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Karthus,The Deathsinger
![[image loading]](http://www.lolstrategy.com/admin/images/champions/69015.jpg)
I noticed there was no Karthus thread so I decided to make one. I'm a decent Karthus and I used to play a lot of games with Pdiz so I'm pro 'n shit.
Karthus is a very strong mage and an insane snowballer. He is my #1 caster to carry bads with (after Annie but Annie op) due to his strong laning, great ganks, and KS'ing ulti.
Summoner Spells:
![[image loading]](http://edge2.mobafire.com/images/summoner-spell/flash.png) ![[image loading]](http://edge2.mobafire.com/images/summoner-spell/teleport.png)
Flash, always
Flash op needs nerfs. Flash ---> Wall for billion range and 80% slow is pro.
2nd summoner is up to you but I get Teleport 100% of the time. Karthus is a great ganker due to his wall. He is also great at clearing minion waves so lategame you can solopush fairly well.
Masteries and Runes
9/0/21: Pretty obvious but get the point in advanced TP and Flash and reduced death time. I get reduced death time on all my champs that use util tree but some people are weird and get the other thing. Don't be weird.
Runes: Mpen reds, AP yellows, AP blues, AP quints. Runes are 100% up to you though. Just don't run mp5 because you will get a tear to fix all your mp5 problems. Movement Speed quints are also an option.
Skills
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101208200935/leagueoflegends/images/6/66/DeathDefied.jpg)
Death Defied: (passive)
Upon dying, Karthus enters a spirit form allowing him to continue casting spells for 7 seconds. During this time his abilities cost no mana. This is what makes Karthus really strong. You can run into the enemy team and suicide and dish out lots of damage for no mana cost and you can not be cc'd. If you want to use your ulti while dead make sure to do it before 4 seconds because you need 3 seconds to channel it.
![[image loading]](http://edge1.mobafire.com/images/ability/karthus-lay-waste.png)
Lay Waste:
Creates a delayed blast at Karthus' cursor position. After a half a second delay, it will deal magic damage to each nearby enemy. The damage is doubled if it hits only a single unit. This spell works like Urgot's Q. You move your mouse to where you want it to cast and click Q. It does only half damage if it hits more than 1 target so aim to the far side of creeps when using this to last hit.
![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101208200806/leagueoflegends/images/7/79/WallofPain.jpg)
Wall of Pain:
Karthus creates a wall between 2 obelisks at target position. Any enemy passing this wall have their armor, magic resistance, and movement speed reduced for 5 seconds. The wall lasts 7 seconds. Probably the best slow in the game. If you hit someone with this skill they are pretty much guaranteed to eat every lay waste you throw at them.
![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101208200955/leagueoflegends/images/1/10/Defile.jpg)
Defile:
(Toggle) - Off: When Karthus kills a unit, he restores mana.
On: Drains mana to deal magic damage to nearby enemies each second. Great farming skill and AoE damage for when you run into the enemy team and suicide. The mana passive is great for keeping your mana high in lane.
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101208201002/leagueoflegends/images/c/c1/Requiem.jpg)
Requiem:After channeling for 3 seconds, Karthus deals magic damage to all enemy champions. An amazing spell. This ability lets Karthus rack up soulstealer stacks and snowball out of control. Tell your team when you are lvl 6 and keep your eye out for enemies with low hp. When your jungler ganks a lane, use your ulti (make sure you aren't in range to be cc'd out of it by an enemy though) and get free gold by either securing a kill for your team or doing enough damage that you get an assist.
Skilling Order: Q, W, Q, E
Max Q first and level E and W evenly.
Build
Saphire crystal / Dring / Boots
Tear of the goddes
Rylais or Deathcap
Rylais or Deathcap
WOTA
Void Staff
Archangels
For boots get mpen or mercs. Never get CDR boots. Boots3 could also be a good option.
You should start ganking as soon as possible. Karthus pushes insanely fast so when you get the opportunity, push your lane and go gank. Also, Look out for enemy ganks. Karthus is a great counter ganker. Look for wards on your team, you can teleport to warded brushes and get an easy kill. (harder to do now that tp reveals wards.)
Due to Wall of Pain, you can kill Baron extremely fast with your team. You are a great candidate for golem buff so ask your jungler for it when he feels like he doesn't need it (especially great once you build your tear.)
In teamfights you can do 2 things.
1. Play very careful. Get a wall off on the enemy team and kite whoever tries to focus you. With your Rylais it is pretty much impossible for a melee to get to you and if they do you can usually out DPS them. Use your ulti to cleanup whoever tries to run away.
2. Wall as many members of the enemy team and run into them. Don't worry about being focused as you can simply die and still deal damage for another 4 seconds + 3 for ulti.
Original Message From r.Evo:
Hey there,
I basicly just started playing around with Karthus and, honestly, the current thread for him looks worse than any morde thread we ever had. Like so many "Hurrdurr this is how I do it in normals!!!11"-builds and shit like that. :S
Since I know from your other posts that you usually know what you're doing I'd love if you maybe can update the OP with some questions I have about him and maybe tell the normal trolls to gtfo and stuff. =D
1) There seem to be two big "schools" for Karthus. The Revive/TP "Zombie" crew and the "normal" people who use Flash/TP. When and why would which of those be superior to the other?
2) When playing the "normal" builds, there seems to be one camp advocating Tears first builds, another one RoA rush. I believe you said you think that Tears / Rylais / Deathcap is superior to RoA builds whenever you don't need the Catalyst for laning. To me it seems some people love Tears (same for Rylais) others plain hate it. This usually means both is viable, just with varying strenth under varying circumstances. When would you recommend which and why?
1) Revive TP is much harder to pull off. It's definitely for more experienced Karthus players that know perfect times to use revive, have great map awareness so they don't die without flash, are great at TP ganks etc.
2) Yea I like Tear if I'll have an easy lane. There are laners that will punish you for having minimal hp early on (Kass, Leblanc, Annie) so you need to get a cata. I still don't get RoA on them though, I usually just save the cata for a late bveil. I don't know which to recommend, there are great Karthus players that use either build. It's probably just up to your playstyle.
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is awesome32277 Posts
This is 100% pubstomping opinions as I never play karthus in ranked:
I don't see the point of tear because I always always get blue. Shouldn't have another have someone who needs blue more than you (anivia and swain overlap with karthus, the only one I can think of is Udyr maybe).
I go:
Sapphire + 2x pots
boots
Cata
RoA
Rylais
Deathcap
Zonyas
Es so tanky that people try to jump on you and don't realize how much you can take.
I see you skipped Zonyas in your list. Any reasons?
Also, I never was a fan of Mejai cause it delays my "tanky" items and when teamfights start I die too easily. Maybe it's because I pub and full AP karthus diving into the team works when you got 5 people working into that start.
Also, any reason to QWQ instead of QEQ? Your Q range should let you be out of everyone's range farming happily (which is was karthus doest best). Maybe not against Cait.
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- Same reason you get tear on someone like Anivia. You can't have blue buff 24/7 and you will run oom even with blue if you get no mana items. If you didn't get Cata in your build you wouldn't be saying golem is enough.
- I don't like getting RoA because of his passive. Karthus is a caster you can go all in offense and suffer no consequences. I'd much rather get a tear for my mana costs and then get rest all damage.
- Zhonyas can be cool but I'd rather just get more AP. I wouldn't completely rule it out though.
- I get W at lvl 2 because you can harass very well by simply walling someone when they are away from a creep and get free q's in.
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Baa?21244 Posts
Why Rylais so early instead of just Cata -> Deathcap or something? By your rationale, the HP on Rylais shouldn't really matter early and you slow enough with wall anyways.
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Bearded Elder29903 Posts
Uhm, I'm _never_ getting Rylais on Karthus as it's useless IMO. I go straight cata > soulstealer > rod > rabadon or cata > soulstealer > rabadon > archangel / void
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Why do so many ppl get deathcap?
I usually get tear -> roa -> archangels -> deathcap -> hourglass -> last one depending on the game.
It provides some hp to stay in the middle of the fight and still gives some nice ap.
The bad part is low ap at the start.
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Because Karthus can cast a ton of spells no matter how the fight goes, and there is nothing better suited to make those spells hurt than a Deathcap.
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On June 28 2011 16:52 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
Why Rylais so early instead of just Cata -> Deathcap or something? By your rationale, the HP on Rylais shouldn't really matter early and you slow enough with wall anyways.
Wall slow is great but you won't be able to slow 5 people with it and the cd is quite long. Rylais lets you stick to a target if you land 1 Q. You also AoE slow with defile.
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Baa?21244 Posts
On June 28 2011 18:44 HazMat wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2011 16:52 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
Why Rylais so early instead of just Cata -> Deathcap or something? By your rationale, the HP on Rylais shouldn't really matter early and you slow enough with wall anyways. Wall slow is great but you won't be able to slow 5 people with it and the cd is quite long. Rylais lets you stick to a target if you land 1 Q. You also AoE slow with defile.
Doesn't it feel like you do no damage until you have 2.5 (tears, rylai, hat) big items though? :|
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Real way to play karthus: revive tp, full reduced death timer runes.
How to play: farm until you die. tp or revive back to lane to farm even more until you die, split pushing is advised. Rinse and repeat until you and the rest of your team are superfarmed (you from creeps, your team from ending the killstreaks the opponents got on you). Then teamfight, allowing yourself to die, ult, then revive and tp back to the fight to finish off the enemies.
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United States37500 Posts
Rylai's slow is kinda redundant on Karth. I'm more of a fan of Catalyst into either RoA or Banshee depending on what you need more of AP or Spell Block.
On June 29 2011 04:00 Two_DoWn wrote:
Real way to play karthus: revive tp, full reduced death timer runes.
How to play: farm until you die. tp or revive back to lane to farm even more until you die, split pushing is advised. Rinse and repeat until you and the rest of your team are superfarmed (you from creeps, your team from ending the killstreaks the opponents got on you). Then teamfight, allowing yourself to die, ult, then revive and tp back to the fight to finish off the enemies.
Real hanyuyu style
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On June 29 2011 03:51 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On June 28 2011 18:44 HazMat wrote:On June 28 2011 16:52 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
Why Rylais so early instead of just Cata -> Deathcap or something? By your rationale, the HP on Rylais shouldn't really matter early and you slow enough with wall anyways. Wall slow is great but you won't be able to slow 5 people with it and the cd is quite long. Rylais lets you stick to a target if you land 1 Q. You also AoE slow with defile. Doesn't it feel like you do no damage until you have 2.5 (tears, rylai, hat) big items though? :|
Farm really really hard.
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Show nested quote +On June 29 2011 04:00 Two_DoWn wrote:
Real way to play karthus: revive tp, full reduced death timer runes.
How to play: farm until you die. tp or revive back to lane to farm even more until you die, split pushing is advised. Rinse and repeat until you and the rest of your team are superfarmed (you from creeps, your team from ending the killstreaks the opponents got on you). Then teamfight, allowing yourself to die, ult, then revive and tp back to the fight to finish off the enemies. Real hanyuyu style
He my hero bro
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Baa?21244 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Cidg8.png)
Hanyuyu style best style.
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On June 29 2011 05:42 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Hanyuyu style best style.
Csheep: running hanyuyu style without revive or TSD quints.
win anyways cause wala
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Baa?21244 Posts
Best style. I'm totally setting up my TSD quint page again for every time I play Karthus.
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On June 29 2011 04:38 NeoIllusions wrote:Rylai's slow is kinda redundant on Karth. I'm more of a fan of Catalyst into either RoA or Banshee depending on what you need more of AP or Spell Block. Show nested quote +On June 29 2011 04:00 Two_DoWn wrote:
Real way to play karthus: revive tp, full reduced death timer runes.
How to play: farm until you die. tp or revive back to lane to farm even more until you die, split pushing is advised. Rinse and repeat until you and the rest of your team are superfarmed (you from creeps, your team from ending the killstreaks the opponents got on you). Then teamfight, allowing yourself to die, ult, then revive and tp back to the fight to finish off the enemies. Real hanyuyu style
I should get Pdiz in here and slap you. Hella haters.
I don't like Hanyuyu style because I still think it's retarded. I know it's strong and what not but the amount of morale you lose feeding the enemy kills will not win you games.
Also, Karthus is strong before you get a deathcap. With Full ap page, an unstacked SS and Rylais you will still dish out crazy deepz.
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real reason to never get rylais is because when you die in the middle of 5 and turn on your e everyone thinks that the lil ice particle does damage and runs away. if you don't get rylais people will ignore you cuz you already dead and marinate in your AoE.
tru fax
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Oh karthus, one of the funniest champs I ever played. Also one who has one of the highest skill caps.
I usually do d-ring opening, if I loose lane, 2-3 drings with sorc / mercs. then catalyst into RoA or rylai
if I win, its 2-3 d rings sorcs deathcap void then go from there.
If you wanna be a real pro, then you do jungle karthus with tank build:
cloth armor 5pot start ofc
then you go catalyst / tear / frozen heart / banshee / void / rylai / archangels. Tank like a boss and people dont wanna focus you cus even if they kill you, youll be up for some more seconds.
Yep, I have no idea how to build him 
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karthus is a really good ap character if you know how to farm him well.
first off, i like to start with pure magic pen + mp regen runes. for masteries its up to you, but my preference is 9/0/21, or 2/7/21 with ghost and flash
he's really good at any lane basically but my preference is mid for the early lvl 6. i like to start off with boots, 2 hp pots and 1 mana pot. start off with lay waste. you should never run out of mana early game once you get defile, just last hit with your Q.
harass the enemy, grab slow at 4, and then try to make him waste his flash if he has it. remember the most important thing is to master the art of landing that Q. predict where the guy is going to run, and cast it ahead. it does alot of damage early game if u hit him alone. u can either flash in and gank him at level 5 or wait for 6 and then get his hp low enough to ult.
my build from there is sorc boots, archangels -> deathcap -> voidstaff if other team stacks MR like crazy -> hourglass ->all archangels
you want to grab the blue if you can and just farm wave after wave of mobs by keeping defile on. once you get hourglass you can literally tank the other team and engage first. just run in with defile, wall everything flash in and then when they start hitting you turn on the hourglass and laugh as your team clears them up. if you die just hit a few more Q's and then ur ult for the 1k+ damage on everyone. ultimate lulz.
u can also gank anybody. just ask if ur teammates if the guy in whatever lane has used his flash yet. turn on ur defile and wait for him to flash away before u slow him. pubs always run from karthus when he has that huge aura on.
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EPT
