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Can we talk about Skarner?

Píllow·10/11/2016, 5:00:59 AM·12 votes·1,081 views

Now that reworked Skarner has been a thing for a while and most frustrations about him have probably been vented already, I want to hear the rest of the community's input on him, and would even like a rioter response on the matter.

I used to play Skarner a lot back when I started in Season 2, and played him fairly actively as one of my main junglers until the first rework. When I first heard about Skarner being reworked, I was rather shocked to say the least. I had almost never heard anyone say Skarner was unfun to go against, and the few times I did, it was from a raging enemy laner during a match. Outside of that? Never. Regardless of my surprise, I stayed open-minded and figured "I'm sure he'll still be fun afterwards. Maybe even more fun!"

But boy, was I wrong. Even after one rework, and another subsequent rework later on, Skarner is still just clunky and completely unsatisfying to play. What was once a simple kit is now just a mess. Skarner had a clear weakness and strength - at close range, he was a menace, but he had to work for that. For anyone paying attention, they could most likely avoid Skarner with wards, and all the mobility skills everyone has nowadays. If Skarner wanted a 'cheap kill', he'd have to burn Flash for it during a gank to close the gap and ult.

But now, if I get close to anyone as Skarner, I still have my ult but no means to actually stick to them once the ult wears off, save for a shitty 1-second stun. Oh, and it's now tied to his E which is STILL feels incredibly clunky. Why was a hugging-range permaslow "toxic" on a champion with no means to close the gap outside of Flash, but it's alright on let's see... Frozen Mallet, Olaf, Ashe, Gnar, Mundo, Rylais, Nasus and probably some others I'm forgetting. Why is it okay for THOSE to have a permaslow, all of them having a ranged permaslow, but it was oh-so-toxic for Skarner to have it on a melee-range ability? I really don't like this about you, Riot folks. Your reasoning for removing/reworking things is always so inconsistent and there's signs of favoritism everywhere. I was honestly expecting Ashe, a ranged ADC, to lose her permaslow with her rework because, hey, it was toxic on a melee champ so it's probably even more annoying on a ranged champ in Riot's eyes! Oh, wait, she got to keep it? What the fuck?

His passive went from a simple CD-reduction on each basic attack to a stupid minigame which is no use to me outside of taking my buffs and contesting drake and baron. I didn't pick Skarner to jungle so I could play goddamn Dominion on Summoner's Rift. What if I want to lane? Oh, no, wait - you gutted his laning, that's right. Let's remove sustain from his E, that was always an issue with him, right? Having sustain on a simple skillshot, oh, the horror. Surely there are no other forms of sustain on champions even today that are way more annoying and don't require them to use a hefty amount of mana each time they want to use said sustain. No sir.

His W is just a shittier version of what it once was. Not much else to add here. It was just made worse for no reason whatsoever. The only thing he could use to get to someone slightly faster was nerfed. Good job, Riot. Real good job there.

All in all, I am absolutely flabbergasted to this day about Skarner's rework. What was once a fun champion to play with clear strengths and weaknesses is now someone who feels unsatisfying, unfun and clunky to play, with shining examples of awful design choices all over his kit and possibly the stupidest minigame passive in the entire game. "Oh, buy you can buy Iceborn Gauntlet/Frozen Mallet to stick to enemies!". Oh, so now we're removing features from champions and making them buy certain items to get them back? Boy, I have a whole fucking lot of suggestions for you if you want to do that.

@Any Rioter, the following question has no malicious intent behind it, just sheer curiosity: Do you actually consider Skarner's rework to be successful? To me, it seems like he's just worse off than he was before any reworking was done, and even less people play him now. Don't quote me on the last part, as I haven't checked any statistics, but I haven't seen Skarner in forever since the first two weeks or so after his latest rework, whereas I used to see him occasionally every now and then back before you even considered reworking him.

22 Comments

Ravenous Howls10/11/2016, 2:30:33 PM3 votes

Riot really went overboard with the whole "mini game" theme. Gang Plank's Barrels, Fiora's weak spot farming, Shen's Spirit Blade (though I think they succeeded largely with the rest of Shen's kit personally). But the Spires for Skarner are worse than all those b/c it forces Skarner into the jungle only and gives him an arbitrary source of power that hew can not control on his own. That and most people are not stupid enough to engage Skarner in those zones because they know he's strong within the radius so they will force fights away from his source of power.

By an large the biggest failure is placing a champions strength on the map as contestable objectives and not within the champion. It was a really poor and not well thought out design choice.

TricolorStar10/11/2016, 5:54:28 AM2 votes

Bring back Crystallizing Sting 2k17

Requiemsfire10/12/2016, 8:54:23 PM2 votes

When I first picked up Skarner, I thought he was really strong and the niche he filled as a jungler was very effective. Now I wasn't proven wrong but what I realise is that his kit is so binary in that it functions and his abilities feel so un-impactful that you kinda feel bored playing him when your ult isn't up.

No, he's not weak but he doesn't feel exciting or fun to play. Sure, you might use him to climb because he's a very strong pick in burst compositions but when your ult isn't up, you're not really going to make plays.

Predatorator10/11/2016, 5:30:27 PM2 votes

I agree with most of what you wrote here. I think Riot found a problem when the tanky, dps Skarner got also a permaslow, which can offer not a bad amount of utility. This was also their argument for the "Skarner vs Ashe" permaslow topic (as in, ashe is squishy). I'm not defending that, just giving context. I also noticed almost none complained about Skarner's permaslow. I think right now Skarner 1 would be more fair, especially because of how mobility and CCs got inflated till now. Some things that i'd like to have back are sustain, and build flexibility overall. Skarner ap was so viable during those times!

I don't have much to complain about Riot's intent of increasing skarner's difficulty: skarner never was a mechanically-intense champion, and maining him since late s3, i can tell that the most of skarner's mastery is about map, matchup, and itmes knowledge. Adding some depht to his kit sounded good, wht's bad is the way they did it.

His W actually got good: the ramping speed is something easy to get used to, but the %max hp scaling was a very welcomed buff I actually like the new E tho, feels rewarding to chain E and R and then another E, but that's it, there's nothing else that good in his actual rework.

Here's my stance on Skarner, and what can possibly de done to improve him, while waitng for the full VGU, if You wat to share Your opinion, you're more than welcome =) : http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/EUpnP2Gs-my-stance-on-skarner-and-what-can-be-possibily-be-done-to-make-him-feel-better

Big Lincoln10/12/2016, 6:30:57 PM2 votes

skarner was never interesting

I think riot is doing him a disservice by giving up on him as a juggernaut; he certainly looks like someone who should be a damage threat

LordGeovanni10/12/2016, 6:28:48 PM1 votes

Idk how riot thinks but i believe that riot thinks because melee champions without a dash only have to press on their target once and they will walk to them (eventually ) so they keep their kits low damage and low utility. But they give champions with dashes and mobility, high damage and lower cooldowns same with ranged champions. because they are supposedly squishy but never seem to consider their superior damage build paths the saftey in their range that allows them to be aggressive for free or their mobility that allows them to be aggressive and get out before you can deal them damage back. Ranged carries are supposedly rewarded with more damage for kiteing when the amount of damage they have allows them to not need to kite. not to mention they also get sustain but ultimately dont need it because they are at the absolute back of their team getting blocked for by their other members. Same way RoA gets a passive to give and mana for fights on top of the stacking stats passive but rightious glory cant have the passive that comes from the same item they are built out of the same item and Tanks need items to help them survive in battle and keep their mana topped off far more urgently than a mage. Adcs dont even have long cooldown spells but get item 3508 reworked into an item only for them for lower cooldowns on their already low cooldown spells and bruiser class champions were useing the previous versions far more than marksmen were who barely touched the thing Cooldowns low, dont take damage in the first place, longer range than you, faster than you if you melee and cant build their damage items that have free movement speed, never run out of mana, high mobility on most of them, medium to strong cc Sustain on the off chance they do take damage their damage items out scale any possible defensive items you get their items have synergistic passives while defensive items or bruiser items dont (black cleaver being 1 exception Steraks being another but no where near as much as mage or adc items. Every nearly every mage is a battle mage by time they get 40% cdr by time they throw their second spell out their main one is up. especially 'poke' mages there is only enough down time on high damge spells to move back a bit before they can an do throw it again

LordGeovanni10/11/2016, 5:20:48 AM1 votes

Skarner 1 and 2 were great this one not so much

Emojay10/11/2016, 5:14:39 AM1 votes

O-O u wrote this? How long did it take?