Talk:Karthus/@comment-8506165-20140305190817/@comment-24707901-20140320154405

One of the reason people maybe opt for a RoA instead of Rylai's is because RoA gives mana that allows Karthus to help keep his Defile up a while longer. At level 11, assuming you take 5 points in Q, 1 point in W, 3 in E and 2 in R, Defile will cost you 54 mana per second. Level 11 Karthus Base mana pool is 941 but considering you should probably have already built a tear but at lvl 11 it probably isn't fully stacked, you'll maybe at best have 1350 mana? (I don't know on this maybe someone can do calculations I don't know the average amount of stacks mid game, seems about right to me though). An early Catalyst will help you with an added 300 mana and 200 health and the passive mana and HP restore upon leveling up, which means you can spam your Q more to stack that tear and also stay in lane longer. Upgraded to RoA, you get 450 HP and mana and 60 ability power and also the restore of that HP and mana upon leveling. Rushing Rylai's doesn't give the mana, but it does give 500 hp which is just above (50hp) that of a unstacked RoA and and also 80 AP straight up instead up 60 plus your stacks. When fully stacked Archangel's Staff and RoA is achieved though, Archangel's passive, synergizing well with RoA, makes RoA ability power to be actually around 99.5. Not to mention the bigger shield and also more mana to keep abilities going. Rylai's doesn't seem to be a bad item on Karthus, I think it's just overall better.. even considering the slow