A player on a Western European server made his first climb to Challenger using AD carry Karthus.
Conquering the Challenger rank is always a proud achievement for League of Legends players. And recently a Karthus player who has the in-game “twitchtvELOSANTA” on the Western European server had successfully conquered the Challenger rank using this champion as an ADC.
This player shared that Karthus has a huge damage advantage comparing to other pure ADCs. Normally, the main source of damage of ADCs comes from basic attacks. Therefore, champions with a good basic attack range, or more accurately, longer damage range always has an advantage when exchanging in the lane.
With Karthus, the main source of his damage comes from Q which has a range of up to 875, which alone is far better than the basic attack range of most ADCs. Furthermore, poking with Q does not cause the enemy minions to attack Karthus. This makes him lose less health compared to enemy champions in skills exchanging.
This doesn’t mean you will always win your lane when playing ADC Karthus though. If you’re dealing with early-aggressive bot lane duos, like Draven – Leona, you need to play as carefully and farm as safe as possible. Playing against such matchups, you should buy upgraded Boots and Seeker Armguard to ensure better survivability.
A special thing about the way the summoner spells of Karthus ADC is that this champion uses Exhaust instead of Heal or Cleanse. Basically, Karthus is not a champion who is too afraid of being killed in combat, so Heal, Cleanse are not suitable for this champion. Meanwhile, Exhaust is an extremely powerful tool to counter the main carry of the enemy team, sometimes it is also the key to change the outcome of a game.
As for Rune, Dark Harvest is still the best pick for him. On the secondary page, Presence of Mind and Last Stands are the best choice for Karthus. Last Stand will significantly increase his damage when he turns to his passive form.
As for equipment build, Liandry’s Torment is best suited because its Mythical passive gives lots of ability haste. The second item you should aim for should be Zhonya’s Hourglass to protect yourself as well as counter the assassins. Items like Morellomicon, Void Staff, and the Rabadon’s Deathcap are the best options for Karthus at the end of the game.
The last piece of advice that “twitchtvELOSANTA” gives gamers who want to try this build is to boldly deal damage. You will deal very little damage while standing at a long-distance against the enemy lineup and thus, can’t take fully advantage of the champion’s passive.