Why is Tank Karma a thing?

ModAcademy Kayn·Dec 17, 2016·14 votes·4,270 views

Why?

29 Comments

SilverSquidDec 17, 20168 votes

Because Riot thought that having an ability that scales with effective HP makes sense on a supportmage. I mean, Karma has always been good vs melee toplaners - which would be okay... Vlad, Ryze and Liss are too - but ever since they buffed her passive in 5.10 and allowed her to easily empower her W with every use, her survivability has reached pseudo-mundo levels.

Which, again, would be okay, if her kit was built around it. But it isn't. She deals barely any damage in this state (no % damage for example) and her CC is single target, her team utility mutually exclusive with her tankyness. All she does is survive and survive for no reason. And since she is little to no threat she can be allowed to have very high survivability. It's just a balance thing.

I hope Riot realizes that Karma has become a one trick pony in 3 lanes and adresses her. I'd rather have her be a viable sololaner with 3 mantra options, instead of an obnoxious toplaner (RW), an RQ-spam-pokemage or a shieldbot (RE) depending on your build. One could start by replacing her %missinghp heal by a flat value that scales with low hp, making it viable for mage builds and less oppressive on tank builds.

#TL;DR Because her heal scales with effective HP Because Riot buffed her passive and W CD without building her kit around it Because she offers little other stuff, she is allowed to have high survivability when built tanky.

Also, it's something most people have never played, and it's enjoyable to play something odd but viable every now and then.

PS: Also CoC might have something to do with her rise in popularity. Because that is certainly a mastery Riot did completely think through.

Champion SkinDec 17, 20162 votes

PS: Also CoC might have something to do with her rise in popularity. Because that is certainly a mastery Riot did completely think through.

Actually windspeakers is probably better because of it having no cooldown and increasing her R + W and E (or R + E) by 10% and the 5% CDR and CDR cap is also quite useful (since tank Karma relies on spamming her E and R + W as much as possible to stay alive) And using CoC would also just make having the R + W broken all that more painful as you wouldn't get the CoC shield or the healing when the R + W snare procs

SilverSquidDec 18, 20161 votes

But it get's triggered by any hard CC, so even her normal W. And it will be so incredibly much stronger in teamfights.

Admittedly, I would still expect Windspeakers to be more efficient and useful for the team, but CoC made people actively search for champions to abuse it on. Which might have brought them to tank Karma. This is what I meant, not necessarily that it's better.

xWatersDec 17, 20166 votes

Too bad grievous wounds don't exist :(

MunchCrunchLunchDec 17, 201611 votes

yes let me rush it on my top lane malphite

IcyPepperDec 17, 20164 votes

It's 800 gold. If things are that dire... :/

It doesn't have to be your first item, anywho :<

RequiemsfireDec 17, 20165 votes

Yeah, once she hits a high enough CDR those grevous wounds won't even make a dent in her sustain.

MisterShamelessDec 17, 20161 votes

Wait, what? Tank Karma is a good sink, she needs a minimum of 6,300g to reach her items and a 800g item makes her whole build (not just the 6,300g) a waste of gold.

RequiemsfireDec 18, 20161 votes

Nope, because while healing helps her build to an extent it her build doesn't revolve around it. It's all about the constant shields, base damages and general stickiness that she has when she stacks item 3025 item 3107 item 3158

MisterShamelessDec 18, 20161 votes

Let me be honest, I wanted to make this a short reply >.< After I finished I didn't realized how long it became.

Her core item is item 3065 with a situational 20% cdr item and depending on runes another 10% item like item 3114 , if you are running 10% cdr, build item 3027 The idea of Tank Karma is trying to self sustain while maintaining shields on her teams when she can and peel people from divers with W. So it boils down to being a tank support and become what a tank ideally is meant to be, soak up a ton of damage for your team while locking people down. Her heal is

I consider myself to be one first early adopters to her Tank build. I've built her as a tank since the very beginning of season 5 (when I mained tank champions and god do I miss her season 5 counter part) since she lost a lot of her mage identity when she lost her R+W and R+E damage. I can say the moment item 3123 was reintroduced it was kinda downhill for Tank Karma. I noticed this when I was testing tons of builds in Dominion, a Pantheon built as a first item because you started off with about 1000g gold (if I remember) and I died every time I tried to kite him because my heals weren't strong enough.

Then Vayne 's true damage got buffed from 10% to 12% total health, Vayne became super meta (with a ton of annoying builds like devourer was meta or item 3124 ), AP items losing a ton of AP in exchange for utility, weaker tank items and item 3165 became core on most mana mages, Tank Karma shouldn't be as popular or appealing as it should. Tank Karma in season 5 had actual damage while season 6 and 7 version have more utility, but she becomes a lot less useful late game compared to her season 5 counterpart. Her high points were in patch 5.22 up to the Mage update.

Now I'm not saying she can't be a main tank, but she doesn't have the health or resistance tanks naturally have. She has nothing that scales with tank stats besides her heal so she doesn't benefit from tank stats, cut that off in any way and shes dead. So the moment the enemy has item 3123 and item 3165 , you're better off building full AP for the rest of the match. I've built her in many, many ways back in season 5, tested hundreds of builds so I know what I'm talking about when I said her heal is what makes Tank Karma work. She shields and movement speed make her deceptively tanky when she acts more like an off-tank since she gets destroyed when she is CC'd. While CC'd, she can't heal, shield, or dodge damage, so she ends up dying if she isn't ahead of enough to soak that damage.

IxtaliKingDec 17, 20166 votes

Because of her tank scaling RW which waste her power budget and does nothing for ap Karma. Riot seem to believe nerfing her tethers interaction with her passive is the best way keep her tank build in check, so I guess we'll see when that garbage change goes through.

VarnocDec 17, 20165 votes

If you're asking why one plays Tank Karma:

I personally find the playstyle to be more in line with Karma's character and old Kit (which I played the crap out of before her rework). The Q-spam bot playstyle bores me to tears, so I avoid it as much as I can. The tank build allows me a more true freedom of choice when it comes to my Mantra's use, as any of them become valid options.

If you're asking why Riot's allowed Tank Karma to be a thing:

The damage Karma gives up to build tank is quite significant. Because Karma gives up a significant portion of her offensive power to build this way, I think they see it as a reasonable tradeoff, independent of the play experience it creates.

WoonStruckDec 17, 20163 votes

Because the Karma rework actually made her an overloaded pile of shit. People still didn't play her so they over-buffed her numbers.

Now she's an overloaded, over-tuned pile of shit.

All of her ratios need to be halved
Healing on mantra W, halved.
Maximum snare time? Halved; bet you didn't know its longer than Morg snare.

IxtaliKingDec 17, 20167 votes

Being overloaded wasn't her issue, the problem is that Riot broke her kit when they took away REs damage and interaction with her passive in 5.10. Then they went on to buff her most basic and unintuitive playstyle, because her kit was too weak after those changes.

All of her ratios need to be halved

A bit extreme?

Healing on mantra W, halved.

Maybe a flat heal which scales with ap and a smaller missing hp component?

Maximum snare time? Halved; bet you didn't know its longer than Morg snare.

It's longer than Morgs snare but it's takes 2s to snare, is only possible at level 16 the earliest and is attached to her ult, so it's nothing to write home about. I do however agree that a 3.25 root has nothing to do with her kit and is a waste of her power budget.

The rework itself wasn't a pile of shit, it's just the maintenance that has been abysmal.

WoonStruckDec 17, 20161 votes

She's intended to be a support, so yes the ratios SHOULD be reduced drastically in favor of utility scaling like all other enchanter supports had to deal with.

That's part of the reason she's so over-tuned right now. She doesn't have her power-budget distributed in the same manner as other enchanters. She has high base numbers on top of high scaling.

We run into the Lulu conundrum with Karma either way. She has too much utility/scaling in her kit as a solo laner, and too high bases for a support. The only way to make it so she isn't a problem is to nerf her to the point where she's not viable in solo lanes. However, that comes with the huge drawback of her being ineffective as support as well.

IxtaliKingDec 17, 20165 votes

They reworked her to be a mage with utility, not a traditional Enchanter support. She's meant to be a healthier solo lane Lulu, but the tank build certainly isn't helping in that regard. She's over tuned right now because Riot didn't think through what her strengths are supposed to be before they done her 5.10 update.

They've since identified Karma as a Battle Mage/ Enchanter hybrid, and it just so happens that she fit more squarely into that role before that 5.10 update and even more so before her rework. If they allow Karma to operate in that unique space again (Battle Mage/Enchanter) we wouldn't end up in the "Lulu conundrum" at all.

WoonStruckDec 17, 20161 votes

As it currently stands, however, they are balancing her primarily as a support while she's very occasionally played in a solo lane (not including tank build) by both pro and casual players. Same as with Lulu, who was played as a battlemage/enchanter after release.

Riot doesn't recognize the issues they cause with champion directions, so its very unlikely that Karma will be addressed properly, just like with Lulu.

In fact, if I were you I'd start building a case and get some Rioter responses in regards to her direction before this next season ends and she inevitably gets gutted due to competitive, following the same exact lifecycle as Lulu.

IxtaliKingDec 17, 20166 votes

As it currently stands Riot is full of air. Getting a Rioter to talk about Karma is like getting blood from a stone, they don't want to discuss her with anybody. I wouldn't be surprised if Tank Karma becomes the primary way to play her and Riot starts balancing her around being a top lane Tank due it's popularity. That's what they done with Karma support, they didn't address her issues in Mid so she ended up bot again. They don't listen to us at all.

KarbuncleDec 17, 20164 votes

{quoted}

She's intended to be a support, so yes the ratios SHOULD be reduced drastically in favor of utility scaling like all other enchanter supports had to deal with.

That's part of the reason she's so over-tuned right now. She doesn't have her power-budget distributed in the same manner as other enchanters. She has high base numbers on top of high scaling.

We run into the Lulu conundrum with Karma either way. She has too much utility/scaling in her kit as a solo laner, and too high bases for a support. The only way to make it so she isn't a problem is to nerf her to the point where she's not viable in solo lanes. However, that comes with the huge drawback of her being ineffective as support as well.

No Karma has literally always been designed as a Mage/Support that solo lane first,supportive 2nd(You'll notice every actual support besides Soraka has hard CC she doesn't)

She was never overtuned,new masteries and items made her top tier instead of being "just ok".

Her Q base and scaling is actually very close to every other mage's main ability

Her W was just a weaker version of Leblanc's, now it's stronger because Leblanc received actual nerfs after 7 years

Leblanc's tether had a 280 base 100% ratio,only needed 1.5 seconds to snare,AND had a 25% slow on it.

Karma's tether had a 260 base 60% ratio(now it's 90%) took 2 seconds to snare and only snared for 1 Second until level 16 for most Karmas(also didn't come with a slow)

Karma's E had a 240 base .5 ratio and lasted 4 seconds with a 1.5 long 40%-60% speedbuff now the base is 190

Lulu's E had a 240 base .6 ratio lasted 6 seconds and gave magic damage on hit.

Karma's Q+R does 785+150% ratio Lux's Q+R does 750+145% ratio

But if you knew the game you'd know Karma would end up doing a lot less damage anyway because

A Lux hitting Q also throws out an E

Karma just throwing out a Q+R won't hit for full damage on anyone above Bronze so only does 435+90% ratio

Lux also has at least 1 passive proc for 190 base 20% ratio

I'm not going to be stupid enough to compare Lulu(Support/Mage) and Karma(Mage/Support) Lulu has 2 forms of hard CC and can give 45%-65% attack speed to a carry with 125 base+15% ratio on hit magical damage, they do different things.

MisterShamelessDec 17, 20162 votes

I never took the time to compare Karma's numbers with other laners :o

I've kept telling people she is a mage first, support second and they ignore that important fact so often, she like Annie, Brand, Lux, Veigar, Vel'koz, and old Zyra, mid laners with supporting potential.

ArakadiaDec 17, 20162 votes

Wasn't she intended to be a mage but functions as a support?

SnugglePuggle94Dec 17, 20165 votes

Yeah she was a mage primarily then Riot pushed her into the support role

[slayer-jinx-unamused]

Only Play DariusDec 17, 20163 votes

If you're talking about toplane, it's because melees can't kill her if she gets tanky due to her kit

RalanrDec 17, 20167 votes

Fuck us melee top laners, right?

Only Play DariusDec 17, 20165 votes

Yup, thank god I have only run into that about 3 times in my entire life.

HigeDec 17, 20162 votes

because of dat booty doeeeeeeeeeeeee

Sire HippingtonDec 17, 20162 votes

I certainly prefer tank karma over tank LB, or a well played ap karma. She's annoying, especially in lane, but she gets just ignorable later in the game...Ap karma is just as annoying in lane but actually stays somewhat scarry later on, especially vs squishy setups.

Champion SkinDec 17, 20161 votes

Hmm the reasons for tank Karma working E scales with resistances (when she is shielding herself) R + W scales with HP and resistances

Her ult scales extremely well with CDR thanks to her passive (as long as she uses her Q/W and auto attacks against enemy champions)

Tank Karma becomes almost unkillable because of how powerful her R + W is and also the shielding from E.... however the weakness is of course that she doesn't deal that much damage when building tank and her CC and utility isn't that amazing (and she loses a lot of healing if the enemy is able to break the R + W before it procs)

MisterShamelessDec 17, 20161 votes

Tank Karma is like a support Karma who sacrifices damage for survivability to stay in teamfights by shielding her allies and locking down a single target. It works in high levels because your team makes use of hat 3 second snare and at low levels because no one buys item 3123 Its still very niche among Karma mains though. Here is a Karma main TonyTwoBits going Tank Karma against Renekton. Renekton is an actual tank while Karma isn't a natural tank, so Renekton can still tank damage while going a bit AD early on while Tank Karma doesn't have any damage to provide for her team, especially with the lack of R+Q. If Renekton bought item 3123 Karma would of died from not healing enough. Also check TonyTwoBit. his a good streamer :D

https://clips.twitch.tv/tonytwobits/DifferentTarsierBuddhaBar