These adjustments for Karma are still tentative and are not officially announced to go live next week with League Patch 11.16.
The League Patch 11.16 preview from last week highlighted a list of champs receiving buffs and nerfs. Riot, on the other hand, may have overlooked one.
Surrender at mod 20 Spideraxe revealed earlier that substantial Karma changes are being evaluated on League’s PBE, saying that the nerfs are intended at “reducing some of her pro skews.”
Karma’s Gathering Fire passive would no longer reduce her Mantra (R) cooldown with auto attacks if the changes went live. While casting a spell on an enemy champ would still decrease Mantra’s cooldown, it would now be by a flat five seconds rather than 2/3.5/5 in League Patch 11.16.
Karma’s Q’s mana cost would be decreased from 55 to 45, its cooldown would be reduced from nine to five seconds to eight to six seconds, and its base damage would be reduced at early levels. The empowered Q, on the other hand, would inflict more additional base damage, going from 25 to 220 to 40 to 220. The movement speed buff on Karma’s E has been decreased to a flat 40%, rather from 40 to 60%, however, its shield will increase at higher levels. Furthermore, the empowered E will now only provide 30% movement speed to the primary target and 12% movement speed to adjacent allies.
These changes appear to make Karma more accessible to all players while reducing her potency in the hands of top-tier players. Her early game and team cooperation will suffer, while players who land big nukes will be rewarded.
Because Karma was not included in last week’s patch preview, it’s conceivable that her improvements may be postponed until a later release. With the changes included in the current PBE cycle, it wouldn’t be unexpected if they were included in League Patch 11.16. Riot staff is on vacation for a week, thus the Patch 11.16 release date has been pushed out until August 11.