Riot Games is planning to give Karthus some big changes in the upcoming patch 10.14 where they are nerfing his damage against monsters and buffing his Q and E.
A few days ago, Riot Scruffy revealed their goals for Karthus where he said that they are planning to make Karthus a viable champion in the mid lane. And today, Riot Phlox reveals detailed Karthus changes that are going to hit the PBE soon. And it seems like they are not pushing his new W change that was mistakenly shipped into the PBE a couple of days ago.
New Karthus Changes for Patch 10.14
Base Stats:
- MS increased to 335 from 325.
- Health increased to 550 from 528.
Lay Waste (Q):
- Damage: 45/65/85/105/125(30%) >>> 50/70/90/110/130 (35%)
- Damage to monsters: 100% >>> 80%
Defile (E):
- Mana Restore: Only when spell is toggled off >>> always
- Tick Rate: 1/second >>> 4/second
- Damage and Cost per Second are unchanged.
- Read More: Aphelios has now been buffed, nerfed, or hot fixed Ten times in just Fourteen patches
Karthus was one of the most impactful junglers a few patches ago because of his fast jungle clear. As players started to abuse him in ranked and pro plays, Riot decided to give him some noticeable nerf in season 9. And later on, patch 10.9, where they lowered his movement speed by 10 so that he can not clear his jungle camps as fast as before.
With all these changes, Karthus’s popularity dropped significantly. On the current patch 10.13, he now only has a 49.13% win rate in the jungle with just a 2.4% pick rate. His mid lane presence is even worst with just a 0.2% pick rate and a 48% win rate.
As his mid lane is pretty much non-existence, Riot is planning to push Karthus into the mid lane by nerfing his Q damage to monster by 20%. They are also buffing his base HP so that he can lane better and his new Q and E buff will work like a charm as well.
The 20% reduced damage to monsters might seem a lot and eventually, it will hurt his early jungle clear. But due to more damage in his Q and always mana restoring on his E, his jungle presence will still remain as strong as before.
But apparently it seems like they will not push the W change that was shipped into the PBE accidentally a couple of days ago. His new W change was massive as it’s slow was increased to 5s, enemies within the wall would have been grounded, and enemies dash would have been interrupted as well. But after getting a lot of attention from the League players, they have reverted the changes.
“Current Karthus list you’ll see on PBE whenever it next deploys. Currently making sure it’s the right size of buffs and nerfs and hitting what we want to hit (probably will change),” Riot Phlox said. “W changes will continue to be tested internally but no guarantees!”
All the changes will hit the PBE soon and if it works out they will ship it into the live servers on patch 10.14.
