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Skarner VGU Concept: The Cruel Tyrant

I say Facts·11/1/2019, 10:52:02 PM·20 votes·10,738 views

Brief Lore and Interview:

People say: 'Sleep under the Snake and never get close to a scorpion because a scorpion's sting is a death sentence most of the times'. Alright, let's take a look at a part of his old Lore!

Then, without warning, the song became a scream. Skarner was jolted awake as explosions tore through the brackern’s hiding place. The land had become parched and barren, but mortals persisted—they came armed with fire and metal, delving down beneath the surface to hack the living crystals from his sleeping kin. Skarner erupted from the sand in a frenzy. He killed many of the murderous thieves, and the rest fled in terror, leaving him to revive his dormant companions. But those brackern whose crystalline forms had been damaged died moments after they woke, and most of the others could not be roused at all, so deep was the trauma to their collective psyche. He stumbled through the valleys in mourning, He was certain that, even if the magic of the crystals still endured, it would quickly fade in the hands of mortals.

Skarner is Shuriman and he represents the Scorpion King from the desert mythologies. He is in the form of a ruthless scorpion, he is cruel, merciless, deadly, big, mean and savage beast. He guards his area in an immobilized form, until he sense a stranger coming to his land, then he will burrow himself from the sands, slay every opponent in his sight cruelly, then gets back to where he belongs, he is very defensive over himself, but he is not a guardian, he is a very selfish being who focuses only on himself. Therefore, he is a true nightmare to those who dare to move a step toward him.

Visual Design:

By Star Abraham https://i.redd.it/ttpxuoqr37g31.png

This visual design represents the a brief structure of what could Skarner use in his Visual design.

By KNKL https://www.deviantart.com/knkl/art/Guardian-of-the-Sands-Skarn-Skarn-KNKL-Concepts-532475516

Another visual design that shows an improvement in his structure.

Overall, Skarner visual theme should introduce an intimidating scorpion beast, who is venomous and sharp.

  • Shuriman armor around his neck
  • Long tail with a sharp pointy Stinger, could be decently sized stinger
  • Tough, large and heavy pincers
  • Powerful exoskeleton scales on top of his pincers, body and tail
  • Standing taller on all of his legs, he could remain walking like a complete insect, but he could also be standing bigger to look more savage

Gameplay Design:

Role: Jungler Class: Juggernaunt

Base Stats: Health: 580 - 2200 Health Regan: 8 - 24 Mana: 300 - 1000 Mana Regan: 7 - 15 Range: 175 Attack: 64 - 142 Attack Speed: 0.600 ( 0 + 35.7% ) Armor: 35 - 105 Magic Resist: 32 - 60 Movement Speed: 340

Skarner is the jungler of Shurima, he is the predator juggernaunt, he does not respect anyone who dares to stand a battle against him. He is not looking for battles, he is a defensive beast, but when he sense a battle, he will prepare a cruel and deadly form of dueling with whoever stands against him and put them down.

Skarner should avoid being the diver, he shouldn't rely on being a mage, nor support, nor a warden. Skarner should be a juggernaunt, a slow immobilized monster who will be easy to kite, poke and killed in teamfights, but when it's time to duel someone who is close to him, nope, it's his time to murder these people.

Skarner should be played mainly as a juggernaunt/ secondary a vanguard

Fiora level Rework required, mentioning the type of damage needed on Skarner's kit to realize his true theme of dueler

Here I am going to list few videos about Scorpion fighting ( you don't need to watch it because it may be graphical for some viewers ): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK6l4GA33V0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTPcJ59tz_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atW64SnI9Y8

These videos I mentioned represent the behavior of the scorpion when he is having a fight, scorpions usually don't start a fight, they are defensive, but when their target comes near them, it's over.

Skarner should represent this role of uniqueness juggernaunt gameplay in his gameplay, instead of mixing him with AP + Diver and Tank, keep him a deadly juggernaunt, who can play also as a vanguard as secondary role for those who wish to play as tank Scorpions.

Abilities:

Note: Skarner has special interactions when his Hp is low and when the enemy's Hp is low.

Passive ( Deadly Habits ): Skarner basic attacks deal 20-60 based on level magic damage on hit. **When Skarner's HP drops below 50% health, he starts spitting on his Pincers, adding a toxic damage to the target dealing 4% of the target Hp as bonus magic damage on hit. ** **When Skarner is below 25% HP, his toxic will convert from 4% magic damage to 4% true damage on hit. Additionally, **Skarner basic attacks will heal him for 20-60 based on level.

(The more wounded Skarner is, the much more dangerous he will become in combat)

Q: ( Dreadful Pincers ): Skarner slams his pincers against the enemies in front of him in a small cone of melee range, breaking their armors by 10/15/20/25/30% for 4 seconds and dealing bonus damage equal to 110/120/130/140/150% of his total attack damage. ( Applies on Hit Effects )

Mana Points: 35 at all ranks Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6 Range: 200

W: ( Sturdy Exoskeleton ): Passive ( Sand predator ): When enemies drop below 50% Health, Skarner half-burrows by putting his legs inside the ground, gaining 20% movement speed toward the injured target ( Doubles against targets below 25% Hp ) and leaves a sand trail behind him. Sand Trail: Skarner will leave a trail behind him, and enemy team will be able to find where he is going by following the sand trail ( this is a great way to either counter or fall in his Trap) Take a Risk or Kill gameplay. Active: Skarner empowers his Exoskeleton, gaining a shield that absorbs 10/12/14/16/18% of his total Hp for 5 seconds.

Mana Cost: 75 at all ranks Cooldown 20/18/16/14/12

E: ( Collision ): Skarner dashes forward (by running in a quick animation forward), knocking all enemies away, and grabs the first champion with both of his pincers then brings them back to his position before the dash was activated (Over 1.5 seconds animation). Dealing physical damage equal to 80/110/140/170/200 + ( 50% Ad Ratio ) and stuns the target for 1 second. If Collision failed to grab a champion on the way, Skarner will continue to move whenever he lands himself, and refunds 50% of the cooldown Skarner is able to cast Enraging Exoskeleton and Venemous Impaler while grabbing the target during the duration of Collision.

Range: 300 Mana Cost: 50 at all ranks Cooldown: 14/13/12/11/10

R: ( Venomous Impaler ): Skarner inserts his sting inside the target and keeps his sting in the target for 1.5 seconds before taking it off. ( flashing, dashing away will stop this channel and only take the first sting damage ). First sting damage injection deals Magic damage over 5 seconds equal to 3%/5%/7% target's total HP as magic damage per second. The full damage after 1.5 seconds injection deals True damage over 5 seconds equal to 3%/5%/7% of target's total HP per second. If the target is below 15%/25%/35% HP, they will show Skarner a mark of Stinger on top of their health bar or next to it, allowing Skarner to know that it is his pleasurable time to give this target the stringer of death. The target will be immediately paralyzed to death after the effect ends in 1.5 seconds of injection. Venemous Impaler will completetly stop the target's healing from all sources, until the venom ends in 5 seconds. (Shields can counter that).

Range: 200 Mana cost: 100 At all ranks Cooldown: 100/80/60

Overall Conclusion:

With these changes, Skanrer will finally be able to fight the way he wanted, however he will deal with risky situations, while being terrifying in certain situations.

Let's have a look at this Pros and Cons:

Pros:

  1. Very powerful juggernaut who scale very well into late game
  2. 1 type of CC that will help him in team fights
  3. Has special interactions when his target is low on HP
  4. Can be played either as a Juggernaunt who keeps his melee combat terrifying, or can stack a lot of defense too to keep his tanky gameplay viable.
  5. The longer he fights in duel, the more powerful he becomes

Cons:

  1. Immobile and Slow
  2. Has no CC or any Slow ability, other than the Grab from Collision
  3. Collision's Cooldown is long. Therefore, after casting it, he will lack mobility and lose the only type of CC for a while
  4. Very easy to kite once his Collision Is used in combat
  5. Struggles against ranged projectiles
  6. Enemies who flash away from his ult will prevent the full injection damage which will provide them a safer position by only taking the 1st sting injection damage.

In conclusion, with these changes, Skarner will be the Skarner, he will be the cruel predator of Shurima, who punishes the melee combats in a cruel way of revenge. He will stand his land and protect himself at all cost against whoever dares to invade him. Finally, he will be the deadly juggernaunt of Shurima as what the giant scorpion already had to be like that.

**Itemization: **

Jungle:

  1. item 1401 item 3047 item 3078 item 3742 item 3083 item 3065** ( Regular Jungler Build )**
  2. item 1413 item 3748 item 3078 item 3071 item 3053 item 3009** ( Specific Juggernaunt Build)** If he was able to land in Top lane as a secondary role, then I expect him to build item 3025 item 3071 item 3053 item 3748 item 3742 item 3111

I finally got to finish this concept for Skarner, realizing that his priority for a VGU is fairly high, I managed to finally finish all of that. However, It really took me so long... Thanks everyone for the support and votes on Skarner. Feel free to give me your feedbacks!

I'll note that I will spend time working on Shyvana, Nocturne and Mundo VGU concepts too! As well as other certain champions.

10 Comments

SennaFirstPick11/2/2019, 12:52:39 PM4 votes

god damn those videos are BRUTAL. i like that

FlameHalbrdOkido11/2/2019, 5:07:06 AM3 votes

Im not so sure about the health of ur passive, i think it should be reversed. Normally when it comes to champions with regen passives, they only turn on or get stronger when the champ is BELOW 50% that way they can reduce the toxicity that comes from a champion that u can just never kill bc they always have thier regen when they are already healthy.

If u want to KEEP the health regen on the passive especially above 50% (vs below 50% which i think would be healthier), then i'd suggest u gate in somw way, maybe every third AA, or maybe only when the target is below 50%.

For W: Again with the defensive passives, i think they need to be gated in some way, so they either aren't always active or are weaker until some requirement is met, otherwise it feels unfair that a champion is getting free stats that they don't have to work for, especially defensive ones when the champ is already above 50% health. Personally i don't think he needs this passive at all, if getting kited and AA'd at range is his weakness then let it be his weakness, there not reason for the kit to try to cover it up, thats for the player to try to find a way to mitigate or get around, or simply play to the champs weaknesses/strengths. I think this is the kinds of stuff that can lead to a kit being overloaded with too many bases being covered. If you MUST keep then then again i'd gate it behind either only after killing a unit, or upon being shielded. Personally i like the idea of it only being active once shielded bc that leads to some interesting skill checks and ways to show mastery, in this way it kinda acts like a spell shield

Also did you kno that Skarner is weak to magic yet strong against physical attacks in the Lore? I think it would be interesting if he got a VERY big physical shield. This would help him in a number of ways, magic damage is usually applied in the form of AoE's which Skarner hates bc it can whittle him down in teamfights b4 he can get to his target, whereas physical damage is usually applied in single target skillshots and AA's and normally skarner wants to get in and shut down these types of targets.

E: kinda worried about u giving Skarner a suppression on a basic ability. IK that it would be on a long CD but this is an ultimate lv CC we are talking about here. The ONLY non-ult Suppression in the game is on Tahm and that ONLY have being heavily gated behind short range and 3 AA's on a slow AA'ing champion with not much DMG in hit kit as a dedicated tank, and thats for a GOOD reason bc Tahm was originally designed to be carefully balanced around this Suppression. But here u've put it on a dash that knocks other non champions aside. I would not want to play against that even if the CD is higher and now its a skill shot dash that can be blocked. Theres not enough proper gating for it be feel fair to play against when its off CD as a non ult ability on a non ult CD.

R: while i like R as it is, u'v ALSO gated it super hard, bc its pretty hard to stay on a target as Skarner is now w/o the slow and Stun from E and the MS boost from W. But here u dont have any of that. You DO have a dash and suppression on E, which means u have gated R very hard behind landing E, which is what people didn't like about Zac: u don't really get to use ur ult unless u land a basic ability, and ur ult shouldn't feel gated like that, it should be a moment of power that plays to the strengths in the rest of the kit.

Honestly ive spent a lot of time thinking about Skarner too, and it seems like his ult has to stay the way it is, Riot may think of something else or completely rework Skarner Sion style who knows. But working with wat we got the Ult is very iconic and honestly pretty balanced. Many skarner mains would not be happy to see it go, and that goes for his diver like play style as well. While i DO find the more juggernaut play-style intriguing and maybe easier to design for, its the ability to dive in and drag someone out that Skarner mains like, its unique to him, and i think it would pay well to try to maintain it in some form, but i would respect ur reasoning and decision to move on from that old style of play

However this kit will not cut it, it needs a lot of work with the only thing that still kinda works being the Q. You need to work more on how u will mean the design goals u gave in the post with the basic abilities, and truely deliver on ur desired niche and gameplay pattern in a way that is balanced and mechanically interesting in some way.

FlameHalbrdOkido11/2/2019, 7:06:35 AM2 votes

here's my rework in case you were interested https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/skin-champion-concepts/Y2Bu5udu-skarner-rework-give-the-scorpion-poison-and-let-him-dive