Skarner Build Guide by SryImBad

Introduction

So don't go and complain about the extensive amounts of text. Skarner is a melee Champion that is strong at Consistency, Damage, and Crowd Controling. People believe he is UnderPowered (as complained in the LoL Forums) but I will prove he is not. In fact he can hold many roles in a team; Physical Damage Dealer, Magical Damage Dealer, Tank, and even Support.

Skarner

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His stats are Great tagged along with his abilities. His Movespeed hasn't even reached it's potential without Crystalline Exoskeleton. Skarner can ice fish some squishy Easily out of their team by walking in and using Impale.

PROS/CONS

Spells

Skarner's abilities are energize, Crystal Slash, Crystalline Exoskeleton, Fracture, and Impale.

EnergizeEnergize - (Innate): Using autoattacks against champions lowers the cooldowns of Skarner's abilities by 1 second and by 0.5 seconds when used against a non-champion target.

Energize allows you to constantly spam your spells faster and more consistently for the endless torture of slows you throw out. Works really well with Skarner's amazing base attack speed and Attack Speed buff from Crystalline Exoskeleton

Crystal Slash - (Active): Skarner lashes out with his claws, dealing physical damage to all nearby enemies and charging himself with Crystal Energy for 5 seconds.
If he casts Crystal Slash again while empowered by Crystal Energy, the ability deals bonus magic damage and slows all targets hit for 2 seconds.
Cost: 22 / 24 / 26 / 28 / 30 mana
Physical Damage: 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80 (+0.8 per bonus attack damage)
Magic Damage: 20 / 32 / 44 / 56 / 68 (+0.4 per ability power)
Slow: 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 %

This is your Bread And Butter skill. Stacks with Rylai's Crystal Scepter's slow and deals a nice amount of damage no matter which build you choose;w/ some attack damage or w/ some ability power. Extremely spammable if Skarner is consistently auto-attacking champions to dish out as much damage as possible before in danger of death.

Crystalline Exoskeleton - (Active): Skarner receives a shield for up to 6 seconds. While the shield is still active his movement speed and attack speed are boosted.
Shield Strength: 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+0.6 per ability power)
Attack Speed Boost: 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 %
Movement Speed Boost: 15 / 17 / 19 / 21 / 23 %

In my opinion, this skill should be nerfed. Every 100 AP you have, the shield gains 60 strength. If you have a lot of armor/magic reduction and a bit of ap, Skarner can be buffed for the whole duration until it breaks itself. Well that's just the effects while it's still on, the shield itself is a amazing sustainability tool, Extra block strength + Speed.

Fracture - (Active): Skarner summons a blast of crystalline energy in a line which deals magic damage to enemies struck and marks them for 6 seconds. Any further damage dealt to marked targets by Skarner will consume the mark to heal himself. Subsequent marks consumed will heal for 50% of the last.
Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 mana
Magic Damage: 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+0.7 per ability power)
Heal: 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 (+0.3 per ability power)

Fracture helps with the laning phase although it won't help too much against CC and/or Ranged opponents, it will heal for quite a bit just by leaving it at level 2. I prefer getting it to level 2 simply because of the heal. Harassing your opponents while still marking minions is what should be done. Heal + Damage dealt needed.

Impale - (Active): Skarner suppresses an enemy champion for 1.5 seconds and deals magic damage to it. During this time, Skarner can move freely and will drag his victim around with him. When the effect ends, Skarner's target will be dealt the same amount of magic damage again.
Cooldown: 110 / 100 / 90 seconds
Cost: 100 / 125 / 150 mana
Magic Damage: 100 / 150 / 200 (+0.5 per ability power)

Impale is one of the best ganking moves along with Rocket Grab. BEACUSE it kinda counts as a suppression, Summmoner Spell Cleanse will not clear them from your grasp. Quicksilver Sash, however, will remove the crystallization but will still endure the damage. Dragging your victim to the tower and then using Exhaust will ensure some hard hits on them.

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Using Fracture before actually attending the fight allows you to stay high on HP even after taking initial damage from the ranged characters. Spamming Crystal Slash until someone low begins to turn back and run is a great set up for a free kill using Impale.
NOTE* Remember to Spam Crystal Slash. Try to always have exoskeleton on.

This is pretty Self-Explanatory. Walk in, Impale as you slow-lock him. Fracture is used after ult because you want to be more mobile for Impale's short range of 340. While Impale is active, Skarner is unable to auto-attack nor cast Fracture. Summoner Spell Flash is also Unable to be casted.

Summoner Spells

Recommended
Flash is one of my favourites. Saves you from Large ganks, helps you gank, allows you to get close to consistently use .

Exhaust works really well with Skarner's abilities. Right after impale into a tower, exhaust. They're crippled with the extra slow from your Crystal Slash.

Others
Ghost. Very useful for ganks due to consistent speed compared to flash's one time instant blink type spell.

Smite. Jungling is a great way to play Skarner if needed. He can easily charge through the jungle although not as well as many others. Once red is acquired, Ganking Slightly out of place enemies will be a breeze.

Masteries

For Skarner, I go 1/19/10 with Cripple in Offense and Good Hands , Awareness , and Utility Mastery in Utility. For Defense, I take Resistance -> Strength of Spirit , Hardiness -> Harden Skin , Veteran's Scars , And Ardor .

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Cripple for Exhaust, Self-Explanatory. Very useful.

Good Hands because it's a lot more useful and effective than Perseverence , Trust.

Awareness For the faster level up since you're not going to build as much mana as you can to get Expanded Mind .

Utility Mastery because Skarner will need Golem Buff's mana regen to be able to spam other skills other than Crystal Slash all day.

Resistance -> Strength of Spirit for the extra Magic Reduction and the tiny boost in regen early on.

Hardiness -> Harden Skin helps block some early on Physical harass, which is great because Ashe might just attack you first.

Veteran's Scars 's extra health boost is actually one of my favorite mastery buffs. Seems to scare enemies early game.

Ardor -> Might as well take some extra damage/attack speed if 3 points won't get the magic pen in Offense. Helps a ton.

Runes

For Skarner, I get Magic Penetration Marks, Flat Armor Seals, Flat Magic Reduction Glyphs, and Flat Health Quintessences.

Greater Mark Of Insight x9
Greater Seal Of Resilience x9
Greater Glyph Of Warding x9
Greater Quintessence of Fortitude x3

These are the most common Tank Runes and they work perfectly for Skarner. Although he plays more of a Tanky DPS role, he requires to be up and in their face for his abilities to be effective, other wise it's useless to pick him. Skarner is fairly Squishy early on so I tend to pick Flat runes over Per Level growth runes.
This is, of course, just my preferable Rune Page. You can change whatever you feel most comfortable with. In fact, if you find better runes, leave a comment!
For jungling, these runes would obviously be different. I would go Armor Pen over Magic Pen and possibly Cooldowns Or Mana Regen Over Magic Resist.

Items

Chalice of Harmony With this baby, you can basically spam Crystal Slash Endlessly even when you're mana is completely empty. To me, it is one of Skarner's most precious. Similar to Udyr and Locket before it was removed. It's a must.

Boots of Swiftness With the speed boost of Crystalline Exoskeleton and Boots of Swiftness, Skarner will be running laps easily. There's no doubt this has helped me gank and successfully got me a for-sure Impale over few dozen times. CHANGE FOR MERCURY TREADS LATE GAME

Heart of Gold Extra health for sustainability, Gold per 10 sec, and builds into Randuin's Omen. Perfect. For Skarner it helps with paying for a bit of the warding cost, helps gank early and is amazing when turned into an omen later. It's an all in one turtle shell of Gifts.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter Rylai's Slow proc stacks with your Crystal Slash Ability. That's a 25/30/35/40/45% + 15% slow. Total of 60% slow when maxed. Even with 400 Movespeed, they will be crippled to 240. The extra AP is wonderful EVERY single skill you have. Especially for sustaining Skarner's shield for the extra speed and attack speed.

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Luxury Items:
Recommended Luxury Items
Hextech Gunblade
With the extra amount of damage, you're auto attacks become useful in hits, you gain life steal with every damage you deal. And there's a bonus active you can fire to slow enemies down if you're not already doing so with Crystal Slash Spam.
Randuin's Omen
Builds off Heart so it's not such a mission to farm after. It's great for extra slow, armor and health. It's a great item against team with Master Yi Or Miss Fortune due to the passive that may slow them when you get hit by them. Always a great pick.
Guardian Angel
Guardian Angel works great when setting up a gank for your team with Impale. Skarner will just freely deal damage with GA because it's kind of the "don't attack me sign" on tanky champions. Although it may be false according to the situation, you're opponent would be more focused in engaging the rest of your team you can basically walk in and start stomping all over their carries.

Other Luxury Items:
Sunfire Cape
This Item Is affordable as well as give extra damage. But why i like Sunfire Cape is because it Consumes Fracture's marks on effected targets. It's also adds on you're damage per sec and is really worth it because you're constantly slowing a bunch of them for the effect to be useful.
Banshee's Veil
Banshee's veil is also a great defense against magic damage burst teams. With a banshee's veil, it'll probably take them long enough to CC for you to be able to get melee range with Skarner's 450+ movespeed. By then it'll already be too late for your opponent.
Atma's Impaler
Atma's Impaler is kinda of a cerry on top of all that HP you gain from runes/masteries/items because of the damage. Plus it's really funny to see you crit with your stinger. With 3000 hp, Skarner gains around 60 bonus Attack Damage from Atmas.
Abyssal Mask
Great Item for Skarner If your team lacks on the Magic damage side. Helps reduce Magic Damage Reduction, especially when you're always in the center of their team. The Bonus Magic Reduction is amazing just because you're supposed to be built tanky and to top it off, extra Ability Power!
Rabadon's Deathcap
Just a GIANT boost to your Ability Power.
Trinity Force
TriForce is a pretty good item, but IMO it's not the best for Skarner. If you want to get this, you might wanna slip in one of the tree items inb4 Rylais.

Lane

Against 2 Ranged
Either ask for a lane switch, or lane with a ranged partner and play safely. Laning with someone with a stun or jump type move will help a lot. If you have a uncooperative team, either surrender @ 20 or tower hug and deny everything. All in all, have a cooperative team or go to elo hell like i might of have...

Against 1 Melee 1 Ranged
With your lane partner, harass with all the ranged moves you have. This includes your Fracture. When you take damage try to let them push and use Fracture> Crystal Slash Combo to heal it off. Not too difficult, easy to snag 1 or 2 kills with a teammate that has some CC.

Against 2 Melee
You have most potential to farm here. Use Fracture when you can to get last hits AND harass at the same time. Killing won't be too hard if you have Blitzcrank or Pantheon or someone similar with you. They set you up for Skarner's Slow Lock.

NOTE* Always check for your opponent's summoner spells. Not suggested to tower dive when they have exhaust or flash.

Match Histories

Send me your Match Histories!

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Change Log

August 21, 11
-Started Guide
-Added Skarner, the champion
-Added "Skarner" Section
-Added Introduction

August 22, 11
-Added details on Items
-Added details on Spells

August 23, 11
-Added Skill Sequence to "Skills"
-Added Conclusion

August 24, 11
-Added Summoner Spells
-Added Pros/Cons

August 25, 11
-Added Masteries
-Added Runes
-PUBLISHED!