I'd like to have an insightful discussion about Karthus.

Now the other day, during One of Meddler's Quick Gameplay Thoughts, a user by the name of Be Kind Rewind happened to ask about Karthus; in particular about the fact that most of the direct/indirect changes that have impacted Karthus's playstlye have lowered his Skillcap. To paraphrase, it made it less rewarding to play, losing his level 2 all-in potential, his level 6 kill possibility, and his mid-game 1v1 power, with changes in particular being the Nerfs to Rylai's, The W nerf, and now the removal of DFT. As compensation, Riot decided to add more power into the one ability that is meant to be Karthus's big Late-game scaling weapon; his ult, encouraging the more beginner playstyle of classic Suicide Karthus. And I do agree that because of these changes, it's hard and just not rewarding to land Q's or his W anymore, but MY problem is that Suicide Karthus just Doesn't work at least for me, considering the following:

• Most of the time, Enemies will have some sort of Damage Mitigation (Heals, Shields, Invuln) with no proper windows of opportunity when any of them are down.

• Because Karthus is Squishy, Most enemies won't have been dealt enough damage for the ult to actually kill anyone

The Fact that one of the BIGGEST portion of Karthus's budget goes to an ability with a lot of counterplay to it to where it kinda hinders his ability to use other parts of his kit as well is unfortunate.

Anyway, after that post, there was a reply from Riot Maple Nectar that while there probably won't be anything immediate, there could definitely be some conversation to be had about this to the Gameplay team, which makes me rather happy as a Karthus main. So while I won't be expecting much of anything anytime soon, I would still like to inquire as to what would be a good way to shift the power back into the other parts of his kit. Something that while it doesn't necessarily break him or the game, but can return that early-game duel power that helps get the ball rolling here.

Boards post link: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/5AwuwIFf-quick-gameplay-thoughts-january-16?comment=00280000

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After checking through some of the other conversations here and in the /R/Karthusmains Sub-reddit, here are some of the options I've seen:

• Q Dmg Up, E Tick rate up (same damage, think what happened with Singed), R Dmg and CDR down,

• slightly larger Q range, have Isolated Q hits add 1.5 seconds of W's Slow

• W Silences (though I think this one's kinda OP)

And here's a couple I came up with:

• Increase Full slow to at least Half the duration of the debuff, maybe change MR Shred to +%Magic Damage?

• Wall makes Q shots deal %Health Damage (maybe OP?)

• E passive restores even more mana on Large Jungle Monsters (this one's more so Karthus JG can be a better thing, could also be OP)

Lol I'm not saying ALL, or even Any of these should be implemented, but Feedback is always appreciated! I'm also interested as to what other Rioters think about Karthus and his Skill-cap? do you think it's too low? Should we be trying to veer him away from the Suicide Karthus play-style?