Looking for a heavy magic damage glass cannon to complement a heavy AD team? Players picking up Karthus as a strong alternative to Ziggs for his massive damage and excellent sustained damage. Although his pick rate is still under 1%, that's still plenty enough to warrant a closer look.
Weird Pick #152
Bot Lane Karthus
November 2022
Looking for a heavy magic damage glass cannon to complement a heavy AD team? Players picking up Karthus as a strong alternative to Ziggs for his massive damage and excellent sustained damage. Although his pick rate is still under 1%, that's still plenty enough to warrant a closer look.
Check out how to play him below!
How to Play Karthus Bot
- Abilities
- Q, E, Q, W then prioritize R > Q > E > W
- Summoner Spells
Flash 
Exhaust - Starting Items
- Doran's Ring + Health Potions
- Strategy
- Farm up safely to build up a solid mana pool then scale into late game
- Core Items
Liandry's Torment 
Sorcerer's Shoes 
Shadowflame 
Rabadon's Deathcap 
Zhonya's Hourglass 
Void Staff
Best Supports For Karthus Bot
- Nami - Nami's E works on Karthus' ultimate, providing a steroid and global slow.
- Senna - Good sustain and compliments Karthus with late-game scaling AD damage.
- Pyke - Always an excellent clean-up option to Karthus' massive AOE damage and also provides AD damage as a mix-up
- Ashe - Good sustained crowd-control and initiation abilities, also provides excellent kiting support
Karthus Bot Runes Setup
Primary: Dark Harvest, Taste of Blood, Grisly Mementos, Ultimate Hunter
Secondary: Presence of Mind, Last Stand
How It Works
Extremely High Sustained Damage
Although Karthus' early game can be mana intensive, as long as he has enough mana for his Q he can be extremely potent as a sustained damage dealer. He's also much less skillshot reliant than Ziggs, giving him additional room for error.
Excellent Combined with Reset Champions
The insane AOE damage Karthus provides works well with champions like Pyke as he brings the entire enemy team down low at the same time, even if he gets sniped out during team fights. This enables reset champions to make quick work of the remaining champions.
Potential Pitfalls
No Sustain
While marksmen can sustain a bit using Doran's Blade, Karthus has no innate sustain and Doran Ring's healing will almost never come into play given Karthus' spammy playstyle. This means that without a sustain support like Nami or Senna, laning phase can be brutal against poke champions.
Low Survivability
Although Karthus has his wall to slow enemies to some extent, he's lacking in the utility department. Against many junglers he'll find it difficult to avoid getting caught out unless there's good ward coverage.
Countering Karthus Bot
Picking up strong all-in champions that can avoid getting kited and have your jungler camp his lane.
Karthus Bot Conclusions
This pick is much more viable than it has been in years past. Additionally, supports that work well with Karthus are very much in the meta right now, especially Nami who makes his ultimate a potential initiation spell.
Suggested Tier: Tier 2
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