Hi guys,

this is Customtm with my second (published) guide here on mobafire.

One of the best junglers in the entire game? I'm talking about Skarner ofc!

While the usual builds build him as an offtank, there's only one build to go AP with him, even though he has magic DPS potential like Cassiopeia.

So I have decided to create a build that makes the best of his passive and his abilities:

1. Build: Mid Skarner

2. Build: Jungle Skarner

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration Pretty common runes for casters

Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration Mana, mana, mana. Skarner is one of the most mana hungry champions

Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power and Greater Quintessence of Scaling Ability Power 100 Ap out of nowhere


Greater Mark of Attack Speed Magic penetration in the jungle is useless, why not speed it up

Greater Seal of Armor Negates most of the damage in the jungle and bad ganks

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist Same here, as we are squishy the extra MR is needed

Quite simple: 21/0/9 for all the magic damage we can get and some mana/reg with longer blue buffs (god bless them)

0/21/9 is better for jungling, as it provides 10 gold on smite, more survivability and speed

Sorcerer's Shoes: Skarner is melee and has no gapcloers. So we need to get MS as fast as possible. Together with our Greater Mark of Magic Penetration we got all the MP we need to kill squishy targets

Tear of the Goddess: We need mana and as Skarner got spammable abilities with low mana costs, this items suits him nicely and will also make up for the junglers that won't give you blue buff. It should be full stacked at 30 minutes and offers a ton of mana to waste

Sheen: Mid characters often get no armor, so we can abuse this fact to get an early sheen to boost our damage. Thanks to Shattered Earth we can get a proc whenever we want to.

Nashor's Tooth: Here comes our first AS item. AS = CD, it gives CDR as well AND on top of that some AP. Great synergy with all of Skarner's skills and the only item we need to hit 40& CDR together with elixir and masteries

Rabadon's Deathcap: Time to get the damage boost to use the AS even better. This item is not to replace by any other, you will lack damage

Lich Bane: Even more mana, our entire AP as physical damage, MS and MR? Perfect time to get it now as Sheen is outdated as soon as we got a good amount of AP which is now the case

Guinsoo's Rageblade: Cheap and effective, this item is made for Skarner. Thx to the Q and the W you can keep all the stacks as long as you want to. 35 AD for Q, 93 AP for everything and on top of that a good amount of AS for almost no money

Archangel's Staff: And last but not least a huge chunk of 125 AP, 1400 mana and 25 manareg.


Cloth Armor and 5x Health Potion: Usual start

Wriggle's Lantern: Even faster jungling and a free ward to counterjungle

Because the jungle provides less gold than the lane you might want to get Guinsoo's Rageblade first. It is much cheaper and more effective than Nashor's Tooth

Passive: The passive is the reason why Nashor's Tooth and Guinsoo's Rageblade are perfect for Skarner. The faster he is attacking, the faster he can cast his abilities. With the 39% CDR and this, the cooldowns are 1, 4, 4 and ca. 20 seconds, depending on how much he can AA things.

Q: Shattered Earth This is the reason why we can build Tear of the Goddess, Lich Bane and Guinsoo's Rageblade. Its cooldown is nearly 0 at the end, you can spamm it to clear waves fast, to slow the enemy, to stack the Tear of the Goddess or keep stacks on Guinsoo's Rageblade or to proc. Lich Bane whenever you feel like it. It will deal around 500 damage per hit. As Mid we max it last because we need a good amount of AP to make it deal damage and we max it first as jungler because it increases the jungle speed and provides more slow

W: Seismic Bastion Not so good as normal Skarner but absolute godlike as AP. Because we got loads of AP the shield wont break as fast as it usually does. So we can benefit from the AS/MS buff much longer than usual Skarner. If you are fighting someone you can turn it on before the old one wears of as it lasts 6 seconds. Thx to this you can solo baron without a scratch. Keep spamming this to move around faster when ganking. As Skarner got problems with kiting in early levels, we max it first in mid and second in the jungle, mainly for the reason to go faster but it also helps clearing camps more quickly

E: Ixtal's Impact Nearly useless as normal Skarner, at his best as AP. This ability is our only ranged nuke and scales awesome with AP compared to the others. It is a kind of spellvamp as well which comes in quite handy due to it's scaling with AP as well. Use this to harass, heal and as a finisher. Some early points in mid for some damage and sustain but last in jungle as it gets more useful when you got some AP.

R: Impale His best ability as normal Skarner but also quite useful as AP. It scales decent, the damage is applied twice and you can cast Shattered Earth while you are dragging. The best part is that you don't have to wait for your team to finish your victim off as you got enough damage yourself. Also useful to interrupt ulties. Always get this whenever you can.

Pro tip: Fight for dragon? Suppress their jungler as they can't smite meanwhile and you can pick it up easy. Works with Warwick as well ;)

As jungler you always take Smite and Flash

Smite is mandatory to prevent counterjungling and saving drake & baron.

You also got no gapcloser, time to Flash


As mid I usually go Ignite and Flash

Skarner's abilities are all pretty short ranged and it happens quite often that enemies escape with a little bar of health. This gives you the range to finish them off.

Actually Ghost would be the better choice but Skarner can outrun everybody with his W and also slow them if they come to close. Still no gapcloser and the need to go over walls to outrun them, that sounds like Flash

Cleanse CC is a nasty thing and Skarner doesn't like to get interrupted as it could bring down the shield and you cant deal damage. Pick this up if they got too much hard CC. Also consider getting Mercury's Treads instead.

If you manage it to survive lane phase, you have won the game. His DPS is incredible high but it also requires some judgement when to go in and when to run. This is not a usual tank build so dont try tanking things that you can't.

If you got any feedback or downvote it, please leave a comment below :)