Karma is awesome for a couple reasons. Let's see what she has going for her:
- One of the most powerful shields in the game
- A heal that can hit your entire team
- A slow debuff on the enemy
- A haste buff that can also hit your entire team
- An awesome passive
- Two AoE damage abilities
- She can be practically unkillable
She's the single most versatile support in the entire game.
The downside? She is pretty team reliant, so you're only going to be good with her if your team is good, and she has a high skill curve.
She doesn't have the straight up heals that Soraka the Ambulance does, she doesn't have real CC, and she doesn't deal ZOMGHUGE carry-like damage. But she does have an awesome shield, a great speed buff/debuff, a heal that can work miracles in a teamfight, and has respectable AoE damage, especially when her passive kicks in.
So no, Karma isn't "terribad". She just requires more of the player, something a lot of people haven't taken the time to figure out. And that's before even talking about Dominion, which isn't lolboring, but that's a preference thing.
Edited, Dec 8th 2011 2:18am by IDrownFish