@Riot some Discussion on Karthus and his Passive, and playstyle in general
Figured I'd try to see if at least Repertoir and/or a couple other Rioters would like to provide some feedback about Karthus right now, and maybe help me see where he is at this current point in the season.
These past few weeks have provided quite a few changes for our resident Deathsinger. Some are good things, (Ap item changes in particular), while some might be not-so-good things lol (some of the stuff on PBE rn including nerfs to Abyssal Mask, Presence of Mind, and I'm not sure about Manaflow Band yet), but as of right now I actually have no real idea on how Karthus is doing at this point in the season because of a couple different factors. He may still not be getting picked in LCS, but he is actually starting to pick up in popularity just a little bit right now, which may or may not have lead to a slight dip in Win-rate even after Patch 8.4, and it seems he's come back up, which is good. Also, most of the feedback I do see by other people say that most of the new AP items feel rather decent on Karthus, Archangel's especially.
One thing I'm noticing however, and this is one of my major concerns, is how most of these changes are shifting Karthus away from his more Sustain-Focused playstyle, and more toward his perhaps infamous "Suicide Karthus" playstyle. While I personally have a bit of a problem with the latter (I'll get on that later), I would like to at least advocate to perhaps add a couple QoL buffs towards Karthus's passive including:
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Allowing Karthus to use Non-Trinket items during Passive (Kinda iffy on being able to use wards while dead since it might turn it into the pseudo-return of TP/Revive Karthus)
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Allowing Karthus to certain Summoner spells during passive (things like Ignite, Clarity, heal would work, Ghost and TP prolly no, not sure about Flash lol)
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Having certain Item effects/buffs transition into Passive before going away for real (apparently, certain item buffs like Spellbinder end when Karthus enters passive)
Maybe not all of these, but if Karthus is being forced to be more squishy due to certain changes, I would like to at least give him a little more to his team than what he currently does right now.
Anyway, I personally have a bit of a problem with pure Suicide Karthus for a couple reasons:
- It's more of a "Feast or Famine" type of issue, where if you're behind enough, trying to go Suicide Karthus is basically just Inting.
- If you're biggest moment of Damage is going to be where you're Dead and can't move, there's a lot that can go wrong for you here, and I'm trying not to include the "Everything blocks Karthus ult" clause here.
- I'm starting to see that people are giving some sort of stigma that Karthus is boring, but most of the time it's due to playing Suicide Karthus instead of Sustain Karthus. And why not? Why try to survive your way through a teamfight, when you're basically being encouraged to instead go Glass Cannon, try to damage everyone quicker than they can kill you (which I find weird since he's a DPS MAGE), or die, ult, hope your team finishes, rinse and repeat?
Look, I don't know if Suicide Karthus is healthy for the game or not. I don't know if it's what Riot really wants for Karthus. I get it, Karthus is supposed to be THE SUICIDE MAGE, but I really don't want it to be the ONE THING that defines him as a champ. I enjoy pretty much everything there is about Karthus: the fact that he is without a doubt, the Premiere DPS Mage of League of legends; nobody can top the kind of damage Karthus can do (Literally, how long has he been at the top of the damage charts on Champion.GG? I don't even know here lol), I'm just worried that soon the only way to apply that damage, is a way that might be unhealthy to the game.
TL:DR: Does Riot really wants to support Glass Cannon Suicide Karthus, and if yes, can we at least have a few QoL changes to the passive so he's a bit more interactive after death?
