Karma support tips

10 tips for playing Karma support:

1. Abuse your shield speed to chase people down while juking any skillshot they send at you and using the shield to tank autos.

2. Remember your passive. Each auto is one second off of your very short ult cooldown, and spell hits are 2.

3. Your ult is on a very low cooldown. Don't waste it, but try to use it as often as possible.

4. You don't have to hit the enemy laners directly with Q. It explodes when it hits anything, so aim for the enemy, but keep them in line with a minion near them so if they dodge, they'll get hit by the AOE when it hits the minion.

5. RQ deals 100+ damage at level 1. Since many junglers start Gromp and smite it first for extra damage, you can steal it from over the wall with the extended range. Even if you miss the steal, you normally deal enough damage to the jungler to throw them off of their route and keep you from getting ganked for the first 5 minutes.

6. W snare is often underestimated. One of my common Karma "plays" is when I come back to lane, I shield myself, use ghosts, run straight at the lone enemy ADC whose support backed when I did, and throw the snare on, forcing a Flash or getting a kill.

7. is your best item. It can be peel, engage, or disengage.

8. Typical support advice: buy and and use them, don't kill steal but kill secure, etc.

9. Pick Karma based on your team comp. If your team is running a poke mage mid and needs a tanky initiator w/ hard CC, don't pick Karma. However, if you have an AD assassin mid and AD bruisers top and jungle, then you should go Karma to fill the void in AP.

10. Karma's a poke support. Don't pick her into supports that just heal away all the damage you do until you run out of mana (Soraka, Sona, etc.). Your ideal matchup is either into another poke support whose poke you can dodge with your shield, or a melee tank support that you can harass with autos to reset your ult CD.

step 1: don't play karma step 2: play someone actually decent

1-year Karma main here! I can see where you're coming from for sure, I had lots of trouble learning Karma. However she is really great once you master her. The thing to be noted is that Karma is pretty situational as a support. She is really good for AD-heavy teams due to her utility and teamfighting abilities, but say, if you have a poke mage mid, Karma probably isn't the best choice, as she is essentially a poke mage. Another thing is; her ult. Her RQ combo has possibly one of the highest damage outputs in the game. Utilize it! It's a great tool to initiate a teamfight, or to hunt down fleeing enemies. As for RW, you probably won't use it a lot, but it's really good for self-peel and whatnot. If you're caught out, it is a really good tool. RE is a FANTASTIC engage/disengage, use it in teamfights or to defend your allies. I find it especially good for disengaging a bad fight. Any other questions?

I haven't played Karma support myself, although I have been meaning to. I had a look around for some guides for you though. Here's one. I hope it helps http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/our-most-awakened-inclination-support-karma-401625

Karma has very high damage and a strong shield. Make sure you're casting R as frequently as you can manage. Aim your Qs carefully and try to get in auto attacks whenever you can, maybe some tethers. Remember that landing spells and autos reduces the cooldown of R, successfully doing damage will snowball into doing more damage. As with any mage support, remember that killing the enemy laner isn't absolutely necessary: zoning and forcing them to back eats up just as much time and forces them to miss just as much farm. If your HP isn't full and you can manage to do so safely, remember that casting an R tether will heal missing HP.

After laning, continue looking to land spells for poke and harassment. During teamfights, also try to get massive team-wide shields on as many allies as possible: it will mitigate A LOT of damage while giving bonus MS to reposition.