Karma rework and kit discussion

Let me preface this by saying Rito is way too busy doing marksmen and AD item changes to make any serious changes to other champions right now. Also, while I’ve done some research into old Karma (a champion released far beyond her time), all of my firsthand experience is on “relaunch” Karma. Still though, here are my thoughts on bringing Karma up to scratch, combining the new and old to make one cohesive kit. Please note that it would be absolutely insane to make all the changes I’m proposing below at once, I just want to open up some good old-fashioned discussion.

https://youtu.be/clMEu39Iydc Here’s the good old-fashioned release Karma people always talk about.

Passive “Gathering Fire” reduces the cooldown on “R-Mantra”. Her old passive would increase her AP by an amount based on her missing health. While her new passive is not especially exciting, her old passive was just a big ball of stats (a passive style I’m not a fan of). Beyond that I feel that the spirit of that power (a heal that increases based on missing health) is somewhat preserved through the Mantra-W, a power I want to see increased.

Q-Inner Flame and Heavenly Wave. Karma’s old Q was a conic AOE spell, with the Mantra Q also healing allies in the cone. Some of Rito’s older champions really enjoyed small AOE heals (Ezreal’s W used to heal allies too). While I like the mechanics of a cone spell, at this point in time changing her Q back to a cone would take way to many resources (art, sound effects, yeesh) and I’ve become accustomed to her Q. At any rate, this is a nice spell that could maybe use a better AP ratio, or more damage from the first hit of its Mantra version. I’m also partial to a version of Mantra where each rank in your ultimate increases the power of your empowered spells in a non-numbers fashion. Specifically each rank of R should increase the explosion radius of Q and its secondary detonation/slowing field.

R- Mantra. The release Karma Mantra didn’t level up and Karma’s QWE had 6 ranks like Jayce’s current ultimate and skills. It also held 2 charges instead of 1. I think it was way ahead of its time when it came out, and it’s one spell that I think should be dialed back towards its original style a bit.

1. I think we should keep the cooldown at 45 at rank 1, reduce it’s cooldown to something like 30 at rank 2, and instead of lowering the cooldown we should add a charge at ranks 3 and 4. This would make the late game Karma actually useful with a cycle through Mantra Q, Mantra W, and Mantra E.
2. If we made Karma’s skill set up similar to Jayce’s setup we could tie the power up bonuses to ranking the basic skills up instead of the ultimate. I think we’d get a negative trade-off with this set up, unless we mega-boosted all the mantra effects.
3. Each rank of R-Mantra (beyond the free one at level 1) increases the effective range of the Mantra version of the spells. Each rank increases Q’s explosion radius range, W’s leash range, and E’s burst range. That also ties into the offensive version of her “E” that I have proposed below.
4. Casting R could also cast the Mantra’d version of the spells on their own cooldown (think Rengar’s ferocity enhanced spells).

E-Inspire/Defiance and Soul Shield. This spell didn’t change a lot from release to relaunch. The movement speed bonus was new, but functionally very little changed until they got rid of Defiance’s AOE damage in patch 5.10. Moreover, losing the damage on her shield shoved her poor mage/poor support kit further into the niche of “mage that doesn’t do any damage” and “support that nobody wants to play”. I like the AOE shield, and I completely agree that an AOE shield shouldn’t have AOE damage attached to it. So here comes one of my favorite Riot sayings: meaningful choices. Do you want to shield your team mates for this fight? Or do you want to explode your enemies?

1. Remove the speed boost from E, we’re going to get it back on W
2. Inspire/Defiance can now be targeted on enemies. It does single target damage with an AOE burst if it is Mantra’d. Meaningful choices: do I want to hurt my foes or shield my allies? This will also bring a new source of damage for refreshing Mantra’s cooldown.
3. With the Mantra bringing a “non-numbers” buff to empowered spells, the AOE burst zone should be bigger for both the shield and damage areas.
4. More of a spitball idea than anything, mantra E heals for an amount equal to whatever is left of the shield. Terribly imbalanced thing, but an idea I had to write down here somewhere.

W-Focused Resolve/Renewal and Spirit Bond. This is a spell that I think should be reverted mostly to its old functionality. A spell way ahead of its time: Karma creates a tether between herself and another unit (or ward). Any ”allied anchors” are sped up and any ”enemy anchors” are slowed down. The tether also damages and slows any enemies hit by the beam, while speeding up allies. The Mantra’d version doubles the speed up and slow down on allies and enemies, while rooting the primary target (if it’s an enemy). The leash lasts for 5 seconds. I love the original incarnation of this spell and its potential application in a teamfight. I just want to bring some new bits to it.

1. Mantra-W leash range increases with ranks in R
2. Add a heal that scales with target’s missing health to this rehashed Spirit Bond. Have the heal be a heal over time that affects all friendly targets between Karma and her “anchor”.
3. Move the root from something that happens all the time to something that only happens when you use the Mantra-W; and only on the primary target. The doubled speed boost/slow still occurs to all enemies affected by the beam.

I hope you've found something insightful in this giant kit discussion. As always I like to open up for more discussion on Karma. I've also got ideas kicking around for Cassiopeia and Syndra if anyone would like to hear them.