A while back, Riot gutted the cooldown on global non-skillshot ultimates because they felt that their already long cooldowns didn't leave enough breathing room. Shen's ultimate now has a reasonable cooldown, so can Karthus ultimate, which is significantly less impactful than Shen's ultimate in most cases, actually get a reasonable cooldown?
TheOvermind38 votesWell karthus spiked to a 55% win rate with 6.9 so I diubt they will buff him anytime soon
Melledoneus8 votesBecause people play him so little nobody knows how to beat the influx of good Karthus players.
Astôlfo2 votesExcept that's not about his kit, and more of the item changes and the extremely low playrate meaning almost no one knows how to play against him.
Akali is SO HOT16 votesBecause it's the same ultimate that cannot be stopped during his passive as well as the same one that does guaranteed massive damage to everyone on the map that cannot be dodged unless they have a specific ability to dodge it with.
Strawberrycocoa7 votesFor some reason they seem to be afraid of buffing Karthus. I mean, no updates on the update devoted ENTIRELY to Mages...
Gorgannan5 votesThat's because updates for the sake of updates are bad. Karthus is a healthy champion, and is very unique.
DarkRitual4 votesThey buffed him indirectly, though his item build.
Strawberrycocoa3 votesNow that you mention it, I've noticed I have a little bit of an easier time on him post-update. A few days ago I took him top against a Riven, mostly because I just felt like playing Karthus, and ended up completely wrecking her. She couldn't farm worth shit since I skittle-bombed her to hell and back every time, and she couldn't engage on me without eating a lot of damage. She managed to kill me a couple times with her ult, but I generally returned the favor. XD
Troll for Trump3 votesIf a Riven loses to Karthus in the current state the Riven must be preeety bad.
Yeah, the Riven was B5...
TotalJerk1 votesHow does Riven win that matchup? Even if Karthus can't take her in a straight up fight he can just hang back and passively farm/poke.
Troll for Trump1 votesYes, but Riven should not be the one dying. Karthus can get by via towerhugging...but a riven, dying to a Karthus in lane...
FACE THE WlND7 votesWait how is Karrhus ult easily countered?
Big Lincoln63 votesinvulns 
can't-die effects 
shields and heals 
damage reduction 
items 
HayRoss5 votesYou would have to have some REALLY good timing as Taric to use your ult to negate Karthus's ult, though
FastAsHeck7 votesyeah taric has 0.5 seconds to ult, still a good taric will never get it wrong
Astôlfo8 votesUh, considering Taric ult takes 2.5s channel while Karthus takes 3, you just hit R the moment you see the pillar.
YumaS2Astral35 votes[{quoted}](name=Big Lincoln,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gJImNkE6,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-05-14T04:51:24.840+0000)
invulns
can't-die effects
shields and heals
damage reduction
items
Revive passives and items 
Untargetability 
Spell shields 
Stasis
Among a few unique other effects: 
's ult, 
's oathsworn, 's devoured ally
Malicious Metal21 votes
's Shield
Dramos1 votesI tried it a few times. Died anyway.
Is there a secret?
The Blue Rajah6 votesDo more damage
Jonxx26 votes
Ult gives a splitsecond of untargetability as well.
SomeLink14 votesMagic immunity shields: 
Shields and heals: 
Damage reduction: 
Self shielding:
Revive effect:
Pseudo-revive effect: 
Skelenth2 votesBraums and Galios shields only increase their resistences
WacingTheFind3 votesGalio's shield also gives him heal every time he gets hit.
SomeLink2 votesI was actually counting braums wall under shield. He can either fully negate the damage to himself (100% damage reduction of the first thing from a target direction) or up to 40% of the damage.
This being why I put it in there: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4600792
Galio is my "technically". It does increase resistances. However, it also increases galios health per hit. It was the healing which is why I threw him on there.
Enrovy5 votes[{quoted}](name=Big Lincoln,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=gJImNkE6,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-05-14T04:51:24.840+0000)
invulns
can't-die effects
shields and heals
damage reduction
items
realizing half of these are meta champs... also though some of these are difficult to pull off, it's possible still
DarkRitual5 votesYou missed an item: 
AoE MR buff, and AoE Shield mitigate a lot of the damage early on, and still a decent amount later on.
TheProAndrew1 votesthe 2 most basic spell counter it too and have similar cd 
and many adcs building 
and 
make 
's ulti almost useless and fearless
Zedex7 votesMost champions have several counters to their kits or just a single ability. Its impossible for this not to happen in a game with so many varying items, mechanics, and champion kits. How is Karthus deserving of a pure stat buff (something that has proven to be broken with most champions in the past, especially Karfus) when he has one of the best midlane win rates at the moment?
He's not weak...His ultimate is purposely gated behind long cooldowns because its mechanic is essentially a brain tumor.
Draqone5 votesKarthus got a huge indirect buff with the RoA and Zhonya changes.
THESuperStuntMan5 votesThey actually want to nerf him since his winrate is up this patch. Ridiculous in my opinion, but they're not gonna buff him now.
nice table4 voteswould require nerfs on rest of his kit as his already strong though.
Astôlfo5 votesAre you... saying Karthus is strong? What?
[zombie-brand-facepalm]
Quepha2 votesAre you... saying Karthus is strong? What?
[zombie-brand-facepalm]
4th highest winrate in mid lane.
Astôlfo8 votes0.93% playrate. Almost no one plays him except the people that know how to do so well. People generally aren't used to playing against him.
He didn't get any changes. AP items did. Other mages did.
Try again.
Quepha3 votes0.93% playrate.
A completely irrelevant observation
Almost no one plays him except the people that know how to do so well.
OH BOY THIS MYTH AGAIN http://www.lolking.net/champions/karthus?chartType=performanceLoyalty®ion=na&map=sr&queue=normal#statistics Karthus has a loyalty chart that skews very much towards the lower number for 'games played' and he has an exceptionally high number of games from players who have only played him a single time recently.
"Low pick rate means the only people playing him are experienced ____-mains" is a myth perpetuated by the community that actually tends to be contrary to reality more often than anything else.
Astôlfo9 votesSorry, didn't know you were blind.
http://champion.gg/champion/Karthus
The Ranked game distribution shows a lot of newbies pick him up, because they apparently see the winrate and think he's some cheap easy super-strong freelo, which he's not.
If you look at winrate % per games played, you'll also see the vast majority of the newbies who pick him up have just barely over 50% winrate, which is fairly typical of any average okay champion.
The average number of games played per the playerbase on him is ~103-104. That's a fairly large number. Third highest, actually, for mid.
Nice job with your attempt to "debunk" the non-existent "myth" though. Nice job linking a page that actually completely disproves your failure of an attempt too.
High loyalty towards low playrates, which decreases as experience increases. Coincidentally, as more games played increases, so does winrate, and a lower number of games played = lower winrate.
A lot of people pick him because they saw the high winrate this patch and they're like "OMG MAYBE I CAN FREELO" except he's not freelo in the slightest and people don't know jackshit about how to play him.
1 game is the highest loyalty, which really means nothing since it's one game. The average is also 38% winrate. Wow, SO OP DUDE, OMG TIME FOR MY NEW FREELO MAIN!111!11. Yeah, no. Nice fail though.
From 2-25 games, the winrate only goes up to 53%, which is also fairly average. A bit on the better side, but that came with experience and is a slow slope, and not a massive jump. Not to mention, it doesn't even break the 50% winrate barrier until 3-5 games, and even then, just barely.
Good job with a complete failure of an argument though. [slayer-jinx-catface]
forresto1 votesgiven that there are around 140 champs and .93% is almost 1 in 100 or 1% doesnt that mean he has a fairly middling rate of play? especially since at any given point there are a few champs who take up a massive portion of the playrate like lucian taking up a 33% playrate from time to time
1 800 GGTOOEZ2 votesgiven that there are around 140 champs and .93% is almost 1 in 100 or 1% doesnt that mean he has a fairly middling rate of play? especially since at any given point there are a few champs who take up a massive portion of the playrate like lucian taking up a 33% playrate from time to time
Each game has 10 champions. .93% is near the bottom, around Yorick and Skarner.
The Yetii Rider3 votesKarthus's ultimate having a lower cooldown would unbalance so many game modes besides Summoner's Rift. Nuking people from orbit on ARAM every 150 seconds at level 6 is disgusting, since you can't base. On URF, Karthus would have an even shorter CD than normal for his ult and the chaos would just be insane. Twisted Treeline wouldn't be able to handle someone with that much global pressure either.
Thing is, Karthus's ultimate is balanced around hitting 5 enemies, but the fewer enemies there actually are, the more devastating it is. If you hit 5 people for 200 damage, meh. That's not so bad. But if you hit 3 people for 200 damage, that's a full 600 of their maybe 6000 combined health totals, which is much more significant.
Karthus's ultimate is balanced. Doesn't need to be changed. He's toxic in every map that isn't SR.
Melledoneus23 votesSince when did Riot balance the game around URF and TT?
CppL3 votesIts a point and click global nuke.There is a reason it has high cd.
Tobias Brackner2 votesidk, there are still plenty of cchamps that don't counter his ult. Whenever I play him I am never short on people who will be killed by the ult. And even if they have champs who can give survivability, that doesn't mean they lived through the teamfight that I'm ulting after (or that they are still able to cast those spells).
Hell, even if you don't kill anybody, dropping that nuke can force teams off objectives if you are applying pressure.
Long story short, you can't just view champs in a vaccuum and look at abilities, but you must also consider how their interactions in the game will effect those abilities.
Imperial Kishin2 votesHow about changing his Ult like this: R - Requiem Cooldown: 100 seconds at all Ranks Damage: 200/400/600 level 6/11/16 (+50% AP)
I think his Kit is in need of a Rework. Except his Ult, that has to stay because its what makes him special. A Global threat.
Llanite2 votesOnly a few champions can "counter" it which usual costs another ult or actives with similar CD (and tons of gold). I wouldn't call it "easily counterable".
And even if they successfully negate it with their own ults, it's one ult trading for 2-5 other ults. Fairly profitable trade if you asked me.
