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Revision: Karthus

Varnoc··20 votes·2,176 views

The Deathsinger. League's resident Lich, Karthus suffers from a problem that many of the older mages have at one point or another: lack of mobility.

This isn't to say that this is a bad thing, or even something that needs to be solved, a lack of mobility can be an intentional weakness on the part of designers to clip otherwise overbearing damage or utility. The Juggernauts are a good example of this, very little (or telegraphed) mobility, but high damage.

The difference between the Juggernauts and Karthus however, is that they can afford to take a hit and still be functional. Sure, he has his passive for when he inevitably dies. However, who wants to play a champion who's focused on dying to be effective, and when people stroll out of your meager range to spam emotes, Karthus' lack of power really hits you in the face.

The Object of this "Revision" is to give Karthus the tools to be on par with other champions during life. No champion should be required to die (and thus give up resources and pressure) in order to be effective. I'm trying to push him towards a Battle Mage style of play, while pushing him away from the suicide bomber role he's made for himself. For those of you that care to compare, here are his current spells and base stats.

Speaking of base stats, the only thing I'd suggest changing is his health and health per level, for a champion that should be in the thick of things, he is incredibly fragile. I'm not saying bump him up to tank levels, but he needs to be a little thicker.

P - Death Defied When Karthus dies, his soul leaves his body after a 1 second delay, leaving his Phylactery behind on the ground where he died. Karthus becomes a Wraith for the next 7 seconds, moving about freely, becoming untargetable and invulnerable. Karthus can use items and summoner spells while in this form, and the duration of Death Defied is extended by 3 seconds if Requiem is activated during Death Defied.

During this time, enemies can attack the Phylactery to cripple Karthus's spirit form, briefly slowing him. If it is destroyed before Death Defied ends, Karthus's spirit is immediately destroyed, and Death Defied ends. While in his spirit form, Toggling Defile switches the effect between Karthus and his Phylactery.

The Phylactery gains all of Karthus's bonus defense statistics (Armor/Health/Resistance) and mimics the effects of any items he currently possesses (Sunfire Cape, Thornmail, Etc.). When the effect ends, Karthus's death timer is reduced by up to 50%, based on the final health of his Phylactery (1% reduction per 2% health). The Phylactery is considered a champion for the sake of spells, but is not targeted by Towers unless no other targets are available.

The idea behind this version of Death Defied is to give Karthus more freedom with his passive while also introducing consequences should he leave his Phylactery (which is an item that Liches bind their soul to, they're normally invincible unless it's destroyed) undefended. If Karthus successfully defends his Phylactery, he will return more quickly than other champions, especially in the later stages of the game, truely Defying Death. The delay gives people a chance to react to the effect (and makes it so you can fit a cool animation in there and a quote "THE SHELL MEANS NOTHING!"), allowing for more power to be put into the ability (namely the ability to move).

The idea is to have the Phylactery be fairly soft as a target when Karthus builds Glass Cannon, while adopting the defensive statistics he gains from items to make it stronger. Being able to use things like Seraph's Embrace, or Zhonya's Hourglass to defend the Phylactery while you move about as Karthus will also give him options to defend himself.

Q - Lay Waste ACTIVE - Karthus detonates the target area in the direction of the mouse cursor after a 0.5-second delay, dealing magic damage to all enemies within. This damage is doubled if it hits only a single target. If Defile is active, the cast time of this ability is ignored.

The cooldown of this ability is unaffected by Cooldown Reduction

  • Cost - (20 / 26 / 32 / 38 / 44) Mana
  • Cooldown - (1) Second
  • Range - (875 / 200) Cast/Detonation
  • Magic Damage - (40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120) + (30% AP) (+0-45% AP based on CDR)

Lay Waste. A fantastic farming and harassment tool (if you can land it) in the early game, it can be the cause of some problems later against more mobile opponents for two reasons.

First, champions can often simply walk out of the effect before it detonates. Second, each time you cast the ability you stop yourself for a short moment. Every once and awhile isn't such a big deal, but when you're trying to chase or kite, the time it takes to cast this spell really adds up.

The damage increase for building cooldown reduction may seem strange for someone glancing at the effect (and in fact the numbers can get kind of crazy on a glass cannon Karthus in the late game), but keep in mind that the cooldown is no longer reduced by CDR, so if you were to run the numbers for his DPS, it would remain roughly the same. The difference will be that individual Q's will hit much harder than they would on live, but would be less frequent.

W - Wall of Pain ACTIVE - Karthus creates a wall at the target location that provides vision around it, slowing enemies that pass through it by an amount that is reduced after 1 second, and further decays over the next 4 seconds.

The value of the Reduced Slow is equal to half of the initial slow, and increased based on their missing health.

  • Cost - (100) Mana
  • Cooldown - (18) Seconds
  • Range - (1000)
  • Wall Length - (800 / 900 / 1000 / 1100 / 1200)
  • Slow - (40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80%)
  • Reduced Slow - (20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40%) - (30 / 37.5 / 45 / 52.5 / 60%) Based on missing health.

As Karthus's only natural CC, this ability is going to be very sensitive to changes. I've removed the -mres because while it fits with the ability's theme, I feel this can be acquired elsewhere via items should it be required in a game. It's difficult to say what kind of an impact this will have on Karthus without playtests, but because this effect isn't around for long enough to make a significant difference against targets that you'd really need it against (Read: Tanks and Beefy Fighters) due to their health pools I suspect it wouldn't make much of a difference in the long run anyway.

His slow now scales with the target's health when they encounter the wall. A target hit with the first rank of the skill, who is at 50% health, would be initially slowed by 40%, and the slow would then reduce to 30% for the remainder of the duration. Using the same target, but with 5 ranks into the ability, they would be initially slowed by 80%, which would then reduce to 60%. Thank you to those that took the time to discuss the subject with me to

E - Defile PASSIVE - Karthus regains mana upon killing a unit.

TOGGLE - Karthus deals magic damage to all nearby enemies each second. Cooldown Reduction reduces the time between ticks of this ability, yielding higher damage in a shorter period of time, but also increasing the rate at which mana is consumed. While Defile is active, Lay Waste has no cast time.

  • Mana Restored - (20 / 27 / 34 / 41 / 48)
  • Cost - (30 / 42 / 54 / 66 / 78) Mana per Second
  • Range - (425)
  • Magic Damage - (30 / 50 / 70 / 90 / 110) + (20% AP) per Second

Largely the same, but Defile now scales reasonably with Cooldown Reduction, allowing him to put a greater portion of his mana pool to use more quickly in later stages of the game. Lay Waste also has no cast timer while Defile is active, allowing Karthus to kite effectively if he has the resources to do so.

R - Requiem ACTIVE - Karthus channels for 3 seconds and, upon completion of the channel, deals magic damage to all enemy champions.

Karthus cannot move or deactivate Requiem after starting the spell until the channel ends or is interrupted.

Cost - (150 / 175 / 200) Mana Cooldown - (200 / 180 / 160) Seconds Range - Global Magic Damage - (250 / 400 / 550) + (60% AP)

This one I didn't see any reason to change, It's acceptable, the cooldown may be a little high, however given that the rest of his abilities now scale much better with Cooldown Reduction I don't see it being as much of an issue. The Mana cost could probably stand to be normalized, but I'll leave RIOT to decide that.

That's all I've got, I've been thinking about this for awhile and I'd love to discuss these or other ideas with you on the subject, How do you envision Karthus?

29 Comments

SociopathFriend3 votes

Just a small issue but- you kind of screw over the ultimate I think- don't you? That's one of the assurances of Karthus, your ult can't miss- and if you cast it from death you can't be interrupted- but with your passive change Karthus' phylactery can be destroyed well before he gets off the 3 second channel. If he's behind he's going to stay behind because if the enemy takes him down quickly they'll get his phylactery just as quickly too.

Now true, you gave him a shield for his phylactery, but almost everyone in the game can just auto from outside of the range. The only people it would be a danger to would be melee champions- and they're going to be massively hard-put against a moving Karthus with an E in the first place.

Varnoc2 votes

You bring up a very good point. In theory, you could indeed destroy the Phylactery to cancel the spell, however with the ability to move around while within Death Defied, you could easily zone them off should they try to hit it with your altered abilities while they try to do that, all while generating a shield for the Phylactery, once sufficiently zoned, you'd ult in safety, and with the added benefit of re-spawning in half the time.

Of course with ranged opponents this can be an issue as they can kite you a little more than melee are able (with some exceptions).

At the end of the day though, this should really be a decision on the part of the Karthus player. Do you go glass cannon and run the risk of having your Phylactery destroyed if you try to ult during your passive, or do you build a little bit tankier to avoid that?

This being said, you can still activate items like Zhonyas from Death Defied, so a common thing may be activating that, then ulting to ensure that it goes off.

da glorious1 votes

That shield sounds a lot like morde when he was op. Also, if karthus can zone off and take the damage of 3+ people and get far enough away to ult in only 4 seconds(passive lasts 7 seconds), then he would be a little too op.

Varnoc1 votes

I would tend to agree with you on the shield possibly being strong if not for the fact that it only occurs when he's dead. The Phylactery's health would likely be very low at most stages of the game (though it scales with defensive items and their actives!), there's not really anything like that in the game right now, so it's hard to put numbers to it as an amateur. Though once again, I'd like to point out that in this version, things like Zhonya's active, or Seraph's Embrace's actives would go a long way to securing the time needed to ult.

Something that I think may be reasonable to do however, is allow Karthus to ult at any time during Death Defied, and simply extend the duration of the effect for the length of the channel. Would you prefer this approach?

Earthlord Jazz3 votes

I love the idea. My gut feeling is that these changes would make him really strong, but I'm open to the idea.

I really hope he's included in the immobile mage rework with some of these ideas

Pikmints1 votes

He fits the bill to be included, so I'd be upset if he wasn't. I have to agree with the notion that he may be a little strong with these changes, but some minor tweaks could be done if that's the case.

My main problem is how his W+E interaction giving him near infinite kiting potential against melee units and still some strong positioning-based kiting against ranged champs. Because of the interaction between the proposed Q+E, I could see it be changed so that he needs to hit an afflicted target with his Q in order to refresh the slow. It's short cooldown could still result in perma-slow, and a Karthus would still get about 3 chances to refresh the slow before it wears off.

His passive changes seem really complex for a passive. Where some champs have different spells for different forms and some have a new ability when they die (Sion/Zyra), he'd get an alternate spell set for his passive and that seems a bit much. It seems like a stronger version of his current passive as he still always has his E up but he can blink it to another location, his Q becomes much more reliable, and his W/R seem unchanged. It would also force players to either attack the phylactery and tank the corresponding damage or run and likely be chased until it naturally dies making it more likely to deal damage than Sion's passive but have him not deal as much. It adds counterplay to his passive which I like, but I think its potential is too great as listed even if it removes the guaranteed ult after death.

My other concern with this is that the shield on his E may be too nice for him, but that could be number tweaked into balance. Aside from that I think this keeps his identity the same and would put him in a better spot than where he is now.

Varnoc1 votes

I totally agree that the changes are a little overboard here. In a way this is intentional, it's much easier to tone back power than it is to add new things to make up for a lack of it.

I've changed how W works with it's slow, so the E interaction being a permaslow won't be an issue at all, but the fix you proposed for it is really solid, and I kinda wish I had thought of it to begin with.

It's really hard to judge the power of the passive right now without playtests, which I sadly can't really perform. It's difficult to convey the reliability of the Passive Q without this, so I don't know how it would play out, but if it's an issue I don't think there would be an problem with returning it to the normal version.

The main thing I'm getting from these comments is that it's fairly good, with a few things that could be really dumb. Comments like this really help me flesh it out, thank you.

ModAcademy Kayn2 votes

New Passive bringing back Revive Karthus (Rip 2014/15)

Chespin20132 votes

karthus is fine the way he is

Varnoc2 votes

There will always be people that feel this way about particular champions. The idea here isn't to say that he needs changes, he's certainly fine the way he is, perfectly playable.

The idea here is to stimulate discussion on what his kit could be, if we took the theme of "Lich" and "Deathsinger" further than it is now, while updating a fairly old design that the game appears to have evolved past.

I'm personally of the opinion that while Karthus is in a decent spot right now, there are things that could be done that would make him fantastic. I love his voice acting though, that is about as close to perfect as it gets.

Chespin20132 votes

except for the fact he is fine the way he is and his kit doesn't need changes because it totally fits that of a lich and that their is no point to change anything about him

MAN OF INTELLECT2 votes

The shield seems a little overwhelming. The Q interaction with the E is a very nice touch that I agree and believe should be added. That little stop is VERY annoying for any Karthus player.

Oftentimes, there is a multiplicative effect when several buffs are applied to a single champion in one patch. A wholesale addition of all of these changes will probably Karthus OP.

Cloth Armor1 votes

Play someone else

Varnoc4 votes

I think you may have missed the objective of the post. The point was to provide Karthus with a more up to date kit to compete with other champions. What I have here is only supposed to be a starting point for a discussion.

That being said, do you think that Karthus is fine as is then? Or do you have something else in mind? I'd like to hear your opinion.

AATTRROOXX1 votes

Karthus: the new and improved AP juggernaut.

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Varnoc1 votes

{quoted}

Karthus: the new and improved AP juggernaut.

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Glad to hear you like it!

Tobsters1 votes

Amazing idea man keep it up.

But, you know I always wished Karthus would get a rework as he is in abad spot. He focuses on dying, lacks mobility and has short range on his E, but when they nerfed him last patch, I lost hope...

RipReviveFkRito1 votes

He's been off-meta since season 2 as far as i can remember, the game has gotten too fast for him, and all he's got are nerfs (thanks rito), nice Visual (forced by the chinese because spooky scary skeletons), mage items went in price, there are far more abilities that outright deny his ultimate, teleport nerf, and the list goes on...and of course the change that made me hate rito (hence username change) revive removal item 3070 Karthus

RisenDarkKnight1 votes

I feel like this is too many small (and a couple large) buffs that would make him too OP. The new passive idea is great, but the 100% shield generation on the e would be OP (that's basically a swain ult for teamfights that can't be reduced by grievous wounds), and reducing the delay on q while also removing the cast time is a pretty enormous buff. I feel like all of these changes together would require lowering all his damage numbers to make him balanced, which would be no fun.

I think the new passive and the e ticking every half second instead of every second would be enough changes. Riot would have to rebalance him completely to give him a shorter q cast/delay, refreshable slow, and a strong shield. Maybe the shield should only work during his passive to protect the phylactery? I think skilled karthus players would be too strong with the q buffs. 50% potential reduced death timer is a bit much as well. Good ideas though.

Varnoc2 votes

I've changed the shield to only work during the passive as you and others have suggested. I feel like the interaction between E and Q should stay (removing the cast time), but the detonation time can go I suppose.

What is your opinion on Wall of Pain's new effect? I'm looking to change it, as there has been some outcry against the slow refreshing. I'm thinking about making it slow projectiles that pass through it by a percentage (they'll still travel the full distance though).

RisenDarkKnight1 votes

I think the slow refresh is probably too annoying against certain melee champions, and it would make item 3116 passive pretty useless on him. Slowing projectiles would be a really neat idea!

Posui Gart1 votes

I hope you do understand that right now lategame Karthus can kill everything that is not tanky with 2-3 Qs, and that is without counting his E and ult. And he has nothing to waste(like other skillshot mages) with his 1 sec cd Q and E. Its not "if enemies walk away from your passive-it is wasted", it is "if they don't walk away from your passive-they are dead". And his build has enough survivability(ROA, Rylai, Barrier, Seraph's shield). He is not a "suicide bomber", he is a walking death on the battlefield that can deal tons of damage even if focused, so he pays with his mobility. And, to be honest, after Rylai all your enemies are also paying with their mobility. The only counter to him now is to quickly focus him and run away from his passive, and you are removing this only counter. Killing philactery is too hard as it has shield and Karthus' soul bombards your team with long Qs

Changes I would like to see are:

  1. Q now has a static cooldown, but its damage is increased by CDR(so instead of firing Q every 0.6 seconds with 40% cdr, you are now firing that Q with 1/0.6=1.67x damage every 1 sec)
  2. E now ticks faster with CDR(both damage and mana consumption), these 2 changes will make CDR Karthus viable
  3. Ult now hits untargetable enemies(but not immune, so it will hit Fizz in his E or Yi in his Q, but not Zhonya'd enemy or Lissandra in her ult)
  4. If Karthus kills someone while in his passive-it prolongs for something like 2 seconds Maybe not all of them, but 1-2 would be nice
Varnoc1 votes

I do understand that Karthus can kill fools later in the game with a few well placed Q's, the problem I've had most times attempting this was that the detonation was so slow that they could walk/flash/ability out of it so easily it just ended up being a wasted spell, while they fired their damage back at me and I fell over like a rotten tree.

The other option I had in mind for his wall of pain was slowing the speed (but not the total distance traveled) of projectiles that passed through it, do you think that would be better than the potential perma-slow he has now?

In regards to your bullets:

  1. definately an option, the reason I went with reduced detonation time is so that the Karthus player could choose to have his Q be more reliable by building CDR. Many of the options we have as Mages for CDR costs us raw power to get, so with the items we have now, that would be reasonable.
  2. I considered it, but it ends up punishing Karthus for building CDR in a way, while yes, it does end up dealing more damage, your mana consumption skyrockets, so I was uncertain if people would be okay with that.
  3. This is one of those things that people could debate forever, so I'm not going to touch it.
  4. If we were to keep his current passive, I'd be cool with this.
Posui Gart1 votes

Well, slowing projectile speed may be a good thing, but right now there is no spell that does something like this so im not sure if this is fine. And anyway this wall is for champions, not projectiles. Maybe something like "if enemies with lesser than 30% hp pass through the wall they will accept their fate and stop casting/attacking for 1-2 seconds" in addition to current(or slightly nerfed) slow About your comment to 2nd option-well, CDR items have manaregen, and usual Karthus build includes ROA+Seraph resulting in 2000-2500 mana lategame, and earlier your E isn't maxed anyway and drains mana slowly(compared to Anivia or Swain)

Varnoc1 votes

I suppose by the end game that's really what you'd want from Defile, just having it deal more damage over a shorter period of time would be solid, mana that you hold onto after a fight is wasted mana basically. I'll change that here in a moment.

For Q, do you think that the cooldown of the ability shouldn't be reduced at all (as in a static 1 second CD), and just have it increase damage instead?

On the subject of WoP: What if the slow decayed less the more damaged enemies were? For instance, at rank 5, the slow is 80%, our target is half hp, so the slow would reduce to 60%, instead of 40% like normal. That would fit in really well with the name of the ability in my opinion without throwing him overboard with power.

Posui Gart1 votes

Yes, its better to have static 1 sec cd. It also indirectly increases his mobility(he stops to cast less often). If this is too much-maybe make that cdr scaling weaker(so its not 1/(1-cdr), but 1/(1-0.5x cdr)), but i doubt it. About the wall-thats actually good idea. While it is not that powerful at lanephase(when you usually cant land your Qs without wall), in teamfights it gives you a choice: either use it at the beginning(when everyone is full) or keep it to the end(when enemies are not full and will receive longer slow), but without wall at start you lose that -mres and slow for free Qs, so its "low risk for weaker slow or high risk for stronger slow".

Varnoc1 votes

I was kinda torn about the change to Q, but after running a few rough numbers, the damage stays about the same (which makes sense when you think about it). So I've changed that in the OP. The difference will ultimately end up being that single Q's will tend to hurt more when you land them.

I'm glad you like the Wall change, I've just edited that in as well. I did remove the -mres from the ability from the get go, should I reintroduce that now? The kit seems fairly fleshed out at this point, and seems like it could afford to regain that.

(I did tone down the passive too at the request of others, now only E really has any special effect during it, though you can still cast Q while moving around, due to Defile being permanently active)

Ninja Edit: Thanks for working on this with me by the way, you've been the most helpful thus far, I appreciate the discussion we've had.

Posui Gart1 votes

To be honest, I have no idea if Karthus would be too strong with all these changes even without -mres. I think it would be nice if Karthus in his dead form received +ms while passing through the wall, its not even that great of a buff since it usually ends before he dies. It adds a bit to the "unescapable angry soul that tries to get revenge on its killers until it fades away"

Varnoc1 votes

It could be cool if he got +Ms for each target he hit with the wall, further rewarding proper placement. I do agree though, only so much can be done without playtesting it, making it extremely difficult to adjust without having that. Hopefully there's a Immobile mage rework soon and at least a handful of the stuff here is considered.

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