Karma? Why does it exist?

Classes Monk
1

Ok so, for as long as I’ve played the Windwalker Spec, which was since the beginning of wod, Karma has always been a decent defensive cd, like it was a sticky situation getter outter type button, at least in pvp, I wasn’t here for the beginning of BFA to experience that karma but from what I read it was dumb and they fixed it.

Now the reason Behind this post is to bring to light how awful Karma is now a days, If im in a 3s match vs…well anything really, I’ll use karma right, and then somehow still die through it. Mainly with those fat button classes, like locks, Bdruids, fire mages, etc. I can trink a poly and karma a greater pyro, but low and behold it breaks almost instanlty. Why was it reduced to 50%. It doesnt even redirect dmg anymore lol. 100% with no redirect would be even better than this at least we’d have like a bubble type thing.

Not really a huge issue, but it would be nice to have some peels or defensive’s back like we used to ya know. Take away all healing almost and our stuns, granted we have insane burst with maledict and among other things the glass cannon that is monk is not near as fun as it once was even before legion, and highly unenjoyable for most players whoa rent new to it.

<3

2

Yeah karma is pretty trash now, the amount of classes that can purge or dispel it pretty much makes it useless in high rated content. You have to use it a lot earlier than you logically would want to use an immunity defensive because of how easily it is removed, which essentially defeats the very purpose of it in the first place.

I definitely feel your frustration, but rogues and mages will continue to claim WW has superior defensives and can never die, and the community will not rest until WW monk is nerfed back into irrelevance like it was in 8.0. So unfortunately I wouldn’t expect any further positive changes to the class until next xpac (if there even is one).

3

I’d argue the absorb was nerfed due to the damage it could reflect. Even after the nerfs to it, it still can reflect damage. So we likely won’t ever see them turn it into a much better defensive till they remove the damage component completely.

4

Karma has been baseline 50% since WoD and only Immunity or Physical Immunity are capable of dispelling the effect.

Greater Pyro isn’t as much of an issue as the Shimmer setups for Gpyro and % health abilities are always going to negate each other to an extent. Cold Blooded in Legion was just as bad and Necrotic Strike vs. Good Karma is no different.

I get the part that its frustrating given the current pace of the game and the typical scenarios where your going to use a defensive but I don’t see the “Why does Karma exist”. It just sounds like Karma is being incorrectly labeled as weak and being blamed for the shortcomings in combat/class design.

Karma doesn’t need to be great for it to be good.

For example; Current Karma, 8.0 Good Karma, and even the initial 8.1 bug where both versions of Good Karma were active, all remained equally as effective at stopping something like Apoc Necrotic Strike and only the bugged version could stop rogue/mage go’s.

A direct improvement to survivability and an indirect improvement to Karma as a defensive would be to increase the effectiveness of absorbs through other damage reductions, like our barely functional 75 row.

These are the types of things that were responsible for the strength of Windwalker in T18 HFC, solo soaking Blackhole/Singularity, Kromrok Hands, etc despite not having cloak, cheat death, or immunity, as well as the turn around for Windwalker PvP in Season 17 & 18, which was the addition of damage reduction to TEB.

Making Karma’s absorb a little stronger isn’t going to make you feel tankier, it’ll just be a bigger absorb that hasn’t really improved on itself over the smaller absorb. Maybe you get 2 extra seconds of the defensive or absorb one more gpyro but I can’t think of any noticeable improvement anywhere in the game.

The low damage it does now on the reflect still is a decent amount, when I’m playing against Monks running RoP or Good Karma we still break the absorb and go for a kill through the defensive, and there is at least the understanding that you have to dispel the DoT otherwise you’ll open yourself up to get counter pressured. Without the damage I think we’re just going to get steamrolled through karma with no consequence.

5

I use Karma only when situation calls for it. Especially in 2v2. Just as the enemy about to burst you and you’re about to die, I’d normally Karma and use it to my advantage.

  1. Run after the enemy while I am being healed
  2. Run behind a wall/pillar while healer catches up to me.

To me Karma really is just another way to “escape” sticky situationz.

6

karma is NOT an “oh s***” button. it something to to use to trade out offensive CDs from your opponent before you get wrecked, not something to use at 5-15% health, because yes, you will die. if you can pop it at 20-35% during a full-push setup on you, followed up by a port, you live and your team soldiers on.

WW is all about having those “defensives” on short CD that you need to be smart with, especially while considering spatial awareness.