Hi everyone, and welcome to my first mobafire guide which features Skarner The Crystal Vanguard.

Stop copy-pasting! Stop copy-pasting!

In this build I am going to show you the way I am playing Skarner. I hope that you'll like this guide and I want to ask you to leave some comments in case you downvote, to let me know what should I improve in my guide. Note that this guide is made for solo-top Skarner so please, don't be noob and don't downvote it because it's not jungling one.


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• To jhoijhoi for her awesome Guide abot Making a Guide:) Thank you Jai, keep up the good job :) Also, credits for line separators and some BBcoding techs go to Jai too :> Love your guides so much <3 ty.
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• To Anyrin for his support and grammar checking through all the creation of this guide. Alot of thanks :)
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• To Azurventuz for his creative ideas and help with creating screenshots. Thank you very much mate.

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Pros + Very tanky through all the game. + Gamechanging ulti. + Very mobile with FON and Seismic Bastion. + Strong CC if sticked to target. + Seismic Bastion can save your life sometimes. + Great damage with Sheen early game.

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Energize

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Cons - Since last patch Skarner will have mana probs. - Really small radius on cc. - Hard to time nice Impale. - Extremly hard to lane against 2 ranged champions. - Only Ixtal's Impact is really ranged spell on Skarner. - Almost no damage output without Sheen or Trinity Force.

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I recomend you going 21/9/0 because in this build you dont have alot of damage, taking this masteries will make your damage output some bigger.
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In offence tree i take all AD affecting masteries icluding Demolitionist which will help you doing nice damage to enemy turrets. If you would like you could change Demolitionist to Sunder for more armor penetration.
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All notable bonuses are :

• Improved Exhaust.
• 3 Attack Damage.
• 10% Armor Penetration.
• 4% Crit chance.
• 4 Armor Penetration.
• 6% Bonus damage to targets lower then 40%.

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In defence tree i spend 4 points for Resistance and Hardiness which allow me to go to the further masteries. I take Durability and Veteran's Scars which will give you some nice hp Late game / Early game.
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Notable bonuses are :

• 4 Armor.
• 4 Magic Resistance.
• 108 Health at level 18.
• 30 Health.

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Basic attacks lower the cooldowns of Skarner's abilities by 1 second against champions and 0.5 seconds against non-champions.
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This is the ability which allows Skarner to stick targets with his Shattered Earth. If your skills are on cooldown, dont be afraid, come in and autoattack your enemy. Also, this is one of the best passives in the game, if riots will add this to to any as champion he will be op :)

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Skarner lashes out with his claws, dealing 20 / 40 / 55 / 70 / 85 (+0.8 per bonus attack damage) physical damage to all nearby enemies and charging himself with Crystal Energy for 5 seconds if a unit is struck.
If he casts Crystal Slash again while empowered by Crystal Energy, he deals 24 / 36 / 48 / 60 / 72 (+40% of ability power) bonus magic damage and slows all targets hit by 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 % for 2 seconds.
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Before harrasing enemy champions consider simply hitting some minions with it, so when you'll get into fight your first Shattered Earth on enemy champion will deal bonus damage and proc slow. This ability spamming allows you to do great damage with Sheen and Trinity Force through all the game.It scales well with AP and AD so if you want, consider buiding skarner hybrid to make Shattered Earth hit harder. In this build we Max it first.
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Skarner receives a shield for up to 6 seconds which blocks 70 / 115 / 160 / 205 / 250 (+60% of ability power) damage. While the shield persists his movement speed is increased by 15 / 17 / 19 / 21 / 23 % and his attack speed is increased by 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 %.
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This shield have saved me alot of times from dying when i popped him right when turret shot was flying towards me or from enemy Ignite. Movement and attack speed bonuses are really good, so try to use it right before fight starts. Remember that you can use it to flee, to initiate or simply hang around on the map :) In this build we max Seismic Bastion second

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Skarner summons a blast of crystalline energy which deals 80 / 120 / 160 / 200 / 240 (+70% of 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 (+30% of ability power) health. Subsequent marks consumed will heal for 50% of the last.
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Heal from Ixtal's Impact isn't really bad. Simply run into group of minions pop out Ixtal's Impact to hit as many minions as possible and proc the effect with Sunfire Aegis or Shattered Earth. You can use this to last hit that nasty 30 hp running enemy if you have got no Ignite. In this build we max Ixtal's Impact last
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Skarner suppresses an enemy champion for 1.75 seconds and deals 100 / 150 / 200 (+50% of 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.
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You shouldn't use Impale agaisnt Alistar or Gangplank or those players who have got Cleanse. The best targets of using on are AD carries, Impale them and pull to your turret/team to get the kill. The second priority is channeling enemy like Fiddlesticks, Malzahar or Karthus when they are casting their ultimates, if Fiddlesticks have already channeled, consider pulling him away from your team. Note that when you cast your Impale you cant use Flash but you still have got an opportunity of using Ghost. If you are smart enough you can pull enemies throught the wall after they Flashed/Jumped over it. While playing always put a point into it at levels 6,11 and 16.

• Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: You havent got alot of damage early game, this will allow you to do some better damage at beggining.
  
• greater mark of desolation: Through all the game you will be doing mainly physical damage, so some bonus armor penetration runes are really nice.
  
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: This will give you the oportunity to survive those nasty spellcasters burst damage.
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: With this you will be able to go in 1vs1 with enemy ad carry and take some less damage from turret shots.

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This spell is one of the most powerful that exsist now in game even after the nerf. Jumping over the walls, creating or destroying gaps between you and your opponents, instantly positioning for your ulti or massive spell - thats all what flash can do! In my opinion thats the best spell choice for Skarner
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With this you can destroy enemy carry or mage for few seconds, its great for chasing/escaping while you face only one opponent, but it is not so great when 2 or 3 enemies are trying to chase you. When you choose this the only trouble can become Quicksilver Sash or Cleanse on enemy team.
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Its great for hanging around, Ghost gives you speed up which allows you to chase/escape/juke enemies but some cc can bring you godlike speed down. I recomend you Ghost if you dont really have experience of fast escapes with Flash or professional jukes. If you simply dont really like Flash I strongly recoment you to take this.
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If you are always getting in situations when 50 hp enemy is about to escape you could take Ignite. I dont really like it because you've already got nice damage and cc which dont allows your opponents to escape. You can also take it to shut down enemy which depends on heals or regenerations like Dr. Mundo or Soraka.

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Its self expaining choice, I choose this as starting item because you dont have so much mobility early game. In mid game we will upgrade this to Mercury's Treads or another 2nd tier boots.
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It's your main source of damage, if you dont grab this early game, your damage will be like 0.
As Skarner's Shattered Earth cooldown is 3.5 seconds, you will probably be able to proc Sheen effect every 2.5 secs as we will autoattack between Shattered Earth'es.
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This is item which gives you some survivability early game, you will get some nice health and damage and great crowd control ^_^ If you wish you can swap this with Sunfire Aegis. Later on we will build this into our main damage item - Trinity Force.

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I take this boots in 80% games, it could be changed if only enemy team is full of ad ( Ninja Tabi), and only in case you play spellcaster ( Sorcerer's Shoes). It gives you tenacity which helps you through all periods of game. It gives you some bonus magic resist which is also nice :)
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This is your first defensive item in build, it gives health and armor and usefull passive. But I'm not sure about it's price, upgrage from giants belt and Chain Vest is just too expensive. Cost of items is 1810 and upgrage cost is 800. We pay 800 gold for 50 health and passive, I'm still not sure about this item.
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This item is offensive one. It is our main item. It gives almost everything: Ability power, Attack damage, Attack speed, Critical strike chance, Sweet movement speed, health and mana, 25% chance slow, and Sheen effect which is main attribute because of what we get Trinity Force. It will make your damage output twice bigger.

In fight you cooldown on Shattered Earth will be 3.5 seconds, 2.5 seconds (because of our passive Energize autoattack roughtly), cooldown of passive on Trinity Force's item is 2 seconds, so after every Shattered Earth it's effect will proc.

Skarner's base attack damage at 18 level is 131 points roughtly after we sum up Trinity Force bonus and standart attack damage plus items bonuses we will get this :
131(basic) + 196(trinity) + 95(All items bonus including Atma) = 422 damage.
Note that in this calculation Armor is not counted.

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This is defensive item. This thing gives the best magic resist in game, thats why any tank or offtank should grab this. Movement speed bonus acts very nice with Trinity Force and Seismic Bastion for Skarner. Movement speed will be calculated later.

Also it gives you some nice health regeneration, lets calculate it :
22(basic) + 40(FON bonus) + 50(FON passive) = 116 HP5 at level 18 with all items.
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This item is defensive. You could swap any of mid game items for this if you are doing very well and you dont want to lose your godlike, legendary, etc. After you get killed, you should revive and pop your Ghost, Seismic Bastion and use Flash to make fast escape for you because after you revive you wont have so many health for a long escape.Don't grab this if you are being killed in almost every teamfight ! It won't save you if enemy team is not dumb.
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This item is hybrid. It's armor bonus is nice, also it grants you nice ad because of passive, at level 18 with finished build you should recieve around 50 ad. This can help you winning low health fights because of crit chance :> It depends on how lucky you are.

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Due to mobility granted by Seismic Bastion, Force of Nature, Trinity Force and of course Mercury's Treads our Skarner will have :
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320(Standart) + 70( Mercury's Treads) + 25,6( Force of Nature) + 38,4( Trinity Force) + 73,6( Seismic Bastion) = 527,6 (528)
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I'm not sure but i think that it is very nice movement speed.

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While laning you have 2 ways of gamestyle.
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First one is passive gamestyle - last hit enemy minions as much as possible, dont do alot of harrassment, focus on farming. Your main objective is to gain gold advantage and dont get into troubles like ganks when you push too much.
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Second playstyle is aggressive, while laning you should 80% of time stay in bushes. When you see low health creep, come out and kill it with autoattack or Ixtal's Impact. When your opponent is about to hit your minions, come out, pop your Seismic Bastion and nuke him with autoattacks and Shattered Earth. This way of playstyle will make alot of gank opportunities for your jungler.
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Your job in teamfights can be different, you can be chosen to tank enemies, or to take out enemies squishies. You can easily pass tanky part of team with Seismic Bastion and Flash.
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While teamfight breaks out you could initiate with your ultimate, just Flash in and pop your Impale on enemy carry or caster and pull them to your team.

Thank you for reading(If you read). Vote up if you liked and you want me to do some more guides for other champions. Vote down if you have got some remarks.
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Your Esperon.

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• 07.01.12 Guide Created!