Power needs to be drawn from Skarner's spires to the rest of his kit, two easy options

Hello! Brief prologue:

• I've been playing almost only skarner since i bought him in late s3, through all of his reworks, and right now i got more than 860K mastery on him (M7 also);

• Goal is to discuss lower scope changes than VGU;

• Skarner doesn't need buffs, if not really minor ones: stats wise he's doing ok (from u.gg i get 48.71% global wr on a 0.8% global pickrate);

• This also because most likely they'll make him broken in the spires, and just okay oustide of them;

• There's no way to nerf his ult without the whole kit to change along with it, it's skarner's identity and that should be explored in a vgu. (if anything only thing to nerf would be damage and mana cost, but that won't make up much room for buffs elsewhere (in the link i discuss indepht why drawing power from the spires is better than his ult). In the link i discuss indepht about this matter.

"For starters, i've been playing almost exclusively skarner since late s3, and what me and most skarner players feel, is that the spires retain too much power for being so contestable. Skarner's kit and base stats have been nerfed harshly to justify such passive. All while failing to achieve their goal: we got no lane agency, no premier objective control, more feast/famine than ever, no other way to be relevant when ult Is on cd.

I'd love to go deeper on it, but here's the main topic of the thread: what about his ult? I want to make it clear:

AS IT IS RIGHT NOW, HIS ULT CANNOT BE NERFED/BUFFED WITHOUT BREAKING IT.

First of all, it literally defines skarner, it's healthy, creates high moments in playing skarner, and us skarner players are literally attached to it. It's also cool, and even riot recognizes it.

You might think it's really too powerful, but with how much power has creeped (especially mobility/cc) recently, it actually has become the only thing that keeps skarner afloat. Just look at new releases can do, you think skarner got picked because of the spires? He got picked because of predator+ult, spires could go away in the next ten minutes and none would bat an eye. Take away/nerf Skarner's ult and he'd be neutered. He already has to go in melee range to cast it, and with mobility and cc ever increasing, it's risky, and requires your team to follow-up, as you got no ways to retaliate; Qss reliably counters It, and it's easily accessibile if you're ahead.

But let's say we want to work on his ult, what would you do? Put a condition to it? Which one? Let's say you can only ult marked targets. Well good luck because E slows itself the more units it crosses, on top of being quite dodgeable.

The only thing that you could possibly nerf to it would be the damage, the ability to suppress and drag away people is what really counts. But it's low damage compared to other ults, where would you put it in a way it would be meaningful? The point i'm trying to make above is that

if you want to actually change his ult, you'd have to change his entire kit along with it, and that would be vgu territory.

I actually want to keep this thread in the short term work realm, and in that regard, because of the reasons above, shifting power from the spires to his kit shuld be the goal. And a revert to Crystal Venom skarner Is literally the best solution. Don't hesitate to share your opinion =)"

So straight to the point!

Skarner's Crystal spires were an unwanted change that was supposed to achieve:

• objective control supremacy;

• something else to make him relevant when ult is on cd

What went wrong?

• to justify the simple existence of the spire mechanic immense power has to be given to them. To do so, so much power of skarner's kit (particularly Q and base stats) got moved (namely nerfed) to the spires, fixed zones in the jungle easily contestable by everyone;

This has led to:

• Popularity fell down even harder: having most of you power tied to a dominion minigame doesn't seem to be attractive, so less content (mainly skins);

• Lane diversity got hit hard, because basically you're giving up thousands of gold worth of stats, so it's simply not worth the effort;

• Parts of skarner's kit have to be kept weak and unsatisfying:

Q has turned into a glorified Sheen/Black Cleaver proc,

E self-slow on projectile,

the base ms nerf makes skarner to struggle more and more against the most recent champions/gameplay updates;

• More feast/famine than ever: if you fall behind, you even fall harder because keeping control of your spires becomes harder, if not impossible (see stomp or be stomped meta); also good luck clearing supermions and champs from your base; no base values on Q and W means he's even more item/gold reliant to succeed.

We know Skarner is a Tier 1 VGU candidate, but because of future releases, i'm pretty sure his VGU is still a long way off. So without further dues, two easy options are:

• Revert to his state prior to the Juggernaut update and balance from there (source https://www.esportspedia.com/lol/Skarner#Competitive_Usage):

Passive - Crystallizing Sting

CRYSTAL VENOM: Skarner's damaging spells apply a 'Crystal Venom' debuff to enemy Champions and large monsters for 5 seconds

UTILITY: If Skarner lands a basic attack on a target with 3 stacks of 'Crystal Venom', he will deal an additional 20-105 magic damage and stun the target for 0.5/0.75/1 second

CRYSTAL VENOM: After being stunned, targets cannot be debuffed by Crystal Venom for 6 seconds

Q - Crystal Slash

Basic attacks reduce Crystal Slash's cooldown by 0.5 seconds (doubled against Champions)

Crystal Energy now additionally grants +3/4/5/6/7% movement speed per stack (up to 3 stacks)

Bonus Attack Speed: 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 / 16% 」

BASE PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 25/40/55/70/85 (+0.8 attack damage) ⇒ 20/32/44/56/68 (+0.4 attack damage)

BONUS MAGIC DAMAGE: 24/36/48/60/72 (+0.4 ability power) ⇒ 20/32/44/56/68 (+0.2 ability power)

W - Crystalline Exoskeleton

COOLDOWN: 16 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 13/12.5/12/11.5/11 seconds

COOLDOWN :: 18 seconds ⇒ 16 seconds

MOVEMENT SPEED BONUS :: from 15/17/19/21/23% ⇒ 16/20/24/28/32% (now ramps up over the first 3 seconds)

BASE SHIELD AND ABILITY POWER RATIO :: 70/115/160/205/250 (0.6 ability Power)⇒ increased to 80/135/190/245/300 (0.8 ability Power)

EFFECT :: No longer provides an Attack speed bonus

E - Fracture

MAGIC DAMAGE: 80/120/160/200/240 (+0.7 ability power) ⇒ 40/60/80/100/120 (+0.4 ability power)

COOLDOWN: 14 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 12 seconds at all ranks

R - Impale

"NEW" IMPALEMENT: Impale consumes all stacks of Crystal Venom and deals 50/75/100 magic damage per stack consumed

COOLDOWN: 130/120/110 seconds ⇒ 110/100/90 seconds

This is hands down the best solution:

• It still expressed the "sticky predator" fantasy that skarner players loved about him;

• It didn't have urgent gameplay/design issues, as in, it was healthy;

• It was more popular, and no spires are needed to be modeled, so more skins;

• you actually had a passive in lane, or outside specific areas in the jungle, which made him more consistent;

• Q got his depht;

• base values!

• future champions/gameplay updates won't need a spire cap animation anymore!

• Option 2 is a semi-revert, whith the main point of splitting the bonuses from spires, between spires and consecutive Q hits (kinda how it worked prior to the juggernot update). Following there some options, just to give an idea on how the mechaincs would work, numbers are not final:

Semi-revert 1, from Shahamut. Goal of this proposal is to make the spires not a "must require" zone, so that bonus inside the spires = bonus from consequtive Q hit:

Passive: CRYSTAL CHARGE: While within range of a Crystal Spire controlled by his team, Skarner is considered to be at maximum crystal charge stacks. Upon leaving range of a spire, Skarner's Crystal Charge stacks fall off as normal after 5 seconds.

Passive: Overcharge: While within range of a Crystal Spire controlled by his team, Skarner also regenerates 3% of his maximum mana per second.

Q: Crystal Slash__Cost: 12 mana at all ranks_Cooldown: 3.5/3.25/3/2.75/2.5

Skarner deals physical damage to all enemies in range. As long as Skarner hits at least 1 enemy with this attack, he gains a stack of Crystal Charge. Crystal Charge stacks last up to 5 seconds and stack up to 3 times, granting Skarner increased move/attack speed. As long as he has at least one stack of Crystal Charge, this attack also deals bonus magic damage to targets hit. Hitting targets with this ability will refresh the duration of Crystal Charge.

Base Damage: 20/30/40/50/60 (+32/34/36/38/40% AD)

Magic Damage: 20/30/40/50/60 (+30%AP)

Attack Speed per stack: 12/14/16/18/20%

Max Values: 36/42/48/54/60%

Movespeed: 5/6/7/8/9%

Max Values: 15/18/21/24/27%

Basic attacks against non-structures reduce the cooldown of this ability by .25 seconds, increased to 1 second vs champions and epic monsters.

W: Crystalline Exoskeleton_Cost: 50 mana_Cooldown: 13/12.5/12/11.5/11

ACTIVE: Skarner shields himself for up to 6 seconds, gaining bonus movement speed that accelerates by 100% over 3 seconds while the shield holds.

Shield Value: 80/120/160/200/240 (+8% max HP)(+80%AP)

Initial Speed bonus: 8/10/12/14/16% (max bonus 16/20/24/28/32%)

E: Fracture_Cost: 50 mana__Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10

Skarner launches a blast of energy in the target direction, dealing magic damage to all enemies struck, slowing them for 2.5 seconds, as well as marking them with Crystal Energy for 5 seconds.

Skarner's next basic attack against a target marked with Crystallizing Sting Crystal Venom consumes the mark to deal them bonus magic damage and stun them for 1.25 seconds.

Base Dmg: 80/95/110/125/140(+40%AP)

Proc Dmg: 20/30/40/50/60 (+40%AP) Proc dmg back to magic damage Slow: 50% at all ranks

His ult remains the same with the exception that he no longer gains spire bonus while ulting.

Semi-revert 2:

Starting point will be Crystal Venom Skarner, but with spires.

Goal is to make spires a marginal, "cherry on the top" mechanic: spires will give a much smaller amount of bonuses than live, while the bulk of the bonuses will be obtained through consecutive Q hits, as shown:

AS from Q hits: 30%/60/90%

MS form Q hits: 15/30/45

AS from spires: 20%

MS from spires/ 15

mana regen from spires: as live, or less if overbearing.

The two bonuses merge when skarner's on the spires (total amount will be less than live to compensate for more consistency):

bonuses from consecutive Q hits + bonuses from spires < bonuses from live spires.

Number are meant at lvl18, they're not final, just to give an idea.

Thank You for reading, would love to hear your opinion =)