Dude, clones are fine. I have seen articles like that and I find its mostly bs. Know ohm law. Buy good batteries and chargers. Vape safe. If you can hold a mod and see how you like it in person.
Personally I dont like the karmy k100 mod. Its cheaply made and for the money there are a lot better mods out there. Like the panzer black hawk, the ironman, and a few others can all be had for under 50 bucks.just read reviews on mods before buying.
As for batteries, I use sony 18650. And efest 18500 and 188350 batteries. Sony are expensive but most can be gotten from amazon. Stick with sony or efest batteries. Stay away from surefire batteries.
As for charger, the efest luc2 is what I use and love it. Others use the intellcore chargers. Also good but the efest has more for what I do and thats why I use it.
Hope this helps