Skarner rework proposal

It's 2019 and it isn't a secret that there are champions in League that are incredibly busted, while others look more like a joke than anything else. One of them is Skarner AKA: the Scorpion Boi . Probably, you haven't heard anyone saying that Skarner is forgotten (besides that dude that keeps spamming posts about that), but this isn't because the champion is ok. In fact, is because he is SO underplayed that nobody even remembers that he exists. It isn't a secret either that his last rework was a complete failure and was like the final nail in the coffin for a champion that has't been really popular ever. Since then, the few people that still plays him have demanded a new rework, or at least a revert on the line of Rengar or LeBlanc, but in this long 4 years Riot hasn't done shit. You know."Skins not sellin', champ keeps stinkin'", the core philosophy of Riot balance team.

In this experiment i'll try my hardest to create a rework that doesn't change Skarner's identity but solves his problems. It isn't going to be easy, because like a lot of old champs, he doesn't really fit a rol in particular. He isn't neither a fighter nor a tank, but weird combination of this two classes. This is a serious problem for balance, because he can either have the tools of both classes and be an unstoppable powerhouse; or just have half the tools from each class and become a weird hybrid that isn't good at any of the classes' playstyles.

First of all, I will list all the design problems a champion with Skarner's characteristics has, in order to solve them:

• Point and click hard-CC ult. It isn't fun when a Malza or a TF just presses a button and isnta-CCs you. Skarner's case is worse, because he can also pull people to their team. In order to discourage people to just build full tank and be a Blitz's Q with the help of Predator and/or , we have to give them an actual form of engage that isn't just ulting the carry. Nerfing the base movespeed of the shield and putting requirements on the ult seem like good solutions.

• STUPID synergy with Spear of Shojin. A champ with hard-CC that can reset itself while giving him AS buffs is the perfect definition of an infinite stunlock with this item. The obvious solution is to get rid of all AS buffs and possible synnergies with it, and to replace them with empowered autoattacks so his "hybrid fighter" thing isn't lost.

• SHIT passive. Replace it. Period. It was never a good idea.

• Half of his kit (Q and W) has always been REALLY boring. The Q is a spammable AOE that you don't have to aim or anything, and the W is an auto-buff. There has to be a way to make these abilities more interactive.

• Hybrid scaling. Yep, this can also be a problem. Currently, Skarner's kit scales with AD, AP and AS, but all of this scalings by themselves are laughable, because the power budget is so split that all of them are terrible.

• Lack of a part of the match in which he really shines. Skarner has an early-based kit with the numbers of a late-scaling champ. That means that he is obliterated early because his lack of numbers, and kited to death in late game teamfights. It's obvious that Skarner's kit isn't meant for teamfights, but for early and mid-game 1 v 1s and skirmishes. Therefore, Skarner needs some base damages and stuff. Nobody is saying that he has to be a cancerous hyper early game jungler that oneshots people without even trying, but he definitely needs love in this area. It isn't normal that a "fighter" deals less damage pre-6 than a cannon minion once he has used his only useful ability.

Now, the list of things that define Skarner and make his identity, at least in my opinion:

• CC-heavy fighter.
• Cooldown resets.
• Hybrid damage and scaling.
• His ult.
• A shield that grants MS.
• A skillshot.
• An AOE attack that does more damage as the fight goes on.
• Being the only fighter in the game that slowly kills squishies out of boredom, frusting their escape attempts and locking them down while hitting them with a constant barrage of small but numerous hits; insead of you know, one-shotting them with a combo.

With all of that said, here is my proposal for a Skarner rework. It's a Frankenstein monster of all Skarner variants so far, with some new mechanics.

• Passive: Crystal energy: it has 2 parts: CRYSTALLINE EXOSKELETON: Skarner generates a shield that regenerates 16/13/10 (levels 1/7/13) seconds after being destroyed. If the shield is damaged but not broken, it can also be repaired after spending the same amount of time out of combat. The shield is equivalent to 12% of Skarner’s Max Health (+0.2 bonus AD) (+0.35 of Ability Power) and minimizes his frictional force, granting him 20/24/28% (levels 1/7/13) (+1% for every 20 AP) of movement speed as long as the shield persists.

CRYSTAL STING: Skarner’s offensive spells infuse his opponents’ bodies with crystalline marks for 7 seconds, a lapse that restarts whenever Skarner adds another mark to the same target or hits him with a basic attack. At 3 marks, Skarner’s next basic attack consumes them, dealing 10/30/50 (levels 1/7/13) (+0.2 of Attack Damage) (+0.15 of AP) as additional physical damage, crystallizing the target for 7 seconds and stunning it for 1/1.25/1.5. Skarner’s abilities get reset for an equal amount of time and he gets additional bonuses depending on his target’s type of marks. o For each red mark, Skarner recovers 50/75/100 (levels 1/7/13) (+0.25 AP) of health. o For each blue mark, he recovers 5/7.5/10% (levels1/7/13) of his Maximum Mana.
Crystal sting deals true damage to already crystallized enemies.

Crystallize: Crystallized enemies get additional effects form Skarner's abilities, but upon receiving a crystal sting they get a 20% slow for instead of a stun and they don’t get crystallized again.

Skarner can’t put marks on small monsters or minions.

If the basic attack doesn’t land, crystal sting doesn’t activate, but the marks aren’t consumed either.

• Q: Crystal Slash: Range: 350 Cooldown: 6/5.75/5.5/5.25/5 Cost: 12/14/16/18/20 mana

Skarner’s next basic attack gains 50 reach and inflicts 1.05/1.1/1.15/1.2/1.25 AD. Shortly after, it triggers a circular crystalline wave that deals 10/20/30/40/50 (+0.35 AP) as magic damage and adds a blue mark to nearby enemies. Crystallized enemies receive double damage from the crystal wave, and Skarner steals 10% of their move speed for 2 seconds.

Crystal Slash resets aa animation.

• W: Crystal Leap: Range: 450 Cooldown: 20/19/18/17/16 Cost: 60/65/70/75/80 mana

Skarner shoots backwards an energy burst that propels him to a nearby location. If Skarner has crystalline exoskeleton active when using Crystal Leap, the magic contained inside it enhances the explosion, doubling the distance and allowing Skarner to go over walls. However, the burst also destroys the crystalline exoskeleton.

• E: Fracture: Range: 1000 Cooldown: 7/6.5/6/5.5/5 Cost: 30/30/35/35/40 mana

Skarner shoots a blast of crystal venom that hits a maximum of 3 enemies, reducing its width with each impact. Hit enemies get 40/45/50/55/60 (+0.4 AP) magic damage and a red mark, and suffer a 50% slow for 1 second. Crystallized enemies get additional magic damage equal to 3% (+1% for every 50 AP) of their max health and their attack speed gets reduced 30% for 2 seconds. Skarner can store up to 2 Fracture charges.

Fracture resets aa animation.

• R: Impale: Range: 350 Cooldown: 130/105/80 Cost: 100 mana Passive: After using an ability, Skarner’s next basic attack deals 5/7.5/10% AP as bonus magic damage. This damage is doubled against crystallized enemies. Active: Skarner suppresses an enemy champion for 1 second and completely restores crystalline exoskeleton. During this time, he can freely move dragging around his victim while dealing 60/120/180 (+0.5 AP) magic damage and 0.35 bonus AD physical damage. Impale’s damage and duration increase 33% for each mark the target champion has (Max damage: 120/240/360 (+1 AP) (+0.7 bonus AD)).

During the suppression, Skarner can’t perform basic attacks nor use Crystal Leap, Fracture or Flash.

I think that the main idea is pretty clear: Skarner losses one of his 2 MS buffs and gets instead a dash. In order to discourage people to just R enemies, now the ult's duration is really short unless you hit them first with the rest of your kit. Outside that, it's only useful as a peel tool in an emergency case. Besides, now the W is moved to the passive. This achieves 2 goals. The first is to obviously get room for a new, more interesting ability (the jump). But the other one, the reason it ins't just a W passive or anything like that, is to prevent people to max it first or second and go full Hecarim. Because of that, it also gives even less MS than the current one at late levels but it has an AP scaling so AP builds can run fairly fast but tank builds don't get buffed by that.

The second part of the passive is the kit's core. Is an updated pre-Juggernaut passive with some tweaks. The idea with this passive is that at the start of a battle you are basically a worse-tank: you have CC but you need time to deliver it, your base damages aren't that high... . But once you do the full combo you pass to a fighter mode that deals a lot more damage to that enemy but loses all his Hard-CC in favour of just slows, that helps chasing down near death prey.

The idea behind the jump is that is a last resort: long cooldown, high mana cost and if you want to use his full potential you have to sacrifice your shield. That does't only make you squishier once you have jumped, it also gets rid of your other MS bonus so you are fully committed to that play and don't have any more chasing tools if you permormed badly.

The E is a typical projectile but with a new mechanic to make it more fresh: instead of getting slower, it gets narrower with each impact, with a maximum of 3. The visual idea is that it's a big proyectile surrounded by two smaller ones that spin around, kinda like Kirby's star proyectiles, and with every impact it loses one of the smaller ones.

He has alternative but worse bonus AD scalings in some parts of his kit. It's meant to be played AP, but if you wanna AD, well, there you have it.

Finally, a Riven-like passive on his ult to make more mechanically challenging and that's it.

Main combo: E-aa-E-aa-Q(aa)-R-aa (aa=auto attack)

I hope that you like this little experiment. Hopefully, it enough people upvote, one rioter may read this thread and get at least one or two ideas to speed a bit his rework. You know, better in 2022 than in 2025.