Karma... Still underwhelming.
When compared to characters like Maokai and LeBlanc, Karma's snare falls so short it makes me sad. Karma's kit is a lot of fun, but she can feel worthless when it comes to being really useful.
- Her burst doesn't match other mages, and her utility barely matches that of lower tier supports.
- Her skillshot and only source of damage is a laughable joke. The range isn't very good, and the damage isn't very high. Sure, I can spam it all day, but that means nothing when she's categorized as a MAGE. If I get in range to poke an Annie, she'll either out trade me or oneshot me with her Tibbers combo. If I get in range to poke a Veigar, I'll get stunned, and killed in his burst combo. If I try to get in range to poke a Malz... You get the point. Her damage doesn't suit her mage role.
- Her spell costs are fairly high when you take into account the majority of them are designed to be spammed almost on CD during laning phase.
- She lacks a heal (For her allies) So she has to either predict incoming damage, which results in rapidfire use of her E, or just Mantra it as much as you can during a teamfight to shield everyone.
- Her snare, as mentioned before, is so bad it HURTS. At level 1, where Leblanc has a much longer range, shorter cooldown, higher damage and a flat 2 second duration, Karma has pathetically low damage on it, barely over half the chain distance before it breaks, a very low and scaling duration and a longer cooldown. Even with Mantra, it doesn't match Leblanc. And please, don't give me the "It's a point and click, so obviously it's not as good as a skillshot!" argument. Maokai's is point and click, and his also sets up his ENTIRE KIT in addition to being a 2+ second snare. The heal on the mantra is weak and not worth it for a 40 second cooldown effect. The AoE slow and AoE shield + Speed so heavily outweighs the .75 seconds of extra snare in almost every situation it's laughable.
Long story short, Karma feels weak. All of her skills and abilities are torn from previous champions, as opposed to her old kit, which was far more unique. For being a copycat character, why are all of her abilities so underwhelming compared to where they were taken from? LB's snare is superior. Ezreal's Q is far surperior, even if you take the AoE effect into account. Janna shields for more. The only time Karma TRUELY shines is when her Mantra is up, and her abilties feel useful. Problem is, unless you have a good laning phase, get CDR and lane all your Qs, good luck using mantra more than 1-2 times per fight, if that. This inability to use the entire point of her kit really rubs me the wrong way. Remove Mantra's cooldown and give it a huge mana cost, and then we can talk. In her current state, Karma is caught in this void of uselessness when her Mantra is down, especially if the enemy has a Trundle or other slow abilities which counteract her shield's entire speed boost. Sona does her job better in almost every way, all while having an actual ultimate.
