@Scruffy, i'd like to talk with You about the Q ratios on PBE Skarner

Predatorator·Jun 11, 2014·3 votes·1,079 views

Hello there and thank You for paying Your attention to this post. I'd like to know what will Skarner be after this rework. Because the previous rework was aimed at making him a fighter. And it succeeded pretty well, but at the cost of his stickiness. Now, in this new rework You gave him some stickiness (i'm happy with it, and so are the many people who tested him, as from their comments), but in exchange You gut his damage, in the way we all know. Now people speculates about the rework will make Skarner a tank, but You or Morello said You're not going to make him tanky. Now, i'm no PBE tester, but i don't want this to invalidate my opinion, since i've been continously playing Skarner since last December, if i remember well. I'm a big fan of Fighter Skarner, him and another champion are the only two i enjoy playing in this game, so i'm going to ask You: does a stun that becomes relevant only in late game, worth the gutting of at least his Q scalings? his "bread-and-butter"? I know, he deals bonus magic damage along with the stun, but it's not even that meaningful. I'd rather have Skarner's Q scalings back, or at least increased, more than dealing 100 bonus magic damage every 6 seconds in lategame. Or would You like to make the nerf meaningful? Here:

make his stun to last 1 sec at every rank, or make it to last 0.75/1/1.25;
instead of bonus magic damage, make the passive to heal Skarner;
units marked with Crystal Venom will deal xx%(1 stack)/xx%(2 stacks)/xx%(3 stacks) less damage to Skarner (values per stack depend also from passive level); Skarner will deal xx%(1 stack)/xx%(2 stacks)/xx%(3 stacks) more damage to units marked with Crystal Venom.

Thank You for eventually paying Your attention to this. I'll wait for any Your response. Best Regards, EnolaGay45

Friendly note: release Battlecast Skarner please =)!

Edit 1: Added solution 3

20 Comments

CaptainWednesdayJun 11, 20143 votes

I agree that nerfing the Q and E damage will hurt Skarner early and mid game as his relying on his ultimate to deal a majority of his damage will become problematic. I think the stun duration is fine as he already has decent CC and much better stickiness now. His W shield also provides enough defense to build at least one Life Steal item for sustain. That being said, I still think the Q scaling should become 40% TOTAL AD, so that Bruiser Skarner can still work. I raise this quetion yet again:

What's the point of sticking to a target if you deal such little damage?

PredatoratorJun 11, 20142 votes

Given back Skarner's stickiness, the stun doesn't bother me very much, that was to give some points to put a discussion on. Not even E damage bothers me more than much: it's important for AP Skarner, but otherwise it wasn't more than a ganking tool, and with the new item Essence Reaver, building AD is more convenient to me. What really bothers me, it's his Qs' damage, the scaling in particular: it's just too low, not even his passive can compensate such nerfs...at least talking about Fighter Skarner. And here we get to Your question. Now, as i said in my main post, the general idea is that this rework will make Skarner a Disruptor Tank/Peeling Machine. That is reasonable, because actually Skarner has the tools to disrupt, but peeling? If before this rework his damage was fine, after it the damage will be so low it'll be next to irrelevant, personally. I like Your proposal, because Skarner got the highest base damage in the game, and should make a good compromise between what Devs want, and what we want.

CaptainWednesdayJun 11, 20142 votes

You are correct; I am much more concerned about the Q ratio. I like the damage is ultimate provides with the new passive, I really do. But dealing ~600 base magic damage at max rank is high. Almost to the point you will execute someone with it, rather than displace them, which is what his ultimate is intended to do. I honestly have no idea how to build Skarner now. Is he tank or fighter? He does not deal enough damage to be a fighter anymore, but he is not durable enough to be a tank, even though he is as disruptive as one. I think if they just make the Q 40% of Total AD, it will work as a Bruiser. Otherwise, Skarner is going to have a very weak early game, which will set him back late game.

Riot wanted to make sure that if Skarner falls behind early, he get it together late. But what stops a target from simply turning the fight onto me at any point in the game? I do not deal enough to kill anyone. If my ultimate does not kill someone, I certainly cannot with this new kit. It just seems like a huge damage nerf.

I love the stickness, but if at any point someone can turn the fight on me, I will lose. Skarner has lost his dueling power.

PredatoratorJun 11, 20142 votes

Indeed, it is a huge damage nerf. It's intentional, and Devs told us what we should have expect a nerf if the stun passive gets its go. But again, halving the Q ratios was too much, and invalidates Skarner as a fighter; its only tankiness comes from the shield, which got high ratios, but scales with AP. It's not enough to make Skarner a tank. No need to clarify the other points of Your answer, as i totally think the same.

CaptainWednesdayJun 11, 20142 votes

Yes, they did say that. I was expecting the E nerfs because for a long range, line slow, it did nice damage. Maybe a little much, I can agree with that. But the Q... I was not expecting a huge 50% nerf. And then they added like 2 base damage per point. That's literally a joke.

Just like you said, his low damage invalidates him as a fighter, and just because he has a shield does not give him the authority to be considered a tank.

Hopefully the PBE testing will yield some results that favor us loyal Skarner players.

PredatoratorJun 11, 20142 votes

Amen to that :p. In the while, here's still a open spot for Scruffy (or whoever is involved in the Skarner rework) at this immaginary discussion table =)

TerchioJun 12, 20141 votes

Early and midgame only? Just what does he get lategame to contribute? Piddly sub-Udyr-stun? The same ultimate he's always had? He's all-around terribad, and even if the damages weren't fiddled with, he still would have been horribly underwhelming at most, if not all, stages of the game.

CaptainWednesdayJun 12, 20141 votes

Now that you mention Udyr, it feels like new Skarner is very similar.

The ultimate is not exactly the same. If they have the full 3 Crytsal Venom stacks and Skarner ults them, he will deal 100 bonus magic damage per stack, plus his ultimate damage. He deals around ~500-~700 magic damage just with his ultimate at max rank. It's a lot. Nevertheless, it is not enough to compensate for his Q nerf.

TerchioJun 12, 20141 votes

I thought it was up to 100 dmg or something. And somehow Riot Scruffy can say with a straight face (as far as I know) that we don't want to put all his power into his ultimate. So basically, when approaching, you have 4 choices: burn your ultimate right away for the surest grab chance but no extra damage, the most reliable grab; get 3 stacks and then grab, but miss out on late stickiness and still maybe lose the enemy early to an escape mechanism; get 3 stacks and stun with a grab to follow without extra damage, but you can chain the CC more reliably; or finally you can get 3 stacks and stun, stick to the enemy another 6+ seconds to stack up again, and then ulti for more damage. Several choices, so many drawbacks on each one...

In retrospect, the last choice would act like the first or second one, but delay the grab... not particularly viable in itself.

CaptainWednesdayJun 12, 20141 votes

For maximum damage, you would Q and AA the target resulting in a small amount of damage along with the 3 Crystal Venom stacks and then going in for the pull dealing ~700 magic damage with your ultimate.

Thing is, Skarner's ultimate feels like an execute now when it's not suppose to be at all.

And what after you ult? If they aren't dead Skarner cannot deal enough damage to finish the fight or sustain.

I don't know. That's just how I feel about it. We'll see how it goes on the PBE.

TahaldenJun 11, 20142 votes

Just to throw in my two cents: The ratio's don't matter much for bruiser/tank skarner, which is the primary way of building him from the jungle. Typically, you only get one damage item anyway, ie either SotEL, ICeborn gauntlet, or tri force when fed.

Comparing Live Skarner with PBE Skarner, we have the following: Assume that you get 3 (charged) Q's off before the passive is procced. PBE Skarner has base dmg on max-level Q of 68 physical, and 60 magical, a total reduction of 29 dmg; for 3 Q's this is then 87 dmg. This is compensated by the passive proc, which does 20-105 dmg. Hence, late-game Skarner now does slightly more damage, early-game Skarner somewhat less (depending on how the passive damage scales. Fair enough.

For example, getting SotEL as a single damage item gives you a whopping 30 AD, in addition to the likely 8 AD from masteries (runes would typically be AS and, e.g., movement speed). For Live Skarner, the bonus AD dmg on Q currently then does 25 dmg. For PBE Skarner, this is lowered to 12.5 dmg for PBE Skarner. Getting 3 Q's off before the passive proc thus means a total reduction in damage of 37.5.

As second example, getting IG gives Skarner 30 AP. Live Skarner then does 12 bonus damage; PBE Skarner does 6 bonus damage. 3 charged Q's (which is an ideal situation, really) then do an additional 36 damage on Live Skarner, 18 additional damage on PBE Skarner, i.e. a reduction of 18 damage comparing Live to PBE.

Overall this is a slight nerf to the dmg output of bruiser/tank Skarner. Of course, this nerf increases with every additional damage item you build. If you're a fan of fighter Skarner, then indeed the nerf is very visible. This is counterweighted by the additional stickiness, a short stun, and a huge damage boost on the ult (which itself is counterweighted by the dmg nerf on E). Given that Skarner has limited inherent tankiness, the champion was never meant to be a fighter, although, when fed that would still be an option, I guess.

In any case, what this means is that it is in principle not a big issue if the ratios would remain as they are on live for the common bruiser/tank builds of Skarner. The differences in dmg really are not that significant. If the ratios are kept , this also means the players who like building Skarner as a fighter can still do so, with the increased risk of simply being too squishy to survive fights for long.

So an idea is to keep the original PBE Skarner base dmg on Q (20-60) and buff up the bonus AD ratios back to 0.8. This arrives at a similar result in terms Q dmg for clear speeds and the like, while also enabling dmg-oriented builds. Keeping the AP ratio low, implies that SKarner still benefits from AP (for his shield, and in therms of dmg output on ult) but avoids an AP heavy build that makes Skarner potentially too tanky and with too much dmg output through the Q ratio.

In any case, the ratios on Q don't affect tank/bruiser skarner too much. And if he's built as a fighter/glass canon, he'd die too quickly to be relevant anyhow. What is sure though, is that the damage nerfs on Skarner, really are not significant nerfs. He still puts out similar amounts of dmg as a bruiser/tank, with the added benefit of sticking to targets much better and an ult that literally blows people up.

PredatoratorJun 13, 20141 votes

Sorry for not replying, yesterday i got ill. However, very nice and complete post, it has no flaws at all. However, this is all about the Tank role i don't really like for Skarner, nor even suits him very well in my opinion. And yes, i'm only interested in the AD ratios, because due to the upcoming item chages, it looks alot more convenient building AD over AP. As a side note, i like to build AD Skarner with two damage items (jungle item included), mercs, and the rest defensive. This makes a good compromise between damage and durability. Abuot the ultimate, i still don't know if the passive goes on CD after a fully stacked ultimate. If yes, it'll be unlikely that people will prefer extra damage on ultimate over the stun.

PredatoratorJun 11, 20141 votes

Bump

L7xLoTekJun 12, 20141 votes

I might just be out of the loop on this one, but has anything been done to Skarner's mana costs? Because with this change, I feel like you'll need to spam skills (especially in the jungle) even more, and Skarner's manapool and -regen in relation to the cost of his must-spam skills gets really bad, really fast.

CaptainWednesdayJun 12, 20142 votes

The first rework brought down most of his mana cost. This re-rework has not touched the mana costs.

TahaldenJun 13, 20142 votes

The mana cost on his skills is likely the highest concern. Even on Live, if you'd go into a fight with full mana, you could still run out of mana quite fast given that you spam Q and use W/E once or twice depending how long the fight lasts. Extended fights really are a pain for Skarner, cuz of his low mana pool/high mana costs, even though extended fights are supposed to be Skarner's thing, especially with the lowered ratio's on Q. (Although I don't think the lowered ratios/base damage on Q affects his damage output that much as a tank/bruiser -- see different post in this thread)

TerchioJun 12, 20141 votes

Q ratio? Q has been the only thing that was ever slightly OP, unless you live in a cave and still think that his ultimate is actually OP. The only thing that ever made his Q not overkill was that it was his kit, essentially, and they have only made that worse recently. I'd hardly call a drop on Q his downfall... Why no E love? Ratio halved, and base damage halved, and it was already crap... Ridunculous.

PredatoratorJun 13, 20141 votes

To me his Q nerf is a big problem. But i'm not saying the E nerf is to minimize. I didn't mention his E, but i know how important it is: a well landed E slightly increases Skarners' chances to succeed in a gank. Furthermore, the mana cost is too high for a skill hard to land, wich deals near to no damage, and sometimes the slow doesn't last long enough to get into Q range. They should at least decrease its cost to around 35 mana.

PredatoratorJun 15, 20141 votes

bump

PredatoratorJun 18, 20141 votes

@Scruffy @Morello