Talk:Karma/@comment-25223119-20160602044740/@comment-28834383-20160624104523

Mmm, the reason why Karma is such an "unfocused" champion, as you would call her, is because Riot doesn't know what to do with her. Her kit is more of a jack-of-all-trades, but Riot doesn't want to tip her in one direction or another, to stabilize her role.

It didn't help that Riot handled her rework poorly; giving it to a new designer who never played her, so didn't understand what her strengths and weaknesses were. Unfortunately, the original designer who was supposed to work on her mysteriously dropped out (rumors say there was behind the curtains drama), which made Riot switch to someone else and somehow, it took this person only 3 months to "finish" the rework, whereas it tooks several months for the old one to reach about 25%. Even then, it tooks a few months of major buffs to actually make Karma playable (Old Karma only had a minor buff to her kit in the first month for her entire time at League).

The issue with her kit is that it simply falls off and it doesn't pack much of a wallop on its own.

Utility: Slow with a small LoS hitbox. Shield with MS buff (latter is meh, as at least half the champions have an escape move in their kit). Situational root that requires close range.

Damage: Her Q. Situational W that requires close range.

She doesn't fill the AP mage role properly nor the support one either, as specialists in either role would beat her easily. One can argue that she has a variety of use in her kit. That is absolutely true. However, in response to various situations, her kit still can't provide the necessities that is required to the most optimal degree.

Her old kit had issues, but worked well together as it had enough "burst" (via passive) to fulfill the AP mage role, while had game-changing utility to provide enough support (bulky shield + heal). While I'm not going to advocate to revert her back to her old kit, I feel that Riot should take a look at her old kit to see why it worked well the way it did, despite being a mix of burst/support and apply that to a future Karma rework.

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What I believe Riot should do:

*Give Karma some decent, reliable damage. The poking Q falls off immensely, as this game doesn't allow slow battles (for the most part). And the RQ is just silly and unpredictable.

*Make her kit actually revolve around Mantra and those empowered abilities impactful. Part of the appeal of the Mantra system in Old Karma was that empowered abilities actually made a difference (except her W...) and you had 2 charges to play with. With Karma's kit, where all her skills are loaded with some utility pre-Mantra, it seems like Mantra is secondary to her kit, when it should be the main aspect. Yes, her passive reduces the CDR on Mantra charges, but with the cooldown being so high and the lacklusterness of it anyways, it is wasted. Move the passive to the ult and give Karma a real passive instead. This also means removing some utility on pre-Mantra abilities and moving it to the Mantra versions (e.g. Q and RQ).

The mistake in this Karma's kit is actually adding a ton of utility to her pre-Mantra abilities. This forces Riot to make her Mantra abilities more watered down because there is too much power distributed to the pre-Mantra ones already.



