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Skarner's Jungle Problem(s) and Solution(s)

Blorgorize·2/17/2014, 11:59:15 AM·12 votes·1,216 views

This opinion excludes lane Skarner, who was painlessly killed off with the removal of lane sustain.

Crystal Slash no longer needs the priming due to the removal of the slow. The magic damage should be applied on the first Crystal Slash!

Skarner now feels like a Tanky AP jungler with SotAG and FG still core with Liandry's as your tank shredder. The difference is that you either build Sunfire vs AD or Rylai's (Banshee's) vs AP, or just build Rylai's if you get fed and be a frontline destroyer and regain the original Crystal Slash slow.

Skarner's rework is much more healthy for the game and the champion himself due to the lack of the feast or famine mentality. The numbers just need to be tweaked and he'll be perfectly fine. His utility abilities shouldn't have so much of their power gated by ranks, at least not both Fracture and Crystalline Exoskeleton at the same time.

That said, I still hate how undertuned Fracture is, any of the following changes would be more than welcome to help Skarner's bread and butter CC:

  • Make the slow baseline at all ranks as 40%.
  • Increase missile speed, is it really 1700 units on the live servers? If it is 1700 units then 1950-2250 units would be around the sweet spot.
  • Increase missile width from 90 units to 120-150 units.
  • Make the mana cost baseline as 60 mana.
  • Increase the baseline slow duration.
  • Allow Skarner to increase the duration of the slow by X seconds, up to X seconds, when applying Crystal Slash to targets debuffed by Fracture.
  • Make the cooldown baseline at all rank as 10 seconds (arguably unnecessary).

If we can't get to Fracture then could we look at Crystalline Exoskeleton instead:

  • Allow the movement speed to persist for X (1-2?) seconds if the shield shatters prematurely. (This is the same problem Skarner ran into and why the attack speed was moved to Q, come on!)
  • Snapshot Skarner's bonus movement speed after the shield shatters, allowing him to maintain the movement speed bonus for the full 6 seconds but can no longer ramp up without the shield.
  • Grant Skarner X% of the movement speed immediately with the rest ramping up over 3 seconds.
  • While Crystalline Exoskeleton is active Skarner is immune to slowing effects, or Skarner's movement speed cannot be reduced below X%.
  • Remove the ramping on Skarner's movement speed (Subverted by waiting in Fog of War for it to reach critical mass and arguably the weakest argument).

If we can get none of these tweaks then we can, as a last resort, give Impale additional kit synergy by enabling Skarner to teleport to a target debuffed with Fracture. The process is as follows:

  • If Skarner activates Impale while targeting a champion afflicted with Fracture he now burrows to the target and instantly impales them.
  • Skarner's channel time for Impale is now his burrow time to Fractured targets, but does not root the target with this method.
  • Upon emerging from the channeled burrow time Skarner immediately Impales the target while shouting his successful quote.
  • Fractures slow missile speed and skinny missile width are now properly explained and greatly rewards a skilled Skarner for landing long range Fractures post 6.
  • Fractures slow should still be 40% baseline or the duration of Fracture increased with this change.

I feel mildly terrible for surrendering my PBE access as I could have helped steamline the numbers better, but that's all the beef I have with Skarner's rework, a simple case of numbers that are incredibly easy to fix. The mechanics themselves are largely ideal for spreading out Skarner's power, good job on that. Getting caught by Skarner no longer means you won't be moving anywhere anytime soon and allows you to actually escape without Flash.

However, we'll see how these next batch of recent number tweaks help Skarner.

11 Comments

Footie 1172/17/2014, 9:25:58 PM4 votes

I posted an idea of what i think would help skarner stick to targets. im only posting here with the hope that riot will see this easier and consider it as an option.

I had a thought, what if after you hit someone with fracture, when you hit them with a q it extends the duration of the slow, this way you are rewarded for landing that slow in the first place.

With permaslow which was and is a core part of skarners character once you get in range of a scorpion(which is rediculously short to begin with) you stay there, by doing this change if you hit someone with a fracture for a gank early that slow stays there BUT if you miss it then you are pretty well hooped.

This would also allow for if you survive the first round of slows you can have counterplay and dodge/juke out the next slow and get away, to do this you would need to reduce the cooldown of that slow to about 9 seconds and allow his q to extend the duration by 4 seconds, this way there is(assuming skarner makes a couple of autoattacks) a very small window of oppourtunity to escape as an opponent

yours in faith

-Footie

PsychoB0b2/17/2014, 7:40:14 PM3 votes

I agree with these changes. He's strong...if you're willing to stand still and let him hit you. But...why do that when you can just walk away? He doesn't really have much of a ways to stick to you (2.5 second slow on a 14 second cd...)

Noam Braumsky2/17/2014, 3:48:09 PM2 votes

I'd love to see him this way. I stopped using him as my jungler because I didn't like his new rework. If this happens, I'd jump right back into the Skarner jungler theme.

BobuBobu2/17/2014, 12:50:49 PM1 votes

Bump because this is quite simply beautiful.

Jowsuff2/17/2014, 9:48:48 PM1 votes

I agree with essentially all of these changes. Good work.

PirSultanAbdal2/18/2014, 8:11:48 AM1 votes

Problem with Q's magic damage is, it only makes difference if you have disposal of sh*tloads of ability power. Magic penetration barely affects it. It's base damage is so low that you might better off with more attack speeds and lifesteal and AD too.

However, Trinity Force/Iceborn Gauntlet is giving you enough AP to justify his ratios (well since the removal of permaslow, iceborn gauntlet is now the only unquestionable item on Skarner and has no alternative)

Instant magic damage would also cause him to lose his already lost and forgiven identity. But it is still worth to shot, since they already scratched Skarner and made something i cannot call Skarner.

Your approach to Crystalline Exoskeleton is also unlikely to become a real thing. It was suggested couple of times before the rework and after the rework. Slow immunity would make Skarner "un-fun and toxic" again because they just got rid of his permaslow (which i still dislike, but who am i?) now they are going to give him another sticking power? No way in hell :)

Edit: I also have a thread on Skarner changes. I'm hoping to get attention of a Rioter here, so if you are interested, be sure to check it on live balance section.