User blog comment:Doeniel/Karthus, the Deathsinger Rework Ideas & Discussion/@comment-26459891-20151206074722

Mmmmh. Some ideas I like, some I don't.

So here's the first thing. I main Karthus and I've been playing him for over a year and a half so far, keeping a 60ish% win rate for the whole time. Both mid and jungle. He's not weak, and I don't think he needs to get updated. His kit is really simple, yet very effective. Moving onto your changes:

- The Passive changes are ok, as long as we don't get into the W interaction, which is at the same time a little overpowered, really awkward AND unfitting Karthus's theme. More explaining below.

- The Q and E changes are collateral, so I won't go over them.

- The W changes (outside of Memento Mori) are really interesting, I like the idea of Karthus gaining extra bonuses for passing through the Wall of Pain. It really fits him thematically and it rewards you for doing what you should do (that is to say, walking in the midst of the enemy team). However things gets messy when we look at the interaction with his Passive:

A) Looking from a teamfigthing PoV, that would be really really oppressing, if not overpowered. Right now, walking or flashing in the middle of the enemy team, letting them getting yourself low, using Zhonya's, then dying in order to exploit your passive, is already really strong, because if your team follows up the enemy team will either be forced to try focusing you (but they can't, and it's not as effective), or ignore you and take massive damage. Either way, if done right, it can kind of feel "unfair" in its current state. With your proposed changes, Karthus would also get tons of free stats (I hardly believe you're gonne hit less than 3 enemies with one cast of W, seeing how big it is), AND a heal. Meaning he could just keep walking even longer before reaching the point where he needs to Zhonya's. I

B) Looking form a jungling PoV, that would be kind of awkward? I mean, given the changes to Q and E doing much  less damage, you'd basically have no choice but to walk into your W to get the magic resist shred, but how? You should, like, cast your W, walk into it, then draw monsters aggro and forcing them to walk int your W? Really unpractical. Also, thinking about it, how mana expensive would his jungling become? His spells costs the same while doing like half of their original damage and he needs an extra cast per camp (right now I never W camps when clearing).

C) Looking from a thematic PoV, it's really unfitting. What's all that? Healing? Surviving? Karthus would despise that. You say that you see him as the "tanky Mage in the middle of the fight with high DPS and good 1v1". That's all right, except for the "tanky" part. Karthus is not tanky and he doesn't want to be tanky. Karthus devoted his whole life to death. He loves death, and gameplay wise, he wants to die. He wants to be a glass cannon, having insanely high DPS through his E (which you halved to balance off the whole sustain part), so that he can die and use his passive to drop some Q and finally ult everyone left from his mass. His E is supposed to drain people of their life and making them join Karthus's chorus, it needs to have that "melting" feeling for anyone standing in there for more than 2 seconds. Even if you just look at it, leaving aside all this nerdy lore reasoning, you'll see something is not right: you gave him the means to survive and avoid death, while having a death-focused passive. Hell, you basically gave him a way to get his passive bonuses without even dying. I think you kinda missed the point of Karthus, and what makes him unique. He's the only mage who prefers to be in the middle of the enemy team instead of the backline, because he's the only mage who can die and have 7 seconds of free damage. He has to be squishy in order to use his passive.

- Last but not least, the R changes are uhm, interesting? I'll break this in three.

1) First of all, I don't really like the %missing health part. Yes I know what you're thinking. "This way it will work better as an execute". However this kinds limits its uses. While it's true that, for the most part, during early and even mid game you're gonna use it as an execute to finish off low health enemies, this is not his only purpose. Early on, you're often gonna find yourself using it to help fights which are happening in other lanes or in the jungle, and not when the enemy is already low, but when they're fighting, in order to give your team mates an edge (not to mention that seeing Karthus's Requiem over their head often encourages them in taking action and keeping on the fight). Later on, when you have enough items, you will have the choice to use your ulti even BEFORE the fight even starts. Imagine the enemies are doing Nashor. You start ulting while your team moves towards them. They will all be left at roughly half HP and they will have lost the fight before even starting. Mind that his is not a waste of an ulti, because your team fighting revolves all around your E more than your R.

2) The true damage part to Epic monsters is kinda weird and misleading. It's not that I don't like it, just how can you make it work? You won't use it when doing monsters yourself, because you will have Smite if jungling, so you won't need to use your ulti as well, and you'll rather keep it for when you actually have to damage enemy (this is and should remain the ulti's main focus). You won't be able to use it to steal Barons or whatnot. Imagine L.18. If the difference between your R and the enemy Smite is so small (1200 to 1000), then you'll never manage to pull a steal off because if you channel very early, they'll just stop hitting the monster, wait for your ulti, then finish it off; if you channel when the health is very close to the value, then they're gonna get that 200 damage off while your channel goes on and smite the monster off, as it is instant. You can't even fix this by making the difference between your R and Smite too big, because that would be outright unfair. (If your R did, say, 2000 true damage, then there's no way the enemy team would ever get a Baron).

3) The cooldown refound for each enemy "dodging" the ultimate is ok, but I would still not add it. Knowing when to ult, who you're up against, what spells / items they have up to avoid your ultimate, is all part of being a good Karthus. Adding this mechanic would just make it "yea w/e im gonna ult lmao".

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These were my 2 cents. Karthus's kit might be a little outdated, but I believe it works fine and its spells synergizes with each other really well. It doesn't need big changes, but I like your W ideas.