Quick Tips To Turn Your Karthus Into A Murder Machine

Yoella·Dec 2, 2014·1 votes·2,500 views

Hi there, I main mid and I especially like Karthus . However I don't see him being played very often, and I think it's mainly because people don't realize how great he is. Right now Karthus is in a great spot: Not OP enough to warrant a nerf, but strong enough to dominate the enemy, and obscure enough that people don't always know what your abilities actually do.

The Build:

The first and most important thing to build as Karthus is a Rod Of Ages . This little purple stick will turn you into a death machine. Start out with mana crystal and potions, then then build it into Catalyst for the added sustain. Finally you should have a RoA between 9 and 14 minutes depending of your farm. RoA supplies Karthus with everything he needs, and is the perfect item for him. A Karthus without RoA is like an ADC without attack speed or lifesteal.

Next you should get you some Sorcerers Shoes for the Magic Pen and MS. Magic Pen is incredibly useful on Karthus.

My third item is almost always Rabadon's for the massive AP spike. Keep in mind while building this item it will be Karthus's slowest growth period, but it's well worth it.

The fourth item might sound odd to some, but it makes you nearly inescapable, which is invaluable because Karthus has no method of chasing down foes (Aside from his ultimate). I get Rylai's for the health and AP and especially the passive slow. The slow wins games, it turns literally everything you do into good CC. Wait wait hold on, health on a mage? After RoA? Yes!! I'll explain that later down in this post.

The fifth item I usually buy is Abyssal Sceptre for the huge Magic Pen and MR, but if the enemy is all AD and for some reason you don't need more damage, Zhonya's works well too. But it lacks the Magic Penetration Karthus values so highly.

Finally I purchase Void Staff. This item is really the icing on the cake, and makes you melt foes with even the highest MR. However if you're up against a bunch of tanks with HP but not MR, I might suggest Liandry's, as it procs well with Rylai's and while it provides less AP and Magic Pen, it gives a little health and the passive is excellent for just poking. Void Staff is the right choice 90% of the time, however.

The Abilities:

Q: A small 0.5 second delayed AoE bubble that deals double damage if it hits only one target! Late game you can 2 shot Akali with this thing, it's amazing. Did I mention it's on a 1 second CD??! Very low mana costs as well. However, watch your mana early game, it does deplete if you get carried away.

W: A spectral wall that grows in size and slow with each rank, but all ranks lower the opponents MR by 15% and slow, letting you cheese your way to an early kill. This spell costs a LOT of mana though, especially early on, and has the longest CD of your QWE spells, so use it wisely.

E: Ah, my beloved Karthus E. This spell is so useful, I would trade away my Q entirely for some extra E damage. E is a toggle ability, and when toggled on it creates a fairly large AoE around yourself that causes very nice damage per second to the enemy. Combine this with your Rylai's slow and your kills will skyrocket. Turn it on in a teamfight and use your health from RoA to survive while the enemy is dying just from being near you. Pop W and some Q's for added carnage. More on this later when I explain the passive. However this ability is extremely mana hungry, and even late game it will drain you like a popped balloon. Toggle it off immediately if you don't need it, you can toggle it back on again instantly. Also, when E is toggled off each kill restores some mana.

R: The Karthus Ulti... the ability that will make the enemy rage like none other... it really isn't all it's chalked up to be. At rank 1 it does 250 base damage, and only has a 60% AP ratio. This will rarely net you more than a kill or two every few games, but the threat of it keeps enemies recalling. However, at level 11 the base damage kicks up to 400, and you have a lot more AP by now, so you're probably doing around 530 with your ult. This is pretty good, and it only gets better. At rank 3, level 16, the base damage goes to 550... and by endgame you can easily manage 1000 damage with your ulti. OUCH, that HURTS!! Teemo's and Heimer's beware, this ulti can 100-30 a squishy opponent, if not more. Now the downside to this skill is that shields, especially Morgana's, will mitigate the damage greatly, and invulnerability from Zhonya's or an ability like Fizz pole hop will dodge all damage!! A tip for Zhonya's, the cast time for Requiem (R) is longer than the invulnerability lasts, so if they pop it before you start to channel you can kill them. Maw and Hexdrinker will also rain on your parade. Do not channel Requiem if you are alive and in a fight, death or any hard CC will break your ult and it will go on CD without casting. Run away or die before casting it.

THE PASSIVE: Karthus has one of the best passives in the game IMO. Upon death he gains infinite mana, and automatically toggles on his E. He cannot move or AA, but he can cast spells for free while in a ghost form for 7 seconds. KEEP IN MIND that your ultimate takes 4 seconds to cast, and if there's less than 4 seconds left in your passive you cannot cast your ultimate. This means that you can use Q twice (0.5 sec delay + 1 sec CD) and Requiem (4 second channel) once. If you're really quick you can get a W wall in there too. These 7 seconds count towards your death timer for respawn.

One last note, always know how much damage your Ultimate does. It's an awful feeling to blow your ultimate and have the enemy walk way with 30 HP. And if your team is saying "KARTH ULT!" don't just blindly listen to them. Make a quick judgement via minimap or screen whether or not someone can be killed, and then decide. They mean well, but often they're wrong. Consider sharing your ult damage with them when you get a new item or rank up. Also, while some might think Karthus Ult is best used as an initiator, I fervently disagree. If you ulti to initiate then the enemy will be weakened, but there's still no guarantee of a kill or even that your team will win or even needed the extra damage to win in the first place. There are situations to initiate with it, I'm sure, but I have yet to run into one of them. You can call it greedy, but I'm not going to ask an ally to ulti someone at full health so I can kill him either.

Did I miss anything?

8 Comments

WorgslargDec 2, 20142 votes

I personally like getting tear into roa, as i find the extra mana from archangels is quintessential.

YoellaDec 2, 20141 votes

I did that for a long time, but now I just manage my mana better. Keeping E toggled off when you don't need it is essential to not needing Archangel. I see so many Karths just running around with E on, or chasing when they're out of range... I cringe lol. The bonus AP helps too.

templartraceDec 2, 20142 votes

Ok, I didn't try to play Karthus lately, but here are my problems with him:

His AA. It can't go slower, right? I can't last hit with the AA and as you said, I get Mana from last-hitting when E is toggled off.
The damn 0.5sec delay on the Q.
The fact, that you have to stay away from any assassin because you can't just run away. e.g. Kata QEWR? (Ok, is a E W Q Q Q.. combo good, when they just wanted to trade for a bit?) Would appreciate tips.

YoellaDec 2, 20141 votes

His AA. It can't go slower, right? I can't last hit with the AA and as you said, I get Mana from last-hitting when E is toggled off.

You don't need to last hit with the AA, you can last hit with Q. Which is what I recommend for farming. When you get a feel for the radius of Q you can single out most minions in a group and get the 2x damage multiplier for simple farm. Another trick if under the tower is to let the tower hit once, then launch Q right as the tower bolt hits the minion, the 0.5 second delay will make your damage hit last and you'll get the gold.

The damn 0.5sec delay on the Q.

This can take a little bit to get used to, but given practice it can actually work to your benefit. It slightly "enlarges" your range when you're fleeing an enemy (You cast Q at max range behind you, you're further away by the time it goes off), and the damage is huge. For example, if you dodge Ahri charm you can dance your way to taking out 60-70% of her health with just 2 or 3 Q's early on. This is assuming you get the 2x damage bonus for hitting only one target at a time.

The fact, that you have to stay away from any assassin because you can't just run away. e.g. Kata QEWR? (Ok, is a E W Q Q Q.. combo good, when they just wanted to trade for a bit?) Would appreciate tips.

Pre RoA item 3027 you're going to be really squishy, and so you have to play smart here and not go all in unless you're assured the kill. Katarina is actually a nice match up for Karthus, as far as assassins go. She hurts, but she's squishy and her R forces her to stay in one place, letting you unload an E, W, and several Qs easily on her while fleeing her range, usually killing her before she kills you. (Unless she gets ahead) And if she DOES kill you.. well you've got your passive to kill her fairly easily. Late game VS kat her damage spikes, especially if she rushed Abyssal, so try not to engage her alone if that happens. Still, she remains squishy and thus an easy kill.

I'm assuming you mean Karths E W Q Q Q combo, not Kats. If a Kat is trying to trade with me (Knife throwing, teleporting pain in the ass) I try to keep as many minions between me and her as possible, for the knife, and I only approach her tp range if it's on CD or I have ~70% health. This is for post 6 Kat btw. Pre 6 you don't have much to worry about aside from getting ganked or playing stupidly. Just spam Q whenever you have a clear shot. Even if 40% miss, you'll destroy her health to the point where if she DOES jump onto you your E and Q will demolish her.

Do not, and I repeat, do NOT use your E just willynilly. The thing eats mana like a hungry hippo at thanksgiving dinner. Use of E, aim with Q, and keeping track of your Ulti damage are what separate good Karths from simple cannon fodder. Only use your E when you're going for the kill, and only when they're already in your range. If they leave your range even for a second, disable E. Each second of E is almost 2 Qs worth of mana early on. You can toggle it on and off immediately (Albeit it costs 70 mana to toggle back on, then I think 40 mana per second) So you really just have to get used to when to use it on your own. Used correctly it can cause mass destruction, but if used excessively it will leave you manaless.

Oh, and if ANYONE leaps towards you and misses, and retreats without damaging you, hit them with your W and punish them. The only exception to this is if they're in the middle of their team or they have some huge burst.

templartraceDec 8, 20141 votes

Thanks for the reply and thanks for the tips. So far, I guess I was more of cannon fodder, than helpful. I'll put your advice into practice at some point.

GG BeersDec 2, 20141 votes

umm, no hourglass. That is hands down THE most important item on karthus.

The whole point of Karthus is to cause shit and deal a freakton of damage. I like to initiate with karthus if our team doesn't have a good form of it from anyone else. Just throw yourself in to the middle of their team with your E up, make them want to kill you, when you're a fraction away from death, pop your hourglass. Now they all run away, then when the hourglass is over they all run back in again to kill you. Then you die wait a second then ult. Couple this with a kayle ult and it even more frustrating and devastating to your enemy. This causes so much chaos in the enemy team, you've basically won the fight by yourself. This is all because of zhonyas hourglass and you need to have this item EVERY SINGLE GAME by the time team fights break out.

This is all based of the old school zombie karthus that used to be popular in season 1-2 with teleport revive, which I still do to this day because it's fucking hilarious and is still effective in normal silver/gold Elo. The whole idea is that you can die twice in a team fight

There's some decent info in this guide but as a longtime ( I mean season 1 longtime) karthus player, there's some things I just don't agree with.

YoellaDec 2, 20141 votes

Zhonya's works well too.

I did mention Zhonya's, actually. I don't know what the rest of your build is, but the way I build I don't need that extra 2 seconds of E from Zhonya's, because they're already dead. So I don't need to rely on them being idiots and running back into my E range. Zhonya's is certainly helpful on Karthus, which is why I included it, but unless you're against a heavy AD team the MR and penetration is much better. To make up for it, I just play smart. You shouldn't have to kill yourself every fight (albeit Karthus passive is BA).

WeGDec 3, 20141 votes

Zombie karthus for president 2016. Your completely right, you single-handedly win the game. I normally end up like 35-20-30 playing zombie karthus. Your team has to not be full of pussies for it to work.