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
