@Riot Can we do something about Karma's Passive?

Warden Karma · 2015-08-11T14:58:34.706Z

Hello Summoners and Riot :) Right now, feels a bit... strange at least to me. She does not feel like using her full potential. People use(d) to say: Karma has no Ultimate and after the redesign also no Passive. In fact her Passive and Ultimate are created to go hand in hand, emphasizing Karma's Mantra concept. Unfotunately, Karma's Kit seems not to support this; in contradiction its even "playing against" this "Harmony", forcing 's decisions often to be either doing the right Mantra or using the Passive at its best. This outlined especially after her "soft rework" some Patches ago, where the additional Damage was removed from RW and RE. If you look at her standard Combo: W than RQ makes it even more clear: Either you go in with your Mantra on CD or you waste up to 6 Seconds of CDR. Going the first way you need to do everything perfectly in time or you loose potential. Also if you wanted to use your Passive perfectly or even at all, your Mantra needs to be on Cooldown. So Karmas Passive has 0 effect while Mantra is up. If you see her Kit having 6 Abilities, Q, RQ [only the Mantra effects], W, RW and so forth her Passive only procs on half of her Kit, meaning Karma is rewarded for Damaging Champions. But on the other Hand it means: she is punished for Shielding (others) and Healing herself as it will not proc her Passive. I do not think, you should be punished for making the right decision and RE your Team rather than to RQ the enemy Team because its just better in this situation. And this is why does seem "to block her Potential" for me. This would be my suggestion, to give Karma more "balance" in her decisions: [Passive] Gathering Fire: Reduces the Cooldown of her Mantra by 1,40/ 1,70/ 2,00 Seconds everytime she damages an enemy Champion [half for AAs] and by 1,00/ 1,15/ 1,30 for shielding a Champion (including herself) or healing herself with Renewal. Karma can store up to 6/ 8/ 10 Seconds of Gathering Fire, applying instantly after her Mantra goes on Cooldown. Numbers are of course exchangeable. This change would free some room for Karma's decisions and fix some "Problems" with her Passive. All in one you can say: would have less amount of CDR from her Passive, but at the same time making it easier for her to proc it and she can save a little CDR. So the Power of her Passive is shifted, but not necessary raised or lowered. Also quite often asked: Moving Karma's current Passive to her Ultimate and giving her a new one. Thoughts? Edit: I thought about the numbers a bit and changed them.

Nameless VoiceAug 12, 20151 votes

The same thing that her current passive gives - that you are rewarded for using your spells optimally by getting a reduced cooldown.

Thinking about it a little more, it occurs to me that Karma's current passive does two things:

Rewards her for landing good spells (e.g. if her RQ hits all 5 enemy champions) but also
Encourages her to keep attacking while her Mantra is on cooldown (putting her at increased risk.)

The second point doesn't really apply to shielding her allies.

However, using her RW and RE can feel a little punishing because you will have a longer Mantra cooldown afterwards than if you used RQ (and actually hit something), which is a bit strange - you are punished more for using your skills to defend your allies than for using them to attack your enemies.

I can see valid arguments both ways.

HellioningAug 12, 20151 votes

It gives her a passive, for one. She basically doesn't have one; it may as well be a passive on her ult. (If Garen can have one, so can Karma.)

Needles KAug 12, 20151 votes

It gives you nothing that a shorter ult cooldown wouldn't, but that's true of her passive in general. The entire passive just makes your ult cooldown shorter.

Honestly, I'd just like to see another Karma rework now that the team has more experience. She seems ripe for it. She went from a rarely-chosen support/toplaner with an interesting stronger-as-she-gets-weaker mechanic but a pretty poor winrate to a rarely-chosen poke support/midlaner with a pretty poor winrate. I feel like there's a lot of interesting stuff Karma could be doing but isn't.

Warden KarmaAug 12, 20153 votes

First thank you for taking time to reply, especially on a Karma Thread :)

As some here mentioned, Karma's Passive feels like it could easily moved to her Ultimate and giving her a new, more "Karma" like Passive. Besides this many people (including me) would like to see another rework of Karma - more in the direction of her former Kit. But I know that would take a lot of efford and time so I wanted to suggest something which does not takes this much, but yet "fixing" her current Passive a bit, which feels currently "onesided" and "at the wrong place in her Kit" (untill Karma maybe gets reworked oneday again).

To answer your Questions:

**1) **A Mantra bonus on her defensive Spells is in my opionion necessary because you do not feel rewarded for using all your Kit perfectly nor using Mantra on your E or W, eventhough it would be the best in this situation. Instead, you feel punished as you probably "wasted" your Passive CDR on your Mantra. 2) As Mantra is on Cooldown, her Passive is completely meaningless, as it does nothing. Also it feels bad to land your Qs and W if you know its not going to proc your Passive. The Passive even courages to spam Mantras wether its the right time or not and puts you under pressure to do so to get as much Mantras as possible in the shortest time.

Her Passive just does not feel "effectly" or "complete" the way it it is now, it rather feels like a Part of her Ultimate.

Daedalus871Aug 12, 20151 votes

Honestly, it feels like that Karma's current passive should be an ult passive.

I would suggest adding on her pre-rework passive perhaps?

Warden KarmaAug 12, 20151 votes

Her pre rework Passive lacked counterplay. I would have a suggestion like her old Passive but with some counterplay.

But honestly I would rather like to see a new Champion using fans as her main weapon with a Kit based on old Karma's one. Why? Because it is impossible im my opinion to make the new Karma "feel" like the old one. They are too diffrent and both do have their fanbase now. I guess you can not change new Karma too much towards old Karma now.

Daedalus871Aug 12, 20151 votes

I'm not sure what you mean by it lacking counter play as pretty much all passives lack counter play. I mean, what can you do to stop Vlad's or Galio's passive? Not a whole lot. Furthermore, there are other champions who get offense out of being low on health, such as Tryn or Olaf.

Warden KarmaAug 13, 20151 votes

True, many Passives lacks Counterplay. Still old Karmas Passive was impossible to avoid to proc and had no "counterplay window", maybe only to kill her fast.

But imagine a Passive like old Karma's on a "long ranged Poke Mage"... all Champions having a similiar mechanic are most of their time in close combat (think Olaf). Old Karma was mostly mid ranged, New Karma can stay more far away (Q and RQ) to deal "easier" Damage (since you needed an ally to cast RE on it with old Karma).

The Problem with the new Karma is indeed that she was released as a full relaunch. If she would be reworked nowadays, she would be a lot more similiar to her former self (and having fans as her weapon :D). But it seems kinda impossible for me to push New Karma in the direction of her former self, not to mention the new Karma fanbase, which may not necessary like those changes.

So what I would like to see Riot to go for is: to create a new Champion with the old concept of Karma (appereance, Abilities, Weapons...). Little weird but would the best, since it would not be restricted in anyway by new Karma according to her abilities.

Daedalus871Aug 14, 20151 votes

Passive don't really need counterplay, but you bring up a decent point about a poke mage not getting free AP. However, Karma doesn't really have that much offense ability. And she needs a new passive.

Also, the best you can hope for getting a champion similar to old Karma is if they rerework the current one.

IGotScuttleCrabsAug 12, 20154 votes

While a well aimed RQ in a teamfight on 40cdr can almost reset half your cd on mantra, I kinda have to agree that overall, the passive doesn't 100% work. Because as said, using anything other than RQ, you won't get that effect from your passive. Sure a W gets a few ticks off but it's nothing like RQ hitting 3-5 people twice.

So overall I agree that ally shields (not selfcast) should grant 1 sec cdr.

A side note, they made W work on monsters. I feel they should have made her autos on monster effect her passive as well.

Edited part

Going to flesh out how I think it should work Q - 2 seconds (per champion) RQ - 2+2 on second detonation (per champion) W - 2 per tick. (I believe it ticks 3 times) RW - same E - 1 on ally RE - 1 (per ally) Autos - 1 per enemy or monsters

The autos on monsters opens up jungle Karma a little. The E would make her feel more rewarded for using the shield over RQ.

Another idea is convert her passive seconds reduced to a flat point system. As it stands if Karma has ult up(with 30 sec cd), hits 5 people with full RQ, her ult drops to 10 seconds. Instead, each passive proc stores a point. At example, 30 points. Ult gets reset regardless of where it was on cool down. Sooo saying her ult is up, she has 15 points stored, hits the 5 man RQ (20 points), that would bring her over 30 required for an ult reset allowing her to mantra again. To avoid some over abuse cases, maybe she only has x amount of time to use it. 2 RQ's within a few seconds would be to much. So she would have to use the free one on EW. I feel that standard combo in teamfight would be get close to 30, RE team for shield to hit 30 then have RQ up for offense use. Leaning would probably be hit 28 stacks, RQ into RW.

Overall this is all rough numbers and her base numbers and scaling would probably need to be looked at.

someone that really enjoys Karma in all lanes and would love to see her full potential expanded

Leu07Aug 12, 20151 votes

Hi! Since the damage component from Mantra E was removed, Karma can only proc Gathering Fire with Q and W, making Mantra+E feel weird and unrewarding sometimes. Without it, Mantra E has no interaction with Gathering Fire anymore. Wich is why I like this mechanic. Maybe implementing it as a passive effect on E instead of directly into her passive?

Mantra+E had very good uses, like

During teamfights, it was a smart move to Mantra+E your initiator while you Q'd as well so you could get extra GF procs and re-cast Mantra faster offensively or defensively.
Wave Clearing. The AoE was downright more effective than Mantra Q because of how the damage spreads outwards, ignoring collision.
Even though it's a weaker version....SHIELD BOMBS (Old Karma OP)

I guess the "cooldown well" on R opens the possibility to Mantra twice in a very very short window? I guess that lowering her cooldown on R gives the same effect if you manage to proc GF like a champ.

Can't we just add a second Mantra Charge like before after lvl 11? :P

One question though! With Mantra Q....since her damage is divided in two stages, shouldn't it proc GF twice per target hit? Currently I think it only gives 2 seconds per Champion, even if the skill manages to hit the same target twice.

Warden KarmaAug 13, 20151 votes

Two Mantras <3

Q does proc normally as does the RQ's catalysm :) So RQ can hit twice so to say (at least it should).

Leu07Aug 14, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Two Mantras <3

Q does proc normally as does the RQ's catalysm :) So RQ can hit twice so to say (at least it should).

I know...it SHOULD, but I think it doesn't.....pretty much like her Shield "bug" before the soft changes she got. Mantra E was supposed to already give a larger shield to the primary target but it didn't for some reason. I've tested Mantra Q several times in custom games against stationary targets and the cooldown only gets reduced once. I think it has to do with the damage being calculated as one source instead of two or something.

Two Mantras would be so good to have again tbh T_T

Icestar1186Aug 12, 20151 votes

As another suggestion, maybe make it proc on large jungle monsters? I feel like it would be cool to see a pure mage jungler be viable.

Warden KarmaAug 21, 20151 votes

I know Riot has a lot to do and I am very glad to have even a red post, but could we talk a little more about Karmas Passive? ^^

We tryed to explain how we feel about Karma and especially her Passive, answering Questions while giving Feedback. I know that Karma is not specifically looked on at the moment, but I also heard, that Riot is not happy currently with her and her players mostly are not too.

Chaning her Passive would not even take so much time than to reconsider everything about her, so it would be a very nice change to make feel Karma more "completely". Maybe the Passive change is even everyhing she needs? Nevertheless, even if Karma will be looked at somewhat in the far future, a change like that would most likely cover "the waiting time".

Thanks :)

@Riot Can we do something about Karma's Passive?

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