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Karma - Forever a Divided Community?

SilverSquid·11/3/2019, 5:04:17 AM·63 votes·17,686 views

TL;DR: I present a kit that tries to take all different Karma players into account and then explain my choices. I believe unifying the community is a necessary step so Riot can safely work on her.

Two things are clear:

  1. Karma needs work of some kind
  2. The community is so split Riot hesitates to adress her

I recently asked the community in a survey which path they want Karma to go. You can find the exact results here: Karma Survey

Turns out roughly 40% of people want Karma to progress towards Twin Dragons, 20% want her to go back towards pre 5.10, another 20% want changes inspired by Old Karma Roughly 10% want her to stay about the same, while another 10% want everyone to be happy. Without a clear majority, this split makes it near impossible to please everybody.

However, analyzing it further, the Twindragons, the Old Karmas and the Allhappys all seem to agree that Karma is starving for flavour of some kind. That makes 70% of the playerbase, that seem to agree with Meddler, who once called her "functional but bland".

But then again, no option was chosen the majority of the time, highlighting why Riot is hesitating to touch her. This is the reason I am in the "please everyone" camp, because I think ignoring either side of the debate is a mistake.

I have spent the last 4 years talking to as many Karma players as possible, learning all the different desires and visions about her. I tried to put all of that expertise into a single rework, creating something I perceive as reasonable common ground:

https://euw.leagueoflegends.com/sites/default/files/styles/wide_medium/public/upload/LOL.com_.Banner.Article.KarmaReveal.jpg?itok=z0pjU2Pm

A New Kit

######Values are rough estimations. Don't take them too seriously.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/6/68/Gathering_Fire.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929122919 P - Balance in All Things

Shield- and healingpower also increases Karma's magic damage.

Every 15s Karma readies a charge of Gathering Fire, which causes her next Basic Attack to deal an additional 15-80 (level dependent) (+10%AP) magic damage, increased by 1% for every 1% health Karma is missing. While below 50% of her max health, she also heals for that amount. Whenever Karma or a nearby ally gets damaged by an enemy champion, this ability instantly recharges.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/a/ad/Inner_Flame.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929122920&format=webp Q - Inner Flame

Unchanged.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/4/45/Soulflare.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929122923&format=webp RQ - Soulflare

Instead of exploding on impact, now harmlessly travels to a target area where it detonates, applying Inner Flame’s damage and slowing enemies in the area by 50%, while also healing allies in the area for 50/100/150 (+1 for every 20AP) increased by 3% for every 1% health they are missing. After 1,5s the area explodes again, applying all effects a second time.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/0/0c/Focused_Resolve.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929122918&format=webp W - Bond of Souls

Karma links two targets with spirit energy for up to 2s or until they are separated too far. Enemy anchors and enemies touching the tether take 20/35/50/65/80 (+30%AP) magic damage every 1s (3 ticks). Allied anchors gain 10/15/20/25/30 bonus resistances while being tethered or touching the line (the effect lasts for 1s after touching it).

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/2/2a/Renewal.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929122922&format=webp RW - Empathic Visions

Allies affected by the tether take 40% (+1 per 50AP) reduced damage, while affected enemies take 30/35/40% (+1 per 50AP) increased damage. Increases tether duration to 3s. EDIT: Since people kept tumbling over the EXACT values, just imagine any value you deem reasonable. Maybe even with a cap.

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/c/c4/Inspire.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929122920&format=webp E - Inspire

Unchanged.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/4/40/Defiance.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929122917&format=webp RE - Defiance

The target gains 40/50/60% bonus movementspeed and 100/250/400 (+40%AP) shield that decays over 1s. When the shield is gone it explodes, dealing 130/200/280 (+60%AP) magic damage in an area around the target. Hit allies are sped up for 2s. The bonus movementspeed, shield and damage increases by 1% for every 1% health the initial target is missing. After the explosion, Inspire is applied to the initial target.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/7/76/Mantra.png/revision/latest?cb=20130929122921&format=webp R - Mantra

Available at lvl 6 now. EDIT: Judging by the feedback I think enough Karma fans feel bad about this change, which I think is fair. It's been something she had since Season 1, which needs to be respected

The first time Karma affects another champion or big monster with a spell or Gathering Fire, Mantra’s cooldown is reduced by 2s. Affecting champions or big monsters beyond the first instance reduces the CD by 1s.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/3096f10173ca25fda15d8147a2333856/tumblr_p3928mARsv1ufm3tmo1_400.jpg

Okay But Why Tho

The Passive To Unify All Passives I believe Karma needs something to keep her damage identity throughout the game even when building support items. Scaling magic damage based on shield/heal items would not only allow that, but also give sololane Karma unique building paths.

As a (battle)mage she does need some sustain and sustained damage however, so I think an AA passive similar to Orianna, Zoe or Lux makes sense. The karmic touch kicks in during fights - especially teamfights - and allows her to sustain/avenge through them, while keeping her tame in lane. Additionally, it marries all available concepts of her passives; Old Karma (strength at low hp), Current Karma (AA weaving) and NeuroCat's suggestion (less frequent but more meaningful actions).

What the Q Putting values aside, base Q is generally a functional spell, so I want to keep it the same. However, RQ is full of problems; nearly all of Karma's damage in a single projectile is unhealthy design. Additionally, it's unreliable to hit (random minions etc) but also rough to dodge sometimes. Allowing Karma to always hit where she is aiming is a necessity for making her a more reasonable mage. At the same time, a slight tweak to the travel speed should make it easier to dodge at max range, in exchange for being able to hit behind minions.

Moving the heal to RQ is an admitted nod to Old Karma, but not a random one; I believe that both duality and group protection should stay Karma's strengths, but I feel heals are more healthy than shields. Especially when Karma's heals are defined as emergency heals, making them inefficient at high hp, but clutch at low hp. This nails them down as in-combat heals, making them necessarily interactive. The scaling should make RQ great at saving squishies, and only useful at low hp bruisers/tanks.

Karmaphone - Connecting People Old tether was fun, but not functional, new tether is functional, but bland. So I took inspiration from Irelia's E (making them alike makes sense) and created something similar to both. I believe that connecting champions would instantly open up a ton of creativity, even if the effects are rather basic. With this Karma can tether to enemies (alt+w) and actually survive the tether duration, or link a bruiser to an enemy. Maybe even tether herself to an ally, hug a third and mitigate a huge AoE? Whether this is fair to play against depends on the ranges; casting range to target, casting range between targets and breaking range. That's tricky, but also has many balancing levers for Riot. Note that I removed the root; In practice the root was both unreliable and often felt bad to use and play against. Karma's strength shouldn't be CC imho, so this probably won't be missed. And yes, there is technically a tether touch mechanic at work here, occasionally rewarding Karma players for clever positioning, but it's more of a bonus; aside from waveclearing, most of the time the anchor damage is what matters. So choose your targets wisely.

Shielding and Bombing I feel like a retaliation mechanic needs to be on Karma's kit, simply for the karmic flavour. We know that old shieldbomb can't return in this way, a small delay for counterplay must be there; however I believe that Karma should have at least some agency about it! If she manages to block a high damage burst she can instantly trigger the shieldbomb. To make this work at all levels/builds, the shield must be fully mantra dependent; but having mantra abilities mainly scale with mantra, not the base spell, seems to me the most logical in making every mantra always a viable decision throughout the game. Since RQ gained group protection, I don't think it's too harsh to remove the AoE shielding. In a world of Ardent Censer and her machinegun mantra this has proven to be both boring and toxic. I have played hundreds of games where in a lategame teamfight my mantra was off cooldown before my E (which had a ~5s CD at that point), allowing me to RE 3x times before the fight was over. And the flaming started. Which was fair. It's BS. I'd rather have Karma do something meaningful once or twice per teamfight, than this oppressive shieldbotting. Protecting a single carry and nuking the assassin for example. Karma used to have the strongest single target shield once anyways, so a tad bit of that identity could return to her...

Can Mantra Make Sense? Karma used to be a champion with lvl6 abilities (before Jayce stole it, that devious yet attractive bastard), making her base spells naturally exceed those of other champions in the lategame. Her iteration in Legends of Runeterra is also lategame focused. Even her lore speaks of power that seems to take its time. That Karma has gained an early game identity is thus baffling. It probably was by accident, because during her rework, they wanted her mantra to be more flashy and impactful, but didn't want to push it into later stages. I do believe that a more functional W and a damage based passive will make for a more healthy earlygame, than that short lived lanebully nature that nosedives into a crater after the enemies hit lvl6. I don't... strongly believe it is necessary, but I think there are clues that it might be more healthy to have mantra at lvl6. In exchange for other goodies, that is.

What About the Twindragons, bro??? I know I started this talking about how 40% of people wanted twindragons and 70% wanted (probably visual) flavour.... so what gives?

Well... my main concern is gameplay. However, I did try to create something that would work WELL with twindragons; Circling twindragons around RQ's zone, twindragons each hovering over the heads of the two W targets, and a dancing dragon above the head of RE's main target all make perfect sense to me. BUT if Riot just doesn't have the ressources for all the visual things (which is likely), I'd rather have them do something functional now and have the OPTION of upping her visuals a few years later, if they are as desired as it seems.

https://66.media.tumblr.com/e098ba09ab85e81048141fe435f234ad/tumblr_oybxn2onms1wnet2to1_400.jpg

THANK YOU!

Thank you for reading. I know it's been a lot - again - but that's me. I wanna be clear and have a lot to say about Karma, so being precise is a challenge.

If you like this rework, please upvote to make it seen, if you dislike something about it, please let me know in the comments! Even after 4 years I still love new input! If you think Karma needs work, but a rework is too much, maybe THIS could interest you: Karma - Quick Fix Maybe you think the Twin Dragons deserve more respect, then you can look at this: Twin Dragon Rework

See you in the comments! SilverSquid

85 Comments

dolce de leche11/3/2019, 12:00:23 PM11 votes

The sad thing is it feels like the more and better changes the community provides the less riot is likely to use these as their changes. It feels like riot never takes these notes from the community no matter how good they are. I love the ideas tho and I would love to play this version of Karma.

ModAcademy Kayn11/3/2019, 8:03:27 PM6 votes

Aside the fact that I personally think the rework to be a tad overloaded, I don't think a lot of thought is spared for how Top Lane Karma would become with this sort of rework. For example, her passive would synergize with a tank Karma far too well because of being able to be low health longer, therefore getting more damage out of her passive, and more healing. Combined with the fact that you can constantly recharge it via getting hit, and getting hit becomes encouraged, and Tank Karma will see more value from it consistently than any Support/Mage Karma.

The obvious simple change is just not let it constantly reset from taking damage, but the same exact problem is found with her shield, which encourages her to stay low health (Which is better when being tankier) and rewards you with more damage for being so. I think this is the exact same problem people had about Irelia's old stun. It punishes you for winning, and while it may not be a bad mechanic, it certainly feels bad for the receiving end.

On top of that, I notice you choose to favor those low health increased damage/increased healing/etc in favor of actual scalings, since her stuff seems pretty low all things considered. That's not bad, but it makes her scale extremely well with her base stats alone, further encouraging Tank Karma builds. Combine that with a damage amp on her tethers, and it becomes real nasty real quick. Hard to kill, while completely decimating with her team that she can get behind.

I know I'm awfully focused on Tank Karma, but it's my honest opinion that Tank Karma is an atrocious, disgusting thing and should not allowed to be viable in the slightest. Especially in Top lane. The removal of her CC remedies that issue a tad bit, but not enough to excuse constant heals from her passive, and absurd health scalings on her shield bomb.

If I had to give reccomendations as to the proposed kit it'd be:

  • Give her passive an actual CD. No insta-refresh from taking hits. That may sound kinda-okay for a squishier Karma, but Tank Karma will abuse this to it's fullest. Also take out the increased damage from low health. I feel like this is just a nostalgia addition for old Karma without any real consideration for why it was removed. In return, I do think Gathering Fire should be something that should come up faster, but I think that it should be relegated to allied spell casts reducing it. Everytime you cast a spell on an ally/an ally is affected by your spell for the first time, reduce the CD by x seconds or so.

Why? Because with your designated kit, her enhanced abilities overwhelmingly favor being in the support position, with maybe exception to her shield. I think it'd be a fine lever for balancing between Support Karma and Solo Lane Karma. It also transitions her nicely from lane power, to teamfight power.

  • Give her some actual scalings, and give the percentage increases to her abilities a cap, or just remove them. Without any AP, Karma hitting a 50% target with both instances of her enhanced Q is a 750 health heal. That is absurd. Soraka and Yuumi have those enhanced healing effects on their kits to encourage playing riskier for that enhanced heal, or to stop them from being top-off machines (though less so for Soraka's ult). Karma has too many additional tools other than her heal for this to stay. I think this the same with the Shield bomb and passive increased percentages, especially since a 60% ratio on shield isn't anything to scoff at.

  • Rethink a new effect for RW. I'm not one to call things damage creep, but jesus you have no idea what 40% increased, hell, even just 30% increased damage from all sources can do to anything, while also giving things huge damage reduction. That said I do enjoy the idea of tethering allies and enemies, but I'll point back towards when this mechanic was tested by Riot. You're not going to be able to control your allies, and what could be a vital tether could be ruined because your tank/bruiser backed off. Tethering enemies together would be kinda fun though.

I think something akin to Trinity's tether from Warframe would be cool, where you potentially share damage taken by the enemy, or even CCm but that'd need some major rebalancing to fit that kinda power into a kit. It honestly sounds better on a bruiser/skirmisher champion, who need that kinda powerful defense at melee range.

I think some of the ideas are fine honestly, but I think Karma would be better off if she didn't have such heightened effects on her abilities with Mantra. I think the duality nature is great, but you can't have both damage and support features on every ability. I think lowering Mantra's CD to a form change would be far more balance-able, along with her being able to switch from more damagey effects to more supporty effects per switch. Add in some form of Karmic exchange too like:

"Karma gains stacks of Peace/Retribution depending on what aspect of the Twin Dragon she's in. Karma gains increased healing and shielding power by consuming stacks of Retribution while in Peace form, and gains increased damage scaling when consuming stacks of Peace in Retribution form." Encourage constant switching of her stances between her supporting allies and dealing out some pain. This i feel would be able to make a flexible champion who gains bonuses from both helping teammates survive, and helping kill enemies.

Edit: I read Hupsis's thing, and I love his idea. The idea of switching stances to build up stacks that help the other form, would be hella cool to go along a unique resource bar, filling up per spellcast to allow for some feature. Maybe it resets her CDs to keep that momentum moving, maybe an enhanced effect, who knows who knows.

8640011/3/2019, 6:24:37 AM5 votes

I flat out want the original karma back art, graphics and skills.

Khâmul11/3/2019, 11:43:59 AM4 votes

riot can't even balance their game and you're trying to add something like "increase damage by x% every y%of missing health + z% of damage prevented +2 true damage".dude they already suck in math don't go too harsh on them

Zounatic11/3/2019, 11:47:06 AM4 votes

I really like most of the stuff. Especially the passive. However I would keep the RQ as it is because I love the big boom it makes xd. Also the W should keep its root, but maybe shorten it to just 1,5 seconds. But I like the rest a lot.

But I never think Rito is gonna do anything to her. Because they never listen to us. It‘s really sad..

Hupsis11/3/2019, 6:29:27 PM3 votes

I'd personally take inspiration from the Legends of Runeterra version of Karma. Her special power is when the player gets max mana, she gets enlightened and starts creating/casting a bunch of spells.

What if Karma had her own resource bar gradually filling up as she casts spells. After the bar is full (let's say 100), she can use Mantra on her next spell (consumes 100 resources). Every Mantra use increases the resource max by 10. When Karma reaches a cap of 300 max resources, she gets to cast Enlightened Mantra which applies Mantra's effects to all of her spells while the resource gradually ticks down to 0. Using Mantra when below 300 resources would not activate Enlightened Mantra, rewarding players for being patient when gathering resources. [sg-syndra]

Light Up Stage11/4/2019, 9:45:18 AM3 votes

Her heal on W should stay

PotatoAttack11/4/2019, 9:56:58 PM2 votes

Divided huh, I stopped playing Karma ever since the first rework so there's that division.

Shigure11/3/2019, 6:25:13 AM2 votes

Ok, so i'll just touch on the presented kit as i don't overly have an opinion on what way Karma should go in a situation she is reworked.

Passive: I actually like the idea of heal and shield power giving her a bit more damage on her abilities and the idea behind the passive is fine however it should by no means instantly recharge when you or an ally are damaged by an enemy champion. RQ being nerfed and i'm assuming the W root being removed does make her much less oppressive into melee however having empowered autos with practically 100% up-time is a bit too much. Orianna is allowed this as she has the lowest base Attack damage of all champions by a large margin (40 compared to Karma's 53) and Janna because the bonus damage is almost negligible (whilst also having 7 less AD level 1 then Karma). I feel it would be better if it worked a similar way to how her R does atm in that abilities reduce the cooldown of the passive by say 2 seconds each. This would allow you to increase the scaling slightly whilst being in a familiar form for Karma players.

Q: i like this idea. Removing the on-impact explosion makes it much easier to avoid for opponents whilst giving it a secondary effect that is beneficial for your team to encourage Karma to choose between using it for poke or to assist allies.

W: Now this is where i see the real problem here. This form of W is completely bonkers and would never be allowed in its current iteration. The first issue is does Karma always count as a tether target (so current W if it could also be used on allies) or that she chooses two different targets. If the latter, is it the two closest targets to Karma or the closest target to whoever is selected when W is cast is attached to that target.

Whichever it is the effects and values are the real issue as you can simultaneously give allies damage reduction AND resistances AND make enemies take increased damage at the same time. This would make Karma an absolute requirement in protect the AD carry comps , invalidates assassins and make her Empowered W the strongest option in almost every circumstance as you can tether your ADC giving them free resists and damage reduction for 3 seconds whilst allowing them to shred through the big tank in front of them. This isn't even getting into the fact that theoretically Karma could give multiple members of her team (or in rare cases the entire team) damage reduction and resists at the same time.

Granting damage reduction to someone else was removed from Galio for a reason and frankly doesn't have a place in this game. I feel bonus resists would be fine on the empowered W but that's still moving into Braum's territory and he can only give a single ally bonus resists.

E: Mostly fine. I'd like to see the shield bomb back in some form but if i'm correct and your idea is when the shield explodes you get a un-empowered shield for free, that seems like a bit much. Again, makes it way too strong when thrown on top of a carry as that's 2 free shields with both giving a large amount of movement speed. Also not sure if damage should be increased by missing health as the base and Ratio seem high enough already.

**R: **Pretty much the same which is fine.

Overall i don't mind the proposed kit but some sections are absolutely bonkers honestly. I know you said not to take values too seriously as they are a rough estimation but they need toning down dramatically. I love the passive idea as long as it has a lower up-time,Q and E are nice overall but i just can't agree with that W.

LeafyGreen11/3/2019, 3:38:37 PM2 votes

I could see this kit literally being in the game.

My favorite of your ideas was the RQ interaction where it didn't remove travel time but it removed the traveling hitbox. Tied into the interaction where you want to heal with the RQ and not hit an enemy on the way, it makes the ability much more reliable and realistic. Plus, having a skillshot heal would be toxic lol. The change from the self heal on w to passive also makes her autos more meaningful and similar to Xerath's passive which is a good idea imo.

I really do think you nailed merging all of the ideas in a balanced way that wouldn't alienate all types of Karma players. About the twin dragons thing, I really believe that that is completely visual and could be worked into any kit so while I voted for that in the poll I understand that they have had cases of "reworks then VU" like Kassadin, Cassio, etc.

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

7thHeaven11/3/2019, 3:42:29 PM2 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l59mZOi0NBc

Vlada Cut11/3/2019, 5:02:12 PM2 votes

Riot: Let's make a third version which both fandoms will hate!

G0blinSlay3r11/3/2019, 6:38:29 PM2 votes

if i hate the rework your refunding every skin i bought.

i have your username. i will find you.

StormBladeMaster11/3/2019, 7:44:22 PM1 votes

I like your rework except W who look OP. 40% dmg reduced for a teammate and 40% more damage on an enemy is broken.

It's funny to see how Riot can rework Ryze every year but they don't do a single thing for Karma. Ryze is a mess, Karma is a mess too but they only do something on Ryze.

Ashe mage AD11/3/2019, 2:56:43 PM1 votes

I enjoy playing Karma quite a bit just the way she is, that said my win rate often has to suffer because of that, I'd keep trying to make Karma top work but in the end she's just a niche pick, or spam her game after game in the bot lane and running into a lot of her counters more often then not. So yeah, she's bland for sure but she's also fun for all the right people lol.

im small11/3/2019, 9:34:44 AM1 votes

It's a shame, but I'm honestly not expecting Riot to do much with Karma in the near future simply because they have no idea what they want her identity to even be.

The biggest issue with Karma right now from a gameplay perspective is that she's a generalist. I wasn't playing League when OG Karma existed, but I know that she was a balance nightmare and widely considered the worst champion in the game for a while. However, she had a relatively strong identity that is unrecognisable in modern Karma.

Up until her recent nerfs I did enjoy playing Karma, but that doesn't change the fact she is one of League's blandest champions. The current kit has almost no reflection of Karma's character, which is frustrating as her lore was refreshed fairly recently, which I was a fan of.

I know the topic of what changes would be good for Karma are controversial, but personally I would like her to be reworked with the support role prioritised, but I think mid lane viability is important (like how Morgana can play both, but she's mostly seen support), however, she should be completely removed from top lane (Klepto's removal should help with this). I would like to see Karma's identity become that of an aggressive enchanter, similarly to that of Nami, a support who is able to protect her allies while equally being able to disrupt and damage her enemies. When voting in the poll from the previous post I chose that Karma's identity should revolve around the twin dragons, as I think this has the most potential.

I do like the ideas suggested, but there was an idea some suggested a while ago that I really liked. I can't remember what it was exactly, but it was something along the lines of:

Passive: Twin Dragons

Alternate spell casts are modified to have a bonus offensive / defensive property based on which dragon is active

By this I mean each of Karma's abilities would have a slightly different effect if she casts them when either dragon A or dragon B is active (I'm labelling them A and B just so it's clearer). Each time Karma uses an ability the dragons will switch, this adds a unique mechanic to Karma while also adding skill expression, as managing which abilities you want to have which effect can greatly change the outcome of a fight. If you were to use Mantra the ability would use both the offensive and defensive property simultaneously.