Riot was actually right about Karthus

JMoormann·May 9, 2016·31 votes·3,281 views

There were a lot of people saying that Karthus also needed buffs in 6.9, and Riot replied that he didn't need changes because he was looking like a top performer for 6.9, something most players disagreed with.

They weren't wrong. Yes, his play rate is extremely low, but a 54.5% win rate is very high. The only way to increase play rate without necessarily increasing power is by kit changes, but his kit isn't outdated, toxic or otherwise needing to be changed, so he doesn't really need a rework either. And he definitely doesn't need straight buffs. He is fine as he is.

Riot, I have to admit, you were right.

42 Comments

Puppet33rMay 9, 201617 votes

It's less then 1% play rate with third highest playerbase average games in the midlane. It would've actually told something if the winrate was something unusual like below 40% or above 60%. As is it just means that karthus mains can win slightly more then half their games.

agbudarMay 10, 20165 votes

this^

old malzhahar had a winrate of 56% and although his playrate was higher it was also not super high. and he was considered by most balanced&strong not strong&broken.

ofc now they made him broken beyond belief...

morris1May 10, 20161 votes

His playrate was actually pretty abyssmal before they teased his rework but then skyrocketed with Malzahar "mains" wanting to play the champion before his rework and now he only has a low pick rate because he has ~70% ban rate.

agbudarMay 10, 20161 votes

thats not true a lot of people picked malzahar to shut down zed and other problematic mobility champs

hgjkdlsaf jeldvbMay 10, 20161 votes

I'm guessing you're referencing champion.gg. I would point out that in 50-125 games, players are winning 64% on average and players with no experience on him are winning 53%. I think he might be a bit on the strong side, but I doubt it takes much to get him back in line.

Did RoA buff him that much? Or is it that combined with a cheaper zhonya to heal him in zhonya?

Puppet33rMay 11, 20161 votes

Dude, again, it's less then 1% play rate. So behind those percents are probably like a few dozens of people.

Karthus is a very outdated champion who has been kicked in the nuts by riot with w slow nerf to top it off. He was supposed to be late game hypercarry mage, but nowadays he will be lucky to do anything in late game since pretty much everyone will oneshot him and get away from his aoe zone while he will awkwardly try to land at least one q (spoilers: it won't happen). Before you could actually do something by getting a wall behind enemy team and making a suicide flash engage to force an engage, but that aforementioned kick in the nuts from rito took care of it.

hgjkdlsaf jeldvbMay 11, 20161 votes

2240 Analyzed This Patch. That's plenty of games. Playerbase average games is at least over the whole season. The stats don't lie. He's stronger than average right now. You can't act like karthus just exists in a vacuum. They just change 2 items that hey builds pretty massively. Zhonya RoA have a minor heal synergy for champs like karthus which would probably make him just a bit harder to kill in team fights. RoA itself should do wonders with his high mana per second.

Puppet33rMay 11, 20161 votes

Yeah man, Karthus is a problem and we can't afford to ignore it. Let's make another bunch of those "Daily reminders" on the boards that he dared to go over 50% and demand a nerf from riot.

Seriously though, those new items don't change the problems with his kit that I already mentioned. And yes, he doesnt exist in the vacuum I'm fairly certain he had Lucian s and Graves s (you know champions who actually have high pick rate for a very good reason) or Ryze s and Annie s (who actually benefitted from new items and are pretty obviously broken) who were doing most of the actual carrying.

hgjkdlsaf jeldvbMay 12, 20161 votes

Wow, you're really not interesting in arguing my points are you? Instead you choose resort to a red herring which can only mean you have no evidence to back up wanting him to keep this level of strength other than the ridiculous argument that he should be strong just because he hasn't been in the past. This philosophy does not promote balance of the game. I mean, yorrick hasn't been strong in forever, he obviously deserves to be the strongest champ for a bit. Everyone would fucking love that.

We aren't talking about the mountain of other champs that there are problems with. This topic is about karthus, not lucian, graves, ryze, or annie. I am giving my assessment based on what I see in the stats that says he's probably a bit stronger than he should be. That does not imply that he's a huge problem to the state of the game. His playrate is obviously really low, however, again, looking at the stats, a large portion of the games played on him are played by people who either have never played him or who hardly ever play him. The stats do indicate that it would be prudent to trim just a small amount off of him before he becomes a problem.

Then again, since we're resorting to throwing up other champs to distract from the topic of discussion, I'd like to throw wukong into the ring who was allowed to be sleeper op for the longest time even though riot was on record as saying they knew he was strong, but he wasn't prevalent enough to be a problem. Funny, his play rate never felt like it mattered when he was on the enemy team. This will be the same for karthus if he's allowed to remain as strong as he is.

And a 57% win rate for 5-15, 58% for 15-50, and 60% for 50-125 is absolutely a red flag. Remember how fast ekko hit 100% pick ban when he was that good? Surely you must, it was pretty recently.

Now, his win rate could be due to players playing him into matchups that they perceive as being good for karthus. I do not have the time to look at this into that depth. Personally, when I used to play him, I almost never picked him blind.

Puppet33rMay 13, 20161 votes

Listen, I tried to be patient and argue your points and if you actually read my replies instead of stubbornly reciting win rate numbers and how new roa would heal him for whooping ~15hp per sec, you would see that I pointed out problems with karthus's VERY OUTDATED KIT and how other champions benefit from new items A LOT MORE and how there are many other champions that have MUCH better stats cause, you know, like you said, CHAMPIONS DON'T EXIST IN THE VACUUM.

Hope caps lock will actually finally make you read my main points. If you make another reply with those pointless stats(that are based on this pitiful play rate), I'm not even going to bother answering.

Friendly RamMay 9, 20168 votes

The items also now give his kit 20%cdr

The Bíg TicketMay 9, 201610 votes

Which is good since every piece of CDR decreases his ult by alot but you couldn't really invest into any cdr items on him since he needed Tear/RoA/Dcap/Zhonyas/Void Staff and also because his Q and E don't benefit from CDR at all. Now that he got the "free" cdr in an item which is core on him anyway, he benefits alot.

Friendly RamMay 9, 20161 votes

I normally go rylais instead of roa.

XeroKimoMay 9, 20161 votes

And I'm the noob that goes RoA + Rylais instead of Arcangels

L Psy KongrooMay 9, 20161 votes

{quoted}

And I'm the noob that goes RoA + Rylais instead of Arcangels

Nope, I do that too. I don't like having to constantly be pressing keys while keeping an eye on the Tear icon to make sure you're not casting in the cooldown time. I prefer to just buy RoA and let it stack on its own, then get Zhonyas to replace the shield from Seraphs.

AazzlanoMay 9, 20162 votes

CDR does not apply to his Ult when he uses it while dead, which is why it was never important to get on him.

BârdMay 10, 20161 votes

Seriously?

That is really dumb.

ModAcademy KaynMay 10, 20164 votes

Ripped right from the Karthus Wiki if you click his Passive's Ability Details Tab

Karthus will still benefit from cooldown reduction during Death Defied's duration.

So it does apply.

hgjkdlsaf jeldvbMay 11, 20161 votes

well this is just wrong. People don't prioritize cdr on karthus because it doesn't benefit his E, which is the bulk of his teamfight damage. It is basically attack speed for his Q, but his Q is unreliable in many situations. Karthus's ult is good, but not good enough to gimp your two main damage abilities

RIP ResonanceMay 9, 20168 votes

Yeah, it's great how they nerf his slow when he isn't even in the meta AND item 3009 are a thing. Heavily disagree with this post.

AbyssphereMay 9, 20169 votes

[{quoted}](name=RIP Resonance,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QWloVz1q,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2016-05-09T17:24:59.078+0000)

Yeah, it's great how they nerf his slow when he isn't even in the meta AND are a thing. Heavily disagree with this post.

That has nothing to do with Riot saying he didn't need buffs in 6.9.

Rinky DinkyMay 10, 20162 votes

You heavily disagree with reading comprehension as well.

Cardinal SinveilMay 10, 20163 votes

You people are so unnecessarily mean ...

MimaropaMay 9, 20163 votes

Karthus isn't really exciting to play. He has low playrate but for the few people that play him, hes pretty brutal.

KushDid420May 9, 20163 votes

The wall nerfs still need to be reverted though, he is like maybe the only mage without hard cc I believe, and mobility creep has ruined his kit.

That said, I feel a bit squshier too because of the ROA changes but he seems ok tbh

Celeste BenalMay 9, 20162 votes

I, too, felt that given the proposed items changes, that Karthus might see some benefit from them, especially the new Catalyst into RoA, which is core on him. So it was the right move for Riot to wait on any potential changes to Karthus.

That being said, I could swear the base damage on Q is way lower now. Used to be able to 3-shot caster minions at level 1. Doesn't seem so now. I'll have to check it again to make sure. I may have changed something else in runes and masteries while playing with someone else mid.

StendevalMay 10, 20162 votes

As a Karthus main I can attest to this, he has always been a strong pick and I play into Yasuo and Zed and constantly do well [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Hard PenetratorMay 10, 20162 votes

This HP regen Dragon must be hell of a nerf for Khart. Also he might feel fine because of "surprise" factor. Amount of counterpicks that absolutely wreck him is probably highest in the game for mid lane.

tXQbsPrjN5May 9, 20161 votes

Wtf are you smoking. His win rate is high cause they fucking just shit on every mage in the game.

Meep ManMay 9, 20168 votes

Karthus is also a Mage.

tXQbsPrjN5May 9, 20162 votes

he didn't get fucked in the ass by riot

billxxMay 10, 20161 votes

I would bet money that this guy is twelve

TotalJerkMay 9, 201611 votes

http://champion.gg/statistics/#?sortBy=general.winPercent&order=descend&roleSort=Middle

9/10 top 10 winrate mids are AP
19/26 mids with an above 50% winrate are AP
8/10 top 10 most played mids are AP
8/10 top 10 most banned mids are AP
Sorted by role position, 8/10 top 10 are AP

tXQbsPrjN5May 9, 20161 votes

So you can't read either. Wtf does AP have to do with mages.

TotalJerkMay 9, 20168 votes

Okay then, asshole. Lets narrow it exclusively to the term "mage" despite the fact that the new AP itemization affected all AP champions. the new stats are:

8/10
17/26
6/10
5/10
7/10

Still significant.

XonraMay 9, 20163 votes

[{quoted}](name=Brandon Heat,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QWloVz1q,comment-id=000300010000,timestamp=2016-05-09T18:54:42.417+0000)

So you can't read either. Wtf does AP have to do with mages.

Uuuuuuh....are you just trolling or?

StrawberrycocoaMay 10, 20164 votes

"wtf does AP have to do with mages"...

...Dude, go home, you're drunk.

Michael BaconMay 10, 20161 votes

People who said Karthus needed buffs after his wall nerfs are stupid. He was doing exceptionally well in Korea after the nerfs and now these mage changes made him an even better pick. There's a reason why he always does the most damage almost every game.

ofartMay 10, 20161 votes

It's hard to draw conclusions from low pick-rate champion results.

BTW: Karthus is a common scripting champ. in Korea from what I heard.

TheOvermindMay 10, 20161 votes

I feel like he fits this meta very well because he melts epic monsters with his DPS and his teamfight is terrifying in a dragon pit. Same thing also happened with Twitch for the exact same reasons.

the Anarchit3chtMay 11, 20161 votes

The thing about low play rates and high winrates is that it typically signifies the majority of people who play with him know how to play with him. If i a champion has a 55% win rate and a 25% pick, it's much different than a champion with a 48% win rate and a 50% pick rate. Obviously made up numbers are obvious.

Athenes LuluMay 11, 20161 votes

The purpose of MYMU is not to simply buff champs, but to distinguish mages from each other so players have a purpose of picking X over Y.

Since Karthus has a rather unique and distinguished kit, he doesn't need to be even touched. Especially with the new items that actually benefits him so much more... do the math.