Skarner has become somewhat of a FOTM champ recently. When he was released he was considered very weak and didn't really fulfill a role, but he had a great ult. Now in season two with a few tweaks to both him, the jungle, and the mastery page he has become an amazing asset to the team. Through this guide I hope that I can not only show you how to control the game with skarner but also have a ton of fun while doing so. This is my first real guide so please any suggestions would be helpful to me and others using it.

The runes for skarner are very general as far as jungle goes. The quince can either be health or movement speed. Experiment yourself and see what you prefer. This rune set will give u optimal early game jungle while also providing late game tankiness.

Standard Jungle masteries, the move speed in the utility tree is a must have and this setup will give you great sustain within the jungle. Make sure you take the increased buff duration because it is very important for skarner to have the blue buff until he gets madreds. Without it you will most likely be too OOM to gank which leads to QQ about lack of ganks.

So looking at this build on the surface it is expensive and very difficult to achieve with the lack of gold in the jungle nowadays. However, do not fret the Trinity Force is by far the best item on skarner. It makes you very bursty, gives you move speed, and also increases your viability as a slow bot.

The next item Hextec. Is vital i realize this is not the best item anymore and is very expensive. However, once again this item will make you very difficult to kill and gives you another slow. This item will make your ult a perfect death sentence. You will be able to pull someone use the active and while if the other team chooses to focus you then you will be able to leach back up.

Madreds is the final "dps" item skarner should get. This item not only makes you do a ridiculous amount of damage. But it also synergies well with hextec because the magic damage it will deal will actually give u spell vamp.

At this point you need to be tanky. You are now into late game or the game is over. If it is not over you need to start buying tanky items. FoN is great because of the movespeed and MR. Frozen heart is great because of its passive and the amount of armor/cd reduction it gives.

Many people prefer to start Skarner with a regrowth pendant and get philo stone. I have tried this and it is a slower jungle, has less sustain, and worst it makes the climb to trinity a little slower. You can take this item if you so choose or if you believe you aren't going to have enough gold in the game but I do not generally get this item on skarner.

Wriggles lantern is also very common on him and I used to take it. It provides the biggest early game bang for your buck for lifesteal however its major two downsides are that it slows down trinity and slows down madreds. I would only take this item if my solo top needs the ward bad, my support isnt warding dragon, or I believe i will need the early game sustain because I am not doing well.

This is very simple.

Blue->wolves->Wraiths->Golems->red->Gank.

Some people choose to do wolves first and then blue but i just find that the sustain is better with this route. Plus my mid doesnt have to wait for me to kill them to leash blue.

When jungling the second you get madreds blue is no longer "yours" you just don't need it for fast clears. Yes it is nice, Yes it helps you jungle faster, but your job isn't to be a fed skarner but to get fed teammates.

To conclude, I realize this isn't a super flashy guide but I'm hoping people will rate it on content. I will be growing this guide hopefully within the next week and get some videos, match histories, jungle route images, and more. Hopefully you guys like what you see and don't bash it until you try it.