Skarner Build Guide by Dasmanos

Introduction!

Hello guys! Before we start this guide i wanna tell you about how i play Skarner. I play him as a chaser being up in the carrys as and things like that. In that way i think you will be able to use Skarner at his max potential.

Have fun reading!

Pros/Cons

Cons:

There are really not much that is bad about Skarner. The only things would be that he haven't got any real gap closer and because of that he can easily be kited by Ashe and other good kiting champions. If you build him as i do you wont have much problem anyways as you will be blazingly fast and be really hard to kite.

Pros:

The good things about Skarner is that he can 1v1 any champ lvl1 and come out positive and he can chase amazingly well late game and just hut down the enemys AD carry and grab him into your team with your awesome supress ultimate Impale.

Skill Explanation

So, we are gonna go through the skills real and tell some tips and tricks about them.


- Basic attacks lower all you cooldowns by 1 second. This is reduced to 0,5 seconds on non-champions. This passive doesn't work on tower.

This is a very good passive. It helps you have that nasty ultimate Impale up really often. And when fighting champions you will be able to spam your spells so much.


- Skarner lashes out with his claws, dealing physical damage to all nearby enemies and charging himself with Crystal Energy for several seconds. If he casts Crystal Slash again while empowered by Crystal Energy, he deals bonus magic damage and slows all targets hit.

This is your bread and butter skill. It's so, so good. It does tons of damage slows for a huge amount and it's on a hilariously slow cooldown.


- Skarner gains a shield and while the shield persists his movement speed and attack speed are both increased.

Pretty straight-forward skill, not much to say about this one.


- Skarner summons a blast of crystalline energy which deals damage to enemies struck and marks them. Any further damage dealt to marked targets by Skarner will allow him to consume the mark to heal himself.

This skill ain't good in IMO actually. It's good for sustain. But the thing is it's better to leave it at 0 points and go for Crystalline Exoskeleton for bigger shield which will make you tankier and you will have your steroids up longer.


- Skarner suppresses an enemy champion and deals 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 additional damage

This ultimate must be the most entertaining ultimate to do in the game. You just run up to someone and say

and you just drag them into your team and then he is dead in 90% of the times. If you choose Flash as one of your summoner spells you could also do the Flash+ Impale which is really powerful. With it you can just flash onto somebody and pull away from a tower or engage a teamfight or anything, fantasy sets the limits.

Skill Sequence

My skill sequence is pretty simple since it's obvious what spells to be maxed.

But i'll give it a try to talk about. The reason i'm maxing Crystal Slash is obvious. It your only good damaging spell and it gives a sick slow. Second up is the Crystalline Exoskeleton which gives a huge steroid aswell as a very nice shield. Now to the reason i **** the Fracture completely is because it sucks and it more important to get many points in Crystalline Exoskeleton because then your shield will last longer and you wont lose you steroid which you otherwise will do if it breaks.

Runes

Going into the runes. They are pretty simple on Skarner as he doesn´t scale very well with either AD or AP. I can´t see any of the Marks replace Greater Mark of Attack Speed because attack speed owns on Skarner. The Seals is for surviving top lane against those hard AD tops like Riven etc. You could Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist to Greater Glyph of Magic Resist if you are facing an AP top like Rumble etc. The Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed is really needed for cathing up to those AD carrys and people out of position so you can land those Impale, you could go with Greater Quintessence of desolation and it´s good but still not close to being as good as Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed

Masteries

Ok, let's jump into the masteries. There is two ways of going skarner in masteries, one way is the tank way and the other is the dps way. Both will be shown down below i just wanna talk pros and cons for them.

Defensive

- These are the ones i use and think is the optimal for Skarner because with Trinity Force you will already do enough damage and you doesn't scale well enough that the offensive tree is worth it. But that's my opinion, if you think the offensive tree works better for you then by no means go for it, like it is viable just the fact that you will find yourself having to find a good spot where you can dive in instead of just rushing into the enemy team and taking their ad carry in your Impale. Now to the tree.

Offensive

-So, as i said these are not the best but fully viable. The thing with this runes as i said before is that you have to take care of how you are engaging fights like you can with the defensive. It's not really needed to get that extra damage because he doesn't scale very well. To the tree.

Items

Now to the most interesting part IMO, the build. I build Skarner as a tanky chaser who also can dish out a bit of damage. The thing is i can´t tell you guys what to build, the reason is that you have different builds every game because the enemy team wont always have more AD or AP damage. What you gonna have to do is get you resistances based on the enemy team. For example if the enemy team have an fed Tryndamere or Graves you might wanna build some armor items like Frozen Heart or even thornmai but if they got a fed Cassiopeia or Malzahar you want items like Banshee's Veil or Force of Nature. This will be discussed more about whats's viable for skarner and what's not.

now to the build. I'm gonna sort it up in tiers because there is no strict build just good and less good options.

The God Tier Items

-


- The absolute must-have item on Skarner imo. The reason for that is simple, all your damage comes from this beauty and the heen proc will do TONS of damage. And there is not a wasted stat in this item, you need every single stat in one way or another.


- also godly good imo. It gives you some tankyness aswell sustain in lane from Philosopher's Stone which also gives gold. And the CDR is great for the Impale. But the thing that makes me get this item every single game is the speed boost which is just great for engaging as you don't have any gap closer a high movement speed is the best way to go. With this item you can just rush into enemy and grab that ad carry and hopefully kill him with the help of your team.


- Best anti-AD item hands down. It's just so good. The CDR it gives is amazing which will give your Impale ridiculously low cooldown for its utility. The AS reduction is great for shutting down AA based champions like Fiora and Caitlyn etc.


- You will need this boots so bad just for the tenacity imo. It helps you get out of those CC's a little bit faster which helps your chasing so so much. Simply the best boots for any tanky character.

The Awesome Tier

- I've been trying this item for a while and i must say it is really good. It helps out you damage it gives you nice sustain and even better chasing ability with the passive.


- Really good anti-mage item. It gives nice hp MR and a really nice spellshield which will make it EVEN easier to chase. Not much more to say about this one.


- This will help you survive hilariously well in teamfight's just running around and when you die you revive and will be fast enough to escape in most cases.

The Totally Viable Tier

- I have been playing with this item for a while and it's fully viable if you ask me. But when i stopped using it and started buying other item i found myself much more powerful and got more stats out of the money. So while it's fully viable and all that there are better options for Skarner simply.


- this is actually a very good item for Skarner it gives nice movement speed which will make you blazing fast :D. Also gives some MR for caseters and some HP/5 but not that spectacular.


- This one is really good armor item. The reason i don't have this in my build is because i find Frozen Heart to be a bit better resulting in leaving this goodie behind. But if you like this more then Frozen Heart which is fully understandable then go for this one.

The Meh Tier

- This item could be replaced with Hextech Gunblade but i think the gunblade is better in every single way for Skarner and that is the reason i have put it here and you cant build both cuz then you will lack survivability and wont be tanky enough to run into the enemys team.


- This is kinda pointless IMO. I have heard it works out pretty good with the extra health and mana and some damage but i just find other items much better. One option is Rylai's Crystal Scepter which gives a slow also.

Summoner Spells

Summoner spells time. I will do a tier list this time too to make it easier for you guys to see which are good and which are bad.

God Tier

- This summoner spell is truly godlike. It gives huge movement speed and ignores unit collision. I use it for engaging teamfights to be super fast and run around outspeeding anyone and just chasing all day.


- This spell is also godlike but the only trick you can pull off with flash is the Flash+ Impale combo which IS deadly no doubt but i find ghost more usefull in longer fights thats why i dont use flash as one of my summoner spells.


- This spell is perfect for maximizing you damage output. You wont have any burst what so ever but your over-time damage will be amazing. And it's also good for shutting down those pesky Heal and Dr. Mundo and all that.

The Viable Tier

- This spell is completely viable and could be a good replacement of Ignite but as Skarner already got a badass slow Crystal Slash he doesn't need it. I find it much better to go for more damage with Ignite.


- This is also very viable if you want to be able to stay in lane almost all the time. It's also very good for securing dragons, that requires you and your team to be communicating decently also but that shouldn't be to much of a problem.


- Pretty good spell actually. Helps you get rid off those pesky slows and stuff which help you chase. :)

The Troll Tier

- It's pretty awesome being a highly mobile big kickass scorpion but it gives to small stats with a very long cooldown to make it viable.


-If you build Boots of Mobilityand 5 phantom dancers and pop revive you will find yourself pretty fast actually.


All other spells i just find to troll to be on this list. :)

Playstyle

I have already explained the most of the Playstyle. But im still gonna go through how to play in the early levels and how to gain land control as Skarner.

It is rather simple, just pick a early fight with your lane opponent and you should come out ahead 90% of the times. I have even beat an Olaf at level 2. This proves how strong Skarner is at early levels. There arensome lane opponents you will have a hard time dealing with an example is Nidalee with ad spec. because she can just freely harass you in lane and she got sick sustain and she is very mobile in bushes.

When you are heading upon mid-game you want to try to gank with your ultimate and probably get some kills. When late game is comming and you have finished the most of your build you will be a beast in teamfights just jumping onto Their carrys and just tear them into pieces with your awesome scorpion claws.

Summary

So i hope you enjoyed my guide. I will be adding more content over time and if you got any questions or tips on new chapters leave leave them down below.

Also check out my irelia guide http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/irelia-dominating-top-lane-184267#chapter9

Dasmanos@Eu west