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Let's Talk: Skarner!

ShinRaigeki·3/20/2014, 7:21:28 AM·6 votes·463 views

Well, it's that time again, for me to post another topic.

Today's topic: Skarner.

I have just gotten this champion, and everything Riot sold on me back in the AMAs and whatever?

Lies.

His jungling speed felt fairly atrocious. His ganks felt even more atrocious. His E wasn't that reliable. The Spirit Stones didn't help at all with sustaining his mana that well, much less his health He's too easy to peel because all his abilities require him to get close. And his W is completely underwhelming.

Now you'll probably tell me "maybe you played him wrong".

That's not the point. He isn't even feeling like a high skillcap champion, he just is undertuned for whatever he's supposed to do.

His Q: At first I was in love with this skill, AOE damage, does more, blah blah. But, once I got down to it, it was horrible. It's output was completely underwhelming for a "Speed Clearer". I've played Vis, I've played Lee Sin (to less success), i've played warwick, I've played pantheon. And to date, I can say out of the junglers I've mained, Skarner's got the worst waveclear for his jungle. Even when I used Amumu it felt faster, and let's not speak Volibear (that W does wonders).

So. What's the big problem here? It's undertuned. It's damage is underwhelming and what it offers in AS is fairly unnoticeable. "But it's 24%!" - That's after using it 3 times. And that 3 times equates to roughly 6 or so seconds of revving up his Q for the first 2 levels.

I don't know what I'd do here, I'd see it better if it started at full ability and didn't scale. We got a scaler, her name's Jinx, and hers not only scales up a lot better: it doesn't cost mana to do so. When you view it like that, skarner needs a whooole lot better scaling on his AS buff especially since he's a fighter and his relative here's a marksman.

His W - Honestly, the shield's nice, but that's all. The fact that breaking this shield breaks his MS bonus effectively kills him further.

Skarner can't reach his opponents half the time as it is: the top of the top laners got dashes or strong peels (IE: Renekton, Olaf, Trundle),

the mids got usually hard CC or dashes or a powerful slow (Gragas, Ziggs, LeBlanc),

and bottom is in a state of spellshields (Sivir), Traps (Jinx/Caitlyn), and stuns galore (Annie, Leona). Not to mention usually ranged champs so they can kite off his shield in 2-3 hits.

Effectively, he's driven near useless. The ms bonus doesn't help when it starts off slow either. Makes it easier to break though.

There has to be a way to plausibly detatch the speed up from the shield, as it is, he's not even a massive threat pre 6. His closest brother Udyr (who has 1% less starting haste and ends up with 3% more) at least doesn't need a rampup.

His E: I'll admit, I loved the change, but the cooldown makes it impossible to catch most opponents for good. It's a skill shot Riot, not an auto-hit. Pantheon's got a 13-9 CD STUN at 600 range. If we want to play the range game, we got thresh who starts at 20 and drops to 12 (Q), and SYndra who despite 300 less range, hits a far wider area, and up to 1.5 seconds WITH a knockback. With all the peel in this game, Skarner just lacks 'catch' to reach effect.

Now his R: I was originally in love with his R. Until I just about noticed the reality: it was nothing. It does 200 damage, 'suppresses' the enemy, and drags them. 200/300/400+100% AP

Yet... it doesn't do much. The best you can do is drag someone under turret, but honestly 90% of the time they'll begin running away from you to prevent just that, or at least minimize the shots. The damage is unimpressive as well for an ultimate.

In the end we can relate everything Skarner has, to everything Warwick has, in a way. And by proxy volibear but that's another story.

Skarner's Q is effectively a mix of Warwick's passive into Warwick's W. It increases AS, and with what little damage that Q splash does, it might as well not matter.

The sad part? Warwick's W is 40% to 80% and gives 20-40 to allies. Wow, a Warwick -gives- about the same AS in an instant and for 70 mana to up to 4 champs at level 1, as Skarner gives himself at level 1 after 42 mana and 6 seconds. The mana different doesn't matter match in the long run it seems.

Skarner's W is Warwick's E. But Warwick requires an enemy under half HP (and is toggleable!) and that gives a flat 20-40% MS instantly. Skarner's W can just be poked and that's all it wrote, and Warwick's will last that whole fight until the end.

And Skarner's R equals to warwick's Q and R in ways (both are more or less used to engage). But Warwick's R has an insane range in comparison (700 vs 350), applies his passive to the max 5 times, all his on-hit effects 5 times, and his life steal, five times. This is -excluding- the damage scalings. (Skarner: ([200/300/400] + [200% AP]); Warwick: ([250/335/420] + [200% Bonus AD] + <[Passive * 3] * 5> + [On Hit Effects * 5] )

Skarner's damage is just underwhelming in the end. His presence is underwhelming as well. His movement speed is alright, but the method and revving make it underwhelming. And his Slow effectively is his best part, but without his W, it too is underwhelming.

Tl;Dr:

Skarner is heavily undertuned.

Riot. It seems like you were afraid to give skarner a lot, in fear he might become a monstrosity, however in doing so, he just cannot hold up at all even versus other Niche picks, who would pick him apart as it is if they had a chance.

6 Comments

Khmera3/20/2014, 12:53:26 PM3 votes

Yeah he is pretty ugh now. Honestly back when they were looking for suggestion I wrote maybe you shouldn't get rid of his healing. An I suggested that maybe you could add a regen small health regen similar to voli to his W with his shield. Like maybe a 2%/4%/6%/8%/10% of his maximum health as health regen in the time span it takes for his speed to max. Of course I said you could raise his mana cost to 70 or 75 for this particular spell. And that the counter play similar to Sion would be if you broke his shield his healing stops and he loses his speed boost. But that was my thought an of course I didn't expect them to listen. I also thought that after he was made his slow could be 14/13/12/11/10 cdr cause it is a slow, a somewhat strong slow, but a slow not a stun, an it can miss... I mean yeah his passive can lower the cdr, but like you stated he takes too much time to ramp up compared to Ww. Still thinking his R can use a little more range 500 (half the range of his slow)at least and when he ults they should be pulled in close to about 350 range away from him so he can Q. But I think his Q should really be at 400 range. =/

SvenVvath3/20/2014, 6:07:37 PM2 votes

I'm mixed. I played the old Skarns and I had mixed feelings then as well. I FELT more threatening then.

NOTE: I'm low elo. So.. take that into consideration. Also I play a mix of 3s and 5s so the way I think about things in 5s is derived sometimes from the aggression that is Treeline

After some games with Skarns on 5s (and REALLY wanting him to be my Jam) the conclusion I came to is that in order to make Skarner the true threat that he is you play in the enemy jungle.

His early game dueling ability is ridiculous. At level 3 I drop my trinket ward in the enemy jungle and start farming their camps. NOTE: Blue is required. Spamming Q is nothing but safely doing that requires his W to be spammed. If you see the enemy jungler... FIGHT! He beats EVERYONE that he catches out at the moment. Unlike the old Skarner... they WILL be able to get away. But you can set them back. When they leave jungle go to nearest most gankable lane in FIGHT!

The mechanics required is admittedly high. You have to be constantly adjusting your position in between each attack. And you have to attack to get those cooldowns back.

I never posted my feelings about his early problems but Riot adjusted EXACTLY what I think he needed. That missile speed increase was much needed. Using E early isn't recommended, though. As the cooldown is too long (unless you can land it max range and that's a gamble)

He needs lizard quickly so he needs to have a good early game. But, honestly, that's the case with quite a few of the current meta junglers at the moment.

The longer Skarner is in a fight the stronger he is. You may think his (Q) is underwhelming but his passive increases cooldowns with basic attacks and his (Q) increases attack speed so the synergy is strong. Your shield (W) will come up faster and faster. I your lanes are even or ahead you won't need a turret for your R. Just that fact that you can suppress and re-position the enemy behind you then slow them is a kill. Head to jungle to basic attack your ulti off of cooldown and repeat. When the lanes rage because you ulti them again after they get back to lane, you've donw your job.

All in all I think he's less insta-bursty and his core items can be costly... but without items level 3 he can duel like a monster. Aggressively, he's stronger, he can lane and be strong, but going for a "I farm my jungle you farm your jungle and we try to fairly gank our lanes" he's pretty unerwhelming I agree.

Long... sorry

::edit:: long ranged E's are great even against champs with "escape" like Grag and the like. But you have to let them over-extend (past the half-way mark). Pop your W and charge them. They have to use "escape"... if you land the E it's PROBABLY goodnight for that champ.

jwf9993/20/2014, 12:02:26 PM1 votes

Umm skarner ap mid, DUH. But in all seriousness I liked the old skarner did pretty well with him. I haven't tried the new skarner yet. But basically this update was to give his e a purpose.

Shahamut3/21/2014, 12:40:38 PM1 votes

I have played with some high elo friends of mine (they got me into this game) and I can tell you, vs anyone who actually knows how to play, Skarner just doesn't do ANYTHING without his teammates, so counter jungling is like a "no no" because if you get caught you are dead. Now, in my bronze 5 Elo- I can do whatever I want with Skarner and carry. This skarner does not cut it for high level play. He needs more than just some minor tweaks.

Shahamut3/21/2014, 1:05:53 PM1 votes

I hope they fix him, but if they wanted to do a "rework" I think it should have looked like this: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?p=45799935#post45799935

for anyone who is interested.