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Karma and the topic of Multimates

BottleCapster·3/14/2016, 8:51:35 AM·12 votes·1,367 views

Its late, I shouldn't be doing this but oh well! Let's talk Karma .

Now Karma has been one of my favorite champions for a long time now. I loved her pre-work and post-rework, and she's in my top 3 most played champions behind Soraka and Bard. Now people have had issues with Karma in the past, there are a lot of interesting discussions you can read up on where multiple Karma mains have expressed their disapproval of her current state, offered solutions, and some who are still clinging to the shadow of a dream that Riot will revert the entire rework.

But today I'm here to discuss Mantra, as Riot does seem to be trying to tune Karma to be stronger, but some of their attempts have kind of been all over the place, and not really well formulated. So what better way to discuss Karma and her ultimate, than to look at the only other example of what I like to call "Multimates" or "Choice Ultis", being Heimerdinger .

Now when Heimer originally got his kit rework, and Upgrade! was changed into the Multimate style, I remember telling my friends that this was the ultimate that Karma wishes she had. It was a bit of a joke, but the more I look at it the more I'm convinced that Heimer is a great example of the Multimate done right, and there's a lot that can be learned from him on how to do this kind of ultimate correctly.

Now there are a few Choice differences between Heimer and Karma's Multimate abilities, despite them having similar principles. To keep things simple, I'll refer to the empower versions with a 2, so Q2, W2, E2 to differentiate between the standard and ult without having to meddle too much with wordplay.

Now Heimerdinger 's Multimate does particuarly well for him in part due to each of his Multimate abilities having a very distinct identity, Large visual cue, and Strategic benefit. His Q2 is a powerful Zoning/Sustained damage source. His W2 is a powerful burst tool, and his E2 is a strong engage/disengage tool with high control. Combine that with his ability to choose to cancel the empowerment for his Ult and you have a champion whose Multimate feels both distinct, and strategic. If a situation goes south, and its not the time to use that E2, you can stash it away for a better time. Karma has no such access to this choice. In Theory Karma does much the same as Heimer, her Multimates are strategic to a certain degree, Q2 is Damage, W2 is sustain, and E2 is Defense/Mobility. What makes hers feel like its not as strong is that 1. Hers is designed to be used multiple times in a teamfight, and 2. her Empowered abilities, though distinct, tend to lack a lot of visual power. (Aside from E2). Since she has to use her ult any time she procs it, part of that strategic feel is lost, but since her abilities are downplayed to make up for their frequency we get ultimates that feel less than powerful, and helps foster the kind of blandness that so many Karma players seem to feel of her.

This leads me to something I've been puzzling over for a long time Now Karma's passive has gotten a lot of hate, and I've always found that kind of strange. Yes, it doesn't quite fit thematically, but as a passive its quite powerful. It gives straight up flat CDR on any aggressive action you take on an enemy, and Rather than do away with it like many have suggested, I feel like Riot should take advantage of Inner flame as a way to give Karma more distinct Ult abilities.

If you raise the CD of Mantra, and balance it around both its base cooldowns, and Inner flame, you can give Karma some incredibly high fidelity and impactful ultimates that feel their strategic values. Between the bases and the passive, you have great room to adjust how many ultimates is fair for Karma to use in a fight, and make it so that Missing an Ult feels impactful for Karma, relieving for her enemies, and hampers her ability to just throw them out like candy, while being good with your shots and landing your abilities and autos reinforces your ability to remain aggressive, and rewards you with multiple Ult uses.

So I was thinking about a low-Key way to make her ultimates feel more distinct, without having to overhaul her too much (Hopefully). I'd like to hear what you guys think, and what sort of strengths you'd give a reworked Multimate ability for her!

SoulFlare Soulflare is probably the most dramatic change I want to make, since this is something that changes the way the skillshot functions. Karma faces a lot of issues with Creep block, since her main damage is on a colliding skillshot. In minion waves, this can be incredibly aggrevating, and can cause her to have to get much closer to an opponent than necessary just so she can get her damage off. The solution I propose is to let Karma free aim where Soulflare ends, having it go through minions and only stop early if it intercepts a champion. With this kind of Targeting paradigm, Karma can effectively use her ultimate without having to overextend just to get damage around those pesky melee minions. Likewise, it can still be intercepted, and the option of casting it short lends more chance to use it for zoning. But how do we make soulflare a good zoning tool? If we bank on having fewer more powerful mantras that rely on positive aggression to fuel them, I feel like we can add a little extra oomph at the end of Soulflare, the particular idea in question is to give it a form of Hard CC (Potentially sacrificing the slow field for it). The idea is that with the delay, and her new ability to place it strategically, Soulflare should pose a threat after its out, and should be something to be mindful of.

This gives Karma some much needed Hard CC that she doesn't offer a team at the moment, and gives enemies a reason to try to not get hit by her Q2. If the cooldown and her passive are tuned correctly, then having her miss this ability, puts her and her team in a vulnerable position, but makes landing both parts of it much more impactful. Current: K --->(m) E Revised: K ----m--->(E)

Renewal Honestly, I feel like Riot doesn't quite know what they want to do with W2, and the last change they gave it in 5.10 just isn't really enough to cut it as a strategic option outside of its usual bait/heal case use. Since the change I want here is less dramatic, I can be more cut and dry. Remove the additional root time (Its unnecessary), and instead let's add some team utility. Remember how Shen's old Q used to Mark an enemy and let his teammates heal off of attacking them? Why don't we use that? landing the root should be a high point for Karma and her allies, so why not make it so that you can use W2 as a way to not just heal yourself but your teammates too? Since giving an ally a 40% missing HP heal is out of the question, Lets go with the inspiration theme Karma has and have her support her allies' aggression by unifying their attentions to one target. This way she can take a defensive stance for an ally, rather than just shielding and hoping she does enough damage to make the threats go away by the time it ends? Current: K----.E. Revised: K----.+E+.

** Defiance** Let it feed into her passive. You could either make it deal like 1 damage to do this, or make it refund inner fire based on teammates hit, I don't particularly care. It just needs to feed into the rest of her kit to make up for the longer ult cooldowns. Otherwise the skill is great, powerful visuals, solid case use, a combination of item 3190 and item 3069. Its good. If it feels too weak for the CD then either tweak the shield values, or the MS booster but honestly I think if it just feeds her passive it'll be fine regardless. Its a great ability.

So I've put forth my ideas, Let me know what you guys think, and what would you do to Karma's Multimate to make it feel better?

16 Comments

IxtaliKing3/14/2016, 12:11:33 PM5 votes

I think initially the creep block on her RQ was necessary to give her damage some kind of counter play, since using mantra gave her creative ways of playing around creeps that were fair. That being said though, with all the damage and nuance sucked from her kit in 5.10, it did make RQ feel as if it should have been a ground targeted AoE simply because it became her everything. Missing RQ means you are now useless until your mantra is up, which doesn't feel good at all.

I'm liking this ally "lifetap" idea for her RW, but would she be using this mechanic to heal herself also, or would she be keeping her missing hp heal? Also the if the extra root is being removed would she be getting back some of her additional damage in place of it? No need for RW to remain subpar for dueling since its an ult and increased mantra cd makes it even more fair, right?

I think having defiance interact with her passive is important too, but only with the pre 5.10 values. Imagine getting reduced cd on those huge AoE shields she has now, now imagine it with the current RE buffs on pbe... That would p!ss people off to play against. They should just return her shield bomb and be done with it, was fun to use and wasn't bs to play against.

I feel like we can add a little extra oomph at the end of Soulflare, the particular idea in question is to give it a form of Hard CC (Potentially sacrificing the slow field for it).

This is the only thing I'm really iffy with, since I feel like Karma should be defined more so by damage and utility. Firstly in her subclass she has Morgana who has the best single target lock down, high damage and a little utility. Then there's Orianna who brings strong AoE cc, high damage and good utility. Karma's power would make a little more sense poured into high damage, high utility and a little cc. This would create a clearer case for choosing one of these champs, depending on what your team needs.

SilverSquid3/14/2016, 1:39:52 PM5 votes

I liked Old Karma because her Mantra didn't only unlock new aspects to her spells, but also different spell rotations. As such, you could have heal-speedup-shield or damage-slow-damage depending on how you used your mantra. However, the most interesting thing about it was, that mantra wasn't just something that empowered your spells, but instead asked you to find a situation, in which you could use both aspects of the spell. As such, your creativity either let you use only half of the aspect, making it useful, but only wise minds would make it really efficient.

Nearly the same did apply to New Karma until recently (a year ago is recent, bite me :C!). Her AoE shield was decent, so was the AoE damage on RE, but it was only really a good spell, if you could use both aspects. You had to find situations in which to protect as many allies and hurt as many enemies as possible.

To me, the differences between Heimer's ult and Karma's ult are the following:

  • Heimer is not dependent on it. His identity is turrets and the ult is just something extra.
  • Karma's cooldown is too short and available at lvl1 so it may never perform like a real ultimate.
  • Heimer empowers one ability, giving him 3 ultimate choices. Q2, W2, E2.
  • Mantra merges two abilities. It feels like having ability 1+4, 2+5 and 3+6. In a way, Karma had 6 abilities, similar to Nida/Jayce, but unlocked by her mantra and merging two into one ability.

Over the years, Karma shifted from her design closer to Heimer's.... but this can never truly happen, due to the short cooldown and cooldown reduction on her passive. Heimer's UPGRADE has a long CD, so it can perform as an ultimate. Karma's Mantra can not, but it's sold as one.

I would prefer a shift back to giving Karma double/duality abilities again, instead of a multimate. It makes her rotations more interesting, integrates her mantra more into her kit and also gives back the passive interaction with RE.

TheZileanMachine3/14/2016, 5:44:57 PM2 votes

100% what I miss is the feeling of duality, the feeling of karma. Dmg/Heal, Speed/slow, Dmg/shield was perfect imo. Used to main her as support before the changes and just could never get back into her now, particularly in the support role I loved to play her in.

Vanjie3/14/2016, 1:32:47 PM1 votes

I would like to see her passive moved to her ult and given a passive that is less bland and fits the character more. I don't think the passive is as strong as you think it is. With max cooldown and level six . . . . even late game . . . it falls off completely. I wouldn't even mind if they completely did away with it if it meant giving her more damage or supportive abilities. I just think there are better options for her than what we have right now.

W and W+R is probably the worst thing in her kit. It doesn't fit Karma's character and you hardly ever use it. It either needs a new mechanic and damage component . . . or needs to be removed completely.

Would love to see Karma's old E+R come back . . . but it probably never will. I think it is WAY to strong right now. Her shield doesn't need to be that strong.

OyddAWqJ5r3/14/2016, 3:07:31 PM1 votes

While i agree that Karma needs work and alot of it is tied to her Multimates i feel that you're missing the mark with those suggestions.

As SilverSquid pointed out, dualty is for certain the aspect that was lost and needs to return for Karma to truly be Karma again.

YuGiHo3/14/2016, 8:57:04 AM1 votes

Yasss!

pirobot3/14/2016, 7:34:15 PM1 votes

Upvoted because of heimerdinger.

Valderis Vandala3/14/2016, 9:06:34 AM1 votes

Yeah I've complained about her Q myself for the same reason. I don't mind the collision when its a normal Q (not that much at least) but RQ does not feel good to use a lot of the time.

Surfer Ashe3/14/2016, 10:24:06 AM1 votes

Okay, but have you ever considered that RQ was supposed to be intercept-able by minions, at it's current power level? Because it's an incredibly strong nuke followed by a Jhin-like Lotus trap.

Second point is while Heim may have one powerful "multimate", Karma can have hers available a lot more often thanks to her passive, so much that she can get it off 2-3 times in mid/late game fights (with CDR). So sure, in a small skirmish, it's not as strong as Heim's, but that fact she can have it up quickly and not feel wasted (like when Hiem uses RQ and everyone disengages before the thing fires a lazer)

I like her W to be able to be like Shen's old Vorpal Blade lifetap, but with an AoE shield ability, it can become oppressive in instances, unless you made her lifetap feel shitty beyond the scenario aforementioned above.

I, personally, really enjoyed Karma's kit just before they removed the shield bomb and increase RW root. That had good nuances and choices. I'd be more inclined to revert it before fiddling with her kit with more unnecessary buffs