@Riot Repertoir Well since all the cool kids are doing it, something about Skarner's rework

A while back I made a post on Reddit about my idea for how to make Skarner's crystals feel better to use, and for the sake of time I'm going to repost some of that here. > > "I did think of something that could perhaps make it a little better which is instead of his crystals just being in these six designated spots, what if they made it so once you have your ultimate, you can use it on these crystals to move them to new positions (Maybe you could reactivate his R to let go of it or have it so it lasts twice as long as it does when he ults an enemy) and have a 10 second cooldown before you could use it on that crystal again (With the enemy cooldown being separate from the crystal cooldown). > > This way you could actually set up your crystals ahead of time and plan strategies around them, maybe you drag one into a lane bush so when you gank it you'll get the boost, or maybe have a line of them down mid lane for any big roaming teamfights. > > If you want an example of this kind of mechanic then look up Earth Spirit from Dota 2. > > Edit1: Adding on to this. Someone pointed out to me that this could make laning Skarner oppressive with the buffs since he could move on of these crystals to his lane and then just be really powerful forever. My solution to this is they could have his crystals slowly lose effectiveness the longer Skarner is within their range before reaching some minimum effectiveness and only start recharging once he leaves their range. > > Edit2: I thought I should bring up one of my replies to xxx in the thread since it describes my general feelings on this rework. > > "I think you underestimate how strong or unique current Skarner is but I do understand how if you just look at how the game plays out at the end of the day with him on your team it is about the same as it is with a lot of other champions. > > And while Riot does follow up on their changes, the time in between making them and changing them can sometimes be months or YEARS, so I can agree with the people that are a bit more... boisterous about the changes in the sense of raising our issues now rather than later. > > I think the main issue with this change as it is now is just that it actually doesn't go far enough. If this new passive is supposed to define Skarner then it needs to be more meaningful than it is. > > Someone mentioned that Skarner is currently just a ball of stats champion, and while I disagree with this, it does make sense in that a lot of the things in his kit are buffs and debuffs. The issue with this rework is that it doesn't actually fix this sentiment, all it does is make it so his buffs are tied to these crystals. So instead of a "generic" fighter that pretty good or even great no matter where he goes, he's now a generic fighter that's only great on about 15% of the map and terrible on the rest of it. > > Instead they should make it so he can move these crystals or when he uses one of his abilities on them then it causes some other effect, maybe qing a crystal causes it to ring out and silence enemies in the area for 1 second, maybe e'ing a crystal causes it to splinter out in all directions from the crystal. It needs to be a more interesting dynamic than just "Your attack and movespeed are better here."

So did you ever consider making it so Skarner could use the same mechanic he uses for his ult to move his crystal spires, even only partially within a certain zone, so he's not so shackled to these six spots on the map in terms of getting boosts?

Also, I think that even in spite of the good work you're doing to make his kit much better than its first iteration, there is still something to be said about how Skarner is still not particularly unique even with the crystals because all they do is just move his stat buffs from aspects on his abilities to being things he gets in designated parts of the map. Did you consider making the power he gets from them more interesting than this.

And though you might be sick of hearing it by now, ty for being so open with the community on this, it really is great to be hearing your feedback on our thoughts and knowing your own thoughts on your design decisions.