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I need help with karthus...

D2Vincent··4 votes·3,552 views

Being an avid Karthus player, I often cringe in despair once I see the likes of Fizz, Xerath, Ahri, Kassadin, Zed, and any other champs known to counter Karthus. The other problem is, is that most of them are currently in the season's meta. I just want to be able to play with my fav champion without getting constantly burst down by all the cannon flak coming from the burst-AP type champs. Granted I'm supposed to use my wall to slow them and let me get away, but most of the times, I miss in the panic, or they simply jump over it and hit me anyway. Can someone please give me some tips on how to counter play these types of champs...

And if you need some details on how I play, here ya go: Masteries: 21/0/9

Summoner spells: Flash/Clarity

Runes: 4Marks of magic pen, 5 marks of flat AP/9 marks of armor /9 Glyphs of flat AP/ 3 Quints of flat AP

Build order: Mana crystal + 2 health pots => Boots + tear => Catalyst or Sorc. boots => blasting rod - RoA => Blasting rod - Archangel's staff => Items for Deathcap => Items for hourglass => last item is situational, but is usually either Banshee's veil or Void Staff.

17 Comments

12tales9 votes

There's no real reason to not run Exhaust every game. Clarity is awful in comparison. Not only does Exhaust give you an out to the likes of Zed, the slow makes it much easier to land your Qs. Very powerful summoner overall.

Rune wise, standard Karthus runes are 3 AP Quints, 9 MPen Reds, 9 Scaling HP Yellows and 9 Scaling AP Blues. Flat AP reds are... not amazing.

Void staff is a ludicrously powerful item, and nowhere near situational. Are you familiar with the concept of EHP? Basically, your effective health against a type of damage (magical or physical) is equal to your actual health, times 1+(1% of your Armor/MR). So, if you have 100 armor, it takes double your base health in physical damage to kill you. Alternatively, you take half damage from physical sources.

Void staff reduces that (1% of your Armor/MR) by over a third. So, if you're trying to kill someone with 100 MR and 2000 health, the passive alone is effectively reducing their health by 700. Especially on a champ like Karthus, whose damage comes in large part from base values rather than high ratios, it's a mandatory purchase.

AbiwonKenabi1 votes

The first thing I was going to mention was the change to Exhaust....its worth it for safety. If you feel like you don't have the mana early because of this, maybe try using mana regen yellows instead.

Also wanted to mention how good Void Staff is, so again, get it, its a good item, especially on Karthus (for the mentioned reasons). I wanted to add that consider starting with Doran's Ring; I know it doesn't build into anything, but its a great starting item, giving you early health and some mana sustain. You can still buy 2 pots as well.

Good luck! Practice makes perfect! :)

D2Vincent1 votes

Thanks for the feedback, both of you. This might be able to help in the long run. Granted, I won't be able to get the mana regen yellows right away (considering I'm still trying to replace the flat AP reds with Magic pen reds and I have 3 left to go on there) but I'm gonna try to get to mana regen yellows. As for scaling AP blues, until I can finish the other 2 colors, they're gonna have to stay flat AP blues for now, but if I can I'll try to switch to scaling AP.

Anyway, for switching to exhaust, if I CAN get my mana regen yellows and work on the timing of my q's on minions (It's a pain dealing with that specially around my turrets) I hope to get my goal of 725 gp at first stop, even without clarity.

MrMilkManiac6 votes

To add to this, some thoughts on early gameplay. Karh can farm from far away. Also, he can farm ridiculously well under tower. if you're under tower, those assassins can't dive you (especially with the exhaust people mentioned). Its only when you extend that they can all-in you, so practice farming from afar without pushing your lane. Additionally, your late game is insane. Ignore your lane opponent, focus on farming from long range or under tower, take wraiths when you can, and scale into the late-game team-fighting, objective-destroying, mele-burning, death-defying, zone-creating, globally-damaging beast you were born to be!

D2Vincent1 votes

alright, so after all the feedback, I decided to try a game over in team builder. and here were the results.

http://s25.postimg.org/o4s19a7wf/Karthus_Results.png

From what I could tell, I had somewhat of a better run than I usually did, (Considering I was up against a Veigar who really knew what he was doing.) I managed to ward both sides of mid (despite Xin Zhao constantly destroying my ) and I managed to get away with landing the last blow on dragon, which is nice. Unfortunately, Veigar didn't really give me any room to use my exhaust with his stupid prison and whatnot.

As for starting Items, I went Faerie charm, 3 health pots, 3 mana pots, a stealth ward, and my trinket ward.

In the end, I didn't get to see my full potential with this set-up because they surrendered, but I was pleased with the results.

Sightless661 votes

I'd recommend flask + hp pots over faerie charm and 3 hp pots. It will give you a high amount of sustain over the course of the lane, and it will give you better immediate sustain than faerie charm will. The 180 gold shouldn't slow down your tear at all, and having the flask will help you stay in lane and get the farm you need.

Thanotos Omega1 votes

That was beautiful

ILoveTiramisu1 votes

Remember who fizz (leblacn cannot after last buff on towers) is only champion who can harass you underturrets without taking damage and I think his passive also reduce it.

blackcat13001 votes

assassins can always dive you under turrets zed leesin drana and akali do it all the time.

and in season 5.3 we have no clarity.

Zondervain3 votes

Well. Be careful. I know that isn't what you want to hear, but it's all I can give you. Karthus is one of the few champions, right next to Vayne , KogMaw , and Katarina who can hypercarry (and I mean REALLY hypercarry) when played correctly. Understandably this means he is quite weak in the early game. Just poke and farm with your Lay Waste from a distance, conserve mana, and rush boots, after a tear, ofc.

SodaGnome1 votes

I just posted a karthus video on this thread, check it out. I rarely lose on karthus. Tips... your Q does double the damage if enemy is alone. That's powerful! Get on top of enemy, pop your area spell and hourglass..... when hourglass timer up spam Q till they're dead... if still not dead pop your ult... boom you win.

KarthusFB1 votes

add masterxerath i can help you out with some info on KARTHUS i main him :3

Astral Duck1 votes

What I personally run is.. 21/0/9, Mpen(Or split pen) Marks, armor yellows if I'm up against an AD, otherwise HP yellows. AP Blues, Spellvamp Quints (When jungling.) Ap Quints (When mid lane and I feel confident about being able to sustain with just pots/flask. I get Tear and then work towards a roa, my endgame build with Karthus usually looks like

item 3040, item 3027, item 3089, item 3157 or item 3116, item 3135, item 3020.

AliceInMadness1 votes

My advice is to change your starting items and slightly modify your build order. You get tons of mana replenishment from your defile passive, so taking a faerie charm + tons of pots and wards lets you farm up more safely. Alternatively you could go for a dorans ring for more mana regen but and some hp but its a lot riskier and you dont really need the early ap since you are not an early game champion.

Get that tear and catalyst and finish that RoA asap because you want to survive early(but dont be greedy and do invest in a pink ward). Go for a Zhonya. Its a top counter to assassins and lets you survive a bit longer with defile active in teamfights. Void staff should be your second option since its much cheaper than dcap and gives you a lot for damage. Buy wards. Deathcap becomes more useful later and easier obtainable due to higher gold income from minions and the big wawes they tend to form later on.

Finish Archangels last since it its not as important until the final upgrade.

Upgrad your trinket whenever possible. And i cannot stress how important proper warding is, especially for a champ that is as mobile as a tectonic plate. Wards. Win. Games.

Out of defensive items consider(apart from Banshee's) Randuins.

People told you already about gameplay so i won't bother. Hope i helped. Good luck!

Goumindong1 votes

  1. Exhaust

  2. Don't play Karthus like you care about living.

So there are generally two ways to play Karthus. One is the "hit all the skittles, win the game" method for which you want to be a bit tanky and the other is the "get so fat it doesn't matter If I die" method. If you're getting blown up a lot, go for the second. Skip the RoA and go right from AA staff to Void Staff. Void is more damage than Deathcap except against creeps. But you kill creeps super fast anyway so that doesn't matter. Then Deathcap, then Zhonya/DFG, then whichever of Zhonya/DFG you did not buy after Deathcap. Then just stack DFG's.

Your final build should be

AA Staff, Void, Deathcap, Zhonya, DFG, Sorc Shoes or DFG. Buy blue pot to cap it off.

Your team fight is very simple. Walk into their team, use your wall to make it easier, skittling all the way. Die then ult them for 1200 damage.

ThaddeusMike1 votes

Here are my suggestions

  1. Don't go tear/aa/seraph. It's very powerful, but it delays your powerspike by so much. You could ditch RoA instead, but catalyst is a much better laning item. I also don't see any cdr in that build. CDR is essential because your ult has such an absurd cd and is so much of your power. I go RoA into hourglass, which lets me survive a lot longer and means that when I die I usually am somewhere useful. Hourglass also cancels out a lot of assassins. It can be hard to transition away from the mana heavy builds, but as long as you aren't wasting too many Qs and/or are using your auto attack to last hit occasionally you can get by.
  2. Don't run clarity. Exhaust or TP are both much better. TP lets you go back more frequently without losing anything, or lets you pressure the map even more. Exhaust is a great combat summoner that counters assassins.
  3. This is heresy, but I usually go top as Karthus. You can ward up to the point where you are very safe from ganks, and your ultimate gives you early map pressure that most people can't really match.
Evil Jester1 votes

i used to main him, try this. when VS a karth counter worry more about farming with your Q and just playing strict defence until lvl 6. then just rove the camera around the other lanes till one of them have about 10% HP left. then ult.

If you can't feed kills from your lane, feed from another. I discourage KSing, but you har helping the other lanes if their enemies get away from them or become unreachable under there towers.

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