Skarner's Spires (repost)

This is a repost of my thoughts on Skarner as a champion and, more specifically, his spire passive. It has been over 8 months since I posted this in gameplay+ boards (r.i.p.) and I am reposting it to hopefully rekindle the discussion that was started those many months ago. Some edits/additions may be included, and I will try to mark those as they come up.

Skarner's spires have been a problem since they were introduced; mostly for Skarner's players. The spires themselves, I personally feel, were a poor homage to the late dominion game mode. Overall, they are a poorly thought out/executed ability, and doesn't make sense in either gameplay or lore The rest of this post will attempt to show why that is:

GAMEPLAY Role Diversity: This is a point I brought up with Riotscruffy when the concept was first introduced to the player base. It was shrugged off as an "unfortunate side effect" and pushed through anyway. This season, RIOT stated that one of their goals for champions this season was role diversity, and as long as Skarner has this passive, he is handicapped in ANY role that isn't jungle, and even then, these spires don't exactly do what Riotscruffy was trying to achieve. This goal was to give Skarner in niche in jungle objective control. This passive does not, however, achieve that.

Location (objective control): Skarner's spires give him some additional fighting power in the jungle and in the river. Until recently, the spires didnt even cover all the jungle camps, but even though they now do so, his early game clears are not much faster (if at al) than the average jungler. But the real question is: Do the spires help Skarner control objectives, more precisely, Dragon and Baron? The sad truth is, no they don't. Abilities that grant additional control to these kinds of objectives will ALWAYS come in the form of burst damage to monsters. This is why smite is a required skill on junglers (there are other reasons of course, but not for the scope of this discussion). Abilities that add ACTUAL control to dragon and baron are things like Nunu&Willump Q(Consume), Cho'Gath's Feast(R), and Kalista's Rend(E). These kinds of abilities will allow you to "smite" more efficiently and burst the objective faster than your opponents. They give you an "advantage" to leverage over your opponents. On top of this, they also can be used outside of the jungle, target champions, and have other benefits as well. Cho gains permanent health when he kills with his R, Nunu can regain a substantial amount of HP, and Kalista can stack spears on multiple opponents making the burst AoE increasing teamfight potential and wave clear. Skarner's spires? They do none of those things (more in feast or famine).

Location (indication)/(jungle camps): These two smaller points have been recently addressed in the QoL changes he got a few patches ago (9.5?). Spires are no longer visible on the map (both a pro and a con since Skarner could track enemy movements as easily as they could track his with them) and the zones are slightly larger now, making them useful for all of his jungle camps. Cool, I guess... :/

Feast or Famine (mostly famine): when it first released, it seemed as though it was a mostly feast zone: no one could fight Skarner in those zones at pretty much any point in the game. His clear speed was extraordinary, and he farmed himself into a lead and kept it. They obviously tuned that down... way down. Now, it's mostly famine. Skarner isn't much stronger in his zone till much later in the game, and if your team is losing, you will NEVER control these special zones, completely denying Skarner's already limited passive which consumes a decent portion of his power budget. Being able to completely deny this much of his power, which is already limited by location is just bad design, imho.

ADDED POINT/CONCLUSION SECTION Power Budget: Since Skarner has gained this passive, he has lost a TON of power in EVERY aspect of his kit. You probably wouldn't think about it, but has anyone else noticed that Skarner has:

• No base damage on his Q (Crystal Slash)- It only has the AD scaling base, and the AD/AP scaling when empowered. At rank one, while charged, this attack will do a whopping 40-ish damage! CAREFUL, HE MIGHT BURST YOU DOWN!

-NO base Shield Value on his W (Crystalline Exoskeleton)- It has HP scaling (only 14% at rank 5) and AP scaling. Urgot, Nautilus, Riven- all of these champions have shields (chosen for their different roles) have base vaules as well as scaling. Urgot and Riven have HUGE scaling through AD (their offensive stat...) and Nautilus has %HP scaling with his base values.

(His E is the only ability that does any kind of decent damage: 70-250 but that damage is locked behind a skill shot that must be followed by an auto attack. So the skill is still garbage if you are trying to last hit from range: 40-140 +20%AP)

• His R (Impale) does VERY low damage... Now, you may be thinking- but its a supression and has great displacement! which of course is true. Skarner with his old passive used to be able to forgo a stun to deal extra damage with his ult. Problem is, this ability deals damage 2x (if not qss'd or K'd by GP). We are talking about 60%AP plus magic damage (20/60/100 +50%AP)... Seriously, 40 magic damage and less than 1 auto attack for his sting? Let me put this into perspective for you: Nautilus Q, is a skill shot, but its a basic ability and you can guarantee landing it with Ult or just being in melee range and auto attacking, so its higher usage and uptime more than makes up for Skarner's being point and click (forget the utility of being able to escape/gapclose via walls). This basic ability, which also displaces an opponent and puts them in melee range of Nautilus (who then roots you with an auto attack) deals 100-280 BASE DAMAGE and has a 90%(!!!!) AP scaling... Seriously, what? Blitzcrank hook? Same deal: 80-300 BASE DAMAGE with 100%(!!!!!!!) AP scaling... Did I already mention these abilities are ranged? and are almost universally followed up my more cc? I did? ok.

Conclusion of gameplay: Since Skarner's passive gives no real edge in controlling baron/dragon as shown above, and is unavailable outside of the river and jungle, it follows then that the spire passive also does not aid in the taking/defending of towers and nexus. They do not give him a niche in ANY kind of objective control. What they DO is eat up a TON of Skarner's power budget. They create a VERY heavy famine playstyle since the spires are a TEAM objective and can thus be completely denied if your team is behind.

LORE

Zone control doesn't really make sense: Sure, the beginning of the lore makes Skarner a guardian, but that isn't where the story leaves us. Skarner is on the move, searching for the lost Crystals of his brethren. He is hunting. If Skarner were to find these life stones lying around, he would certainly not leave them there but take them back to his dying brethren.

Each Brakken draws it's power from a SINGLE life stone: Skarner's current passive has him drawing power from multiple crystals on the map. According to the lore, he only draws life and power from one life stone: the one fused to his tail. He couldn't borrow some from others. In fact, He nearly died in his lore trying to find his.

BONUSSKARNER'S IDENTITY

Venomous Stings: Mentioned in the lore, but not truly expressed in his kits design/execution.

Skarner's class: Understanding Skarner is apparently a bit of a chore as no one (player base or RIOT employees) can agree on what Skarner IS. I will state my opinion, but let's start with a little bit of history:

Upon release, Skarner was described as a "true hybrid fighter". In those days, concepts where much simpler. Your melee characters were basically decided into one of 2 categories: Tanks and Fighters. (Can't remember if assassin's were a class yet). Skarner was a fighter: a melee damage dealer. He was described as a hunter, dragging lonely victims to their inevitable doom.

As time went on, RIOT began the monumental task of trying to better define classes to aid them in their design choices and to help new players understand the strengths that a particular champion brings to the table. Now, at first everyone agreed that Skarner was in fact a fighter: melee champion with a sustained damage pattern, but when they created the subclasses, they didn't really make a subclass that truly fit Skarner, making him a bit of an oddity. So, they threw him into the juggernaut class.

As a juggernaut Skarner was unique, in that he had most of the tools Juggernauts were supposed to lack, namely more than one soft cc: ranged slow, stun, supression. His damage was sufficient, but it gave him too much overall. So Riot nerfed his damage.

As these changes took place, it became clear that he wasn't a juggernaut; but he was still a fighter right? Riot moved him into the diver class. The problem with Skarner as a diver, is that he doesn't play like one. Skarner has no jumps, blinks or dsshes with which to bypass an enemy frontline (see Jax or Rek'Sai). His damage had been hit pretty hard still as well, so Skarner was feeling more like a tank now then before. Wanting to keep that aggressive playstyle in mind, he is now described as a vanguard, or initiating tank.

As a vanguard, Skarner is also pretty lack luster, as initiating a fight is better done with higher impact AoE abilities, such as Sej/Malphite R. Skarner has to run up (or burn flash) to catch someone, and, being so easily kited, is pretty difficult to NOT see coming.

Skarner has suffered long enough from this identity crisis in my opinion. Skarner is a hunter, his lore describes his fighting as ferocious, his quotes "limb from limb!" and his motivation to tirelessly seek the life crystals of his dying brethren all point to a damage dealing chase you down and kill you at all cost to get back what's rightfully mine kind of character. He is passionate, motivated and ready to do what's necessary. Let's look at his kit:

Q: Crystal Slash- I like the aoe of this ability, as it sort of displays the ferocious and untamed combat I would expect from this champion. It powers up after the initial strike, showing a progressive sort of rage which fits nicely, especially with Skarner's new lore. As an X-Skarner main, it's also iconic in that up until the juggernaut fiasco, this was Skarner's main skill, and it pushed his dps playstyle.

W: Crystalline Exoskeleton- Originally, Skarner also had healing in his kit. But it was weak and hard to balance so it was removed. W, remains as Skarner's one form of what I call sudo-sustain. At max rank, (and if you rush cdr... you should) it's a low cooldown shield that also empowers Skarner to chase down his enemies. Built in counter play allows you to break his shield to slow his advance.

E: Fracture- currently, Skarner's E is overloaded as heck, but I will stick to it's core functionality: a ranged skill shot that slows targets down, allowing Skarner a better chance at catching them. They brought back the Mark and proc for some added cc (stun). Still, originally, this was your last skill to max, and provided the utility needed to make Skarner not 110% kite-able, assuming you can land Skill shots.

R: Impale- Skarner's most iconic ability, a single target suppression that allows him to relocate a target victim manually.

So what is Skarner's kit good at?

Sustained damage: Skarner's primary source of damage is Auto Attacks and Q spam. Though the AoE from Q is nice periferal damage, I wouldn't call it 1v2 material in and of itself, rhough it certainly helps.

AoE: the AoE from his Q and E makes him good at clearing jungle camps and minion waves. This means he could potentially be a powerful farm jungler or even split pusher.

Single Target CC: Yes, currently you could potentially stun multiple people after one cast of his E (fracture), but I can tell you from experience that it is VERY rare. Certainly not a common enough occurrence to call it a thing he does. Single Target cc chaining Though? That is a thing he does.

Map mobility: His low cooldown W allows Skarner to move around the map pretty well.

Conclusion: much to the disagreement of many (no surprise right?) I believe Skarner is a Skirmisher. He wants to hunt and fight lone targets. His kit makes him great at 1v1 dueling, having good tools for split pushing and catching people out between lanes. Like all good Skirmishers, Skarner has useful things in his kit if behind so as not to be completely irrelevant (Yasuo windwall, Fiora aoe heal). In teamfights, and when behind, his cc is best used to peel, keeping divers and assassins off of his carry.

Link to the original post: https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-plus/A1I5czRs-my-thoughts-on-skarners-spires-long-post For anyone who wants to see the slight differences. Original post also includes a link to my most recent/best update suggestion, which is mostly just a revert to pre-juggernaut with some minor tweaks.