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An Open Welcome Letter to RiotNeuroCat as the Person Working on Karma

SilverSquid·7/18/2018, 10:09:51 PM·61 votes·22,599 views

Hi there!

Joyfully I have learned that you are going to have a look at Karma next. Similarly I heard you have played Old Karma back in Season 1, which means you have great potential for understanding her past, her progression and - so I assume - her possible future. And everything I've seen from you so far, has appeared calm, rational and positive. I am honored to have you on board, and on behalf of the Karma community on these boards, would like to welcome you.

And I want to to offer my support.

I have been playing Karma since Season 2 and I have been working with the Karma community, as well as posting about her for the past ~3 years. The nearly 40 posts and hundreds of hundreds of comments I have written in this time are nearly exclusively about her. I hope that some of this work might prove valuable to you! (links below)

Wisdom in War

You might know that the current Karma community is somewhat split. Between those, who want her old self back and those who would rather die than give up what they have now. One could argue that this was due to a rework, that made the same mistake as the current Aatrox rework; disregard the playstyle, character and idea of the old character and replace it with something new and more functional. But I think that it doesn't matter. We need to get those people together regardless, if we want to please as many people as possible. Ignoring one side will just ruin her fanbase forever. But gladly, there might be a way!

A Path Between

As far as I could tell, you are seeing potential in her old self and thus I conclude we have the same goal: We both want to preserve current Karma, but take inspiration from old Karma in how to improve her. Current Karma has repeatedly been described as bland and lacking unique mechanics, whereas old Karma had the opposite problem: Full of interesting mechanics, thematics and ideas, while being barely functional. So... why not borrow from her old uniqueness and sprinkle it onto new Karma?

There might be a chance to give her a real passive, by taking inspiration from her old self. Making her tether into a more cohesive and interesting spell, by taking a look into the past. And maybe even go back to the shieldbomb, which used to be her signature spell for 5 years.

An Ideal is Nothing... until You Fight for It

I would like to leave you with my repeated offer to help you in any shape or form. I do have learned a lot about this champion and her community and I would be honored to make my expertise useful. And even if I can't help you immediately, I will try to join any constructive discussion about anything you choose to put onto the PBE.

I put a lot of trust and hope in you. But I feel like you can live up to it.

List of Possibly Useful Links

REALISTIC requests for the Update Click Here

An unrealistic REWORK, but the best I ever did Click Here or Here

A survey about Karma's SUBCLASS Click Here

My POEM about Karma Click There

68 Comments

RiotRiot NeuroCat7/18/2018, 11:48:41 PM62 votes

I appreciate the love and the passion you have for Karma (I'm very excited to see what we can accomplish together). Its a bit early to start talking about changes, but I'd agree with a lot of the assessment of the world today you called out.

IxtaliKing7/18/2018, 10:35:53 PM10 votes

Looks like we have an actual fan of Karma working on her xD.

ZackTheWaffleMan7/18/2018, 10:16:51 PM7 votes

https://orig00.deviantart.net/d96f/f/2013/070/8/0/league_of_legends_new_karma_by_mizoreame-d5xobx0.jpg Picture in thumbnail.

EasternBladeStar7/19/2018, 11:55:07 AM5 votes

Shield bomb would actually make a fair bit more sense with Karma's current passive, lowering her cooldowns while she stays within AA-range, attacking.

Overall, I very much appreciate a passive that rewards skillful kiting and orb walking amidst a fight. However, I'm not so sure how useful such passive is in a meta where you barely have time to orb walk when assassins are already dead-beat on you.

I think W should be able to target allies (with benefits, obviously). Maybe adding a unique drawback similar to Blitzcrank W while she does, rewarding good timing and situational awareness?

Shrek Luigi7/19/2018, 12:40:50 AM4 votes

please be kind to my wife, riot neurocat Q__Q

Hochelaga7/20/2018, 6:13:16 PM3 votes

To simply answer that; it's a no for me.

I followed closely old Karma's rework since season 3. The main reasons that caused her rework were (cited by Scarizard) :

  • Her base abilities didn't feel impactful without mantra
  • Mantra had two charges. In order to compensate her power, supercharged abilities were made weaker
  • As a Support champion in season 2, she HAD to take several minions from the adc in order to stay impactful which was problematic
  • The effectiveness of Karma's abilities relied too heavily on your teammates knowing all their nuances. No matter how hard you were carrying with Karma, your teammates had to be just as good with her for you to be super effective. When an ally's confused about whether or not he should run from or pass through your Spirit Bond Spirit Bond, we (riot) probably made a mistake.

So to put things clear, no matter how hard you were playing the old Karma, efforts were pretty much wasted as she didn't provide enough.

Now, if you ask me if I prefer the new Karma or the older one, I'd still pick the older one because of her simplicity and yet difficulty to actually play her in the optimal way.

But hey, I still like the new Karma and her initial relaunch was pretty cool to me. They managed to change her completely while keeping EVERYTHING she used to have.

ZapMyHeart7/19/2018, 2:53:28 AM3 votes

{quoted}

We both want to preserve current Karma, but take inspiration from old Karma in how to improve her.

Why do we want to preserve current Karma? No one asked for it to begin with. Been 5 years and counting and her kit is still terrible and nothing short of a full overhaul to her abilities would make her cohesive.

Why not do the opposite and replace her with old Karma with a sprinkle of current Karma instead?

Old Karma's kit had potential and worked well in tandem together, but they unceremoniously replaced her with this poke-spam nonsense, forcing her to be a backline support, with abilities that contradict her play style with a hodge-podge of various abilities for various situations that can't come together to work as a whole.

Elegant Egoistic7/19/2018, 8:20:25 PM3 votes

the flappers dear <3

SennaFirstPick7/19/2018, 9:53:44 AM2 votes

i gotta say i remeber playing old karma, got traditional skin too, but i can't remeber her very well becase i was low level then and i didn't really care about it so i can't say my thought on old but man the new one is one of my favorite champs in the game, let me tell you why,

she is the Mitochondria of bottom lane, her damage is insane and doesnt give u risk of dying with emp Q, her cc is kinda easy to counter, play against good players and they know that karma is an easy target early and if she W on u after missing q she will die before u get cc'ed, but it pays off if played correctly, her shield is the second best shield in the game, lulu is first, what makes her shield so good IMO is the movement speed, her currently ult makes her so broken thought that she needs to be kept nerfed because the moment she gets a 5% buff she is all over competitive play, in her current state she needs her ult, but i hope you get rid of it, because she deserves to have an healthy kit.

i really think karma is always a competitive pick because she really shines as a team leader, not an enchanter or poke mage, a 5 men ball mid with sivir and karma has little to counter play because the moment you missplay or "take wraiths" your team is dead, 5 men running at 800 movement speed is fatal, and PLEASE remove her heal on emp W, i know people like it, i do myself, but tank karma top needs to die, and having point of click CC never turns out good so play around with it and look how it plays when it is turned into a skillshot, OR make her CC only if the enemy sits on the emp Q splash zone, the animation on her basic attacks is really whack too , for me karma shines when all or most the team groups up so im fine with her having an weak early and a good late, but she needs to be able to bully the enemy in lane, even if it deals 10 damage, give me a tool to be able to harrass

jmonster1297/19/2018, 5:33:13 AM1 votes

nice to see a person who knows old karma to be working on her

Is it possible to give her a haste animation? Assuming she will still have some sort of MS spell

Pika Fox7/19/2018, 5:53:35 PM1 votes

Tbh, ittd probably just be best to just aatrox her. A half assed attempt to just rework her to get her current or past self to work would likely just fail again. Better to just tear off the bandaid once and get something that works and holds true to her thematic and overall plays better than to just go rework to rework feeling like something in your kit just doesnt work.

3TWarrior7/19/2018, 2:21:34 AM1 votes

I won't be satisfied until she can blink, make clones of herself and throw out balance scales that damage nearby enemies while fearing them for their fear of their fate

wait, that's shaco XD Have fun folks and remember to consult the community now and again ^^