Okay so i've been digging in to Karma lately (playing as a support and not an AP caster as i see most people do) and i got the same reaction from most people as i did when i played ashe; they all say she is just plain bad compared to other champions who do the same job. Now i know why they think that about ashe, lower stats, lack of damage, her only long range oke is blocked by creeps etc, but i ant to know why people think Karma is bad. I can see her being a really good support if i learn to play her right but i know their are specific reasons why people think she is bad.

So i'd like someone to tell me why she is bad, because I'm curious. I remember someone saying something about not being able to target wards with her W anymore, but I'm sure that's not the only reason.

If you're playing Karma as a support, then you can easily look at her skills and realise she offers very little when played that way when compared to other supports.

Really, the only thing she is good as, is as a mage.

Decent heal, decent shield, decent slow, decent damage. The only thing she seems to lack is the buffs that other carries have. Plus if i wanted a mage i'd rather any other mage than karma. I'd rather AP yi mid.

Play what you enjoy playing. Karma is not bad... She's just difficult to place on a team. If you do well with her, then keep playing with her.

Karma doesn't fit into the meta. She's not a 0 cs 1000000000 ward support. She needs real *items*, not gp10 ****.

However, she's actually extremely powerful, as she has ridiculously short cooldowns with really high ratios. Do you remember old morde? She's like him. Absurd mega shield, crazy good at surviving with 100 hp, and everything she has is aoe.

I main karma mid ap usually, and i can tell u by farm i love going her mid. If no one bothers me i can get 200 cs by 20 mins. The dam karma can do is by far the most amazing as she can both shield ur team and hurt ur enemies. she needs a lich bane and deathfire graps, man i kid u not i owned a singed and tydnmere maxed items 1v1 by getting 85 ap runes offensive skill tree + lichbane, deathcap, deathfire grasps, zhonyas hourglass, boots of swiftnes, and another item with heal and clarity.... by god it owns...ill update later

I must say though as a support she either needs clarity or maxed 833 mana per level runes or somewhere abouts. Shes not a bad support but i have been playing others recently and omg i think sonas the best , havent tried jana yet, karma is still viable support just not as good as others.

Is agree. She is strong. Where I seem to run into problems is finding people that understand her. I have to laugh when my team says,
"oh your like Lux/Nindalee go solo top or mid"

To me she is the anti to early powerhouses like xin.
You wanna poke my carry? How do you like my exploding shield?
Oh, you just realized that he lost little health and has a shiny shield around him and now for some reason you got a laser beam attached to you and you're running really slow.

Just my 2c.

That's the exact problem she has.

Her spirit bond is okay for a speed buff, but sona's is better overall (and is much less situational when it comes to buffing her team).

Her heal is okay, but drops off incredibly fast without any AP to back it up unless the targets are critically injured with high max hp. As a nuke it's too short range to really be practical early game, and late game it'll deal insignificant damage.

Her shield is okay early game, but it has no utility unless you spend a mantra charge for the aoe nuke - except you have no AP so it does no damage. Using it for damage in the lane will also push the lane hard. Late game it's not really that good as a shield either, with no AP.

With AP, her Q and E scale pretty well, so she can remain strong and still offer support options (and her shield will block a silly amount of damage if you're nicely farmed). Without it, she just can't perform on par with the standard support options. Can she do it? Sure. Should you do it? Not unless you're bored, or you have a melee-centric team (to make spirit bond do real work rather than essentially being a 2 target speed buff)

Buffs, sustain and CC are what define the core supports. Karma has passable sustain (once she has enough CDR to get mantra charges quickly), but she has no good buffs and she has no CC either. All the common supports are strong on at least two of those points. Some go particularly top heavy in one point (like Janna). All supports are USEFUL with no items. Karma...really just isn't that strong without farm.

Incidentally, AP Yi has nothing in common with Karma. As a mage, Karma offers a good heal and a strong shield. Yi just has a single nuke and the ability to bait the enemy team with meditate. He has no utility. If you REALLY MUST play Karma as a support, then go ahead. But don't expect people to be thrilled at the prospect.

She's a support hero that needs farm to support. That's not worth sacrificing your top/mid/carry for when you have 0cs supports that are only a little bit worse in practice.

Mord was brought up, and a lot of the same things that apply to mord apply to karma - she is a decent support if you have good initiators/peels and the other team doesn't have a lot of CC. But she is squishy if stunned, and doesn't bring any hard CC of her own. She does really benefit from dual-ap if your ap mid grabs a wota - lets her build some more tanky/support items and still get AP/spell vamp in spades.