Talk:Karma/@comment-26442038-20150805140701/@comment-25223119-20150806155040

The problem with AP Karma is her difficulty with getting around with damages, not the damage itself. Karma's got enough damage to probably carry ala Orianna/Morg style (the mid mages who you can bring to bot and vice versa), but the fact that she has 1.5AP ratio worth of damage locked in to a single skill makes her easily predictable and extremely vulnerable if that 1.5AP ratio skill does not hit her target. Like you said, it is a skill that can be body blocked means that tanks can often soak up the initial damage + second damage, allowing squishies or enemy carries to survive the second damage and come out alive. While in solo laning, it is blocked by minions so Karma loses her only way of dishing out some big damage to mobile champions despite having W to supposedly "set up" for the burst. This also makes her very binary as AP Karma, because every mid/solo champion knows that the way a Karma can 100-0 you is to W and immediately follow up with an R->Q,  if you can disengage the tether, you will survive the burst, but this also leaves Karma with very little threat following a wasted Mantra.

While most players here will tell you that Karma is still good anyway, Karma trades early-mid game dominance for a very crappy late game in which her usefulness is restricted to peeling, shielding and kiting rather than doing outright damage. Another reason she probably doesn't get her way around with damage could be the fact that her new kit trades late game damage for some cc. With so much unreliability AP Karma (mid especially) has, the general League community will tell you Karma's best niche is a support bot lane where she does nothing much but snowball the lane and pray that the ADC is fed enough to carry the game, or she will just sit back and pray that she can shield as much to support the team.

But any Karma players will tell you the opposite, because they lack practicality. They will tell you Karma is great in all lanes, great in damage/cc/utility, they will also tell you small details that do matter the least, like how Karma is great in baiting compared to other supports and like how Karma can now cast W on a minion, what not. The amount of arguments that Karma players can tell you are easily counted by hand,

- Can kite/bait/peel

- W is good cause .9 AP Ratio but not taking in to account that W is a highly situational skill that many champions can disengage with ease

- Q is good cause 1.5 AP Ratio, but not realizing that it is extremely binary, can be body blocked by virtually anything and renders her useless if R->Q is wasted. An AP Karma that doesn't get her first R->Q landed in a teamfight is a useless Karma. Furthemore, damage can be reduced by MR

- E is good cause 60% speed for 1.5 seconds and a not so beefy shield, people are upset when it gets compared to a Talisman of Ascension + Locket

- In cases where all of these fail, they will tell you how superior her passive is because she can get her Mantra in a matter of seconds, which is not likely to happen unless you hit multiple enemies. If a tank is leading a charge, there is no way your Q is going to hit multiple people because the tank is there to ensure that the damage is soaked and that he is the only one hit.

Despite stats showing Mid Karma pick/play rates increasing, there is no data suggesting she is any better than she is previously. Her numbers buffed and kit tweaked a bit, but the impact that she makes in a game is more or less the same. Her efficiency with waveclear is definitely weaker, unless you always find that sweet small spot in the middle of a melee and ranged minion that enables you to hit all of them. You can expect any further replies from other players to tell you that you are wrong to think that Karma is weak because 90% of her damage is soaked up by minions and tanks and tell you something like mid-range or because she is more support oriented. In cases like that, feel free to laugh at them because you already have one reason to.

Karma is definitely not weak because she is a mid-ranged caster. Mid-ranged caster like Ahri, Swain and even Kennen all do well, and these are examples of champions who are devastating when played correctly no matter how many times their numbers are nerfed. There is no reason for Karma to be weak just because she is mid ranged.