Main account -> Graywing21
Hello! I've been playing Karma for about a year now! This guide is just a very general guideline of how to play Karma, with runes and itemization. If you have any questions please drop a comment. Enjoy!

PSA: In no way am I saying that this is a definite way to play karma. I am not a high elo support so please take my words with a grain of salt.

Karma is a early game skill expressive burst mage enchanter hybrid that excells in the laning phase as she starts out with being able to use her ult to empower her abilities. Karma rewards players with high game sense and positioning with the tools to impact the game. If played well, you can outmanuver the enemy and carry your teammates to victory.

Pros

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-> carry potential
-> early game lane pressure
-> snowball champ

Cons

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-> squishy
-> if not ahead will be hard to win the game

First Strike - a must as it gives you a good 10% dmg increase which is nothing to joke about and helps you early to get gold to buy those damage items.

magic footwear - to hel pyou focus early on getting night harvester and your already fast with your shield so just time your shield with when you wanna go in

biscuits - you would think that you would not need it cause your abilities don't cost that much mana, but early it helps you stay in lane longer.

cosmic insight - such a great rune to bring to keep the cooldown of the summoner spells low in order to preform ganks frequently

cheap SHot - gives your damage while the enemy movement impaired true damage in order to kill them

treasure hunter - helps alot with a gank heavy playstyle as ut rewards you for killing different enemy players, giving you a small sum of money to buy items with



Comet - a great poke tool in lane and helps give your poke an extra boost in order to dominate lane.

manaflow band - helps alot with your mana problems at the beginning of laning phase

transcendance - gives more ability haste to your character and aligns with rewarding the player who hit their abilities with cooldown on ult reduced

scorch - gives early game pressure and kill confirmation if the enemy is on a smidge of health

ultimate hunter - rewards players that roam with more reduced cooldown on your mantra



Aery - gives you sustain and improves the shield

font of life - gives you allies healing when focusing on the target you are marking.

revitalize - increases healing and shielding power to keep your team alive

As if patch 12.16, there has surfaced a korean build for karma that involves NightHarvester and First Strike. As someone who uses this as my main build, this really helps you snowball and carry the game as a whole.

Prior to this I used the Poke Build that I hsve put into the guide. This plus the cooldown would let me mantra q like crazy as long as I hit someone.

If you more into assisting the team we all love and know the Enchanter Build with Moonstone that let you mantra shield and keep teammates alive indefinitely. Although I will warn you as of recent Moonstone has been heavily nerfed so going anything Enchanter is weak.

Very important note: snowballing is very essential to this support as well so don't feel discouraged to buy dark seal cause the stacks on kills and assists will add up and help you maintain your dominance.

Carry Build

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Your top priority is to time your first strike and mantra q so that you can do the most poke dmg and in turn make money. Rememeber First Strike time period to take that dmg and make it into income is 3s so auto attacking and maybe even using your w to poke to get maximum output is best. However once you get Hextech Alternator is when the magic really happens and you can make plays whenever your First Strike is up.

Poke Build

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This is quite Similar to what you want to do with the Carry Build although you don't have to really wait for the comet as its more to help with harassing the laners. Once you start getting the cooldown reduction items you'll see how fast you can recharge your mantra to do more poke damage with.

Enchanter Build

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You can't really start shielding as the timing for the mantra and the shield is too spaced out and you have to rely on your mantra q to win the laning phase. I usually keep upgrading q until I get to lvl 6 where the mantra can shield are now able to be timed together. This is where you can start using mantra e to sustain your adc and win.

In general, roaming early is how you impact the game as a whole. WIth Karma being a very early game champion the laning phase is where you shine. I always try to roam mid on my first back cause that where the jungler and maybe support is. Even if they don't and the mid is pushed up its a perfect oppurtunity to secure a kill and give your teamate an advantage.

Carry + Poke Build

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Although this can do some decent damage to tanks if they aren't hyper fed, you should be looking to trying to nuke the backline and secure kills on the squishy part of the team. You should just ignore timing your First Strike as you will be doing enough damage to get kills and the cooldown cuts will be increased to a point that if you hit 1 person and they stay in the second part of your ult q you will have mantra again to shoot out at the enemies.

Enchanter Build

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Your job in team fights is to keep ult shielding and upkeeping Moonstone to sustain and support your team. You generally want to be in the mid/backline of the team in order to get your ult shield onto everyone. You don't have to react by ult shielding, ult shielding to get everyone into a fight is perfectly fine.

I could go into detail about each champ and how well they go with Karma and what counters her. But that would take me hours to write so I will give a general basis.

With what goes well with karma is a team with great early game pressure (Ex: Draven, Kalista) or with high mobility (Ex: Lucian, Tristana) in order to help confirm kills you root/poke out.

With what counters Karma is very hard to lockdown teams where they can move out of your chain range in a short time(Ex: Ekko, Rakan, Pyke) or can't be punished like other champs (Ex:Yumi). Very long range team comps (Ex: Lux, Xerath)can also cause a mid range mage like Karma difficulty due to being outranged.

- Your mantra w heals you and is the best self heal in the game, it can save you in ganks and duels so make sure you utilize it

- speaking of your mantra w, champs are not the only thing that it can be chained to, large jungle camps can be used to give youself a quick heal to prolong yourself in battle or in lane

- starting your mantra early can help on being efficient in the early game as you can start the timer for the next mantra while holding the other mantra to be combined with another ability.

- when using mantra your model will visibly glow. This is fine, but it can potentially give away if you are going to throw a empowered q at them so be careful and revesl your action when it is too late for them to react