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Does Karma's W need a rework or QoL?

Dunal·4/5/2015, 12:31:01 PM·25 votes·2,021 views

I honestly feel that while Karma is overall a healthy/balanced champion (perhaps a little underpar at the moment) her W I feel could use some changes. It's a really awkward skill and even after playing hundreds of games as her I -still- hold onto that fact. The problems of her W are as followed:

  • The tether range is way to similar to the cast range, sometimes making it break almost immediately.
  • The Snare duration often doesn't justify its risk factor, at least in the lategame.
  • The damage AP ratio on it is pretty low for an ability of its type. Compare to Leblanc's or Swain's similar abilities. The base damage isn't bad either but it's not very noticable and many players would max it last.

My suggestions are as followed:

1) Reduce the cast range by 25 but increase the tether range by 75.

Not entirely a buff, but a tradeoff that will almost always work within her favor and make the skill feel less clunky. The small cast reduction is to make sure opponents feel they have a means to play around it safely. It's a zoning buff to her though.

2) Increase AP ratio to 0.4 x 2 from 0.6. Split the base damage down to 40/70/100/130/160 from 60/110/160/210/260 but make it so the damage lands on cast and when the snare lands as opposed to over time, similar to the healing on R+W.

This makes the damage portion of the skill feel FAR more satisfying without making the damage overly easy to connect (if she doesn't snare, she loses half the damage). She doesn't have Malzahar or Fiddle levels of DoT damage here, so it's always going to feel weak in it's current form. However, with the damage being split like LeBlancs, you have a means to buff the damage by giving the enemy a greater means of avoiding it.

3) Increase Snare duration from 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 from 1/1.35/1.7/2.05/2.4 seconds.

A slight lategame buff to the snare duration to help her scale a bit better. Her early game doesn't need much more of a buff, so leaving it at one second until level 8 or so (when she would start possibly ranking up the ability) seems fair.

Perhaps it doesn't need all these buffs, and that's a fair argument, but I do feel that the ability in it's current form is **one of the most awkward and lacking abilities in the game overall. ** And honestly I feel it's quite possibly the sole reason Karma isn't a popular/strong pick. This ability really needs shaking up. The rest of her kit feels strong. This one really doesn't, and is holding her back a lot.

30 Comments

Kitten of Evil4/5/2015, 2:29:10 PM16 votes

The tether length is actually the same as the cast length. That's why it's so underwhelming. All they have to do is move one step further away to escape.

I'd also like to see it tether large monsters. Give her the Nidalee treatment. After all, there's no reason Karma jungle can't be a thing. She's as gank-effective as Kayle.

Nameless Voice4/5/2015, 2:00:52 PM4 votes

I don't agree with chains having a tether length much longer than the cast length.

Being able to run out of range of a chain should be its counterplay, with the caster being able to get closer to the enemy before casting to stop them from doing that.

I agree that the skill is a little underwhelming, but I wouldn't change its counterplay.

CrazedPorcupine4/5/2015, 6:41:48 PM2 votes

There are 2 things that I'd love to see Karma get with her W, neither of which amps her power up too much.

  1. Allow her Mantra'd W to work on giant/epic monsters. This would allow her some unique gameplay in the jungle, but also allow her to better handle the damage that Dragon and baron do late game during contests. OR
  2. Have her Mantra'd W remove Grevious wounds on cast so that she get's the most out of her heal. Right now, Grievous wounds is broken in how much it stunts healing and there's only a single counter to it in the game, and with how popular Morellonomicon is, another way for a champ to remove grievous wounds would be really nice. And it would make it a much clearer use case of "Use when low on HP and tank out lots of stuff with massive missing HP% recovery."
Ariel the Cruel4/5/2015, 3:38:21 PM2 votes

Ooh! I've got an idea!

{Insert original tether here.}

DrNova4/5/2015, 6:11:06 PM1 votes

I've never had issues with it, and im a karma main

Big Nasty Mèat4/5/2015, 7:56:34 PM1 votes

My only issue with W is that it draws minion aggro in lane and makes landing a good R -> Q really annoying. It has a proper amount of risk/reward otherwise.

Migrañaboy4/5/2015, 8:46:58 PM1 votes

I think that the way to buff her is to divide her heal into 2 parts of 50% of the actual value, instead of a burst of heal at the end of tether (the reverse old master yi heal treatment). I guess that Riot would´t try that approach without nerfing the total granted heal first.

Auryiel4/5/2015, 9:03:22 PM1 votes

Of all the things they could have kept from Old Karma, they chose to keep the tether... I will never understand that decision, especially considering her current kit. Old Karma was pretty short ranged. Her new kit would actually favor her being in the back and acting as a mid-long range support mage. But then you have her W... Ugh

I mean I get that it's supposed to be used to peel divers, but it's SO underwhelming. I wish they'd change it.

Drukyul4/5/2015, 9:14:08 PM1 votes

Any small buff to it makes sense to me. In the right situations it's great, sure, but those situations are kinda few because of how hard it is to pull off, and how much time you have to invest to do so.

What would be interesting to me is for it to auto-snare if the champ that is tethered uses any sort of blink or dash (at the end of the dash, so they still get the distance).

It Hertz When IP4/6/2015, 12:14:07 AM1 votes

Fiddle's tether works like that, why not Karma's?

Champion Skin4/6/2015, 2:17:03 AM1 votes

Why Karma isn't played much? Maybe because she falls off really really hard because she has only 3 abilities 1 ult (kind of) and 2 normal abilities And because she has no hard CC to lock down targets or to stop assassins with?

Joe Dredd4/5/2015, 1:42:46 PM1 votes

make it lb tether (^:

Kylemnestra4/8/2015, 12:37:18 PM1 votes

Hey there,

Karma is my favorite Champion and I think your ideas are going in the right direction.

I tested Focused Resolve in game yesterday and I found out that the cast range is actually noticeable smaller than the bound range (should be 675 as listed in lol wikia). But the maximum Range seems not to be 1000 as listed. It broke ~75 Range before the maximum Range of her Q, meaning that there is ~125 Range missing (maybe I did a mistake there. but this was how it looked like to me).

Also the Damage and the Tangle Duration are, as you said kinda low in comparision to similiar Abilities, But I would suggest to keep the DoT since it procs your Passive, so I would like to see it like this:

Focused Resolve: Damage: 60/ 110/ 160/ 210/ 260 (+̶6̶̶0̶%̶ ̶̶a̶̶p̶) ---> (+70%) Tangle Duration:̶ 1̶̶.̶̶0̶̶0̶/̶ ̶̶1̶̶.̶̶2̶̶5̶/̶ ̶̶1̶̶.̶̶5̶̶0̶/̶ ̶̶1̶̶.̶̶7̶̶5̶/̶ ̶̶2̶̶.̶̶0̶̶0̶ ---> 1.00/ 1.35/ 1.70/ 2.05/ 2.40 Range: 675 (Cast) - 1000 (bound) [bugfix?/ little increase?]

JustMyBassCannon4/5/2015, 3:03:54 PM1 votes

The problem I have with making it like Leblanc's tether--dealing damage initially and after snaring--is that it indirectly nerfs her Mantra. Her passive CDR gain currently procs 3 times on her W, bringing Mantra back off cooldown faster (particularly since it's champions only).

That and she's not a pure mage. She has amazing burst, but she's a support mage.

Scrimshäw4/5/2015, 4:53:55 PM1 votes

Do you have any idea how broken Karma is?

DoFr4/5/2015, 5:54:45 PM1 votes

i feel like karma is all about a well used E, the shield's movement speed makes all the changes in the world, i would only ask to have it on lower CD when used on her self, that's the only thing i'll ever need when trying to Tether them up.

i really enjoy playing karma, and the movement speed helps avoid ALOT of skillshots, while you landing yours, imo i always pratice udyr in his bear stance to avoid skillshots, i could only thing same applies to karma's E