• : Our main source of damage is AD. Even though we're hybrid, AP Skarner just isn't nearly as strong as AD Skarner.
  
• : We're squishy early game, so we need Armor to counter those pesky creeps.
  
• : We need both Armor and Magic Resist, so a balancing of both won't make us vulnerable to certain champions. Why scaling MR? Well, you scale Armor at a much higher rate than MR as you level up, so scaling MR just helps fill in the gap.
  
• greater seal of desolation: Our passive energize will cause us to have much lower cooldowns, the more attack speed we have. With attack speed we not only do more damage per second, but also get more CDR. Sweet.

Ghost: When used along with Seismic Bastion , Skarner receives 42-50% increased movement speed. You can gank, chase, and escape with ease.

Smite: We're jungling. This will speed up our jungle significantly. Unfortunately, it's not very viable late game.




Why? Because, Flash, although instantaneous, will make us travel much shorter distance and will cancel whatever order preceded the Flash. With Ghost, you can click to Impale a champion, then pop your Seismic Bastion along with Ghost. That way, you don't need to worry too much on the micro, because neither of these spells will cancel your ultimate. I find this immensely more useful than Flash.

Pros ...................................... + Much faster jungling thanks to passive + Armor for tankiness + AD to help our damage

SPACE

...................................... If you do decide to go with this starting build, you have a choice of getting a Wriggle's Lantern or keep your Madred's Razors. This means you can later upgrade Madred's Razors to Madred's Bloodrazor instead of selling your Wriggle's Lantern to create an extra slot (assuming you go with the Tanky-DPS build). The choice is yours. If you like the Lantern, take it.

SPACE

Cons ...................................... - Not viable outside of jungle - Needs to be upgraded to become useful mid-late game

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Pros ...................................... + Health Regen + Mana Regen + Flat Health + Additional 1 gold every 1 second

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philosopher's stone ...................................... The combination of philosopher's stone and Heart of Gold gives you additional 1 gold a second along with health/mana regen and flat health. At around 30 minutes into the game, the items will have already paid for themselves, helping you finish your end build faster.

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Cons ...................................... - Gp5 items sell at 50% original price (in contrast to 70% on all other items)

These three items are at your core and there is no question about any of them. They are as follows:

• : MR, which helps fill in the gap between your Armor and MR. Best of all, Tenacity. You will get CC'd a lot, so whether you are chasing or escaping, Mercury's Treads will help you succeed.
  
• : A must-have on any off-tank. You will do more damage, move faster, and be harder to kill.
  
• : A much more powerful item than Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Why? With this you get more health, more slow, and more damage (AD is more valuable on Skarner than AP). Once you get this item, in combination with your Shattered Earth, the enemies will sit in place.
  

You might have noticed that I buy Mercury's Treads before Sheen. Why? You see, in order to gank effectively (i.e. initiate, chase, slow), I need movement speed. Without it, ganking is pointless.

Why buy Sheen as the first part of Trinity Force? The passive on Sheen will double our basic attack damage after an ability, which we can spam. Thanks to our low cooldown on Shattered Earth and a 2 second cooldown on Sheen, nearly every third basic attack will deal double damage. Sweet, right?

My last three items will very depending on how well the game is going.

[*] : Why not Nashor's Tooth? With Phantom Dancer we get essential movement speed and more attack speed than Nashor's Tooth. Although the cooldown reduction is nice, it is less important than movement speed. The 10 mana regen, as nice as it sounds, is really quite useless mid-late game, because it just does not regen enough. You will learn to get the blue buff whenever it spawns (or go back to base to regen mana, which is faster thanks to our Improved Recall ). We don't really need the extra AP, since our main source of damage is AD, so increased Crit strike chance is superior to additional magic damage.

[*] : Why not Hextech Gunblade? Our main source of damage is AD, so lifesteal is superior to spell vamp on Skarner. Thanks to Bloodthirster's passive, if we can get at least one kill while this item is equipped, we will have more lifesteal than Hextech Gunblade. Bloodthirster also gives more attack damage (which synergizes well with the lifesteal), but no AP (which is fine for our purposes) . You might ask, why not have the best of both worlds? Well, Bloodthirster is cheaper and offers more of the essential stats. Why pay more for things that won't come in as useful?

[*] : This item only works well on champions with a lot of attack speed. By level 18, with full build, when Seismic Bastion is active, we get 186% attack speed! Additionally, the damage dealt by Madred's Bloodrazor's passive is Magic damage. Since we're AD, it come in very handy. Imagine how quickly you'll be shredding through your opponents.



[*] : Why not Randuin's Omen? It is cheaper and provides us with a great offensive passive: all nearby enemies suffer magic damage. Remember, as an offtank, we're not trying to be the Tank. We're the tanky threat.

[*] : This item is actually recommended on Skarner, so not much controversy there. Attack speed, magic resist (for the sake of having both Armor and MR to have balanced defenses) and a passive that makes our basic attack deal magic damage.

[*] : Being focused? We get Armor, MR and a passive that makes you not wanna be targeted.



[*] : As you probably noticed, we're going for Atmog's here, so Warmog's Armor is one part of the devastating duo.

[*] : As you probably noticed, we're going for Atmog's here, so Atma's Impaler is one part of the devastating duo.

[*] : But, but, but...I trash talked Rylai's Crystal Scepter when comparing it to Frozen Mallet. What gives? Well, since we went with Atmog's, what item would give us most health and nice stats? Answer: Rylai's Crystal Scepter. This item gives us the fourth most health. Conveniently enough, we already bought two out of the four ( Warmog's Armor and Frozen Mallet) and the third is Soul Shroud. The passive on Rylai's Crystal Scepter completely dwarfs the Soul Shroud's aura. Once this item is completed, your Q will slow for 55% along with our basic attack slow of 40%. Together, that's a 95% slow...you virtually have a stun that you can use all the time.

1. Buy Regrowth Pendant and Health Potion
2. Ancient Golem (blue buff) (get a leash from your mid if you can)
3. Wolves
4. Wraiths
5. Golem
6. Lizard Elder (Red Buff)
7. Wraiths
8. Wolves
9. Golems
10. Wraiths
11. Recall and buy philosopher's stone and Boots

1. Wolves
2. Wraiths
3. Golem
4. Recall

1. Wolves
2. Ancient Golem (blue buff)
3. Wraiths
4. Golem
5. Recall and buy Heart of Gold