I like how everyone complained about how weak the skarner rework would be.

I know, I know.

One guy got righteous vengeance. One guy got patriotic might. One guy got a spectral dragon. One guy got a rock.

It's really ironic that the guy who got the rock ended up beating everyone's ass with it.

The majority of the Boards has a very crappy grasp of balance to begin with, so it's understandable that they can't predict anything either.

Of all the Skarner mains I talked to, the biggest complaint was not that it would be "weak" but that the spires were a "conditional passive" that a lot of his kit was poured into. More that it was gimmiky and weird, not that it was weak. I can't speak for anyone else on the boards however.

I still stand by my evaluation that stated if Skarner had ZERO access to his passive outside the spires, he would be useless. His ult as is is very strong atm with how far he can drag someone with that extra 100 ms. The "on demand" stun he has now has also helped his ganking AND teamfight presence.

I think they should balance him outside of the spires and tone down the bonuses gained within. But that is just me. I think cutting more of his damage in favor of sustain would make Skarner the juggernaut RIOT wants him to be.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/c3AMOdHE-my-thoughts-on-skarner

My thoughts if you are interested.

Yeah it's funny, it's even worse than the people who thought Elise would still be shit tier after her 5.14 buffs.

And 90% of those who called him that only looked at his shitty winrates before it boomed up.

darius was supposed to be broken op garen meh and skarner shitty

I mostly didn't like that they were changing him for the sake of changing him, rather than addressing an actual gameplay issue (like with Darius and Garen falling off too hard while bullying to hard early). Pre-rework Skarner was healthy, balanced, and pretty fun all around. Post rework Skarner is also pretty fun, while being really strong and a lot less intuitive.

Skarner didn't need changes, and they had to make the changes sizable buffs for skarner players to actually take them without having a riot abut it.

bugs broke AF, pick or ban tier. Does anyone enjoy playing against him?

People here love to act as if they know balancing, specially on stuff that hasn't even been out yet.

He was super weak when people were complaining Riot made a shit load of changes like 2 days before they released him to live.

He is weak unless he is in his zone. Then he is impossible to 1v1. Toxic concept. Very imbalanced.

Yep

The boards were wrong about balance changes.

Water is wet.

I'm personally hoping the he gets nerfed so hard people don't play him. People think that his crystals are ''conditional'' when he can grab any opposing jungle after level 6 and drag them into the center of his crystal then kill you before you can flash out. I play a lot of TB to learn new jungle champs and nearly every game it's vs Skarner. Not a fun experience. How this champ made it to live blows my mind.

I said it on PBE, but we all know RIOT doesnt care about PBE testers any more. Thats one of the reason why the PBE is becoming more and more a second server, for lucky people who can just use all champs and skins for free

its not that hes just op. its that hes the strongest champ at the moment in the game lol.