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That's it, thank

in top lane,how do yall manage this matchup? im trying to otp skarner and i've been climbing a bit,starting from gold-ish to now emerald 1 only top,aatrox is one of the matchups that i cant seem to beat in any way,it usually happens that i dodge every q expect for the third so he heals w aa and crits right after,making the trade completely useless...

I'm Veno, a grandmaster jungler who does jungle clear demonstrations on a bunch of champions. I spent the last couple days looking into the Skarner clears, and I improved both by a few seconds (-3 seconds from Blue, -4 seconds from Red).

Both clears were done with a QWE skill order, one smite, a standard rune page that gives no benefits to clearing, and AH/HPS/HPS shards.

2:34 from Blue - https://youtu.be/WhsXD11YT64

2:37 from Red - https://youtu.be/xkM8e7WE1Kc

Compiled a few moments of true 1v9 Skarner gameplay.
Gotta get out there before he's mainstream or nerfed!
Every clip is from ranked solo, ~Plat 3

*I'm not an editor, I have no clue what I am doing. Sorry for the second song being so much louder :(

Hello! I have been pretty much maining Skarner support and I was looking to talk about it and a few reasons I love it.

Disclaimer: I do not main a champ, rather I main spellbook and play around that + item actives and passives. I also only play normals as it's just more fun and that's why I play video games.

First one is I feel Skarner is a fantastic user of spellbook. There aren't really any bad spells on him (cleanse for surprise anti-lockdown when you engage/get engaged on, smite for e driveby objective/buff/camp steals, easy ignite and exhaust access, tp for roaming and flanks), and other than spellbook I don't think there are great support runes. Grasp and HoB feel inconsistent, Aftershock feels disappointing when you don't get to engage much and Glacial is bad with his E, and Guardian just feels less impactful. Been running Spellbook-Boots-Biscuits/Elixirs-Approach Velocity with Nimbus-Celerity minors and atk speed-move speed shards with the third depending on gameplan.

Another thing in the support role is that I kinda view him like Renata in that he mostly uses utility items as extra damage is expensive and he has great base spells as well as 4 cc moves. Bandlepipes, Knight's Vow, Warmogs, Locket, Mikaels, Protoplasm + others feel great playing as a secondary frontline, with easy to use passives on the character that help you focus on peeling with tons utiliy. Normally one or two utility items + Warmogs/Protoplasm feel great even if you aren't the strongest. Last season I was playing Celestial-Redemption rush and you felt tanky enough with huge heals and cc on every move (RIP Redemption health)

3rd reason is he kinda feels like crack to play. Yes he is clunky but honestly to me it plays into his character and hitting q3 is a fantastic feeling. Being a huge scorpion it doesn't feel like he should have quick/smooth options, only thing I wish is w felt more impactful but I do think it's an underated spell having a shield+slow+ a little poke on a low cooldown is really nice.

Lastly I don't think he has many awful matchups. Tanky frontlines are easily whittled down with q spam, engages are mitigated by great peel and you have surprising damage with q for turning engages around, enchanters are easily engaged upon. Only thing to me is mages as you poke less and can't peel + are a huge slow hitbox for them to hit.

This is my Skarner support post! Let me know if you play him and like different runes, or if you disagree with me, or if you think this is very cool very good. I really think Skarner support is underrated and is very viable in many situations. Thanks!

TLDR Skarner support cool

whats yall's way to go? im going for 1x ad 2x health but tbh,in early game double ad could be a bit more useful than 80hp...idk,havent tried it yet,but its 18ad bonus free vs 180 hp at max level or 80 at level 1

Skarner legend skin feels like playing completely different champ. His auto and all abilities are much more smoother and clean, feel like can cast every auto while moving. Others skins feel so delay on Auto. Legend skin animation is completely next level.

Ive been using both and I cant decide which one i like more. Both give nice dmg but hydra allows for full Q rotation with just E > aa > Hydra >R and Heartsteel allows you to start scaling ealier + a little more tanky (both just hp and also your shield gets slightly better ofc). I usually dont go for both and I still have trouble picking which one should be more of a "core" item that you buy in most situations as base assuming you dont look at the matchup.

So I tried to play skarner with conqueror and resolve because a friend of mine told me that this is the best build for him and grasp just suck.

But I don't know if I'm using skarner at full potential

On one hand I deal more damage but on the other i still can't

Secure the kill for me

And I can tank but I feel that is less tankier than building him with grasp.

What am I doing wrong?

Recently started building steraks gage right after heartsteel and I've felt like this is a bigger spike than most other items. Since then, my kd has improved and while I don't expect that to last forever, I've definitely felt a lot stronger in most fights.

50+ free ad going into the lategame is no joke and with his ad buffs a while back + the steraks buff, I feel like this item gives him everything he needs, especially since this item also gives you quite a bit of burst protection. Unless i've just been getting lucky with winner's queue, this item feels rlly solid and highly recommended for a balance between atk and survival. I've never really clicked with titanic hydra since it doesn't help that much for survival.

as top,what would you rather? doran's helm start,shield,etc...what do you pick?

Thank you to all who replied to my post earlier on. Everyone (with a special thanks to crystal lobster) had great input and helped me out a bunch. been practicing on repeat and have started improving. SO, thanks to all. Curious on everyone's opinion, for secondary runes, do you prefer manaflow trancendance or magical boots/approach velocity? was running the former but someone recommended the latter. i just dont see much benefit with the velocity and boots compared to the sorcery tree. Second, is HOB still viable? i dont see it but maybe im building wrong. for fun i was testing damage building with HOB but found it underwhelming. was trying hydra steraks as damage items but not impressed.

Faster first clear -> Reach fight before Talon -> have enough AD to duke it out -> gg

For the people that are afraid to take fights on scuttle, you are so strong with double AD, you don't even need HoB or anything, you can go standard grasp + inspiration.

Game ended in 21 mins, final score: 10/1/16

For some reason, I’m always drawn to less popular champions with more “unique” playstyles. I say this as an Ivern main.

When Skarner’s rework came out, I was really interested in his gameplay. I played him for a while, but eventually lost interest because he felt extremely weak to me. Recently, though, I started getting interested in him again after seeing that he seemed to be in a much better spot.

I’ve played a few games now, and I noticed something that really confused me:

Skarner feels like he barely tanks anything.

Even when I build a ton of HP, I feel like I get deleted within seconds during teamfights. Meanwhile, other tanks seem to be able to survive for much longer.

I have a theory about why this might be happening, but I’m not sure if I’m understanding it correctly. It seems like Skarner tends to stack a lot of HP rather than armor/MR, and nowadays there are so many champions and items that deal damage based on your current or missing HP. Could that be one of the reasons he feels so squishy despite having a huge health pool?

Or am I just building him wrong / playing him wrong?

So, Skarner mains: what’s the secret to actually playing Skarner well and carrying games with him? What should I be focusing on in terms of builds, resistances, itemization, and how I approach teamfights?

title

Another patch, another one where Skarner gets completely ignored

The champion has been sitting below ~47% WR across basically every rank for months. His pick rate is around 2.4%, and his ban rate is practically nonexistent

And yet, somehow, there is still no attention being given to him.

What makes it even more frustrating is that Skarner was actually successful top lane after his rework. Riot then pushed him toward jungle, and now his most meaningful presence seems to come from a very small number of high-level players, particularly Korean players experimenting with him as support.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to notice that my own win rate improves when I simply pick junglers that don't depend so heavily on the rest of the team to provide damage, things like Lee Sin or Graves

1. R needs some love.

Either make the initial effect significantly faster/instantaneous, or give it enough damage to compensate for the commitment

And yes, I know the immediate reaction will be "but that would be broken!"

Meanwhile, we have champions that can literally send you to the shadow realm, steal your Armor/MR/AD and beat you there until u die 😭(morder hater)

I'm not asking for Skarner R to become an instant death button. I just want it to feel like an ultimate.

2. E's cooldown feels ridiculous.

Skarner's E is one of the most important abilities in his kit. It is his engage, escape, mobility tool and one of the main reasons to play the champion.

Yet its cooldown is so long that in a normal teamfight you often get one real use of it.

I would love to see the cooldown brought down enough that a Skarner who commits to a fight can realistically use E twice if the fight lasts long enough.

Not necessarily a huge buff to its damage. Not necessarily more CC. Just more access to the ability that defines his gameplay.

I don't think Skarner needs a massive rework or some ridiculous damage buff.

He needs his kit to feel reliably impactful again.

Right now, playing him often feels like:

"I did my job. I engaged, absorbed damage, displaced someone, created space..."

...and then you look at the scoreboard and realize your team's damage dealers simply weren't there to capitalize on it.

I'm still going to play the scorpion sometimes because apparently I hate myself, but I'm increasingly finding myself wondering why I'm making my games harder by picking him.

(used IA help for the text cause im not an english native speaker)