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Recommended Items
Spells:
Flash
Ignite
Items
Ability Order
Gathering Fire (PASSIVE)
Karma Passive Ability
Introduction
In this guide I intend to give advice how to play karma as an APC mid laner. We will start by giving a general overview of Karma explaining who she is and what role she can play in a team . We will follow this up with some advantages and disadvantages of her kit. Her pros and cons will be justified by explaining her skills and abilities and how we can take advantages of the various items available for her. Finally we will give a summary of the overall guide.
So if you would like to master a champ that can kite, protect,cc and deal tons of damage, then you are in the right place!!








From what is been said above, it should be clear that karma is a powerful pick because can offer excellent utility skills as well as protection and huge AOE damage! So if you are looking for all these features,

Pros:
+Strong Laner and farmer. Can farm from a safe distance and push large minion waves easily with her



+Great Sustain and hard to kill because of her

+Difficult to gank and can survive most strong ganks.
+Difficult to dive because she can link you with her



+Good crowd control.
+Has ultimate from level 1 (3 ultimates to chose from).
+Strong team damage and burst with one of the largest AOE damages the game has.
+One of the most unique champions in the game also unpopular which makes it difficult for players to counter in ranks!
+Can see invisible champions like shako, wukong, rengas, akali etc .
+Can be a bully if you chose to be (deny farm to melee opponents easily).
+Can bring great utility to the team and protect a whole team with



+Mana Efficient
Cons:
-Her main damage is a skill shot. May be difficult to land and easily dodged.
-No real passive (not sure if this is true).
-Requires fast reactions when choosing ulti and combos.
-Easy to learn. Very difficult to master .
-Squishy without her abilities
-Requires farm.
-People rage when they see her go mid because she is unpopular.
Preferred Runes:
Runes




- Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration:These ,in my opinion, are the most viable marks at the moment. They offer you handy magic penetration and make sure that the spells of
Karma get closer to true damage. You need these runes to ignore as much as magic resistance possible of your enemy team. It also offers you Arm Pen which helps you last hit and harass your opponent with AA. I don't recommend full magic penetration runes cz the difference is not that much.
Greater Seal of Armor: These runes help karma against auto-attacks and also give her armor to be a bit more tankier.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power: These runes give karma more ability power while she is scaling up lvl. They are better than normal flat ap runes because they give you more ap after mid game. These runes could be replaced by cooldown reduction runes or maybe even magic resistance runes. However I believe a skilful karma should fall towards scaling AP runes.
Greater Quintessence of Ability Power these quintessence's are to give you more ap at the beginning. I will try and reaplace them with spell vamp in the future just so I can experiment and see if I can heal myself.
Karma's passive allows her to reduce her ultimate when she hits enemy champions with spells or auto-attacks. We try to take advantage of this in the mastery page by giving her 15 % cooldown reduction, but we also try to give her as much damage possible in order to make her a real APC. Giving her this much cooldown reduction allows us to use our ulti 3-4 times in a single teamfight ,that is if we combine her with the correct items and position.
Offensive tree:
Sorcery: this mastery gives karma a total 5 % Cooldown when maxed. This is a very solid and viable mastery for her. The reason this is a good mastery is because of karmas nature as a mage. A mage depends on it's abilities/spells to do damage. As a result cooldown reduction will allow
Karma to use her spells more often. Attack damage wont do any good to karma.
-
Butcher : This mastery is useful in order for karma to get last hits easier. Also it can be upgraded to
Feast.
Feast: gives 2 health for each minion and 1 mana. This allows karma to stay longer in the lane and get more gold and experience.
-
Expose Weakness : this is a very interesting mastery. It is useful in teamfights. Since karma does AOE damage, she can allow your whole team to deal 1% more damage for 3 sec. This might change the outcome of a whole teamfight so I believe it is great for karma.
-
Mental Force even though this mastery doesn't help much in early game it can help a bit in late. it also allows us to upgrade it to very nice masteries further in the tree.
Arcane Mastery pretty straight forward. Just remember more AP= more damage and shielding when using yr spells.
-
Executioner : This solid mastery is a useful mastery. Most of the times you will be in a situation when your opponent is below 50 % of his health. So this mastery if maxed will give you some good extra damage.
-
Archmage : This mastery is great since it will give you a significant amount of AP especially in late game.
-
Spell Weaving : Since you will be autoatacking a lot you can get up to 3 % more damage on your spells.
-
Devastating Strikes : Give you magic penetration which makes your abilities to get closer to true damage. It also gives u some armor penetration which helps you on last hitting and harassing in early game.
-
Arcane Blade : Gives your autoattacks some damage which you help you in many situations.
-
Havoc : Solid mastery that give you 3 % extra damage which is excellent.
Defensive tree:
-
Recovery : 2 points on this mastery and you will have 2 more health regeneration per 5 seconds. Helps you stay in lane longer.
Utility tree:
Fleet of Foot: 1 point on this mastery and you will have 1 % more movement speed. Combined with
Inspire this can make you one very fast.
-
Meditation : Three points are enough to get the mana regeneration karma need in early game.
-
Strength of Spirit : It gives you 1 Health reg per 300 Mana. This gives you good sustain especially if you take a mana item like
Tear of the Goddess
Starting items:
I like to start with these items because with the skill and expirience I have with karma I can stay a very long time in lane. Also this item allows me to rush


Many players like starting with









First and second back:
On our first return we try to solve any possible mana problems by finishing






Essential items:
Why are these items essential? Why do i prefere a









**Tip before buying Rylai's: I try to get



Take 1 depending on situation













I max first




"Damaging enemy champions with abilities refreshes 2 seconds of Mantra's cooldown, and half that amount on basic attacks against enemy champions."
Many people call this a useless passive. They even say things like "Karma has no passive". I strongly disagree with them. This passive is PERFECT for karma. It allows her tu sue her ulti up to 4 times in a teamfight. The outcome she can nuke and shield her team while surviving herself. That is if she is positioned well.
**GOLDEN TIPS:
-Try to hit your enemies with autoatacks (at laning phase mainly).
-Try to hit them with spells (hitting multiple enemies with one


-

"Fires a blast of energy that explodes on enemy contact dealing 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260 (+60% of ability power) magic damage to enemies in the area and slowing them by 25% for 1.25 seconds."

So lets do the maths here: At level 16 maxed Q with 500 AP, a single

**GOLDEN TIPS:
-This slows the enemies(y) so use it to help your teamates chase or to escape when they are running away.
-Use it wisely to farm from a safe distance (when you have the appropriate mana)
-Use it to harass your enemy and deny him farm. Combine it with

-use it to check if someone is in the bush. You will hear the sound if it hits someone.
-use it to kite the enemy when they chasing you.
"Karma forms a tether to target enemy champion, revealing and damaging the target for 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 (+60% of ability power) magic damage over 2 seconds, dealing 10 / 18.33 / 26.67 / 35 / 43.33 (+10% of ability power) magic damage at 0.66-second intervals. Gathering Fire is applied every time this ability damages. If the tether is not broken after the 2 seconds, the target is rooted for 1 / 1.25 / 1.5 / 1.75 / 2 seconds."

So this ability not only it can do some decent damage,not only it can root a champion up to 2 sec (with a low cooldown to use it again), not only it lowers your mantra by (6 sec) but it also heals you for more than 1/5 of your missing health. Combine with a rylai's it can slow the opponent significantly.
**GOLDEN TIPS:
-Use it on melee champs to root them.
-Use it when kiting a champ or running away.
-Use it with

-Use it to reveal champs like




-Try to combine it with inspire. see your healthbar staying the same while his diminishes dramatically.
-Once

"Karma shields target ally, which absorbs 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+50% of ability power) damage for 4 seconds and grants the target 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60 % bonus movement speed for 1.5 sconds."

This ability can save your life. It absorbs a decent amount of damage and it also grants up to 60% movement speed. Use this when kiting people or to save your teammate. If you combine it with

**GOLDEN TIPS:
-try to use defiance in teamfights or when your team gets caught out of position.
-Use alt+e from keyboard to shield yourelf when needed (in a gank) and combine it with



"Karma empowers her next ability cast within the next 8 seconds, adding an additional effect. Empowered abilities share the same cooldown as their basic form.
Karma begins with one rank in Mantra and can increase it at levels 6, 11, and 16. Ranks in Mantra improve the additional effects of empowered abilities."
**GOLDEN TIPS:
-Try to use your




Early game - farm and deny farm
As we already said many times, Karma, can farm from a safe distance while denying farm for her opponent. In this guide its recommended you take the


Also we recommend 2


When I say "use your abilities frequently" what do I mean? Try to farm with your autoatacks but you can also use











Golden rule: try to deny your opponent farm. Whenever you see an opportunity hit him with inner flame. This will make you a bully and will deny him farm. If he continues to try and get farm his health will decrease dramatically overtime and it will be easy for you to get the kill. In the case you manage in some way to drop his health to 1/3 or below and you are sure that there are no possibilities of getting ganked, try to





By the time you go back you will get



Your jungler ganks your lane:
What do you do when your jungler decides to gank your lane? First ask your jungler not to gank you before level 4. Why? Because karma is not that useful for a gank before then and she doest have her root ability ready. At level 4 you will have 2 points on



0) Make sure the area where your jungler is coming from is free from wards and any enemy jungler.
1) Wait for your junglr to get ready and make sure he is. In the meantime allow your enmy to push towards/overextend.
2.1) Choice of initiation 1:



2.2) Choice of initiation 2:



2.3) Choice of initiation 3: if your jungler has any cc and believes he can initiate better allow him to do it.
3) Try to "q" your opponent as much as possible (slowing him) and


Golden Tips: -Always notify your jungler what you are about to do. Give a signal and wait for a signal.
-Evaluate whether you can or not get the kill. Evaluate the risk/ the consequences a potential failure might have.
-Always have map awareness and watch out for enemy ganks.
-Try not to sacrifice your ally to get the kill but try to protect both yourself and your ally.
-Know the abilities of your jungler and your opponent and know how skillful player your junger is.
Enemy junlger ganks your lane:
Here we will talk about one of the toughest situations a mid laner might have at this stage. It is best not to get caught in a gank but in case you do get caught things can get nasty. In this case, just like the case we talked earlier, critical decision is required. You must evaluate your position in seconds and decide whether you can handle both of your opponents in a smart way or whether you should run for it with a smart way. In most cases you will have to run for it. In this case



An advice: NEVER dive a karma. In the case you are low in health and they attempt to dive you, what do you do? You inspire yourself, run further in the torrent while linking them with


Objectives and roaming in laning phase:
During the laning phase it wont just be you and the mid opponent. Remember that this is a team game and so you should not only think for yourself, but for the whole team. Your primary objective is to farm and take down the enemy's tower. However, you must try to complete these objectives without sacrificing your opponents and without feeding the opponent mid player or jungler. So, if you have the chance to take a tower and keep you and your teamates alive then take it. If you cant then you better leave it for later instead of getting killed. In special occasions it is better to take the tower and sacrifice helping your bot mates who are getting 4 vs 2 ganked.
If you see that you can get a double kill and save your ally teamates without giving your enemy team some objectives then gank bot (we will explain ganking in a different section). Further objectives are to help your jungler counter-jungle when you can and take dragons.
Roaming: In case you over-pushed your lane and you cant do anything valuable it would be great to gank other lanes and help your teamates win their lane. How to gank and who to gank will be available in a following section.
As a karma player I feel better leaving the blue to a jungler who requires it instead of taking it. So I never demand a blue. However, I will welcome it if its available.
Mid Game - Help Teamates and keep the presure
Mid game is ideally when the first torrent falls and hence laning phase falls. It will be idealy in 12-15 min of gametime. How do you know if you as an individual is doing well? Well fiirst of all, you will not have fed them. Secondary, you will not have lost your tower. Third, idealy you will have taken your opponents tower or damaged it severely. Fourth, you will have equal or more farm than your opposing player.
When the first tower falls then roaming usually starts. So.. You have now taken your opponents tower. U might not have had any kills and you might not have died at all. Your next priorities should be to keep your torrent 'alive' ( if possible push your lane) and gank (CAREFUL HERE) your winning teammates! Yes, thats right, your winning teammates. Why your winning teammates?Because in this way you will give them further advantage and you wont risk yourself a lot. Also if you mange to help him win his lane he can help the losing lane. There are some situations where non of your lanes are winning. In those situations, good luck. Evaluate which one is best to gank and do so.
In case you lose your tower ( happens even to the best) try to keep the pressure by pushing. Try taking the tower. But still your primary goals is to help your wining teammate. This will give you a chance to catch up. Fortunately even if karma had a bad early game she is still useful. She can shield slow and snare.
Ganking:
Before we go into late game and team-fights it would be good to analyse the ganking process that you must usually follow with karma in order to be successful. Karma has mobility with her








**Variations may apply. It depends on how much HP you have. What escape methods your opponent has. What score your opponent has. What abilities our teamates have.
Who should I gank and when!??
As we already mentioned when ganking you should make sure that you will gain more then what you might potentially sacrifice. Abandoning your lane constantly, letting your opposing mid player free farm and take your tower, just so you can gank is not worth it at all. Remember farm is very important so preferably while in laning you will gank only when you see good opportunities. You should gank winning lanes not lost lanes. Why? Because ganking a losing lane will have a small percentage open for success, it is more difficult and more risky. However, when ganking a winning lane you will have a larger percentage of success. You will eliminate any chances of the enemy team getting back into the game and you will also free up a lane which could help you later on win the whole game. In some rare cases it is good to gank a specific lane to ensure it wins e.g with or against nasus (with: to ensure he has a good early, against: to ensure he doesnt have a good early game).
Late game:
As it looks turns out to be (IMHO) late games is maybe the most important stage of the game in season 4. Many easy games are lost because players tend to think that they will snowball in Late and as a result they throw games that they were ahead on a large scale. So first thing is first: Late games requires extra caution not to throw the game. Late games is also the objective phase where the most objectives will be taken and a lot of team fights will happen. (****to be continued****)
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