Skarner... (It's kind of long)

Skarner is questionably my best champion. I have friends that always want me to either jungle with him or support with Taric.

I like to look at the top guides of my favourite champions and try to make myself better as far as playstyle and possible other item/mastery/rune set-ups. I just am not impressed by any of them. Since I don't want to be considered a troll, flaming on everybody's Skarner guides, I just decided to put my thoughts here.

The main thing that I notice is that almost every Skarner guide is primarily reliant on Gp10 items. They are good for people still learning a champion or for those that get little to no farm. Skarner is absolutely amazing at farming, so he doesn't have that problem.

Philosopher's Stone is great early game for your sustain, but I never find him having mana/health problems anyway. As far as building for Shurelya's Reverie goes, he already has a reliable speed boost and I think the active isn't worth the money you could spend better elsewhere.

Heart of Gold is almost completely useless in my eyes. Yes, you get health, but you are using the worse of the two items that build into Randuin's Omen. Warden's Mail is absolutely the best armor item in the game for its price. If you want survivability that bad, save a little bit longer for that. You also get a great passive with it. I personally choose Frozen Heart over RO every time anyway because it has mana, more armor, amazing CDR, and still a really good passive.

Banshee's Veil is also something that doesn't entirely appeal to me. Yes, catalyst gives you sustain throughout mid-game, but he isn't really a squishy champion that needs the shield. Unless you are being directly focused or your enemies all have hard CC, you get much more sustain and defense from Force of Nature in the long run.

I have always found that rushing Sheen on him (mostly after Mercury's Treads, even in the jungle, is much more rewarding than grabbing an item or two for a little more sustain and passive playstyle. He has the highest base damage in the game. Sheen lets him do massive amounts of damage, so he actually poses a threat early game. After that, I can always focus on defense without having been punished for it.

I have tried/compared all of this. I just can't find reasoning in so many people trying to justify holding off his effectiveness until later.

Thank you for reading.

Just noting, I do understand people using Skarner as a more support type role with Randuin's Omen and Shurelya's Reverie actives, which is still less effective.

You need gp10 if you're jungling, especially on a tankier jungler. You jus' do. :P

There's no reason not to anyway since Omen and Reverie are great tank items and Reverie works very well with Skarner ult too.

They get that stuff for his ult. Grab him, Shurelya's back. When it stops, Randuin's. OP. Can't escape the clutches of SKAR SKAR SKARNER.

Haha. Yeah, I'm aware of that. That's why I noted that as more of a support type playstyle. I just guess I prefer dealing a lot of damage as more of an Offtank Dps while still being nearly invincible at times.

It's just that Sheen brings out a ton of early damage and I farm so much off of assists/kills and other objectives that gold is rarely ever an issue.

I go something like

Philosopher's Stone
Heart of Gold
Sheen
Wit's End
Mercury's Treads/ Ninja Tabi
Trinity Force
Shurelya's Reverie
Randuin's Omen
Hextech Gunblade

Real stronk. Does tons of damage and is tanky as **** if you're ahead.

Although I never get to Gunblade because the game always ends :P

It works great, just takes twice as long. I don't stack Gp10 for that reason. I have tried it quite a bit and it just isn't up to par.

I do almost the same, but minus the gunblade. More tanky mayne. Guardian Angel.