Karnak’s time to reign has come

ChaosMax1012

His buff is finally out on paper, and it looks really solid. It’s more damage heavy than utility butt that’s completely fine as long as they come through with some fun animations to mess around with.

Pros
•increased true strike
•focus charges (increased crit rate, crit on block, instant bleeds)
• fragility on heavy
• fury on sp2
• replaced faze with disorient on sp3
• poison resistance in base kit
• power gain on sig by hitting into block (great for building up to an sp2)

Cons:
•Lost ability to decrease class disadvantage over time
• disorient is 10 seconds shorter than faze
• trash synergies (not needed for him to be good but damn was looking forward to this)
• sp2 damage based on opponents health (i know these furies are probably better, but i found it fun to see my sp2 damage go up the weaker the opponent was health wise)
• not killing the opponent in 1 hit. Like seriously kabam?

With this kit i think cleanse could be added as it is relatively new and having an unblockable sp2 as he knows where to hit the opponent, so them blocking wouldn’t matter, and have that type of playstyle similar to masacre but being unaffected by true sense. All in all however, karnak has gained some pretty solid stuff, more pros than cons and his furies can stay up significantly and stack pretty high by knocking the opponent down (further reason unblockable specials would fit into his playstyle so well). A 3-5 hit combo on the opponents block should break through the block too, just something unique other than true focus. But when his buff drops, we will see what he has got.
But anyways….

Godnak FTW!

Riptide

You’ve been waiting for this for a while haven’t you?

Longer than whoever that @The_Sentry06 guy has been waiting to buff some random champion

ChaosMax1012

Riptide said:

You’ve been waiting for this for a while haven’t you?

Longer than whoever that @The_Sentry06 guy has been waiting to buff some random champion

A little disappointed but more excited with the outcome.

KingInBlack

Am I the only one feeling this is much more a moderate buff than an overhaul? Clearly makes him a better champ than current form but not quite what I was expecting. Hopefully makes him better than it reads to me since I have a duped 6* ready for some action.

Hera1d_of_Ga1actus

KingInBlack said:

Am I the only one feeling this is much more a moderate buff than an overhaul? Clearly makes him a better champ than current form but not quite what I was expecting. Hopefully makes him better than it reads to me since I have a duped 6* ready for some action.

this feels like it should not be titled an overhaul, basically everything is the same except he can now crit on block and he does a little insta bleed damage. SP1 was tweaked to last longer, SP2 adds fury, SP3 does basically same thing. I'm disappointed to be completely honest. (just going off of paper abilities and obviously no gameplay, hope I'm proven wrong)

TheBair123

one thing that will be interesting to see that i haven't seen anyone talk about is if they'll make it so that he only needs skill catalysts not skill and cosmic

ChaosMax1012

TheBair123 said:

one thing that will be interesting to see that i haven't seen anyone talk about is if they'll make it so that he only needs skill catalysts not skill and cosmic

Definitely staying the same. Kinda find it wasier to rank him up this way

ChaosMax1012

Oh come on. That’s lame. If you want to disagree spam me atleast get me to 20 disagrees minimum. I thought y’all were better than this smh.

thanks4playing

It'll all come down to whether or not his dmg is strong enough. But I do share your cautious optimism and I look forward to hearing your thoughts once the buff is live! Here's to his sp1's stomp of redemption!

odishika123

With Karnak buffed
Nothing will stop Groot from taking over the battle realm

SkyLord7000

His animations weren’t changed

Shadowstrike

ChaosMax1012 said:

His buff is finally out on paper, and it looks really solid. It’s more damage heavy than utility butt that’s completely fine as long as they come through with some fun animations to mess around with.

Pros
•increased true strike
•focus charges (increased crit rate, crit on block, instant bleeds)
• fragility on heavy
• fury on sp2
• replaced faze with disorient on sp3
• poison resistance in base kit
• power gain on sig by hitting into block (great for building up to an sp2)

Cons:
•Lost ability to decrease class disadvantage over time
• disorient is 10 seconds shorter than faze
• trash synergies (not needed for him to be good but damn was looking forward to this)
• sp2 damage based on opponents health (i know these furies are probably better, but i found it fun to see my sp2 damage go up the weaker the opponent was health wise)
• not killing the opponent in 1 hit. Like seriously kabam?

With this kit i think cleanse could be added as it is relatively new and having an unblockable sp2 as he knows where to hit the opponent, so them blocking wouldn’t matter, and have that type of playstyle similar to masacre but being unaffected by true sense. All in all however, karnak has gained some pretty solid stuff, more pros than cons and his furies can stay up significantly and stack pretty high by knocking the opponent down (further reason unblockable specials would fit into his playstyle so well). A 3-5 hit combo on the opponents block should break through the block too, just something unique other than true focus. But when his buff drops, we will see what he has got.
But anyways….

Godnak FTW!

To be honest I'm perfectly okay with the fact that there are no synergies that are absolutely linchpin necessary in order for Karnak to shine. As much as I like that occasional Synergy that really takes a champion up a notch, I don't want every Champion to be completely reliant on having to bring somebody else who is not going to help me at all just for a synergy.

At least now I know if I wanted to run the Inhuman royal family, Karnak is not going to feel like that extra piece I'm just taking for synergies.

mbrace

KingInBlack said:

Am I the only one feeling this is much more a moderate buff than an overhaul? Clearly makes him a better champ than current form but not quite what I was expecting. Hopefully makes him better than it reads to me since I have a duped 6* ready for some action.

Yes, the OP is overestimating the damage increase. You can’t do all that stuff at once. SP2 is the best bet, but that’s only resulting in a moderate increase.

Shadowstrike

KingInBlack said:

Am I the only one feeling this is much more a moderate buff than an overhaul? Clearly makes him a better champ than current form but not quite what I was expecting. Hopefully makes him better than it reads to me since I have a duped 6* ready for some action.

Well what were you expecting? Because I can't imagine a scenario where he becomes a one-hit killer so again, what in your mind was the true goal for this.

Hera1d_of_Ga1actus

Shadowstrike said:

KingInBlack said:

Am I the only one feeling this is much more a moderate buff than an overhaul? Clearly makes him a better champ than current form but not quite what I was expecting. Hopefully makes him better than it reads to me since I have a duped 6* ready for some action.

Well what were you expecting? Because I can't imagine a scenario where he becomes a one-hit killer so again, what in your mind was the true goal for this.

I'm guessing he, like most other people, maybe expected a larger balance between his skill and cosmic side? A singular passive fury from SP2 is miniscule and his poison resistance to base abilities is nice but nowhere near enough to justify a full overhaul

Shadowstrike

Hera1d_of_Ga1actus said:

Shadowstrike said:

KingInBlack said:

Am I the only one feeling this is much more a moderate buff than an overhaul? Clearly makes him a better champ than current form but not quite what I was expecting. Hopefully makes him better than it reads to me since I have a duped 6* ready for some action.

Well what were you expecting? Because I can't imagine a scenario where he becomes a one-hit killer so again, what in your mind was the true goal for this.

I'm guessing he, like most other people, maybe expected a larger balance between his skill and cosmic side? A singular passive fury from SP2 is miniscule and his poison resistance to base abilities is nice but nowhere near enough to justify a full overhaul

I get that but we've had overhauls in the past where they didn't reinvent the wheel and it was still a big difference and who said that this officially counted as an overhaul? We're calling it an overhaul but nobody from the dev team officially referred to it as that so we might be seeing an update and a tune-up.

Hera1d_of_Ga1actus

Shadowstrike said:

Hera1d_of_Ga1actus said:

Shadowstrike said:

KingInBlack said:

Am I the only one feeling this is much more a moderate buff than an overhaul? Clearly makes him a better champ than current form but not quite what I was expecting. Hopefully makes him better than it reads to me since I have a duped 6* ready for some action.

Well what were you expecting? Because I can't imagine a scenario where he becomes a one-hit killer so again, what in your mind was the true goal for this.

I'm guessing he, like most other people, maybe expected a larger balance between his skill and cosmic side? A singular passive fury from SP2 is miniscule and his poison resistance to base abilities is nice but nowhere near enough to justify a full overhaul

I get that but we've had overhauls in the past where they didn't reinvent the wheel and it was still a big difference and who said that this officially counted as an overhaul? We're calling it an overhaul but nobody from the dev team officially referred to it as that so we might be seeing an update and a tune-up.

it's literally called an overhaul? is that not enough? like if they go through the effort to differentiate it into 3 different categories then why would the just randomly be calling stuff what it is not meant to be titled. (I'm also going off of what every CCP member is calling it and they get info directly from Kabam soooo)

TrashyPanda

Almost feels like Nebula got the Overhaul.

ChaosMax1012

Taking away some of karnaks utility takes away some of his uniqueness, which is unfortunate because he was the only champ who worked with an sp2 like that and gradually reduces class disadvantage. Definitely not complaining about the fury but could have been implemented better. But again we gotta wait and see. Definitely gonna head to act 6/7 with this boy though and see what he got.

Hammerbro_64

ChaosMax1012 said:

Cons:
•Lost ability to decrease class disadvantage over time
• disorient is 10 seconds shorter than faze
• trash synergies (not needed for him to be good but damn was looking forward to this)
• sp2 damage based on opponents health (i know these furies are probably better, but i found it fun to see my sp2 damage go up the weaker the opponent was health wise)
• not killing the opponent in 1 hit. Like seriously kabam?

Reasons why your cons are not cons
•This was attack bonus only, which doesn’t have that much impact on anything
• you can pause the disorient
• this isn’t a con as much as it is just you wanting more.
• no.
• obviously I can tell this is a joke.

ChaosMax1012

Hammerbro_64 said:

ChaosMax1012 said:

Cons:
•Lost ability to decrease class disadvantage over time
• disorient is 10 seconds shorter than faze
• trash synergies (not needed for him to be good but damn was looking forward to this)
• sp2 damage based on opponents health (i know these furies are probably better, but i found it fun to see my sp2 damage go up the weaker the opponent was health wise)
• not killing the opponent in 1 hit. Like seriously kabam?

Reasons why your cons are not cons
•This was attack bonus only, which doesn’t have that much impact on anything
• you can pause the disorient
• this isn’t a con as much as it is just you wanting more.
• no.
• obviously I can tell this is a joke.

That’s fair i guess. Didn’t realize you could pause the disorient, probably overlooked that. Sp2 dealing more damage as the opponents health got lower was one of the reasons i ranked him up, and it’s being taken away. Really enjoyed the damage being increased overtime, shouldn’t have been removed. Synergies are the seasoning to make a champ gain some pretty cool abilities to make their playstyle easier or a damage/utility utility boost. Just nice to have and sucks there isn’t any synergy teams you can build around karnak besides the one with medusa. However I’m definitely glad he isn’t reliant on synergies or sig. Also who told you i was joking on the last one…

Hammerbro_64

Oh wait that’s my bad I thought the disorient was paused but it’s the furies. Nevermind on that one

Stellar

If the overhaul include SP movements he might become a very good Skill champion otherwise he will still be easily punished after its SP1

CoatHang3r

I don’t understand ignoring that the s2 attack increase is now independent of now much hp they have and now has a duration outside of the special 2 which makes it significantly more powerful than what it was, it’s an addition not a subtraction.

How much crit rating did they take away from him though?

ChaosMax1012

CoatHang3r said:

I don’t understand ignoring that the s2 attack increase is now independent of now much hp they have and now has a duration outside of the special 2 which makes it significantly more powerful than what it was, it’s an addition not a subtraction.

How much crit rating did they take away from him though?

Thus why I’m not complaining about the fury, it’s easily better as it can be stacked and deals much more damage. I’m just saying this takes away from karnak something that was unique to him and him only, now he has a fury instead. An improvement but making him more basic. Personally a down with a higher up as I’ve had karnak at r5 for a couple months now and liked the way his sp2 was already. It’s not too important but i love those little details in karnak. Hate to see them go..

KingInBlack

CoatHang3r said:

I don’t understand ignoring that the s2 attack increase is now independent of now much hp they have and now has a duration outside of the special 2 which makes it significantly more powerful than what it was, it’s an addition not a subtraction.

How much crit rating did they take away from him though?

My r1 6* currently gets 4356.25 crit rate when focused, so a pretty big drop.

Hera1d_of_Ga1actus

ragnarok_947 said:

Calling this an ‘overhaul’ is laughable. They just made some little tweaks here and there and called it a day. Who is this buff even for? If it’s for progressing players then the spotlight insists on running liquid courage to make him more viable. Pretty sure progressing players running suicides/wp are in minority. Endgame players aren’t using him cause they already have much much better options. Let’s just see how much difference suicides makes for his gameplay but for now it looks like another lazy attempt in creating another DDHK level buff.

why the hell can we not have multiple accounts to agree with posts like this

Inferior_Ironman

KingInBlack said:

CoatHang3r said:

I don’t understand ignoring that the s2 attack increase is now independent of now much hp they have and now has a duration outside of the special 2 which makes it significantly more powerful than what it was, it’s an addition not a subtraction.

How much crit rating did they take away from him though?

My r1 6* currently gets 4356.25 crit rate when focused, so a pretty big drop.

Numerically, it is a drop, but in practice, I think it will end up being more damage. More specifically, there are a lot more champions with unblockable attacks (I think there were none when he came out actually). He is currently severely punished when he fails to block any attack. With the new kit, his refresh timer of the focus charges is paused, but the charges are only lost if he is hit by a special or spends them via heavy attack. So in the current meta, the uptime on the crit rating should be very high and his playstyle more forgiving. Also, if he is awakened, he starts with 1 charge active instead of waiting for the timer for every fight before he gets to the good damage.

jdrum663

I've been waiting for his buff for years. I got him right after he came out, he was my first Skill 4* and we were promised a buff way back then. I just hope it's actually a buff.

KingInBlack

Inferior_Ironman said:

KingInBlack said:

CoatHang3r said:

I don’t understand ignoring that the s2 attack increase is now independent of now much hp they have and now has a duration outside of the special 2 which makes it significantly more powerful than what it was, it’s an addition not a subtraction.

How much crit rating did they take away from him though?

My r1 6* currently gets 4356.25 crit rate when focused, so a pretty big drop.

Numerically, it is a drop, but in practice, I think it will end up being more damage. More specifically, there are a lot more champions with unblockable attacks (I think there were none when he came out actually). He is currently severely punished when he fails to block any attack. With the new kit, his refresh timer of the focus charges is paused, but the charges are only lost if he is hit by a special or spends them via heavy attack. So in the current meta, the uptime on the crit rating should be very high and his playstyle more forgiving. Also, if he is awakened, he starts with 1 charge active instead of waiting for the timer for every fight before he gets to the good damage.

Oh I was just responding to the crit rate difference, not the whole package. He's definitely getting a solid increase in total as a champ, but not an overhaul by any means. If this were listed as a moderate I would be more inclined to see it as a solid success, but when you call it an overhaul you set expectations for revamped abilities and this doesn't really have that. Not complaining because a) I have yet to see it in practice and b) it seems to give some niche utility that at least gives him some value to players with good rosters already. We'll just have to wait and see how exactly he shakes out.