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Recommended Items
Spells:
Ignite
Flash
Items
Ability Order
Gathering Fire (PASSIVE)
Karma Passive Ability
About this Guide (Read this First & Save Time!)




12/7/12 Karma has some major reworking coming, and there are new items coming as well as masteries recommendations. As with anything new, I'll give it awhile for users to play test and give me feedback before I make official recommendations to the guide. I'm currently conferring with Pigsy and my build consult team regarding how to proceed.
Quick Reference Section Disclaimer!
1. Items listed in the build list above, the masteries, and the runes, are NOT intended to universally be the only proper way to build for Karma or even remotely close to it. That's what the full guide is for... hence its name. There is a more detailed quick-reference guide available at the end of the Build chapter. Both it and the above general guidelines are there for those of you who randomly got assigned Karma because you were in the bathroom during champion selection and now you're desperately trying to figure out what to do, or you're just curious and tinkering around but don't want to read the full novel that is to follow.
2. Additionally and very importantly,







Woohoo! Now that that's over, on to the fun stuff!!! :)
Format
I had 5 main goals in composing this guide for playing Karma:
1) I have attempted to make this guide as friendly to new players ("newbies, "noobs") as possible. If you're new to the game, welcome! Whenever I use acronymns in this guide, I have tried to elaborate upon what those mean. For example: I might say "oom" but then explain that this means "out of mana." If you see some word or phrase that you don't understand, do feel free to ask, or if you see something I need to elaborate on, totally feel free to point it out!
2) I have attempted to make this what the name suggests: the comprehensive guide to Karma. This means that I include all Karma-relevant information. It also means that I attempt to always justify my choices where I am rigid (which isn't often) and keep an open stance on things where there is plenty of room for personal preference or situational adaptation. Sometimes I do this with graphs, sometimes by typing my reasons, but especially with regard to picks which could be controversial. This makes the guide a little long but I definitely view it as a positive thing.
3) If you ask me to explain a choice in my guide which I haven't explained or if you ask why I didn't allocate some resource differently, I will read what you write with an open mind. If you looked at the full history of the change log or if you look at the comments section, you'll insights provided by other users have resulted in several changes and additions to the guide. I would like for this to be a great venue for talking about Karma's play and build strategy.
4) I have attempted to create this guide with as much integrity and respect for other users and the mobafire/League of Legends community as possible. With that in mind, in any screenshot I've posted which reveals any scores, I've censored summoner names. Additionally, I haven't made mention of any other Karma guides except to highlight their strengths, nor will I ever personally downvote or publicly encourage the downvoting of any other Karma guides.
5) For those first three reasons, I have presented an extensive amount of information here... which I know can make it difficult to find things. I have attempted to present the information in this guide in the most logical order and form possible. If you check the Change Log you will see that I move things around all the time to present things in a more concise way and make it easier for a person to find the information they need within the guide without inadvertently spending too much time reading things that they don't need.
Outline
With that in mind, here is a general outline of the guide. If you are looking for something in particular, this will help you find it. If you are looking to read it fairly thoroughly, but don't have time for the full novel, this will help you figure out which parts are, I think, most important or most relevant to you.
1. About this Guide (Read Me First!) This is what you are reading right now. It is recommended reading.
2. Why did I write this guide and why should you try Karma? This section explains why I originally decided to write this guide, my general feelings about Karma, and why I think other people should want to play her. It is optional reading.
3. General Game Basics In order to discuss abilities within the context of different stages of the game while still staying newbie-friendly, I've included a section on game basics. Basically this section outlines the various stages of the game so that the terms I use in my contextual discussions later "laning," "turn," "ganking," "pushing," etc. will make sense. This section is recommended reading if you are below level 25. It is not intended to be comprehensive by any means.
For a more comprehensive introduction for new players, this is a better resource
For players over level 25 looking to amp up their knowledge of the game even more, this is a better resource
4. Runes This is recommended reading but not essential.
5. Summoner Skills This is essential reading.
6. Build Basics This covers the basics of building situationally for Karma and is essential reading.
7. Abilities (Base Stats) Because Karma's skills can each be combined with






8. Gameplay (Use of Abilities) The other of those two sections, this one explains the use of these actives and passives within the context of different phases of the game. This is essential reading.
9. Masteries: Abbreviated Explanation This is optional reading.
10. General Notes Noteworthy little tips and tricks. This is optional reading.
11. Karma 501: Context and Role This is highly nuanced information which I think will primarily be useful for players who play as Karma a lot. This is optional advanced reading and I suggest you play around with Karma for awhile and decide if you like her before spending the time to read this. This section also addresses in greater depth some of the "metagame ranked" questions like "should I babysit [x-champion]?" or "What's the deal with GP5?" etc.
12. Karma 502: Blow Them Up! This section expands on the 501 section by describing more precisely how to choose your AP kit use it to do a lot of damage in a short period of time.[/color] This section is also optional advanced reading.
13. FAQs for authors If you have questions for writing your own guide, please check here before asking them.
14. The Elo Matching System This is optional reading.
15. Change Log This is a log of all changes to the guide since its creation. It's obviously optional reading.
16. Status of this Guide The latest news for the guide including new upcoming changes and features can all be found here. This is usually a fast read and is recommended reading.
First of all, why should you want to play Karma? Good question. Let me ask you... Would you like to play a character whose potentials are so diverse that she can run the range from tank to full AP mage? Would you like to play a character who does relatively high amounts of damage that put her on par with any other character in the game while also doing 25 to 50 thousand in healing each round (that number doesn't include her shielding) and having so much health and armor and a slow so effective you can be chased all the way across the map and still arrive safely home? Do you hate recalling while pushing and love seeing your team mates' health start going UP in a team fight? Do you want to play a character who can get double first blood against


When I originally wrote this, I posted a picture of a big winning streak I had with her. It was my little, "look, I have wins so I must be qualified to write about them!" gimmick. You know what I'm talking about. Anyhow, after I posted this guide, it shot straight to #1 on mobafire... not just for Karma, for all champion guides. It proceeded to stay there for more than a year and continues to hold the record for longest time continuously in the #1 spot. It also holds the distinguished record for longest time continuously in the top 10 guides and the first guide to exceed 30,000 words in length. Come to think of it, that might not be something to be proud of. Anyhow, if all those things are not compelling enough reasons to both stick around and read (and also to try out Karma!) then I don't know what is.
A cautionary side note for players unaccustomed to the elo matching system: when you try out a new character and are very successful with the character, don't over-play the new character. The steep downside to being too successful with a character for too long is that your invisible rating adjusts upwards and you may find yourself unable to play as other champions without suffering bad losses. This is because your matching level has adjusted for the one champion and is now far beyond your skill level with the others. Click here for continued reading about the matchmaking system. I also elaborate on the mathematical meaning of what's discussed in there at the end of this guide.
Secondly, why did I write this guide? Well... it's history now. I wrote this guide over a year and a half ago. At the time, people generally did not understand how Karma worked. I never saw anyone else try to play her. Moreover, players generally expected anyone who played as Karma to be terrible and played foolishly against her.

Karma was a relatively new addition to the game, which you would think might account for the fact that very few people played her or had experience playing against her... but there was more to it than that. Unlike other then-new characters like


Karma actually became my primary character as the result of lag. Yes, you read that right. Lag led me to try Karma in the first place. When I began playing,


I immediately found success with Karma in part because she is far less lag-sensitive. True, you can't bait effectively with Karma (we'll talk about doing that later in the guide) in lag and that can destroy your laning, but in late game play you are often still able to shield and heal essential allies even as your connection deteriorates. With Kass, I'd have to back out of combat in the slightest lag. With Karma, I could stay in until my response times reach about 3 seconds (and that's a lot of lag).
An immediate series of crushing wins laning with M4g0t confirmed that not only was Karma not as lag-sensitive, she also was not the garbage she was commonly made out to be. In fact, her unique attributes allowed her to bait like no other character in the game. This was the first guide to touch on baiting as Karma. It's since become standard gameplay with her. She's also a diverse champion: she can turn a push, pull a carry out of the jaws of certain death, mop up kills, or even lead an assault under the right circumstances. She is, I would say, the most under-rated character in the game. Karma is not "one" of the characters I like to play as - she is absolutely my main character.
And that's why I wrote this guide. This a Karma guide written by a primarily Karma player. Much has changed since the guide was originally written. Contributors have come and gone, mobafire writing has become almost a competitive sport among certain folks, and Karma has been greatly popularized. I hope you still find the guide useful.
What follows is not intended to be a comprehensive overview of how to play League of Legends by any means. Things get far more complicated than this at higher levels of game play. These are simple general rules to follow when you are first getting into the game. There are three basic phases of League a Legends match.
1. Laning (early game)
2. Turn (mid game)
3. Pushing (end game)
As I describe appropriate play with karma, I'll be referencing her play within the context of these different parts of the game. Moreover, it's important that you understand in general how each part of the game works. These parts of the game can be generally described as follows.
Laning
In the laning stage, you are generally focused on one particular lane (the paths lined by turrets and walked by minions). In general, you are with a buddy on top or bottom or solo in the mid. This persists usually until around the time you reach levels 5-7 (when most characters receive their ultimate (4th) ability or "ult" as it's commonly referred to. Your main goal is to level up and get gold by killing minions. You can harass enemy champs and they'll harrass you back, but getting a kill early is a luxury. It's nice when it happens, but the early game is generally not the time for living too dangerously by doing things like turret diving (attacking an allied champ by its turret). Generally, try to recall as little as possible while not risking giving the enemy a kill. You may, in the laning stage, take your attention off your lane to decide if it's necessary to switch lanes with an ally. You may also take your attention off of your lane for more specific reasons. The champion


Turn
In the turn stage, players begin to "gank." This is when they sneak/jump in and attack, especially stealth units like





Pushing
The final stage is pushing. Ok, NOW the turrets are your primary objective... right? Wrong. Your primary objective is still killing the enemy team's champs. Think about it for a second. A turret in the late game is basically just a champion that:
1) Isn't very powerful
2) Can't heal
3) Can't move
4) Can't respawn if destroyed
5) Can't consciously decide to target squishys (champs with less health)
Sure. Turrets have a lot of health. But in the late game, you and your team mates can bring one down from full health in mere seconds. The only thing that can kill you is still your enemy champions. In the pushing stage, your goal is to get all your team together and kill the enemy champs so that you can destroy the turrets and work your way up the lane destroying turrets without resistance. This is called "pushing." The team that wins is ALWAYS the team where everyone works together as a cohesive unit and attacks as a cohesive unit. I say ALWAYS because the only way your team can split up and be disorganized and still win is if the other team behaves even more stupidly, in which case your team was still more cohesive and cooperative than them. You can do the math on stats and abilities and easily see why, and it'll become way more obvious as I explain how good support characters are built and function, though that's for later in this guide. A team that splits up gets destroyed. Always, without exception. Big mistakes in this final stage include thinking the following thoughts:
"My team mates are all just sitting here... and their team is all just sitting there. This is a perfect time to go jungle by myself and get some XP, gold, or a buff to give myself the advantage, or maybe head over to another lane to kill some minions."
You aimlessly wander off without saying anything and it's 4 on 5, disadvantage your team, and not all your team mates might notice. The second the enemy champs realize you've abandoned your team, they're striking and their team is picking up 2000 gold. Oh, and you're next. Do NOT do this. You can make your entire team lose doing this; it enrages team mates, it gets you killed, and of course it's just downright stupid. They are having a showdown for a reason. Your team doesn't want to split up and give them gold; they don't want to split up and give you gold. Maybe your team is waiting for them to make a mistake. Waiting is an intense but normal part of the game. Maybe






"We lost bad in that battle. We can't take all 5 of them."
Wrong. Every fight is different from the one before. You probably made mistakes in the previous battle that you won't make in this next one. Ok, I know YOU don't make mistakes but maybe one of your mates did. The other team might get over-confident or make mistakes that they didn't before. Maybe one of your team mates' ult wasn't ready before. Maybe one of their ults isn't ready now. Past performance is no guarantee of future results... unless your past performance includes all splitting up and getting killed one by one and you do nothing to change that. It's PARTICULARLY insane to conclude "we can't take all 5 of them" if you weren't all together for the last battle. How do you know? You haven't even tried.
"If we split up, it'll force them to split up,"
Wrong yet again. If you split up, they'll all stick together and first kill the group of three of you, then kill the group of 2 of you and be 2500 gold the richer for it. Don't get me wrong: you DO want to split their team up... but not by splitting yourselves up. Think about it... the 5 of them are turret hugging and the five of you are clustered... right in the middle of the map... and maybe there's harrassing going on but nobody is stupid enough to dive in... move your team together as a unit to the next lane. Your team has a straight shot and can do this. It takes them a second to realize you're moving, they don't have a straight shot, and some get split off wandering through the trees, some have shoes, some don't, some are faster, some slower, long story short they get separated and arrive in disarray in the adjacent lane to be eaten one at a time. Did that not work? Try it again, or have your tank bait them, but let them make the mistakes so YOUR team is the one that walks away with the gold.
"Player X has tons of armor and won't die. We should focus him in our next battle."
You should be targeting their squishier (less armored/lower health/generally do more damage) players first. Your goal is gold. It doesn't matter if Rammus or Mundo has killed you three times and you're frustrated, winning is your revenge, not killing them. Play smart for your team. Teams that all attack the enemies' tanks lose. That's the whole point of having a tank on your team, after all... to have someone for the enemies to attack while the rest of you chew them up. We all know this of course on an intellectual level but it's astounding how often I'll watch an entire random-match team that I'm on all target

"We need to stop focusing on champs and start focusing on the turrets."
You hate to hear this one... for reasons that should be obvious this far into the guide. If someone on your team says this, correct them gently. Also, as Karma you should take careful note of who said it. This is a weaker player who will need additional overwatch and protection.
"Our team is all together and we just took out 2 of them, all 3 left alive are still in the lane with us... but oh no! They have a swarm of 10 whole minions that are advancing on our turret in another lane. Someone needs to leave to go take care of that! *beacon* *beacon* I'M ON IT!"
You can only hope to be lucky enough to have enemies this stupid. If one of your allies beacons a set of minions attacking a turret in another lane, I'm sorry to say it but unless the other team has a player or two just as dumb, you and your team are probably screwed. As Karma, you can only be as good as your team mates. If an ally leaves a great push opportunity to pursue minions, or if (heaven forbid) your entire team splits up after a great fight to go back to individual lanes and farm rather than pushing, you might as well save yourself time and frustration by typing "/surrender."
And last but very importantly...
"[Support character] is feeding; that's why we are losing."
That MIGHT be true... The

I am not being a prideful/defensive player by saying this; just an honest one. When I play as



After one game with Hatazzb in which he, as Soraka, had saved me by healing me more times than I could count, I remarked to him that, "It's like you always know when I'm about to do something stupid and are right there with a heal." He replied, "It's not hard. It's always either you or Cesi." Your support character knows. Since learning to play support, I've learned to watch my team mates much more astutely and after awhile you can see the ones behaving recklessly or downright stupidly with total ease. And if you're a smart team player, you will reciprocate when the time comes for you to save your support. A good Soraka or Karma can sustain an entire team's assault with their healing/buffing/shielding/etc. Care for them.
*"Stacks" are essentially bonuses earned for doing certain things within the game. Usually a character loses all or a significant portion of their stacks upon dying. For example, a character who purchases


I was criticized by one commenter for not mentioning the strategy known as "backdooring." What follows is - what I consider to be - an obligatory explanation. "Backdooring" refers to the strategy of an attack damage carry (


For the complete guide on runes, go here.
With Karma, you really want to buy "per-level" runes if possible. Flat bonuses are worth more at the beginning of the game but usually the flat bonuses are exceeded by the per-level bonuses by the time you reach level 5 or 6 anyway (for

Magic Penetration is hard to come by which makes the greater


Example runebook 1
A general mage-friendly runebook might look like this:
9

9

9

3

This gives Karma a damage advantage all game, especially since you probably won't be investing in magic penetration items, and it's advantageous during the laning stage when you might be baiting enemies in.
Example runebook 2
9

9

9

3

With the 2012 changing of the masteries and the addition of athenas unholy grail, I quit longer recommend CDR glyphs and seals on Karma. However, when




*"Cooldowns" are the length of time you must wait before casting a spell. By reducing this length of time, you can cast more frequently. You can reduce cooldowns using runes, masteries, or items.
Other Picks I see
Some people like to use mana regen runes. If you find you're always thirsty for mana, you could try this.


Don't take

Don't take health runes. We like to bait, remember? Your passive





Despite that they are in vogue,



Anything with "attack damage," "attack speed," or "critical strike" in the name is also obviously a complete and total waste. Same for health regen, you're a healer.
Final Notes
Also, if you have seals that specialize in defense, feel free to save IP by just using those. I like the extra AP of AP seals but it's hardly necessary. Defensive seals don't add a lot for Karma (except situationally

Also, don't be "that guy" with your runes. You know, the one who hosts the game but won't enter you all into the queue until he's taken 10 minutes to think about and move his runes around accordingly. They seriously don't make that big of a difference. You have multiple rune pages for a reason. Have one page of both of the above options if you want... just don't be that guy that takes 10 minutes to make adjustments between each battle based on what characters his team mates say they'll play. It is not worth it and next match you won't even remember what runes you took last match. Pick the page closest to your goal and play.

As such, my basic recommendations have never changed too terribly much. My most conventionally appreciated top picks





That said, what you choose is, to a much greater extent than before, a matter of personal preference.
Always Take

"Damn you and your flash kills, you ****ty karma!" - DarktheGreat (playing as Annie)
Strongly Recommend



















Remember how I said at high elo, every team need clairvoyance? It used to be that at super high elo, people would always assume that you were the one responsible for taking








A quick note about map awareness




This takes work to get good at... but if you want to use



Semi-off-topic... You should always always always play with the game sound ON and all other external music OFF, as a matter of courtesy to the people you are matched with. Pet peeve
Possibly Take







Avoid Taking

















A quick note before we start: you may notice that I haven't built

If you are up against a group of AD characters ("attack damage," also referred to as DPS or "damage per second", these characters are not magic oriented),


Conversely, if you are up against a group of 5 mages,

As Karma, your build has three basic priorities:
1. Get an engine for your mana
This is why you'll notice the first items we'll be considering build from


2. Reach 30-40% cooldown reduction by the end of the turn stage
Your masteries get you close to 10%, your runes maybe a little more, which is why you'll notice we aim for about 20-30% in our build. Your cooldown reduction caps at 40% (because obviously if you could get to 100% you could cast infinitely many times per second and auto-win) and as Karma we'd really like to reach that 40% since your mantras benefit from it.
3. Achieve the right balance (or imbalance) of defensive (health, armor, magic resistance) and offensive (ability power) stats.
You'll see :)
1)
As any mage,

Alternatively, you could start with a





At higher elo, most people start off with shoes and potions for most carries. Not always is this the case, but that's the option I listed in the quick-reference section.
The next item is where it gets complicated.
2)
You've been laning for awhile now and this is where you start to make decisions that will shape what kind of Karma you're going to be in this round. This decision may decide the outcome of the game, no pressure. Ask yourself:
A) Are all or most of the enemies mages? If yes, go for



B) Are you up against all AD characters (this would be rare)? If yes, you could think about going with


C) Answered "no" to both of those? In most rounds, you'll play more of a mixed group. In THAT case, I would recommend going catalyst the protectorCatalyst ->

You'll probably end up going with

As with any character, if you didn't start with them and have money left over on any of your recalls while working on building your first big item, grabbing

You need a mana engine so these are pretty much the only three starting items we're considering at this point.
3)
If you haven't bought them yet, it's probably time to pick up those basic

4)
Do you need second level boots yet? Depends. Again, this is situational. If you went with





This guide used to recommend




5)
Pick your subheading based on your decision in step (2)
5a) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If you answered yes to (A) and went with

Then you also got your shoes, per (4).





"How do you decide between




5b) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If you answered "yes" to (B) and went with

...that means you really aren't against AP champions (rare, very rare I emphasize), so you won't benefit from






5c) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
If you find yourself looking at 5c, you probably started with



For fed mages, I'd go to



6)
Whew!!!! Ok, stop. Take a deep breath. I know this is a lot of info but look! Now you've got at least Doran's ring, two big items, and level 2 boots. We're a LONG ways into the game. If you die this late in the game, you're getting a nice 30 seconds to make up your mind about what to buy so there's no rush... ;)
Again, the emphasis of all of this is that you build for the situation you are in. Let's say your team has firmly taken control and has taken out two inhibitors and you're all about to go in and finish mopping everything up. Just spend all your gold on AP items. You've got no reason to save anything at this point, right?
If not, let's put our thinking caps back on and focus on what our team needs most. Now, I cannot possibly give you "what ifs" for every situation you could be in at this point. This is FAR into the game and the possibilities are endless... All I can do is encourage you look at what everyone else has built, see who is fed and who isn't, and make decisions about what will best benefit your team based on that. I'll give you a few general tips, tricks, and hints... and then I'll show you two extreme situations in two opposite directions (Tanking as Karma and AP Carrying as Karma) to give you an idea of the wide range of potential directions your build could take depending on the situation you find yourself in.
Now... let's say you're in a situation where you're thinking, "Yeah but THE TEAM really need this other thing right now more." Right, buy that instead. That's building situationally. Heck, you might have noticed that as early as finishing your first item and drastically departed from your original direction in your build.
By the way, don't be afraid to ask your allies what they need or what they think the team needs or what you should build. Some people are afraid they will look "noobish" if they ask. Firstly, there's nothing wrong with not knowing something or being new, but secondly consulting your team mates about what the team needs is a sign of SKILL in this game. You're foolish not to do it.
As you obviously know from just glancing at her stats, Karma benefits well from ability power & magic penetration, general defensive goodies, and auras that help her team mates. Obviously if it has "attack damage" or "attack speed" in the description, it's out (except

Read through a couple of the really weird build situations to jog some of your thoughts about how to finish out your build or just building situationally in general. These are descriptions of more radical situations but you can easily read these and see how my mind works and how I approach playing Karma in different situations.
Special Build Situations
Karma is designed to be a critical part of a complete team composition. That said, sometimes things go awry. Sometimes a player lags out, sometimes they disconnect, sometimes they have to go and just leave, sometimes a team member TELLS YOU they are going to get a snack or go to the bathroom and be right back but you don't read the chat box and start the game without them and his character gets chosen automatically... grr. Anyway, sometimes you are laning with a carry and you end up accidentally getting several of their kills early on. Sometimes other players fall flat on their faces. When this happens, it's time to adapt to the situation. Because Karma naturally has both high health and high ability power and her first item is usually

Semi-Tanking as Karma
This will definitely not work at really high levels of play, but unless you play enough your whole life is about league of legends, this adaptation is very much worth mentioning. Karma can make the adaptation to tanking very easily.







This image illustrates a logical situation for tanking with Karma. M4g0t and I were laning together and we went 9 and 1 in our lane. I kept getting the *unlucky* last hit on his kills and over-farming the minions (I played terribly and was rewarded for it). Teemo on bottom fed VERY hard, getting 11 deaths before managing to steal his first kill from M4g0t. M4g0t ended up gold-starved (oops) while their






Just remember: it's OK to walk away from a lost game feeling really proud of how you did. I had a streak of 6, made myself the tank, absorbed 52,700 damage, healing 21,000 damage, and I made the best decisions for the team. Just remember: it's not about how well you play as an individual AND it's not about how well the team does; it's about how well you play as a team mate.
Oh, and of course, here's a crushing win with "tank Karma." What... you thought I wouldn't deliver?


While we're on the subject of tanking, it makes sense to talk about











AP Carrying as Karma
15 Minutes in. You just bought


Here's a little secret: Fed Karma is seriously an amazing thing. I used to say, "Don't tell Riot," but when the guide shot to #1, the secret more or less got let out of the bag! Give her a little ability power and she does horrific amounts of AoE damage in team fights. I used to have to put so many disclaimers on "AP Carry Karma"... but again, here we are a year and a half after the guide was originally published and people have actually really latched onto the concept. Hehe, what can you do? Playing Karmas a carry is now fairly normal. That said, I promised you weird so here it is:

Yes, that's right. Battle of the supports. 4 healers... and twisted fate... Sum, Hata, Blackcraft, and I were trying to be silly with the composition (Hatazzb had long joked about a team of all healers), it was a pre-made of 4, and twisted fate was the random 5th guy. He spent most of it soloing and jungling. You can see from adding up the assists though that this was basically a battle of healers squaring off against a pretty standard team composition. I suspected from the outset that if we were to have any chance of winning, Blackcraft would need to get fed so he could tank successfully and I would need to get fed so that I could AP carry. Janna and Soraka are obviously not carries and twisted fate couldn't be assumed to be good since he was a gift of the matching system and not in our skype call. The third morde kill sealed the deal for me and I went all AP. After







So yes... Karma CAN carry... I used to have to attach so many disclaimers to this and talk about how it should be done rarely because you are a support and bla bla bla. Now people post guides about carrying as her and I actually get people who drop by and downvote because I don't have [/i]ENOUGH[/i] info about carrying as Karma on here! Irony of ironies! The consequences of >>> 1 and a half years at #1 <<< This guide has just changed the way people see and play her. It also illustrates, for me, the simple reality that it is impossible for you to ever make every person happy.
Since we're talking about building Karma AP, it makes sense to talk about how to choose between




These items both have unique actives, though, so either will force you to get a little bit better at the game. To utilize a "unique active," by default, you push the number of the item slot that the item is in. So, if


Here's an example of


So to Summarize
In short, round out your build with whatever is best for the situation you are in... and you can see how diverse the potential situations are. You'll usually go with some balance of ability power and health. Karma starts with plenty of both and benefits best from a combination of complimentary items. No single build is going to suffice for every game. Period. Curious about another item or concept not mentioned here? Ask :) Remember, our entire emphasis is on building for the situation you are in, not memorizing a formula. Take lessons from everything you've seen me write here... and remember you won't always pick the right item. Learn from it, take that lesson, and use it for a crushing win next round. On the other hand, sometimes you'll go out on a wild limb and gamble and pick EXACTLY the right item (like my Fiendish Codex pick tonight)... in which case, use that for a crushing win THIS round. Remember, every item pick is important even down to the last pick of the game. Always be learning, always be thinking... every build item is important... be thinking carefully down to the very last one.
Other Items















So... there are two views on this... one is that you can get it in addition to Rod of Ages and have a bonus slowing effect for your spirit bond... the other is that Rod of Ages is cheaper and you really don't need that extra slowing effect. I tend to lean in that latter direction. It makes no sense as an early item and after that it just seems very expensive for marginal extra benefit. This might be off-topic but I have the exact same response when I see people buy this for Kassadin. They already have a slow and silence... wouldn't they rather spend less money to have have more health, the extra mana from rod of ages and all the extra ability power from the bonus of rod of ages combined with the percentage of its mana being turned into ability power by their archangel's staff? It just seems like a no-brainer when you think about it.










Karma has a constant (non-climbing) base stat of only 30 magic resist while her armor base stat climbs with her levels, peaking at 78. So... a Karma with only




Here's the logical situation to build














Sorry, I know I'm going on about this item a LOT! I have one last note: do keep in mind that if you have this item in the same build as



This all just further illustrates just how much















I am also very open to any input anyone else has on any of these items and their viability. This is a community, if you think I've underrated... or overrated an item, don't just vote my build down, give me your reasons and I'll try it and I'll give you feedback as well. I've played Karma more than all the other champs combined but maybe you approach things differently and have thought of an angle I haven't! Also, if you're curious about something not listed here, ask!
A Note on Aura Items
Do keep in mind that aura items like





Quick-Reference Flowchart
Here's the updated quick-reference build flowchart. The chart does not include any explanations as to the reasons for anything. That is what the above discussion was for. It is greatly simplified for ease of use. I am including this chart as a quick reference because it has been repeatedly requested. DO NOT USE THE CHART BY ITSELF WITHOUT READING THE GUIDE AND EXPLANATIONS, THEN COME BACK AND DOWNVOTE BECAUSE IT DIDN'T GO WELL.

DO NOT USE THE CHART BY ITSELF WITHOUT READING THE GUIDE AND EXPLANATIONS, THEN COME BACK AND DOWNVOTE BECAUSE IT DIDN'T GO WELL.
Mantra

We're going to talk about Mantra a lot... but here's its recharge times. Notice it just upgrades automatically when you hit levels 7 and 13. The recharge is affected by cooldown reduction so I'll refer to it throughout the guide as the cooldown of mantra.
Inner Flame Revealed!

So here it is! The math behind inner flame. It was achieved by playing without runes, masteries, or items and dividing my AP by my percentage of HP missing at each level.
If that's not clear, here's a visual of how the math was done.

The exact figures are verifiable by dying at a level and then (while you are dead) moving the decimal on your Ability Power left two columns... Of course, dying at every single level would have been much more work than just doing the math.
As you can see, Inner Flame goes up in steps as you go through the game. Specifically, the levels it goes up at are: 3, 6, 9, 12, and it tops out at level 15. Simple to remember: if the level you just reached is evenly divisible by 3, inner flame just became stronger. It also starts at 0.3 and goes up by 0.2 at each of these levels, also easy to remember.
The line graph gets messy with all the data points so this bar graph might illustrate it better...

At levels 1 and 2, you receive .3 ability power for every percentage of health you are missing, at levels 16 through 18 you receive 1.3 ability power for every percentage of health you are missing.
"Ok! Ok!" you say... "I get it! But I'm not a math person. What does this mean and how can I use this knowledge?" Simple. Drop the decimal, add a zero, and you have the total AP you'd get from inner flame if you were missing ALL your HP (dead)... like so...

So, thinking in these terms, if you are missing half your HP at level 2, you know you are getting half of 30AP from inner flame, so you have about 15AP.
If you are missing 3/4 of your health at level 17, you are getting 3/4 of 130AP from inner flame, so you have about 100AP from it. The exact number in this situation is 97.5, but the point is you can eyeball it... now notice... that is nothing to sneeze at. If you are at level 15 and you are at 3/8 of your health, you are getting 5/8 of 130AP so you're basically carrying around a free Needlessly Large Rod.
Same rule applies to the pink which is the potential additional



So, to recap, you understand that your inner flame starts off with a maximum AP potential of 30 and that potential increases by 20 every time that you level up to a level evenly divisible by 3. The fraction of your health that is missing is the fraction of that maximum AP potential you are receiving.
Does this make sense? Let me know if there are questions.
Surprisingly, while being dead gives you the maximum AP bonus, experiments with trying to be dead as much as possible during matches did not go well. It simply makes casting very difficult and I don't recommend it as a strategy.
Heavenly Wave

Here's the stats. Remember that AP stands for ability power. This is an attribute given you by






This means that if you have 100 Ability Power from your items, stats, etc. your heavenly wave will do an extra 60 damage because (100)(.6) = 60. Does that make sense?
If you understand that first, it will be much easier for you to understand how modifiers affect your heal. Your heal has 2 modifiers: your own ability power and the amount of health your ally is missing.
Let's again say that you have 100 ability power and your ally is missing 500HP (health). In addition to the base amount your


It is very hard to make a general picture of what your abilities look like in a round for two reasons:
1. Karma's build has such diverse directions it can take that, depending upon the situation you find yourself in and build for, your ability power may end up anywhere between 100 and 600.
2. Your heal in particular has multiple modifiers.
3. One modifier I can't even represent is the the number of allies and enemies caught in your spells. If you are just





Anyway, I know it's hard to paint a general picture of what your spells, in particular your heavenly wave, might look like... but here's me trying. I've used very modest AP estimates (a carrying Karma might have closer to 500 AP than 350 AP with a truly full build) and moderate to high estimates for your ally's missing HP.

Spirit Bond

For the sake of discussing


The duration of Spirit Bond is 5 seconds at all levels. This means that at 40% CDR at full level, it is ready to use again only 1 second after it expires (assuming it hasn't been broken earlier by the anchors moving too far apart). Essentially you'll have a continuous 20% speed bonus at the end of the game (because you'll always be with team mates to anchor

The movement speed modifier affects all units that spirit bond touches as well, positively for allies, negatively for enemies.
The damage it deals does not affect the unit you anchor it to, only units that touch it once you've activated it. If a unit touches it twice on the same cast, they do not receive a double speed modifier or double damage.
Using








Here's a chart of some damage estimates for



Soul Shield

The cooldown is 10 seconds at all levels and the shield lasts 5 seconds. The amount of AoE damage dealt to each affected unit by





Ok, so the same things apply to this example chart that applied to the last two. Not to be repetitive but the effectiveness of this skill as well is proportional to how many units you can affect with it and the ability power in your build at various times throughout the game (as well as the times in the game you choose to unlock certain abilities) may change drastically depending upon the conditions of the specific match.

Static Damage Comparison
This final figure is a static damage comparison for Karma's skills. Lest I really need to point it out, this obviously is not intended to be representative of the damage these skills will actually be yielding at these levels consistently or, in the case of spirit bond, ever really since you won't really be leveling your abilities all up together... and, as with the previous graphics, the amount of AP you have at various times may be greater or lesser than the static amounts I'm using for the sake of illustration here, etc. This graphic is intended to be used only as a general comparison of the damage potentials of these skills.

As you can more or less see, the damage of your abilities is actually pretty similar across all 3. You'll notice the base damage stat for

Your highest base damage stat comes surprisingly from

Your middle base damage stat comes from

An AP-heavy Karma will do more damage per-hit with



If you've made it this far in the build, you've obviously at least tried out Karma once and understand the basics of her functions. Because




More advanced players will find only some of the concepts described in this section edifying. Specifically, those things would be cast orders and how to do specific things like assassinate with

Much of the juicy stuff for high elo players is in the 501 and 502 sections.
Laning
It's now in vogue to *swallow* go mid with Karma and aim to carry. It feels very weird for me to write this because, in 2012, when Duskmelt and I started first playing around with intentionally carrying with her, I ended up taking criticism for it. "Karma is a support! Stop telling people bad info!" Oh, the times they change. Now I get criticized for not talking up her carry properties ENOUGH. Here we are though.
If you choose to lane with a buddy, be very smart about choosing your laning partner. As I mentioned previously, no other character in the game can bait like Karma. A bad laning partner is one who can't capitalize on that.

It is very difficult to kill [a skilled] Karma in ANY stage of the game. When laning, in general you want to have 1







One thing you should know before we go any further: when things are happening quickly, it is all to easy to accidentally



At this point, you're beginning to see how easy it would be to bait as Karma in the laning stage. If having all those things doesn't make you hard enough to kill, remember that Karma's passive




Down to only 1 bar of health? Got your summoner























Again, be smart. Do not attempt to bait characters like








Because baiting is such a sophisticated way to get kills, when laning mid, you shouldn't do it unless you know the enemy's jungler is nowhere nearby. With a partner, you shouldn't do it unless you know the person you are laning with and trust them. One of Karma's biggest advantages is the fact that few understand her. This is also one of her biggest weaknesses. If you don't know the person you're laning with, chances are they are unaware of Karma and her abilities and potentials. This person is more likely to run or get angry if they see you baiting the enemies. It's better and easier to adapt your play style to focus on just leveling OR change laning partners than it is to try to type this entire guide into the game chat window. Don't ever ASK a player, "Ok, Xin, do you know how Karma works?" They'll always say "yes." It doesn't mean ANYTHING. Lane with the buddy you know if at all possible. Laning with someone who understands her is itself as much of an advantage as laning against players who don't.
At high elo, generally you will go mid with Karma and aim to carry. At lower elo, when you play a match with unfamiliar team mates, use these as opportunities to learn how to play her as a carry. You'll find you have a lot of sustain and can easily dominate most champions in the mid. You have very little range so it's easy to feel intimidated against harassment from champions like


If you play conservatively, they will wear you down hard. If you play aggressively, they will mop you. You need to play confidently and wisely. Do not use



Now let's talk about that 2nd



There are though several reasons to hold onto your 2nd





You can mop up a fleeing enemy champ by






Remember what I said a second ago about using your






















Again, play smart, know what summoner skills your fleeing enemy has in their purse. I used to have to put a huge disclaimer here to "never forget that while a kill for yourself is nice, you are a support character first and foremost." Now that people finally accept carry Karma, I can much more freely tell you to just go for it.
Despite that she is great mid carry, Karma obviously plays an enormous support role when you make the decision to lane with a partner. Part of being a good team mate, especially when you are using a character with support capabilities, is knowing the difference between enabling a good player to carry your team and enabling a bad one to torpedo it. If you are repeatedly dying saving a bad player and they have the audacity to get angry at you for it, ignore their whining, request a lane change, and let them show how bad they really are without a carry/support babysitting them. Remember: your goal is wins and it is important to know the difference between dying for a player whose life is genuinely more valuable than yours and dying to enable an angry dude who is hurting your team. As we already discussed above, by playing in capacity as a support, you become very keenly aware of the skill levels of your team mates, much more than when you've played in a non-support role. Even if you play Karma to carry hard, you will have to make support-type decisions about who to save and who to let die; some of these will be split second decisions, some of them will be long-term decisions... and we'll dive into that as we explore the turn and pushing stages of the game.
Turn
The turn is when a team that is down 1 to 10 in the kill count can make a huge comeback. If they can lane hop and get some champion kills while your team is caught off balance and scrambling to catch up, they can make up for 10 minutes of bad laning with a couple good ganks. It could also be your team that seizes this chance to start a comeback. The deal isn't sealed in the turn stage and any team would be foolish to surrender at this point... but your goal is to get your team working together so you all go into the pushing stage of the game as formed up and fed and well-positioned as possible.
You probably didn't have to recall much as Karma in the laning stage of the game, and this is good because you have an expensive build. If you finish your first big ticket item by the turn of the game, good for you. You need your boots and

Be looking for opportunities to upset the balance of the game. When you recall to buy catalyst the protectorcatalyst or

1. You plop a sight ward into the near Bushes. You spot their jungler coming into the bush to gank you. You ping for your own jungler, he gets into position, and you bait with your flash and shield at ready. Two kills. sight wards win games. These things are a cheap investment and are an early warning system against sneaky junglers.
2. Let's say the fellow you are against in the mid recalls. Beautiful. You slip away through the back woods for a stroll. They don't know if you've recalled. Their folks at the bottom can either sit back out of XP range or put themselves at risk. If they are not smart, you are about to get some kills. If they are smart, their vision wards will see you. If they are really smart, they have wards AND you are about to meet their jungler and have your face torn off.
Where am I going with this? Map awareness wins games. Prevent the bad situation from happening by constantly communicating. Set up your ganks carefully and have vision of what you are getting into.
Your team won't always be the initiators of ganking. If your lane gets jumped, you've read enough about Karma's abilities to know what to do. Fortunately, because you are Karma, your lane is probably more prepared for this scenario than any of the other lanes. Because you have support characteristics, remember that if another carry is on a kill streak, he may be worth more gold then you. He may also have stacks. If this is the case, his life is more valuable than yours; be ready to die for him. It sucks. Deal with it, it's for the team.






If your allied champ has half a health point left and you have most of your health, this is where you run, right? Still wrong;








Speaking of gold, if you want a little extra, you know you can self-


The turn is the part of the game where you begin to learn who on your team is good and who on your team is bad. "Wait... didn't we learn that in the laning stage?" No. Unless you are very experienced and have very high map awareness, you were probably mostly focusing on your own lane. Maybe your team's





Remember, being down 1 to 10 in the laning stage isn't a big deal. If you're down 1 to 10, a couple of the other team's players are on kill streaks which means if they die in a gank during the turn stage, someone on your team will get a huge gold bonus that evens things out. Now, of course that gold bonus isn't FAIR, it's not intended to be, it's intended to make the game more interesting. As carry Karma, you would like to be the one who gets that gold bonus. Don't make the mistake of getting over-aggressive though, or you'll feed. Don't get frustrated. Try to stay calm. You have to set this up correctly. If your bad team mates get the impression you are angry at them, they will ignore you and jungle and minion farm away as your team gets crushed. You have to be tactful. After all, if you don't get your team to work together for the push, the other team is going to steamroll you.
Corralling
For more information on Corralling, please see the subsection near the end of this guide about the Elo Ratings system. If you are at high elo, you will not have to deal with this nearly so much as newer players do. In fact, you may skip this if you like.
Corraling is the key to winning matches at low elo. If you can corral the bad players on your team, you have a shot at victory. Fail at this and your only shot at victory is if the other team is worse than yours. The key to corralling is to first understand what makes a bad player and who bad players are. At this point, if you're not sure what makes a bad player or why bad players need to be corralled to have a winning team, you should read the section I wrote above about League of Legends basics. You need to know how to corral badly-performing team mates into a workable team. You already know what bad players do, so let's talk about WHO bad players are.
1. "

2. "Screw the matching system, I give up, they are too fed, I have no gold, this sucks." A discouraged player is a sad thing indeed. As Karma, even when you fail to carry, you can often adapt to being valuable in a support capacity and still crank out a lot of damage to boot. When you go through a round with few kills, you can still see your 30 assists... and you can pan over to the bar graph and see how you healed more than anybody... and you have the gratification of knowing that even though the damage your shield absorbed isn't recorded, nor are the lives it saved when you cast it on ignited team mates, you DID propel your team forward to victory. You were essential to this win happening. But... a team mate who is on a very bad streak or just broke up with their girlfriend... understand that they are discouraged. They feel like they are being robbed, or they just are starved for gold, or are embarrassed and feel like they are letting the team down. They are likely to feel like the team is doomed, even if someone else is stepping up to the plate and the team is doing just fine. They feel that they have no role with the team, they will often give up, go back to jungling late in the game, or even ragequit.
3. "STOP STEALING MY KILLS... F***ING NOOB TEAM." We've all encountered him. That's the selfish player. He is by far the worst of the bad players to encounter. He seriously doesn't care about your team AT ALL so good luck corralling him. He wants personal kills, he likes the thrill of seeing his name pop up in the screen, and frankly doesn't give any concern over whether anyone else in the game has a good match or has fun... at all. Wins and losses do not matter to him at all. All that matters is kills. He may be a carry, and it may be possible that someone "stole" his kill. However, the fact that he is not handling it appropriately is more than apparent.
Here's why it's up to you to corral these players and get them to work together: nobody else will. If you are playing in a support capacity, you clearly have no ulterior motives. If you are carrying this round, you might still have some leverage with a team mate from having saved his life with a well-placed shield. Corralling is NOT fun to do. It is arduous and frustrating and doesn't always work... but here's the thing... you HAVE to if you want a win.
Just remember: "you will catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." If you've never heard this phrase before, it means pretty much what it looks like. People are more likely to do what you want them to do when you are nice to them than if you sound angry. Now... being nice to a bad player is very challenging especially after you or your whole team have just died while they ran off obliviously into the jungle... and I'll be the first to say I've lost my cool with terrible team mates... but if you want to win, this is very important. Now you'll notice I started all 3 of those descriptions with quotations. This is because the text box is your best clue as to which of the three aforementioned types you are stuck with.
For type 1, first offense, try to spell things out in excessive detail. Maybe no one has ever slowed down and taken the time to explain to this player how games are won. "Pantheon? Can you try to work with the team? Their whole team is together we need you to be with us or we are outgunned?"
For types 1 AND 2, try appealing to vanity OR power-hunger.
"

"

"

"Ok guys, if you stay near me I decrease enemy MR by 20%. If you guys stay near me, you will steamroll"
For type 2, console your down-and-out champ. He will listen... especially if he's your friend... and it's the right thing to do. Remember, carries feel pressure to get kills and not die and when they know they aren't delivering to their full potential it is easy for them to become blind to the other things that are going on in the game. Remind them they aren't alone. "It's ok man... you're a good Kass, we all know it. You're not having your best game, but that's fine, you won't carry every single game. Nonsense_King and M4g0t are fed. We can still win this. We just need your help. Don't worry about the gold, we need your silence."
If you don't know what type you are dealing with and you type any of these things and are met with cursing or *worse* the player completely ignores the text box and all beacons... you are probably dealing with a type 3. Congratulations: the match just became 4 on 5. Play as if this player has disconnected (they basically have) and advise your team mates to do the same. Don't waste any heals or shielding on them, don't go to help them if the enemy team goes for them. Going to their aid will just get your whole team killed. If you DO see the enemy team go after them, don't beacon or do anything to let them know. Don't do anything that would distract your team from its current task or inadvertently send the message to a team mate that protecting this type 3 is in any way important. Their senseless death might buy your team the chance to jump a wayward enemy or take out a turret. Sometimes teams will actually attempt to use a type 3 as bait to scatter an enemy team by announcing to the opposite team this player's position jungling. Unless you're skyped up with your team mates though, this generally is not a great tactic. The level of communication required to use a rogue type 3 as bait simply rules out the text space as a worthy venue for it. Mostly, I think players announce the location of type-3 team torpedo-ers out of spite. Having a type 3 on your team is no fun... but think of how satisfying it would be to win anyway! The 4 on 5 game is going to be tough, but that's simply the hand you have been dealt. It's doable... but like I said, you'll need to be on your A game and you'll need the other team to play badly. A game comes to mind where Cesimar lost his connection and our random-match



If you can corral your team successfully and if your team has characters that are good for the long-haul, you as Karma have a very good chance of propelling your team to the final victory with heals and shielding... in the push.
Pushing
Time for team fights. This section I'm going to keep fairly general. Until you've become fairly experienced in the game, this information will suffice for you. The 501 section later in the guide has more expansive information about using Karma in a supportive role. The 502 section has information about nuking as a carry. These are much more precise tactics than those I'm going to list here. These are some basic things useful for non-hardcore players.
You know the basics of course, your goal is to keep your team coordinated so that you can catch their team off balance and then destroy their turrets. You also know that you maximize the use of your mantras by having as many enemies near an ally you






Your auto-attack is entirely worthless. At this point in the game you should pretend it doesn't exist* and, rather than firing it, focus on moving around and positioning yourself appropriately to maximize your casts at all times.
*Unless you are AP carry karma with

Don't waste



If there is a dogpile, this is your time to shine.









While your









If the battle is more spread-out, it may be less clear when it is most advantageous for you to use your mantras. Let's say you and your team mates are closing in on mid from the top and bottom while one team mate in the mid has just been set upon by 3 or 4 enemies. You've got a donut of enemies and right in the middle is your buddy. You want to use your








Rewind. Your allies aren't coming in at all. It's just you running straight down the mid to pull your buddy out of this brutal gank. Use it all, spare nothing.





Overtime
The game has gone on 70 minutes, everyone's pretty much fully built, you maybe have one slot empty since you have an expensive build... wat do? Just keep in mind, team cohesiveness is the entire key at this point. The first team that lands a good full-on gank of the other team wins the entire game. If you all die, you're gone for a full minute. There goes two if not three inhibitors. As I mentioned earlier, make your final build decision wisely and focus on communicating with your team the importance of staying together. Wait for the right second to use your

Jungling as Karma
I'm not a big fan of doing this. Going mid as a carry is best, sharing a lane is passable, but there are just much better junglers than


If you're interested in Jungling as karma, you should watch this video which is not mine. Like I said, you'll need

Lag
Lag. It's a real part of the game, not just an excuse to type into the chat window when you die doing something stupid. And if you've played League of Legends for any decent period of time you're aware that lag is a BIG part of the game. It decides many fightes, team fights, and games. With 10 players in each match, a conservative estimate would be that lag plays a decisive role in at VERY LEAST a quarter of games. Maybe you're that lucky guy that never gets lag. Good for you. Someone else on your team might still get a lot of lag. Pay special attention to this player, keep your shield ready for them. See them standing still, not using any casts, and auto-attacking? They might be disconnected. If you can do so safely, get in front of them to inhibit enemies from attacking them so that when they "officially" disconnect they will have time for the game to recall them without giving up a free kill. Honorable opponents won't take advantage of a disconnect but... well... you know. If you are playing as Karma and YOU are experiencing lag that cant be fixed, let's talk about how that changes things.
1 second of lag
If you are playing to carry, 1 second of lag means you can't flash assassinate. Most other things are still on the table, especially since Karma is fairly sustainable with her heals and shielding.
Inform the other players of the situation. Play as normal, but be slightly on the conservative side, especially when your summoner spells are on cooldown or your mana is low. Your




2 - 3 seconds of lag
Don't go mid. I know, it sucks. Deal with it. If you started mid, switch with someone... even if that someone is of lower rank and not qualified to take on mid. They still stand a lower chance of feeding than do you and a fed mid character is a nightmare brewing. You need to be babysat in bottom lane if possible. Stay near the minions while laning. Try to stay in XP (experience) range while healing and shielding your laning partner. Cross your fingers and hope your lag clears up. Try as hard as you can not to feed. Do not attempt to get kills at all. In team fights, sit back behind the group, don't be in the group or even too close to it. Tell other players that if they need a heal they can run back to you.










Major spikes, disconnecting on and off
I used to run back and forth between the router punching and kicking it and pulling hair out when this happened. Now I just quit and do something else. If the game is this lagged, let's be honest, it isn't any fun. It's not your fault, there's nothing you can do about it, more often than not it's the server or your ISP and not really your connection to the router. Quit and go watch Conan or read a book or do something else. Your alternative is to feed and lose while you disconnect and pull hairs waiting to reconnect... and this isn't any fun. Learn when to say, "No, I'm done, I'm getting a loss for this and there's nothing I can do... and I'm ok with that because I can't control it and it DOES NOT MATTER in the larger scheme of things."
It's good etiquette to at least watch your team mates but generally when you have this much lag what is happening is your screen is locked up for 5 to 10 seconds and then you see that 5 to ten seconds in about half a second like someone submitted the game footage to be made into a chipmunks song. Some of you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, the point is you can't see anything so it's a waste and if it seems like the lag is gone for a second you might be tempted to re-join the fight in which case you'll only feed. Just walk away.
Best way of dealing with lag is to try to improve your connection.
http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/4843/karmamasteriesnew.jpg
Maramix pointed out to me at the start of season 2 that the changes to the masteries were not so much a nerf of supports as they were a broadening of the flexibility of the masteries choices. He pointed out the equal viability of an alternative path http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/796/karmamasteries.jpg
It was then that I noticed that even the offensive tree had become potentially viable on her, especially if you go mid.
With the nerfing of



Essentially, just like summoner spells, masteries are, to a much greater extent than before, a personal preference issue. In fact, you could theoretically play Karma with any of the three trees interchangeably. Just one more thing that makes her a fun character.
The season 1 (historical) masteries are available for historical reference if you send me a private message.
Special thanks to mobafire user and guide contributor windkeeper007 for pointing out the major advantages


"(I) decided to calculate the amt of HP regen that you can get from (strength of spirit). At around 2000 mana (the amount of mana that Karma will have at end-game), the most hp per 5 that you will gain from this mastery would be 15 hp per 5, which is 3 hp every sec. The time that it would take to heal 2700 hp (which is around what Karma would end up with) would be 900 sec which is 15 min. 15 min is a dangerously long time, especially since team battles do not last for more 5 min. Karma can easily heal much more health in a much shorter time than what this mastery is giving. Strength of spirit, in my opinion is not a very good mastery to points into."
Communication
Skyping or any kind of real time audio will amplify Karma's skills greatly. This is true for any character but much moreso for Karma and it should be obvious why. If you want to maximize your heal, you want all your allies to get in your cone for just a second. It's easy to type this while your allies are pounding away on a turret, not so easy while you're running down the lane. In laning, sometimes you'd like your buddy to move between you and the minions so you can


When Skyping is not an option, don't be afraid to stand back and pause and type something for a second. Sometimes all you have to do is say it once and people see what you do and they get the hint. In a game recently, I had two wounded allies standing on opposite sides of a turret hammering away on it after a team battle. I targeted the turret and quickly typed: "Stand together please so I can heal you both." They saw the text and moved over and both got healing, and for the rest of the match they would periodically move closer to me after team battles or while moving up the lane in order to get


Assorted tricks
Now we're getting into really specific little tricks that may just give you an extra little bit of an edge. Keep in mind, I've played Karma more than any other character so I've run into a lot of little situations most guide-writers probably wouldn't have encountered or bothered to mention. This stuff is just icing on the cake. You don't want to read a novel here so I'm not going to do what more... shall we say compulsive guide-writers do and create a character-by-character breakdown of laning with, against, etc.






Some characters in the game can, as one of their abilities, create a slave unit or companion unit or fake self which they can control. Examples include








When laning with













DoT (Damage over Time)

When laning against











Lock-downs and stuns
While a bad one is a walk in the park, a good












You're jumped by 3 or... even all 5 of them... or your team mates have died and you're the last one left. Don't panic and use your








Don't forget... you should be doing this. It might make the difference when trying to slow that fleeing enemy or race back across the map at the end of the game.



This will deal with more complex features of Karma play. We previously discussed some basic positioning in team fights only in very general terms. This is where we'll get into the more sophisticated maneuvering in fast fights... the kind of maneuvering and positioning which is necessary for success in very tough matches.
Contextualizing Karma
Before we start, let's take a step back momentarily and just... talk about Karma for a moment. Historically, Karma was thought of simply as a support champion. However, in large part because of this guide, people have re-thought a lot of those old notions. Let's give her some context and a place within the game. Pardon me for going into super-obvious mode on you for a moment... Let's start by asking,
"What kind of character is Karma NOT?"
Karma isn't the best healer in the game. That would of course be

She doesn't massively heal single targets like



Karma doesn't have a big awe-inspiring game-changing CC ultimate. That would be


Karma doesn't have the most powerful shield in the game. That would be

Karma doesn't have a massive single-target damager like

She doesn't have


She doesn't have a taunt like

She doesn't have a static 3% speed increase for all allies like

She certainly can't raise you from the dead like

So... she doesn't fit the mold of a conventional full support champ... which begs the question...
"What kind of support character IS Karma?"
While Karma isn't the best over-all healer in the game, she's certainly among the best. Her heal is simply reliant upon positioning properly and consistently so as to affect as many targets with it as possible. While her raw numbers can't match



While she doesn't massively heal single targets, her shield suffices to perform the task of protecting a focused friendly champion.
While her shield doesn't give 3 seconds of invulnerability like

She isn't designed for heavy single-target damage, but the universally high base damage and strong AP modifiers of




As for CC (crowd control), she doesn't have a





The truth is that Karma is really an AP Carry/Support. You could choose to play her as a pure support, building her with gold-per-five items and babysitting a carry, but, like we've kind of pointed out here, there are champions that fit that role much better. Here in the 501 and 502 sections, we are going to break down her characteristics and talk about how to use them with sophistication and prowess.
The key to success with support Karma in an intense fight is not that one perfect



Karma's casts have short late-game cooldowns and serve several essential functions. Her strength lies in her diversity and consistency. Success in team fights as Karma is contingent upon thoughtful positioning, zone control, and constant and intentional use of abilities.
We all know champions are not all consistent in their usefulness throughout the game. Generally tanks like



If you were to ask a random sampling of veteran players their opinions on the scaling usefulness of various support champions at various stages throughout the game,




But to say she doesn't scale well would be erroneous. What's more accurate is that she scales interestingly because she is a nuanced champion. A pure support Karma will definitely not scale as well as

Let's say though that you are doing poorly, you are way behind on your build, and somebody else is stepping it up hard and carrying. You might find yourself having to shift to a more supportive role. You'll still dish out damage, but providing proper zoning for your team's more successful carry will have to take priority. Play style must be modified in this situation. Here, the difficulty does scale up, and her usefulness does scale down a little... You'll have to modify your play style to best help your team. In the absence of hard crowd control, the key to this will be your short cooldowns, quick thinking, and mastery of especially

By the end of the game at max CDR,



Zoning as Support Karma












The ranged carry scenario is optimal. Let's change it though and put a fed Xin or Nocturne right in the middle of the dogpile.

You should use



You get the idea... and just as importantly, hopefully your tank gets the idea also.



You can also use


Spirit bond can also nab you a kill when laning if used properly.
Remember: before you have ability power


And you can generalize and think of other situations where this is useful... the



You might read this and think, "Well then, that doesn't sound too advanced, it seems like something you should put in the Gameplay (use of abilities) section under Laning..." I can understand feeling that way... I don't consider it to be basic technique though. Here is my reasoning...
Where do you think most armed criminals get shot by law enforcement? If you said "the shoulder of the arm containing the weapon," you answered right. Now... that's not where officers are trained to aim... but in an intense situation, their fovia (the primary point of focus for their eyes) is on the gun in the criminal's hand. Consequentially, they end up shooting them in the arm holding the gun.
In fast battles and gank type situations, it's not a natural response to aim at a target behind your target. It's something you almost never do... so your eyes aren't trained to go there. It's very unnatural to use




Obviously no battle is the cookie cutter assortment of Xs and Os I've put in these rough drawings. Real team fights are messes of slows and stuns and



Spirit Spamming!!!!
It's late game. You're at 30%+ cooldowns. Spam that


Just aced the enemy team?

Is a player lagging behind the rest of the group? Run back and grab him to speed him up to catch the rest. You have to keep the group together. A cautionary word about this: while the guys I roll with - Hatazzb and Blackcraft and them - are so used to me doing this that they don't think twice about it... players who aren't used to having a good


Wait the extra seconds at the fountain to



Metagame support strategy
In the classical North American metagame an AD carry would solo the mid to maximize gold and XP gain, while the support and tank would share the bottom lane to level up in tandem... This has long since gone by the wayside in favor of the more European approach where an AD carry would be "babysat" in the bottom lane by a pure GP5 support. Let's establish first and foremost that Karma is not an optimal GP5 pure support. If you aren't playing ranked at high elo though, why not have some fun and play Karma and lane with your buddy? I just see no reason why not to. It's a game, have a blast :)
In games where I start off doing very poorly and get way behind, when I see an ally begin to get fed, I will switch off of my original lane to buddy up with the carrying champion and proceed to spend the remainder of the match as their little personal servant, shielding, healing, and speeding them around the map whilst simultaneously soaking their targets, slowing them, and racking up assists for myself. Think of it this way: you're taking an already fed carry and doubling their effectiveness. Observe how the game is going, who gets fed, and know when to make this adaptation, and you can very often nab yourself a quick surrender. Works with any carry. I've done this AD carries like when Hatazzb plays



Remember that image up above in the build section under AP Carry Karma where that Cait got fed? I switched over to tagging along with her, shielding her, speeding her, and zoning other champions off of her. She became untouchable. I was carrying the team at the start of the game, but once I discovered I was working with a very attentive and zone conscious Cait, I realized that being a damage soaker while simultaneously acting as her dedicated support was absolutely the optimal role for me. She was playing smart, the synergy was right and partnering with her wasn't just the right thing to do for the team - it was way more fun than carrying solo would have been. After a team fight when 3 of our players were dead and 3 of theirs were dead, Cait and I walked right up the mid to where the remaining two enemy champions were turret hugging. With no minions to take aggro, I




Again, to reiterate, Karma is neither best adapted to classical American style laning nor modern GP5 babysitting. As you probably already understand, this is because Karma is neither a full support champion like






Like we've mentioned briefly before, Karma has the best potential farm of any support champion when combining




If your carry gets fed on kills early in lane, awesome, assist gold will go a long ways. At higher elo, however, there are fewer takedowns in the laning phase of the game. Greater emphasis is placed on carries consistently last-hitting minions. Additionally, with the recent changes to the bounty system, the assist pot generated for takedowns is now only 58.66% instead of the 70% it used to be.


I'm not going to tell you not to try playing Karma as a GP5 babysitter. It's a game! Have fun with your friends! I am going to tell you though that, at higher levels of play, you're going to need to restrict her to her optimal role in the mid.
If I am laning with a carry who has excellent early game harassment capability and decent survivability (such as when Hatazzb plays









Heck, if you want to try something really crazy (hear me out on this!), while a carry starting off with a tank in bottom lane is not at really high levels of play, it can be a lot of fun with the right combination. While tanks can't offer the




Nonsense_King is - hands down - the best tank I've ever played with. When I play with Mowen's Kog'Maw build and Nons plays as


Laning configurations aren't unlike build configurations... in that they can be very situational. Don't get locked into one way of thinking about things. Change things up on the other team - think outside the conventional with your combinations and how you arrange yourself. This applies to every champion you try out. Don't be afraid to scramble lanes to adapt to changing conditions throughout the early stages of the game.
Each combination is different. You really never know what crazy idea is going to stick until you try it.


Regarding the "She's just not viable" comments that never seem to go away...
If I could emphasize just one paragraph out of this whole section for the commenters who so frequently visit and say, "She's just not viable," never to return... it would be this:
As you probably already understand, this is because Karma is neither a full support champion like






The word "unusual" is not synonymous with "unheard of." Karma is played by the "pros" at high elo, just not every match. If you peruse the comments section, you'll find people linking to videos or screenshots of pros using her at high elo. Anyway, X Y Z, dot the T, she's viable! She just isn't optimal in every situation which makes her like the vest majority of champions League of Legends.
However, to balance this reality out, it's not as easy for you to do catastrophic damage to an individual the way it is for


As you already understand,
















I have become a bit more flexible on this choice than I used to be. If you aren't carrying those CDR glyphs, you'll need to pick up your CDR somewhere. You might go with





For the sake of the numbers in this section, I'll be imagining you chose



Ok, so where does all that leave us? If you are going mid and building to carry hard, your build will often end up looking something like this:





Very likely:



So we have now either 4 or 5 items, depending on whether we are carrying

Final Item Choices













1. If an ally is carrying

2.


3. Your skills slightly outrange the aura of





4. Most obviously, void staff does not offer you any additional magic resist or provide an aura for your team mates.
In that context, if you opt for a magic penetration item and nobody has built


If your target is stacking magic resist items, someone else on your team already has


Blow Them Up
Ok. Let's blow them up. You know so much about zoning by now that I'm not going to give you the lead in to the situation. Your team is in, you have found your target, and you are in range. Go.
Start with






Watch your cooldowns and remember to have your fingers ready for

At 500 Ability power,





You can pull this sequence off very quickly with practice.
Crazy Fingers Version

The numbers will change slightly here because we're now at about 480 ability power. Again, we'll assume no bonus from inner flame and an enemy with 2600 hp.
Same as before, we initiate with







That's 3492 damage in under one second or 3972 damage in just over 2 seconds, depending on whether or not you use


I'm also not factoring in



Please leave feedback
Please send me private messages with feedback on carrying as Karma. This is one area of the guide we are looking to develope further.
A: First result.
Q: How did you do the formatting stuff for your guide?
A: Again, first result.
Q: Can I help in any way with your guide?
A: I'm only acting editor of this guide at this point. I am too busy with school to play consistently. The changes I'm recommending are based on the recommendations of current active Karma players. If you'd like to join the group of Karma players contributing to manage the guide, send me a private message. I'm looking to hand even the editing role off to another Karma player. If you are interested in managing the guide, please send me a private message. You don't need to be high elo. You just need to be a nice person with a reasonable understanding of how to play as Karma and a willingness to accept feedback (both positive and negative) from community members and act on it in constructive ways.
Q: Will you add me in game?
A: I used to add everyone in game. Again, school, blarg. I'm so sorry you missed me! There are lots of fantastic Karma players who lurk on the comments page and would be happy to play with you! I've played with lots of them. Make friends, team up, have fun!
Q: Why don't you make your guide shorter?
This guide has been dogged by the accusation of excessive unnecessary length since its inception. There are several responses I have to this. The irony of course is that the people who drop by, downvote, and comment "tldr" (too long; didn't read) will never read my response since they are, apparently, too lazy. For what it's worth, here's my response anyway.
1. You don't have to read all of it. There is an index in the section entitled "Read Me First" that lists which sections I think are important to read for which people. In under 3 minutes of reading, any reader should be able to identify what sections are most pertinent for them and which they may wish to skip or save for later.
2. Most of the things I have added to the guide since it was first published were added in response to requests in the comments section. This includes everything from charts comparing ability base stats to more in-depth item comparisons such as


3. People requested all of those things because they find them helpful. This guide was upvoted to the #1 spot on mobafire and remained there for a year and a half not in spite of its great detail but directly because of it. This guide is like a big pizza. You don't have to eat all of it, but it's there if you want to.
4. I don't just endlessly add stuff without ever re-evaluating what is already in here. In October of 2012, I shaved about a third of the length off of the guide and added far less than that.
5. If you think the guide is too long, please do not simply tell me it's too long. I can't do anything with that suggestion. What I can use is the constructive feedback that you found something was unnecessary or confusing. In other words, don't just tell me it is "too long;" tell me what you would cut and why. I welcome that sort of feedback and have acted on that sort of feedback many times.
I'm pasting this portion of that wiki here for reference:
The basic priorities of the system are (in respective order):
1. Protecting new players from experienced players.
2. Maintaining fairness and creating competitive matches.
3. Finding a match at all - the longer the wait, the lower the priority given to #1 and #2 becomes.
While there may be MANY new players and MANY old players, most players will be average with some being above average and some being below average. Statistically, you would never expect to see an even spread across all skill levels and indeed there is not an even spread across all skill levels. This means that Elo scores probably look something like a bell curve.

The real may be more lopsided as most new players will come in with a low Elo score but what is important to note for the sake of this discussion is that the higher your Elo score, the fewer people have the same Elo score as you. How does that translate into the way the game matches? Let's say you have an Elo score of 5 (These are not real elo scores, I'm just using them as an example). 5 is average, in the middle of the curve, and there are many players at this skill level. You understand at this point the game can easily match you with other 5s. Now let's say your Elo score is 8. While players with Elo scores of 8 are probably online more often than players with Elo scores of 3, there are still far FEWER players with Elo scores of 8 for the matching system to choose from.
Now, pay special attention to this: "3. Finding a match at all - the longer the wait, the lower the priority given to #1 and #2 becomes." It would take quite awhile for the game to match you with four other 8s against five 8s on the opposite team... so you're more likely to end up matched with 5s on your team against 6s and 7s. It lowers the wait time while maintaining what looks like (on paper) to be a fair balance.
So, as you follow the math and logic, you'll see that the higher your skill level, the LOWER the skill level of your team mates is likely to be. It's like a punishment for playing well, but mathematically determined and just as frustrating. This is why corralling team mates is so important. You will also notice that the Elo system does not adjust gently. It adjusts harshly and usually does it about once a week. You will notice it. On the 30th of March, the Elo numbers updated and M4g0t, nonsense king, and myself all had our Elo scores jump (because we were at 55% wins) and all independently embarked on 6 game losing streaks with team mates who were of much lower skill levels than ourselves.
For this reason, you'll notice your track record usually goes in streaks. 12 wins might be followed by 8 losses. If you're a carry, you'll be slightly more immune to the effects of sudden shifts. A level 8 support karma has trouble winning on a team with level 5 carries... for obvious reasons. There are many lessons to take from this, the most obvious of which being:
1. Don't feel bad about a 10 game losing streak.
2. Learning to instruct bad team mates is the key to getting wins in a situation where your Elo has over-adjusted upwards.
3. Play to carry in these situations. Recognize people on your team playing badly, splitting up, "YELLING AT EACH OTHER LIKE THIS," etc. etc. and do your best to focus on AP in these situations.
And finally... finally... one last plea...
DON'T BE A HUGE JERK WHEN YOU PLAY
If the fact that it is JUST a game and you are supposed to be having FUN is not enough of a reason, you now understand the system mathematically guarantees that unless you are in the top tier of players you ARE GOING TO LOSE ROUGHLY 50% OF THE TIME AND WIN 50% OF THE TIME. If you have a loss now, you will have a win later. If you have a win now, you will have a loss later. Enjoy playing the game with your friends and if you find yourself getting frustrated it's time for you to go do something else.
^_^ Not to be preachy! I hold myself accountable for losing my cool sometimes as well! I am VERY competetive and until I learned about the Elo ratings system, I would always get frustrated when my huge win streaks were followed by huge loss streaks... Now that I know I'm mathematically guaranteed about 50/50, I have a lot more fun.
The other day I set up all my runes and masteries and summoner skills for Warwick... and then clicked Karma and didn't realize it until in the game. We decided to not worry about the loss and just troll the other team... so Blackcraft built TANK RYZE for fun... he... then proceeded to carry... hard... and we still won somehow. It doesn't make any sense to me either. Point is, we all figured, "Eh, if we lose this because Egy (me) mis-clicked, it's fine, we'll just win the next one."
So... have fun! Do a full premade game where you all 5 agree to instantly lock in with random characters, build all AD supports with


Just always keep in mind: if you lose 8 in a row now, you'll win 8 in a row later. Please leave feedback, ask any questions you have, and HAPPY GAMING!!!!!!
Announced intent to relinquish management of guide.
10/8/12
Rewrote chapters 1-6 and cleared out the change log which had become so long it was skewing the length of the guide. Archived all the original information in every chapter offline. Anyone interested in the complete history of the guide for historical reasons or whatever should private message me.
10/10/12
Finished updating the build section.
Wiped out whole section: Charts & Figures & Base States
Added whole new section: FAQs for guide builders.
Edited "Gameplay" section, trimmed it down, removed all of the disclaimers on building to carry, erased separate "going mid" section and incorporated all of the info back into the rest of the guide. Simplified "turn" section by advocating map awareness and used fewer examples.
Cut "General Notes" by half.
10/11/12
Edited section 1, changed its name to make it more apparent that people who want to save time should go there first to pick the section they need
Updated the 501 section, trimmed a large portion of it, increased emphasis on Karma's appropriate role since there still seems to be much confusion over this.
Fixed the chapter coding to match the new system
Posted the long-awaited 502 section. Guide fully up-to-date.
10/12/12
Added to FAQs section
10/14/12
Re-wrote my appraisal of

10/31/12
Changed quick reference to reflect Morello's now that DFG has been nerfed. Took out abyssal and put in zhonya's to give a carrying karma a little more room to be daring.
11/1/12
Redid my theory crafting and decided to change my standard recommendation on runes to contain CDR glyphs. This way, dfg can remain a standard part of the build. I also added a note that ionian boots may be substituted and made several other changes to various sections to reflect the update. Emphasis on personal preference since several different theory combos made logical sense.
12/7/12
Posted update at the top about some of the major reworks coming down the tube for Karma. Holding out on update recommendations until I've had more opportunity to consult with Pigsy and the build team.
12/22/12
FON reference removed - Season 3
Leviathan reference removed - Season 3
Reference to Mejai's removed as well because it stuck out like a sore thumb and wasn't that helpful.
Current item stats and charts: unchanged for season 3, none were altered in the updates.
Requisitioned user feedback on:




Updated masteries - Season 3
Thanks to guide contributors Pigsy and Windkeeper007 for their contributions to these updates!
Announcement: It is with sadness that I make this announcement. My life has gotten so busy with real life stuff that I am not going to have time to play League of Legends or work on this guide much. It is for this reason that I am looking to turn over management of the guide to an as-yet-to-be-named Karma player/mobafire user. I want this guide to remain a useful resource for the gaming community, so I want to make sure that I pick a person who will really take the time to do it properly. If you would like to take on the responsibility, please send me a private message. In the meanwhile, I'm working with several strong Karma players to update the guide so it doesn't get stale. I have enjoyed interacting with all of you on here and in-game. You kept this guide at #1 on mobafire for one and a half years, you all added me in game and didn't insult me when I fed really hard, and you all left wonderful kind comments all the time. By that I am greatly honored :)
Bless you all!
-Egy
P.S. I've archived the classical version of the build and guide. They are available in text format for historical reference. I'll happily give them out if you private message me. I've fully updated the whole guide except for the 502 section at this point. I've kept the order of guide sections more or less intact, but their substance may have changed substantially if you haven't viewed the guide in awhile.
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