@Meddler & @Reav3 - The Karma Injustice of 2013 and Continued Injustice of 2017
On 03/27/2013 Riot Games worked on a visual game update for Karma. This visual game update will go down as the worst visual game update done on a champion in League of Legends history, in the sense that Riot Games decided to place Developers who did not care or communicate with Karma players about changes they were making to her. Essentially what they did was create an entirely new champion, instead of recycling what was actually good on her or finding a way to make problematic things in her kit work. Let's break down everything the Developers removed from her:
Mantra System:
Karma's old Mantra System would empower her abilities and she would gain a Mantra Charge faster the more cooldown reduction she had. Instead of having an actual ultimate, she had 6 ranks on all of her abilities. Every time she cast her Mantra the other abilities she cast with it would have another effect. Karma could only store 2 Mantra charges at a time.
Why they reworked it:
> Karma’s kit was in a weird place, but her ultimate was especially problematic. Her base abilities didn’t feel impactful and only felt effective when supercharged by Mantra. On top of that, when Karma had two charges of Mantra, we had to make both of them weaker to compensate for players double casting empowered spells. The changes we made to Karma’s kit focused on making each decision fun and meaningful while giving her abilities the focus they needed to perform her intended role.
Passive:
Karma's old passive would grant her bonus AP when she was low on health. This would allow her to cast stronger shields, do more damage, and deceive her enemies in battle. It really allowed her to be a battlemage and really get into the brink of battles.
What they reworked it into:
Damage from Karma’s spells and basic attacks lower Mantra’s cooldown. What she went from her passive before turned Karma essentially into a poke mage that has to use auto attacks and abilities to refresh the cooldown on her R.
Karma's Q and Mantra Q:
Karma's old Q was a simple AOE damage spell that damaged enemies in front of her. With Mantra activated Karma would heal herself and her allies in the cone. Originally Karma's heal was on her Mantra Q and would heal for a base amount plus a percentage of their missing health.
What they reworked it into:
Her new Q was turned into a skillshot that deals magic damage and slows enemies. When Q is empowered by Mantra it Increases the damage and leaves behind a zone that slows and, after a brief delay, explodes for AoE damage.
Karma's W and Mantra W:
Karma's old W created a tether between herself and a target ally or a target enemy for up to 5 seconds. Affected allies gain bonus movement speed while affected enemies are slowed and take magic damage. Any champion, whether ally or enemy, who walks through the tether is granted the same movement speed modifier for 3 seconds. When W was empowered with Mantra it granted twice its movement speed modifier.
What they reworked it into:
Karma forms a tether between her and the target enemy champion or monster, dealing them magic damage and granting true sight of them for the duration. If the target does not break the tether by moving out of range, it deals them magic damage and they are rooted for a short time. When the ability is empowered it heals Karma for 20% (+ 1% per 100 AP) missing health upon being cast and once more rooting the target, with the root duration increased.
Karma's E and Mantra E:
Karma's old E shielded herself or the target ally for 5 seconds. Her Mantra E sent forth a burst of energy, dealing magic damage to enemy units around her target.
What they reworked it into:
Karma shields the target allied champion or herself for 4 seconds, granting them bonus movement speed for 1.5 seconds. Inspire overflows with energy, increasing the target's shield, shielding all allied champions near them for 50% of the total amount, and granting them the same bonus movement speed.
Karma's fans:
Karma sported fans as a weapon in the previous iteration of her. It was something unique to her that almost everyone loved.
What they did to her fans:
The Developers removed them and added them to her dance, as an homage to her being able to wield fans. The reasoning they did it is below.
> Yes, we did add them in, on all her skins. Yes, as some of you have guessed, it is only on her Dance. We wanted to give you guys an homage to the fans, as they were a key element to her in the past. > > We did initially remove the fans, as Morello quipped in the Leak thread. We weren't fully prepared for how fond of them some of you were; which is a point we've heard loud and clear, and will be discussing further in-depth for future Relaunches and Visual Upgrades.
> Allow me to jump into the fray here for a second. On our champions, especially older ones, we have very iconic elements. Things that when you think of the champion, you can't help but think of. This can go one way or another, either good or bad, weak or strong.The take away here for and from Karma is that we should scrutinize core elements more. This doesn't mean we'll necessarily keep them all, but perhaps if we do wind up in a similar situation, we'll keep some kind of reference in. For the fans, as I said, we added them back in as an homage, for those fond of them. We really wanted to push the Mantle of Decorum, and her Mantra style gameplay. And who knows? Maybe this will open the space for another fan champion to blow us all away? >
What can we take away from this visual game update? Riot placed Developers in charge of Karma's visual game update that did not care about Karma. These Developers did not care about her presence as a battlemage, they did not care about her fans, they did not care about the elements of her kit that made Karma.
You knowingly admitted to turning her into a full-fledged support and said that players played her a lot more in lane as a mid and top laner, like Morgana.
> Originally envisioned as a support, Karma’s fringe successes actually came from players using her in the top or mid lanes as an AP burst mage with support abilities, much like Zilean or Morgana. We like this direction and want to encourage you to boost both her offensive and support abilities by building AP. We also want to make sure she can hold her own as a solo or with a lane partner. > > Finally, we’ve updated her skills so allies are reliant on Karma, but Karma’s not reliant on them. She’s got enough power at her fingertips to feel strong as a mage or as a support without teammates having to work in perfect concert for you to be effective."
If she was played more in mid and top lane as a mage with some abilities that could be used on allies, why did you go out of your way to remove everything that made her a mage? You turned her into a mess and changed her E and E+R into a shield that granted a speed boost and a mass shield that granted a speed boost to allies. Then what you did below and further encouraged her playstyle to be an Enchanter and no longer a mage:
On May 13th, 2015 the Live Game Update Team did this:
> Defiance (Mantra + E) > No longer deals damage > Now increases target's shield by 30/90/150/210 (+.3 AP) > Aoe Shield amount is now 50% of primary target's shield amount from 30/70/110/150
You also did this and created the toxicity that is tank Karma:
> Renewal (Mantra + W) > Reworked - both healing and bonus damage removed. > Now debuffs target for duration of tether + root. > All damage dealt to target is increased by 10% (excludes true damage) > All damage dealt to target heals Karma for 20% of the damage dealt > If the damage source is a champion on Karma's team (excluding Karma) they are also healed for 20% of damage dealt
Instead of rectifying mistakes made in the past four years Riot has the following excuses:
- There are champions in a far worse spot than Karma.
- The visual game update was done at a time when we did not have the proper technology to do it right.
- No one internally is actively communicating about Karma right now.
- Karma is in a great spot right now as a champion and support.
You don't care Riot Games. Your Balance and Update and Live Game Update team had the past 4 years to rectify mistakes made by your Developers that worked on her original VGU in 2013. The Live Game Update team had 2 years to rectify mistakes they made with turning Karma into a full-fledged support and overbuffing it with a movement speed boost, AP ratios, and shielding everyone. Stop using excuses to justify a lazy rework and no positive work done on her to restore Karma to what she used to be.
The future does not look good for Karma. The direction Riot Games is taking Karma is not something supported by the Karma community. We do not want a shield bot that sits in the back, presses one button the entire game, have almost no presence as a mage and damage that falls off after level 6, a build path that leads her to only be useful building shield enhancing items, conflicting gameplay within her kit that makes her come off as a poke mage because of her passive, and much more.
If the work you have done on Karma the past 4 years was at all positive and good for her, Karma fans and players would not be creating threads and commenting on posts for the past 4 years asking for you to restore her to her former glory. If you cannot be bothered to communicate about her and understand how you shifted an entire gameplay, identity, and beloved champion into a shield bot, pure support, bland champion, and one of the most horrible reworks in League of Legends history . . . . . then you are delusional and do not care. Karma is not in a good spot right now. She never had the chance in the past 4 years to be in a good spot because all you have done since 2013 and her Visual Game Update is take everything away from her.
To new players that want to know who old Karma used to be and why we are so fussy about Riot's treatment towards her:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clMEu39Iydc
As always stay frosty.
- Hiemal
, lvl6 abilities 
and duality theme 
.