Welcome to my first guide on MOBAfire. Let's just get right to it.

Skarner is an intersting champion to play. With a passive that promotes attack speed to allow spamming of abilities, this melee DPS has many ways he can be built.

This build will be focusing on a bit of attack speed and hybrid, more focused on ability power.

So what is so great about this AS/Hybrid-AP build?

Well, if you have played Skarner even just once, you can tell he has mana problems early. And if you have half a brain, you can see that attack speed would be a great item for him because of his passive. The difficulty is finding a balance.

Before I get into the item build, let's move on to more about the champion himself.

Pros:
-Can benefit from both AD and AP
-High base movespeed
-Good pusher
-Easily spam abilites due to passive
-Can benefit from lifesteal and spell vamp
-Ultimate that can ruin positioning of an enemy

Cons:
-Squishy
-Mana starved
-Weak early game
-Needs a good build to become a threat

For runes I chose Armor Penetration Reds, Mana Per 5 Per Level Yellows, Magic Resist Blues, and Flat Health Quintessences.

Runes are a mode of preference, but I will explain my rune choices.

ArP reds for your autoattacks (which you will be doing a lot)
Mana/5/lvl yellows for your mana problems
MR blues to survive enemy abilities
Flat health quints to keep you healthy during early-game

Other viable runes:
Magic Pen, Attack Speed, Armor, Cooldown Reduction, more Armor Pen, Movespeed, etc.

Now because Skarner is a melee champion and has lower ranges on his abilites, he is going to be in the middle of the fight a lot. This is why we take a 9/21/0 mastery page.

You'll want the armor and magic resist for early game, and the 4% reduction of all damage is just too good to pass up. And also the increased health regeneration from Strength of Spirit, because in this build there is an ABUNDANCE of mana, which will significantly increase your health regeneration.

In the offensive tree, we will NOT take the fully increased critical chance from Deadliness because while Skarner will have a lot of auto attacks, he is not crit based.
We will take the 15% magic penetration because Skarners abilities all scale off of AP and do magic damage (with the uncharged Crystal Slash as the exception to this, which scales with AD and does physical damage).

For the love of GOD, PLEASE buy a defensive item at some point during this build. I didn't put any of them in because they are very situational depending on the types of enemies you will be facing.
Feel free to buy it at any point in the build or when you feel you will need it the most. Maybe even replace another item for a second defensive item. This build is just a suggestion and is the BEST CASE SCENARIO.

Start of with a Meki Pendant and two potions. Two health, two mana potions, one health one mana, whatever tickles your fancy.

Now, off to your lane.

Don't try anything crazy, as you are very weak and cant do much right away. Just farm and only try to harrass if you have a strong lane partner to back you up. I would actually advise not harrassing much, if at all, until you get your first couple items.

On your first recall, you will get your Tear so you can start building it up quickly. Also try to stay in lane long enough to get your level one boots.
If you are just a few gold away from getting both, get your Tear, sit on the fountain and spam your spells for free while you wait. It will start you on building your Tear and wont cost any mana.

After you get your Tear and boots, just stay in lane until you can afford your Beserker Greaves (or whatever boots you would like/need) and also your Longsword that you will be building into your Manamune.

Some people think that letting the Tear build up before you get the Manamune is faster.
WARNING: Math incoming.

Tear of the Goddess:

+350 Mana +7 Mana Regen per 5 sec UNIQUE Passive: Each time your Champion uses an Ability their Maximum Mana will increase by 4 Mana, up to a maximum of twice in a six second period; bonuses cap at +1000 Mana.

Manamune:

+350 Mana +7 Mana Regen per 5 sec +20 Attack Damage UNIQUE Passive: 2% of your max mana is converted to attack damage. UNIQUE Passive: Each time you attack, you gain one maximum mana (3 second cooldown.) Each time you use an ability, you gain 4 maximum mana (3 second cooldown.) Bonus caps at 1000 mana.

So you can gain 5 mana per 3 seconds or 8 mana every 6 seconds.

Double Manamune's cooldown timer, thats 10 mana per 6 seconds.

10 > 8

Manamune

Now that you have your Manamune, your damage will be constantly increasing (slowly, but still increasing).

After your Manamune, you will have enough mana to spam your abilites. Sounds like its time for a Sheen.

Sheen will give you mana (more damage due to your Manamune) and proc extra damage whenever you use an ability (which is ALL THE TIME).

After Sheen you are going to want to get a Catalyst for more health and mana (yay, more damage).

Build next into your Guinsoo's Rageblade, buying the Blasting Wand or the Pickaxe first, it doesnt really matter. Whatever will fit the needs of the situation.

Next you will be turning your Sheen into a Lich Bane.

Your final core item (I hope you have bought a defensive item already) will be your Rod of Ages. If you want, you could buy this earlier to give the passive time to build up, but that is just a matter of preference.


Oh and I almost forgot.

BUY WARDS!!! Wards win games, whether you want to buy them or not.

==Abilities==

Energize

(Innate): Basic attacks lower the cooldowns of Skarner's abilities by 1 second against champions and 0.5 seconds against non-champions.

Great passive, optimized by attack speed. If your ultimate is on CD and there aren't any enemies around to attack, attack anything you can, minions, jungle creeps. Always be attacking something to get your cooldowns lowered.


Crystal Slash
Cost: 22/24/26/28/30 mana
Cooldown: 3.5 seconds

(Active): Skarner lashes out with his claws, dealing 20/35/50/65/80(+0.8 per bonus attack damage) 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, he deals 20/32/44/56/68(+0.4 per ability power) bonus magic damage and slows all targets hit by 25/30/35/40/45% for 2 seconds.

A nice ability, once leveled up will be a nice utility with its slow. The damage is a bit low at this point, but that may be buffed later. To get the bonus magic damage, you only need to hit some kind of enemy, whether it be minions or a champion. CS on a minion, run up to champ, CS again for the slow. You can also use CS's AOE to consume marks on minions from Fracture all at once.


Crystalline Exoskeleton
Cost: 60 Mana
Cooldown: 14 seconds

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

This skill is mainly used for the shield and movement speed, however, when you are pushing, the attack speed also gives a nice bonus to help you finish that tower a little bit faster. You can use this skill to catch up with an enemy champion and put that charged up Crystal Slash if they tried to get away, or you can use it as an escape mechanism, or as a slight boost in health for those dangerous tower dives.
WARNING: The attack speed and movement speed bonuses only last as long as the shield does, if the shield is broken or times out, you will lose the bonuses.


Fracture
Cost: 50/55/60/65/70 mana
Cooldown: 10 seconds

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

A nice sustain ability. Doesn't heal for much at the lower levels, but you dont have too much health at the lower levels either. Not a very long range on this skill either, cant hit a full minion wave when lined up, you have to wait for the melee minions to bunch up, then the shot will reach the back of the caster minions. Fracture down the line of minions, walk in the middle of the group, Crystal Slash will consume all marks. It's a nice heal, but dont expect it to save you.

Impale
Cost: 100/115/150 mana
Cooldown: 110/100/90 seconds

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

A really fun ultimate to use. Supresses for 1.5 seconds and you get to drag the target around for the duration. You dont HAVE to pull them around, you can ult someone and then get a full round of your skills off and a bunch of auto attacks. I think that is the best part about this skill, it is the only suppression that ISN'T channeled (Malzahar's and Warwick's ults are). So compared to Malz and WW, using your ult doesn't make you useless for the duration, you can either pull a carry out of position, prevent someone from escaping, or just shut someone down while your entire team focuses them down.
NOTE: You cannot use flash during your ultimate to pull them even further.

The order in which you get your skills isn't really a set form. If you feel you are in need of more healing, level up your E sooner. If you feel a little slow, or your team is pushing and you want to get the turrets down faster, level up your W sooner.

The order you get your skills is entirely up to your preferences, however, I do suggest getting at least one level in each at the beginning. From there you can decide what skill will fill your needs more.

Again, another mode of preference.

Personally I get Teleport and Flash.
Or you can get Teleport and Ghost.
Or you can get Ghost and Flash.

It really just depends on your play style.

I'm not going to go through all the summoner spells and tell you why you shouldnt be taking them. If you want to take Rally and Revive, be my guest. However, if you want to play seriously, you already know which summoner spells you should and shouldnt be using.

Although, if you DO take Teleport, remember that it is always better to teleport to a teamfight than to teleport to a large minion wave to farm. Walk to the minion wave.

I would like to thank you for taking the time to read all (or some) of my build. It really makes the effort I took to make this worth it.

Test, comment, vote, ENJOY.

-SHMITTY8900