Reworked and Remastered - Skarner Edition

by Jerrod "Thousand Eyes" Steis

            I’ve already gone over Nidalee and her rework, so now it’s time to take a look at Skarner. Skarner is a bit more straight forward and his kit didn’t receive as many changes as Nidalee. I feel more comfortable with Skarner, as he’s the first champ I ever put time into learning and for a long time I only played him. I’ve written guides for him and have spent a lot of time with all three of his different eras. So while Nidalee was more of a general look at what was changed, this will be a more in-depth analysis on how to play Skarner.

            Skarner is a champ that’s been around a long time. He was actually released a few weeks before I started playing the game in August of 2011. When he came out, he was immediately a strong pick. He had easily the fastest jungle clear in the game, along with a devastating gank pressure once he hit level 6. The trade off was that it was nearly impossible to gank someone before you had your ultimate. His Q (Crystal Slash) was a slow instead of a speed boost, and his E (Fracture) was a completely different ability. In short, the Skarner we know now, and the Skarner that was released, are extremely different champs.

           There were a lot of design issues with the original Skarner’s kit. First of all, the idea of his perma slow. As Skarner’s enemy, you basically were either stuck or not. There was no in-between or escape chance, especially during his release time when very few champions had dashes or jumps. It was a crippling slow, and not only that but it meant he was in range, meaning you could auto attack and lower the CD. Skarner could easily bring his Q down to a 1 sec CD and never let his opponent leave.

            Next in line is Fracture. Skarner’s E ability was widely known to be his weakest and most Skarner players didn’t even put levels into it until they were forced to. Essentially, he was a three ability champion. His Fracture used to mark enemies and heal Skarner when he auto-attacked them, consuming the mark. It just didn’t have a use when compared to putting more points in shield. Why would you pick something to heal you when you can get more speed and effective health from another ability?

Finally, there were the bugs with his ultimate. Skarner’s ult was known for pulling people who had gotten away. He would grab people who would flash or jump just before the grab and even midway through they would get pulled, usually wasting an important CD on their flash or escape. Actually, the reasoning behind this was an interesting little blip in the code design.

You see, Skarner’s ultimate, when cast, sends a small almost invisible projectile that - when it hits the opponent - will encase them and pull them to Skarner. However, the ability is targeted, meaning it can’t miss. So because there was a travel and cast time, there was a small time where the enemy could jump away before the projectile actually connected with them. Once it hit though, you were snared and pulled, no matter what the distance at the time, leading to a bunch of strange interactions. (I.E. Janna’s flying with Skarner after Monsoon, Trist being grabbed mid jump, anyone blowing flash but still stung.)

Riot put a small fix in for Skarner’s ultimate making it so that if the enemy got out of cast range before that projectile hit, the ultimate would not connect and would go on CD. It ruined most ultimates Skarner tried to get, effectively ending Skarner’s reign and putting him where he was until just recently.

Insert patch 4.2.

·         Q -- Loses slow, and gains attack speed stacks instead

·         W -- Small buffs, Movement speed ramps up now

·         E -- Now longer and slimmer, slows instead of mark/heal

·         R -- Now roots before ult, making it more consistent

           

4.2 was ultimately a failure. People felt like Skarner just didn’t have a niche anymore. His kit didn’t mesh well anymore, and all in all he just felt wrong. A lot of clamoring about how Skarner needed a re-rework and Riot put some time into it and put out a new new Skarner in 4.10, which is what I’m going to talk about today.

                                                         Patch 4.10

I’ll be the first to say that I was not looking forward to most of the changes happening this patch. The biggest thing for me was losing the original passive Skarner had. I understood it was to make him a more "lockdown dive the enemy" champ, but I loved being able to “farm” my ultimate back up, especially considering how important Skarner’s ultimate was to who he is as a champion.

Crystallizing Sting

·         CRYSTAL VENOM----Skarner's damaging spells apply a 'Crystal Venom' debuff to enemy Champions and large monsters for 5 seconds

·         UTILITY----If Skarner lands a basic attack on a target with 3 stacks of 'Crystal Venom', he will deal an additional 20-105 magic damage and stun the target for 0.5/0.75/1 second

·         CRYSTAL VENOM----After being stunned, targets cannot be debuffed by Crystal Venom for 6 seconds

            Skarner got a brand new passive that’s completely unrelated to his old one. His passive now revolves around hitting spells on the enemy. After three spells connect, Skarner can stun them with an auto. It’s a really cool passive that plays up to his theme of being a scorpion; encasing his enemies in crystal. It also cements him into a champ who specializes in locking people down.

            It has a lot of uses, the most obvious being stunning a target to kill them. Keep in mind of all the other possibilities though. For instance, this actually makes Skarner a very deceptive duelist in the jungle. Not only will his damage increase over time through more attack speed, but he can stop you from doing anything mid fight. Leading to sometimes surprising wins.

Crystal Slash

           

·         UTILITY-----Basic attacks reduce Crystal Slash's cooldown by 0.5 seconds (doubled against Champions)

·         CRYSTAL ENERGY----Crystal Energy now additionally grants +2/3/4/5/6% movement speed per stack (up to 3 stacks)

·         BASE PHYSICAL DAMAGE----25/40/55/70/85 (+0.8 attack damage) ⇒18/28/38/48/58 (+0.4 attack damage)

·         BONUS MAGIC DAMAGE-----24/36/48/60/72 (+0.4 ability power) ⇒18/28/38/48/58 (+0.2 ability power)

            Skarner kept his old passive as a passive on his Q, which was necessary for his ability to pump out damage, proc his new stun and jungle clear. It may not seem like much, but if you try to continuously use Q without basic attacking, you’ll notice a difference. It will also help his sticking power, which I’ll get into later.

            The old Q used to slow the enemy and this was what kept Skarner in his all important melee range. When he originally got reworked he had no way to stay in range. He had a slow, but it was on a long CD and didn’t let him stay in range. His newest Q basically has the opposite effect of what his old one did. He now has his old stickiness by speeding himself up instead of slowing the enemy. Great design change. They kept the fun sticky part of Skarner, but made it rewarding for him and not displeasing for the other player. It was also great to keep it on his Q because it’s his pivotal skill. As some have put it, it’s the “heartbeat” to playing Skarner.

            They also lowered both the base damage and scaling damage of the ability in exchange for this. Riot did this to push Skarner more towards the CC oriented tank role over damage dealing duelist role. Surprisingly though, this doesn’t hurt his clear time much.

Crystalline Exoskeleton

·         COOLDOWN16 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 13/12.5/12/11.5/11 seconds

           

            A welcome buff to the shield/speed boost. It’s good to note that this was secretly buffed by adding movespeed to Crystal Slash as well. Move speed grows multiplicatively, which means when you add more you get a lot more. Basically, if you have full stacks on your Q and pop your shield you will fly towards people, and if they don’t have a jump or dash, you will be all over them. Outside of that, there really isn’t much to say about changes. Do remember to use this a little before you want to engage so you get full speed by the time you charge in.

Fracture

·         MAGIC DAMAGE80/120/160/200/240 (+0.7 ability power) ⇒40/60/80/100/120 (+0.4 ability power)

·         COOLDOWN14 seconds at all ranks ⇒ 12 seconds at all ranks

            In actuality, this is a straight nerf. You can’t even really claim that the CD buff is worth anything, because you easily get it lower with Skarner’s old passive. AP Skarner was pretty much ruined with this change, and even though I never tried it, I’m kind of sad about that. One thing I love about this game is how many different ways there are to play it. Any different build path is really interesting and the possibilities are un-ending in some cases.

            I’m pretty ok with this in the grand scheme of things though. It’s a small nerf to an ability that was a one point wonder in most cases, and everything that was gained in return was very much worth it. The slow wasn’t even touched, which is what the skill is used for anyway. Fracture’s come a long way from its original ability, but it feels at home now.

Impale

           

·         IMPALEMENT----Impale consumes all stacks of Crystal Venom and deals 50/75/100 magic damage per stack consumed

·         COOLDOWN----130/120/110 seconds ⇒ 110/100/90 seconds

Skarner’s ult now has a really interesting interaction with his passive, but I’ll get back to that in a second. Let’s look at the CD reduction. Overall it’s great, but doesn’t help much. This is really more just to make up for the loss of the old passive. One of the things that I loved about the old Skarner was getting to level 6, using my ult, and then going back into the jungle and farming as hard as I could until it came back up. You can’t do that anymore, and it also makes Wriggle’s Lantern a much less viable buy. You’ll still get decent use out of it, but nowhere near as much as before.

Now for the interesting change. Skarner’s new passive has a different interaction with this spell. You can choose how to spend the stacks, either for a stun before/after the ult for more lockdown potential, or more damage.

It may not be obvious at first glance, but this is a huge decision to make. Let’s take it a bit deeper by looking at examples.

Say you’re ganking a lane:

·         In scenario A, your laner is a champion with good CC like Jax, Nasus, Renekton etc. Stack your passive up and before you stun them, use your ult. By level 16 you’ll get an extra 300 damage out of it. Even early on you get 150, which is a lot at level 6.

·         In scenario B, we’ll say your laner is someone like Teemo or Tryndamere. Essentially someone with no CC and especially on someone with no items or building tank, you’ll want to proc your stun before you use the ultimate, or in a perfect world, use your ult before hitting a spell. These champs need more help keeping people in range and generally have more than enough damage to take people down.

            Once again I really love this design idea and it let’s the player make choices that can impact how they involve themselves in the game. You can do more damage or stun. Plus, it rewards smart play with the damage by making sure you get 3 full stacks and then using ult. It gives you the ability to be what’s needed at the time, while not making Skarner overly powerful.

Conclusion

            So wrapping it all up, what’s been changed? Skarner was a sticky fast jungler before, and the first rework he received pushed him more towards a duelist with fast clear speeds and a kit that was wonky when put together. He got his slow moved to a longer CD ability and his trademark stickiness was lost in the crossfire. However, the attack speed move to his Q was great for his clear and damage.

            4.10 brought a new passive that enhanced his CC and lockdown ability, which more fits his theme. His clear was still held as fast, and now with two abilities that can speed him up, his stickiness was brought back by reversing his original Q ability.

            Skarner’s back! He’s not as damage heavy as he used to be, but he is a lockdown king and his ganks are scarier than ever. Your early gank pressure is now viable and you’ll still clear just as fast as you did before. Plus 4.11 is out and he was barely touched. My impression is that Skarner is here to stay.

Also, if you’re interested in learning Skarner and want to know how to play and/or build him, I’ve made a guide. It’s not perfect, and I’m not amazing player, but I love Skarner and I want to teach people more about how to play and dominate with him.

Skarner Guide