Nearly a year ago RIOT decided to remove the 60-300 (+0.6AP) bonus damage from Karma's mantra'd W and instead added 0.5-1.25 bonus root. I will try to discuss the pros and cons of this decision.

PRO

• This increased Karma's CC and thus utility, arguably one of the things, that made her undesireable as a support.
• It made her decision what to mantra more sensible to many people, as they would have clearer differences.
• It also necessitated a buff to her normal W, increasing the ratio from 0.6AP to 0.9AP

CONS

• Combined with the removal of RE's damage, this bottlenecked Karma's damage into RQ.
• This also removed mantra as a third damagetool, leaving Karma only with 2 spells (Q and W), which put her consistensy closer to AP Nunu and AP Warwick than Orianna and Morgana.
• RW used to be a trading tool, but now is a survival tool only. This took the bite out of Karma's trading in solo lanes. The enemy doesn't have to fear retaliation from a healing Karma.
• Leveling RW feels really weak now. At the time other champions finally get their ultimate, you get +0.25s extra root instead of doubling the base damage from 60 to 120.

Before we go into more detail, let's have some cute Karma fan art. http://orig10.deviantart.net/7d42/f/2014/288/2/6/fangirl_karma_by_holyelfgirl-d82x3f2.jpg

There are also some more things to consider, that don't fit into small points like above:

3+ SECOND CC 3 seconds is a really long time these days. While this was a justifiable amount of CC back in season 1, today we see Riot consistantly removing even 2s CC from champions, because being disabled for so long doesn't feel good/appropriate. Riot is aware that strong CC like this must come at a price, this is why Karma's RW is so incredibly conditional. It has a casting time, long cooldown and needs you to stay in range of an enemy threat for 2s .... on a squishy support mage. It can be easily reacted to by using mobility spells, and most CC will counter this ability, because you can disable Karma and run. So, to give Karma this mega-root they had to make it really unreliable. But unreliable, delayed CC is something very undesireable on a support. And even less on a midlaner that can't propperly carry, because he has to give up half his damage potential when using it.

DUALITY In terms of design, champions must have clear strengths and weaknesses. Karma was always stepping on that rule, because of her "jack of all trades" character. Because she always had healing, shields and damage. However, she used to have a downside: no CC. Now, in the past several months/years, Riot has switched to highlighting champion's strengths and also weaknesses, instead of reducing them. This makes a lot of sense, because it makes the champion pool more diverse and interesting. However, with those changes to Karma, they did the opposite; they decreased her damage (strength) to buff her weakness (CC). This watered down Karma's identity and thinned out her gameplay, instead of nailing it down. It also suddenly made her step on other champion's toes, that she didn't before, while never being allowed to succeed in that, because she can already do so much else.

KIT INTEGRITY Spells have to make sense in the kit of the champion they are own. This seems like a no-brainer, but for Karma this means that the root, and especially the bonus root probably shouldn't be there. Thematically it doesn't even make sense that Karma has a root. What in her character exactly screams "holding people into place"? Her spirit binding once used to symbolize that she could share a connection with people, not trap them. In terms of gameplay, Karma has no way of abusing the bonus root in her kit. The only ability profiting from the root at all is RQ, because it ensures hitting the second part, but this is exclusive with RW. Karma can not use the bonus root herself, which pushes her back into "team dependency". Something Riot wanted to originally to get rid of in her rework 3 years ago. Bonus point: Visually the spell also fails at conveying that it's about to hit a huge root. Most people can't distinguish normal RW from W, which was less of a problem, when they could at least tell from the melting hp bar they had. So RW has problems thematically, visually and in terms of gameplay.

BUILD INTEGRITY Lastly, I would like to mention, that W as a whole sits in an awkward place in Karma's kit. In contrast to her other kit, this rewards proximity to the enemy and building tanky. The pure missing%hp heal builds upon this too. However, most people recognize Karma as a poke/support champion, both roles that shouldn't be cuddling with the enemy. While I think that champions should have options with their builds, and some champions even more than others, the fact that [On-Hit-Jungle Karma] and [Tear-SV-IG toplane Karma] and [FH-Rylai's-Aegis Karma] and [Full-AP mid Karma] all seem equally (un)viable is concerning, from a design perspective.

SUMMARY

Karma seems to have gained power in this update, but at cost of identity and distinctiveness. I would like to argue, that this is the opposite of good design, and should be looked at again. Karma, in my opinion, should be about damage & protection, and leave the realm of lockdown & control to other champions. However, this is one man's opinion, and I have been wrong before, so what are you thinking about it?

Do you like the changes? Do you think they shouldn't have been made? Do you have an idea they should've done instead? Or do you think I missed a pro/con? Please let me know!