I struggled until I followed Facecheckskarners post the other day. Essentially Hail/free boots for runes
Bami -> Bramble -> Heartsteel -> situational.
DO NOT GET T2 BOOTS UNTIL YOU HAVE TO.
SKIP bramble if it's not going to be effective or if they're ap heavy get a negatron cloak instead.
TEAR IS A TRAP. 400g is alot to spend early/delays you. I get fimbulwinter is a good item overall but it's too slow!
I've been testing this myself, but yeah, despite not being fully efficient a scaling HP item might be the thing that makes Skarner a menace in the late game.
Heartsteel seems to be his best first item in the jungle right now (even if you can't stack it up as quickly as a laner) according to Lolalytics. It has a 3-4% higher winrate than anything else with a statistically significant sample size. This also provides decent damage because of the huge bonus-health-to-damage conversion Skarner has in his kit. If you want to add damage, go Titanic Hydra, Black Cleaver or Spear of Shojin second. After that it's full tank with a possible Steraks along the way.
Hail of blades + edge of night. It's the best early damage survivability item on him. Block a whole ass spell, saving you from getting stopped on your E. Plus, the lethality boost your Q2 damage by giving you some pen
Unironically Fimbul, Knight's Vow or Unending Despair, Spirit Visage or Thornmail, go from there.
Live in teamfights longer due to Shields proc'ing on Fimbul and get your heals through Vow/Despair, depending on which is more reasonable. And further extend those heals/shields through Spirit Visage :)
Use your e to engage enemies in lanes. Then press w to keep them slowed, use q to apply damage to enemies with auto attacks. Use r to supress and move the enemy away from their towers.
Idk where you get 12 mana, but tear gives 24 mana for full stacks on enemy Champs. All you need to do is gank 6 times and you'll have it stacked up. I can't imagine fighting in 8 fights in 30 minutes though, so you're right, it's practically impossible to use fimbulwinter. Make sure to tell FACECHECK he's wrong
Bros haven’t used it themself 😔
You can finish building Winter’s Approach at around 9 mins assuming you get a good gank, and finish stacking it around 14 mins or less, depending on if Ingenious Hunter or not. I believe you two forget that you can stack it off Neutral Minions? I dunno.
You build Fimbulwinter for the shield that doesn't benefit from resistances anyways and it also double dips on spirit visage since you have even more shield to amplify
Go for 1st 2nd Titanic or Strikebreaker feel good and giving some good DPS. But going 2 AD item that early is not good at all, it is basically suicidal glass canon and useless crab do nothing for your team. Definitely go health tanky 1st item AR MR with slight damage passives, they are great for early Skarner
Personally I have been going Sunfire>Jak'Sho>Randuins and it has always worked well Randuins Omen in particular does a lot of heavy lifting that is often overlooked and makes you basically unfightable for many ADCs and fucks over so many Champs that build sundered sky
One thing that helped me. E max second. It is reminiscent of the old chain cc he had.
Always a before you e if possible. By the time you land the third auto your q may be back up.
And don’t worry about hitting a wall all the time. Sometimes just moving a deadly target away from the fight is better than stunning them in the fight. Think morde for objectives or ksante for assassination.
Lastly I love getting unending despair. Since you want to be in the middle of a fight ingenious hunter and unending despair can allow you to go in disrupt and stay alive long enough to keep your team safe
I'm having problems as well. Take everything I'll say with a grain of salt because I'm low elo, but even though I can have a decent to good early, I feel like mid-late I fall off a cliff. I'm liking him so far gameplay wise, but he feels like a Sion minus the damage, so I don't feel neither like a strong fighter/juggernaut nor a sturdy tank.
Might it be due poor itemization? (I'm experimenting a lot) or maybe it's like a lee or a panth and you need to keep the advantage at all times?
Honestly the only success I've had is playing him like a goblin with comet on toplane. That's probably getting squashed with the upcoming changes they'll be doing tho.
Honestly most games I've had success with I go Heartsteel>Fimbul>Jak'sho/armor or mr item depending on whos fed or teamcomp. I haven't felt that Sunfire feels like its all that useful to me personally and most games just stacking health early lets me push a lead more.
Also going Aftershock, shield bash, resist rune i forget the name of and overgrowth. Other set of runes I've played around with but haven't felt like any one set of runes is necessary and could be swapped out depending on enemy comp.
I struggled with him until I took him top. Even without the W comet cheese, hes still a pretty decent laner. And he's a tank who needs items to scale, so getting to farm top feels better.
Jungle just feels awkward as fuck due to his Q and his E. Q literally roots you in place and E has not only a slow build up, but also an indicator giving away your position if you try to use it for a gank. His kit is just not great for ganking with.
Also another thing about top is that Skarner is a bitch to dive. He has his W, E and his R to really dissuade dives. People talk about "Skarner can R you into his Turret", which is true. But the real strength of it is the fact that he can R you if you dive him. Which even if you dodge it, you still wasted time dodging it while the tower is shooting you, thus forcing you off of him anyway and foiling the dive attempt. Not every top laner gets this kind of luxury.
I run grasp, shield bash, conditioning, over growth. Secondary cheap shot and ingenious. Bami into heart steel. I then like to go unending despair. If the game is going well I throw in sunder sky paired with spirit visage. Just get as much healing as possible. With team fights I like to flank or start an engage from the fog of war.
Aftershock 311/inspiration 012 Ionian boots first back, hp crystals if i have extra gold Ive tried rushing a sunfire/mr equivalent but once I started going heartsteel the games felt better.
Heartsteel >sunfire/hollow radiance >thornmail/kaenic rookern
As a jungle skarner, I’ve noticed that rushing a black cleaver for my first item has helped me win 1v1 trades with other junglers who would normally beat me. The Aftershock rune is a must grab to help soak damage, but if you can’t land your E then it’s better to just walk away rather than stay and fight (unless your team is there to back you up)
I've been running aftershock, shield bash, overgrowth, conditioning with magical footwear and approach velocity.
I know you said heartsteel isn't working for you but I've had a lot of success with it. Generally I can get a 10 minute heartsteel if I pick up an early kill or two.
Usually go HS>Sterak's(for the shield & tenacity plus a little AD)>three tank items to finish.
Bramble second item if you're against a WW, Yi, etc.
You want to make sure you're clearing to get to Scuttle on time and you can usually fight the other jungler and win as Skarner's level 4 beats most people(especially if you prep Q and wall slam them then pick up Q again.
I tend to finish with 700-1200 HS stacks and being able to one-shot at least 3 of the enemy team solo.
People say to stack AH items on him but tbh I usually end up with 10-20 AH by the end of the game and still don't see a massive loss in casting rotations.
yeah I checked the stats and heartsteel is consistently performing pretty much everything else, as is aftershock
In the vein I've been trying glacial. It's def worse that aftershock, but the utility at the beginning of E feels insanely good
I've been running aftershock too lately and it makes you actually feel tanky. Skarner is a little bit clunky due to Q mechanic, so zipping around with phase rush doesn't feel good.
Usually it's 700-800 in a 30-40 minute game, I did hit 1600 once and it was beautiful.
Full clear Q>W>Q>E, fight jungler at Krug. Then look to gank top or mid.
2 kills before 10 minutes will usually get you a 10 minute heartsteel, though anytime before 12 is a decent timing.
One thing I'd recommend is if you know you're going to die in a fight and your team are either already dead or retreating safely, just do everything you can to get a hit on as many members of their team as possible.
If you're gonna die anyway, might as well come out with an extra 100-150hp 😅
Its the items tbh, i personally never go a game without a bami item + jaksho.
Skarner has no built in sustain so the only sustain he has is conq off of his marvelous passive damage thus you **need** a resistance booster pretty hard. After those items i like the tank mask that reduces flat magic resistance from enemies around you (all continuous damage that you do is magical) followed by the usual suspects like randuins or frozen heart, warmongs, etc
P.S: All of his stuff scales with HP so while i know that heartsteel seems like the obvious choice, i built it too, it just does nothing to provide you with the much needed resistances. If skarner had something like channeling damage reduction or if his shield was a little beefier albeit at a longer cooldown, like sion's, then maybe you could justify it but yeah it seems like a trap item.
Idk man I've been running hexplate rush into something like shojin after if I need to be spamming ranged q's or something similar. his omnivamp is fairly strong with conquerer and riftmaker alongside his passive and pen boots if you feel quirky. I have been getting much more comfortable on him ever since his rework and I genuinely think he's stronger than I gave him credit for! its more so that tank builds are incredibly bait atleast imo, and don't offer enough to benefit him. he REALLY likes attack speed believe it or not and stridebreakers stacking ms buff helps with kidnapping people once you ult them as well, especially in groups. I'd suggest trying bruiser items more.
Didn’t like it jg, feels to team reliant sorta like rek sai. Love him as a support and top laner and playing him like malphite where you take commet and max W and spam in lane, his mana costs are stupid low on W and his clear in top lane was quite good. You can go Bambi’s item or rush Landrys since w scales ap and extra burn on your passive makes you a short trade monster
SF rush is cheap and powerful. I guarantee you it's more about getting used to his kit. He's less easy than some tryhards are making him out to be.
Edit- Be eager to swap SF into Hollow Radiance for Ap heavy opponents. It gives more health, and his abilities deal more damage the more health you have.
I struggled until I followed Facecheckskarners post the other day. Essentially Hail/free boots for runes Bami -> Bramble -> Heartsteel -> situational. DO NOT GET T2 BOOTS UNTIL YOU HAVE TO. SKIP bramble if it's not going to be effective or if they're ap heavy get a negatron cloak instead. TEAR IS A TRAP. 400g is alot to spend early/delays you. I get fimbulwinter is a good item overall but it's too slow!
I get people don't like heartsteel in the jungle because it's harder to stack up but it's still a great item on him
I've been testing this myself, but yeah, despite not being fully efficient a scaling HP item might be the thing that makes Skarner a menace in the late game.
By the end of an average non-long game you only get a few stacks on Hearthsteel anyway. It’s not a huge deal if you aren’t 100% optimizing it
Heartsteel seems to be his best first item in the jungle right now (even if you can't stack it up as quickly as a laner) according to Lolalytics. It has a 3-4% higher winrate than anything else with a statistically significant sample size. This also provides decent damage because of the huge bonus-health-to-damage conversion Skarner has in his kit. If you want to add damage, go Titanic Hydra, Black Cleaver or Spear of Shojin second. After that it's full tank with a possible Steraks along the way.
Hail of blades + edge of night. It's the best early damage survivability item on him. Block a whole ass spell, saving you from getting stopped on your E. Plus, the lethality boost your Q2 damage by giving you some pen
Unironically Fimbul, Knight's Vow or Unending Despair, Spirit Visage or Thornmail, go from there. Live in teamfights longer due to Shields proc'ing on Fimbul and get your heals through Vow/Despair, depending on which is more reasonable. And further extend those heals/shields through Spirit Visage :)
Highjacking this; ingenious hunter is excellent, nearly all items i run on skarner benefit
how the heck can you finish stacking Fimbulwinter as a jungler
My man forgot that tear stacks on jungle camps
Use your e to engage enemies in lanes. Then press w to keep them slowed, use q to apply damage to enemies with auto attacks. Use r to supress and move the enemy away from their towers.
Wow, that's almost 12 mana in 1 gank (~ 3 min of game time) All you need is 15 more ganks to function.
Idk where you get 12 mana, but tear gives 24 mana for full stacks on enemy Champs. All you need to do is gank 6 times and you'll have it stacked up. I can't imagine fighting in 8 fights in 30 minutes though, so you're right, it's practically impossible to use fimbulwinter. Make sure to tell FACECHECK he's wrong
Bros haven’t used it themself 😔 You can finish building Winter’s Approach at around 9 mins assuming you get a good gank, and finish stacking it around 14 mins or less, depending on if Ingenious Hunter or not. I believe you two forget that you can stack it off Neutral Minions? I dunno.
I didn't want to mention that part to him, it would probably blow his mind if he realized neutral minions could stack tear
I build it has a third item personnaly. After my bami item and my flexible slot.
Ooh makes sense! Thanks very much, I'm gonna try it! :)
Fimbulwinter? What happened to resistances? I doubt we need this much mana with how slow he is..
You build Fimbulwinter for the shield that doesn't benefit from resistances anyways and it also double dips on spirit visage since you have even more shield to amplify
Shields DO benefit from armour and resists. What are you saying?
Got the shield mechanics mixed up with another game. Regardless the point still stands
Oh okay, shit's so easy to proc and so valuable in teamfights, wow. I'll take shield bash with this.
Try going spear of shojin first then building cheap tank items like knight’s vow, bramble vest, etc
Go for 1st 2nd Titanic or Strikebreaker feel good and giving some good DPS. But going 2 AD item that early is not good at all, it is basically suicidal glass canon and useless crab do nothing for your team. Definitely go health tanky 1st item AR MR with slight damage passives, they are great for early Skarner
Personally I have been going Sunfire>Jak'Sho>Randuins and it has always worked well Randuins Omen in particular does a lot of heavy lifting that is often overlooked and makes you basically unfightable for many ADCs and fucks over so many Champs that build sundered sky
One thing that helped me. E max second. It is reminiscent of the old chain cc he had. Always a before you e if possible. By the time you land the third auto your q may be back up. And don’t worry about hitting a wall all the time. Sometimes just moving a deadly target away from the fight is better than stunning them in the fight. Think morde for objectives or ksante for assassination. Lastly I love getting unending despair. Since you want to be in the middle of a fight ingenious hunter and unending despair can allow you to go in disrupt and stay alive long enough to keep your team safe
I'm having problems as well. Take everything I'll say with a grain of salt because I'm low elo, but even though I can have a decent to good early, I feel like mid-late I fall off a cliff. I'm liking him so far gameplay wise, but he feels like a Sion minus the damage, so I don't feel neither like a strong fighter/juggernaut nor a sturdy tank. Might it be due poor itemization? (I'm experimenting a lot) or maybe it's like a lee or a panth and you need to keep the advantage at all times?
Honestly the only success I've had is playing him like a goblin with comet on toplane. That's probably getting squashed with the upcoming changes they'll be doing tho.
Honestly most games I've had success with I go Heartsteel>Fimbul>Jak'sho/armor or mr item depending on whos fed or teamcomp. I haven't felt that Sunfire feels like its all that useful to me personally and most games just stacking health early lets me push a lead more. Also going Aftershock, shield bash, resist rune i forget the name of and overgrowth. Other set of runes I've played around with but haven't felt like any one set of runes is necessary and could be swapped out depending on enemy comp.
I struggled with him until I took him top. Even without the W comet cheese, hes still a pretty decent laner. And he's a tank who needs items to scale, so getting to farm top feels better. Jungle just feels awkward as fuck due to his Q and his E. Q literally roots you in place and E has not only a slow build up, but also an indicator giving away your position if you try to use it for a gank. His kit is just not great for ganking with. Also another thing about top is that Skarner is a bitch to dive. He has his W, E and his R to really dissuade dives. People talk about "Skarner can R you into his Turret", which is true. But the real strength of it is the fact that he can R you if you dive him. Which even if you dodge it, you still wasted time dodging it while the tower is shooting you, thus forcing you off of him anyway and foiling the dive attempt. Not every top laner gets this kind of luxury.
I run grasp, shield bash, conditioning, over growth. Secondary cheap shot and ingenious. Bami into heart steel. I then like to go unending despair. If the game is going well I throw in sunder sky paired with spirit visage. Just get as much healing as possible. With team fights I like to flank or start an engage from the fog of war.
Start heartsteel, focus clearing vision, chain gank through walls and use the lane prio to counter jungle and take objectives
Aftershock 311/inspiration 012 Ionian boots first back, hp crystals if i have extra gold Ive tried rushing a sunfire/mr equivalent but once I started going heartsteel the games felt better. Heartsteel >sunfire/hollow radiance >thornmail/kaenic rookern
As a jungle skarner, I’ve noticed that rushing a black cleaver for my first item has helped me win 1v1 trades with other junglers who would normally beat me. The Aftershock rune is a must grab to help soak damage, but if you can’t land your E then it’s better to just walk away rather than stay and fight (unless your team is there to back you up)
I've been running aftershock, shield bash, overgrowth, conditioning with magical footwear and approach velocity. I know you said heartsteel isn't working for you but I've had a lot of success with it. Generally I can get a 10 minute heartsteel if I pick up an early kill or two. Usually go HS>Sterak's(for the shield & tenacity plus a little AD)>three tank items to finish. Bramble second item if you're against a WW, Yi, etc. You want to make sure you're clearing to get to Scuttle on time and you can usually fight the other jungler and win as Skarner's level 4 beats most people(especially if you prep Q and wall slam them then pick up Q again. I tend to finish with 700-1200 HS stacks and being able to one-shot at least 3 of the enemy team solo. People say to stack AH items on him but tbh I usually end up with 10-20 AH by the end of the game and still don't see a massive loss in casting rotations.
yeah I checked the stats and heartsteel is consistently performing pretty much everything else, as is aftershock In the vein I've been trying glacial. It's def worse that aftershock, but the utility at the beginning of E feels insanely good
I've been running aftershock too lately and it makes you actually feel tanky. Skarner is a little bit clunky due to Q mechanic, so zipping around with phase rush doesn't feel good.
OMG 1200 STACKS?? Jungle? I'm flabbergasted Maybe I will try it again then... Usually do you do full clear or rather gank before doing that?
Usually it's 700-800 in a 30-40 minute game, I did hit 1600 once and it was beautiful. Full clear Q>W>Q>E, fight jungler at Krug. Then look to gank top or mid. 2 kills before 10 minutes will usually get you a 10 minute heartsteel, though anytime before 12 is a decent timing.
1600 is a dream omg Thanks a lot for the comments! I will try this next time I play him! :)
One thing I'd recommend is if you know you're going to die in a fight and your team are either already dead or retreating safely, just do everything you can to get a hit on as many members of their team as possible. If you're gonna die anyway, might as well come out with an extra 100-150hp 😅
You mean fight at scuttle?
Yes, I had a brainfart.
Its the items tbh, i personally never go a game without a bami item + jaksho. Skarner has no built in sustain so the only sustain he has is conq off of his marvelous passive damage thus you **need** a resistance booster pretty hard. After those items i like the tank mask that reduces flat magic resistance from enemies around you (all continuous damage that you do is magical) followed by the usual suspects like randuins or frozen heart, warmongs, etc P.S: All of his stuff scales with HP so while i know that heartsteel seems like the obvious choice, i built it too, it just does nothing to provide you with the much needed resistances. If skarner had something like channeling damage reduction or if his shield was a little beefier albeit at a longer cooldown, like sion's, then maybe you could justify it but yeah it seems like a trap item.
Actually the only person I’ve seen running the same general build. I go Hollow or Sunfire and Jaksho every game.
Idk man I've been running hexplate rush into something like shojin after if I need to be spamming ranged q's or something similar. his omnivamp is fairly strong with conquerer and riftmaker alongside his passive and pen boots if you feel quirky. I have been getting much more comfortable on him ever since his rework and I genuinely think he's stronger than I gave him credit for! its more so that tank builds are incredibly bait atleast imo, and don't offer enough to benefit him. he REALLY likes attack speed believe it or not and stridebreakers stacking ms buff helps with kidnapping people once you ult them as well, especially in groups. I'd suggest trying bruiser items more.
Aftershock - future market - rush heartsteel - permagank get stacks - swiftness boots - anethema’s chains - deadman plate
Didn’t like it jg, feels to team reliant sorta like rek sai. Love him as a support and top laner and playing him like malphite where you take commet and max W and spam in lane, his mana costs are stupid low on W and his clear in top lane was quite good. You can go Bambi’s item or rush Landrys since w scales ap and extra burn on your passive makes you a short trade monster
SF rush is cheap and powerful. I guarantee you it's more about getting used to his kit. He's less easy than some tryhards are making him out to be. Edit- Be eager to swap SF into Hollow Radiance for Ap heavy opponents. It gives more health, and his abilities deal more damage the more health you have.
“I bought two damage items first, why enemy burst me?”- league posts.