Skarner Rework. Why its both a great idea and a bad one.

Recently, we got news that Riot was reworking four of our favorite champions. Great! Sadly. When the details hit, most of us were displeased. Mainly about two of them. Here, I am going to talk about .

Skarner's rework is both a great example of design, and a TERRIBLE one. This rework makes his passive into a Capture The Flag style minigame. Within the zones he has captured, he gains incredible bonuses. Massive ones. The problem with this is that a large chunk of his power budget is being pushed into this because the designer in charge wants his role to be 'best-in-class neutral objective control', as well as making it a minigame that isnt very fun. The good part is that it adds interesting gameplay to him.

The feedback has been largely based around this. Some adjustments have been made. I sadly see little change in the negative feedback around this. Putting even more power into it will only make him feel worse outside of it.

Being frank, I think this is going in the right direction but down the wrong path. Why not make it an ability similar to 's W? Make it a place-able zone which he gets similar bonuses in? Why force players to participate in a minigame which will not affect their champion the majority of the time past the 10 minute mark? Why not do an actual rework instead of gutting his kit in favor of a minigame?

This rework feels like a lazy attempt to make Skarner an interesting champion again. His original design was the scorpion that charges into the enemy, and brings a prime target to his team. The dragging targets part didnt pan out as the game progressed, and he got constantly nerfed and buffed. Then a rework happened, and people enjoyed him again. Then the cycle continued. So why dont you buckle down and create a wider array of tweaks and possibly new abilities instead of this hazy after-party CTF-style rework?