Being a Karma main (thus hopefully giving my thoughts some credibility), I totally agree with you actually. I I think her W should function much differently because she's not a fighter. She's a mage. Give her some legitimate CC. A root for .5 second (unless Mantra'd) is alright I suppose, since her Mantra'd Q is where her power is (primarily). Mantra-ing it, however, should not give her healing at all. If anything, not even longer CC, since she doesn't even need that for landing her Q - it would only help the flare-up from the second portion of it (which typically doesn't land anyways because people aren't retarded and now that they should not stand in it).
If you ask me, her Mantra'd W should simply APPLY the .5 second CC twice as fast, as that would be most helpful and would actually force Karma to consider what she's doing. You want to land a Mantra'd Q's second part? You'll have to hope that your .5 second root is long enough and that the enemy doesn't escape. You want to make sure the enemy does NOT get away? Then too bad, you won't be getting any damage off afterwards, hope you brought your team with you. Even with max cooldown reduction, this modification to her Mantra'd W would not be abused to the same extent that the unnecessary 20% healing is as of late.
I would also argue that her E should give an initial speed boost that then DECAYS over x amount of time. I feel as if the biggest issue with her E is that, at 45% cooldown reduction, I can mindlessly spam that shit left and right and guarantee a few kills for my team simply due to the speed boost. Why in God's name am I using my shield for something other than shielding someone? If it absolutely has to give any movement speed, it should be either a smaller amount, or (Preferably) at a decaying rate once cast, but it certainly should not be a Sivir ultimate when used with Mantra, and an individualized Sivir ultimate when used w/o Mantra.
One final nerf that I think would really bring her in line is a shift in power on her Q. Nerf the base damage of her Q, in exchange for slightly higher ratios on the non-mantra'd and mantra'd form. I should NOT be playing midlane and buying things like Ardent Censer and Athene's along with some tanky items - those are for supports. However, due to it's (her Q's) high base damage and only 60% AP ratio, along with a terrible additional damage ratio when Mantra'd (unless you're lucky enough to land the detonation portion of it), why the hell would I even bother building damage? I've got base Q damage already, and shit if it's only going to do a little more damage when Mantra'd, why not just get a whole bunch of cooldown reduction so that I can use it all the time anyways; who doesn't want a better slow?
I totally understand that Karma is supposed to be a hybrid champion, and my bias versus those types of champions influences that last point I made quite heavily. Frankly though, I have yet to see a hybrid champion that is equally as viable in both of their roles, not broken in one because it takes advantage of it's capabilities in it's weaker role. And besides, the changes I proposed would not throw her out of midlane, rather work more efficiently in the support role, and require more talent as the Karma player if one chooses to go midlane with her.
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