An Enlightened Decision: A Second Step At Reintroducing Our Beloved Karma

Warden Karma··37 votes·3,570 views

#Hello fellow Rioters and Summoners!

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/common/avatars/a/a4/25204044.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/150?cb=1421105559&format=jpg

_We are a group of dedicated Karma players who like discussing about Karma, which led the start up of this thread.  We usually discuss about how Karma could be better as a champion, in gameplay, design and narrative standpoint of view. While reworked Karma was a success with newer players, there were a number of us who felt that the current version of Karma lacked the old flair that her previous version did. Over the years of champion reworks, we observed and noted down the patterns of how Riot has improved their quality of reworks, then put our ideas in to motion by sharing our idea of a reworked Karma, whilst still maintaining what Riot, new and old Karma players alike enjoy about the champion. 

As certain parts of our explanation were shortened to keep this post as clear and concise, some people may not understand the intended fully. Should you find any ideas confusing or unclear, do drop us your question and we will explain our thought process and decisions. We'd definitely appreciate it if you could provide constructive feedback._ (Please note that this is a discussion and still a work in progress; it is not final. )

#Karma’s Identity _We conceptualized Karma as a mid lane Ability Power carry with a more Bruiser like Gameplay pattern but also with good utility. New karma was reworked to be a mage with supporting potential, but were quickly turned into a Support with mage potential by community and Riot. This caused her significance to pale in comparison with other champions, even as a support. Much like how Ashe was conceptualized as a utility AD carry, both carry games using their damage in tandem with the utilities that they bring to table. We felt that the rework had taken away the main aspects of Karma (versatility, carrying potential, close range mage) and turning her in to a new champion (Poke based, mid range mage, less versatility and no carrying potential). The result of this was a lack of flavor and flair that the previous Karma was known for. _

#Karma’s Kit

#**1. Inner Flame **

Our conceptualized idea of the passive was to keep Karma’s old passive intact, but without toxicity and having counter play. Her current passive was fine, but missed the crucial feeling of playing Karma. Cooldown reduction on a champion’s passive didn’t fit as a standalone passive. We moved the current passive to her mantra component, giving us space to accentuate her passive as a part of her personality as a champion whose strength and power lies in her resilience instead.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/3/30/Inner_Flame_old.jpg

Karma gains additional AP for each 1% of her missing health, capping at 6 + (3 x Level) AP. Hitting enemy Champions with her abilities will grant her 5 AP (+1/2/3% at levels 1/12/18), capping at 6 + ( 3 x Level) AP. If Karma out of Battle for 6 Seconds, she loses 5% of the maximum AP per second.

**Ideas/Questions: **

  • Ap stacking System (each time Damage done from Champion to Champion)
  • When casting, Karma looses a part of her stored AP.
  • Ap based on enemys close
  • Old Passive unchanged but she gains only 90% of AP from items.

#Q/RQ, Graceful Poise/Heavenly Wave _We reverted back to the old Q because we believed that a cone skillshot would benefit her better in the long run. The old Q is straightforward, easy to use. Current R/RQ suffers from problem such as being overloaded with damage and thus not allowing much Damage on another Part of Karma's Kit, while easily being blocked or dodge. Changing Karma’s self heal in to AoE heal for Q gives her more value overall, also staying true to her dualism kit of offensive/defensive. _

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/b/b5/Heavenly_Wave.jpg

Deals 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 200 / 250 (+ 70% AP) magic Damage to units in a cone in front of her.

MANTRA BONUS: Also heals Karma and her allies in the cone by 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 / 115 / 135 plus 3% (+ 2% per 100 AP) of their missing health.

Range: 725 Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 Mana Cooldown: 6

Ideas/Questions:

  • Mantra Bonus: Karma and one ally are healed (think Sonas W) in addition, karma heals 1 more ally for each enemy Champion hit with Heavently Wave.
  • The Heal could be splitted to scale of off bonus Health (0,5%) and AP (1%) to avoid making it scaling too strongly with AP only/ avoiding that Karma can Deal higher Damage via full AP and Heal (too) good too.

W/RW, Spirit Bond/Inspire

_The slow and haste were shifted back as a movement speed modifier on the old W because we felt that it created much more interesting team play patterns and decision making for Karma players. Current W’s DoT damage and snare was preserved. Giving Mantra W a snare on top of an enhanced slow for enemies wasn’t a fair situation; so the enhance move speed was removed. If Karma took effort to maintain the leash, she would be returned with appropriate amount of rewards (snare) instead. Meanwhile, allies receive a bonus Haste while staying close to the bonded. _

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/0/0f/Spirit_Bond.jpg

Edit: We changed this Ability due to some Feedback we received. We stripped away what we thought would make this Ability unnecassarily overloaded and simplified its usage, whilst trying to keep the "feeling" of this Spirit Bond.

Karma creates a Beam between herself an ally or enemy for 5 Seconds. Ally: Both +10/12/14/16/18/20% movement speed and +5/10/15/20/25/30 (+1% bonus Health) bonus Armor and MR. Karma creates an Area around herself and her ally (eclipse-form) which will grant allys within its range the same Movementspeedbonus, decaying over time. or **Enemy: **receives 40 / 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 + (70%AP) magic damage over 5 seconds and is slowed for 10/12/14/16/18/20%. Enemies who are touching the bond will instantly suffer the full Damage and be slowed by the full amount for 1,5 Seconds.

MANTRA BONUS: Ally: The Ms is doubled. or Enemy: Will be rooted for 2 seconds if it stays bonded for 5 Seconds. Touching: enemys will be rooted for 1 Second.

**Range: **800 (cast) - 1000 (bound) Cost: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 85 / 90 Mana Cooldown: 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10

Ideas/Questions:

  • Isn’t W rendered useless if your tethered target dies or breaks the leash? Gaining stacks system , Damage when bond ends
  • Would this make Liandry’s overly strong for Karma?
  • How about making a snare trigger based on distance between Karma and her target?

#E/RE, Soul Shield/Defiance Her current Mantra version forces her to expand a mantra charge in order to provide a mediocre AoE shield, without being able to find ways to reduce her cooldown. With the damage removal gone, RE was an unattractive ability that was commonly used only because it provided appropriate benefit for use. Returning her old shield values and ratio, while removing the AOE shield and making it single target shield allowed us to return her damage and improve the shield’s overall performance without overpowering it.

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/a/a2/Soul_Shield.jpg

Shields an ally or herself for 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 / 280 (+ 80% AP) points for 5 seconds.

MANTRA BONUS: Deals 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 / 280 (+ 80% AP) magic Damage to enemy units around her target.

Range: 800 Cost: 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 Mana Cooldown: 10

Ideas/Questions:

  • Would providing Armor/MR boost on Karma’s E made her overly strong?
  • Wouldn’t providing a knockback on her E made her a mini-Janna?
  • The Shield could be splitted to scale of off bonus Health (~10%) and AP (60%) to avoid making it scaling too strongly with AP only.

#R: Mantra _Mantra is an integral part of Karma and we felt that this is where it defines Karma the most. We kept two mantra charges because dual casting is a unique playstyle that only Karma has and it creates interesting decision making patterns for the players. We like the aggressive playstyle that Riot has associated with her kit, so we kept the CDR passive on her ultimate but tuned back on the aggressive playstyle, balance is key afterall. _

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/d/de/Mantra_old.jpg

Karma empowers her next ability to do an additional effect. Hitting one enemy Champion with one of her Abilities will reduce the Cooldown of Mantra by 2/ 2,5/ 3 Seconds (=> Once per Ability).

Recharge: 35 / 30 / 25 seconds

#Conclusion: We wanted to preserve the old flavors of Karma using the reimagined kit, while merging it with the new aspects of her that certain players enjoy. Karma's rework revolved around shifting certain stats and effects and it completely altered Karma as a champion; giving to a messy kit that Riot couldn’t balance well and a new playstyle that half of the fanbase didn’t enjoy.

_We tackled Karma’s reimagined rework from her kit because we know that is the central point of her rework. We will be talking about her lore, design and VO up next. If you like our effort so far, you can always provide feedbacks to us, or hop in and help us out. Our team is small but dedicated and we hope to have more people join this cause. :) _

Heres is the Link to the full Document for those interested: http://www.mediafire.com/view/x4wenkvz7u2uhcp/In-depth_reimagined_kit_for_Karma_v0.03_%28read-only%29.pdf

#Thank you for reading and participating :)

93 Comments

Xelvi8 votes

Revert the current rework, give her 3 mantra charges: BAM! Done.

JustBoneBrook2 votes

{quoted}

Revert the current rework, give her 3 mantra charges: BAM! Done.

lol :P i like how possitif you are may work after all

Careful Steps6 votes

Really, anything that could bring back the old Karma's synergy with melee would be fun again. A shield bombing Karma with the current bruisers would be a force to be reckoned with. It's a shame they gutted her strong synergy with melee and basically force you to play Lulu instead now, but Lulu just isn't the nuke mage that karma used to be.

A Miss Fortune5 votes

I just want the old Karma. I never had the chance to play her but looking at her kit from now, it seems SO much fun to play and even play against. She had more decisions than just R > Q, R > Q, R > Q all game long. As a Support, Mid, Jungler, Top, and even ADC she'll probably end up just spamming R > Q all game long.

The old Karma though looked like she could actually choose which ability was the best to Mantra and while maybe if her rework was reverted or changed similar to it her damage might need to be nerfed but still I think that Karma pre-rework was overall a more fun champion. Now her only use is to mash her Mantra Soulflare.

Voluug132 votes

Karma was able to weave mantra'ed and unmantra'ed skills in different ways for the same situations for different results. It was ludicrously awesome.

Jingerbeardman4 votes

sorry but I disagree... and these changes would put karma in a very bad place. In fact it would put her in the exact same place she was in before her rework. I wonder why that is... maybe because this is almost the exact same kit she used to have........ well isn't that interesting.

I really hope this was meant to be sarcastic, because if it wasn't... the only thing left to do is facepalm.

and dont even get me started on your suggested numbers...

JustBoneBrook2 votes

Well I prefair a kit that dont work but is original and make you want to play the champ over a kit super generic like she got right now

Jingerbeardman2 votes

so you would rather play a champion that completely sucks and does not function in the slightest and lose a lot because of that than play a champion that functions but you think is "generic"?

Which brings me to another question, exactly what is generic about Karma? the only ability that could be considered similar to anyone else is her W which you want to be preserved according to this threads suggestions. Her Q and her E are unique to her and her mantrad W is unique as well. So what exactly is generic about karma, and what about the suggestions on this thread would not be generic?

Voluug137 votes

You probably dont even know why Karma sucked 4 years ago.

Q is just another proyectile nuke. Before it was the game's best heal. W is basically LB's E with a heal. Before it was the game's best team MS buff with a possible permaslow. E is a patheticaly weak shield with an even more pathetic MS buff. Before it was the game's most powerful shield with an AoE nuke.

Overall Karma lost enormous amounts of potential on her kit, and what remained is gated by a bunch of contrived, often contradicting, mess of conditions. The kit has no flow, no variety, something anyone that seriously played Karma before recognized on Karma. Karma could weave Mantra and unmantra'ed spells in different ways for the same situation. Now Mantra is 100% situational unless you use RQ where the only reason to use it is its overloaded damage. There is no flow and her abilities are ludicrously weak without Mantra too.

Overall Scarma is nothing but a bunch of random and overbuffed parts glued together trying to mimic what Karma had, but not was, once upon a time. Years ago I predicted Scarma was going to end up as ludicrously mediocre after losing her Karma identity. And I wasnt wrong in the long run.

Jingerbeardman4 votes

Actually I loved old karma, A lot. only problem was back then I royally sucked at the game and did not understand balance at all, let alone how to play. Now that I do however I understand why she needed to be changed.

  1. Skill ranking: back then her skills having 6 ranks was a problem, She was always behind the power curve throughout the match. While everyone else was getting power spikes at lvl 6,9, 11 ect. Karma saw her power spikes at level 9, 13, and 18.

  2. Overall Power: In addition to Karma's skills having 6 ranks, she suffered another power dilemma, She had no Ult. When she was first designed it was thought the extra spell rank would make up for her lack of Ult compared to the rest of the champions at the time. turns out that did not work as well as they had hoped. I can only imagine this was one of the larger reasons they made her passive the way they did. Without some way to amplify her abilities they would never be able to compare to or contribute as much as other champions at the time.

  3. Mantra's effects: Then there was the ability that took the place of her ult, Mantra. I love this unique part of karma, it made and continues to make her different from any other champion in the game. What it gave in place of an ult is the capability of altering her abilities to allow them to do additional effects. The concept is awesome and gave a great deal of additional play decisions compared to other champions at the time. What it didn't give was additional power, something old Karma desperately needed. Which leads me into my next point.

  4. Mantra's functionality/power: Like I said above, Mantra took the place of her having an ultimate that you unlocked at level 6. Unfortunately, on her old kit it was fundamentally flawed in how it functioned. Rather than provide a static and clearly perceived boost to her abilities that the person playing Karma, their allies, and their opponents could understand... It instead went based off of the rank of whatever ability it boosted. This also contributed greatly to her overall lack luster feel and performance because unless you only used your charges on your highest ranked ability it felt like they were wasted. Which brings me to the next point.

  5. Skill order: Since Mantra primarily provided additional defensive effects and not offensive ones you were left with a dilemma. The fact is the only ability that gave Karma an extra boost of power while using mantra was her shield. This was one of Karma's most satisfying abilities but it came with a heavy drawback. If leveled first It was a great ability to protect your allies and give a surprise burst of damage to opponents, but it left Karma an easy target without a reliable damage ability to deter pursuers. So the greater majority of the time players would level Q first and mainly use their mantra charges on that until E was max level once you hit 13. This leads to the next problem Karma had.

  6. Mantra charges: Back to Mantra again. Old Karma used to be able to have two charges of mantra stored at a time. When used in the way Riot originally expected that was fine. They expected players to use one charge on one ability and use the other on a different ability when it seemed useful for the situation. Well things didn't exactly go as they had expected. It sometimes did once karma was level 13 but before, and even after, it typically went a little different. Since Mantras bonus scaled off of the boosted abilities rank, players would just wait until their highest rank ability they had just boosted came off cooldown, activate mantra and used that same ability again. this brings us to the next dilemma.

  7. Mantra boosted abilities: When you looked at Mantra boosted abilities two stuck out a lot more compared to the other. Heavenly Wave and Soul Shield were amazing, while Spirit Bond and its strange functionality was rather sub par. In the perfect situation a mantra boosted Spirit Bond was great, but 8/10 times you would be using Heavenly Wave or Soul Shield. For a champion without an ultimate, having such a huge disconnect on one of her abilities was a major problem. Unless they worked fluidly together, the power that was distributed between each ability became unbalanced. This created major spikes and massive lows between spell uses even after using them successfully. You were left feeling like a god who controls the tides of a battle or a stump that was just in the way. This was not just in low level play but in high level play as well. You were expected to play only one way and only use Mantra to heal from the eyes of your teammates and doing anything else was trolling.

That is what Riot had to face when working on Karma. They had to figure out a way to make every part of her kit feel meaningful. Each ability needed to be able to shine in certain situations better than the others without creating a toxic atmosphere afterward. Karma needed to have proper power spikes comparable to other champions in order for her to keep pace in the game. Lastly she needed the freedom to be played however someone wanted without having to feel pressured to save her mantra in order to appease her teammates. That is a pretty massive undertaking for anyone to take on. Certain things needed to be preserved while others had to be sacrificed.

The biggest thing that was lost which the greater majority cried out about was the changes made to Heavenly Wave. The cruddy part was that Riot's hands were tied when it came to deciding whether or not to keep the healing effect. If they kept it, the same problematic expectation would continue and you would feel required to only use mantra to heal your allies or face their impending wrath and reports. Creating an ability with such an incredibly unhealthy effect for simply not using it is unacceptable. The only way it could have been preserved was to throw out the fundamental design and Identity of Karma and Mantra, no longer making it boost and change the way your spells worked and instead giving Karma a traditional ultimate that would heal teammates. In that situation she could have probably been able to keep her old passive as well.

Another thing people need to realize about Karma, especially about her passive is this. Her passive might seem like some redundant interaction that should just get combined with Mantra in order to open it up for something different. The real truth about her current passive is that it is Riots way of keeping her Mantra available at level one. Take a step back for a moment and think about the current Heimerdinger (for those that do not know him go pull him up in game or on a separate page). Heimerdingers current ult Is almost a carbon copy of how Karma's Mantra works. It augments his regular basic abilities and changes them into something stronger. What does that mean? If you put 2 and 2 together you would realize that Karma gets to have her actual ultimate at level one, They easily could have made it unavailable until level 6 like the usual design but they didn't. Her current passive that reduces the cooldown of Mantra that everyone feels is a cheap escape from giving her a real passive, is correct. There is a reason for it though, Riot put it there as smoke and mirrors to hide her true passive... which is!

######insert drum-roll here

Karma has her ultimate available at lvl 1 for free.

So here is the final question you need to ask yourself. Would you rather maintain Karmas unique design element that separates her from every other champion and in my opinion is what makes her fun to play? Or is having an unhealthy ability and passive really worth sacrificing her unique flair, playstyle, and overall identity (which is having mantra available at level 1)?

Voluug133 votes

1.- Which is why they just did he exact same with Jayce and Elise? Also, her level 5 skills were mathematically only slightly under over champions, while level 6 were consistenly more powerful. Different power spikes is NOT a bad thing at all.

2.- Her Ult was not a OFMG flash skill: It was the capability of choosing her tools for a certain situation. That flexibility was a not so obvious part of her Ult power. Anyways its like saying Udyr is a terrible champion because he doesnt have a real Ult. Karma didnt lose potential without a conventional Ult, she only losed flashiness. Many champions have demostrated a conventional Ult isnt a required power if their kits are strong enough, like Jayce, Elise, Heimer and Nidalee.

3.- The power of Mantra, as already mentioned, was more about her flexibility that her entire power. And even there, of Mantra had problems of power, that is a simple fix: buff the mantra effects. Make RW have a stun at the end, for example.

4.- Easily fixed: make Mantra effect scale with champion level instead of skill level. That way Manra effects feel powerful even if the skill itself isnt completly leveled.

5.- Not really? The point of choosing what to level up as Karma was her flexibility. In some match ups leveling first Q or E was preferencial, Q for sustain and E for burst negation. And this something no other champion has currently, sadly. Every champion has a set skill level order. Karma was one of the champions where you could realistically adapt your skill order depending on the circumstance.

6.- See 4.

7.- And this is where it looks like you didnt remember. Spirit bond was extremely good as an utility spell. At lategame, it had 5s duration and 6s cd. Which basically means a teamwide MS buff (and possibly permaslow to one enemy) with a 85%+ uptime. Spirit Link was NOT subpar under any moment.** It just wasnt a one point** wonder like most people expect the last leveled skill on a champion to be. Spirit Bond is several times better that the current Defiance because: it had ludicrously high uptime, good MS buff mantraed and decent unmantraed and it also doubled as potential permaslow/AoE damage spell. Maybe it needed a bit of a retooling, mainly on the damage part. Lose the damage, increase its power early or add a root. But it was a formidable, if completly misunderstood ability. And with 2 Mantra charges using RW wasnt a ''waste of mantra''. Specially once you learned to juggle the Mantra charges, since unco used the Mantra buff lasted actually a long time, while the charge itself started reloading inmediatly. Using Spirit Bond on a initiator was basically a free, way more powerful Captain enchantment on only one of its only effects. The damage caused also was BIG, specially with AP, and it was very easy to use as a zoning tool, specially with Rylai. Even in a solo lane, her Spirit Bond was such an unconventional ability that it worked very well to stop people diving you. Also ti was pretty good for ganks, specially with characters like Udyr who could dance around the enemy to trigger the tether damage and liked the MS buff. TBH her current unmantraed abilites are considerably weaker as a total that the Old abilities as a total, the only new ability that is new is the W, and only for the snare (at the cost of its previous lategame utility).

Riot simply didnt care about the rework. Scarizard literally NEVER PLAYED KARMA BEFORE. He didnt know the potential Karma had, he simply made a list of all the effects Karma had (shield, slow, tether, etc) and slapped them into a frankenmonster made of cloned abilities.

Karma needed to have proper power spikes comparable to other champions in order for her to keep pace in the game.

Many champions since S1 have different powerspikes. Its one of the most important points of variety on champions. They reworked Jayce and Elise for that. ADCs and Mages always had diferent powerspikes. Honestly the whole ''not the same powerspike that other champions'' isnt a good argument at all.

Lastly she needed the freedom to be played however someone wanted without having to feel pressured to save her mantra in order to appease her teammates.

Which she did? if she choose to play support, she needed to play as a support, if she choose midlane, she needed to play as a midlaner. That was already in effect. Another argument that isnt valid, tbh.

The biggest thing that was lost which the greater majority cried out about was the changes made to Heavenly Wave.

No. People cried about: her loss of identity and the complete 180° turn her gameplay suffered from a short range anti melee flexible pick to a Q poke spambot. Her entire Shield Bomb gameplay was gutted, and recently removed.

If they kept it, the same problematic expectation would continue and you would feel required to only use mantra to heal your allies or face their impending wrath and reports.

If the situation requires for it, Karma should use her heal. If people expect you to only use her heal, that is a misinformation problem THAT RIOT THEMSELVES CREATED. And ''saving'' mantras only for healing is silly in the first place, a good Karma player always had 1 mantra in reserve and one in constant use.

The only way it could have been preserved was to throw out the fundamental design and Identity of Karma and Mantra, no longer making it boost and change the way your spells worked and instead giving Karma a traditional ultimate that would heal teammates. In that situation she could have probably been able to keep her old passive as well.

.....um what? This lacks any kind of logic at all. Not only its Riot/Morello parroting, but there are no proof they actually tried to fix her before the Deletion&Replacement. Karma already functioned well in favorable (read: not the entire meta shitting on her) conditions. If you are somehow drawing conclutions from what appears to be a bunch of personal experiences and decided how and what Karma was able to do, let me tell you it isnt a good argument at all. And healing Ult? Did people forget Mid Karma was always more succesful that support Karma?

Bla bla bla, Karma has her ultimate available at lvl 1 for free.

And pre rework she also did? And more potently because 2 charges? Literally the only reason why people thing Scarma's Mantra is a ''real'' ultimate compared to 2 charges manra is because her RQ is completly and absolutely overbuffed and frontloaded. Its the only thing worth on that kit. Its numbers are ludicrously high.

So here is the final question you need to ask yourself. Would you rather maintain Karmas unique design element that separates her from every other champion and in my opinion is what makes her fun to play? Or is having an unhealthy ability and passive really worth sacrificing her unique flair, playstyle, and overall identity (which is having mantra available at level 1)?

You mean the Unique design elements Karma has PRE-rework, and were deleted by Riot because they put an ignorant newcomer in charge of the rework? Because none of the cloned abilities Scarma has are unique at all. She lost her unique AoE heal, her unique Shieldbombing. She became a subpar Lulu clone that lost most of her potential in her kit.

The passive? Nobody but Riot cared about the passive. It was an extra, a ''oh look what a nice passive''. But it had no conection with her kit aside from ''you get more powerful at less HP''. It was Riot/Morello the ones that pigeonholed Karma as only her passive. For them it was the only worth thing mentioning, mainly because it was the only ''valid'' excuse for such a rework. The passive could have been gone and her kit buffed or given a new passive. Most Karma could have prefered that to the Deletion&Replacement that happened.

Which unhealthy ability are speaking of exactly? Because from my point of view you are considering RQ ''unhealthy'' because your teammates expected it every time? Or the game's best team haste? Her passive could have been replaced/reworked, IDC, it wasnt a big thing anyways. But claiming Scarma has any kind of uniqueness, playstyle or identity Old Karma didnt have, aside from being a Q spambot that shows mroe leg, is silly. Mantra at level 1 have been her thing pre rework too.

If it means we could get Karma back and delete Scarma, yes, the passive could be erased from time for all I care. its her kit and her mantra effects what matter.

Jingerbeardman3 votes

I dont think you know much about design from what I read...

1.) Elise and jayce have an entirely different design fundamental and trying to even use them as evidence is pointless. not to mention the fact elise does not have 6 rank abilities, only jayce does. What else does jayce have? Damage amplifiers and the ability to change between 2 separate kits/forms that did not work off a limited charge system for accessibility. Yet Another point brought up that only hurts whatever argument you were trying to make. Saying that champions dont follow the 6,9,11, and so on spike pattern is so unbelievably wrong I am baffled how you do not understand it. Having to wait till level 9 to reach your first spike puts you so far behind you could hardly rebound and put the burden on your teammates to stall until you could catch up.

2.) Mantra was and is not the flashiest ability in the game. It does not need to be. trying to use udyr as supporting evidence to your argument is yet again in poor taste. All of Udyrs abilities only have 5 ranks, you must pick which one you want to use first and all synergize together well thanks to his passive. Karmas abilities were standalone in their function, and her passive was just a powersink to try and make her work with her hap hazard construction.

3.) They couldnt just buff mantra's effects since they had no synergy with each other. if they dont work together well it is impossible to properly balance.

4.) this is the only point you make that makes any sense so far. this was a possible option they could have gone but it didnt help fix the other problems they were facing.

5.) She had only 2 legitimate options when it came to skills she could level first. One of those provided far more benefits to her than the other comparatively which is why you felt forced to level it first.

6.) having mantra scale with level has no effect on how the charges are used. Having the ability to chain the same mantra boost back to back makes it not possible to give strong mantra effects. It is one of the biggest reasons why her mantra boosts were primarily defensive or supportive.

7.) except boosted spirit bond was redundant... it didnt boost the damage it dealt, just the buff and debuff. there was little point to boost spirit bond when it did its job well enough unboosted. Had the damage it dealt been greatly increased then it would have been more worthwhile. Changing how it worked and dealt damage might have helped some but it ultimately relied not on your own skills but on your teammate to know what they needed to do if it was used on them for it to be used effectively.

Saying Riot didnt care is ignorant... If they didnt care they would not have done anything at all. Was their solution perfect? Not at all, but It did help create a kit that functioned well and synergized with itself which her old kit never did. I am not defending what Riot did in her rework. While I greatly enjoy her current kit I also greatly enjoyed her old one. I was simply giving context into the challenges they needed to face and overcome. Also scarizard was by no means new to the company when they did the karma rework... You should do more research before attempting to debate a subject you do not know well.

Solidair31 votes

Yes this. This this this.

Evenstar2 votes

Hi there, thanks for the elaborated response, reading your responses gave us quite a bit of insight of how non-Karma players would see this. Allow me to summarize what you mentioned...

  1. Providing Karma with six ranks of ability meant that she was in a weird spot of power spiking/performing efficiently? Essentially, what you're trying tell us is that because her abilities each have 6 ranks, Riot had to tone down her power at rank 5, because rank 6's power was strong. Basically, Karma's 6th ranked of ability is as strong/stronger than most rank 5 abilities, this was done in order to compensate the fact when her abilities are all rank 5, she falls behind while traditional rank 5 abilities are ahead of her for some time. Thus giving her a 6th rank was the answer to allowing her catch up? A simpler way of putting it is .. if Karma's 5th ranked abilities are strong, she would be too strong when she hits her 6th rank of ability. Essentially, Riot's earliest design meant they had to tone down lv5 abilities so that it'll make room for lv6 abilities to be stronger. TL;DR of my words, you think keeping her abilities at 5 ranks each is an easier way to balance and design around her, and we would still be able to retain what she used to have.

  2. I'm going to put points 2 - 7 altogether in one piece, because it all revolves around Mantra. In a nutshell, you were trying to explain to the rest of the users that Mantra was in a weird place because its Mantra-ed abilities did not distinguish itself from the regular abilities. I'm going to give an example..

  • Heavenly Wave/ Mantra HW = Damage/damage + heal
  • Spirit Bond / Mantra SB = Haste & Slow, Damage / Enhanced Haste and Slow,
  • Soul Shield / Mantra SS = Shield/Nuke

Standing from a non-Karma player/newbie perspective, I can understand what you want to portray. Let's put it this way, if I am a newbie who wants to pick up Karma, playing her and her abilities should be easy, clear and concise. Ideally, this means when I mantra my abilities, I see RQ as a strong heal for teammates, RW as a strong Initiation (or whatever it is, a strong ability that doesn't involve replicating the same thing ie: enhanced haste/slow) and finally RE, it is a nuke simple as that.

For most parts, I think you agree with everyone RE is the clearest ability that Old Karma had, RE distinguished itself for being a massive nuke and E alone was known for a strong shield, correct? So the real problems here are RQ and RW not being defined well enough as a spell.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think from point 2 to 7, the tl;dr was that the Old Mantra wasn't empowering enough and it created a confusing situation because each mantra-ed abilities did not feel impactful at all. That was your intention (rather than what most perceive you to be hating on the Old Karma), it also tells me that you like Old Karma but do not support our proposed concept simply because Mantra was not defining enough. Thanks for pointing that out, it'll help us better in conceptualizing.

Shyndora left a couple of messages for me last night when I was off my computer and she was suggested similar concepts to what you mention, giving players the ability to level up her Mantra just like an ultimate. Instead of trading for a traditional ultimate (which is bumped up values/utility), it will be giving more flexibility instead. That's a core identity that Karma is known heavily for, being flexible and not numerically oppressive.

So, reflecting back on your words and suggestions, Shyndora and I are going to discuss about making Mantra accessible by allowing players to level her mantra up at lv6, lv 11. lv16. And we're going to discuss about RQ, RW, and a bit of RE (just values), mainly on how Mantra can interact efficiently with all three abilities without making each of them vastly overpowered.

Right now, I just want to summarize your 7 points and understand if I've gotten your words exactly as you wanted them to be.

Going to last your point, we like the concept of Karma's Mantra being available at level 1 and I (personally) will agree with you that Karma's uniqueness is having Mantra readied at lv1. However, I will say that having Mantra available at lv1 =/= having Ultimate at lv1. Just using a simple comparison, a lv1 champion who has an ultimate will still be stronger than Karma at lv1 with her mantra. I get your point, but will not agree the entire design should be based on mantra itself to the point where Karma's abilities or playstyle are vastly changed to the point where half of the players are divided against her.

Having Mantra at level 1 is pretty cool, but I wouldn't like to upset players who felt disappointed that her playstyle was changed simply because of one ability, that's not smart design (imo). BUT, I'm positive and confident that we can find a balancing point in what you said vs. what others want. For you, its her identity (Mantra) that mattered, and for the rest, her passive/abilities are what mattered because it tied in to her character, personality and lore perfectly and overall too.

For now, I just want you to confirm if what I summarized from your words is accurate.

Thanks for the input by the way, it'll help a lot.

And also guys, we're all happy with the support that's going in to this, even though the numbers are relatively small. Shyndora was beginning to feel slightly upset that this thread was getting less views and upvotes (she even went to compare with Shaco/WW's proposed rework on another thread) since she basically spent a lot of time working on the ideas. Would it be too much if we asked some of you to have more people be involved in the discussion/upvotes/views :P?

Ultimately, what I want is for all of us to be on the same page, New Karma players take home something they like, Old Karma get what they like too and I'm going to give Old Karma players the privilege here (Design, Lore, VO) while allowing New Karma players to have the majority of gameplay-related elements (Mantra feeling powerful, numbers looking good, utility feeling strong). So the end results is the fanbase being a bit more happier and united.

I wanted to point out that for most parts, Karma's fanbase is probably the most torn apart community. We have a faction divided between Old and New Karma and the tension has been going on for a very long time while Riot doesn't take notice of it. For now, I ask that ya'll actually band together as one, stick out through thick and thin so that we'll come out even stronger and much more dedicated. I can tell that our fanbase is small, but its usually the smallest fanbase that are the most dedicated bunch of people. So I'm asking that we all, for the sake of Karma, tone down less on the hate and start being engaging in the discussion. Jingerbeardman here is a classic example of someone who decided to stop his hating and started contributing to the discussion by providing feedbacks.

In the words of Karma

"Together, we shall triumph"

So, let's do this as one people!

Jingerbeardman1 votes

Hi there Vesivian, it is nice to see someone actually wanting to discuss things instead of argue who is right or wrong.

I want to make something clear though, I consider Karma to be one of my best mains and she holds a special place in my league heart. Like I said in my reply I love both of the kits karma has had. For the most part you understand what I was saying in my reply but are a little off track on certain other points. Hopefully I can better elaborate and clarify things for you and everyone else.

  1. The powercurve: League of legends has a very particular setup when it comes to its champions and how they grow over the period of a match. Nearly all of them follow a particular skill structure with the exception of a few. The original Karma was one such exception. She had 6 skill ranks instead of 5 because there was no need to rank a fourth ability. But this also created an imbalance since those 3 extra ranks were in place of a traditional ultimate. The problem you are faced with is as follows, How can you redistribute the power an ultimate gives a champion between 3 different abilities that get boosted effects. the most simple answer would be to give them higher base damage values at rank 6 compared to any other champions abilities. This was the direction that they went with. What they didn't take into account was the fact that Karma would then be weaker overall, comparatively, until she reached levels 9, 13, and 18. The problem with splitting the power budget of one ability into thirds and distributing it as an additional rank is that, while the average champion saw a significant spike in power when they unlocked their ult at level 6, Karma had to wait until level 9 to see a somewhat comparable spike. The additional downside to this concept is that in reality until Karma was level 18 and all her skills were maxed, only then did she have full access to the level of power everyone else received at levels 6, 11, and 16. The reason for that is because even at level 9 when you were able to max out your fist skill to rank 6 you only received about a third of the power that would have been your ultimate because it had to be split three ways in exchange for having a fourth outlet.

  2. The second issue to her 6 rank skills was her activate-able boost that worked on a charge system, Mantra. While being innovative, interesting, and fun to use, it didn't actually provide a boost in power but rather added on an additional effect. While the additional effects were very novel and fun to utilize they didn't provide anything else aside from one. Only Mantra boosted Soul Shield provided both an additional effect and boost in power since it gave the ability the addition of damage that wasn't there regularly. What further compounded the problem was that mantra didn't actually give a static bonus effect to the abilities but also scaled alongside the abilities rank. So in actuality old Karma would be better compared to a form change champion since Mantra did not actually provide additional power but additional function instead. What made everything even worse was that this other pseudo form was on limited system that had to recharge one at a time with a maximum of two uses available to you.

  3. The third drawback to her old kit were the abilities themselves. While they were cool and incredibly unique, they didn't function well together. There was little to no cohesion between the 3 abilities, both Heavenly Wave and Soul Shield were stand alone in their function and Spirit Bond was ironically between them trying to hold everything together and make it all function.

One ability needs special attention however, Heavenly Wave. Unlike Karma's other two abilities that could be used in a supporting fashion whether they were boosted or not, Heavenly Wave had a dual existence. In its basic form it was only a self serving tool to deal damage to Karma's enemies. In its boosted form it also was able to heal any allies in its area of effect in addition to its damage. While novel and awesome in its own way it created a massive rift of expectations between the person playing Karma and their teammates. While the person playing Karma saw Mantra as a way to boost all of their abilities and for the most part saw those boosts to a certain extent as being equal, their teammates did not. The average player that had a Karma on their team saw those mantra charges as only heals for them and the rest of the team and did not care about the other boosted effects at all. This creates a problem and a point of tension between teammates which is extremely unhealthy. If the Karma player were to use a Mantra charge on an ability other than Heavenly Wave and the team lost the fight, the rest of that Karma's team might shower rage and hate unto that player for what was in their eyes a waste of a mantra charge. You would hope that players would not be so harsh toward their teammate and rely on the Karma player's judgement and knowledge over their own. That was unfortunately not the case most of the time and even I can remember being flamed by teammates for not using my mantras "properly".

While each ability was individually different in both its basic and boosted forms. The problem was that Heavenly Wave held far more weight as being the superior boosted ability. For Karma to function as a truly cohesive champion it is important that each of her abilities be they boosted or not need to hold equal weight to each other or seamlessly flow into one another. Unfortunately in the case of old Karma they did not.

The last thing that is very important that needs to be made clear is the problem Heavenly Wave presented when they were doing her rework. While I admire and respect your attempt at resurrecting Karma's old Q, it is a path you ultimately can not go down. I am not trying to be demeaning of the thought or time that was put into trying to come up with a more favorable kit for Karma. Instead I am trying to warn you that no matter how you attempt to rethink the ability, so long as it is capable of healing only in its boosted state you are doomed to failure. Not because it can not be implemented, but rather that no matter what her other abilities are capable of when they are boosted they will never be able to hold a candle to her boosted Q in the eyes of your teammates. This recreates the unhealthy rift old Karma was forced to play in and invites an increased level of toxicity back to the game. I personally wish it were possible to give Karma her heal back, I really do, it just creates way to big of an imbalance if you do. Heals of any kind are extremely powerful in the game and there is no real way to bring her other boosted abilities to an equal level without them being massively overbearing and overpowered as a result.

Heavenly Wave in particular was the biggest reason for how Karma's rework turned out. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place with Karma. They were forced to make a decision between maintaining her original design identity or upholding her player favored healing identity. If they went with the player favored direction they would be forced to leave her kit in a poor state where one boosted ability would be used the majority of the time while the other two existed simply to maintain her original design identity. Or re-purpose her abilities and remove the toxic elements while trying to shift the positive elements into different areas and attempt to retain as much of her favored identity as they possibly could. What they ultimately came up with was a teamwide shield and speed boost in exchange for a teamwide heal. While a heal is obviously stronger, the shield can still provide similar mitigation goals that the heal used to give.

Like I said at the start, I loved old Karma and would love to see her return. All I am trying to do is provide insight as to what Riot had to go through when trying to do her rework and the direction they went. I would love to see Karma get some sort of heal again in addition to her boosted shield damage back. It just is not as simple as people would like to believe it is.

I would be more than happy to help guide your efforts in ways that might see better attention from riot as I myself have tried to think of ways to bring a little bit of old Karma back.

Cindikle3 votes

While Karma's newer kit is generic overall. A lot of it was well done. It fits well and preforming well is rewarding. While still having enough counterplay that she isn't too much for anyone in general to handle.

Her old kit was really bad. While it for sure was unique. It put a lot of bad things together. She mostly ended up as an early game top lane bruiser who was a pile of gimmicks. She wasn't any use in ganks. She wasn't any use in teamfights. She wasn't a split push threat. She wasn't a jungler. She could 1v1, using her passive to "outplay" the other guy the same way Vlad outplays Karthus ults. Shield bombs were awesome, and the only thing I'd like to see return.

Q became much stronger in terms of damage. Loss of heal was saddening. But a close/mid range mage that was only as good as her teammate could make her be is a poor design. Q was only really effective when facing melee. W required an ally to know what to do. And the enemy to not know. E was fine overall, and I wish they'd kind of bring it back.

She does heavy lack the yin/yang feeling she was meant to have.

Passive - Merged with ult. New passive will restore mana based on damage taken(and the source of damage). Spending mana will heal her. Overall a small heal, and her heal per 5 will be hit because of this. Will also scale with AP to prevent super sustain tank Karma.

This does A LOT for her. On top of giving her an actual identity. It helps her in the jungle. It makes her lane more interesting. Likely will require a lot of balancing though. This is the stuff broken champions are made of. This would really make her jungling interesting.

Q/RQ - Overall no change. It's a boring ability. But it does it's job. Only thing I'd like to see is have RQ's explosion damage split up. Dealing AoE burn damage before exploding. Like Corki's E(but with a burst at the end). It's honestly an easy ability for almost anyone with boots to talk out of. You should be rewarded for keeping them in it. But it is meant to be an ultimate.

W/RW - Because of the passive change, it no longer heals the same. RW will no heal the missing 20%, but the change they had on PBE where it healed people who attacked the RW target is returned. This extra heal only applies to her allies, not to her. Depending on the power of the passive, missing HP heal could just be removed.

E/RE - If RE hits no allied champions, it instead deals the old AoE damage. Increased by 1% for every 1% HP missing. Please note this is still less damage than RQ.

R - Old passive merged into it.

Not all of this is needed. But the passive change would at the least, make her more unique. Especially her jungling.

IxtaliKing1 votes

This seems like the right direction to go. One thing I think all Karma players can agree on is the shield bomb needs to return. Love the idea of splitting up the RQ aoe burst into burn damage, I'd imagine that would make her feel a little more consistent as a mage.

JustBoneBrook2 votes

{quoted}

This seems like the right direction to go. One thing I think all Karma players can agree on is the shield bomb needs to return. Love the idea of splitting up the RQ aoe burst into burn damage, I'd imagine that would make her feel a little more consistent as a mage.

A come on not her new Q plz if feel so much like somethink Brand would make Brand sends forth a @Fire@ ball of spirit energy that explodes and deals damage upon hitting an enemy unit. @Blaze@ ~~Mantra ~~ Bonus: In addition to the explosion, Mantra increases the destructive power of her Inner Flame, creating a cataclysm which deals damage after a short delay.

BastionKross3 votes

While I didn't have the chance to play or experience old Karma myself, I have read of it's abilities and seen videos of people playing it. Compared to current Karma, old Karma's gameplay was much deeper and rewarding. Current Karma is basically a Q bot 80% of the time. She pokes, she pokes, she pokes, she pokes. She pokes early, she pokes late, she pokes in-between. If you want a little variety you can pull off an E-W combo, but then it's right back to poking again. She needs more depth. She needs a more exciting kit; it's too simple.

The proposed kit is much better, but I would advise against getting too complicated with it. The W here in particular seems very convoluted. "Okay, an enemy touched the chain, let me look at my ability to see just exactly all the things I did to him". You could help simplify it by making it do the opposite to enemies that it does to allies (slow + lower resists) and of course keeping damage so she can proc the ult passive with it. Then add in the heavy CC with RW, since using mantra would naturally "upgrade" the slow (or have it in addition) to something stronger.

Forbidden Siren3 votes

Just create a new champ with Old Karma's kit and use fans as a weapon. Lore-wise, have her be Karma's sister. That way, those who plays and main new Karma still keeps her intact, while Old Karma can enjoy a new champion and lore but still retain some relation to the former self as a new entity.

DrKessler3 votes

Holy cow stop talking about my good old main i think im going to cry. (New karma isnt karma)

JustBoneBrook1 votes

{quoted}

Holy cow stop talking about my good old main i think im going to cry. (New karma isnt karma)

hell i played old Karma 3 time and i love it more than this weird generic mage we got now

Evenstar1 votes

We all crai.

Evenstar3 votes

Hey guys, back with some (small) changes. We noticed that W was a spell that needed more attention at this point, so we started with that ability, and would like your input on it.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/0/0f/Spirit_Bond.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110318012610 ACTIVE: Karma creates a beam between an ally or enemy unit for up to 5 seconds. The beam breaks if the bonded target is stealthed. Allied anchors move faster and gain bonus armor and magic resist. Enemy anchors are slowed and dealt magic damage instead.

MANTRA Bonus: Ally: Mantra effectively doubles up the movement speed gained. Additionally, Karma and the tethered target will create a small area of movement speed buff around them, granting secondary allies the same effect that decays over 5 seconds.

Enemy: If tethered over 5 seconds, Mantra will root enemy in place for 2 seconds. Enemies who pass through the tether are rooted for 1.5 seconds instantly. • MAGIC DAMAGE: 40 / 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+ 70% AP) • BONUS ARMOR/MAGIC RESIST: 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 /30 (+ 1% BONUS HEALTH) • MOVEMENT SPEED MODIFIER: 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 / 18 / 20% • SNARE DURATION: 2 / 2 / 2 / 2 / 2 / 2

Note: Snare is something we decided was healthier compared to silence. We've considered other CCs in place of Snare since we wanted to avoid it being like a Zyra snare, unfortunately, it was challenging for us to give Karma any form of CC other than slow... Again, we will watch closely and change the mantra bonus for enemies depending on how people see it.

Next, we made some changes to Mantra too.

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/d/de/Mantra_old.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140109024044

Enemies hit by Karma's abilities will reduce her Mantra Recharge time by 2/2.5/3 Note: Cooldown reduction on Mantra passive is based on per ability used, not enemies hit. So if you land 3 abilities successfully, you'll reduce 9 seconds in total. In that, we get to amp up her aggressive playstyle a bit more by lowering the value of CD.

Send us your feedback on this :D!

luckeyjoker1 votes

hmm I'm not liking the idea of a 5 second delay snare on her w as a five second ms debuff should be significant enough as her current w already has issues of it being a delay snare. Also having a guarantee slow+snare that can only be escaped by dashes or blink and the classic stealth sounds like it has low counter play. The changes I propose is 1. move the target enemy snare to enemies being hit by the tether as hitting enemies with the tether is hardest thing to do with W and should be the most rewarding, 2. The targeted enemy that W is cast on is just slowed 3. Mantra effect creates a circle around target (of W) at the end of the duration enemies are knocked back (like Maokai distance). Meaning the target is unaffected by the knock back but enemies or the enemies' allies are. I'll explain it a bit further if karma mantra W an enemy that targeted enemy won't get knock back but enemies standing close by will be knocked back. Same goes for targeted allies surrounded by enemies. Karma doesn't receive this effect circle knock back effect. 4. While karma is bonded with an enemy the enemy shares their surrounding vision with Karma. Note that the proposed changes aren't something I want all in w but option it can go to, however I think number 2 is a must and personally I would want option 1 and 2. Also spirit bond had problems of hitting can you explain to me how you would address hitting with it, as I know once you master karma you know how to hit with w but MANY OTHERS don't know how to maximize W's effect partly because W was difficult to hit people with. Lastly I noticed that many of spells have the same base numbers as before if not near the same base as before when people have pointed out that her 6 rank spells are only as strong as 5 rank spells, can you tell me your thoughts about keeping it or changing it?

Evenstar1 votes

Hello! Maybe I can explain why Spirit Bond has a snare on top of a 5 seconds 20% slow. To be honest with you, conceptualizing W to be unique yet easy (for those who complained about Old Karma) was difficult. We wanted to maintain that "pass tether, get hit" concept but it seemed like Shyndora was worried that people wouldn't like it.

Transferring the damage to a DoT whilst giving it a "pass tether, get hit" was something we could do to ease up the "burden of knowledge" for players, and in compensation, we needed to tone down the base values by 1/4. I think for most parts, it seems like you like our idea of providing MS + Bonus stats to ally, right ;)?

So going to enemies, the reasons for adding a snare for Mantra on top of a 20% slow was that we wanted to encourage a bit of counterplay on her slow. Considering how the snare takes 5 seconds to proc, that means you have a lot of room and time to break away from the leash, if you successfully break the leash, Karma will have to take risks in extended chase just to earn her kill. Inversely, if Karma takes the effort to maintain the leash to the point where the snare procs, then she should be rewarded well enough to have a guaranteed kill or a successful one. Previously we took away silence because it was a bit too toxic on her W, we also considered debuffs like MR reduction or (personal idea) placing a mark on enemies so that allies who deal damage towards that enemy will receive bonus damage. However, we felt that debuff wasn't something that was representative of Karma and scrapped that idea (for now). Last night, I was suggesting that we create a new CC, Soulbound, in which a portion of the damage that Karma receives will be reflected to her tethered target (basically something like Poppy's ult but with less toxicity).

Knockback was something that we also thought of trying on Karma's RE, but felt that it should just be retained as a nuke than anything else. We wanted to players to perceive RE as her signature shield bomb than shield crowd control.

As for ranks on abilities, as it stands now, after reading on certain suggestions from other players, Shyndora would like to retain it at 6 ranks, but I personally want to change it to 5 ranks, just so that Mantra can properly empower all 3 abilities differently and make it feel defined. That's what we think of at the moment.

Thanks for sharing your pov on the W though, Shyndora and I are still brainstorming alot, we're spending at 6,7 hours a day changing things here and there lol, But it's nice to see ya'll providing input to us :).

luckeyjoker1 votes

Yes I do like the MS+bonus stats to ally.

However for an extended chase a snare isn't rewarding and 5 second is too much time to lock down as either enemy gets away or dies within the five seconds. Much of the problem with current w is that it isn't rewarding to approach the enemy, even when they are hit with q when they have 3/5 of their health, just to land a snare and it is her most utility packed spell. Yes there is counter play if it is a snare but it is never truly rewarding to have a delay snare because there is still danger even when you are "rewarded" with a snare.

No I don't want RE to have a knock back also, as it's too easy of a reward to pull out. As it stands the only utility I believe is acceptable for the shield is having it act like a ward revealing the area around it as this won't cause the fat shield to be nerf. As for the knock back option, it can go to mantra spirit bond that doesn't affect the target (even enemy target) but the enemies around the target once duration ends. Something like this will allow plays with Sion, Yasuo, Volibear, Morde, Cait (if touching the bond still grants ms boost), and quin while also counter playing champs like Soraka, Nami, Sona, nocturne, and garen yet still be countered by morg's shield and/or ulti, Diana's ability to dash twice, rammus who taunts, fiddles who's always have countered karma and can force the karma or the ally target to break the line, and Leona who can reach a cc even if knocked back, and lastly the enemies can always move away from target and the target can still walk away.

I rather have the snare on contact with the beam to be honest. Karma's spell has always rewarded good positioning and that is why I believe Karma should have a hard cc on touching tether. It may be extra knowledge for other players to know but 3/4 of the power/control goes to karma as she says who gets tethered and she can always move the tether herself, allies hitting opponents with it is just a plus. From what I see and know it is less of a burden than Kalista 's ulti, Thresh lantern even when it is simple some people don't remember to click on lantern vs Karma's "did you know, while spirit bond you can hit enemies with the tether?".

Going on to something else besides W, which I bet you're like "thank goodness", for the suggestions on q I do think it is a good idea to increase heal by x allies in the cone. The problem I have with it is that new karma players will use it to heal only one ally vs hitting an enemy and healing. The increase can turn into increase heal by how many champions was hit by this spell.

As to how I see the identity of Karma and Skarma, both are rewarded with good positions as both mantra q and e are a testament to that and spirit bond says it too. Skarma is more of a uility poke mage and Karma a utility control mage (can redirect flow of power in battle). Karma has three resource to use, Mantra, mana, and HEALTH. Skarma has two, mantra and mana. Karma favors all in compositions, melees, and tanky champions of their roles i.e. graves and ryze. Skarma I know for a fact likes Sivir, favors heavy initiators, and champions who can act as a wall for her. All this just to reminds me of how much the relaunch changed.

IxtaliKing2 votes

I like this idea as it seems to make sense for Karma as a character. My only thing is I like the way her current Q functions.

MargaretThatcher2 votes

probably the best karma rework she could have had without denying her indentity as a mage with a very high utiliy and carrying with it (hello lulu ap mid) Maybe the numbers of shield are a bit high for the utility she offers (most likely what happened to ap lulu) besides she could be better or not than ap lulu, and her playstyles i love how you put mechanics as W damage and silencie, making karma players think if they can pull a high risk high reward (maybe not the most skill based one) plays by running in a huge circle while rooted to the enemy team, she can die or she can pull a very high damage ability with the silence. The current karma feels like she is one sided champion, one ability champion (hello old nidalee) that just offers one thing to a team when she could provide a lot with his versatile kit. Just think in two fighting scenarios with this karma and the current one and well... current one would be like "ok, i will press RQ, then smash my buttons" and this one is like "should i W the carry to help it run from lb,should i RQ him and try to W lb and turn around, or trying to RE myself and then Q lb to try to kill lb" Just a lot of options, and also a lot of counterplay by lb (if she gets hit by an RQ of current karma she will dissapear, but if she dodges it karma isnt a real threat in any kind of situation) Just a great job, you got my upvote

Reaper Review2 votes

Being entirely honest about the fans, I feel like they're wasted potential on a mage like Karma. You're basically trying to work another design aspect onto a champion who already has other features to focus on, in Karma's case her duality and Mantra effects.

I'd rather see a new champ who has fans as a core design element and really uses them, rather than tacking them onto Karma out of some vague obligation that she HAS to use them.

TyroneWatermelon1 votes

This noob champ is fine,she just no lt suited to be as a support

Evenstar2 votes

Hi there, judging by your -7 downvotes, it seems like you've upset quite a fair bit of support Karma mains (by my experience, some support Karma mains are known to take things rather personally..)

We want to know why you think she is noob, and why is it that she is not suited to be a support. Could you share your thoughts with us (in detail if you like) ?

TyroneWatermelon1 votes

{quoted}

Hi there, judging by your -7 downvotes, it seems like you've upset quite a fair bit of support Karma mains (by my experience, some support Karma mains are known to take things rather personally..)

We want to know why you think she is noob, and why is it that she is not suited to be a support. Could you share your thoughts with us (in detail if you like) ?

Yes,I also barely see her as a support. The thing is,with the new items and champions updates that are coming,Mages become more effective at keeping up and fighting with bruisers,but unlike many supports,and just like Orianna,I believe Karma performs better at solo lanes,and even the jungle,as her HuGe damage potential,gank potential and overall laning,is better with farm and items,rather than be wasted in bot lane for screwing up a single target,give a shield and poke. I believe karma is at the same state as Lulu and Tahm,really strong as a solo laner but fatherly weak as a support. Don't forget that as a Mage,Karma can still support her team and even better,since the shield scales with AP,while leaving space for more protective and truly outrageous supports,liek Taric,Thresh,Bard and Nami,who provide more than a shield. Ps-I think she's a noob champ since she's braindead easy to play

Evenstar2 votes

Based on your response, here's what I can summarize from your response..

  1. Karma lacks depth in gameplay (very binary playstyle/patterns, RQ, W, E, Q,Q ,E ,W kind of thing, right?)
  2. You find her much better at mid lane despite the crowd's preference for her in support lane

Currently, my personal opinion (not sure about Shyndora) is that mages are relatively stable in games and still have meaningful weaknesses (can't argue there ;) ! But perhaps they do not fare as well as you think towards bruisers (classic examples like Garen, Darius, Riven are good ones to discuss), certain bruisers are definitely weaker in dealing with mages but I find the things overall balance.

As for Champion Updates and Items, this is something I cannot speak for considering how most preseason changes aren't revealed in details yet. The idea was to rework Karma in to something more cohesive and consistent to her theme (we wanted Karma to be Karma), rather than a way of saying "Rework Karma because she is not in meta".

Going to playstyles, which is something that I'd like to emphasize personally. It was our intention to take Karma away from being compared to utility casters like Lulu or Tahm (overloaded utilities) , and shift her back to being a bit more like Orianna and Mid Morgana (a bit more combat oriented which is what Karma was meant to be built around primarily). We'd like to find a balance between utility and damage, not heavily leaning towards one. The current comparison I'll provide to you is as such... (Using champions Lulu TahmKench Karma Lux Morgana Orianna as an example )

Lulu - Karma - Tahm - Lux - Morgana - Orianna

We would like to shift Karma to ...

Lulu - Lux - Tahm - Karma - Morgana - Orianna (I placed Tahm ahead of Lux simply because he is wreaking havoc at the moment @_@)

So that she's a bit more on the side of being capable to carry when played to perfection. We find that, given just Karma's (old) shield and heal itself, she is just capable as a support, Morgana/Orianna/Lux support level. And since being a mid lane Mage is still more about damage (even Lissandra is better!), we find that Karma has trouble keeping up most mid laners by late game, giving us another reason to discuss how well her kit is letting her perform as a Mid laner.

Personal Opinion, again.

I also wanted to find out if you checked on Karma's pick/win rates. Now before judging, I just want to say I'm using the rates as an inference of data, not a way to prove anything, but just to supplement our work. Looking at her rates across all boards, we notice Karma's pick rate is rather low (it starts off higher for casual, but progresses to low and even lower for all ranked games), her win rates are leaning towards low (compared her to a few strong/familiar supports/mid laners). Given how Karma has been buffed several times (in fact being the most buffed Champion so far), her rates should be higher and sadly that's not quite the case. I won't say Karma is a good/bad champion but I will say that she is heavily restrained by her messy kit.

luckeyjoker1 votes

Ok I think I know what you are saying now. Your first post was confusing lol

Rico Nasty1 votes

These are kind of major changes, but hey, Riot loves changing Karma repeatedly for no reason (take it from an 800+ game Karma main). I do like these ideas, though. I totally agree that Karma needs a new passive and her current one be moved to her ult. Never got to play old Karma, she looks really exciting and engaging to play.

JustBoneBrook1 votes

[{quoted}](name=karma or feed,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=y9YMBdae,comment-id=000a,timestamp=2015-10-27T12:26:16.043+0000)

These are kind of major changes, but hey, Riot loves changing Karma repeatedly for no reason (take it from an 800+ game Karma main). I do like these ideas, though. I totally agree that Karma needs a new passive and her current one be moved to her ult. Never got to play old Karma, she looks really exciting and engaging to play.

Perso i think the new is better BUT the old one was like 1000000% more fun to play not just spam R/Q all the game all the skill where really interesting (just hope they look a bit at what they is good in the new Karma to (like her W root after the full duration that could her in the old karma W may be as a mantra boost)

7thHeaven2 votes

{quoted}

Perso i think the new is better BUT the old one was like 1000000% more fun to play not just spam R/Q all the game all the skill where really interesting (just hope they look a bit at what they is good in the new Karma to (like her W root after the full duration that could her in the old karma W may be as a mantra boost)

She was more fun because her skill can be used in any case. Q: Killing target, saving people W: Escape with teammate ( when W on team ), control enemy ( when W on enemy for 5 seconds slow) E: Killing target, saving people

Evenstar1 votes

Hey people, sorry we're not so responsive on the second day. Taking some time away from Spirit Bond, I wanted to talk about a slightly more controversial ability of Karma's, her Q. After going through some brainstorming with Shyndora, we decided we're not going to to move away from Heavenly Wave for the time being and are finding ways to make her RQ component feel good.

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/leagueoflegends/images/b/b5/Heavenly_Wave.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110318012538

Deals 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 200 / 250 (+ 70% AP) magic Damage to units in a cone in front of her.

MANTRA BONUS: Also heals Karma and her allies in the cone by 35 / 55 / 75 / 95 / 115 / 135 plus 3% (+ 2% per 100 AP) of their missing health.

Shyndora's current suggestion

  • Increases the arc by 50% and heals allies in the cone by X.

  • [Passive] The Heal amount is increased by 5% for each enemy Champion hit with the damage component.

Currently, certain complains about out rework was that Mantra-ed abilities lack their defining moments, RW was especially the problematic one, but RQ has bagged the title home from being the "Most Undefining Ability" of Karma. So we thought of improving Karma's heal to make her RQ stand out more as a moderately strong heal rather than damage/mediocre heal. Talking about heals, we recalled the balance team's philosophy on tradeoff for Healers, ie: Soraka who has to exchange her life to provide heal. In our case, the tradeoff was that Karma had to expand one mantra charge and on top of that, work for her heals so that it feels rewarding for the right amount of effort.

We didn't want to bump up the values and ratio blindly, so we implemented an efficiency mechanic based on numbers of people healed/damaged. this should make RQ feel stronger for the risks you take.

Going back to Q/RQ too, we've decided for now to keep cone aoe skillshot as it is and not put it as a linear colliding skillshot. After looking at Karma videos of her using her Q/RQ ability, cross checking with champions like Annie/Kassadin/Syndra who uses cone skillshots, we realized that the range + degree of cone was perfectly fine (a bit of QoL changes needed but they were doing well) and we suspect that most do not see the power of old Q simply because it's visuals weren't perfect to begin with.

On my next post, I'm gonna post a comparison of Karma's old Q skillshot indicator vs. old Q's animation and visuals just to explain what I mean.

Sorry if this sounds off :P, I'm typing this at 3am after queuing at McDonald's just to get their limited Nanoblock collections (crowd is crazy, had to go there at 11:30am just to get the toys firsthand). Good night people!

JustBoneBrook1 votes

Can i ask you if you like this: May be her passif could give hp reg / 5 sec a bit like how Veigar passif (giving her X hp reg / 1% of her missing health) work... giveing her a good heal reg whene low in hp and giveing her a way to heal herself whitout her mantra Q?

Or just find it stupid? (perso i think it would make it a bit more interesting (not just raw AP) whitout losing the % of her missing health)

SORRY FOR THE BAD ENGLISH

JustBoneBrook1 votes

{quoted}

Can i ask you if you like this: May be her passif could give hp reg / 5 sec a bit like how Veigar passif (giving her X hp reg / 1% of her missing health) work... giveing her a good heal reg whene low in hp and giveing her a way to heal herself whitout her mantra Q?

Or just find it stupid? (perso i think it would make it a bit more interesting (not just raw AP) whitout losing the % of her missing health)

SORRY FOR THE BAD ENGLISH

Oh and VESIVIAN Perso i like the lvl 6 skill find it to be really fun (but the skill really need to be more powerful than normal skills)

Evenstar1 votes

Hello!! I saw your earlier comment and would like to apologize for not replying any sooner.

Sustain passive on Karma isn't something we thought of at the moment, not because we don't like it but we generally find that it'll cause potential problems such as pushing Karma back to a worse stat than she was. And also (we notice) sustain usually applies to Champions who generally experience high mana costs overall (Xerath, TF) and have little ways of last hitting (Annie). I will say that Karma's mana costs in her old version are extremely high, and considering we toned it down to make way for more power, I think mana sustain is not necessary. But I will put the mana sustain idea in to our list, see if we can fit it elsewhere, perhaps Q, W?

And going back to 6 ranks of ability, current idea is to keep it as it is while we find ways to test of 5 ranks ability are equally feasible.

Thanks for approaching us again, I can tell you're just as passionate about Karma as we are :D.

JustBoneBrook1 votes

{quoted}

Hello!! I saw your earlier comment and would like to apologize for not replying any sooner.

Sustain passive on Karma isn't something we thought of at the moment, not because we don't like it but we generally find that it'll cause potential problems such as pushing Karma back to a worse stat than she was. And also (we notice) sustain usually applies to Champions who generally experience high mana costs overall (Xerath, TF) and have little ways of last hitting (Annie). I will say that Karma's mana costs in her old version are extremely high, and considering we toned it down to make way for more power, I think mana sustain is not necessary. But I will put the mana sustain idea in to our list, see if we can fit it elsewhere, perhaps Q, W?

And going back to 6 ranks of ability, current idea is to keep it as it is while we find ways to test of 5 ranks ability are equally feasible.

Thanks for approaching us again, I can tell you're just as passionate about Karma as we are :D.

Frist you are the passionate one :P and thx for replying to me too :D and i was just wondering if you saw I was talking about "(giving her X **HP **reg / 1% of her missing health)" should have said like DrMundo ... but whit the her X **HP **reg / 1% of her missing health just sond more like Veigar (BUT IT WOULD BE REALLY HP REG not MANA just to be clear.) I am not just it was clear since you where talking about mana costs and think like that.

Evenstar1 votes

I spoke to Shyndora about this hours ago, and we both felt like hp regen for Karma as a passive felt a bit of an overlap with her Heal, and it didn't seem to fit her as an AP Mid :P, she might just end up becoming like Chogath But I'm gonna keep in mind of the suggestion if we make changes to her kit, if we come up with something new, chances are, we can properly make HP Reg. a part of her kit :3.!

JustBoneBrook1 votes

{quoted}

I spoke to Shyndora about this hours ago, and we both felt like hp regen for Karma as a passive felt a bit of an overlap with her Heal, and it didn't seem to fit her as an AP Mid :P, she might just end up becoming like Chogath But I'm gonna keep in mind of the suggestion if we make changes to her kit, if we come up with something new, chances are, we can properly make HP Reg. a part of her kit :3.!

It was to give her som selfheal so she can use her mantra on something else than Q for the heal. (I awas find her a bit fragile for her range whene i played her)

SilverSquid1 votes

Hi guys, I answered your EUW post, but I don't think you check it, because I was late and it didn't get any other positive response.

In short I agree with your attempts of making the rather generic mage Karma is atm to something interesting. I disagree on trying to right out make her Old Karma again (with updated values).

It's a shame New Karma has become such a pseudo-pokey-kitey mage and even lost her shieldbomb in 5.10 However I do think Old Karma had a lot of problems, that you seemingly ignore in your post. Her base abilities being boring and only living off Mantra to be effective was maybe only a minor one. I see Gingerbeardman already tackled some of her problems

Anyways, I posted a Karma Rework myself, that tries to combine the best of both worlds. Take a look. Or just tell me a bit about your community. There seems to be none in EUW :C!

Warden Karma1 votes

Hey! Sorry for the late reply but we are quite busy this week :(

We tryed to fuse New and Old Karma to some point. (And I agree that we can not ignore New Karma's Fanbase and Old karma's Problems. So I thought it would be best to release a new Champion as a reworked old Karma (just my opinion) rather than to rework the current Karma.)

We really tryed to fix all problems of Old karma's kit. E.g.: We changed the Basic Q a little (impactfull Slow), while making sure how to use RQ (in battle), hopefully fixing some Problems with those skills.

But Again this is a disscussion and we try our best to create a fair and balanced Kit with (little more than) the flair of old Karma's Kit.

We are open for any Ideas and anyone who is interested to join our group to work on that "Rework" is welcome as well :)

Looking at your Rework:

Gathering Fire:

Numbers aside (which I think are too high) it suffers from the Problem the Old Passive had: A Berserker Passive (which are "exclusive for meeles") on a Ranged. Also making the gained AP based on stacks can make them either way too weak or far too strong/ to be able to have two Mantra charges at a time might be too strong for current Karma. (also it would punish Karma for gaining kills as she gets more stack for assists + Karma would maybe focus too much on gaining stacks (think Nasus)) So all in all your proposed Passive can grant:

  • 240 AP, based on missing AP
  • 20% CDR
  • 1 additional mantra charge
  • at max stacks Karma has a item 3174 but way better.

RQ: Nice Idea there had a similiar one (when the cataclym explodes it stuns instead of damages). But I think it would be too strong when the enemies would also suffer more damage (I mean its pratically a 1,5 Second AOE stun for all inside)

W: The Problem in which we run on our discussion were: If we put so much in W, its just super Overloaded (look at Lulus abilities they have ~1 Effect on either ally or enemy and are rather blanc beside that).

RW: We had the same idea but we came to the end that it would be too OP as you just need to bound to the enemy Carry and you are practically like: cant touch me (also think of the incredible dualing power here (dualing is fioras theme right?)). Similiar Problems to bound to the ally ( too strong protection)

RE: While I think its an nice Idea to implement Damage there again... the skill gets too overloaded. It grants up to 220 (+30% AP) shield to the target It grants up to 210 (+40%) AOE shield to ally plus speeding them up Plus damaging AND slowing enemies.

This is just a short a review with some "short thoughts" on it, I may have rushed something.

Thanks for your efford :)

SilverSquid1 votes

Oh, so if I logg into my normal account it doesn't show me that you answered here? It has been a month already? Riot, please....

Anyways:

"We changed the Basic Q a little (impactfull Slow), while making sure how to use RQ (in battle), hopefully fixing some Problems with those skill."

Am I missing something? Your rework on this site doesn't speak of a slow?

"A Berserker Passive (which are "exclusive for meeles") on a Ranged"

Quite honestly, Karma is very often required to be in range of someone. Due to the removal of her safe poke (RQ) this is even more so the case. Besides, I think this passive makes duelling interesting for both Karma and her opponent.

"also it would punish Karma for gaining kills as she gets more stack for assists + Karma would maybe focus too much on gaining stacks"

Not punish. Just reward less. She is supposed to be a leader, right? Feeding your ADC/Jungler should be a main priority (easier with new W!). Letting them thrive lets Karma thrive too. She is supposed to not win lane, but gank, group, call team objectives, etc. I tried to make her playstyle feel more like her lore. She would be an AP carry, that snowballs into a great leader, instead of a solo-threat or one-man-army.

"- at max stacks Karma has a item 3174 but way better."

A point she will not (=is not supposed to) reach in 95% of the games. I am open to discuss when Karma reaches this point (adapting stacks needed, etc), but as current Karma drastically falls off, some lategame power is needed. Additionally, as her new playstyle requires her to be more upfront, she will be required to build more tanky, and the passive should relieve some building problems with that. And lastly, I reduced her possible burst quite a bit, so the "free AP" might be needed.

"RQ .... But I think it would be too strong when the enemies would also suffer more damage (I mean its pratically a 1,5 Second AOE stun for all inside)"

On max rank. If she can actually hit it. Hitting RQ in close combats is rather tricky, and on long range you will need the time to catch up. The 0.75s stun early game is actually the same strenght of catch potential, that you have with a 1.5s 50% slow, that Karma has now. And losing 25+50 base damage means, that the enemy has to suffer 167-500 damage during the 2s debuff, for Karma to deal the "same" amount of damage. This is intended as a finisher for solo lane (RQ-W is a good execute combo) and a fight-starter in duo lanes. This basically should make up the loss of her root on W.

"If we put so much in W, its just super Overloaded (look at Lulus abilities they have ~1 Effect on either ally or enemy and are rather blanc beside that)."

Erm, honestly, your current W is mechanically harder to describe and grasp. Mine just does mirrored things for allies/enemies. Flat damage/heal over 2s and then missing health damage/heal. That donate's kills if bonded. Yours is a speedup, armor/mr buff, dot, tag-damage-slow. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I dislike your idea in general, but if one of those is "overloaded" it seems to be rather yours than mine ._.

"We had the same idea but we came to the end that it would be too OP as you just need to bound to the enemy Carry and you are practically like: cant touch me (also think of the incredible dualing power here"

It's a double edged sword. If they can tank through their own damage, this ability does nothing. If they decide not to do anything in those 2s, you spent your ulitmate to walk 2s next to each other. Besides, you can still get CC'ed and the tether can be broken. Using this to full effect needs clutch reactions (redirect Veigar's ult, f.e.), but it rewards good play for both Karma and her enemy. I think this is how abilities should be made. Also tanking damage for her allies might actually kill Karma!

"It grants up to 220 (+30% AP) shield to the target It grants up to 210 (+40%) AOE shield to ally plus speeding them up"

That's literally just 10 shield more than the life value (210 +30%). The AoE shield has been REMOVED in my rework!!! So basically, you shield ONE target and either speed up your allies, or damage/slow the enemies. This requires good decision making on whether you want to protect your diving buddy and hurt the enemies, or shield a carry and burst the assasin in his face. The damage is pretty similar to Orianna's W. So it's a bit stronger than her Ori's E - W on a carry. With a longer CD.




Thank you for your answer though, and sorry for the long delay. The boards still kinda confuse me ._.

Healurownbum1 votes

Thank you guys i thought i was one of the last ppl around who still misses Karma (I barely play now just have not found a champion since her rework i love playing and i'm also worried that if i do have one i love they might rework it and being changed so much i would then not enjoy that champion anymore.)

Just i do some what get why they changed her just wish they did it differntly. Passive was a pain to play against i get that. And the instant massive AoE nuking Shield also no real counter play against that. Just had wished they kept them around but changed them so they still would of worked out like put a timer on the shield nuke or let it go out in waves like Naut's E i think but only being able to dmg a person once. And the passive only making it last so long the AP part seems good. And the RQ heal letting it heal less if used on several ppl would of worked just i want her back still. I know that's weird it's been years but i miss the way she walked talked who she was and how she was.

Just i know Riot is avoiding it all still mostly the backlash was pretty heavy and i don't think they are able to do much expect maybe add Karma as a new champion cause touching the Skarma would piss off the new players. It's difficult i get that just wish they had listened back then went about it a bit more careful.

Anyways again thank you feels good i am not alone.

SilverSquid1 votes

Sorry for bothering you again. Somehow the EUW/EUNE forum and this forum don't link up too well and seeing answers here is a burden. That's why it took a while for me to answer you guys, which seemed to have taken too long for you to still notice.

Anways, I have conjured a second Karma rework, that is more in line with the Old Karma in terms of her RQ, W and E and RE. Maybe your community wants to have a look into it and tell me what you think, maybe even adopt a few ideas.

On EUW the posts just pass unnoticed -_-, so I count on you Karma mains and Karma fans.

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