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Karma on the PBE GUTTED to become a support?

taleofsonata··32 votes·2,596 views

Riot can you answer me? What is a support? Any champion champion can support and can have the same utilities has a "support"? You wanted Bard to become a good support but the fact is Bard doesn't do any damage to protect his carry. Bard has utilities ok but utilities with no damage is pointless. The reason why you didn't want to have support actually do decent damage is because of Lulu. You designed Lulu as a support champion with alot of cc and utilities. But because you gave her such a good poke kit you made her a good mid laner and sometimes top laner. You are imposing the Meta on support champion. Another exemple is Soraka. She used to be such a good laner mid and top aswell as a support. Then you reworked her and imposing her to stay bottom lane with her ADC. Alistar: You removed his W, AA combo which made him viable as a top laner and forced him back to bottom lane. Sona: She was finally viable mid, but you kept removing damage from her Q and passive during 3 consecutive patch. Morgana: A Mid laner who became a support because of DAMAGE AND UTILITIES! Annie: Another Mid laner who became a support because of Damage and Utilities! Zilean: Designed as a mid laner and now a horrible support and a mid laner. Here comes the unusual support who became support because riot "buff" was suppose to help them in the primary role.

Nautilus: You buffed Nautilus W to make him a better jungler but in the end people innovated and started playing him bottom. Whats next riot are you going to completly destroy nautilus and force the Meta on him back to the jungle?

Same goes to Hecarim, his jungle was weak but then people realize he was actually viable Top, Riot then keep nerfing him and are trying to send him back to the jungle.

Gragas is another case where Riot kept playing with him: His 1st design was a Fatmage 2nd a Fat Brawler Fighter and now a Fat jungle Tank with sustain.

I bet his upcoming nerf is going to be his Passive.

RIOT STOP BEING A META POLICE!

44 Comments

commit an hero15 votes

{quoted}

Riot can you answer me? What is a support? Any champion champion can support and can have the same utilities has a "support"? You wanted Bard to become a good support but the fact is Bard doesn't do any damage to protect his carry. Bard has utilities ok but utilities with no damage is pointless. The reason why you didn't want to have support actually do decent damage is because of Lulu. You designed Lulu as a support champion with alot of cc and utilities. But because you gave her such a good poke kit you made her a good mid laner and sometimes top laner. You are imposing the Meta on support champion. Another exemple is Soraka. She used to be such a good laner mid and top aswell as a support. Then you reworked her and imposing her to stay bottom lane with her ADC. Alistar: You removed his W, AA combo which made him viable as a top laner and forced him back to bottom lane. Sona: She was finally viable mid, but you kept removing damage from her Q and passive during 3 consecutive patch. Morgana: A Mid laner who became a support because of DAMAGE AND UTILITIES! Annie: Another Mid laner who became a support because of Damage and Utilities! Zilean: Designed as a mid laner and now a horrible support and a mid laner. Here comes the unusual support who became support because riot "buff" was suppose to help them in the primary role.

Nautilus: You buffed Nautilus W to make him a better jungler but in the end people innovated and started playing him bottom. Whats next riot are you going to completly destroy nautilus and force the Meta on him back to the jungle?

Same goes to Hecarim, his jungle was weak but then people realize he was actually viable Top, Riot then keep nerfing him and are trying to send him back to the jungle.

Gragas is another case where Riot kept playing with him: His 1st design was a Fatmage 2nd a Fat Brawler Fighter and now a Fat jungle Tank with sustain.

I bet his upcoming nerf is going to be his Passive.

RIOT STOP BEING A META POLICE!

Soraka mid lane was really non-interactive. She would just spam Q and win lane.

Alistar W AA combo was cancer, I don't care what you say.

qetzel13 votes

{quoted}

You wanted Bard to become a good support but the fact is Bard doesn't do any damage to protect his carry. Bard has utilities ok but utilities with no damage is pointless.

Bard isn't bad... He doesn't need damage.

You designed Lulu as a support champion with alot of cc and utilities. But because you gave her such a good poke kit you made her a good mid laner and sometimes top laner. You are imposing the Meta on support champion.

By nerfing her, letting her be balanced in the top and mid lanes, Riot managed to keep Lulu in the game without being too strong. This had to come with nerfs to her supporting. How could they have nerfed one without the other when they share the same strengths?

Another exemple is Soraka. She used to be such a good laner mid and top aswell as a support. Then you reworked her and imposing her to stay bottom lane with her ADC. Alistar: You removed his W, AA combo which made him viable as a top laner and forced him back to bottom lane.

Soraka was bullshit. Really, really bullshit. Same with Alistar. Both were practically permabanned in their solo lane states for good reason.

Sona: She was finally viable mid, but you kept removing damage from her Q and passive during 3 consecutive patch.

Again, how do you balance the support without affecting the mid Sona when they share the same strengths. I would choose 1 balanced role and only one balanced role over one slightly weak role and one incredibly powerful role.

Morgana: A Mid laner who became a support because of DAMAGE AND UTILITIES! Annie: Another Mid laner who became a support because of Damage and Utilities!

Yeah. No. These are sucess stories. Riot actually did well with these. Aside from the recent nerf to Morgana's W both have been quite balanced overall in more than one role.

Zilean: Designed as a mid laner and now a horrible support and a mid laner.

Zilean was also bullshit.

Here comes the unusual support who became support because riot "buff" was suppose to help them in the primary role.

Nautilus: You buffed Nautilus W to make him a better jungler but in the end people innovated and started playing him bottom. Whats next riot are you going to completly destroy nautilus and force the Meta on him back to the jungle?

Same goes to Hecarim, his jungle was weak but then people realize he was actually viable Top, Riot then keep nerfing him and are trying to send him back to the jungle.

Nautilus doesn't look OP in the support role. Hecarim was OP when he went top. He needed nerfs. Riot has managed to slightly hit his top lane without seriously affecting his jungling. This is better.

Gragas is another case where Riot kept playing with him: His 1st design was a Fatmage 2nd a Fat Brawler Fighter and now a Fat jungle Tank with sustain.

I bet his upcoming nerf is going to be his Passive.

His first design was supposed to be a fat fighter. People just played him as a mage because he had really high AP ratios. The rework was designed to give him his initial role of fighter.

Despite his tank build, he still plays as a fighter would.

I think the difference in our thinking is that you believe that these champions were balanced in their alternative roles. The vast majority of people (including myself and Riot) believed these champions were too strong. In the cases of Zilean, Alistar, Soraka particularly there was no counterplay. You got massive burst from Zilean for coming within 600 range of him. Alistar won a trade every time he had headbutt up (seriously, there was no interaction. Once he picked up a Sheen that really started to hurt and there was nothing you could do to stop it) and furthermore dealt rather large amounts of burst damage thorugh SS and Tri-force while being incredibly tanky from his ultimate. And Soraka... Soraka pushed you in faster than almost anyone else could, silenced you so ganks wouldn't help and healed back any damage you dealt while remaining incredibly tanky - you couldn't kill the healer because she was so tanky, you couldn't kill anyone else because she was healing them.

There was no counterplay, strategic or otherwise, against those opponents.

Many of the others have just been a little bit over the top in some of their roles. Something has to be sacrificed for the sake of balance.

taleofsonata1 votes

Soraka, Alistar,Zilean may have no counterplay but lets be real how many champion in this game has no counterplay? ALOT, those champion got hit by the nerf bat because they were unusual to see? How about Zed, Ahri, Katarina, Jinx, Thresh, Leona, Blitzcrank, Yasuo and many more popular champion. Those champion are always seen in almost all your match not because they are op but their design and kit feels right. I'd rather play a Ninja than a Throwing banana unicorn or play a Fox girl than a cow.

Let me give you an exemple, remember back when Sejuani wasn't popular even tho her Kit was soo strong yet they reworked her again and made her even stronger? Because she was soo strong she was freelo and people started playing her and her popularity rise.

Another champion is Galio, Galio kit is very very strong yet he is soo underplayed compare to other champion. Think about the champion pool of a support, there are many champion that can support yet you only see 5 major of them, Leona,Thresh,Blitzcrank, Annie,Morgana. Their kit has been almost untouched and feels really really strong. They did the same thing has any of those underplayed champion but just BETTER.

Lets give a comparison: there was an old post talking about why Ahri and Leblanc feels like they do the same thing but ahri did them way better than Leblanc. IF Ahri has the same damage than leblanc she would have been stronger than her. The only difference that seperate Leblanc from ahri was Damage.

I'd rather have a Vast champion pool to play in a specific role than just 2 viable and strong champion.

BADxW0LF3 votes

I'd rather play a Ninja than a Throwing banana unicorn or play a Fox girl than a cow.

lolololol. you are so welcome to play someone other than raka, but don't you dare dis on my girl. You ever notice how she is the instant target of any team fight because her heals are op as fuck? Just because YOU don't know how to use a champion efficiently doesn't mean that champ is useless. I have had many games playing Bard where the enemy team afterward asks me how to play him because I am a huge threat. Don't hate on champs just because you don't know how to use them effectively. Sure they are promoting the meta, but they aren't enforcing it. It's up to you to find out how to break the meta if you are that bent out of shape about it.

taleofsonata1 votes

You are telling me I can't play a champion correctly, sorry but yes I know how to play those champion. How long have I been playing this game to not knowing how to play them? that would be blasphemous, there are ALOT of champion that does the same thing that those champion do but BETTEr just BETTER. Those champion may be played differently but they have the same purpose has Janna, Leona, Thresh, or even a Xerath or Vel koz support.

BADxW0LF4 votes

Who does cc better than leona? Who does healing better than raka?

Narasimha2 votes

I'd argue that Naut can compete with Leo for CC.

But otherwise I concur. Carry on.

redniwediS7 votes

I always thought it was a good thing when champions could go to multiple lanes. Variety is a good thing, right?

I still think that, but I'm not really sure what to think about Riot's point of view here.

test account2 votes

Riot disagrees with you.

redniwediS1 votes

Thank you captain obvious.

Narasimha1 votes

It's a GREAT thing when champions are able to go to different lanes. It's a HORRIBLE thing when champions start to become problems there.

Mind you, this has nothing to do with Karma. She's no threat mid. Guess Riot really just wants her to go back to her roots of supporting.

redniwediS1 votes

Funny thing is old "support" Karma could do some work mid lane. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how things turn out.

NorthernDruid5 votes

What I don't get is why they're looking to change her in the first place. Is she in a really bad spot now? 'Cause last time she was on rotation she felt pretty powerful.

Or is this another case of "Since it's not broken let's try and 'fix' it"

4fortytwo23 votes

She is not in a perfect spot but not weak either. I guess Riot just thinks her kit could feel better, thats why they try to highlight the different strengths of the spells. R+Q for damage, R+W for the snare (+heal), R+E for the huge aoe shield + ms boost. I actually dont mind them doing that. It always seemed a bit strange to me that every single Spell + Mantra interaction has a bonus damage part. I honestly dont get all the hate, i am not even sure its that much of a nerf for mid lane Karma (now that the Heal is back to 20% missing health for the R+W and with the really huge buff to her passive which allows her to use Mantra much more often) She will be more supportive, but that doesnt mean she will be weaker mid lane (and in the support role she will be really strong). (made a post about that but anything that isnt hating on those changes just gets downvoted)

NorthernDruid3 votes

I think her strong damage potential is important for her. She's able to duel people not due to lots of CC and shields and stuff but because her damage is good enough for her to be a threat, even if I don't empower Q for max potential.

I thought the shield changes looked pretty ok until someone else made the point that AoE nuking the enemy team with an AoE shield once your team has made full contact is the swiftest reset on mantra you can get.

Really though, I think most of the hate right now is just more defensiveness because of the horrible first draft.

IMO they should pull the changes and try again in a few months if they wanna change her for any reason. Just so people's not already riled up from their proposed changing of major aspects of her playstyle.

4fortytwo22 votes

I feel like most people really dont consider how strong the passive buff is, since a full duration W procs it 3 times, the Q+R twice if both parts hit and of course every single autoattack. I think the buffed passive really compensates for not beeing able to hit like 3-4 enemies with R+E. In small fights/duels she will actually have her ulti up a lot more. And the R+E shield is pretty crazy now at max rank its 410 + 80% AP and 50% of that as aoe.

Removing heal in the first versions was a bad idea, karma players love that heal^^

BerserkGoldfish4 votes

YEAH GAME DESIGNERS! STOP MAKING SURE THE THINGS YOU DESIGNED DO WHAT YOU DESIGNED THEM TO DO!!! WTH IS THAT STUFF!!! STUFF AND THINGS AND POOR EXAMPLES!!! WHY MUST YOU DO YOUR JOBS???

OhthePiplup3 votes

They make people with designed roles to play in. Then they say they are "fine" with people breaking the meta, strategic diversity and shit. THEN they find out that a champ can go in a different area, and they nerf them back to that role. Their job is to create a champion that should be played a way, but doesnt HAVE to. They shouldnt be going all hitler control mode on us when we find a neat role for a champion.

Fried Noob4 votes

Or, you know, they nerf champions out of lanes or severely weaken them when they are horrible to play against. AP Soraka, AP Janna, anything Lulu, they all sucked to play against because they could clear waves from utter safety and basically laugh if you tried to fight them. Karma's changes honestly don't look that bad, since as far as I know most Karma's use ult-Q for damage, preferring ult-E for team engage/saves (which is getting buffed). While the removal of a guaranteed heal on W sucks, it's not the end of the world.

4fortytwo22 votes

the heal is already back to beeing 20% of your missing health since the last pbe Update^^

Right now R+W just no longer deals bonus damage but instead snares you as long as morg q (the guy working on her also wants to increase the AP ratio on W to 90% (from 60%)

CubedJustice1 votes

Do you ever wonder why the champions Riot is releasing are bound to one viable role? Because it's so much easier to balance. You can still have fun with solo lane bard, but it's not good. If riot wants to nerf bard's support, they don't want to worry about hitting his mid lane. It's much tougher to find a balance change for one of those roles, but not both, when they act similarly.

FantasySniper3 votes

I'd say these are net buffs.

Her passive was given a level scaling. She uses her enhanced [Q] for damage, rarely her [W], and never her [E]. The enhanced [W] and [E] are now much better in teamfights.

Earl Eulrich3 votes

they actually nerfed nautis shield for jungling purposes (he relied on the passive-dmg for mana-efficient clearspeed) - they buffed the e, which you just can´t spam in the jungle due to serious manaissues.

but yea, i also donßt like the trend - it´s like with hybrid-Champs. They seem to donßt like any sort of diversity at Riot, Champs that can fullfill more than one purpose are just a thorn in their side apparently *sigh*

qetzel1 votes

There is always a trade off.

Take, for example, Ezreal. Ezreal can still be played as an AP champion. If AD Ezreal were to get too strong, nerfing the AP part of him won't affect the AD part at all. In this case, AP Ezreal could stay (and when the Lichbane changes went through, Ez got a small buff to his W to keep the AP build alive). Then Hecarim. The most recent, necessary for top lane, nerf that Hecarim got was chosen so that it didn't affect his jungle. It doesn't look like a massive nerf so top Hecarim should still work (without being OP) as well as jungle Hecarim.

Now take the example of Lulu. Top/Mid Lulu was a problem. She was definitely too strong. Unfortunately, there was no way to nerf her without affecting her supporting capabilities as they share the same strengths. For the sake of balance, support had to be weakened.

So yeah. Champions with multiple roles have to be balanced around their strongest role. This sucks but is necessary.

kitcat3002 votes

I have tried her a couple of times on the PBE. Honestly, her laneing hasn't been impacted. The changes have no Impact on her standard play style.

Poke-poke-poke Sheild-root-(ult) Q

Yeah she may not have extra damage on Renewal, but she still has the percent heal, and the extra root duration has more impact than you think, great for ganks or looking down the enemy for your ADC.

And the shield. Oh god, the reduced CD and mana cost is great.

Partholonian1 votes

I'm really looking forward to trying her in the jungle now that they brought back W/RW on monsters. (Most people would be crazy to ult monsters, but Karma's ult CD is so low it might be worth it for the sustain, especially on early clears since you don't have to be level 6 to have it.)

For ganks, ERWQ if you want more lockdown and can rely on your laner to bring the damage to finish, or EWRQ if you need to kill them yourself (of course you shouldn't pick a fair fight with a laner, this is only if they are really low or oom).

And for teamfighting, I bet you will notice the RE increased shield much more than the damage (especially if you're not building magic pen -- shields are true damage and don't need it).

Her primary damage ability isn't losing any damage, but her utility abilities are gaining utility (in exchange for losing some damage that was just sort of there for no reason).

FalconPawwwwnch1 votes

Good riddance

Top lane karma can die in a fire

Seqqura1 votes

So you really feel top lane Karma is somehow more problematic than the truly strong solo laners such as Zed, Rumble, Gnar? (Hint: none of them have a mana bar).

Give some evidence if you think Karma is overpowered. Don't just flame.

Vistha Kai1 votes

I once got AA'd 5 times by late game full tank Bard. I died.

THESuperStuntMan1 votes

I don't think they often enforce the support meta; the bigger problem is that if a champ with enough utility to be a support and enough damage/safety to be a solo laner they are probably too strong. Since even if they feed they still have utility. Not much risk comes from this, just reward. Karma is a different story. She wasn't an especially strong laner or support and they are just removing most of the few things that made her good. Basically just like what they did to Zilean.... and Veigar. hmm...

CoolKnightST1 votes

Jungle Karma will be a really good expansion to the jungle & solves another hole in the ap jungle diversity. She was always intended to be a support. And that's a strength they will be improved. I'm pretty sure it's worth nerfing her solo lanes to give her a less situational use in the game.

Partholonian1 votes

Is it really a nerf to her solo lane though? Obviously you're not going to use RE in a duel anyway. If you RW in a duel or gank, you get less damage (the AP ratio of un-ulted W is going up, but RW no longer does more damage than W) but more CC and the same heal. And RQ is completely unchanged except for the passive buff at levels 7+.

Oh, and E has lower CD and mana cost for the same amount of speedup (slightly less base shield strength but I think it's about the same per mana or per second -- but you get more out of AP because the ratio is the same and you can cast it more often).

Jungle Lux God1 votes

There's a difference between a champion being good and a champion being unhealthy.

Top lane Alistar was cancerous as hell. Solo lane Soraka was cancerous as hell. No one wanted to play against them when they were good in these lanes because they were both incredibly non-interactive.

That said, there's so reason to support alternate play patterns given they are healthy, and Karma is a good example of a champion to support this. Riot is trying to pidgeonhole her into a support role, but Karma players don't want to just play support with her. They want to be able to take her into a solo lane as a mage instead of a support, and the changes on PBE are going to completely destroy her except in the support role.

taleofsonata1 votes

You want to know what the definition of an unhealthy champion is from my point of view? Bard is one of them AN GAME changing ulti that can destroy your team very very easely. I'd rather face a No brain pusher soraka that doesn't ward and keep pushing than a Bard ulting to set the enemie a beautiful wombo combo. You want to know an champion thats non-interactive, Annie, She can LAst hit freely with her Q which is impossible to deny. Zed is a ressourceless with easy last hit potential, Yasuo Q does the same thing as annie. These champion can farm until at some point just Delete you.

taleofsonata1 votes

How about game changing ultimate like Sejuani, Wukong, Amumu and other? Are those unhealthy too?

Occams Raiser1 votes

Wu is awesome. Not every monkey is king.

Jungle Lux God1 votes

Why would Sejuani, Wukong, or Amumu ultimates be considered unhealthy? They are perfectly healthy for the game, and the only people that will deny that are those that don't know how to deal with them and cannot stand to learn how to deal with them.

Jungle Lux God1 votes

Old Soraka and Alistar makes all of these champions that you mentioned look really interactive.

With Old Soraka, her free, targetted silence prevented any champion from actually engaging her. Her old Starcall pushed the wave faster than a lot of other champions could, especially at early levels, and she could heal off all the damage that her opponents could deal to her. Playing against her basically meant that you were stuck doing nothing but farming whatever minions the tower didn't kill before they hit the turret.

With Alistar, he had a targeted W-AA harass combo that did good damage (especially after Sheen/Trinity Force purchases), and bullied out most other champions. Combined with the fact that he later built full tank, and very few, if any, champions could actually trade with him.

None of the champions you mentioned actually do any of this (although Zed comes pretty close). So you say Annie and Yasuo can last-hit with their Q. How is that different from her or any of the other 124 champions in the game last-hitting with an auto attack? Zed I won't even try to reason with for his passive or easy manaless waveclear, but there's nothing wrong with Annie or Yasuo last-hitting with spells.

N30NP4NDA1 votes

U fukin wot m8, u calin ma Bard bad? Bard is a fukin boss.

Occams Raiser1 votes

Bwa ha hahahahahaha

TNHA Baritone1 votes

Did you read the patch notes? Mantra is up more, Her W is on a .90 ap scale. I mean learn to read and then stop blaming riot

OperationDEEZ11 votes

You forgot how top Taric was like, the first bruiser ever.

Major Sparkles1 votes

Riot isn't enforcing the meta as much as they are enforcing champion specific roles. Sorry bro that's a -1 from me.

Seqqura1 votes

Here are my 2 cents on the matter:

Those of us who have played Karma since season 1 know that she was one of the most exciting champions to play, if a little underpowered, but with a very overpowered passive that could lead to some real fun when you get dived.

Riot took this away from us, gave her a new model and new animations that are frankly worse, but gave us some interesting new kit to play with. Now our heal was on our W, taking us into the danger zone to heal. High-risk, high-reward, that awesome passive is gone but the champion is still fun to play as an AP solo laner or AP support.

The new PBE changes seem poorly thought out. By losing the damage from the W we lose a lot of the bite of the ability, and the ability to punish enemies who dive us or want to charge at us. We also now can't trigger mantra cooldown passive with W or E, so we will be spamming mantra Q a lot more leading to boring gameplay. Yes you are giving us bigger CD reductions per hit on her passive, but overall I feel that these changes will mean that our decisions are more binary and less tricky, as well as reducing her bite and her ability to solo lane at all, due to how easy it is for a champion to avoid the Q.

Hopefully PBE testers will confirm my beliefs but please Riot, take another look at Karma. Karma is currently a very fun aggressive support to play, don't turn her into a worse version of a Janna.

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