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@Riot Developers - Creative Collaboration. But Karma?

Winterkill··7 votes·963 views

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-k3TbFwMgI

The insight is nice but what do you have to say about Karma? Aren't you guys being a bunch of hypocrites when you say you don't want create generic champions with bland kits, personality, lore, and art? You did that when you decided to rework Karma four years ago and continued to ignore her after the fact. You can update a splash art all you want and introduce as many skins as you like, Karma is still a very bland champion with a generic kit, lore, personality and art.

You couldn't be bothered to fix her existing model so it fits better with todays character models. You couldn't be bothered to give Karma a proper running or shield casting animation. Her personality is non-existent because she seems to be ignored by every single interaction you give with other champions, but not her. She is not mentioned in lore, the history of Runeterra, or between interactions with other champions. Her kit doesn't make sense and the idea of her mantle of decorum is so poorly executed . . . . that I don't even see it doing anything or actually being part of her kit.

Karma had a personality, fan base, likes, interesting kit, and more before you reworked her. There were parts of her that needed to be reworked, but you ignored player feedback and seemed to take every bit of character element players liked about her . . . away. You explain in your video that you want people to connect with certain champions and feel something. Well, you took that away four years ago. You explain in your video that you don't want to make a champion generic. Well you did just that with Karma and you have not rectified any mistakes or made her better in the past four years.

What you have done is completely ignore player feedback, requests, worked on Ryze 4 times, waste time working on new champion kits to make them 10x better at the expense of every other champion that has been waiting far longer, and much more. I'm sorry but you guys are very hypocritical. Don't say in your video you care about champions like Karma, Morde, and others . . . when you are wasting time on Reksai for almost 5 plus months and ignoring other champions like Morde, Karma, Akali and others for far longer. Let them wait as long as other champions have been waiting.

Who is Karma in Runeterra and who is she to other people?

What is Karma offering to this game that isn't an item active or something unique to her?

What exactly is Karma's role in the game itself?

Why have you ignored her terrible and poorly executed visual updates, taunts and more for close to 4 years when you have worked on Ryze more than any other champion?

Do you care about Karma at all . . . and not some stupid skin or splash art that is not addressing her issues?

The answer is simple. You don't care.

11 Comments

SilverSquid7 votes

Hey there. I will try to make this short and cohesive:

  • Karma was the first to receive a VGU and thus suffered from Riot's lack of experience. I do not doubt their sincerity in this video, as I realize that knowledge and skill can improve over time

  • As a Karma main, I am thankful for the new splashes and skins, even though I realize it's maybe only because of her increased playrate, not because out of an ideological drive for equality. They are still doing this for us.

  • There are many more champions out there who would need attention similar to Karma (and dont get it), it's not like she is singled out here.

  • I still cringe over Karma's terrible rework to this day and I will create a dedicated thread concerning it. But I just can't blame Riot for pouring love and dedication into new champions.

But thank you for caring so much about Karma!

Umbral Regent5 votes

Who is Karma in Runeterra and who is she to other people?

What is Karma offering to this game that isn't an item active or something unique to her?

What exactly is Karma's role in the game itself?

Why have you ignored her terrible and poorly executed visual updates, taunts and more for close to 4 years when you have worked on Ryze more than any other champion?

Do you care about Karma at all . . . and not some stupid skin or splash art that is not addressing her issues?

  1. Karma is a spiritual leader from Ionia, a powerful mystic who guides her people and inspires the will to fight back.

  2. Karma is offering a variety of things; poke, siege, defense, and situational, moment-to-moment empowerments with her Mantra.

  3. Combat Mage/Enchanter/Mage Support

  4. Probably because they landed her in a fair enough spot and have better things to work on? Granted, I could see some need for animations for shield casts and run cycles, but IMO she's fine.

  5. Yes, they do care about Karma, but you're probably going to sit and believe that they don't care simply because they're focusing their work on other things, despite Karma being in a solid gameplay state and a fair enough balance state.

Lexyy2 votes

I agree.

IxtaliKing3 votes

Karma is offering a variety of things; poke, siege, defense, and situational, moment-to-moment empowerments with her Mantra.

While I agree with pretty much everything else you've said, this part doesn't really address what Wintertechnics is getting at. At the moment everything she does can be done by either item actives or another champ, she's adds nothing unique to the game in this regard. But there was a time when she did, that's the problem.

Combat Mage/Enchanter/Mage Support

This is what Karma is supposed to be - a battlemage/enchanter. Her current kit doesn't do a good job of demonstrating that, but there was a time when it did... even after her rework.

So yeah, you are right that she is in a fair place balance wise. As a character however, shes a shell of her former self and that really shouldn't be applauded.

Umbral Regent1 votes

Well, let's run down through her abilities, shall we?

Gathering Fire is completely unique - lowering her Mantra's cooldown per enemy hit by abilities, and half per hit by basic attacks. No item or Champion in the game can hypothetically do that, but there are some similarities to other abilities - but they're just similarities.

Inner Flame is a line skillshot with a small AoE for Magic Damage - While I can't think of any abilities that can do something similar, I'm sure there's maybe one or two, so I can give that point, but there's no items that can replicate the effect, and there's certainly no items or Champion abilities that can mimic her Mantra: Soulflare, which creates an AoE pool of damage at a range that slows enemies and explodes for Magic Damage shortly afterwards.*

*Note; I'm aware that Poppy's Hammer Shock has a similar effect - initial damage, AoE Slow, follow-up damage - but I'm counting it as different because Poppy's is a different AoE shape, different damage value (Karma's is AP, Poppy's is enemy %Health), and Karma's is ranged while Poppy's is melee.

Focused Resolve is definitely unique to Karma - on-click link to an enemy, dealing magic damage over time, revealing them, and if the channel goes through, they're rooted. Ostensibly, LeBlanc's Ethereal Chains has a somewhat similar effect - though the casting paradigm is different; Karma's is on-click, LeBlanc's is a skillshot, and LeBlanc's is two individual bursts of damage, not a DoT.

And, of course, like Focused Resolve, Mantra: Renewal is unique to Karma as well, allowing her to heal for the initial cast and the root of Focused Resolve, as well as increase the root duration.

Inspire, I'm willing to give halfway on - there are Active Items that can give allies Shields, and there are Active Items that can give allies movement speed boosts, but not one that can do both. And plenty of Champions can give Shields, too, but I'm willing to wager that Karma is the only one who gives a Movespeed boost with it.

And you can't question that Mantra: Defiance is unique to Karma as well - AoE Shield + Movespeed boost with a powerful single-target Shield. There's no other Champion or Item in the game that can do that.

What makes me curious though, is that, even if "other Champions can do what Karma does" or "Active Items can do what Karma does" is actually a valid argument, why would you waste item slots trying to replicate Karma's abilities? Especially when the only Ability you can replicate with items is her basic Inspire, which, with Items, would cost two whole slots?

As for Karma's kit not doing a good job of demonstrating she's a Battle Mage/Enchanter Support, let's break that down;

According to Riot Statikk in a Developer Blog, Battle Mages are as follows:

Battle Mages get into the middle of the fray, seeking to wreak havoc upon the entire enemy team with their overwhelming sustained area damage. Due to their relatively short (but not melee) combat ranges and the need to burn down their opponents over time, Battle Mages have significant defensive capabilities that range from sustaining endlessly to literally defying death for a short period of time.

Short ranged, sustained area damage (if you're playing her right, her Mantra cooldown is fairly low, so Soulflares are easy to fire off in quick succession), and significant defensive capabilities (Mantra: Renewal for self-sustain and Inspire for shields), that fits the description of "Battle Mage" pretty well.

As for Enchanters:

Enchanters focus on amplifying their allies’ effectiveness by directly augmenting them and defending them from incoming threats. Enchanters themselves are often quite fragile and bring relatively low damage to the table, meaning they really only shine when grouped together with others.

Admittedly, with only her Inspire and Mantra: Defiance, Karma doesn't actually bring a lot to the table to fit the description of Enchanters. Buuuuuut:

Statikk posted sometime later a rough breakdown of Champions who fell into certain Subclasses, listing Karma as an Enchanter-Battle Mage Hybrid.

Which means that she qualifies, if only barely.

So, the short version: I still disagree that Karma is any bit of a generalist or is easily replicated by other Champions/Items, and while I can agree that Karma's gameplay doesn't ostensibly fit for the Enchanter Subclass, she is still an Enchanter/Battle Mage hybrid.

IxtaliKing2 votes

I appreciate your response, and acknowledge the execution of her RQ is in fact unique - even if the spell's cast type is more befitting of an Artillery champ. However, I'm really not here to nitpick about minor differences between abilities because that's not what it's about. When we're talking about champions bringing something to the game it's more than just them having skills which functions slightly differently to other champs, it's about what they offer in their respective role.

Riot has listed Karma primarily as an Enchanter (hybrid battlemage) amongst the likes of Lulu, Janna, Sona, Soraka etc... And in this space she offers nothing but early game bully potential. Her RE is her defining support feature and all it boils down to is 2 item actives combined (locket and talisman). Regardless of how effective she can be (and I know very well, I main her), she offers nothing unique in this space.

As a battlemage she can bring something to the table, and it seems we agree that she fits being a battlemage more. The problem is the way she is currently being balanced is like an Enchanter, everything Riot has done for her after patch 5.10 has been to make a better support and neglect her solo lane mage path.

If you look at Karma pre 5.10 and pre rework, you see 2 iterations of the same champ which fit the "battlemage/enchanter" archetype much more than what we have now - which just looks diluted by comparison. What a few of us on here have been pushing for is for her to be refined more as a battlemage with Enchanter qualities, to give her an original place in the game, like what she originally had.

Lexyy5 votes

I disagree. I can see her personality very clearly. It's not that 'loud' (in lack of a better word) like dunno Kled's or jinx's personality and that's why she may seem boring. Maybe she's just shy... :P

I love her and I have my own vision of her in my head.

Gapybo4 votes

I honestly preferred every single aspect of the old Karma compared to the new one.

GreenLore4 votes

You know...Karma was reworked in 2013,roughly 4 years ago,their standards have increased since then.

And the reason why they didn't work on her since then is simply because that while she is rather bland,she isn't that bad. She doesn't have an extremely outdated model like Mordekaiser Pantheon or Nunu She doesn't have an unbalanceable kit like Urgot And she doesn't have a 50 seconds voice over like Alistar or Singed

Ryze got 2 reworks,because they scrapped the visual update at some point and tried to simply ship the gameplay rework which failed extremely hard in terms of balance.Hence why he got his second big rework,as they still had plenty of leftovers from the first attempt(keep in mind that Ryze only needed 3 months to get done,wheras champs like Galio and Warwick needed 6 months to be done)

SexyBabyJesusZ2 votes

they did this with galio too, while the new galio is obviously (in gameplay) better than old one, new galio didnt make the old galios character better at all.

Hupsis2 votes

Stop whining. Karma is one of my favorite champions and while I agree she needs some love, whining on the forums won't help at all. Riot is well aware of the Karma community that hates them forever for the "failed" rework.

What you can do is tell your suggestions and hopes for a future Karma rework. I'm quite sure she's gonna be on the enchanter roster update whenever that is coming up (maybe next year). Don't expect any major work on her until then since she's in a manageable spot right now.

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