Potential fix for Skarner Spires

I saw some work is being done on Skarner spires. So far it looks like the zones will be larger and they will not reveal which ones are active or inactive.

IMO the issue with Skarner spires is an issue with Skarners identity as well, and these changes will not help with that. It's good that the spires are being looked into, but I want to suggest a different set of changes.

To frame my suggestion I want to start out by saying the biggest issue with spires (besides not being a fun mini game) is that they take a bunch of Skarners fighter stats and they wrap them up in zones of control. The problem is basically what that boils down to is Skarner only gets to be a fighter while he is within one of the spire circles. Since you can't guarantee a spire to be active (or even have one nearby) then often times the best answer is to build Skarner like a full tank.

However, full tanks are usually team engagers who jump into the entire enemy team, where as Skarner is more of a single target lock down and skirmisher, who lacks a good way to engage on an entire team without a flash ult play. He doesn't match up against Sejuani, Nunu, Zac, or Maokai in terms of engage trying to be a tank.

So, he lands up trying to be a tank, who is really a fighter, but doesn't get to be a fighter unless he is sitting on a spire.

With that clarified my suggestion is to make Skarner spires a drop and place passive. Then have the spires not give attack speed or mana regeneration, and instead just movement speed and also slow the enemy by an increasing amount by how near they are to the center of the spire. The thematic here being like an ant lion. If you've never seen one ant lions dig sand pits and then lure ants into them, when they fall in the ant lion eats them. Skarner would have the spires on an ammo system, with a 1 minute recharge time per spire, and instead of being permanent would have a fixed 8 second duration after which they sink into the ground.

Then this doubles up for Skarners ultimate, because these crystal spires give you a place to drag the enemy back into. You place a new spire when ganking, the spire slows the enemy a bit as they try to run away, and then Skarner can grab them and pull them back onto the spire. The cooldown on the spires would prevent them from being used too heavily in lane (although I'm not opposed to top lane Skarner), because of the long cooldown and limited duration making them better as a ganking tool than a laning tool emphasizing Skarner as a jungler. Even if the numbers aren't perfect this change also gives levers that can be manipulated to properly nerf or buff it for future use such as duration's, the slow amount, how many ammo, etc.

Some other suggestions are:

To move the stun back to the Q because the stun attached to E makes Skarners crowd control far too reliable, but he should still be rewarded for sticking to a target.

Also, might want to consider giving Skarners ultimate the Reksai treatment, where champions he has tagged with his crystal poison allow him to ultimate by going underground and launching to his target. The difference being that instead of doing huge damage this would be a crowd control ult. It always made more sense for Skarner and helps to remove the issue of needing flash to make any plays when the game transitions to team fights.

Skarner is overall a very cool champion and I think people WANT to play him, he just doesn't feel satisfying with the current spire system. Please consider the above suggestions. Thank you for reading.