We often see a lot of skarners around focussing on their melee abilities. However this is not a smart move. Notice how his special feature is lowering cooldowns by 1 second after hitting? Well that's just great, because your Q attack will pretty much instant cast, especially if you have the right setup for it. You might think, but hey those abilities dont hit very hard even with high ability power. That is true however you forgot a great item, called lich bane wich adds a additional +100% ability power to your base damage. End game you will be hitting 800+ hits with an ability power setup and this item equipped. Additionally you have a super boosted shield because of the high AP and a nice E attack early in game (which gives a slight healer) and later in game to harras opponents or deal the killing blow.

Only buy abillity power runes, you have slow and speed already and mana is not a problem. Ability power will greatly improve your shield and E ability earlie in game.

Buying order
1. Sheen> very nice increase damage early game
2. Shoes> Speed is all, besides your shield you have no other real defences early game
3. blasting wand> more power is more damage and more shield
4. Upgrade to lichbane (run buff can help you more than you think)
5. Rabadon's deathcap (Increases your lichbane hits by a huge ammount)
6. upgrade ionian boots of lucidity(at this point you have 325 AP > 15% = 48 AP(the more expensive blasting wand only gives 40 AP, so this is the break even point)
7. Void staff (always check your opponent equipment, if they have no magic resist postpone buying this, also they might have masteries/runes you will probably notice this in a fight when they negate more damage than normal)
8. Banshee veil (or guardian angel, if there is few enemy mages arround)
9. Zhonýa's hourglass(gives you an epic espcape and time to recharge your shield in case enemies are still present when the hourglass works out, besides that has a very nice armour/AP ratio and is one of the few items that do both AP and armour)

BEGINNERS>Bots I prefer Heal and clarity vs bots you already have speed and slow, which should be suffiecient in most games. Heal and clarity will allow you to stay in lane and thus gaining more gold and levelling harder while pushing back the enemy.


AMATEUR 1(PVP): Switching ghost for heal allows pulling futher with ulti. (Skarner has self heal <E attack special improved due to AP> so healing is not 100% needed)
PRO 2 (PVP rated): Get neutral mana buff and switch flash for clarity (hard at start though)

Up E(Fracture) as much as you can.
When you can't up E you up W(shield)
When you can> get your ulti(no need to raise it further than lvl 1)
As soon as you have lich bane raise your Q(chrystal slash) , Q should be spammed near enemies so your lich bane becomes active. (it only costs 30 mana, so you wont even notice your mana go down)

Use E at start of every battle (to get free heals!) after that W+Q are a great combo during mid and end game, you can constantly spam both. Killing all nearby minions, negating all damage and dealing tons of damage to your opponent trough lich bane+ Q and because of your E special you heal up quickly too. Finish off with E, since it's your most powerfull finisher ability.

Begin game is fairly easy just harras your opponent with E and when they are low on health you rush in with W(gaining health yourself) and finish them off with yet another E.

Pro's
- Great damage
- Great damage taker (only when chasing, dont go in as a tank untill very late game)
- Slow + speed makes him a great finisher. + He can escape extremely well.
- Great tower destroyer. (W+ spamming Q is awsome and quick damage)
- Easy to farm gold(gets better in end game though)
- Good ganker
- Great near tower (ulti and E make you a force to be reckonned with) and W allows you to take hits of champions like annie)
- Good teamplay (ulti is an awsome kidnap tool, breaking your enemies formation)
- Decent extra healing due to special of E ability


Con's
- Not a great jungler early game(later game his shield will negate all damage and his own damage is great too, with a helping hand even baron is not a problem, use E to heal up and you might be able to solo<not confirmed yet)
- Not great in solo mid game
- weak vs ranged
- Weak vs stuns (cant raise shield)
- jungle can be dangerous at start, try not to go to deep in it and stay near teammates. Raise shield when going in bushes.

As you can see over half your damage is magic damage in this setup. Therefore Void staff is important. Though melee hits are also decent in this graph , but that is partly due to early game sheen and hits while farming minions early game (conserving mana). Not all damage that was actually done is shown, because most of it was shielded. As you can see heals are really decent of the E ability.

Damage wise there is hardly any difference, a good melee setup probably does slightly more damage.

Tanks wise the difference is huge and AP is an epic win, because of the shield.

Conclusion:
When your team only has 1 tank or lacks tanks AP is the way to go. For pure ganking melee is better. Yet AP is a far safer way to play and allows you to stay in lane far longer than melee setup(which pays off in extra xp+gold and less feed for enemy). Besides that you can do a good push and destroy towers easily.

plays well with:
- Mages (kassadin, ryze, brand)

- Assasins

- poison types

Plays ok with :

- Tanks

plays bad with:

- Support (heimerdinger etc.)

- close combad melee (pantheon, tyndamere etc.)