Karma is a highly versatile champion that can be played in almost every role and lane. Still, at the state of the current season, she works excellent as support. She has one of the most fantastic poke abilities in the game. Her Q has a low mana cost and severe damage, with the added bonus that she can already upgrade her skills at level 1 because of her Mantra ultimate. She is extremely annoying to play against when you are playing as an ADC.
She pokes you down all the time, and she also has an engage ability that gives her a shield and a movement speed boost. She can also lock you down with her W, which can be followed up by her ADC. So overall, Karma is aggressive support that has a strong poke potential but low peeling abilities. She is excellent at engaging and disengaging. So, you will definitely have to pick a champion that is also aggressive and avoid champions that need extra peeling.
Laning with Karma support is great, and you will control the tempo of your lane with her. Now let us take a look at the champions incredibly suited for her as a support.
1. Draven
Draven profits a lot from high movement speed. He is a champion who relies so much on positioning because of his Q passive, which falls off every time he hits enemies. His engages are pretty complicated because he has to think about his movement speed to reach his falling axes. He has a great source of an attack and movement speed, which comes from his blood rush. This ability is excellent, but it eats away at your mana. Does Karma’s E help you a lot here?
Both of them also have great pokes. Karma can poke with her empowered Q, and Draven can blood rush and throw a quick basic attack at the enemy and back away. Just make sure that every time Draven goes in, he has a shield from Karma’s E. Karma also lacks heals and only has her shield to protect Draven, so it is best for Draven to build life steal items.
Best Items for a Karma/Draven Duo
Moonstone Renewer
Karma lacks heals to protect Draven and only has her shield to deal with dive situations. It only makes sense to build a moonstone on Karma as she can proc Moonstone’s passive quite often because of her Q and W pokes. You can build an aggressive caster mage build on Karma if you gain the upper hand early game, or if not, you should build items that would help protect Draven.
Also read: Best ADCs to Pair With Janna
2. Caitlyn
Cait and Karma have a strong synergy of skills. They both have solid and long-range poking abilities to bring down their enemy’s health slowly. They also have a solid all-in combo, and it goes like this. Karma opens it up with an empowered Q. She can lock an enemy down with her W. As soon as the enemy gets rooted, Cait can cast her W on the enemy to snare them and use her E + Q combo to deal massive damage. Alas, she can finish the enemy with her ult, and Karma can follow up with another Q again as its cooldown is low.
It’s tough to land Cait’s self-peel abilities; that is why Karma’s E works perfectly on this duo. Cait can quickly get in and out of situations with the movement speed boost provided by Karma’s shield. The duo also works excellently, clearing waves during a late game as they have long-range abilities that deal with AOE damage.
Best Items for a Karma/Caitlyn Duo
Redemption
They both have to lock down abilities, which is why they can benefit so much from an item like redemption that helps them and damages the enemy. This item is excellent when going on all-ins, immediately cast it upon the start of the all-in exchange. Its value is portrayed when it heals you and damages the enemy in the process.
Everfrost
Karma has a significant AOE engagement ability, much like Shurelya’s, which means she no longer has to build engage items. Everfrost works great on Karma as she needs to extend her CC abilities. She always spends time close and personal to her enemies because of her W snare. This duo would also greatly profit from this as their CCs can be chained together to lock down one enemy for more than 5 seconds. I don’t know what else if that doesn’t tilt the enemy.
Also read: How to Play Against Vi
3. Jhin
A champion that relies primarily on movement speed to catch enemy champions with his heavy 4th should basically be partnered with a champion that provides a burst of movement speed. Jhin and Karma also have great pokes; when Karma hits her Q on the enemy, it is basically a free root from Jhin’s Was it Karma’s Q slow enemies.
Karma can follow this up too with her root ability which can be stacked with Jhin’s E. This is a great trading technique for this duo, and it’ll establish lane dominance for your lane.
During the late game, Karma can also keep using her shield on Jhin to run around using his 4th shots on enemy champions. This is great because of the movement speed and shield provided by Karma. A great late-game poke that also makes sure that Jhin is safe running around enemies.
Best Items for a Karma/Jhin Duo
Mikael’s Blessing
If the enemy team has lots of CC, this item would be a great buy to help Jhin. Getting locked down in one place and not being able to kite is Jhin’s greatest weakness, so cleansing from this item combined with Karma’s E is an excellent way for Jhin to escape the enemy’s grasp and run away. It is also a great way to waste an enemy’s skill entirely like Morgana, as she relies solely on hitting her Q to kill an enemy.
Also read: Best Farming ADCs in League of Legends
4. Ezreal
This comp would really be great for poking enemy champions at a very long range. The peel on this duo is also fantastic, making it easy to trade against the enemy bot lane. Both should poke and bully the enemies away from minion range during the early game to gain lane dominance. Should the enemy duo decide to trade with you, both champions could use both of their E ability to escape or gain space to continue poking.
They also have great all-in potential post level 6. Ezreal can just constantly poke the enemies along with Karma’s Q. Both champions can initiate fights with Karma’s root and bombard the enemy with their skillshots and with Ezreal’s ult as the coup de grace.
Best Items for a Karma/Ezreal Duo
Staff of Flowing Water
With Karma’s low cooldown reduction on her shield ability, she can constantly use it on Ezreal. This is great as this item provides offensive stats along with 20 ability haste. The lower Ezreal’s cooldowns are, the more he can poke enemies and influence the entire map with his ultimate. This would also add damage to Karma’s already impressive Q damage. It gives a 50 AP boost to the champion that has this item.
5. Jinx
Another champion who is literally crazy with a gun and actually goes crazy in-game when given enough movement speed. Jinx is an underrated champion, but she farms all throughout the early game every time someone plays her and demolishes the enemy team during the late game. Karma can give her all the babysitting in the laning phase and enough poke to score a few takedowns for Jinx so she can snowball.
Jinx can open up fights with her Zap ability, and Karma can follow it up with another slow from her Q and a root from her E; she can initially speed Jinx up with her shield so Jinx can keep a close distance to the enemy while she hits that champion. If ever the enemy escapes, Jinx can finish that champion up with her ultimate.
Best Items for a Karma/Jinx Duo
Shurelya’s Battlesong
Giving Jinx constant movement speed boosts is excellent. She can easily dodge skillshots and chase and kite enemies with it. This is also great to have for Jinx’s disengages; otherwise, you will most likely use it for initiations and engages. Jinx only needs an initial speed boost. When she scores one takedown, she power spikes so hard that she starts mowing down the entire enemy team because of her passive ability.
Playing Karma is fun because even though you are a support, you can secure takedowns, and her value doesn’t fall off even in the late game. She can AOE shield her allies which is always great for teamfight initiations and teamfight peels. Her strong poke is really useful even though it’s late-game making her a strong ally for any ADC that can capitalize on her skills. I hope you find Karma interesting after reading this article, now go out there and play more games with her. GLHF on your next game summoner, see you on the rift.
