Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight, featuring Karthus, the Deathsinger.
Karthus willingly gave up his mortality in the Shadow Isles to embrace undeath, and in the process was twisted into a powerful lich.
Today he drifts through Runeterra offering eternal unlife to the living masses.
In-game, Karthus is a solo lane mage, or jungler, capable of dealing devastating area of effect damage to his surrounding enemies
before unleashing his iconic ultimate on opponents near and far.
Karthus' passive is Death Defied.
When killed, Karthus becomes invulnerable and untargetable for a few seconds, during which he can cast his abilities for free before dying for realsies.
Note that while Death Defied is active, Karthus cannot move, use basic attacks or cast summoner spells.
Lay Waste is Karthus' primary damage ability, one that runs on an extremely low cooldown.
Karthus draws out necromantic power at your cursor, briefly granting vision before exploding and dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies.
A key aspect of the ability is that Lay Waste deals double damage whenever it strikes only one target, making Karthus especially lethal in duels.
In game, use Lay Waste to last hit minions and harass your lane opponent.
Karthus' W is Wall of Pain.
Karthus summons a spectral wall that slows all enemies who come into contact with it while also shredding their magic resist.
Wall of Pain has a couple of interesting points: first, the slow AND the size of the wall increase as you level it up;
and second, the two ends of the wall grant vision, meaning you can scout ahead or check objectives in relative safety.
Use Wall of Pain to disengage from ganks. Place it on your attacker as you make your escape to slow the enemy's pursuit.
Karthus' E, Defile, is a toggled ability. Toggled off, Defile passively restores mana each time Karthus kills a unit.
Toggled on, Karthus surrounds himself with the souls of his victims, draining mana as he deals continuous damage to all nearby enemies.
The active effect moves with Karthus, making it great for close combat.
Note that the mana restore does not function when Defile is active, and that the ability is automatically toggled on whenever Karthus dies.
Or doesn't die. Whatever.
Use Defile in clustered teamfights to deal massive damage to multiple enemies.
Karthus is often a priority target, so activating Defile as the enemy charges in means you'll return some damage even if you do get killed.
Or not killed. Whatever.
Finally, Karthus' ultimate is Requiem.
Once activated, Karthus channels for a few seconds before dealing magic damage to every enemy champion on the map whether they're visible or not.
Requiem's long channel time can be interrupted by crowd control and DEATH, even the fake kind, so timing is especially important.
When playing, keep an eye on other lanes and use Requiem to secure kills whenever an enemy escapes with low health.
Ask your teammates to let you know whenever you can give them assist gold.
Making the most of Death Defied's short window of invulnerability is key to mastering Karthus,
so here are a few quick tips to get the biggest bang out of your seven second buck.
First, note that Requiem's channel time takes up almost half of his passive's duration,
and that you won't be able to start channeling it if it wouldn't complete before your passive ends.
This makes timing the number of abilities you can use crucial to optimizing your damage while defying death.
Second, whenever you die, remember to not panic. You've got time, but you need to act fast.
Start by casting Wall of Pain -- ideally placed so multiple enemies have to run through it.
Now you'll have enough time for three Q casts -- or four if you've maxed your cooldown reduction - before you begin channeling Requiem.
This pattern should give you just enough time to use all your abilities and deal as much damage as possible.
Lay Waste essentially replaces your basic attack and is your bread and butter ability for almost everything.
Focus on learning the radius of the ability to land double-damage Q's and last hit minions, then harass whenever you get the chance.
The passive from Defile should allow you to Lay Waste every single minion.
Requiem gives Karthus incredible presence in every lane, so keep a close eye on the map for opportunities to secure or assist with kills in other lanes.
Seeing Udyr coming in to gank the enemy bot lane, Karthus heads down from mid to assist.
Knowing that Xerath can interrupt Requiem, Karthus moves out of line of sight before channeling his ultimate,
handily killing Renekton in the top lane and earning an assist in Caitlyn's bot lane death.
After ulting, Karthus runs into Xerath and the two duel.
Karthus plays this fight really well: by staying super close, he's able to keep Defile's damage up,
focus on dodging Xerath's skillshots, and then land successive Qs when not dodging, for the kill.
One of Karthus' biggest weaknesses is Requiem's long channel time.
As a fragile mage, he needs to plan ahead before ulting to make sure his channel isn't disrupted.
Karthus loses this fight by making himself an easy target at a crucial moment in the duel.
That said, Requiem can also be countered by items and summoner spells, so try and take note of the tools your enemies have before ulting.
After trading with with Cassiopeia, Karthus backs off to channel Requiem, only to watch her save her own life with a well-timed Zhonya's Hourglass,
wasting Requiem and ensuring her allies can breathe easy for a few minutes.
Remember that Wall of Pain deals its full slow even when you just barely tag enemies with the edge of it.
Here, casting the ability over terrain slows Lucian enough to give Quinn a chance to catch and secure the kill.
Finally, unlike most mages, Karthus operates best in the middle of the enemy team,
and unlike all other champions, sometimes you want to die to help win the fight.
Here, Karthus aggressively flashes towards the baron pit before unleashing his abilities, disrupting and distracting the enemy team from killing baron.
Although he ultimately dies, kind of, in the process, he forces the enemy team out of the baron pit and helps his team clean up the fight.
When building Karthus, focus on three key stats: Mana, Ability Power, and Magic Penetration.
Defile's high mana cost means you need to buy some mana items to use it properly in fights.
Afterwards, start picking up your hard-hitting AP items, and then focus on late game magic penetration to multiply your damage even farther.
A late-game Zhonya's Hourglass is also great because the active invulnerability synergizes really well with the all-in playstyle and Defile's active.
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