So Top Lane Tank Karma? WTF

Maneguster·Aug 7, 2016·11 votes·6,145 views

So top lane tank Karma = Cant kill cause she heals 40% of her missing health every 8 seconds

so when I see people build tank they have decent health sustain. I get Karma down to 1 auto away from death she walks into jg 3 seconds later she comes back with more than half her health back when she only had the pieces to rod of ages. I think having this much sustain is broken since if she builds tank then can do dmg with Rod and abyssal plus just being tanky means she can get all her health buck from her R + Root Ability. Meaning in a fight she will never die until your ADC can get Mortal Reminder . Also people if you see their team has I should not have to tell you that Mortal Reminder is an item you should get over Lord Doms... Remember last whisper goes into two items.

19 Comments

Time42Aug 7, 20169 votes

{quoted}

I should not have to tell you that Mortal Reminder is an item you should get over Lord Doms... Remember last whisper goes into two items.

I have literally never seen anyone on my team build Mortal Reminder ;_;

ManegusterAug 7, 20166 votes

I believe some people don't even know that Grievous Wounds is a thing, or Mortal Reminder is an item. I think some people only know of the items on the recommended page exist.

MisterShamelessAug 7, 20164 votes

One thing people will never do against tank karma is the following:

Break the tether, its so easy and all you really need to do to kill her. She will have to stay close to you and will leave herself open to harass.
Try to CC her when she is low, with a stun or silence, this will lock her out of her heal and you can easily kill her.
She is easily countered by Frozen Mallet because the slow will make it difficult for her to kite you correctly to avoid taking damage.
Buy this bs items for people who rely on heals. Considering a 800g item counters her completely you'd figure more people would buy it. Funny thing is, a similar case happen to Zed with being a 1300g hard counters him while counters every champion relying on heals.

Her hard counters for champions: Akali Amumu Annie Chogath Darius Fiora Irelia Kennen KogMaw Leona Lissandra MasterYi Olaf Pantheon Gnar Renekton Quinn Ryze Soraka Veigar Velkoz These champions are great to pick against Tank karma for laning phase. Tank Karma is item heavy dependent (I mean REALLY item heavy dependent). Deny her CS and killing her a few times early on, she won't be of any use.

Currently the hardest counter is Vayne I'll always ban her because she has become much stronger with the item 3124 build. Vayne counters tank Karma at mid to late game with little counter play for Karma to make.

To break this down, Tank Karma is a Niche build/playstyle that works well against melee champions because of the lack of harass they are able to deal in laning phase and are easily kited by Karma. This allows Karma to get easy CS and possibly kills. AP Karma also works fine top lane (better in most cases which is why Tank Karma is niche).

ManegusterAug 7, 20162 votes

The main problem though is laneing against her. If you are playing a champ with no hard CC then you are screwed and her shield can giver her speed then your rooted and then what. With her poke in lane you can't really stay near her cause you will die. Also if she is first picked you can not tell if it is support, mid, or top. Also yes if you get frozen mallet you can follow her but the problem is she is tank so she wont take much dmg and anything you do deal gets healed up. Cause not many top laners get Mortal Reminder and if you are being poked out you cant afford to purchase items like item 3022 since you will be starved of gold from the constant poke.

MisterShamelessAug 7, 20162 votes

Thats another thing that should be noted, Karma can be played in every role, but adc. Yes Karma jungle is a thing which a lot of Karma mains do. Anyways back on topic, thats a Strength that works well for Karma because its hard to know where she will go. A lot of the champions I listed are popular picks right now even if they don't lane against her. item 3033 as for this item, it can be built on a lot of popular junglers and top laners (if not adcs) right now, while mid lane APCs (most of them) usually get item 3165 which means your team will always have some way to apply grievous wound.

Side note: updated list of champions that I forgot to add on.

Gnar is a great counter to Tank Karma because his first two items are usually item 3071 and item 3022 (usually when playing against one top) which just rekts me almost every time which is why I usually lane swap to avoid any more problems (unless enemy also does a lane swap).

One last thing, like I said, she needs items, item 3025 item 3027 item 3065 , this costing around 8.2k gold. The champions I listed make it hard for her to CS and can kill her early on (around level 6). I hate Chogath with a passion, if he lands his knock up, he can just flash in, summoner 14 silence and then Ult. Locking you out of heal, 400 true damage plus the tons of damage from his silence and knock up. Early on you don't even have enough HP to survive that combo, even if you backed twice.

Champion SkinAug 7, 20162 votes

Tank Karma also isn't the best in teamfights unless she gets focused (or the enemy team is vulnerable to kiting) Since her biggest strength is how hard she is to kill other then that all she has is slows and delayed root (the problem with slows and root is that if the enemy is in range they can still deal damage) and she also has the shield which gives MS

MisterShamelessAug 8, 20161 votes

This pretty much re-enforces what my earlier post statement where AP Top Karma is overall better than Tank Top Karma along with how I said that Tank Karma works so well because she faces melee champions who are usually popular top laners.

Champion SkinAug 8, 20161 votes

Yeah AP Karma does most of what Tank Karma does but better (AP Karma survives with bigger shield and higher % healing on her R + W) Though Tank Karma is obviously less vulnerable to burst and slightly better at kiting thanks to the slows from item 3025 but yeah AP Karma can kite quite effectively as well

BronzoidAug 7, 20164 votes

Karma is retardedly broken in any lane

AstôlfoAug 7, 20163 votes

Karma in general is just ridiculous right now.

invisiblecat1Aug 7, 20163 votes

Please riot NERF THE ITEMS NOT KARMA, since she has been through enough nerfs T_T

ManegusterAug 7, 20164 votes

But it is her + The items meaning nerf both a little so the items don't become useless. Cause if item 3065 became useless than that would be worse than Karma being weak.

Champion SkinAug 7, 20166 votes

Tank Karma doesn't actually have all that much damage though... Yes killing her is really difficult... but she isn't killing you any time soon either (unless you build no HP/MR)

CanadianFarmerAug 7, 20163 votes

So, where is all the Karma hate coming from?? She hasn't changed for the past year (except a minor buff on her E 5 months ago) and suddenly everyone hate her. Surely other champions have become bad enough that people will hate a new champ instead.

The cycle of hate and crying continues; they will hate, we will cry.

Milodic MellodiAug 8, 20161 votes

I think most of it is because they took away her fans from her and her animations.

World EnderAug 8, 20163 votes

You can blame TheAngryHoneyBadger for that. He's been advocating top lane tank Karma since at least late last year.

TNHA BaritoneNov 24, 20161 votes

Actually, the members from the r/KarmaMains have been not just advocates, but they've always had a thing for Karma top (and making it known by front-paging it on r/Leagueoflegends. Then you randomly started seeing each and every popular league Youtuber scream, "KARMA TOP OP HUR DUR XD" for their title.

MunchCrunchLunchAug 7, 20161 votes

Lmao

TNHA BaritoneNov 24, 20161 votes

Riot brought back this beautiful item from the grave for you guys to literally ignore it. item 3123

I don't even play tank Karma much this time around (though I did early in the season) and it honestly isn't that good. I'd much rather a 600 AP Karma Mid whose shields can make her team just as tanky. Either way her damage falls off late unless fed and you'll probably only be hitting the front liners who can take all of your poke with ease.