but it's what I've seen. Karthus like you said is a great champ but not alot of people play him because his lack if utility...unlike tanky ad divers ( garen, j4, riven) Karthus is a diver the only down fall is he's gonna die no matter what and ya gotta be spot on with his position which is even harder if you have a vayne aaing you before you get to a prime spot.

I think some tweaks to his kit would help but right now he's easily countered, has no escapes, and like you said his damage isn't great unless he ults. Honestly right now I think I see him more if a support than a straight AP killer.

WalkingInACircle1 votes

You're going to hate me for this, but you have only yourself to blame for raising my curiousity:

What did they say about Ahri and Riven?

Or is there a link to this Q&A?

Elisza Kitsune1 votes

You forgot item 3157 also counters Karthus's ult

Roy Stang1 votes

{quoted}

You forgot item 3157 also counters Karthus's ult

So many things can counter his ult its insane.

Elisza Kitsune1 votes

Yeah and tbh I think he's mainly suppose to be a lane bully but the mana costs set him back

blackcat13001 votes

I made a post just for this subject on

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/bWuGATZE-karthus-requiem-counter

Their are 3 items and as of March 5, 2016 37 champions that can neutralize the damage from a Karthus ult.

"by reviving healing shielding ect... " I even mad a matching game to see if you could match the champ with the description.

blackcat13001 votes

They neffed Karthus's wall recently for no reason at all. Karthus is a champ with a pick rate of 2% and a win rate of 49%, It takes high skill to be even be decent in game not amazing like the LCS players and Faker.

Your either trash, bad, good, Dimond, LCS, or Faker level with Karthus.

Champs like Lux have a 20% pick rate with a 52% win rate have a low base skill and never get nerffed.

Karthus does well competitively and gets nerffed season 2 all over again.

blackcat13001 votes

this is another idea i had posted a wile back for a Karthus update.

Karthus is missing something to make up for certain falls in the mid game. So I would like the to add a stacking passive to defiled. Passive each kill give you a stack, max 5, each stack gives 1,2,3,4,5 per cent spell vamp Active when toggle on defiled he gets bonus % of ability power to all abilities you toggle off defile. You then loose all stacks and you loose all stacks at the end of death defied.

I think this would be a nice revamp to an old champ and would allow him to return to the pro seen. I would help to prevent early game magic resist shut down and help give karthus back some damage. I would increase his skill cap suitability and would not make him over powered. with max stacks and having defiled on you can have 55%/75% Q 55% E and 75% R This could be redused to only 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4 Q. I know the ult seems op but late game if it doesn't kill someone life steel usually negate the damage.

I would also like to see 2,4,6,8,5 spellvamp per-stack and 1,2,3,4,5% bonus ap to all ablities. Since you only gain stackes when defile is toggled off and loos all stacks when toggled from on to off, this max for a fun mechanic.

Max stack 200ap change lv 1-5 Wall 5%=10 10%=20 15%=30 25%=50 Defile 25%=50 30%=60 35%=70 40%=80 45%=90 Lay waist 35%=70 40%=80 45%=90 50%=10 55%=110 Lay Waist single target and ult 65%=130 70%=140 75%=150 80%=160 85%=170

Max stack 1070ap change from lv 1-5 Wall 5%=535 10%=107 15%=160 25%=267 Defile 25%=267 30%=321 35%=375 40%=428 45%=482 Lay waist 35%=375 40%=428 45%=482 50%=535 55%=588 Lay waist single target and ult 65%=695 70%=749 75%=803 80%=856 85%=909 %ap could be change to .5,1,2,3,4

Or they could add DFG's effect to his wall of pain and give it an area of affect that if an enemy champion would dash, flash, or tp in the area of the wall excluding Warwick ult they would instantly get teleported in to the wall and stunned for 1.5 sec.

Similar to how Poppy has a wall that stops the dash this one redirects you in to the wall giving Karthus more depth. I could even be renamed _Torn Vale of Eternity _

You know he is warping the space between life and death thus DFG's effect on wall would make seance as would the warping effects on dashes and tp's.

blackcat13001 votes

they could even change his Q's so they deal double damage large jungle mobs and champs as aoe damage and triple damage to single target large jungle mobs and champions. NOW Lay Waste Cost: 20/26/32/38/44 Mana Range: 875 Karthus unleashes a delayed blast at a location, dealing damage to nearby enemies. Creates a delayed blast at Karthus' cursor position. After 0.5 seconds, deals 40/60/80/100/120 (+30% Ability Power) magic damage to each nearby enemy, this deals double damage if it hits only a single unit.

                                                _**Patched **_

40/60/80/100/120 (+30% Ability Power) aoe minions

80/120/160/200/240 (+60% Ability Power) single minion and aoe to champs / large jungle mobs

120/180/240/300/360 (+90% Ability Power) single target champion and large jungle mobs.

this would do a lot of good and would keep him from out farming but give him that early game damage he needs.

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

He has an identity he just needs buffs no rework is needed at all no idea why he would need a rework.

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