Karthus is another character from League of Legends associated with the Shadow Isles, like Mordekaiser a couple pages back. Karthus was obsessed with death even before becoming an undead, until he eventually offered himself up to the Shadow Isles to achieve the form he has now. He has control over spirits which follow his whims referred too as his "choir", as well as powerful magic which simply seeks to bring life closer to obliteration or just outright annihilate it. In game, Karthus' main claim to fame is his ultimate and passive, the former of which allows him to hit everyone on the map no matter what their position, and the later allowing him to continue fighting even after he is killed for a brief period. And now he comes to bring his message of death to Smash, which given everyone is trying to murder each other he'll probably have his fair share of luck.
Stats
Recovery 9.5
Size 9
Traction 8.5
Air Speed 8.5
Weight 5
Dash Speed 4
Fall Speed 1
Karthus is extremely good at staying in the air, as he has 3 jumps, a float that lasts 3/4ths as long as Peach's that is also slightly faster, and great air speed/low fall speed. While that's nice and all, his size and weight combination is rather unfortunate, so he's a bit inclined to die early. Though as far as big floaty people go, at least he's better off than poor SSB4 Mewtwo.
As an aside, when Karthus dies, he's given one last chance to take the opponent down with him, as a spectral version of himself appears from the point he took the last hit and he can continue attacking from there for 5 seconds, but not moving. He can, at the very least, turn around to hit opponents who go behind him however. Afterwards, he'll die, but at the very least you can take the opponent down with you, and hell, you'll win if its on the last stock as they technically died before you did. Karthus' spectral remains cannot be attacked during this period, so you don't have to worry about getting knocked out of your attacks with hitstun or anything, but don't try to suicide to abuse this as then you'll just be using all your moves near the bottom blast zone which is pretty useless.
Specials
Neutral Special Lay Waste
Karthus conjures a point of unstable magic anywhere within an area 2x2 battlefield platforms in front of him, defaulting to one battlefield platform in front of him but if you hold a direction during the move's start up lag, you can move it to any position within that area. The start up lag is actually fairly quick so you have to have decent timing to move it where you want, and that's something you should probably practice before playing Karthus.
The unstable magic will take a second before it explodes, though Karthus is not bound in place while its in the process of exploding. When it goes off it deals 14% and knockback that KOs at 125%, which is powerful, but somewhat limited by the delay as you might expect, as well as the hitbox being pretty small. Regardless, Karthus can use the fact that he's free to move to set up another blast, or just control the opponent's positioning. There are also moves that interact with these pulses of unstable magic before they pop, so keep that in mind.
During Karthus' last attempts to defy death, this move, like your other specials, is somewhat buffed, though this one is fairly small, as all it does is increase the size of the explosion by 1.25x. Still, it makes this move a bit easier to land.
Down Special Requiem
Karthus announces this move's activation with a loud declaration of the opponent's death, something along the lines of "Listen and rejoice in death!" or "Hear me mortals!" or something equally hammy as spectral energy forms around every opponent in the match. This is a very laggy move to initiate, and after the start up lag nothing will happen for the next 10 seconds, but after the time is up, all opponents onscreen will be hit by a beam of spectral energy that deals 15% and upwards knockback that KOs at 155%. This can be shielded or dodged, but there is no other way to avoid the move.
While Requiem is active, Karthus can continue to try to channel it to increase its power. If he spent the full 10 seconds channeling this move, it will deal 40% and knockback that KOs at 30%, obscenely powerful but there is no remotely realistic way you can charge it the entire time. The power also spikes a lot at that, even with 9 seconds of charge it only deals 28% and knockback that KOs at 75%, the key moreso is that the more you charge this move, the more trouble the opponent will have evading it. At 3 seconds of charge, the move will hit opponents who dodge it and go clean through counters, requiring them to shield or get hit. At 7 seconds, it will pierce shields, giving them absolutely no way to avoid it whatsoever, but again, this is assuming the opponent will give you 7 undefended seconds out of 10 to just charge this move. Removing the dodge option is big though and something more realistic to focus on doing, as if you do that, the opponent cannot be in knockback from some other attack, and will have to suffer the prospect of losing their shield against Karthus, which is pretty bad when the guy is loaded with delayed hitboxes that are rather hard to dodge. Speaking of which, if you want to hit with Requiem in its less charged states and just use it as a time bomb, that's perfectly viable too.
One nice side benefit to this move is how much fear it adds to the opponent when they KO you. If they kill you with an active Requiem charge of 2 seconds or more, you can dedicate all your time before death to making sure they take a powerful hit at the end of those 10 seconds, as absolutely nothing else will stop it from happening, barring something really weird like Strangelove's Neutrality Zone. The problem with this move amounts to the fact that the initial cast time is long, almost as bad as a Warlock punch, so you'll need some serious space to land it, but this kind of omnipresent pressure and the ability to take a foe down with you in a much more assured fashion is something the opponent absoltuely has to take note of.
Side Special Wall of Pain
Karthus summons a pair of obelisks in the background and foreground as a wall of spectral energy forms between the
m, creating a wall a little taller than himself that is about the width of Kirby. This is fairly laggy to create, so trying to just make one on top of the opponent is not going to work out, and you can only have one out on stage at a time, as a second will just replace the old one. This wall isn't solid, characters, projectiles, and the like can go right through it, but it has some pretty nasty effects on opponent's who try to walk through. For one, being in contact with it massively slows their movement speed while they travel through it and for a short time after, and their roll distance is shortened proportionately to how much slower they are. They also have incredibly laggy jumps while in their if they want to try and jump out of it, but thankfully their attacks/dodges/shield are basically unaffected. The slow effect continues a bit after they escape the wall too, though only for approximately a second.
The other effect of the wall is that it decreases the opponent's resiliency against Karthus' magic. Simply being within a Kirby width on either side of the wall will increase the damage and knockback they take by 1.05x each second(stacking like 1.1x, 1.15x, 1.2x, etc), and it ticks up thrice as fast while they're actually inside the wall. This is pretty scary, but it doesn't immediately go away when they're not intersecting it either, reducing by 1.05x in the same fashion as how it increases once every 2 seconds. An opponent can escape the wall pretty fast, but if Karthus can repeatedly zone them into it with his projectiles and Neutral Special he can get a seriously powerful boost to his attack power, and even if he doesn't, even some fairly small damage and knockback amplification will still make a difference.
If a projectile goes through the wall, it will slow down a great deal for about 2 seconds, before speeding back up to its normal pace. This does 2 things, one its a pretty solid, but not perfect defense against enemy projectiles. Two, it slows down your projectiles(again, introduced later) so that you can potentially create some bullet hell for later use or some slow projectiles to play off. Obviously, this can be used against you if the opponent is particularly clever, but hopefully you're prepared for that situation coming up.
During the period before his death, Karthus' wall is very limited in where it can be placed as you can't move, but you can angle it up or down to make it appear further away from Karthus or slightly closer. Projectiles that travel through the wall are also stopped until Karthus respawns, before starting on a slow path, giving him basically a "save" of projectiles he can start off the next stock with, and the rate of magic resistance depletion is increased to twice per second in the outer radius, and four times per second in the inner radius.
Up Special Defile
Karthus calls forth his "choir" of spirits, a mass of ghosts 1.5x the size of Bowser colored a light blue-green color that whirls around him, dealing 3% per second and allowing Karthus to freely move through the air like ROB's recovery, though its more straight up free flight rather than just upwards movement. It has the same duration as said move, but he travels slower and the recharge period is about 1.5x as long, so it needs the slight damage to be able to keep up with said move.
This is of course, if you use the move in the air. Once you land on the stage or if you use this move on the ground, the move runs out of power at one third the rate of ROB's recovery, and can continue to stay up even if Karthus is not using it to fly. You might think this aura isn't really that powerful or worth using, but there's one extra perk to it. If a projectile Karthus owns flies into the souls, they'll spin it around Karthus once before sending it flying in the opposite direction, giving you some control of the projectile, especially since you can move around while its performing its singular loop around you to further space it or abuse a wall from Side Special to slow it down afterwards to catch it again.
During Karthus' last stand, there is no recharge period on this move and you can hold it out as long as you want. You can of course, take it down to release projectiles whenever you wish too.
Smashes
Forward Smash Spirits of the Damned
Karthus conjures up a portion of his "choir", a group of several ghosts which he has fly forwards, wailing as they go. They deal 17%-24% and knockback that KOs at 140%-100% and travel 2-3 battlefield platforms. This is a fairly slow move given its a projectile with that much power behind it, and it travels somewhat on the slower side, moving at Mario's dash speed. Obviously, you can abuse this with Up Special and the wall, by slowing it down or having it orbit Karthus, and on account of its slow speed you can have it help cover for your Neutral Special blasts, providing some pseudo bullet hell.
If Karthus or the opponent hits this orb of souls with another attack(not counting ones like the wall or passive damage from Up Special for obvious reasons), it will break into 8 souls that fly in each cardinal direction, dealing 5%-7% each and flinching knockback. Multiple of these can in fact hit for some potentially enormous damage if the opponent is near the move when it gets split apart, so you can potentially get far more damage out of this move than usual at the cost of knockback. These souls travel at Sonic's dash speed and lack the kind of power of the Forward Smash's normal version, but provide you with a much larger amount of projectiles to actually manipulate and control space with. Neutral Special is probably the easiest way to pop this open as it has such a versatile array of ranges it can hit from, allowing you to change the nature of the projectile from just about anywhere.
Up Smash Soulfire
Karthus shoots a single bolt of blue flame over his head, travelling in a similar manner to Snake's Up Smash and dealing 11%-15% and radial knockback that KOs at 180%-150% on the way up, but becoming much weaker on the way down, only dealing 4% and a flinch regardless of charge. It also travels a fair bit slower than said move, making it overall inferior to said Up Smash in most regards. That said, you do have the ability to manipulate it in ways Snake can't control his, so there's that benefit, but there are a couple other reasons this move is better than it sounds. Also while being held in Up Special it will retain whichever state it was in, whether that be the more powerful upwards travelling version or the weak downwards travelling version.
First of all, on contact with the ground the projectile will explode into a powerful blast the size of a Bomb-omb explosion that deals 19%-26% and upwards knockback that KOs at 90%-65%, serving as the strongest KO move in Karthus' arsenal. In addition, if you hit the projectile with Karthus' Neutral Special, it will be sent flying back upwards with the same power it had originally if it was falling, and if it was rising it will be accelerated to the top of its flight almost instantaneously, dealing 1.5x as much damage and knockback during that period before going into a fall. This gives you a few ways to get more than your money's worth out of one of these projectiles.
Down Smash Soul Extraction
Karthus lowers one hand to the ground and releases a burst of spectral energy, dealing 14%-19% and almost entirely horizontal knockback that KOs at 165%-140%. This is a fairly weak smash and even moreso when you consider that lagwise it can be compared to much stronger moves like Lucas' Down Smash, but it has some interesting effects, depending on if you hit with it or miss with it. If you connect with this move, in addition to sending the opponent flying, it will send a copy of the projectile that most recently hit them(even ones that aren't your own) made out of the same energy that comprised this move. The copy will fly in the opposite direction of the opponent though, so you're going to need to catch it if you want to do much with it.
If it misses, the energy from this attack will linger on the ground, being about the size of Kirby and entirely still and not doing much of anything. You can reposition it with Up Special to get it to a different location on the stage, but it won't do anything... until you hit it with some of your attacks, as it alters and powers up your long ranged game. If a Forward Smash projectile travels through it while still whole, it will accelerate to Captain Falcon's dash speed and deal 1.25x the damage and knockback, and starts shedding the smaller projectiles it would split into as it flies, releasing one about every third of a second. If a smaller split off projectile hits one of these, it will turn into a copy of the original larger one.
If the Up Smash hits one of these clouds, it'll change it so that the power of the move overall is multiplied by 1.25x, but make it so the projectile is more powerful going down rather than when its going up, effectively swapping the strength of those hitboxes. In addition, the explosion now occurs at the peak of its flight if it collides with someone there, rather than if it hits the ground, making it a bit more specific to hit with but also come out much earlier in the hitbox. The Neutral Special's explosion upon hitting one of these is increased to the size of Bowser, making it suddenly a huge and formidable hitbox. All cases of these energy clouds are powerful but will expend the cloud... that said, you can make as many as you want, and space them around the stage freely with your Up Special. Use this to make some terrifying bullet hell if you so desire.
Standards
Jab Spectral Wanderer
Karthus summons a single ghost which spins in front of him for a moment, dealing mass flinching hits of 2% as long as he holds down the button. This is a bit like Game and Watch's jab in that it only has one hit that is spammed repeatedly rather than having a variety of different types of hits, but just a tap of the button will make the ghost do a full loop for 3 hits of 2%, laggier than said Game and Watch jab but still kind of fast.
After you finish pressing the button and release the ghost from the loop, it'll travel out as a projectile that deals 3% and a flinch, and going 3 battlefield platforms in distance. It travels moderately fast and if it passes by another of your projectiles, will change the angle of that projectile towards matching its own. This is rather useful because you have things to slow down your other projectiles, and more importantly you can choose the angle of this attack by releasing A. This is the final component of creating a powerful, controlled long range game for Karthus, but its not exactly perfect, as its a little hard to spam the actual projectile component of it and it doesn't totally control the aim of the projectile, rather just giving it a nudge in the direction its going. If you want total control, you'll use the Up Special, though that's less time efficient, and time is everything.
This also can move around Down Smash energy clouds, but not a very long distance.
Forward Tilt Ghastly Wrath
Karthus points his staff forward as the top glows, in a weak hitbox that deals 4% and weak horizontal knockback. This is a pretty sizable hitbox but lacks much of any power, while having a lot of end lag despite the quick start up, making it punishable, even on hit. The tip deals twice as much damage and knockback, but its not really enough to save this move from being bad, in and of itself. However, there's a blast of fire and spectral energy that will occur a short distance past the end of the staff, and this part of the hitbox is actually quite strong, dealing 14% and diagonal knockback that KOs at 145%. And while I mention a lot of end lag, this move IS really quick to come out, and once the opponent is at high percents even the staff itself will deal enough damage that this can function as a decent poking tool without sweetspotting it. There is a blind spot even at high percents though, and at low percents the blindspot is the vast majority of the space in front of Karthus.
This move can actually be angled, which changes the direction the staff is pointed, but also changes the power of the explosion a little differently. Angling it up will cause the blast to be much bigger, large enough to serve as an extension of the tip and dealing 9% and moderately weak diagonal knockback. Angling it down will make the blast incredibly small and precise to hit with, as well as decreasing the range of the staff strike by angling it down, but makes up for it by putting the sweetspot of the staff a little closer to Karthus and increasing the power of the explosion to 24% and knockback that KOs at 90%. On a move this fast, that's a terrifying number, but the hitbox is seriously tiny and impractical to hit with unless you've been amazing at zoning the opponent with a combination of your projectiles and the Neutral Special. How good this move, and the rest of your tilts are, will really depend on said zoning, as Karthus' staff isn't much of a weapon by itself.
Up Tilt Tri Spirit
Karthus spins his staff over his head, dealing 3% on the body of the staff and a flinch and while the tip glows and deals double damage and knockback like in the last move, double a flinch is still a flinch. This move isn't exactly impressive. That said, a little bit above the end of the staff, three spirits will fly up, initially together but breakin apart into 3 separate entities, dealing 15% and upwards knockback that KOs at 170% initially and then 5% and weak upwards knockback when separated. They descend back down after their initial upwards travel, meaning the move actually lingers a decent bit as the ghosts, while they don't travel far and disappear around the point they'd be at eye level with Karthus, do move pretty slowly. This move has less end lag than the Forward Tilt by a considerable margin, but more start lag, and the lingering nature of it makes it go along rather well with creating too much to dodge with Karthus' projectiles. That said, its not exactly that effective a move up close, so again, you're going to need to try and zone opponents towards where the move will produce its powerful hitbox, but once you do, this will help you keep them at your high power range.
Down Tilt Invigorate the Spirits
Karthus simply taps his staff on the ground in front of him, dealing 5% and flinching opponents, while having hilariously short range. While the tip of his staff glows, its not part of the hitbox. This is the fastest move in Karthus' arsenal but you have to be practically overlapping the opponent to hit with it, making that aspect of it seemingly meaningless. That said, a burst of spectral fire will erupt from the ground a little closer to you than the more powerful hitbox on the Forward Tilt, dealing 3 hits of 3% and little in the way of knockback. It will pop them up off the ground so the strongest version of Forward Tilt cannot combo out of this. The weaker versions will, but the opponent can still get hit by the staff rather than the actually powerful hitbox. Still, its good for racking damage, sets up for Neutral Special nicely to punish them if they DI around in the hitbox predictably, and is a nice hard to predict way to rack damage on opponents in your zone of power.
Dash Attack Wave of Souls
Karthus summons up a mass of souls below him, more dense than the ones from Up Special, and levitates on top of them as they fly forward. The wall lifts him about about a Marth height above the ground, before disintegrating after traveling a battlefield platform, dealing 9% and weak knockback behind Karthus as it travels and 15% and horizontal knockback that KOs at 155%as it disintegrates. This is a fairly strong move partially because it raises Karthus out of the way of a lot of grounded attacks to make it a fair bit safer to use out of a dash, but keep in mind that if they dodge the end part of the attack you're just gonna end up having gotten closer to the opponent than you wanted too most of the time.
Also, since this set uses the Brawl engine and not SSB4, you can DACUS this attack. Karthus' USmash already benefits immensely from a DACUS, and this one comes with a side benefit of having him travel upwards in the air while it happens and covering a huge horizontal distance. Honestly the range being wider than Snake's DACUS and the projectile travelling slower will make this a bit more predictable compared to said move.
Aerials
Neutral Aerial Spirit Fire
Karthus summons 8 small, burning spirits around himself, which orbit him briefly before flying out and exploding in larger blasts of spiritual energy that deal 2% and flinching while spinning and then 8% and knockback that KOs at 240% while exploding. This is a slightly slow aerial but it is faster than it sounds, and on larger characters it is possible to land 2 of the explosions to make this a fairly powerful damage racker. If you can't pull that off, it at the very least provides you a decent amount of spacial control, which is always good for Karthus.
The Neutral Special has an interaction with this attack, in that if the spirit explodes in the same place as the Neutral Special energy, it will leave an area of burning energy in the air that deals 5% per second that is a fair bit bigger than the explosion hitbox itself. It will last for 6 seconds, and while it doesn't interrupt recoveries in a manner that would make this technique a broken edgeguarder, damage is still damage, and when a projectile passes through this energy it will carry it along its path for a short distance, allowing your projectile spam to actually extend the range of this passive damage.
Forward Aerial Ghoul's Retaliation
Karthus raises his staff in front of him before swinging it forward in a somewhat slow and underwhelming staff strike, dealing 9% and knockback that won't KO until around 300%. Not very impressive, but there is one perk to it. The staff, while in front of Karthus will block attacks on him to a degree, causing them not to deal damage and only half the knockback. If Karthus blocks an attack this way, the staff will unleash a surge of spiritual energy from the end as Karthus takes his knockback, dealing 15% and KOing at 140%. This is actually rather hard to make use of if the opponent smashed you away with a particularly strong attack, and faster more combo oriented ones would be less likely to actually get interrupted by this on account of being less telegraphed, but there are times at low percents or when the opponent is playing poorly, you can pull off some surprising damage and knockback with this move.
The spiritual surge will knock projectiles away with immense force, briefly making them travel at 1.5x their normal speed and deal 1.3x the normal damage and knockback. Pulling off much of anything with this is honestly even more situational than landing the hitbox itself, and is more just something that will occasionally come up to benefit you if you have a bunch of projectiles out. Note that if an Up Smash projectile explodes while accelerated by this attack it'll still deal the amplified damage and knockback, which is pretty insanely strong, so sometimes this rather situational interaction can pay off extensively.
Up Aerial Twin Spectres
Karthus raises his staff over his head and two ghosts appear at his side, spinning around him for multiple hits of 3% until they collide at the tip of his staff to deal 15% and upwards knockback that KOs at 150%. This move is surprisingly fast, especially compared to the Nair, with most of the lag just being duration as the spirits quickly fly up Karthus' body. Its a rare close range option for Karthus that he can remotely spam, which even pushes them towards the sweetspot of the move so subsequent uses of it, while they'll make said sweetspot weaker due to stale move decay, can potentially be used to get the opponent off of you. Its still remotely punishable because of the duration, but if Karthus is careful about when he uses it this is by far your strongest close range option, and to make it less predictable you can mix in closely placed Neutral Special blasts and Neutral Aerials, even if they are slower.
Back Aerial Chorus Mortus
Karthus sends a few ghosts out behind him that spread out as they travel away from him, fanning out in a hitbox that is easier to hit with farther away than up close due to being wider, but dealing up to 6 hits of 2% and knockback that KOs at 225%. This isn’t a particularly fast move but the range and size of the hitbox is impressive, making it a solid spacer.
If you use this while your Up Special is active, the Up Special spirits will allow flow into the attack too, increasing the size of the fanning part of the hitbox a bit but moreso adding more hits to the attack depending on how much time is left on your Up Special, maxing out at doubling the damage output and making the knockback KO at 175%. Any projectiles caught in the Up Special at the time will be fired toward the end of the hitbox and disappear, dealing their normal damage and knockback, though if you have a high knockback projectile in there it can turn this from a decent aerial KO move to an incredible one. The problem is, as you’d probably expect, this uses up all the remaining time you have on your Up Special, and destroys the projectiles in the Up Special after the move ends. If you don’t want this expending your recovery just stop using Up B before you fire it out.
Down Aerial To The Abyss
Karthus swings his staff below him in a hitbox that deals 8% and a weak spike, before an explosion appears slightly beyond the end of it that deals 15% and a much stronger spike on par with Rob's Dair. This is a slightly slow move, but you can do a little to customize the hitbox to fit the current situation by floating to the side as Karthus does the swing using your float, as the explosion will occur at the same location regardless of where you started but the swing won't, giving it some rather unique coverage.
Grab Game
Grab Grip of Spirits
Karthus reaches forward and makes a grasping motion, and rather than trying to grab his opponent with only his weak physical strength, a horde of ghosts manifest around the foe to bind them as Karthus lightly grips them as well. This has pretty solid range for a grab, though its not on the level of Dedede.
Pummel Drag to Hell
Ghostly arms reach out from the spirits binding the foe, as if attempting to drag them down to the realm of the dead with them. This deals 1% to the opponent, and then 1% again fairly rapidly over the course of the grab, meaning pummel damage stacks exponentially. This has potential to be fairly strong, but at higher percents when the opponent would have more trouble escaping this, the extra damage is less needed to get the foe into KO range.
Down Throw Come With Me
Karthus slowly raises his hand off the opponents body as their soul begins to float out above them, hovering in the air for a moment before it manages to fly back into the opponent. They take 8% as the soul is extracted and fall into prone once it returns to their body. Its a fairly weak throw, but one thing to keep in mind is that during the prone, the effects of your pummel will linger as the ghosts continue trying to drag the opponent to their demise. Of course they'll get out of prone fast though... unless a projectile hits the soul. While its out, the soul is actually a semi-hurtbox for the foe, it can be damaged by outside sources for half as much as hitting their body, and will make the prone untechable while also adding a bit of lag onto them getting up from it in any form. Obviously, having a projectile fly by while the opponent is stuck in this throw isn't always going to happen, but at medium percents the damage you can get from that and the pummel effect is pretty spectacular. And while Karthus can't prone abuse much, you can at least use the brief period they're disabled to get a positioning advantage, as Karthus has fairly little end lag on this throw.
Forward Throw Cross Over
A ball of spectral energy forms in Karthus' hand, which grows until it engulfs the foe before bursting, its aura still over them. The aura looks pretty much exactly the same as Karthus' wall, and will briefly apply the status effect of being fully inside the wall minus the movement inhibitting effects to them once they land, lasting for only a second but still serving as a slight buff to your damage and knockback output if you can somehow capitalize on it in the short span they're still debuffed. The throw itself deals 12% and mostly horizontal knockback that KOs at 165%.
The set has a much bigger incentive if you throw the opponent into a wall with it, which will cause them to get stopped in place as they experience a spike and 2% as the wall explodes to double its normal size for a moment. It slowly diminishes to its normal size over the next 5 seconds, but for a brief while both the debuffing area around the wall and the wall itself are going to be a massive pain while this effect lingers, potentially applying a powerful long lasting damage and knockback increase to the opponent that Karthus can abuse to kill them with ease. That being said, there is a vertical component to the knockback, so if you're not particularly close to the wall, Karthus might end up just throwing the foe over it.
Up Throw Death Chant
Karthus has the spirits levitate the foe over his head as he says a brief chant, as a much fainter version of the indicator for Requiem appears over the opponent's head. Karthus then has the spirits toss them away for 9% and moderate upwards knockback that KOs at 250%. The faint indicator will linger until Karthus activates Requiem again, at which point the usual indicator will appear more vibrant and powerful than before. Its buffed to be 1.2x more powerful when it finally does go off, but that's not the main incentive. No its that, if the opponent does manage to avoid it, 5 seconds later, it will fire off again without the buffed damage and knockback, and Karthus can put another one on the foe in the meanwhile, giving them progressively more and more material to dodge. That said, with this throw you're banking on actually getting time to channel Requiem, which some particularly aggressive opponents might not give you if you're not careful in positioning them away.
Back Throw Deathly Howl
Karthus spins around and blasts the opponent away with a burst of ghostly energy, dealing them 8% and having set knockback pushing them a bit beyond the range Karthus' tilts are at by far their most effective. Its a simple and not particularly powerful throw, but for spacing its probably the best one you have, as while the position isn't the completely ideal one for Karthus, its not particularly far off from it and still a powerful place for him to be.
