User blog:Typhron/Karma's Problems.

. She sucks. She could suck a golfball through a garden hose.

You're not going to see Karma picked at an LCS, unless it's an accident. The dev team hates her, pros hate, normal players hate her and among the consensus of anyone into the game, only a small amount of players play her in any/every form of the game because they either don't have any better characters (or don't know any better due to their low ranking in Ranked) or ADAMANTLY believe she's a viable mage or support, even if she's missing everything that makes those roles doable. Karma players that actually do well with Karma do well based on their own merit, not because Karma herself is any good. The sooner she gets changed or reworked, the better. Hell, you might as well play.

Just to note: This was everyone's mindset pre-rework (Surpisingly hasn't changed, has it?). Let's not pretend the old Karma didn't have her problems: She was saddled for a rework (of the old variety) for years, and a large margin had nothing to do with popularity (though that was a contributing factor in the end). Infact, few people really remember a couple key things about the old Karma, even amongst Karma players (she was the last champion to be released at 3150 IP when new, which dates her as a champion). She came from a time of limbo and, up until her end, resonated that with her odd stats and kit.

To that end, it's worth going over her old kit AND the what the game was like at the time of her release, after such into the forrays of S1, S2, and part of S3, and how she was viewed before her rework amongst certain camps of the playerbase (Those that played her, those that didn't, et cetera).

Rest assured, though, the rework/current Karma is still a far cry from the old Karma or even a good iteration of Karma. That itself I'll touch up on at the end.

The Beginning: Karma's release
As I said prior, Karma was the last Champion to be released with a 3150 IP tag out the gate, on February 1st, 2011. The first half of that year (and much of the later half) Riot released a number of champions with unique concepts before it seemed like the dev team ran into a rut with usable concepts/abilities (with the penultimate 'snore at release' being, released first thing 2012). That list is:


 * (Jan 4th)
 * (Jan 17th)
 *  (Feb 1st)
 * (Feb 16th)
 * (March 1st)
 * (March 15th)
 * (April 1st (seriously))
 * (April 12th)
 * (April 26th)
 * (May 10th)
 * (June 1st)
 * (June 22nd)

Remarkably, each one of these champions had two views about them at release: that they were either REALLY GOOD or REALLY BAD (no middle ground), but they are all memorable and have influenced the game to this day (with the exception of Brand, perhaps), and are still wildly used, and for posterity here's the old Karma Spotlight.

Karma fell into the "shit sux" group of champions. Unlike the others released at the time she had almost never been buffed or nerfed since then (immediately after or otherwise) aside from the occasional bug fix or minor tweak, with the biggest change being that Mantra scaled with rank (30 sec static cooldown to 25, and then to 30/25/20). The last patch that even touched up on her was v1.1.138 (April 28th, 2012), with her reworking coming 23 major patches later v3.5. The earliest hints of a rework, remake, or Karma getting any hints of ability changes comes as early as July 2011 (when Shurelia still worked at Riot), with the same attitude toted above that Karma stunk champion.

To that end, the question is...why? The answer to this was/is, literally, the same questions/answers as to why Karma doesn't function as a champion now that she's been reworked.


 * Q: What role does Karma excel at?
 * A: Netiher mage or support, what she was made to do.

Even at that early time in 2011 the game had clear concepts of what was a support or a mage and what wasn't, and Karma didn't fit the bill of either (She fit them both more than she does now, mind you). Itemization wasn't straightforward for her oddball kit and this would cause many spikes in performance for her for anyone that tried her. And everyone that could do either role better than Karma, did so. Speaking of which...


 * Q: Who was better than Karma at the time?
 * A: "Everyone"

Karma had the unfortunate release time of being released after Lux and Sona as a new Support/Mage (and well after Nidalee, who was hidden OP at the time, and every other support or Support/Mage in the game). Back then, these character classes were defined by their ability to burst down people as a mage (akin to the Nuker from Dota/2) and or heal for a sum amount and prevent scads of damage through said healing or CC, essentially being, , , , , and. , and  were considered Mages that COULD support, and  and  weren't even considered able to do so. Since we werent' gifted with folks like, , or the idea of a tank that mitigated damage through a shield only was out of the question, even for characters that had strong shields.

This problem, oddly enough, went away with time. Healing itself for every support and summoner spell overall got nerfed significantly (save for Karma, who had a low numbered but spammy heal ala Nami, to wit Riot didn't touch) and people quickly realized the strength of a good shield due to Janna becoming ever prevalent in all seasons. Too late did people realize the strength of Karma's shield, but more on that later.


 * Q: Well, someone knows how to play, right?
 * A: Not really.

Karma had the unfortunate kind of kit that relied on you AND your team to know what they're doing, in same way support Zilean and or Support Thresh work. Always baiting your enemy, always living as a risk...she was a character that was very risk vs. reward oriented, and rewarded very well when played very well. At her release nobody knew what to do with her: her kit was too deep for it's own good (yeah, I said it) while current iteration is too shallow. People that knew what to do with her were those that also knew how to play other characters...and usually played the those characters.

This is something I can't stress enough, too. A lot of people had Karma either due to curiosity or due to actually liking her. To that end, some merely knew that she existed and others (like myself) went out of their way to explore such a nuanced champion...all to do what other champions can did and still do way the hell easier. You almost never saw a Karma in ranked, as well, because Karma was a different than your normal support: she was "weird".

=
This attitude of Karma being bad permeated throughout the game for each season, even up till her re-release. This isn't just me saving time to move onto the next section, after that long lull nothing for almost 2 years Riot finally ditched the old kit and the old Karma with it. Karma's beginning, for all the fun it brought the players who loved Karma it was something else to everyone else: a myth. The idea that Karma "Could've been good" was all of Karma's past, and any notion of her being such died with the rework.

And so...Karma's old kit.

Karma's Kit
Let's start with her stats. And yes, these are her old stats. Gotten here and have been copied as such, with the exception of movement speed.

Stats
Let me start off by saying I hate her title, and always have. Is she now enlightened because she's proverbially dead?

With that that out of the way: Karma's stats are surprisingly modern. She started off with as much health as Graves and Nasus (two very tanky chars for their role), while gaining only 4 more health per level than Graves (and 4 less than Nasus). Telling, 240 starting mana is up there, but not as high as other supports, though she did have one of the highest max mana per level games in the game (sharing that with Zilean, under Karthus(+61), Janna(+64), and Heimerdinger(+65)). While she wasn't one of the few champions that gained 1.25 MR per level she was a support who had a high base armor and one of the higher armor per level gains. Like other supports her health regen was low and her mana regen was high (that didn't change post rework). Her Attack speed per level is rather telling of being a spam caster, and her AD gain is pretty average compared to other characters. Karma's old speed at 335 (which was 310 without boots pre-s3) is still the same. Oh, and her auto range was 425, being the lowest in the League alongside Urgot

So, why bring this up? It's worth noting that aside from her Mana regen, health regen, attack speed, and MS her stats are lower in her rework and for somewhat good reason: She has the stats of a brusier. She was innately tank on top of her kit, and couldn't really function without such DUE to her kit. The created a sort of opposite of synergy and many headaches to where people often underestimated how much damage was needed to take down a Karma who had built many items. She wasn't a 'squsihy wizard', she was Gandalf the Gray at every roadblock between lanes. This could be to blame as to why people felt she had a 'hidden power' to her on top of a skillset that worked off taking as much damage as any other support and not, and why many underestimated her ability to take damage, but overestimated her ability to deal it.

But that itself belies with her abilities. Her old abilities.

Abilities
This is a passive many people see and go crazy over despite not factoring in the practicality of it. This could've alternatively been written "Inner Flame grants Karma ability power for every 1% of missing health" to make more sense as a tooltip: Karma only ever reached the maximum amount of AP gain from this passive when she was dead (100% less health, of course) and always healed damage due to her Q and any other passive healing or regen that would occur, meaning that the passive's effectiveness was constantly wearing off. Ideally you never wanted to stay under 50%, 30%, or even 10% due to being one shot even with a high powered shield on your side. It did encourage her risk vs. reward playstyle well but was, for what it was, too little payout for too high a risk.

Something else to note, too: When Riot has a sort of passive that gives this much of an edge over others passively, they scale whatever else goes along with it down to compensate and lessen the overall effectiveness. To put this into perspective, Vayne and Sivir's passive give 30 and 50 flat MS, making their normal movement speeds 325 (of the lowest in the game), Viktor's abilities (and Karma's) have low scaling due to compensate for their innate AP gains, and Fiora has some of the lowest AD per level gain due to her W's passive...the list goes on. So when you see "Free stats yes!" when it comes to some character's, it may be too good to be true.

Keeping both those things in mind, 130 AP felt more like...30 AP, at the end of the day.

This ability is great as it is difficult to land. 650 range was a LOT, but was only at the apex of the fan-shaped cone. For damage this is a wide spread bowl of coolios, but for an aimable heal this is something of a headache. Moreover, this ability worked like with a lower range and with slightly more damage, lower healing, and being an AoE on a lower cooldown. It provided some great sustained damage and burst healing, but overall wasn't bad. It...just meant that people had to hug her, or she had to hug them, to not die/kill them.

To that end, being used correctly required communication and a team's ability to listen, like healing with Janna's Monsoon. Which was the easiest of her abilities that required communication.

This was the hardest of her abilities that required communication. Due to it not damaging the enemy it was cast on, if cast on an enemy, and it's range never being clear to those it was casted on, people would constantly break it or not try to form a path between two targets. Through old Karma's time, only instead of "Click the Lantern" was more "Don't run away from me, but do run between the proponent and yourself so you can damage them, you have an MS boost and and it's quite fast so run!" almost every game.

W lacked proper instruction on how it worked AND it's counterplay at a glance, and didn't leave a lot of feedback even when it was used right visually, as there weren't those special cc bar timers that we have now back then. Was just cast and *poof*. Obviously it needed to change to look more visually appealing when it worked when it did.

This ability was...well, actually her best. 5 second shield on a person is great damage prevention, especially with 0.8 AP scaling on a 10 second cooldown.

One of the only complaints that can come from this is probably using it with a Mantra for damage. The damage was high and made it appealing, but using one of your Mantra charges for damage when, during a team fight or even pre-using it while walking to a lane, you have a spammable heal or really deep slow (that could slow the entire team) available to you. When supporting the damage can't be used to farm because it would've taken farm away from your carry. Of course, these ARE nitpicks, the ability is still great even though I'm supposed to be looking for complaints.

I'm going to outright say it: This ability is as genius as it is restrictive. This added so much depth to Karma it wasn't even funny as it limited her ability to constantly nuke or support steadily, making her use use either her Q or E to do what the E or Q is good for. Granted, it didn't detract from the other ability or her role when used, but it did mean that, due to Mantra's 'cooldown', she couldn't keep performing her role as often as she'd like. This made her "Sometimes a Mage" or "Sometimes a Support" instead of straight up being one or the other exclusively (much like how Lux can be if she builds it). Due to being the game's second charge system (before Heimerdinger, Corki, and Teemo given them, all after Akali) there was still an uncertain view of how the ability could be refined on a mana using character.

On top that, despite her power being shifted elsewhere and her essentially beging given free stats, Karma didn't have an ult or a means of CC. What she had to do instead was use her other three abilities to turn to the tide of battle to the best of her ability. And this usually meant understanding the depth of those instead of what her ult could offer. She didn't have Lux's sudden rainbow explosion of damage or Morgana's, Sona's Zyra's team CCing game changing ult, all she had was a couple of charges that gave her a pitiful heal team, some haste, and/or a lot of damage, never all three at the same time. In the right hands, that's enough. But even that, that required practice.

Post Mortem Karma
Truth be told I've had these thoughts for a long time, and I've had ample time to mull them over even after the Karma rework (actually growing disinterested with Karma due to the problems she legitimately had). I owned her since February 2011 when she came out (no joke, I bought Renekton with real money prior) and I had a lot of time to both hate, love, and explore what she could do. Not a lot of people had that luxury and it's very clear to see that as someone who did play her at length: I was an exception to the rule, and not in a good sense.

Player views on Karma were set in a few camps, even up until she was reworked. This in fighting didn't help and possibly worsened the rework process, admittedly, with people only coming together in the final weeks of the rework, when we realized we were getting...what we got. The camps themselves weren't mutually exclusive, too.


 * Players who had Karma and played her once in awhile. Karma wasn't an easy character to learn, a bit like Orianna or Zilean. Even though Karma's blend of difficulty was different most of those people just owned the character and liked her, but didn't really do anything about or with her unless they had to (old tradeless ARAM, for example).


 * Players who had Karma and played her over other characters. Actual Karma players. All 5 of us. It was less like an exclusive club or part of a playerbase who plays a 'hidden OP' character while secretly smiling from the shadows, and more of a bunch of guys who didn't suck with Karma and sucked much less with other characters when thrusted into our hands.


 * Players who swore Karma is fantastic as she was. The difference between the above group and this group is that they weren't really good with Karma they just latched onto her because, if you can believe it, there are kinds of people who are the opposite of 'flavor the of the month players'. They picked Karma because they love trying to make hated characters seem loved, even when there's a good reason said hated characters are hated ("DAN HIBIKI IS THE BEST SF CHARACTER AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. ROLL IS VIABLE IN MVC2"). Make no mistake, some of these people are legitimately good at the game and at playing these characters. The rest of them are legitimately idiots.


 * Players who were convinced Karma had no place in the game. The opposite of the above, which old Karma players are probably at now due to the rework. With the mindset that "Karma was shit because someone pro said so", dating back to when Karma was released, these people will not change their minds about Karma being subpar no matter what happens to her. I use the present tense here because even after the rework these people will still look at Karma from their pedastal and call her a terrible character, reasoning or ever changing meta be damned.


 * And finally Players who...didn't know. These, of course, make up almost every other player in the game. Players who had no idea why Karma was hated, she just -was-. It made the old "Karma...who?" meme quite literal.

So with all that in mind...what of the rework itself?

Old vs New...Same problems really.
Honestly, this has been covered and done to death on every LoL site on the net, and there's nothing to go over OR explore. Karma sucks, she could suck a golfball through a garden hose, et cetera, she has no place in the meta...everyone's heard it all before and at this point I'm too mentally exhuasted to add anything new. But there is something to note that hasn't been touched up on: The rework fixed nothing.

All the problems with Karma's abilities that I listed above (and some compliments) can be easily transplanted into her new self because despite a few mechanical changes it's the worst parts of Karma that shine through today. The passive is useless, Q is difficult to land even in a team setting, W is weird, E is useful as all hell but makes you decide between Mantraing it and the other abilities, and she still has no ult that's a game changer. THIS more than anything is why the new Karma just does not work at the end of the day, she's too much like the old Karma and is all the worse for it. And while the old Karma was in a limbo of viability the new Karma has done nothing move out of such.

There are so many fixes, but it would, and always did, lead to making another champion entirely. What doesn't work for a champion in a rework, more often than not, is given to another newer champion in a lesser or greater form since it may work for them (I look at some of Syndra this way, even though similar/samey/rework/updated kits aren't new, such as Rengar/Kha'zix for Warwick, Fiora for Yi...). For Karma to change for the better, for the rework was...a slight step in the right direction. For the gesture alone, if nothing else.

'Course, in the defense of the old Karma: she scaled better with gear and time. I don't think that's going to happen with the new kit no matter what's done to it.

In closing
I've kept you here long enough and I've explained my points to the best of my ability, if going off on a tangent or two every now and again. The point I hope I've made (if this serves a bit of a TL;DR) is that Karma's old kit, and as an old champion, wasn't a bed of roses that people want to remember. The new one sucks, but...the old one did to a degree. She needed buffs, she needed more work. And that, if another attempt at a rework is ever attempted, shouldn't be forgotten. Hopefully then people won't be fighting as much and will actually want Karma to be, legitimately, viable. Such a rework would require those that would actually be ready for it.

For what it may ever be worth...I feel bad for ever giving up on her. Now that she's gone it's something I'll never experience again.