Karthus Modernization

Greetings,

Prelude: Jobent on NA here. I'm a hardstuck gold Karthus main with a little over 900k mastery on the champ (chasing my 1M). This isn't a rant about my inability to climb or Karthus needing buffs. It's just a discussion of how he might be better off moving forward.

I personally find Karthus's treatment to be a bit sad. Runes Reforged has turned him into an afk ult bot moreso than he's ever been. Buffs to his ult in damage and CD are nice as a Karthus main but do little to fix the issues with the champ as a whole. After hearing Urgot's rework was due to his lack of champ interaction and his poor effect on game health I fear Karthus is in a similar state. His ult has both of the problems listed above and buffs to any other portion of the kit put him at risk of becoming terrifyingly oppressive in lane. I personally feel Karthus is in need of some level of rework to bring him in contention with any current mid/top/jg option.

Now how to make it happen?

To be upfront I'm not asking to move through walls, have infinite dashes, or a way to become untargetable/invulnerable; which seem to be the flavor for any newly envisioned League champ. And to be fair I find the Deathsinger persona to be awesome from a fluff/story board perspective. I would really just like to see him have a modern and balanced kit and an identity or role on the rift. Because just dealing a ba-jillion damage isn't really an identity.

To fix his identity we'd have to first figure out what his identity is. He doesn't suffer the "bruiser or marksman" identity crisis like Urgot did, he instead suffers from a lack of a role as a whole. The majority of his damage is done at a range that would suggest him being a battle mage but he doesn't have the things (shields, speed boosts, lifesteal, etc.) that the other battle mages like Ryze, Cass or Vlad have. He also doesn't have any innate tankiness. This is made up for by his passive but the passive furthers the belief in team mates that he's honestly better off dead and should simply be trying to find the most effective way to int in a team fight.

I would not want to see Karthus re-imagined an ap tank but I do believe you could give him the ability to kite in fights like Cass with a boost of speed attached to his Q. Instead of dealing double damage on a single target Q if Karthus got a decaying boost of speed his role as a mid range battle mage would be more secure and he would have a better life expectancy in fights. I say this because teammates rarely peel for a Karthus (even if you’re solo carrying) largely because of the idea that you are of more use to the team as an immobile ghost turret in your passive. This proc would make him much more interactive to both enemies and allies alike. This also tunes Karthus to a point that little else would need to be done to the kit.

Another option I believe available to Karthus would be to redefine him as an artillery mage. With adjustments to the mana cost and cd of the wall (to be used as a form of self peel) I believe you could put a minimum cast range on the Q and extend the max range. This would allow him to play fights similar to a Lux or Xerath and again have a identity of a backline target for enemies and a mobile “turret” of sorts for allies to protect. This would certainly force a full rework though as it would change the way he lanes entirely.

In both scenarios I think Karthus players and League players in general are better served. As far as the ult goes I don’t necessarily know what you could do. You could possibly attach “Mark” to it that required Karthus to land an ability first in order to ult that individual. This would work well I feel with both the battle and artillery mage ideas as it would be imperative for a Karthus player to mark all enemies in team fights, whether from afar or right in their midst. Short of that I have no ideas but I'm sure someone else here does. I could go in to the fact that the ult isn’t that powerful and that there seems to be a million ways to outplay it but then I’d simply be griping about Karthus, something I said I wouldn’t do. ;) But thank you to anyone still reading, curious as to your thoughts. Welcome any response, good luck in the season.

J