[First Guide, ATTENTION!]

Hello ladys and gentlemans, I want to present you my way of playig Karma, my main.
I play her supportive, tanky but also offensive.

Karma has real problems finding a role in the competetive scene.

The reasons are:
She has no high range gor supports and is relied on her Mantra.
She can be very offensive and also would need some farm, so she is not suited to assist an AD carry.
Since she is more offensive than other supports she need to be tanky.

What I find good about Karma:
She can defend lanes very good, she can 1v1 against towerdiving bruiser, she dishes out damage to the team and can be a strong pusher if you use her as one.
She easily can compete with Mordekaiser in soloqueue when she has the Mana.

So this guide focuses on some normal elo games not real tournament games.
My builds vary ALOT, she can take the role of a tank in lower elo games, offtank support, offtank-caster-support or pure support.

My choice fell on magic pen and HP/lvl.

She has a good scaling on her wave and shield, so she can prepare kills very well and let carrys rush in front of her to pick kills.
She is a very strong harass, later she can even snowball and pick kills, that is about her natural caster attribute.

It's saf that she has no full role but she can be effective, the cdr comes from items, HP is what we need, magic pen works great for Karma here.

You can also take resistances of your choice or gold/s on quints if yiou want to be more supportive.

I took the Magic penetration on the offensive tree as I found nothing else useful there, Exhaust works perfect to assist your carrys on picking kills.
Karma doesn't need flash.

She is not allowed to flash into a fight.
She is not allowd to flash out of a fight, the reason is simple:
You have to stay into fight as long as ossible even if they focus you, that's why you are tanky. You can go ego ut the shield on you and heal yourself up. This disturbs the enemy becouse you won't fall as Karma, believe me.

So as every supporter I prefer taking two Philosopher's Stone to provide gold to myself, but also Mana and Health Regen.
Karma needs this on laning to spend more mana on her Soul Shield to harass than n Heavenly Wave.
You use the wave to heal and eventally pick some farms if the situation allows.

I don't like getting cc'd as Karma so my boots are Mercury's Treads. You always have to be ready putting your shield on allies.

I try building a Heart of Goldas soon as possible after the boots to stabilize my goldgain in the midgame.

Sooner or later you will need the cdr for your Mantra else Karma can't work properly, so yeah your next item you should rush is a cdr item, my first choice is Morello's Evil Tome else you have to switch out your boots to Ionian Boots of Lucidity and get an early Banshee's Veil.
I see HP and resistances essential, besides the cdr.

From here on I try to build situational.

Sometimes the games allows it to be more offensive, so I pick Zhonya's Hourglass and Abyssal Mask, a nice debuff and a nice protection.

Sometimes the games makes you beeing more tanky to support better, then I get situational tank items, everything is welcome here, as armor item anyway I prefer Randuin's Omen, the cdr and also the active synchronize well with Karma/Karma's role.
The slow allows you to support fights and allows you to flee, when chased to gether with Spirit Bond.

If you choose for tanky-support, an Aegis of the Legion and/or Soul Shroud will do wonders.

As last item, keep a PS and build it into Shurelya's Battlesong, I feel you need it more as fifth/sixth item, becouse Randuins as more offensive variant shows just better.

Else one of your main items should be:

Sight Ward and Oracle's Elixir!

Short explanation:

Early on the Heavenly Wave is just better for sustaining your lane and eventualy harass.
The Soul Shield just follows afterwards, it is a great spell for protecting from ganks and for the first clashes.
Spirit Bond is the spell that helps tanks/bruiser to initiate or carrys to escape...also it is good for chasing down enemys if you cath them together with Randuin's Omen and Exhaust.

Exhaust explained as supportive and defensive use.
Clairvoyance (here I want to warn you) to make Karma's role more supportive, as a soloqueue Karma you can eventually pick other spells up here.

Alternative choice:
Flash not a bad choice, as third or forth choice on Karma to prevent giving kills to enemys.
Ghost very useful to catch up with allies or enemys or to flee, synchronizes well with the useability of Spirit Bond

Possible choices for less effective Karmas:
ClarityIf your playstyle relies on mana, then you are allowed to pick this one...
FortifySoloqueuer tank Karma is strong...unorganized teams may try to towerdive you, but hey you are tanky and you are Karma, get Fortify for more effct here.


The rest is not really viable.

I can just give you some hints, but better instructzions will follow down.

Soloqueue:
-Get damn good reflexes and make always right choices on the Mantra useage, you will need some experience for that.
-Try to be ego sometimes, one or two kills as the support won't be wrong.
-Try to take some farms if your mate doesn't care for last hits, make sure to help himg etting kills then.
-Take control of your lane, tell your mate not to push and tell him to stay in front of you when he is low.
-Your positioning is A and O.
-Go with your mates when they plan to towerdive, you can support that very well.

Premades:
-Talk with your mates via VC and cover up everything you can do for your mates, tell them to ask you if you are ready before initiating fights.
-Give your tank commandos on toverdives when you feel you warded up everything fine and you can support under tower.

Tournament:
-Heal quite and do not poke to hard.
-Ward your lane very early.
-Do not walk solo to the upper half.
-If mid BPs and allows you, then go hold mid.
- Teleport can be wise if organized well.
-Do not pick kills and keep an eye on mates.
-You need very good reflexes, ALWAYS.

Pros:
-Best under Tower supporter.
-Able to carry kills.
-AoE heal.
-Support farms well.
-Very good defender.
-Good for initiates and tanking.
-Can rush safely into fights.
-Survives alot fights.

Cons:
-Is relied on money.
-CCs **** her up pretty hard.
-NEEDS FARMS AND GETS CCD o.o
-No strong CC as support, every other support has stronger CC (except Kayle).
-Can push lanes slightly.
-Needs a high skill level (Reflexes and Decisions).

Yes she can jungle very good and I will explain it later anyways.

On lane:
(Soloqueuer attention)If the situation allows you can farm minion waves with an E+Q combo.
Else be the support, on the first trip back you should have bought one PS atleast and one ward.
I also prefer buying mana potions from time to time to support well.

On tower:
Karma is a very good support under tower, one reason is she heals herself and her mate, she speedbuffs herself and her mate and she gives shields to the one who is attacked by the tower.
Coordinate that very well and you can take enemys easy under tower.
When a towerdive was succesful pull a shield on your mate first then heal him.
While he fights on tower use your Mantra on your Shield to deal damage, but don't kill. Then give him a speedbuff and heal him if necessary.

Do not use Mantra on Spirit Bond recklessly, as a support your heal will be better and you have more utility with the damage on your shield than a boost on your buff/cc.

Teamfights:
Try to stay at tank but also keep an eye at your carrys.
Pop Randuins when the initiate beggins, enemys shouldn't be able to catch up to your carrys in a right coordination, debuff them with Spirit Bonds and provide mates with heals. You can support initiates also with a Mantra stacked shield on your tank.
Keep a Mantra atleast for the midst of the fight, at the endstage of the fight another Mantra should be ready.
So:
Shoot out one Mantra asap the fight beginngs, as shield or heal.
Shoot the second out in the midst of the fight, mostly as heal.
A third Mantra should be ready now, use it for killing escaping enemys (trollstyle) or another heal or chasing enemys better with Spirit Bond.

Try support escapes when possible, they have sometimes priority than chasings.


Sometimes on midgame you have to shield yourself, using Mantra then is wise becouse it shows enemys that picking on you is not good.
Shielding the support, poking enemys and then pushing out a heal can be effective.

If enemys plan to towerdive you, solo or duo then you can easily defend yourself, put a shield with Mantra, then a heal with Mantra. Exhaust enemys and ill them with a strong combination of slow and wave.
Shield yourself again if you take damage.
Normlly with tower assist you can take down champs from Amumu to Jarvan to Warwick.

Mantra is unique, so keep ane ye on it, if it is on cooldown let your teammates know and do not start fights recklessly.
Your passive is unique, but also total ****, it supports your defense, that's why you are strong under tower, else it is ****.

I will work on this guide for now, It's my first guide I ever wrote with this utilizings given on such a webside.
I hope you like the way I play my main.

Updates will follow frequently and also slight changes and details on the guide.


Kind regards, Yohachhin.