Why do people say skarner is unviable?

Tormentula·Feb 6, 2016·2 votes·464 views

Everytime I pick skarner in a ranked game, people constantly say "pick something viable" even though he's a champion I can easily counter jungle as.

I never understood why people consider him unviable when he has the tools to provide different utility, can be incredible tanky, and does tons of damage. He even has a higher w/r than tryndamere, zac, vi, shaco, rengar, trundle, and even master yi, are they unviable?

I even had a Q where my team banned skarner so that I don't pick him... is it just bronzies don't know how good skarner is and just go by all the memes surrounding his legacy or is there actually an issue with skarner? Last I checked most people get terrified facing skarner since he counter jungles so many things.

I don't think skarner is unviable.. infact I don't consider anything unviable in the right hands as long as its a meta position (adc skarner for example, we have a problem then).

11 Comments

Hayaishi2Feb 6, 20163 votes

Everything is viable in soloq.

DreadlocksFeb 6, 20163 votes

Don't worry about it, i had 2 people harass me for picking j4, saying he is a terrible champion right now blah blah blah, and guess who carried the game...

TormentulaFeb 6, 20161 votes

I had a shen saying skarner isn't viable, and I ended up going like 10/3 with a quadra and carried him. He did carry our early game since all lanes fed, but late game he didn't know what he was doing and I ended up pushing all lanes while he roamed in jungle looking for something to do.

Deep Terror NamiFeb 6, 20162 votes

There's really only one viable jungler.

IncognonymousFeb 6, 20162 votes

I'm nearing level 4. He hits his stride pretty late, honestly. Full build Skarner, inside a spire, gets up in that ass. Most juggernauts have a good mix of single and multi-target damage, but Skarner actually lies on the high end of the multi-target side. That, and the fact that power is tied up in his spires, makes him weaker if simply looked at in a vacuum.

Very Hard EngageFeb 6, 20161 votes

his problem is he gets kited too easily, and if hes knocked out hes pretty much out until its over. or he just takes a facefull of damage to get in close in the first place to use his ult.

or the fact that hes totally item dependent to do something.

TormentulaFeb 6, 20161 votes

People say he's kited too easily, I don't quite understand this statement. I feel like he has the ability to kite others like crazy (crystal speed, W speed, movement speed runes) while catch up to people easily with his E slow, AA stun, and continue to stick to them with ult. I guess he can get baited into chasing for the ult grab, but that'd be any champion with some kind of stick (diana even) not to mention can he catch up pretty easy.

The only issue I don't like about skarner, is he is flash reliant.. I mean that as in his combos, ganks, etc always involve flash in normal scenarios inorder to pull them out of tower for the lane to get a kill.

Maybe it's just my builds but I never had issues with kiting, if anything I seen more complaints in chat from enemies saying he's too fast.

Very Hard EngageFeb 6, 20161 votes

{quoted}

People say he's kited too easily, I don't quite understand this statement. I feel like he has the ability to kite others like crazy (crystal speed, W speed, movement speed runes) while catch up to people easily with his E slow, AA stun, and continue to stick to them with ult. I guess he can get baited into chasing for the ult grab, but that'd be any champion with some kind of stick (diana even) not to mention can he catch up pretty easy.

The only issue I don't like about skarner, is he is flash reliant.. I mean that as in his combos, ganks, etc always involve flash in normal scenarios inorder to pull them out of tower for the lane to get a kill.

Maybe it's just my builds but I never had issues with kiting, if anything I seen more complaints in chat from enemies saying he's too fast.

maybe not 1v1. or 2v2. but in a siege setting he basically has to flash or hes going to die waiting for someone else to initiate.

id much rather have a naut hook + passive root over a skarner run at them (enemy kites back) and then skarner runs the enemy adc back into his team.

TormentulaFeb 6, 20161 votes

That makes more sense.

Skarner can get away with these things late game with more items but early game he is very unreliable.