@Riot Updating Skarner for old and new

Riot will have to tackle Skarner eventually, and recently one of the things that they stated was they wanted to make sure that future updates would not further alienate newer players from a champion as it had already done to older players.

This is a fine goal, and one I agree with. As an avid Skarner player, and one who has been against crystal spires for the longest time (since its introduction really) I have been posting update ideas for years. With Riot's stated goal in mind, and the fact that there are indeed people who like the spire passive, here is my most recent update suggestion: (Explanations will be below pictures)

https://i.imgur.com/GmyhXCf.png[/img]

The biggest pain point of the spire passive is that it completely locked Skarner's primary stats into fixed zones in the jungle/river. This made his ganks very lack luster, prevented him from having any stats in lane, and overall made his gameplay VERY feast or famine based on your team's performance. This fix goes hand in hand with the Q update, since we are moving the stats back to a ramp up mechanic on Q. The spires now effectively remove the ramp up time needed, putting Skarner at his maximum fighting potential. While the granted stats will be LOWER overall, their accessibility justifies this. To make sure spires were still worth contending for, we added a small sustain for Skarner when fighting in them.

https://i.imgur.com/XL7mKVw.png[/img]

This update suggestion is what old Skarner players miss, but updated to feel and look more modern. Borrowing from the rengar assassin rework, the animation idea of rengar's Q, while not great for Rengar, would be great for our scorpion, slamming his claws together before thrusting forward with his tail. Main differences would be no micro-dash toward targets, and the animation wouldn't interrupt his movement. The stacking mechanic returns for his MS and AS, and the magic damage, while significantly less overall, is reserved for FULL stacks only, not just one. Since its no longer radial, you will actually have to aim it, adding a small amount of depth and skill expression and counterplay.

Skarner's W will remain the same in this suggestion.

https://i.imgur.com/ThzjKx6.png[/img]

Skarner's kit is pretty good overall I think, so this is another modernization. The mechanic itself is the same, laser people for a slow, marking them, hitting them to proc a short duration stun. This being the skill that will potentially be maxed last, its damage has been adjusted to have a higher rank one base damage, but scaling to the same max damage as before. The stun, is where we mixed things up: It no longer has cooldown refund, and no longer deals bonus physical damage. Instead, Skarner causes the energy on the target to explode, dealing a small amount of AoE magic damage based on the stunned targets HP. The best part is that it now also has a specific synergy with Skarner's ultimate:

https://i.imgur.com/SNm1CbI.png[/img]

Skarner's R has a slightly longer cooldown, and has slightly more back loaded damage. The synergy with E is what is new here: If a target dies during or as a result of the secondary damage of this ability, they "fracture" dealing double the normal fracture damage in a slightly larger area. Also, no one like having an item completely negate your ultimate, so if Skarner's ultimate is ended early for any reason, the target will still take 50% of the damage they would have taken.

Base stat changes would include buffing his MS to 340 and his AA range to 150 (he has giant claws and a stinger for pete's sake XD)

What these changes accomplish:

• Skarner Keeps his spires. While there is some disagreement on them overall, Riot doesn't want the players who liked the spires to feel like they can't play the champ anymore. Everything the spires do now, they still do in this iteration, though the overall AS is nerfed by quite a bit (60% at max), and while being a powerful zone for Skarner, he is not completely without his primary combat stats outside of them.

• Skarner is not locked into the jungle. Because Skarner can stack up his stats over time, he is effectively able to play lanes.

• Skarner no longer has an unfun nearly 5 second cc chain. While some may like it, I think it is not a healthy gameplay pattern for a champion to lock you down for such a long time with hard cc. E>>>Ult>>>Stun>>>E>>>Stun is VERY easy to achieve with max cdr builds because of the cooldown mechanic currently in his kit. Thus removed, you will still have the E>>R>>stun combo, but will not be able to follow it with another stun before the enemy has a chance to move.

• Skarner's playstyle remains in tact. Q is still a low cooldown dps spam, E functions the same, W is literally unchanged. All of Skarner's potential build paths, play styles, etc will be unchanged.

• Small amounts of gameplay depth, mechanics, and outplay potential added. Just making it to where you have to aim your Q does all of this.

• Fresh new mechanics and visuals. Ok, well mechanics anyway, the visuals would be on yalls end. But I have lots of ideas if interested. The Q animation alone (swim-gar animation) will look/feel more visceral and powerful.

Hope you have enjoyed reading this. Cheers, and here's to hoping Skarner sees some changes this season!