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Skarners kit (power budget) questions, confusing, frustrated...how to build??

CHEAT ENGINE ssd·4/13/2016, 5:45:51 PM·2 votes·682 views

  1. Hybrid ratios. This is frustrating to me since when I see hybrid damage ratios I start thinking of possible itemization. The Trinity force AP is removed which was the good item on skarner if you were able to get snow balled. The other good spell blade item Ice born also had it's AP removed. Rageblade I've used on skarner once or twice awhile ago and maybe I'm wrong but it didn't feel strong (AFAIremember). Gunblade I've honestly never tried or considered on skarner. All of his abilities scale off AP, and his Q and R scale off both. His Q is a big damage source, and it mostly scales off BONUS AD, also having a pretty nice .3 Ap ratio. Was this champion left behind by IBG/TF reworks a bit? Should I be trying a rageblade/gunblade build?

  2. Power Budget. Why is all his damage (power budget) tied up this way with mixed ratio? Is he meant to have an impossible or awkward build path to access his potential damage? Back in season 5 you could access your ratio's with a trinity force buy, if you were doing well enough to justify going that big damage route, and it all paid off for skarner (maybe not the crit chance.. but the rest was gold). If you needed more armour you could go IBG and still get some AP for your mostly AP scaling abilities. I remember some people building runic echo (out of sheen) on skarner and that was pretty nice. It feels like his potential is there but he has no god damn items to buy anymore. I'd rather have stronger Q passive and ditch the AP ratio, or maybe change the damage type while charged from .8 bonus AD to .8 total AD, but no, they spread skarner power budget out too thin. No, he's gotta have his Q power budget spread out so much he can never actually realize it, because it requires BONUS AD, AP, attack speed (not required, but it encourages you to build attack speed)

  3. Zephyr was a great item on skarner. WTF RITO

  4. Build Questions. Is it just me or is every single jungle enchant probably viable? I have only used Cinderhulk forever now, but it's so clear that skarner wants to use devourer - but devourer doesn't feel good on skarner to me so I quit building it, I felt like if I went devourer it was bad unless I kept going into damage, skarner devourer isn't like Yi or Xin devourer, it's not as much about the on hit build it's to basically put your Q on instant cool down constantly.

  5. Skarners shield. I miss the time when skarners AA's reduced the cool down on all his stuff, but I mostly miss it on his shield. You COULD play him like Udyr if you were able to bring his shield up more often. I know people probably don't think of it too much but I think of skarner as kind of like Udyr, runs fast, spams, shields, stuns, hard to kill, mixed damage ratio/types, any item at all will work on this champ... But does anyone actually play him like that? Not really because his shield doesn't work like Udyr's. I don't really know what to think about this because it does work pretty good but you don't really ever get to use it optimally. Like, you can't spec for it properly, no AP yet again. Why did they put his power budget into an AP scaling? It's just an excuse to keep it shittier I think. Take the AP ratio away and give it missile speed or base damage or missile width or longer stun or stronger stun. Or make an item that supports mixed damage tanks like skarner or Udyr instead of making them play like either damage OR tank, like the mixed damage items (a total of 2...) and life steal type stuff.

  6. Does anyone else feel like skarner being reworked in 5.16 and them doing a large AD over haul and removing items a couple patches later was short sighted as hell? Steraks gage could be a beautiful item on skarner if his Q scaled off total AD. Steraks would buff his autos and his R, but they nerfed his R damage a lot. IBG/TF changes, zephyr, runic echoes, all these changes didn't help him IMO.

  7. Intended identity. Riot calls him a juggernaut. His kit is run up to you and duel you to death, not instantly but over a little bit. But you can't really afford to go big damage most of the time or you are uselss.

18 Comments

Zarkkast4/13/2016, 8:52:25 PM2 votes

I personally prefer him full tank.

item 1306 item 1401 item 3025 item 3742 item 3190 item 3512

CHEAT ENGINE ssd4/13/2016, 7:48:39 PM1 votes

BUMP

Beldair4/13/2016, 8:58:33 PM1 votes

I tend to go Cinderhulk, Dead Man's Plate, Titanic Hydra, Warmog's, Bloodthirster (replaced with Banshee's Veil if they have more AP), and Berserker's Greaves.

Works quite well under his spires.

But i completely agree...the hybridization of his abilities has him in an awkward spot build wise.

I only do my build to make him tanky but also give him some sustain with the life steal (the shield from Bloodthrister is a small plus as well XD)

CoolMike1274/14/2016, 5:27:12 AM1 votes

U build him 40% (or 45%) CDR tank with cinderhulk or AD on-hit with Warrior of Devourer

Sightless664/14/2016, 5:47:27 AM1 votes

Hybrid ratios.

Ignore them. You're a tank. Any damage item that isn't iceborn and sterrak's (rarely cleaver) is a mistake to build in almost all situations.

Why is all his damage (power budget) tied up this way with mixed ratio?

It really isn't. He's been balanced based on the assumption that he'll never, ever be buying any AP. They've given him total AD ratios for his Q and R, his W works on total health, and he has a very high base AD. That's pretty much saying that there is no real expectation for him to have any AP whatsoever. They could actually remove these ratios without affecting his balance state. Because of that, they aren't really counted as part of his part of his power budget. For power purposes, they're ignored. They're just vestigial.

Zephyr was a great item on skarner

Meeeehhhhhh. It was vaguely acceptable, but honestly you could pretty much always find a better item for the situation. It really was a mediocre item.

Build Questions. Is it just me or is every single jungle enchant probably viable?

Not really. Devourer is pretty terrible because your attack speed sucks outside of the shrines (and building around the shrines is a good way to lose), you have no on-hit effects, and the only benefit it gives you is lowering the Q CD, which will do very little damage because you should be maxing Q last. Runeglaive can work on any tank right now, so that's technically a valid option for him, but warrior tends to get outshone.

I think of skarner as kind of like Udyr, runs fast, spams, shields, stuns, hard to kill, mixed damage ratio/types, any item at all will work on this champ... But does anyone actually play him like that? Not really because his shield doesn't work like Udyr's.

That's not why Skarner isn't played like Udyr. The biggest factor separating them is the speed of their damage application. Udyr can activate his R or Q and immediately proc a huge amount of damage, then just run away a bit with his shield on. Skarner has to stick to someone to deal damage to them because his upfront damage is very low. The shield could be literally anything and it still wouldn't enable him to play like Udyr.

Take the AP ratio away and give it missile speed or base damage

That's not how it works. Because he's not building any AP right now, it's not part of his power budget. You can't remove something that is contributing 0 to the power budget and then use that as a justification to add something that does contribute to the power budget. The decision of whether or not to buff the skill has literally nothing to do with the AP ratio, because the AP ratio contributes no power and is not a factor for the purpose of power budget calculations.

Basically, you could add missile speed or base damage with or without removing the AP ratio and his balance state would be exactly the same, so you can't use the removal AP ratio as an argument for why he should or should not get more power.

Steraks gage could be a beautiful item on skarner if his Q scaled off total AD.

It does. Sterak's is very common item for him at high level play.

Intended identity. Riot calls him a juggernaut.

They've gone back on this a bit and they're reclassifying him as a tank with slight juggernaut characteristics. When they eventually rework him again he'll be made into more of a tank and less of a juggernaut.

Venowolf4/14/2016, 6:15:29 AM1 votes

As a Main Skarner I noticed that his damage is poorly right now, so the best way is to build him as tanky as you can. Here you can check he is the lowest in "damage dealt"

http://champion.gg/statistics/#?sortBy=general.totalDamageDealtToChampions&order=ascend&roleSort=Jungle

The upcoming nerf to item 3025 gonna affect him a lot because he os one of the champs with the most higher base AD

So right now my "to go" build is:

item 3009 item 1401 item 3025 item 3742 item 3053 item 3065

Cinderhulk because is the tanky jungle enchant, IBG to aproach the cd, and passive because his low Q cd and slow, swiftness boots and DMP to improve his movement speed in order to use your Impale, Sterak's agains to aproach his high base AD and finally Spirit Visage because with Runic Armor mastery create a good tandem of resistances and regeneration specially on shines also the cd is always welcome.

item 3065 and item 3025 gonna be nerf in the next patch (6.9 and 6,8 to be exactly) so maybe affect him in some way like I said before.

You can replace item 3065 with item 3190 is that is the case.

An honorable mention is the new item 3800 it used to be one of the best item on Skarner but the item suffered a lot nerfs, now with a new incoming passive in 6.9 that help Skarner to recover mana and health when he loses could help him to resist more and the active part a excellent tool to engage.

Maybe he is more a tank than a Juggernaut he is more build and used as a tank than a "damage dealer" champ.