Karma Build Guide by Starstalker
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Usual follow up
Situational
Ability Sequence
1
4
5
7
9
3
14
15
17
18
2
8
10
12
13
6
11
16
Not Updated For Current Season
The masteries shown here are not yet updated for the current season, the guide author needs to set up the new masteries. As such, they will be different than the masteries you see in-game.
Masteries
Threats to Karma with this build
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2
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Janna | Janna can prevent you from engaging, but she can't sustain her marksman. Making it easy for you to poke them to death. |
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2
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Morgana | All your abilities counter her's. Just make sure you don't get rooted by her binding. |
About the author
Greetings everyone. My summoner name is Divine Mantra, I am currently a Gold tier NA player. I have been playing League of Legends since the Season 2 and have known Defense of the Ancients since it's release. I excel in the Jungle and the Botlane at coordinating plays. My favorite champions are Karma, Kayle, Morgana and Zyra.
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Pro's & Con's
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Karma's decription
| Counters | SpaceSpaceSpaceSpaceSpaceSpace | Karma | SpaceSpaceSpaceSpaceSpaceSpace | Synergies |
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With an high base damage, low cooldowns and a long range,  Karma has the ideal kit to freely harass her opponents. Her early game strenght allow her to dominate during the laning phase and the utility she provides through her abilities makes her a great support. She can shield her teamates, haste them, control engagements and root dangerous foes. Even though she shine mostly in a poke team composition, she can also be picked in a brawl one. Her lack of defenses and hard crowd controls prevent her from shutting down some specific carries. |
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Runes Page
Recommended. With a 90% ap ratio on Soulflare, you will deal tremendous amount of damage taking these.
Alternative. If you don't like the glass cannon approach, taking some armor can allow you to resist to the physical damage you will receive.
Recommended. Your damage come mostly from your abilities and you won't always have the luxury of landing some autoattacks. Which makes those marks the wisest choice to increase your damage.
Recommended. Since you will poke alot, it makes sense to get these. They will make sure your mana pool does not get empty.
Alternative. It's the best option you have if you want some defenses: Karma has a low base health.
Recommended. Unless you are laning againts 
Corki, 
Miss Fortune or 
Sona, getting some ability power is more effective then getting some magic resist.
Alternative. In some specific match-up, getting some magic resist will be vital. I suggest taking 3 and fill the rest with some ability power.
Alternative. With the 10% cooldown reduction your mastery already offer, you can get approximatly 17,25% cooldown reduction and poke even more.
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Masteries trees
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4/1
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1/1
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3/5
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1/5
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3/5
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3/1
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3/1
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1/5
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3/1
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1/5
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1/5
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1/1
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1/
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3/
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1/
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Your masteries should comport 9 points in offense and 21 points in utility. The points spent in the Utility tree are meant to provide you everything you need as a support: mobility, sustain, cooldown reduction, income etc ... The 9 points used in the offensive tree allow you to abuse even more your early game advantage. I do not recommand to spend any points into the defensive tree, it would considerably reduce your early game impact.
Masteries in details
Sorcery 
Mental Force 
Arcane Mastery
Fleet of Foot
Meditation 
Summoner's Insight 
Greed 
Wealth 
Intelligence 
Wanderer
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It's simply too good to pass up. The additional damage, the mana regen and the synergy it has with your passive makes it incredibly strong. It's the best item you can start the game with. If you prefer the active effect of  Talisman of Ascension to the  Frost Queen's Claim one. Take this and sell it into the late game for the talisman: you must begin with this. |
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You need to purchase some wards before getting it, but you will save alot of gold everytime you will use it. It's an obligationg to take this if you truly want to support. |
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On most supports, you will get those to roam faster and increase your potential of getting someone out of position. The sad part, is that you won't benefit from the speed boost once you will attack someone. |
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Probably one of the best defensive item in the game. It allow you to cancel any crowd control and free your teamates from high threats. If the enemy team doesn't have any form of lockdown: get something else that offer similars stats. |
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It gives bonus magic resist and life regen to every of your teamates and has an active effect that synergyse really well with  Defiance. You can use the active to negate the damage from  Ignite when Inspire is on cd. |
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With little defenses and a weak damage in late game: you will badly need some armor. Hourglass is pretty much the best you can get. You have the maximum amount of cooldown reduction and you don't have alot of ability power. Plus, the active effect can allow you to dodge tons of damage. If you have some difficulties with it  Randuin's Omen,  Zz'Rot Portal and  Ohmwrecker can be some good alternatives. |
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Flash and 
Exhaust are certainly the most common and efficient options you have. You will be able to quickly reposition and considerably reduce an enemy damage and movement. They both have alot of uses: making them quite of a safe pick. If you are confident enough and don't think you need either Flash or Exhaust, 
Heal and 
Barrier could be satisfying.
You will harass as much as you can your enemies, ward the dragon, ward the lane and of course protect your marksman. Zone your opponents and deny them as much creeps as you can. When you are able to sneak an auttoattack (without risking to get caught) do it: you proc
Bandit
, Spellthief's Edge and Gathering Fire by doing that. If you end up pushing the lane: try to freeze it back a bit and keep an eye open for the enemy jungler. If you get caught: use 
Renewal to buy yourself some time, when the root effect will apply use Inspire to disengage. In short, abuse your early game strenght and be ready to use Defiance to quickly run away.
Mid game ~ End of the Laning phase
Late game ~ Teamfights and Sieges
Inner Flame, root the nearest target and be prepared to use Defiance and your items at the appropriate moments.
Great supports distinct theirself by their incredible awareness and sense of timing.
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Abilities
Karma has a kit of abilities similar to
Lux, 
Lulu and 
Heimerdinger. She has an aoe slow a single target root and a shield. All of those gain additional effects when you use them along with Mantra: her ultimate. You will have it when you will start the game, giving you alot of diversity and a strong advantage. |
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This passive is the reason why Karma harass is so strong. Everytime you land an ability or an autoattack on an enemy champion: the cd of your ultimate is reduced. Meaning that you can use it more frequently and deal more damage. It makes an agressive playstyle very effective, but also mean that you need more mana regen to make good use of it. |
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Inner Flame is your main harass tool. It deals an aoe damage on contact of an enemy (including minions) and slows it. The nice thing with it, is that you can use the aoe on the minions to hit a nearby champion. In other words, they aren't protected from your harass behind the creeps unless they are far from it. If it hits two champions: it proc your passive two times. Soulflare is the improved version, it's casted by using Mantra. It deals aditionnal damage when it hit, but also leave a mark on the ground that detonate to deal even more damage. But thats not all, the slow is also doubled and reapplied if the enemy stay into the second explosion. The whole thing has a 90% ap ratio: which is very high. Of course, most people aren't dumb enough to stay into the circle of flames, but it can't be avoided if you shoot it directly on someone that stand in the mid-range of it.
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Focused Resolve is your strongest crowd control. When you use this spell, you form a tether with the opponent and root him if the link doesn't get broken. The trick to make sure the root apply is to speed yourself with Inspire if the target gets too far. You can also use it before throwing a Soulflare to force the person to receive the detonation from the ground. Renewal is your best form of defense, it has the same effect then the previous spell, but deal slightly more damage and heal yourself. You can use it to bait enemies into a fight, they won't expect your heal and will remain in place while you will strike. Try to use it before you get low on health, a bursty spell can easily finish you. When you have to receive some damage for a long period of time: use this instead of using Defiance.
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Inspire is without any doubts your most useful ability. You can use it to: chase someone, swallow some damage, escape to a deadly assasin, save an ally from a poison ... It has tons of uses. I could make a list of it: but I'd rather let you use your imagination. After all, it takes practice to get better. Defiance is like a mix of the effects of Locket of the Iron Solari and Talisman of Ascension. And even better: it deals some damage ! This ability give you the control of engagements and disengagements in alot of different situations and has just as much usages then Inspire.
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Karma isn't like 
Janna or Sona in term of positioning. In lane, you can't sit behind the creeps and still be able to hit your spells. In order to harass properly, you have to position yourself on the sides of the waves.On the image below I represented the minions with the letter x and the champions with some fancy stuff. Imagine that you are the Cyan A, the arrows represent the movements you could do to be able to land
Inner Flame or Soulflare.
The fact that you have to stand on the side of the waves to poke also make you vulnerable to some enemies spells. It's mostly why
Ashe, 
Blitzcrank and Lux figure in your counters list. It's simply too easy for them to hit you back. To avoid this, you can sidestep or use Inspire.
This section is reserved to thank every of those who participed by close or by far to the realisation and the amelioration of this guide.LaCorpse ~ For the Dividers.
Emoriam ~ For some Advices and references.
MissMaw ~ For some answers to the questions I had.
Joxuu ~ The 800 +/- gold purchase order at the start of the guide was inspired from his Thresh guide.
Astrolia ~ Her Columns guide saved my life.
And Lastly ~ Jhoijhoi ~ For her BBCode guide.
If you think that you should/n't be in this list for an idea or else: send me a message I will add/remove it.
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Updates notes
There is no updates for the moment ~ skip this section.
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Closing
Yes, it's the end ... no don't be sad ! I will write some other guides. And after all your games won't be like this anymore:
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Guide Discussion (2)
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