Skarner VGU Concept - How about giving him a Fiora - like passive?
So, i was watching this video where a scorpion got fed. You can see how the scorpion manipulates its prey with the pincers, to find a sweetspot to strike with its stinger and inject the venom.
This could be Skarner's new combat pattern.
It would work quite like rift herald's sweetspots, but for skarner sweetspots spawn faster, and they are thinner.
Skarner has to strike those spots with his stinger, in order to poison it's enemy, so:
passive: to be defined; looking for something crystal, environment related; kind like the spire one, but the buff is time-windowed, gives only more ms and manaregen Q: a)first cast: skarner uses his powerful claws to block the target. second cast: skarner turns the target so that his sweetspot face him(skarner); b) skarner covers himself behind his arms, taking reduced damage (like braum's shield). The main idea is to make skarner to use his bulky arms in other was than just auto attack. W: gapcloser or sutain (Crystalline exhoskeleton again maybe?); E: active: skarner stings his target, dealing physical damage; passive: enemy champions near skarner spawn Sweetspots[name to be defined] around them. Hitting these sweetspots with E deals more impact damage, and also poisons the target, briefly slowing him, and dealing magic damage over time. R: Impale, as live (+ additional effects for hitting sweetspots??)
With this concept, skarner should feel more of a scorpion, while rising his mastery ceiling and keeping him fun, because hitting sweetspots will be always a different experience from one enemy to another. Encounters will be less stat checky, and more dynamic, because skarner will have to move around his enemy to hit the sweetspots, allowing the enemy to protect them by moving too. It makes him more diverse, as such a combat pattern is pretty unique, to me at least. It brings back the sticky predator fantasy: as long as he hits sweetspots, skarner will have a mean to stick to his enemy. It lessen the dependency from the spires: this kit doesn't require attack speed as live does, so removing that crazy amount of as from the spires frees some room from improvements, such as accessibility to their buffs. i wanted to keep ms and manaregen because they better help skarner to land Es on sweetspots and proc the passive. My point is that an ambient mechaninc can fit in skarner's kit, as scorpions are territorial creatures, and ambush their prey by taking advantage from the environment around them. But talking of the crystal spires, the could be so much more interesting: for example, they can give some time windowed strenght, or even the buffs can be changed, from something that only server skarner, to something that involves team utlity, so that skarner isn't usless when behind. It strenghtens the phage/ibg synergy skarner players are familiar with.
Let me know what what do you think in the comments =)