Skarner is a scorpion, a crystal one, he is underestimated in LoL (well, for now he is) and not many play him / like him because they cant control him and play him well, people build Skarner too tanky or too "glass-cannon-ish" and fail with him.

In this guide you will learn how to DOMINATE with Skarner, both in early and lategame, and you might end up carrying your teaam.

Take your time reading and understanding every choice and trick and enjoy :)
NOTE that you should really read the guide and not just follow the shortcut, it will sure work but you might wanna change your gameplay depending on the enemies / your style of gameplay, everything explained below.



P.S
W/O - Without
W/E - Whatever
W/ - With

Well every champion has an upside and a downside (Ye... not really):

Pros:
1. Skarner is underestimated, people wont think of you as a threat and might go greedy on you, ending up dead n' gone.
2. Infinity slow - once you catch an enemy with 2 Q's, hes probably dead, unless he'll use a flash/stun on you, but u can still catch up w/ W.
3. Powerful ganks - Infinity slow?
4. Extremely fast jungling - Once you got your blue buff, your jungle is one of the fastest in game, and even if your blue was stolen you can use an inferior route but you will still make it and wont be underlvled!
5. WTF is this damage aint he a tank? - This build is extremely tanky but still does TONS of damage, TONS of it!
6. Best. Voice. EVER.
7. When you stand in a bush for a while Skarner will shout: " Skar Skar SKARNER!!!"
8. Oh yeah... You can ****ING GRAB PEOPLE - AINT THIS SHIET EPIC?
9. Did i mention his voice?
10. Is a GREAT FARMER!!! every game i end up with 250+ minions slain. HELL YEAH!


Cons:
1. No cons - well that joke got old... sorry Galio
2. Well.. fine. You need to learn how2play Skarner and his combos and tricks, think and get used to his gameplay to completely OWN stuff etc.
3. Quite squishy until Trinity Force, but we'll fix that by getting Phage 1st :D
4. Skar Skar SKARNER!

Well, Masteries.
The new masteries make jungling an easy job, placing all the perfect jungling talents in 1 tree, the defensive one.
I take armor and magic resistance of course, reduced damage from monsters is very nice too, plus it lead to THE jungling feat - Bladed Armor .
From here and on you can choose w/e masteries you'd like, i recommend those i use, 9-21-0 but you can choose your own as long as you take what i noted.

P.S.
I chose not to take the improved smite talent because 10g wont really affect my gameplay like other masteries (aka 10% armor penetration).

for the runes, i chose to take offensive ones to cover up the lack of offensiveness in the talent tree, plus attack speed runes are great for skarner's passive, energize, nothing to explain really, you can take some armor in the yellow runes but i cant recommend that because the item build is tanky enough.

Summoner Spells, HURRAH!

Well, becuz we're junglin' we'll obviously choose Smite (becuz junglin' w/o Smite is for LOOSERS!, how y'gonna steal their baron NOW, sucka?)

And we will also take Flash for suprise-grabbin


IF you choose laning, take Ghost instead of Smite for suprise-grabbin-and-rushing-to-a-bush-to-do-sacred-stuff

Energize
"OMG SKARNER didnt u use your ult like 5 sec ago? HAX!"
Each time you hit a unit your skill's CD is reduced by 0.5 sec, if the unit is a champ, the amount is doubled (1 sec reduced).
What makes you THE BAUWS is your passive, spam your skills, use W and have it's CD gone while you still wear it.
SUCCESS.

Shattered Earth
Skarner's Q, your bread and chocolate, your main source of damage, kills ETC.
A small AoE slow nuke that deals flat physical damage on it's 1st use, but if it hits an enemy Skarner becomes charged and the next Q will deal bonus magic damage, lots of it and slow the enemy by 45% (rank 5), thats why i call it Infinity Slow, becuz of the short CD you can slow the target by 45% each second and its.. FOKIN EPIC.

Seismic Bastion
Skarner's W, your way to be supa-dupa-fast, with Trinity Force, Force of Nature and your shoes, with W you will pass 500 MS, making you able to chase almost every enemy, even with Ghost or Flash.
Oh yes, it also give you an EPIC SHIELD, yknow, forgot2mention.

Ixtal's Impact
Skarner's E (orly?), your key to solo laning (and laning too :P), i recommend you to get it at lvl 2 (Q is always the 1st to be taken at lvl 1) if ur laning, because you can just W a minion group and Q them all for a decent heal early game.
It also deals a nice amount of damage at range and helps you frag kills if your outta range and W is on CD.

Impale
What?
Did someone just say... " Rammus"? or was it " Puncturing Taunt"?
Bah, haters. **** them.
Skarner's R, is:
1. BETTER than Rammus's TAUNT becuz:
- It works on ranged champs, unlike rammus, unable to grab em. HAH, IN YOUR FACE RAMMUS!
- It carries the target at Skarner's MS (aka 507 MS) toward a direction, unlike rammus.
- Ye fanboys, Skarner's R does have a short CD, Skarner has a passive, remember?
2. EPIC
3. A kill-baking skill (aka Alistar's combo)
4. better than rammus's taunt
5. SUPER STRONG!!

Well it might look a bit dumb but thats how I remember the skill sequence:

Q is always higher by 1 than W
W is always higher by 1 than E

Start w/ Q, than W than Q and than from 2-1-0-0 you start counting.

Of course that R is 1st priority and u should grab it in lvls 6-11-16

OK, When it comes to JUNGLING, Skarner's route isn't special, its a basic Cloth Armor route, bluebuff > wolves > wraiths > golems > red > gank or enter the enemy's jungle if they have no jungler, if they do your taking a risk and the jungle is probably clean.

For further info:
Start with a Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potions and go to the blue buff.
You NEED a pull or else you'll end up recalling and thats just sad.
After the pull just smite it unless you wanna overkill (overkilling is bad.) and use Q when possible, prbbly after an AA (AutoAttack).
Activate a Health Potion when possible and needed.

After that, get the wolves (and grab W at lvl 2, use it when possible, its prior to Q becuz it gives you temporary health and attack speed.) and the Wraiths and the golems, following the skill order and item order, not much to explain here.

In case of blue stolen, go Golems (use smite) > wraiths > wolves > recall > blue/red > gank.



OK, lets face it, Riot RUINED THE JUNGLE, you level up much slower and gain gold much slower but til they change it again (soon they will. for sure.) just jungle normally, should be easier with the new masteries and camps respawn faster. Skarner is a FARMING JUNGLER because of his epic AoE abilities so he benefits from the jungle remake much more than other junglers do. jungle NORMALLY and when your done just gank OR keep jungling because by the time you'll finish your route half of it will be alive again :)
[color=#800080]REMEMBER TO GANK![/color]
When you see a lane where the enemy over-extends, GET 'EM! all you have to do is Seismic Bastion your way to them, Shattered Earth a minion on your way if possible and then start infinity-slowing your enemy to it's death, spamming Q and attacking him between uses, make sure you let the laner know your coming for a gank and co-ordinate for a successful kill.


FARMING!
I LOVE FARMING!
Skarner is a GREAT farmer, with hes epic passive and hes Shattered Earth he will slay minion waves in seconds! so even if your getting lot of assists and having hard time earning gold from kills, DONT WORRY! just farm your way to victory, once you get some items you will start fragging kills because of your OP Shattered Earth.

ITEMS!

HELL YEAH!

So we start off w/ a Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potions OR a Regrowth Pendant if we wanna lane.

Eventually you'll end up with a Wriggle's Lantern OR philosopher's stone
After that get your Mercury's Treads on and rush Trinity Force, getting Phage as 1st priority.
After you have your TF, get Sunfire Aegis and Force of Nature, dont worry about damage because you already have tons of it, with TF especially.
When your done w/ those items sell your 1st item (the laning/junglin one) and get a Hextech Gunblade and win the game.

Not much to explain here, if you go AP/AS/AD you'll die in a slap, so that build is prior to every other, and it works fkin great.

its Garenteed!

Well basicly once you catch someone with 2 Q's he's a dead guy/pussycat unless he has flash.

If you wanna combo w/ your ulti its quite easy, Q once before the ulti, Hit once, Ulti, W (and ghost if u wanna pull someone to your team) and Q again while the target is being grabbed, now hes srsly dead.

Ofc you can just... simply grab someone and let your team jump at him but... thats much less fun.



Make sure you hit once in a while and not just using your Q becuz that your AAs deal actually lots of damage with TF.



When you gank, use W and try usin Q on a minion if the target is outta range, because you become charged and it makes it easier to slow the target.

**Note that i write dates this way; DD/MM/YY and not MM/DD/YY**
Changelog

16.10, 2011 - Added lots of info about the mastery and rune choices and the way they affect the jungling, laning and the overall game.
Added further info about jungling, ganking, and farming!

18.11, 2011 - Added the new mastery tree and edited the Masteries and Runes chapter.

05.12, 2011 - Added some stuff to the jungling chapter after the jungle remake.

Buffs/Nerfs to Skarner

16.10, 2011 - Skarner has been EXTREMELY BUFFED!!
Hes Shattered Earth now costs less mana, because of hes mana problems and it makes Skarner much more offensive in lane and helps jungling and in the overall game, PLUS hes ultimate now lasts for longer!

EPIC!

Thank you for reading my Skarner guide, your more than welcome to vote it up or comment and visit my other guides!


Have fun WRECKING EM BATTLEFIELDS!

For any kind of tip, feel free to send me a private message or comment below and i'd be happy to answer!
Yours,

RubberDuckyy , EU West server, Trolland.