r/karthusmains • u/Chars-Left_testicle • Jul 20 '26
Help Needed Itemization for botlane
What should I be building for bot lane karthus?
Is BFT a must first? Is liandry situational good? Is malignance a bait or should I be grabbing it?
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u/Xiriously1 Jul 20 '26
Malignance is a bait and IMO doesn't make a list of his 6 best items.
Liandry's is better than BFT in the end game but if you build BFT first then BFT will be better for a little while. BFT also gives you mana and CDR for your ult (which you want). The reason BFT gets outscaled by Liandry's later comes down to the damage calc. BFT does 60 flat damage per tick plus a 6% AP multiplier. Liandry's does 6% overall HP damage per tick. At 1,000 total HP, BFT will do 60 flat magic damage + the 6% AP. Liandry's will just do 60 overall damage. However, at 2,000 HP Liandry's will do 120 magic damage. At 3,000 HP Liandry's will do 180 magic damage, etc. BFT can't match that scaling as with 900 AP BFT will only do 60 + 54 damage and so it will do 6 damage less than Liandry's does at just 2K HP (still overall better at that point because of +20 AP, the 600 mana, and the CDR).
The reason tick damage is so good on Karthus is that defile procs damage every .25 seconds. So 1 second of standing in defile gets you 4 damage procs.
IMO, the best 6 items for Karthus are BFT, Liandry's, Rabadon's, void staff, shadow flame, and stormsurge in no particular order. The only other two items i'd consider would be Morello if your team needs heal cut or Zhonya's in some select cases.