Click to open network menu
Join or Log In
Mobafire logo

Join the leading League of Legends community. Create and share Champion Guides and Builds.

Create an MFN Account






Or

MOBAFire's first Mini Guide Contest of Season 14 is here! Create or update guides for the 30 featured champions and compete for up to $200 in prizes! 🏆
This build has been archived and is for historical display only

This build has been archived by the author. They are no longer supporting nor updating this build and it may have become outdated. As such, voting and commenting have been disabled and it no longer appears in regular search results.

We recommend you take a look at this author's other builds.


x
Not Updated For Current Season

This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page

x
Karthus Build Guide by JunSupport

Karthus - E 'n' R ( For Newbies to 'Just enjoy Karthus' )

Karthus - E 'n' R ( For Newbies to 'Just enjoy Karthus' )

Updated on August 16, 2011
6.8
23
Votes
12
Vote Vote
League of Legends Build Guide Author JunSupport Build Guide By JunSupport 23 12 76,487 Views 49 Comments
23 12 76,487 Views 49 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author JunSupport Karthus Build Guide By JunSupport Updated on August 16, 2011
x
Did this guide help you? If so please give them a vote or leave a comment. You can even win prizes by doing so!
Vote
Comment

You must be logged in to comment. Please login or register.

I liked this Guide
I didn't like this Guide
Commenting is required to vote!
Would you like to add a comment to your vote?

Your votes and comments encourage our guide authors to continue
creating helpful guides for the League of Legends community.

New Comment

You need to log in before commenting.

1
Akilroth | July 12, 2011 12:47am
while I don't particularly follow the item build, I defiantly find your skill build to be most efficient. I never used to use my Defile all to often because 1) I thought it would take up too much mana and 2) because i kept it low lvl'd while i maxed wall and lay waste.

I'll give this a thumbs up :D
1
Miuosh | July 11, 2011 10:30am
JunSupport wrote:

Actually no.

You don't bring Teleport or Revive.
I'd like to note that it does not mean you have to immediately TRY to kill yourself. The key is the position yourself in the best place for if you die after your team has already initiated in a good fight.
Also, you haven't watched the DreamHack stream, have you? The championship team used him without such tactics, so its entirely possible to play death-defying Karthus without those spells. (The difficulty in such a strategy is also why I haven't actually made a chapter on this, but the validity is still there)
So, you're wrong in this instance.

For defense, I suppose it feels safer to have defensive items, but the point I encourage in the guide is the play like a coward.
The last one into any fight (but only by a tiny margin), and farm like nexus will break if you don't. Karthus is like a solid carry, or Fiddlesticks. You have to stay out of sight, or in the back of the pack. When the teams engage, then you rush in, focused or not. All that's left is to switch on your offenses, and aim for the squishy.

In normal queue, when I run casters or carries, I typically don't buy any defensive items unless I feed. I build full offensive and do very well, and only switch to defensive items in case I start feeding, which happens less often then when I do well.

And, Zhonya's and Rabadon's are set as early game items. As long as a person farms decently, and gets a few kills, those will be acquired before the end of the game 99% of the time.
I typically complete Rylai's before 30 minutes. Although, the new feeder-gold changes might shift that a bit.
also i like the way that you answer all the questions. Great Guide
1
Miuosh | July 11, 2011 10:28am
I like this guide simply because its different. Im going to try it now. If i can log on (EU Server :S)
1
JunSupport (203) | July 1, 2011 10:37pm
Actually no.

You don't bring Teleport or Revive.
I'd like to note that it does not mean you have to immediately TRY to kill yourself. The key is the position yourself in the best place for if you die after your team has already initiated in a good fight.
Also, you haven't watched the DreamHack stream, have you? The championship team used him without such tactics, so its entirely possible to play death-defying Karthus without those spells. (The difficulty in such a strategy is also why I haven't actually made a chapter on this, but the validity is still there)
So, you're wrong in this instance.

For defense, I suppose it feels safer to have defensive items, but the point I encourage in the guide is the play like a coward.
The last one into any fight (but only by a tiny margin), and farm like nexus will break if you don't. Karthus is like a solid carry, or Fiddlesticks. You have to stay out of sight, or in the back of the pack. When the teams engage, then you rush in, focused or not. All that's left is to switch on your offenses, and aim for the squishy.

In normal queue, when I run casters or carries, I typically don't buy any defensive items unless I feed. I build full offensive and do very well, and only switch to defensive items in case I start feeding, which happens less often then when I do well.

And, Zhonya's and Rabadon's are set as early game items. As long as a person farms decently, and gets a few kills, those will be acquired before the end of the game 99% of the time.
I typically complete Rylai's before 30 minutes. Although, the new feeder-gold changes might shift that a bit.
1
JEFFY40HANDS (412) | July 1, 2011 2:02pm
JunSupport wrote:

@JEFFY:

The runes are understandable, but your item analysis seems a little off to me.

I don't get any defensive, because this is a solo-queue guide. It's more fun that way.
And a good player can avoid death with good positioning and entry into combat anyway.

The price isn't an issue either.
Karthus is a natural farmer, and the game is all two things, farming and building-breaking. Once you have the deathcap, entire minions waves are essentially walking gold.

As for the cooldown reduction. I ALWAYS switch to Ionian Boots after buying Void Staff. The 40% Magic Pen reduces the value of Sorcerer's Shoes flat magic pen mathematically, and basically renders enemies MR garbage so the reduced flat magic pen is useless.

Also, you miss the best trait of Karthus, which I'm more or less playing with in the concept stages for making into a chapter.
Karthus' role is to rush into team fights, and situate himself in the best possible position to deal damage from, and stay there even if he dies. This is because if the team initiates properly, despite his own death, they can have superior damage output thanks to Death Defied.


I haven't missed anything, but the playstyle you suggest (or something it may lead to) was called "Zombie Karthas" and it revolved around Teleport+Revive as summoners. If you're pubstomping I doubt people (even if you specifically type it out) that if you die just fight on top of me, I doubt people will listen.

Karthas tends to be focused, he's extremely slow and squishie. Sustaining in team fights is more important, you're better off trying to fight from the fringe. Defile has solid radius so simply working your way from the outside to the middle is safe for the most part.


As to "not getting defensive items because you're solo-queuing and it's more fun that way" I do a lot of solo-queue nothing fun at all about not being able to do my job and winding up in the GY a lot. "A good player can avoid death with good positioning and entry into combat...." But you've oriented this guide to inexperienced Karthas players, doesn't this contradict that statement? Positioning for Karthas is different than positioning for Ashe or Annie or Malzahar etc. Then again if all you're doing is running at your enemy to get your team to fight on top of you after you get instagibbed then what does entering the fight or positioning matter? You can't move once death defied is active so no matter how well you positioned yourself if your team doesn't capitolize on it you just wasted a life.

Being a good farmer is truth, but good enough to have end game Zonya's and Rabidon's is a stretch. You're much better off building somewhat tanky even if it is a pub game, what's the point of having 1200 AP late game if their Soraka silences you as you channel your ulti? You get stunned snared ccd into oblivion? The logical sense is that you're a DPS nuke. The more seconds you're alive the more damage you're supposed to do. Increasing your durability in teamfights means you don't have to worry about mornic teammates not following your strategy. Or an alistar/Blizcrank/Soraka/Taric/Ashe etc interupting your ultimate or making your effective DPS non existent because they 1 shot you late game.

Pub games build defensive items because they want to win. I'm not saying All nuke Karthas can't win, I'm just saying if you're going to solo-queue you're better off playing smart, rather than wondering repeatidly why your teammates ran away from you're "after image" rather than try to essentially 5v5.

If the Sorc boots become less effective towards late game I'd say build Merc Treads then...But of course this is a different Karthas build. If CDR works for you then /shrug I'd much rather be over kill on my Magic Pen considering Karthas' wall is avoidable his ulti essentially is not.
1
JunSupport (203) | June 28, 2011 6:28pm
@JEFFY:

The runes are understandable, but your item analysis seems a little off to me.

I don't get any defensive, because this is a solo-queue guide. It's more fun that way.
And a good player can avoid death with good positioning and entry into combat anyway.

The price isn't an issue either.
Karthus is a natural farmer, and the game is all two things, farming and building-breaking. Once you have the deathcap, entire minions waves are essentially walking gold.

As for the cooldown reduction. I ALWAYS switch to Ionian Boots after buying Void Staff. The 40% Magic Pen reduces the value of Sorcerer's Shoes flat magic pen mathematically, and basically renders enemies MR garbage so the reduced flat magic pen is useless.

Also, you miss the best trait of Karthus, which I'm more or less playing with in the concept stages for making into a chapter.
Karthus' role is to rush into team fights, and situate himself in the best possible position to deal damage from, and stay there even if he dies. This is because if the team initiates properly, despite his own death, they can have superior damage output thanks to Death Defied.
1
JEFFY40HANDS (412) | June 28, 2011 7:13am
Alright the completely blunt to the point AND HONEST opinion of this guide/build.

Overall it's different from most guides which is a plus. The draw back is the build/runes.

Items:
Too expensive
No defense (banshee's veil)
You build health after DPS and not before? Granted Karthus CAN DPS when he is dead but only if the opposing team is blind and can't see your defile turned on underneath them.
Rabidons OR Zonyas not both.
Karthus doesnt need CDR boots, I would take them out period. If a majority of your damage happens when your ulti is on CD then there is no reason to bring it off CD faster. If that reasoning doesn't persuade you then how about
"Lay waste is almost already a 1 second CD, defile is a TOGGLE, ultimate has too long a CD any way to make CDR worth it, throwing up Wall of Pain more often would be a plus, but you're better off getting magic pen to synergize with ***'s debuff vs CDR." The cons of getting CDR outweigh the pro.

Runes:
-Magic Pen Reds good.
-Mana regen Seals? Why when you last hit with Lay Waste you get mana back (after you have a point in defile). Hitting champions with Lay Waste might be difficult but I hope you can time it on stationary minions. I would reccomend even for "noobs" not to use mana regen seals. Perhaps flat mana/mana per level/AP per level would work better. Especially if you're building an Archangels.
-CDR blues...Not terrible but you really won't see ANY benefit from them. Even late game. Not terrible but truthfully not optimal IMO.
-Mpen quints /shrug you get 15% from talents plus ~10 from runes. Let's say a squishie has 30MR at level 1. That is dropped to 20 just from your MPen marks. 15% of 20 is 3 so they are dropped to 17MR at level 1. Get Sorc Boots 20Mpen and you're hitting for True Damage against squishies. Sorc boots are early enough items that you see their benefit before people start really ramping up the MR.

My suggestions for runes:
Mpen Reds
Flat Mana Seals/AP per level seals
AP per level blues
AP per level/Flat AP quints

So my honest opinion is that though this is a solid informative guide. (I really do like it), your build strategy and rune set up is sub par. I think with a bit more experience with Karthus you'll get the hang of hitting with Lay Waste as well as understand some of the points I tried to make in my LONNNNNNGGGGGG post. Either way I'll give it a "verbal" thumbs down for now. GL all the same.
1
JunSupport (203) | June 6, 2011 11:41am
@seriouslyill:

I answer all, literally ALL, of your questions in the description. I really hope you will take the time to read it, and reconsider your vote.

Thank you for the input~
1
seriouslyill | June 6, 2011 3:30am
Why would you need to get a Guardian Angel? You're Karthus, you have reduced death time and besides you get to cast for a little bit after you die anyway. Also why do you buy Archangel's Staff so late in the game? You'll want that extra AP earlier in the game, besides you shouldn't need Zhonya's until late game.
1
Dotter (169) | June 1, 2011 4:32pm
A great job Jun ^^
+1 for one of the best, if not THE best Karthus guide on the site :)
At least in my opinion..
1
JunSupport (203) | May 19, 2011 9:58am
@The4thHorseman:

Build however you want. Just remember that the path you're giving up for spell-vamp isn't a Deathcap stacking build.

There are other stacks you're giving up, such as health, mana, passives effects, etc..
Choosing spell-vamp makes you give up those on top of AP. Though spell-vamp received a nice buff, it's still questionable whether or not it's worth it.
1
The4thHorseman | May 19, 2011 9:49am
JunSupport wrote:

@The4thHorseman:

Spell-Vamp items are designed so you're specifically trading away power for sustainability.
That really doesn't do you any good in terms of Karthus, since he's made to either annihilate the enemy, or get shut down and still deal damage during his passive.

Gunblade is bad on any mage because you're 100% waste the gold on the AD components.

Although Will of the Ancients has it's moments, it's better to stick with raw AP so Requiem and Defile can deal as much as possible.


Oops, I forgot to mention Will too. Silly me -_-;
What I'm saying is that spell vamp should be a luxury item, not a part of the core build. I for one agree that it's much more conducive to your kill count/effectiveness in fights to stack AP as much as soon as possible. However, all that I want to say is, don't discount SV. It keeps you alive a hell of a lot longer in teamfights, with a trade-off of maybe 50 AP at most. ^^
Loading Comments...
Load More Comments
Download the Porofessor App for Windows

League of Legends Champions:

Teamfight Tactics Guide