EPTHello guys! You probably know me, I'm SF Scipeaus on EUW, known on these forums for being somewhat high ranked (got soloQ challenger in season3 and 4) and also known for maining Skarner way back in S2. Well, I started playing him again and here's my guide.
About Skarner:
Let's talk about what Skarner actually does. He farms really quickly, he deals lots of damages, he initiates or counterinitiates teamfights and generally forces the enemy to play defensive lest they be picked off. There are also things Skarner doesn't do: he doesn't gank pre-6, he doesn't do dragon quickly, doesn't push well and he doesn't CC much apart from his ult. Knowing these qualities should help you know when it is appropriate to pick him, but specific teammates and enemies play a very large role as well. More on those later though, this is just an introduction.
Setup: Runes, Masteries and starting Items
For runes, take these:
Attack speed Marks
Flat Armor Seals
Flat CDR Glyphs
Attack Speed Quintessences
Some alternatives you might think about are Movement Speed Quintessences and Magic Resistance Glyphs. Movement Speed slows down your jungle a little bit and the extra strength in early and mid fights is more valuable than a bit of movement speed. Lategame Movement Speed Quints aren't very useful either as you hit the harder Mspeed cap with just boots2+W. As for Magic Resistance Glyphs, they aren't as useful to you as getting faster level 6. You aren't likely to get into very close fights early game anyway, which also favours offensive setup.
Masteries as follows:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xlqAU4z.jpg?1)
9/21/0 is preferred over 21/9/0. There are no masteries in the offense tree beyond the first 9 that allow you to jungle faster, apart from the 3% damage one which is inconsequential and the 6AP one you probably don't want anyway. Depending on teamcomps, you might want to get Evasive rather than Reinforced Armor. 21/9/0 with the Executioner and Spellweaving line can be justified when the enemy team has very little CC and you don't expect much value from either Reinforced Armor or Evasive, but those situations are very rare.
Starting items are Machete+5 pots, same as almost every other jungler. What that builds into we'll discuss below.
Skill order:
Standard skill order is R>Q>W>E, taking 1 point in E at lvl8.
There is an alternative skill order, which is R>Q>W>E, taking 1 point in E at lvl4
Skarner's E skill has pretty much only 1 purpose and that's slowing your enemies so you can run up to them and ult them. Taking a point at level4 allows you to do so right as you hit lvl6, but it hurts your clear as you don't want to use your mana on E and it also makes you weaker in fights as you are likely to run out of mana if you spam your E early on. Most importantly, while it does help you get closer to enemies, it doesn't actually help you that much so I reccomend delaying leveling your E until lvl8.
Itemization:
Alright, itemization. There are few good deviations avaliable but it's important to recognize them.
Your jungle item of choice is Lizard Elder, for the same reasons almost every other jungler gets it. Large increase in damage, significantly faster jungling. Your Qs will be mana neutral when used on jungle monsters once you get it, so you won't have mana problem jungling.
You will have mana problems fighting though, which is why Iceborn Gauntlet is the item to get right after. Apart from giving you the much needed mana and somewhat useful armor, it also significantly increases your damage with the Sheen proc and the slow allows you to stick to targets, a very important skill to have for a melee autoattacker with almost no CC of his own.
After Iceborn Gauntlet get boots2. You will want Mercury Treads unless the enemy team is full physical damage, in which case get Ninja Tabi. The survivability and in the case of Mercs the Tenacity are vastly more valuable than what Mobo boots would give you. If your team is reliant on your flash+ult to engage, get the enchantment that reduces flash cooldown as well. Against some champions like Akali, Rengar or Kha'Zix you'll want to buy upgraded red trinket to replace your green one as soon as you get IBG/when you hit lvl9.
After this, almost always build full tank. Randuins and Banshees are the 2 items you probably want to get. If the enemy team has a lot of magic damage, Locket is a great item, it can replace Banshees if the spellshield wouldn't be of much use or the aura would be exceptionally good. It also maxes out your CDR. Thornmail is good against mostly physical dmg teams, Warmogs is justifiable if the enemy has tons of % penetration or reduction (Yasuo, Jarvan etc.)
It can be occasionally appropriate to get another damage item. If you already have a very tanky champion on your team, getting last item damage item can be good, Blade of the Ruined King generally provides the most damage and utility. If you are against a physical damage only team, getting Ninja Tabi and Zephyr to max out CDR and get the tenacity can be good. If the enemy has a lot of magic burst that tends to finish you off (Ziggs, Leblanc etc.) Hexdrinker can be a good buy. I warn you though, although in midgame you might feel like you can afford to build damage, oftentimes you'll come to regret that decision once the enemy ADC and middle get 2nd item completed. If you want to play it safe, build full tank after IBG with maybe a dmg item in your last slot.
Alright, let's get to the part where I explain how to play Skarner
Pre-6 Jungle:
Early jungling with Skarner is pretty simple. Starting blue is a bit faster and you lose less hp, but in case of lvl1 shenanigans you can start red as well. The standard path would be Blue -> Wolves -> Red -> Golems -> Wraiths -> Wolves, then clearing jungle against from Golems. 90% of the time you'll just want to clear to lvl5 and base, not appearing in any lanes. The 10% of the time you'll be holding lanes of dead teammates, or, very rarely, defending against the top level dive. Ganking is almost always pointless, as you only have a red buff autoattack for CC before you hit lvl6.
On your first back, you'll have about 1k gold. I usually buy Spirit Stone, Boots1, a pink ward, 2-3 hp pots and 2-3 mana pots. The pink ward is a generally useful thing to have around middle lane or in your tribush. The pots allow you to clear until lvl6 and gank with full hp and mana. If you will get blue for yourself and if you aren't going to gank before you get it, buy only 0-1 mana pots.
Sometimes you'll want to take your blue, but in some cases your middle laner can make a better use of it. If they are skipping Chalice for Zhonyas, they probably need the mana to keep clearing the waves. If they are on a champion who either really needs or can use blue very well (Anivia or Kassadin for example) it might be better to give it. Conversely, if they died already or are going Chalice, you can probably make better use of it for faster clear and significantly stronger fights.
Although you don't have CC, your damage is very high. Getting invaded isn't an issue for Skarner unless you messed up and are behind on exp already. You can easily 1v1 most junglers and can even beat ones such as Lee Sin or Kha'Zix if your W isn't on a long cooldown at that point.
Shortly after lvl6:
Early midgame is the part of the game when you'll want to start doing a lot of stuff with Skarner. Let's get specific here: you hit lvl6 at about 6:30, somewhere in the neighborhood of the buff you took first. Although you might feel the urge to come to a lane asap, it might not be correct to do so. Firstly, it's probably rather obvious that you are close to the first buff you took and it becomes increasingly so as you approach the 7:00 time. Keep those things in mind when you are calculating whether a gank would work out or not.
Executing ganks is pretty easy, run up to or flash ultimate onto your target, should be an easy kill if you evaluated the situation correctly. Don't be shy to use flash, a flash that's not on cooldown is a resource you aren't using. I don't think I need to go into a great detail on this.
Now, back to the neighborhood of the first buff you took. At 7:40, it starts becoming increasingly obvious that you are close to the second buff you took. You can use this to your advantage or keep it in mind if that's where you actually are. After your 2 buffs, keep farming the jungle but keep your eye out on ganks, they are very powerful at this point. Top lane towerdives are an underutilized way to get kills that you should keep your eye out for as well.
You probably aren't strong enough to take either dragon or a tower off of a gank until about minute 9-10 or so. Around this point, You'll probably have to make an important decision: either you give up dragon for a top kill and hopefully top tower, or you contest dragon. It's not easy to know which one to go for, generally dragon is better as it gives you an option to push bottom or mid afterwards, but it's riskier. Generally, if their mid is winning and isn't easily killable, go for top tower, if the reverse is true try to force things middle or bottom. You can go for dragon opportunistically if the enemy backs at the wrong time or they themselves decide to go for top tower, though that often signifies that you made your attempt at either dragon or top tower a bit late.
Midgame and Lategame:
Depending on who is winning, you will either generally be pushing lanes or be pushed on.
If you are forced on the defensive, you will mostly keep farming the jungle. Placing a defensive pink ward can be good to deny vision. If the enemy splitpushes, you might be able to initiate a good teamfight with number advantage or gank the solo pusher. Don't forget farming though, it is important you have large amounts of gold and levels.
If it is your team that is pushing, you will probably have a great time initiating fights with your ultimate, catching people off and warding their jungle. Keep farming too, you are pretty weak when your ultimate is on cooldown. These things aren't really Skarner-specific and can be complicated so I don't actually want to go into massive depths on this, but very generally speaking you want to push when you flash ultimate is up and you can use it to initiate a good teamfight.
Laneswaps:
This chapter is going to be very short, given I don't have much experience with Skarner laneswaps. Skarner sucks in laneswaps. Skarner used to be bad in laneswaps because he is terrible at diving, because he doesn't have any CC or jumps and he is terrible at defending towers because all his waveclear is melee. The laneswaps changed a bit recently to 2v0 lanes mostly, but those also often involve middle lane roams where Skarner is completely useless. You probably want to farm up lvl6 as usual and hope your enemies don't get too much of an advantage from your absence in lanes. Careful level1 which could spot an enemy laneswap in time is highly preferred.
Teamfights:
Ok, let's explain teamfighting. Depending on the teamcomps, farm levels and situation there are 2 distinct ways you will teamfight: either initiating or defending.
If you are initiating, you the teamfight will start with you ultimating or flash ultimating someone. Depending on your team's followup, that can either be anyone who comes too close and overextends (including tanks) or it has to be a high priority target. Make sure that this ult you use on Shyvana isn't essential for killing the Twitch afterwards, etc. Pulling the tank is oftentimes a good idea if you are defending a tower, as tanks often come a bit too close.
After (hopefully) focusing the one target down, you go and autoattack and pretty much use skills on cooldown. Depending on the situation, make a clear decision to either focus the same targets your squishies are, or go chase the enemies'. It's hard to give guidelines on this, but generally if they have champions who ar every good at kiting (Orianna, Lucian) you probably want to attack the closest champion, while if they have something like Twitch and you have someone to dive in with you then it's probably a good idea to get them squishies.
Now, on the defensive. That'll happen either when the enemy engages on you (maybe with stuff like Malph ult etc.) or when they have a bunch of assasins who position far back. Let's talk about the second scenario.
So let's say the enemy team has a Katarina and then a bunch of generic dudes like Thresh etc. Katarina deals tons of dmg, she's the one you probably have to focus to win the teamfight. But since she positions far back (and maybe has Shihouin Yoruichi shunpo reflexes) you can't run up to her and ult her with your team being able to follow up.
In this case, you either have to have someone else on your team initiate, or wait for them to start a fight. Either way, you want to stay close to your priority targets that Katarina would focus. If there are bruisers nearly, autoattack and Q them and stuff, but save your ultimate for when kat jumps in. If she doesn't, maybe you shouldn't use your ultimate at all then, or only after the enemy team routs.
If the enemy team doesn't have any super scary assasins like that, but you get initiated on, you want to keep attacking the bruiser who is close to you and stuff. Either use your ultimate when you need it to finish off the bruiser that's close to you, or if they have a really scary squishy flash-ult them at a point when they are close enough and your team can follow up reasonably well.
Team composition:
Skarner synergizes very well with specific champions and conversely has very hard time dealing with others, it's important to recognize both of those before you pick Skarner.
Skarner works really well with champions who can provide a Movement Speed buff, which allows him to catch out people from further away and initiate teamfights more accurately. Skarner also works well with shields, as he doesn't have any repositioning skills to escape should he fall low on hp. Generally, Skarner prefers to have more of a teamfighting than a poking teamcomp, as he is useless in a poke-battle. So champions that work unusually well with Skarner are Lulu, Kayle, Karma, Morgana, Orianna, Zilean and similiar.
The list of Skarner's best counters is pretty much identical to his best allies: champions that can kite easily, racking up damage on him as you try to position for an initiate and champions that can shield the target you try to focus or in some other way exploit your focus on 1 character. However, while Skarner doesn't generally work well with poke, he can be excellent against poke if coupled with a movement speed boost or 2 to help initiate.
How to play against Skarner:
As mentioned above, Skarner is bad in laneswaps. If you have a powerful laneswap jungler yourself (such as Elise or Lee Sin), laneswapping can be a good idea, though probably not feasable in soloQ. Farmy pre-6 of Skarner is difficult to exploit, but with a good team composition and a bit of luck it can be used to gain an advantage.
Skarner's fights are strong after lvl6, although not uniquely so. There aren't really any anti-Skarner specific tricks when it comes to jungling after lvl6. He is rather slow at taking dragon, which can be used to your advantage. If you are a laner against Skarner, there aren't any specific things other than playing well. In top lane, make sure you don't agress unless your team would be able to get dragon in response to a top lane gank. Be especially careful of lane brushes in bottom lane and keep both sides of middle lane warded.
When it comes to teamfights, respect Skarner's flash ultimate range and account for any speed buffs that his team might have. Ideally you want to be the one initiating teamfights, as Skarner's ultimate has much less use then. Skarner doesn't have any jumps and so he can be easily focused in teamfights without proper protection. Forcing Dragon and Baron can be preferred over pushing, as Skarner can use his ultimate to drag enemies under towers, while he is very slow at taking Dragon and Baron and he isn't good at tanking them either. Getting a Quicksilver Sash as a squishy can be a very good idea, doubly so if you are an assasin who can't avoid getting in Skarner's ultimate range.
