Karthus [in - Depth guide]

Hey guys, this is Ravager and welcome to a new guide this time featuring Karthus,The Deadsinger ! In this video i will give you a small introduction about him aand we will look into his abilities,pros and cons,general strategies,runes masteries ,items and counterpicks.Click on this little menu right here to go to the part that you want or watch the entire video ! Go on , click on it INTRODUCTION Karthus is an ability power caster type champion with a very unique play style and skill set. He is fairly easy and extremely fun to play, farms superbly well, and has terrific global presence that can put him ahead of his opponent mid laner, as well as put his teammates ahead, without doing anything except clicking R.Unlike other champions, Karthus can still deal damage and cast spells after he dies for a short period of time.Karthus is one of the strongest champions late game,due to his extreme AoE and sustained damage and one of the weakest champions early game .Also Karthus is a very farm-heavy champion and will not suit players who like to battle mindlessly. abilities pasiva - death defied -This allows you to continue the battle and pick-up kills even if you are dead. This ability synergizes with Karthus' spells very well. His passive is best used together with Requiem (R) so that you cannot be interrupted while channeling. Defile automatically turns on when Karthus dies in order to maximize damage output. q - lay waste- This is your main harassing, farming, and damaging tool, all on a super low cooldown. Deals double damage to single targets, which makes it a great ability to help you kill enemy squishies.But It can be very hard to land against erratic players, especially champions with high movement speed.Lay Waste (Q) is best used at max range when harassing and its an excellent tool to farm minions Take this ability at level 1 and max it first. w - wall of pain - The trick to using Wall of Pain (W) when trying to kill someone is to cast it on top of them so that they are immediately slowed.Wall of Pain (W) can also be used to slow enemies and cut them off from pursuing a chase or it can allow you to chase them.When going in teamfights drop this wall on as many targets as possible. Take this ability at level 3 or 4 and max it last e - defile - Defile (E) is essentially Karthus' main source of damage, especially in team fights.Combined with Lay Waste this ability makes Karthus an extremely good AoE damage dealer. In team fights, you always want to have Defile (E) toggled on especially when you are Death Defied. Do not use this ability in lane unless you need to clear a creep wave or are engaging in a fight because Defile heavily drains mana and will force you to go back to base. Take this ability at level 2 and max it second r - requiem - This ult lets you finish off kills, assist other lanes without leaving your own and deal massive damage to the enemy in teamfights.Requiem (R) is one of the best ultimates in the game. During team fights, only use this ability when you are Death Defied, otherwise you will run the risk of getting interrupted and lose your cooldown. Any type of crowd control will stop Karthus from channeling Requiem (R) other than roots and slows. Take this ability at level 6/11/16 Skill combo: First,try and harass your enemy as much as you can with your Q.When you are going in for the kill throw your Wall at your enemy,activate your Defile and keep spamming Q on your enemy.If your enemy gets away with low hp use your ultimate and kill that little coward but make sure you know the damage your ult does at all times. If you are in a fight with multiple enemies, turn on Defile and throw your Wall of Pain at them, then constantly DPS the enemy carry with Lay Waste, and Exhaust them if needed.Then, when they are low enough, and you can net one or more kills with your ult, stay clear from sources of death or hard CC if you aren't dead already, and pop your Requiem. Pros & cons pros - he has good harassment strong wave clear a great global ultimate an extremely good passive great single target and aoe damage his wall is a powerful counter initiation cons - he is squishy he has no escapes he is farm reliant he is mana hungry he has a small range on his abilities and his ultimate can be interrupted easily general strategies Karthus is a very team reliant champion. He needs a good team that can follow up when he makes a move. Mainly, Karthus should just focus on farming until he sees an opportunity that he can take advantage of. Karthus is an extremely farm dependent champion. When farmed, Karthus has the potential to be a devastating champion late game so as Karthus, you should focus on farming the majority of the game until he becomes an unstoppable force. When Karthus dies, he can continue to carry out tons of damage through his passive.It can be very hard to deal with a fed Karthus because once he is Death Defied, there is nothing that the enemy team can do except run away from that area. The laning phase is very important and will either make or break Karthus. Doing poorly in the laning phase will make it very hard for Karthus to come back into the game. Thus, it is usually best to play passive and farm. Karthus is very susceptible to ganks, especially if he does not have Wall of Pain (W) up to slow his enemies. Therefore, mid lane is the best lane for Karthus. It is the safest lane where he can farm the most and get zoned out the least. His passive allows him to cast spells while dead. Abuse this every time you die and punish any who remain near your corpse, casting Wall of Pain and continuosly casting Lay Waste. This may actually get you a kill. Karthus is a great harasser. Use your Lay Waste to zone your enemies. When focusing on harassment, try placing Lay Waste where it will hit the champion, but not the minions. This way, it will deal double damage.You can also use Lay waste to scout brushes since it reveals a small area around where it is cast. Since the skill has a low base cost, this can be used to scout brushes frequently. Wall of Pain can be a viable tool to saving an ally champion's life due to its movement speed reduction. Use it to give your allies a chance to get away if they are running from a pursuing champion. Ask your allies to help point out when you should use Requiem to get kills in different lanes, or alternatively, alert your teammates when you are about to use it. However, be sure to keep your eye out for action elsewhere on the map; you may be able to help someone when they otherwise wouldn't have time to type for help. Before using Requiem to kill a retreating enemy, consider the shield/heal/defensive abilities and items of the enemy team; at endgame, it is usually more important to have an ultimate up than to force enemies to heal. Casting Requiem while actually alive is generally a bad idea, unless you are well away from any enemy champions or they are on the retreat from your team. You will become the focus of enemy champions during the lengthy channel, and if you die or are disabled during it, the ability is cancelled and goes on cooldown. If you die before using Requiem, however, you can still use it during Death Defied and your opponents will be unable to stop you in any way. runes and masteries runes - for runes take flat ability power quintessences,magic penetration marks,armor seals and magic resist glyphs.This rune page will increase your survivability on lane Masteries - for masteries,standard mage masteries.Going for that 21 in offense certainly increases your damage output in lane, and throughout the game. Especially increases the damage output on your ult. While also going for the 9 in utility for a longer blue buff for spamming more spells in lane and its CD Reduction, and a bit of mana and regain. Summoner spells - take flash and exhaust or flash ignite.The main reason why I recommend flash and exhaust is because karthus really needs flash to save himself from ganks in lane or to initiate into a group of enemies with defile.Exhaust is a great secondary spell on him because he can easily win 1v1 fights with exhaust and spamming all of his spells.But remember,even if he does a lot of damage he takes a lot of damage as well so exhausting someone will help you a lot when fighting someone with high damage . Items For items take a crystalline flask,pots and a ward or faerie charm pots and a ward.After that upgrade your faerie charm to tear of the goddes to help with karthus's mana problems and buy rod of ages.After that upgrade your tear when you have the stacks into archangel staff,buy rabadons deathcap,zhonyas and void staff. Counterpicks Karthus does not counter any champion in lane. It is a tradeoff that he takes for being such a strong late game champion.Strong laners with good harassment such as Cassiopeia and Urgot can give Karthus a very hard time. Other champions with nukes and silences such has Annie, talon, and Kassadin also make Karthus' life hard. It's usually best not to pick Karthus if you expect a really hard time in lane to the extent where you won't be able to farm at all. Karthus is best picked against other passive laning champions and pushers like himself. Heals and shields can also be very irritating for Karthus. Soraka is a direct counter to Karthus because of her global heal.Thus, common counters to Karthus are assassin type champions and nukers. I hope you enjoyed the video and that you will find this video useful in taking your Karthus gameplay to the next level.Feel free to hit the like button,drop me a comment,add this to your favorites and if u can share it on facebook and twitter to help my small channel grow even bigger! Keep on ravaging your enemies! Ravager out