2011-08-15, 05:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 2011-08-16, 01:20 PM by KajitiSouls.)
This is probably my 2nd last research dump on Skarner. More optimal matchups led to better results in exploring Skarner's "OP" side.
I'm sure many of us have fell victim to Ashe's permaslow at some point or another. Skarner's Crystal Slash is a lot like this, with additional qualities and detractors.
For one, it has a "windup" time in that the first Slash does not slow. Subsequent Slashes however slow your victims, and this is an AoE effect that can disrupt a team, and also synergizes with Fracture, which is Skarner's healing ability. Pumping points into Crystal Slash makes it hurt quite a bit, and can be considered significant extra damage if you compare Skarner and Ashe auto-attacking someone to death, at least until Ashe gets a lot of AD items. Skarner is much more vulnerable to CCs unfortunately because he is most definitively a melee champion in nearly all respects, only topped by Udyr. To compensate, Skarner has high base speed (320), and he gets an MS bonus from Crystalline Exoskeleton (up to 23%), and is able to catch up to opponents much better than Ashe can. Last but not least, Slash is an actual spell proc as opposed to Ashe's Frost Shot toggle. This means you have the option of charging up Tear of the Goddess ridiculously fast (if you have the mana to fund your spells), and/or you can abuse the crap out of Sheen effects. While Slash does not damage the tower itself, the proc bonus you earn plus Crystalline Exoskeleton's AS bonus lets Skarner do some serious damage to towers when he is able to.
Because of Crystal Slash's windup condition, use of it early game should be reserved to chase away champions or kill them outright. Using it to farm minions should only be used if your turret is being threatened; Fracture does much more damage for its mana cost. With Slash spamming avoided, your mana can hold a little while longer until you get Philo Stone, then you should last much longer in terms of sustain.
Crystalline Exoskeleton has me conflicted, and definitely has an anti-fun pattern built in: optimal use is not clear. Clearly you would want to use it to attack champions and kill them, and the bonus effects plus the damage buffer certainly allow for this. That is, until you face against a champion with a potent burst combo. If he is able to break your shield immediately, you might find yourself with much longer cooldowns than anticipated, which leaves you even more vulnerable. Base CD on Crystalline Exoskeleton is a little longer than most spell CDs. This begs the question of whether it's better to use it to survive burst damage, or use it for arguably better benefits post-burst surviving. This may probably have to be judged on an individual basis.
Anti-fun aside, if Skarner has a large amount of CDR and AS, he can be in "steroid" mode for as long as he has 60 mana. Crystalline Exoskeleton, along with Crystal Slash, is Skarner's bread and butter skills, and can allow Skarner to do some split pushing by himself. I don't believe he should be doing this if there are a lot of MIAs or the adjacent jungle areas aren't lit up with wards, but still he is definitely one of the better champs to do such a task, as he has decent DPS vs. towers, and can clear creeps with good speed (as opposed to the likes of Shaco or maybe even TF).
One mark of comparison in champion ult power is the amount of damage that can be done. First impressions of Skarner's ultimate Impale leads to the complaints about the short duration and the low base damage. As awesome as it would sound to drag people around forever, Impale is one of those cases where it's pretty miserable for the enemy in a 1v1 situation if they don't have a long lasting slow or some other CC or a way to block Skarner's slow attacks.
Here's how I like to think about Impale's power. When you start up your permaslow on a victim, the effective time you have to attack him before he can reach safety is multiplied by a factor. Mathematically speaking, this factor would be [distance to safety] / (1 - [slow %]). While Impale only allows you to drag your victim at least as far as a Singed toss or maybe even a Blitzcrank grab, the fact that your victim is slowed means the effective distance you dragged him is multiplied by the same factor. Bonus! This results in the victim taking much more damage total than a "sheer damage" ultimate (600+ damage at lvl 3; Impale is 200 + 200 at lvl 3). Obviously there are things like flashes and whatnot, but that's kind of the same story for a lot of champions with similar mechanics.
Use of Impale puts limitations on Skarner. I've already stated that Skarner cannot hurt the suppressed victim with anything other than DoTs and Impale itself. However, the victim is still wide open to attacks from anything else. Skarner also can't use Fracture for whatever reason while Impale is active. Not that you'd want to anyways, since you'd be busy dragging him around anyways, and Fracture has a cast time. I'm honestly not too sure where this would make much of a difference, and I only learned of this because of slowing down and pausing my replays. Additionally, the utility of Skarner's ult can be diminished by CCing Skarner.
Overall, I'm finding myself more and more satisfied with how Riot handled Skarner on release, but I would still like to see them address issues about his survivability and contributions to a team fight. The fact that Skarner is quite vulnerable to kiting does not help his case.
EDIT: You know the part where I said you can't hurt your Impale victim? That was complete and utter bullshyt and I facepalmed myself quite hard. You still can't auto-attack him or use Fracture though.
I'm sure many of us have fell victim to Ashe's permaslow at some point or another. Skarner's Crystal Slash is a lot like this, with additional qualities and detractors.
For one, it has a "windup" time in that the first Slash does not slow. Subsequent Slashes however slow your victims, and this is an AoE effect that can disrupt a team, and also synergizes with Fracture, which is Skarner's healing ability. Pumping points into Crystal Slash makes it hurt quite a bit, and can be considered significant extra damage if you compare Skarner and Ashe auto-attacking someone to death, at least until Ashe gets a lot of AD items. Skarner is much more vulnerable to CCs unfortunately because he is most definitively a melee champion in nearly all respects, only topped by Udyr. To compensate, Skarner has high base speed (320), and he gets an MS bonus from Crystalline Exoskeleton (up to 23%), and is able to catch up to opponents much better than Ashe can. Last but not least, Slash is an actual spell proc as opposed to Ashe's Frost Shot toggle. This means you have the option of charging up Tear of the Goddess ridiculously fast (if you have the mana to fund your spells), and/or you can abuse the crap out of Sheen effects. While Slash does not damage the tower itself, the proc bonus you earn plus Crystalline Exoskeleton's AS bonus lets Skarner do some serious damage to towers when he is able to.
Because of Crystal Slash's windup condition, use of it early game should be reserved to chase away champions or kill them outright. Using it to farm minions should only be used if your turret is being threatened; Fracture does much more damage for its mana cost. With Slash spamming avoided, your mana can hold a little while longer until you get Philo Stone, then you should last much longer in terms of sustain.
Crystalline Exoskeleton has me conflicted, and definitely has an anti-fun pattern built in: optimal use is not clear. Clearly you would want to use it to attack champions and kill them, and the bonus effects plus the damage buffer certainly allow for this. That is, until you face against a champion with a potent burst combo. If he is able to break your shield immediately, you might find yourself with much longer cooldowns than anticipated, which leaves you even more vulnerable. Base CD on Crystalline Exoskeleton is a little longer than most spell CDs. This begs the question of whether it's better to use it to survive burst damage, or use it for arguably better benefits post-burst surviving. This may probably have to be judged on an individual basis.
Anti-fun aside, if Skarner has a large amount of CDR and AS, he can be in "steroid" mode for as long as he has 60 mana. Crystalline Exoskeleton, along with Crystal Slash, is Skarner's bread and butter skills, and can allow Skarner to do some split pushing by himself. I don't believe he should be doing this if there are a lot of MIAs or the adjacent jungle areas aren't lit up with wards, but still he is definitely one of the better champs to do such a task, as he has decent DPS vs. towers, and can clear creeps with good speed (as opposed to the likes of Shaco or maybe even TF).
One mark of comparison in champion ult power is the amount of damage that can be done. First impressions of Skarner's ultimate Impale leads to the complaints about the short duration and the low base damage. As awesome as it would sound to drag people around forever, Impale is one of those cases where it's pretty miserable for the enemy in a 1v1 situation if they don't have a long lasting slow or some other CC or a way to block Skarner's slow attacks.
Here's how I like to think about Impale's power. When you start up your permaslow on a victim, the effective time you have to attack him before he can reach safety is multiplied by a factor. Mathematically speaking, this factor would be [distance to safety] / (1 - [slow %]). While Impale only allows you to drag your victim at least as far as a Singed toss or maybe even a Blitzcrank grab, the fact that your victim is slowed means the effective distance you dragged him is multiplied by the same factor. Bonus! This results in the victim taking much more damage total than a "sheer damage" ultimate (600+ damage at lvl 3; Impale is 200 + 200 at lvl 3). Obviously there are things like flashes and whatnot, but that's kind of the same story for a lot of champions with similar mechanics.
Use of Impale puts limitations on Skarner. I've already stated that Skarner cannot hurt the suppressed victim with anything other than DoTs and Impale itself. However, the victim is still wide open to attacks from anything else. Skarner also can't use Fracture for whatever reason while Impale is active. Not that you'd want to anyways, since you'd be busy dragging him around anyways, and Fracture has a cast time. I'm honestly not too sure where this would make much of a difference, and I only learned of this because of slowing down and pausing my replays. Additionally, the utility of Skarner's ult can be diminished by CCing Skarner.
Overall, I'm finding myself more and more satisfied with how Riot handled Skarner on release, but I would still like to see them address issues about his survivability and contributions to a team fight. The fact that Skarner is quite vulnerable to kiting does not help his case.
EDIT: You know the part where I said you can't hurt your Impale victim? That was complete and utter bullshyt and I facepalmed myself quite hard. You still can't auto-attack him or use Fracture though.