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Sorry Rugfeeder, I think we need a new Karma guide. I'll finish this up later tonight, didn't have time to finish at work, huehuehue.
Karma, the Enlightened One
+ Show Spoiler [Patch Notes] +v1.0.0.125 - 2011-09-14
Fixed a bug where using a summoner spell would sometimes consume Karma's mantra charge
v1.0.0.123 - 2011-08-09
The cooldown before Karma's next Mantra charge and her current stacks are now shown in the same buff
v1.0.0.118 - 2011-05-10
Fixed a bug where by casting spells in rapid succession you could charge multiple spells with a single Mantra Chakra now shows a cooldown
v1.0.0.115 - 2011-04-11
Fixed a bug where the visual for Heavenly Wave occasionally wouldn't align with the direction cast Mantra Soul Shield now shows an area of effect indicator when your cursor hovers over an ally
v1.0.0.114 - 2011-03-28
Fixed a bug where the Mantra version of Heavenly Wave was not granting assists for healing allies Spirit Bond's leash range has been increased by a small amount Mantra now scales with level on a 30/25/20 second cooldown at levels 1/7/13 respectively instead of on 25 second cooldown at all levels
v1.0.0.112 - 2011-03-01
Heavenly Wave base heal increased to 35/55/75/95/115/135 from 30/45/60/75/90/105 Spirit Bond cooldown reduced to 15/14/13/12/11/10 from 20/18/16/14/12/10. Soul Shield Increased the shield strength by 10 at all ranks. Mantra cooldown reduced to 25 seconds from 30 seconds.
v1.0.0.111 - 2011-02-16
Spirit Bond now properly assigns assist markers to allies that receive the haste bonus Fixed a bug where Spirit Bond would break friendly spell shields and not apply the haste bonus Fixed a display bug where Spirit Bond's beam would appear at Karma's feet for enemy players + Show Spoiler [Stats] + Health ................ 410 (+86) Mana ................. 240 (+60) Attack Damage .. 50 (+3.3) Attack Speed ..... 0.625 (+2.3%) Range ................ 425 Health Regen ...... 4.7 (+0.55) Mana Regen ....... 6.8 (+0.65) Armor ................ 15 (+3.5) Magic Res ......... 30 (+0) Mov. Speed ........ 310
Abilities:
Passive - Inner Flame: Karma gains up to 30-130 Ability Power corresponding to her % of missing Health.
This passive is incredible and makes Karma a deceptively hard target to kill, as once she gets low HP, she will unleash a considerably more powerful spells. At 100% HP, you'll gain 0 AP from your passive and then you'll get a proportion of the max AP at your current level equal to the % of your HP that's missing. For instance, at level 1, 50% HP, you'll gain 15 AP from Inner Flame.
The upward threshold on the AP gained starts at 30 at level 1 and goes up by 20 at levels 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15.
Q - Heavenly Wave: Karma sends forth hidden blades from her fans, dealing 70/110/150/190/230/270 + 0.6 AP magic damage to units in a cone in front of her.
Mantra Bonus: In addition to dealing damage to enemies, Heavenly Wave will also heal allies in the cone for 35/55/75/95/115/135 plus (5 + 0.02 AP)% of their missing Health.
CD: 6 Mana: 70/75/80/85/90/95 Range: 600?
Karma's bread and butter nuke. This will always be your most consistent source of damage and it's quite good at what it does with decent range for a spell with it's AoE and a ridiculously short CD for an AoE nuke. The cast time is basically instantaneous, so when you're casting it at a fleeing foe, you'll frequently hit further than you'd expect because of how little delay there is on the cast.
The Mantra charge on this ability is an awkward, but potentially very powerful heal. Since a good portion of the heal is based on your % HP missing, the heal on this isn't very good for topping your team off in lane or in poking fights, but it's INCREDIBLE as an OH-SHIT, WE'RE ALL ALMOST DEAD heal. Also remember that this plays in with the theme of your passive of being deceptively durable at low HPs. If you go low HP, you get more AP to scale off of all that HP that your missing, self synergy ftw.
W - Spirit Bond: Karma creates a beam between an ally or enemy for up to 5 seconds. Allied anchors move 10/12/14/16/18/20% faster and enemy anchors are slowed by 10/12/14/16/18/20%. The beam deals 80/125/170/215/260/305 + 0.7 AP magic damage to enemies and applies the same movement speed adjustment anchors receive to any champion it passes through.
The beam breaks if the bonded target is stealthed.
Mantra Bonus: Karma strengthens the bond to double the effect of the movement speed modifier.
CD: 15/14/13/12/11/10 Mana: 65/75/85/95/105/115 Range: 800 (initial cast) / 1000 (leash max range)
This ability is pretty tricky. Essentially, you tether an opponent to slow them down or an ally to speed them up. Any enemy that passes through the tether between yourself and your target will take damage, and any champion that passes through the tether will be sped up/slowed down depending on whether they're friendly or hostile. Proper usage of this ability and having a team that can effectively utilize it will make or break Karma. It works best on tanky characters that run around the fight a lot, such that it will tag as many opponents with the damage as possible and such that the speed boost will be used to it's maximum effect. Singed is perfect for this, definitely the #1 utilizer of Karma's Spirit Bond. Other good targets include Garen, Wu Kong, Amumu, Malphite, Maokai, Rammus, Skarnar, and Shyvanna.
The Mantra bonus is very straight forward, simply doubling this ability's effect on speed. It's rare that you'll spend mantra charges on this ability, but it can be incredibly potent as an escaping/chasing tool to be able to speed friendlies up 40% and slow hostiles down 40%.
E - Soul Shield: Karma summons a protective shield that absorbs 80/120/160/200/240/280 + 0.8 AP damage for 5 seconds.
Mantra Bonus: In addition to casting the shield, energy radiates out from the shield, dealing 80/120/160/200/240/280 + 0.8 AP magic damage to enemy units around her target.
CD: 10 Mana: 70/80/90/100/110/120 Range: 600? (cast range) / 600? (mantra radius)
Karma's Shield. If you've never been terrored by this ability, consider yourself lucky. This shield is fairly massive. Not quite as big as Sion's, but it does it's damage instantly and unconditionally and it can be cast on allied units. Most mantras will be spent on your shield, as it has the most obviously powerful mantra effect. Between Mantra Soul Shield and Heavenly Wave, Karma has perhaps the most powerful creep farming tools in the game, and can easily 2 shot entire creep waves as early at level 5.
As with Heavenly Wave, consider the interaction this ability has when you get low HP. Low HP = bigger shield. If someone tries to burst you, and falls just short, think about what happens when you suddenly Mantra E -> Mantra Q them. Her able to turn situations around like that is one of Karma greatest assets.
R - Mantra: Karma empowers her next ability to do an additional effect. Karma gains a charge over time and stores up to 2 charges. The refresh rate is reduced by cooldown reduction and does not progress when having max charges. Both charges may be queued for application on the next 2 abilities. Reload begins when Mantra is activated, not when the charge is applied to another ability.
CD: 0.25 Mana: 0 Range: N/A Recharge CD: 30/25/20
What makes Karma Karma. Mantra is a skill that doesn't require any points and is available to you at level 1 (hence why her other abilities have 6 ranks). The recharge CD goes down at levels 7 and 13. Essentially this is a special resource that Karma can use to super-charge her spells. Managing your Mantras efficiently and using them at the proper times is what will make you a good Karma player. Any derp can walk around and mantra every shield, but a good karma knows when to mantra her Qs and Ws for maximum effect.
GUIDES
SOLO MID KARMA Summoner Skills: Flash + Ignite You could probably run other stuff in place of ignite if you really wanted to, but I find ignite extremely potent. I have been considering heal though, as heal does outperform ignite 1v1 and has better team utility.
Masteries: 21/0/9 Offensive Tree OP
Runes: Marks: MPen Seals: Armor Glyphs: MRes Quints: AP
While Karma does love AP, I find that resistances are just too good to pass up on her. With her shield and heal, she has a deceptively high effective HP pool to work with and playing off that resists is the best use of those slots IMHO, especially since itemizing huge resists is harder than itemizing huge AP.
Skill Order: Q > E > W, getting a point in W when it seems prudent. I have skipped W until level 13 and I've gotten W at level 2, it's all a matter of when you need it.
Item Build:
Starting Items
I start D-Ring because I'm a boss. Boots + 3 pots is also a possibility if you're not a boss.
Core + + D-Rings are really cool items and I typically get at least 2.
What Next
Deathcap is already stupidly strong on all AP characters, but once you add in the boatload of free AP Karma gets from her passive, it becomes a giant no brainer. You will always get this item, it's just a question of when.
When you're having some trouble vs. an AP, Abyssal tends to be a strong way to boost your damage output and effective tankiness. It's pricey, but frequently worth it in my experience. ? When I don't expect constant blue buffs for whatever reason, Morello's serves as a nice way to cash in on 2K gold in exchange for blue-buff independence. I don't like getting this item, but Mana and CDR are very important to Karma and if you can't be sure you'll get it from blue buff, you should invest in this.
Boots Options
or
or
I'd say I get sorc shoes 75% of the time and I get them very early. Karma has good damage output and it's a great way to improve it for cheap. CDR boots fit into the I-can't-get-blue-buff game plan nicely, but I don't like that gameplan and the extent to which I do, I'd still usually rather pump blue elixirs than invest in CDR boots ontop of my Morello's. Sometimes you just need Mercs, suck it up and get them instead of wasting an item slot on something stupid like a Moonflair spellblade. You'll frequently want mercs late game anyway, so I find myself cashing out on sorc shoes for late game merc treads.
Finishing Up
Pump dem blue elixirs. These will put you in the 34-39% CDR range depending on whether you have Morello's or Blue Buff and the extra AP is always appreciated. I typically always have blue elixir up post-deathcap.
Since Karma loves getting up close and personal to tether and shield tanks, being able to hit your panic button and wait out the worst of the middle of a teamfight is extremely valuable.
An Essential piece of any finished AP carry build, void staff is pretty great for ensuring that your late game AoE damage is meaningful to everyone it hits.
With her kit, Karma can essentially perma slow via Rylai's and her Spirit Bond. She also benefits from some HP pool later in the game to make sure she doesn't die in 1 round of CC before she can heal/shield. While some people suggest a RoA rush on Karma, I personally don't think she needs the mana pool and would rather invest in Rylai's for the utility of the slow and the fact that you don't need to rush it for optimal efficiency.
// Occasionally, one of these will make sense to pad your defensive stats, but I usually find myself quite happily tanky with rylai's + abyssal + zhonya's.
My Standard Final Item Build + + + + +
Playstyle Karma is a bully in lane. She abuses most people in burst trades because Soul Shield doubles as damage mitigation as well as a nuke, and on top of that, she typically pushes the wave in 2 shots via her standard burst. Which means that you get ahead of your opponent and shove their wave onto their tower pretty much any time they try to trade. The trick is to ward up the gank routes and always be aware of when you might get punished for playing too far into your opponent's face. If you can avoid getting ganked, it's just a matter of being comfortable with how to time your spells vs. the various matchups in order to boss people around and pin them on their tower (especially useful vs. APs with weak creep clearing and/or strong ganking, like kass, leblanc, or ahri).
The trickiest part to playing karma is playing mid game correctly. There are two big reasons for this. The first reason here is that this is where a standard AP carry shines, typically via a WTFBBQ ult that can singlehandedly win teamfights at dragon. Karma is all about sustained damage and utility in teamfights, and without the WTFBBQ ult, you need to be much more crafty about teamfighting and make sure that your team doesn't just get blown up. Essentially, Karma can't punish really stupid positioning as hard as other APs because she doesn't flash Tibbers -> Incinerate for a triple kill when you bunch up. Assuming you can avoid letting the opposing AP unload their full potential and outright kill someone though, Karma is perfectly capable of doing well for her team via sustained damage and damage mitigation. The second reason is that Karma's strongest interactions are with Top Lane champions, and mid game fights are frequently 4v4s at dragon.
Once you can figure out mid game though and not cost your team the game there via botched teamfights (harder than it sounds), you'll see Karma's absurd power late game when a Singed is charging through your team with 40% Movespeed, an 800 point shield that just cut your whole team in half, and a Karma just waiting for you to commit to trying to kill him with a mantra heal that will go apeshit and heal him for another 400 HP while bursting your team harder. karma's late game is so fun it's ridiculous. I live for Karma late games.
+ Show Spoiler [changelog] +
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Good guide to help get me started. I've been wanting to try Karma and now that she's free it's a good time to try her out. Really looking for a good support Karma build for bot lane though.
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On December 21 2011 15:38 Uproot wrote: Good guide to help get me started. I've been wanting to try Karma and now that she's free it's a good time to try her out. Really looking for a good support Karma build for bot lane though.
Despite Mogwai's numerous warnings not to, I went bot with Karma when I tried her out today. my ad kept dying and i would clean up kills, though, so I think I had about equal amount of farm as if I was solo lane (I was also stealing farm because this is a normal and no one even knows that bot support isn't supposed to).
My build was triple dring into a WotA (spell vamp thing) then deathcap. Seemed pretty strong to me. I feel WotA after drings is good simply because you can't heal yourself so it gives you great sustain. obviously not an expert though.
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On December 21 2011 15:38 Uproot wrote: Good guide to help get me started. I've been wanting to try Karma and now that she's free it's a good time to try her out. Really looking for a good support Karma build for bot lane though.
honestly, there are significantly better choices for bot lane if you want to run a babysitter for ranged AD. TBH i can't honestly put my finger on it, and smash might have a more informed idea about it but babysitter karma has always seemed lackluster to me. i've tried some cute stuff with like karma/panth bot lane and karma/garen and they were pretty fun tho.
@ smash, i think if you put the detailed skill descriptions (the numbers and stuffs) in spoilers it might clean up that section a bit, and just leave your thoughts about them.
edit: also, u (i think) told me quite some time ago to go shield before wave, is there a reason u switched it?
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babysitter karma isn't really a support, she's an ap carry/support operating with little to no farm. If you can outdamage your opponent's sustain it's ok, but if you begin to lose lane you're gonna fall behind
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On December 21 2011 15:53 petered wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 15:38 Uproot wrote: Good guide to help get me started. I've been wanting to try Karma and now that she's free it's a good time to try her out. Really looking for a good support Karma build for bot lane though.
Despite Mogwai's numerous warnings not to, I went bot with Karma when I tried her out today. my ad kept dying and i would clean up kills, though, so I think I had about equal amount of farm as if I was solo lane (I was also stealing farm because this is a normal and no one even knows that bot support isn't supposed to). My build was triple dring into a WotA (spell vamp thing) then deathcap. Seemed pretty strong to me. I feel WotA after drings is good simply because you can't heal yourself so it gives you great sustain. obviously not an expert though.
If you mantra your Q it heals you, though admittedly it's not that great for sustain / if you have just used it with your shield.
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Updated the rest of the guide. Probably will edit more tomorrow.
On December 21 2011 15:56 barbsq wrote:Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 15:38 Uproot wrote: Good guide to help get me started. I've been wanting to try Karma and now that she's free it's a good time to try her out. Really looking for a good support Karma build for bot lane though.
honestly, there are significantly better choices for bot lane if you want to run a babysitter for ranged AD. TBH i can't honestly put my finger on it, and smash might have a more informed idea about it but babysitter karma has always seemed lackluster to me. i've tried some cute stuff with like karma/panth bot lane and karma/garen and they were pretty fun tho. @ smash, i think if you put the detailed skill descriptions (the numbers and stuffs) in spoilers it might clean up that section a bit, and just leave your thoughts about them. might try different formats for my guides tomorrow.
the problem with Karma bot in a nutshell is that Karma's power does not come from base stats on her skills. you can see this by comparing say, her nukes to a standard AP's nukes. Her rank 6 nukes have roughly the same stat's you'd expect from a standard AP's rank 5 nukes. She also has very little in terms of non-scaling utility. Soraka's gonna give you 120 armor (I still wtf at that number, btw) for no good reason, whether she has 3 CS or 300 CS. Janna's still gonna blow the opposing team away. Sona's still gonna give auras and AoE stun. Traditional babysitter supports provide strong inherent utility on their skills, but karma provides very little. She has average base numbers on her skills and only a 10-40% speed/slow that's awkward to use in terms of general utility. What she does provide though are incredibly flexible skills that, while they don't scale as hard as AP carry skills, are more versatile in terms of what they can provide for your team. So like, while Sion's shield might have higher numbers, he can't save your carry's ass with it, nor can he guarantee the damage right in the middle of their team by dumping it on a Shyvanna that just ulted through them.
the one and only good reason I've come up with to play Karma bot is to play Karma Twitch, which is hilarious btw. The whole point is that you can do some really cheesy shit with mantra shield on invis twitch in lane and then karma with a little advantage can 1v2 while Twitch roams and is a giant asshole to the opposing team. it ends up giving her damn good farm though because twitch roams so much, so it's nothing like standard bot support.
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On December 21 2011 15:56 barbsq wrote: edit: also, u (i think) told me quite some time ago to go shield before wave, is there a reason u switched it? ummm, I think it's when they upped the low level mantra recharge timer (awhile ago). It was just too hard to rely on shield for your damage with 30 second mantra recharge. I think it was secretly always better to level Q up, but when they upped it from 25-30, it was the straw that broke the camels back and converted me.
EDIT: I think sustain laners also had something to do with the need for more repeatable damage output that drove me to Q > E
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Always great to see Karma getting some love, and apparently Guinsoo tweeted about upcoming buffs.
the problem with Karma bot in a nutshell is that Karma's power does not come from base stats on her skills.
This 100% - aside from the slow, all of the functionality on her spells with or without Mantra scale with AP, instead of the static armor buff on Soraka's heal, the AD bonus on Janna's shield, Taric's armor or AD/AP aura, as well as the harder CCs via stun/silence/knockup they + Ali bring - she can't peel/babysit in the same way they can. Especially with summoner Heal giving more flexibility to take people with strong farm-independent toolkits (Blitz/Leona/Gangplank/Yorick) as support bot, Karma doesn't really fit in there.
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On December 21 2011 17:38 Haasts wrote:Always great to see Karma getting some love, and apparently Guinsoo tweeted about upcoming buffs. Show nested quote +the problem with Karma bot in a nutshell is that Karma's power does not come from base stats on her skills. This 100% - aside from the slow, all of the functionality on her spells with or without Mantra scale with AP, instead of the static armor buff on Soraka's heal, the AD bonus on Janna's shield, Taric's armor or AD/AP aura, as well as the harder CCs via stun/silence/knockup they + Ali bring - she can't peel/babysit in the same way they can. Especially with summoner Heal giving more flexibility to take people with strong farm-independent toolkits (Blitz/Leona/Gangplank/Yorick) as support bot, Karma doesn't really fit in there. But what are they going to do about this? If they make her skills scale less well with AP (while increasing their base values), they're effectively taking her passive away from her. I think they shouldn't be shoehorning her into the no-farm support role in bottom lane and instead they should buff her so that she's more capable of being a "Farmed AP carry-support" like Zilean, Orianna, etc. She's got the right style of kit for that, too. I think it might just be range that she lacks to succeed in a role like that.
Example on heal - right now it does 6% of missing health with 50 AP and 15% missing health with 500 (which for AP carry isn't that unlikely, considering her free AP) Karma. When your bruiser is low (lets say theyre at 1k out of 3k health) then the latter is a delicious 535 health heal. The heal is pretty garbage with low AP, though, especially since you need to mantra-charge it. That same bruiser with a 50 AP karma (which is like a no-AP-items + slightly banged up) is only looking at a 230 heal - Soraka does significantly better than that, without the need to pump it with any special limited use power, regardless of whether her heal is on a warmog bruiser or a squishy carry (Karma heals are significantly better on bruisers than squishies) and gives a huge armor bonus on top of it. Yeah there's times the stars align and even support karma gets to throw in meaningful mantraQs on enemies and allies at the same time, but she just feels so lackluster when she isnt sitting on at least a deathcap.
Random thoughts... What if they made it so that at 6/11/16 they increased the # of max mantra charges you could stock up on? No nvm, then her late game would be completly ridonkulus. :< I like karma but she's just... weird and is in the classic spot of "Hard to place on a team." Maybe I should try playing her on dominion?
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<3 Karma. I think I can declare myself the only EU player who grabs that bitch from time. (I once had a game where we had Irelia and Lee Win, too much fun. <3)
Random statement: I think ignite is wtfdamnstrong on Karma simply because every single person in the game misjudges her burst potential and ignite is that little GOTCHA way too often for me. I guess heal is great when you play vs people who don't misjudge it. I also guess that only happens at 2.5k elo. =D
Questions:
#1 - I remember one of your main reasonings for E > Q being that mantra E is so damn strong if they try to lasthit because of its huge range. Are there specific matchups where you'd still max it, or is your general plan to E -> Q in their face whenever possible, walk back to safe mantra for sustain & when you need the full mantra E+Q combo?
#2 - Isn't Abyssal redundant when you plan to get Voidstaff later on anyway? After the opening I usually opt for Deathcap -> Rylais / Void -> Negatron/Chainmail -> Banshees/Zhonyas.
I kinda feels that Abyssal is great when you doubt you'll get Voidstaff anytime soon, but pretty bad if you plan to do so.
#3 - Why Rylais after Zhonyas? I usually feel the slow+HP is stronger midgame, the Hourglass active stronger lategame.
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On December 22 2011 05:17 r.Evo wrote: <3 Karma. I think I can declare myself the only EU player who grabs that bitch from time. (I once had a game where we had Irelia and Lee Win, too much fun. <3)
Random statement: I think ignite is wtfdamnstrong on Karma simply because every single person in the game misjudges her burst potential and ignite is that little GOTCHA way too often for me. I guess heal is great when you play vs people who don't misjudge it. I also guess that only happens at 2.5k elo. =D
Questions:
#1 - I remember one of your main reasonings for E > Q being that mantra E is so damn strong if they try to lasthit because of its huge range. Are there specific matchups where you'd still max it, or is your general plan to E -> Q in their face whenever possible, walk back to safe mantra for sustain & when you need the full mantra E+Q combo?
#2 - Isn't Abyssal redundant when you plan to get Voidstaff later on anyway? After the opening I usually opt for Deathcap -> Rylais / Void -> Negatron/Chainmail -> Banshees/Zhonyas.
I kinda feels that Abyssal is great when you doubt you'll get Voidstaff anytime soon, but pretty bad if you plan to do so.
#3 - Why Rylais after Zhonyas? I usually feel the slow+HP is stronger midgame, the Hourglass active stronger lategame. 1. you have to be bullying really really hard for E > Q to make sense. maxing E puts a constant strain on your mantra pool in lane and I honestly just never feel like I can afford that anymore.
2. It's a long time from Abyssal to Void staff in your average game (at least for me). Abyssal is great midgame with sorc shoes, as it can axe someone from mercs and/or MRes Glyphs to effective 0-20 mres.
3. last 3 items are in whatever order.
EDIT: regarding how to buff Karma, all I can think of is making her W more consistent. anything that's not pushing for that goal fucks with the character too much. I really really really really don't want to see her pushed towards a babysitting support.
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Npnpnp, you're a better guidewriter anyways. Seconding that Q>E is definitely better. MantraW is pretty strong for initiating but I wouldn't use it until 13 when mantra cooldown is manageable. Biggest problem with W is the person you W has to know what it does to get maximum benefit. If it didn't require them to run BEHIND the enemy, since all anyone does in solo queue is stand face to face with dudes and auto them... Very little thing, but you can precast mantras - the recharge starts when you press R, not when you use up the mantra charge, so you can mantra - wait a few seconds - spell to get the mantra back slightly faster in some situations.
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England2649 Posts
I'm a big fan of Karma and I think she also does very well top lane versus the right opponents. Her playstyle is great and you can be very aggressive as her once used to her playstyle and never die.
The thing I had to learn for Karma was how to get in to push the creeps without my lane opponent ceasing the oppurtunity to nuke me before I can shield. Once I figured that out, I started to do pretty well with Karma. I do find she really needs someone else on the team to do the burst that a lot of people rely on to win team-fights. We've all had a game where we're being focused for the whole fight and the rest of our team doesn't clean up.
I'd like to ask for some advice on when you use Manta-Q as team-fights start occurring. I normally start with a Mantra-E and a Q in a fight (with W on someone) then when the next cooldowns come around I'm often unsure which way is best. Should I Mantra-E for the shield+damage then Q, or should I go more support and E then Mantra-Q. I normally swing toward the former but I'd like a second opinion.
Random note: My idea for Karma buffs was to make 3 normal casts give one mantra charge. I think she'd benefit tremendously from being able to have just one more Mantra in a team-fight. I'm hoping the buffs are something like that.
Also, if you're normal queueing, try playing Karma and AP Sion in a double AP comp. It's amazing fun.
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On December 21 2011 16:14 Mogwai wrote:Updated the rest of the guide. Probably will edit more tomorrow. Show nested quote +On December 21 2011 15:56 barbsq wrote:On December 21 2011 15:38 Uproot wrote: Good guide to help get me started. I've been wanting to try Karma and now that she's free it's a good time to try her out. Really looking for a good support Karma build for bot lane though.
honestly, there are significantly better choices for bot lane if you want to run a babysitter for ranged AD. TBH i can't honestly put my finger on it, and smash might have a more informed idea about it but babysitter karma has always seemed lackluster to me. i've tried some cute stuff with like karma/panth bot lane and karma/garen and they were pretty fun tho. @ smash, i think if you put the detailed skill descriptions (the numbers and stuffs) in spoilers it might clean up that section a bit, and just leave your thoughts about them. might try different formats for my guides tomorrow. the problem with Karma bot in a nutshell is that Karma's power does not come from base stats on her skills. you can see this by comparing say, her nukes to a standard AP's nukes. Her rank 6 nukes have roughly the same stat's you'd expect from a standard AP's rank 5 nukes. She also has very little in terms of non-scaling utility. Soraka's gonna give you 120 armor (I still wtf at that number, btw) for no good reason, whether she has 3 CS or 300 CS. Janna's still gonna blow the opposing team away. Sona's still gonna give auras and AoE stun. Traditional babysitter supports provide strong inherent utility on their skills, but karma provides very little. She has average base numbers on her skills and only a 10-40% speed/slow that's awkward to use in terms of general utility. What she does provide though are incredibly flexible skills that, while they don't scale as hard as AP carry skills, are more versatile in terms of what they can provide for your team. So like, while Sion's shield might have higher numbers, he can't save your carry's ass with it, nor can he guarantee the damage right in the middle of their team by dumping it on a Shyvanna that just ulted through them. the one and only good reason I've come up with to play Karma bot is to play Karma Twitch, which is hilarious btw. The whole point is that you can do some really cheesy shit with mantra shield on invis twitch in lane and then karma with a little advantage can 1v2 while Twitch roams and is a giant asshole to the opposing team. it ends up giving her damn good farm though because twitch roams so much, so it's nothing like standard bot support.
I agree completely
From what I've seen, karma only gets good/dangerous when she gets farmed. Her very base stats and abilities are really weak, and doesn't offer much as a support, unless really well equipped with items, and as seeing she's a support and rarely gets farm she's usually the worse support champion in lol.
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Smash what is your opinion on spellvamp with karma?
Something like revolver rush into deathcap. If you had consistent blues that make mana not a problem, could you use revolver to ability spam and make you absolutely impossible to trade with.
I feel like you could sacrifice two dorans for an early revolver, relying on your shield to deal with burst.
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England2649 Posts
On December 22 2011 07:47 Lancer723 wrote: Smash what is your opinion on spellvamp with karma?
Something like revolver rush into deathcap. If you had consistent blues that make mana not a problem, could you use revolver to ability spam and make you absolutely impossible to trade with.
I feel like you could sacrifice two dorans for an early revolver, relying on your shield to deal with burst.
It works very well top. You can stay in lane forever if you get a WotA. I'm not sure it's necessary mid lane.
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Hehe I like to jungle Karma more than anything else XD Its semi-legit
Mantra-slow + mantra shield + q = pretty good burst damage, and if the lane you are ganking has any CC, then you can probably get a kill.
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i've been playing karma a lot recently, both with cv bot as an aggressive support (get my carry fed and farm later) and a bit as a solo. She needs the farm or the assist kills :[.
Why is wota not optimal on her? I tend to just rush it (and boots obv) and stay and farm forever.
I wish she was better though. After you blow mantra shield + Q you're kinda stuck on damage for a longg time in a fight. But she's so fun!
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She has a shield so that's totally unaffected by spell vamp, also a base heal so her shielding/healing is affected by pure AP so wota is not optimal.
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