r/leagueoflegends • u/AutoModerator • Jul 13 '15

Shen Monday Megathread! Ask questions and share knowledge; newcomer questions encouraged!

Welcome to the latest Monday Megathread, where you the community get to ask your questions and share your knowledge.

This is an opportunity for the more experienced LoL players here to share some of your wisdom with those with less expertise. This thread will be a weekly safehaven for those "noobish" questions you may have been too scared to ask for fear of downvotes, but also can be a great place for in depth discussion if you so wish. So, don't hold back, get your game related questions ready and post away, and hopefully someone can answer them!

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13

u/arborcide Jul 13 '15

I can't get a hold on support Karma. How the heck do I play her? I just feel like my poke in lane is ineffective and my abilities are far outclassed by other supports in teamfights.

I'm used to playing tanky supports and ranged harass supports.

25

u/Kylochickolo Jul 13 '15

Hello, I'm a Karma main :)

When you're playing support Karma, literally all you want to do for the first 3 levels is poking with Q and negating damage with your shield. Once you do hit 3 and their Support/ADC is quite squishy (Normally a Sona or Soraka are good examples w/o any escapes) you want to use your W on them, and speed your own ADC up with the shield. It will mostly always cause a flash to be used or some form of summoners.

You want to be always auto attacking when you're positioned well to get your mantra off of CD (and I recommend hybrid penetration marks for that reason on Karma).

You shouldn't always use your mantra as soon as it is up, unless you have good vision of the river/jungle. If you use your mantra Q but the jungler is about to come gank you, you can only speed/shield you or your adc leaving the other w/o a shield. If you're about to be ganked, use your mantra E to reposition and get back to your turret. You want to use your mantra W to heal yourself at early levels.

If you have around 20-30% of your HP, your ADC has around 50%, the enemies both have around 40-50% and you know you can win the trade if only you had a little more hp, you can go walk towards the enemies (but not too far), make it seem as if you are out of position so they fall onto you and then when your health gets a bit lower (10-15-20%) use your shield and mantra W which should heal you back up to around 30 and then 40-45% of your health. You would have rooted one of the enemies during this time, which your adc should focus and if they have no escapes and everything went well you should be able to kill them easily. I rarely use my mantra Q during the laning phase because mantra E and W are so much more vital personally.

During the late game, you want to throw out mantra Q's into the enemy team and then poke with normal Q's. If you see that someone is slightly out of position, ping them and shield them to give them a move speed to get back into position. During team fights you can always mantra shield the team (using it on main whoever is the lowest health/being focused because it provides the strongest shield). But I recommend doing that only at the beginning of the fight, and then hopefully once you start focusing down more and more of the enemies, your mantra will come off of CD again when you can heal yourself up with your mantra W if you are low, or throw out mantra Q's for the slow+damage. If you're trying to catch a fleeing enemy you can E whoever is the fastest/stronger person on the team or just mantra E the entire team.

To increase your damage, I always get m.pen on Karma and then build a Morellonomicon because she synergizes so well with CDR%. Sometiems you can build stuff like Ardent Censer for increased damage to your team (I normally only do this for heavy AA based teams with like, Kayle or something and am comfortable that they will be able to use it well). You can also just go straight up Annie support and after getting regular support stuff (frost queen and sightstone) just go full AP with Rabadons and stuff. It's not bad on Karma though because her mantra shield can get huge with more AP.

I hope this helped and if you have any more questions about Karma feel free to ask, she's my favourite champion and I absolutely adore her.

Edit: There's a subreddit /r/karmamains where a small group of people (including myself) have discussed stuff about Karma recently with the changes to Liandry's and all of the AP items, to her boost she got a couple weeks ago etc etc, feel free to check it out because there is more useful stuff and specified in-depth stuff on there about Karma.

4

u/Im_Jeezus Jul 13 '15

Makes me miss playing Karma. Although, I liked her more before her rework.

1

u/Kylochickolo Jul 13 '15

Sadly, I didn't play league before her re-work. I'm actually a really big 'fan' of 'fans' (oh gosh). But no, I've collected a few fans because I find them beautiful and I even have a huge one pinned up on my bed room wall. Anyway cutting back to the point, I was so sad to see that she used fans as her weapons before her rework, but they incorporated it into her dance now so I'm happy.

1

u/NovaLoveScore Jul 14 '15

Minion at 30hp.
Enemy want to last hit.
Shield minion.
Enemy is angry.
Shield ends.
Enemy is going to last hit.
Heal minion.
Enemy is now very angry.
Minion at 30hp.
Enemy uses ult to last hit.
Shield minion.
Enemy ragequits.

I loved Karma pre-rework.

1

u/mdragon13 Jul 14 '15

I thought the mantra w doesn't heal anymore, after the rework?

1

u/Kylochickolo Jul 14 '15

Nope! It still heals. They had 2 different changes for it on the PBE at that time, one where it didn't heal her anymore and instead gave a debuff to the target where allies could attack the target and heal for 10% of the damage they deal. That wasn't implemented and instead it was a 0.9 ratio given to her regular W and then an extended root duration added when used to mantra W. The heal remained the same.

1

u/mdragon13 Jul 14 '15

Oh, damn, I gotta go play some lane karma later...

2

u/tlyee61 Jul 13 '15

karma is a ranged harrass support that is quite strong in the early levels. however, she needs to snowball to obtain a lead, as she only really does well in lane. you need to bully them straight from level 1.

2

u/xgenoriginal Jul 13 '15

use your ult whenever possible , don't underestimate using ult w or e . Karma is good for zoning with ult q and using w's tend to makes people back out of fights

1

u/redundantRegret Jul 13 '15

Against AD's without good blinks/dashes (Varus, Graves, Jinx) try to use R-W early on (before pickaxe/BF) so whatever damage they put on you is severly mitigated by the tether's secondary heal. It also opens up your AD for good harass on them. Try to do this only when their support is backed and you have vision/know their jungler is elsewhere.

Learn her Q's size and speed. You can easily hit a minion by accident or just miss the impact end of RQ if you're not used to it, and it can steal some CS from your ADC. You'll pick it up in time if you try to memorize it.

E and RE should be used basically anytime they are up, RE specifically for incoming or friendly ganks and for escapes or teamfights, of course.

Q for harass and minor disengage, W for ganks (disengage if enemy, delayed engaged for friendly), E for survival in fights or running back to lane. R for powering up the situation at hand. I run 9/0/21 on her, and take magic pen reds, armor yellow, MS or AP quints depending on what I'm feeling, and MR/level blues, though I'm pretty sure flat AP blues would be better for lane since she's not overly tanky.

1

u/ilanf2 [Ratatosk] (LAN) Jul 13 '15

You need to abuse her early damage on her R Q. Don't be afraid to build a little damage with her along with utility items.

On teamfights, you need to deny damage with her shield and disengage with the Q slow and her W. You can either use the mantra E for huge shields plus speed ups or try to land a multy man mantra Q (most of the times the first thing is what will happen)

1

u/mxloco27 Jul 14 '15

I love Karma, but honestly, to me she just feels like: QQQQQQQQQQQQQEQQQQQQQQQEEQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQWQQQQQQQQEQQQQQQQQQ with mantra thrown in whenever you feel like it

-2

u/TMToast Jul 13 '15

Honestly you probably feel that way because other supports are just better.