Karthus Build Guide : [14.9] Diamond Tank Karthus - Slow Death

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hello aqua, i have watched your last games with karthus tank and you don't get too much advantage early.
I love the idea of the build but I don't think it currently serves the purpose in early, I suggest you change the strategy and play safer in early, change the primary runes of sorcery for those of domination with dark harvest and maybe upgrade tear to compensate for the rune of manaflow.
In runes you will sacrifice early damage for survival and late damage and in items you will spend 2600 gold to improve the tear that will make you less tank but will give you much more damage.
I think this will work better. Sorry about my English but I am Spanish and I have used the translator.
I leave you the runes:
https://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/rune-page-planner#&rune=Domination:6:29:27:31::Resolve:48:49:::Shards:1:4:5

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(43) |

Howdy! I actually did used to run Dark Harvest, but quickly found that during the laning phase, Comet / Aery added much more damage. This makes sense; Dark Harvest does 20-60 damage on a 45 second cooldown while Comet / Aery deal 30-100 every 8 seconds or so (they both deal roughly similar damage in lane).

I think if the desire is to have even more impact early, it'd be better to get Doran's Ring and make use of the extra bit of raw HP and early AP to shove out opponents.

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Oh yes, maybe the way is to keep the runes from now and start with Doran's Ring, even on the first back buy a second Doran's Ring. The tear is very weak and perhaps with double Doran's Ring and taking all possible blue buffs you can do without it. Also on the next patch will decrease the mana cost of the q.
I have also seen that you no longer build the sorcerer's boots as soon as before, that may also be the problem.

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(43) |

Yeah! I think there's still more tuning on the build to be done for sure. I've been also going Bami's Cinder a bit earlier too if I've needed more damage, which has paid off nicely at times.

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(26) |

I have experience with Karthus in ARAM and he is really an interesting Champion, specially his R and when he dies xD
Someone told me once that Karthus is not good in team fights, maybe if I follow your guide I can prove him wrong, because your guide is really something!
Thank you so much for the effort :>

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hi aqua dragon, long time fan of yours here. im rereading this guide after a long time but it suddenly occurred to me that rod of ages is neither part of the situational items nor 'not recommended' items.

it is the only other catalyst item, so if roa is bad does that mean abyssal mask is the way to go every game?

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(43) |

Appreciate the fans!

Rod of Ages would definitely fall under the "Not Recommended" items; you got the right insight into that! I will add it now to clarify. Also I'm currently testing a few other tweaks to Tank Karthus that I'll update the guide with next patch since Unflinching is being changed.

Abyssal is the only catalyst item, but it is not always the right choice to complete. I don't complete it in most games; I generally sit on Catalyst and tech into the other Armor, Health, and MR choices unless there are other people on my team who can also make use of the Abyssal Mask amplification.

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(2) |

Uhhh
Is this still viable ? I don't really see how a Karth tank would work.

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(43) |

Still viable. Just won a Diamond-level match with the build today.

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Yep, ty. I tried it out a few times, first two games I fed real hard (still got highest damage of the team tho lol), but it looks like I'm getting better.
Great guide mate, keep them going.

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The guide header says to take AP, AP, and then Armor as the mini runes, but the guide itself says to do AP, MR, Armor. Which is it?

Also, do you ever do both the Tear and Catalyst? The guide header makes it sound like you need to choose between them, and the guide itself doesn't dissuade that notion for me.

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(43) |

Nice catch! It’s intended to be AP. MR, Armor

I try my best to avoid building both. Each one, individually, is enough mana (thoujgh Catalyst just barely so). Building both is spending just too much money on excess mana which could be instead be invested in more durability.

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(15) |

It was quite surprising, that you mentioned as reason, why you would ever go for , even though this rune is mainly designed for champions, that don't really build defensive stats (armor/MR), because of the base 8 armor/MR base, that it offers. To reach it's base value, you would basically need to have 160 armor and 160 MR, which is generally a lot of stats. In addition, at higher stat values, those extra points are not really that efficient, due to how armor/MR works (more efficient at lower values, getting less efficient the more you get). I didn't do math myself, but I noticed, that for most of scenarios it's better to run , or if you are running quite a lot of health, then might be decent as well.

I like the idea in general though, because I am fan of AP champions, that can go tanky, while still dealing decent amount of damage - like or , which is sometimes important - especially when there is heavy assasin or initiation meta.

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(43) |

It's actually a misconception that there are diminishing returns on Armor and MR. Each point of armor is always exactly 1% more Effective Health, and each point of MR is also always exactly 1% more Effective Health. It doesn't get less efficient as it gets stacked.

I did test Second Wind, and found I couldn't get reasonable healing off of it. Practice triumphed over theory. Similar issue with Overgrowth; because TK doesn't have any inherent health scaling, the amount that Overgrowth gives is pretty meager, especially since Conditioning provides more effective health overall.

It is nice that Tank Karthus does smash a lot of assassins! The number of Fizz players I've trounced is great, especially since they pick Fizz thinking I'll be easy food.

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(15) |

You are actually right on the first part.

Maybe the reason, why Seond wind isn't really that cool is, because you don't really get constantly poked in lane, which kinda makes it's efficiency questionable. Mostly as a melee champion though, if you can utilize it properly, together with Doran's shield, you can sustain yourself quite a lot, making it hard for your opponent to poke you down. And another reason, why people tend to take it is, that it works since start of game and you don't have to wait for it - and as you might know, especially on higher elo, early game is quite important.

About Overgrowth I am not sure - it depends in which moment in a game you would need to get, to be more efficient, because I don't really know your health amounts as Karthus.

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(2) |

nice runes brother even thoo the items what i hate in karthus is the ultimate scalling cdr xD too long

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(23) |

well ik it's tank but don't you think that overgrowth would be a better choice than the other's in resolve? if not then that's your choice and still great guide

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(43) |

You would think Overgrowth would be the clear choice! But it turns out that Tank Karthus just can't make due with it very well, in an issue similar to Nullifying Orb.

Let's put it this way: with 200 minions dead and 3,000 HP, Karthus would gain a whopping... 150 health. And that takes a long time to scale up too.

It turns out that Overgrowth is really the clear choice only when a) You have abilities that scale off maximum health (Cho'gath) and/or b) You have a way stack health (Sion).

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(23) |

yeah i suppose but i mean the first time i used overgrowth was in a custom against my friend, he went Darius i went Fizz i out scaled his health with overgrowth compared to him getting health items

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do u build archangels staff every game if not do u sell tear later?

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(43) |

I basically never build Archangel staff unless literally every other item is finished. I don't sell Tear either though; the mana is just so necessary because Tank Karthus guzzles mana like crazy

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As a new player to lol how would I modify the build for support karthus?

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What do you think about unsealed spellbook? I feel like guardian is quite useless and you only went it because the other two keystones have no synergy with karthus. Going Inspiration onnly makes you miss one resolve minor rune and you receive more health, as well as more ghosts and exhausts. You don't have to swap summoner's to get value.

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(43) |

About a week ago, I felt similarly My current Tank Karthus rune setup differs quite drastically from this one. I'll soon be updating the guide to reflect it.

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Voted +1

I played a decent amount of jungle AP Karthus and looking into this, tank Karthus is pretty much better compared to going full AP in the jungle.

But, I have a few things in mind and your feedback is pretty much appreciated.
First, can you consider this following build: (Later in the game changed into for the aoe burn and 15% hp multiplier), , , , boots depending on enemy damage source and any final tank items depending also on enemy damage source. The whole idea of this build is to be a tank, standing in the middle of the enemy team proc-ing the rylai slow, healing from e's absurd mana usage with RoA passive and gaining mana due also to RoA passive. At rank 5 your will consume 78 mana/sec thus healing you for 15.6 Health/sec(without taking into consideration additional heals from and in case you buy any item. Plus, you'll be a huge tank with the armor, magic resist and health you'll be stacking. You are, theoretically, going to have 'infinite' sustain and become a huge disruptor in teamfights with 's slow.

Second, if you considered this build in any form or variation, what masteries/runes would theoretically go with it? Would taking + have any advantage than going any other mastery setup? Thank you in advanced.

I am a huge fan of off-meta or unorthodox builds like Jungle tank Cassio, AP/AD Shaco, AP/AD Malz jungle and AP/AS Trist jungle so I really like your work.

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(43) |

Awesome I'm glad you've enjoyed my stuff so much! I think there's one big concern about this suggested build: the amount of cash.

The jungle is inherently lower income than lanes, and tank stats are extremely expensive! The reason a lot of tanks do fine anyway is because they have inherent tankiness in the jungle, but Karthus doesn't have that same luxury.

That build listed there would take forever to complete. At the 20 minute mark, it's lucky to have Upgraded Boots, Jungle Enchantment, and an item component. Rod of Ages is going to be pretty ineffective by that point, which would make GLP probably superior.

It's probably worth giving a try, but you'd likely hit some pretty crippling cost issues.

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Hey, can u add this to your tank Karthus mid guide page pretty please? I'm really proud of it. https://gyazo.com/1bf70aecab4e61f0aef5c438d9289dc3

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(43) |

Dang excellent job! On principle I avoid putting in screenshots of match histories (not even my own) but I'll definitely show the folks on the Discord of your accomplishments!

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First and for most, thank you for your reply. It is truly appreciated and the fact that you were so quick to reply was amazing.

Now for the topic at hand, you are definitely right. I overlooked the fact that I proposed this on a jungle role. Also, considering other roles aren't much help since karthus can't use RoA passive that well. I just wanted to propose the use for a RoA/Visage build since it is pretty broken on top tank Karma. I saw that build a few days ago and with windspeaker's blessing, mantra-w heals for about half to almost full hp from nothing. Thought I could incorporate the same method on karthus since he can heal for a bunch using his mana usage on defile and RoA passive, but turns out it wasn't enough. I have proven this further by actually playing the build I proposed earlier today and the results weren't that satisfying, to say the least. Maybe you can incorporate this method in your future builds. I'm a huge fan of these types of playstyles. The type that'll make your enemies guess wth are you actually up to and by the time they know, they're already tilted to a full 360. I look forward to your future guides. Keep up the good work.

[14.9] Diamond Tank Karthus - Slow Death

[14.9] Diamond Tank Karthus - Slow Death

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