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Skarner: Feedback post-LIVE

Nightmist Dark··2 votes·1,224 views

So, people complaining that Skarner is now broken, and Meddler saying he will be getting a hot-fix Nerf soon, let's talk about some points first:

what do needs a nerf: -- E damage, CD, cost - E should be used for the utility slow/stun not for damage. clearly seeing people maxing E instead of Q shows this. -- W early scaling shield, maybe CD, but not the cost - some said the early shield scale might be too good, but he needs the MS it provides. -- new items maybe - the new items like Titanic Hydra and Sated Devourer? which makes it an item problem and not a Skarner problem.

what doesn't need a nerf -- Spires - clearly the counter is not fighting in his spires and neglect them by warding/capping them. nerfing the stats from spires will just hurt Skarner more. -- Movement speed - already with his LIVE stats he can be kited easily, making him slower will just gut him. -- Q is fine - people should be maxing Q if they want damage, not E. in fact some of the damage could be transferred to Q from E. -- R is fine - people need to buy QSS, Banshee's Veil, kite Skarner, save CCs to hold Skarner after he ults, or send Olaf with Ragnarok. How much easier should it be?

Skarner is a Juggernaut -- it means he is kitable, melee range, he can't 1 shot like an assassin, he doesn't bring the same tools as a true tank. -- he gets advantage when you lend him ground, and disadvantage when it gets denied. -- he has as good potential as a Nasus or Yi that was left to fully stack Qs or Sated Devourer, and then melt your team.

I've been playing Skarner since S3 and his play pattern has been almost the same (after he lost perma-slow Q) just a few changes in itemization, clearing camps and gank set-ups. This rework changed him a little, but he still has some of his old patterns. The problem is he is barely played, people either play him bad or play bad against him.

Look at his win rate with 29k games https://na.op.gg/statistics/champion/ - 59%, but we need to account all that was mentioned above. But he does clearly need a nerf, but not the nerf to send him back to Davy Jones' Locker. The win-rate will go down when people start to play countering him.

I'm giving my personal feedback after playing him and watching many games with him, and yes he is a bit too strong, just a bit, but if they nerf him too hard he will be back under the rug, and if that happens I'll just have to go back to Nocturne.

http://img03.deviantart.net/9e2b/i/2012/112/f/8/pony_skarner_by_artsed-d4x982u.jpg

7 Comments

Shahamut1 votes

Although the damage on E is nice, it all comes from the bonus damage and stun. The base damage on it is already laughable. Most people where maxing it first to lower its cooldown and increase the slow, making getting the stun more reliable.

Remember, all of Q's damage scales with total AD now, so the damage increase (since you aren't building a ton of AD) just isn't a priority for Q anymore.

It will take more than damage nerfs to E to make people want to stop maxing it first now. ALL of Skarner's utility is wrapped up in that skill now. So people will max it for extra burst (stun damage proc) and lower cooldowns and a bigger slow. Unless they take ALL the extra damage from E off AND move it's power to Q, people will be maxing this first now.

Nightmist Dark1 votes

yeah, you're right but that's some of the stuff Meddler said it's going to get nerfed. they intended people to max Q for damage, but we'll have to wait for the hot-fix to see how far they will nerf him. I'm just hoping they just don't send him back from where they brought him...

Shahamut1 votes

ya got that right... RIOT can't figure out how good they want the scorpion to be, much less what his identity should be.

I think he is fine. People are just adjusting. He has a contestable passive that has almost no use outside of the zones aside from his ultimate (that had better not ever change as long as these things remain). So much of his power budget is wrapped up in those spires and then they overcharged his E.

My quick fix solution? Change the E so that instead of dealing bonus magic damage, it heals Skarner for a % of his missing health:

Skarner launches a blast of energy forward in a line that deals magic damage and slows the first six enemies it hits for 2.5 seconds, as well as and marking them with Crystal Venom for 5 seconds. Fracture's missile slows down every time it hits an enemy champion.

Skarner's next basic attack against a target marked with Crystal Venom consumes the mark to heal Skarner and Stun them for 1 second.

Damage: 40/60/80/100/120 (+100% AP)

Heal: 6/7/8/9/10%(+1% per 50AP) missing health.

AND if they want to push him further into the jungle they can double the heal vs Monsters. Lots of jungle sustain, dragon baron fighting power.

GG Noob Team1 votes

-- E damage, CD, cost - E should be used for the utility slow/stun not for damage. clearly seeing people maxing E instead of Q shows this.

Its not the reason. The reason behind maxing E is that, it gives more benefits than maxing Q, better slow and more damage per lvl invested. However, Q is still the biggest skarner part and is really strong.

-- W early scaling shield, maybe CD, but not the cost - some said the early shield scale might be too good, but he needs the MS it provides.

Honestly, its the last spell to max out. Indeed, it has too big scaling in early, he basically comparing to the old shield, has 3-4 lvl shield at the start.

-- Q is fine - people should be maxing Q if they want damage, not E. in fact some of the damage could be transferred to Q from E.

Q is the biggest broken skarner part. He has his auto attacks + basically 0.9/0.45 AD + 0.2AP every 1.5 - 0.5 sec depending on the amount of CDR he has. He deals too much damage for the utility he has. Just give him trinity force, new ad itemization and you are unstoppable monster, dealing 200-300 every hit + another 180-260 from Q all the time. Stun, another suppress, could move the target around for 2 secs, total duration of hard CC is 3 seconds, plus slow from E for 2.5 sec. Being really tanky at the same time, and has no longer any mana problems due to the crystals around the map, providing him massive mana regeneration.

They gave him just too big damage that comes out from scaling. If they would leave the old base damages at R and Q alone, it will be balanced, but it will never be as long as skarner could go AD and kills everything like jax. It will takes multiple patches until they will balance him out properly.

Nightmist Dark2 votes

the question here is, will they nerf him to being unplayable? that's the fear many of us have.

Shahamut2 votes

The problem is that even now RIOT doesnt know exactly what they want out of Skarner. Neutral buff control? sure. But he is gonna have to be pretty strong to do that.

But if he has NO use outside of that, in the long run he will be trash.

My opinion: He doesn't need a nerf, just needs his power redistributed.

More on this later if people care to hear it. Im off for now.

Nightmist Dark1 votes

indeed

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