Karthus ideas that need to be explored
This has been on my mind for awhile since Karthus has been one of my favorite champs. I don't mind admitting that I have no idea how to make things balanced, so I'm only expressing ideas without any numbers.
Right now: I don't like how limiting Karthus' gameplay is. The range on his abilities forces him to be too close to his opponents for comfort. Most of the time his E is not enough to deter diving, and he doesn't have any reliable way of saving himself when his opponent decides to. His W at best will let him damage his opponent an extra second or two (and not often save his life) and while it can be effective in team fights, he often has to put himself at risk to get his wall at a good location. His ult is also very underwhelming, but I'll get back to that.
My vision: I think his theme can be embraced a bit more by being the champion no one wants to be near. Mostly I think his effectiveness should come out of how well he positions himself. Perhaps by having his abilities scale in damage the closer enemies are to him. Anything that would add a layer of complexity to diving him, since that's way easy to do right now. A good position in a team fight should give him powerful zoning options he would like to act on instead of backing away and ulting. And at the same time, a Karthus that make bad positioning choices would probably die right away and wouldn't be in a good place for his passive.
My summarized thoughts on his current ult: -The really high cooldown on his ult makes him very uninteresting in the late game, where skirmishes happen all the time and a team fight can break out any second. And at this point opponents probably have the items/abilities they need to minimize the damage or negate it completely -Free damage regardless of distance should not be cheap; any outright buffs would offset game balance completely, despite how underwhelming it is right now -It's a very static ability. There's no real opportune time to use or not use it outside of his passive
My idea: Have his ult completely drain his mana to zero and have the outgoing damage scale with how much mana he had. If it had the potential to do more damage, there would be incentive to use it while alive. When a team fight starts, he can decide whether to ult right away and leave the rest to his team or contribute and have a weaker ult later. And again bad positioning would be very punishing if he's left without mana and enemies are still nearby.
Love to hear other ideas, or what's wrong with mine I guess :)
