The League of Legends Skarner rework has been a long time coming. The newly anointed Primordial Sovereign has been lurking at the bottom end of the tier list for some time, with his dedicated playerbase hoping – and praying – that this rework will catapult him up the standings a little. Well, my friends, if you’ve had your fingers crossed all these years, I have good news for you.
Gone are those frustrating crystalline pillars and that clunky purple model. Gone are the days of being D-tier. Skarner returns to League of Legends as a teamfight monster that, I’ll be honest, is absolutely going to ruin my ranked climb – and probably yours, too.
Refocusing his kit around playing with his team, the MOBA‘s lead champion designer Blake ‘Squad5’ Smith states that Skarner wants to “get onto a priority target” and CC them into oblivion.
League of Legends Skarner rework abilities
And, his abilities really are geared around going in, hitting some sweet stuns and suppresses, and then slowing enemies as they attempt to flee. All of Skarner’s reworked abilities are listed below, and boy, are they scary.
- Passive – Threads of Vibration: Skarner’s attacks, Shattered Earth, Upheaval, and Impale apply Quaking to enemies. Enemies with three stacks of Quaking take % Max HP damage over time.
- Q – Shattered Earth/Upheaval
- Skarner rips a rock out of the ground and uses it to empower his next three attacks with bonus damage, range, and attack speed. His third attack slams the rock into his target, slowing and dealing significant bonus damage, ending the effect.
- Skarner may re-cast Upheaval to throw the rock as a projectile that explodes on the first enemy hit, dealing the same damage and slow, ending the effect.
- W – Seismic Bastion: Skarner gains a shield and slams into the ground, releasing a shockwave that damages and slows nearby enemies.
- E – Ixtal’s Impact: Skarner charges forward, ignoring terrain, and grabs the first enemy champion or large monster he collides with. He may then carry them a short way, damaging and stunning them if they collide with terrain.
- R – Impale: Skarner impales up to three enemy champions, damaging and suppressing them. Skarner gains bonus movement speed for a short time and carries them with him until the end of the effect.
From the footage I saw at a press roundtable ahead of release, it’s very clear that Skarner is looking to isolate squishy targets, CC them, and blow them up. Given his E now allows him to ignore terrain, he can easily slam a poor ADC into a wall, stun them, and then hit them with the empowered Q and W to slow and chunk them. All of that, of course, contributes to his Passive, which means he’s doing percentage Max Health damage, too.
But, for me, the scary part is that ult. Skarner can dive in with the E, suppress three targets (backline preferably), carry them into the waiting arms of his team (or a turret), and let the squad demolish them. The Q and W both contribute slows, and if they do get too far away, just yeet the rock at them to finish things off. And that’s without the Seraphine or Sona ult on top, or a well-placed Orn Horn, or a Chains of Corruption from Varus – the list goes on.
“In playtests, you can kind of just see these moments where he’ll get multiple people and the teamfight is just over because his team just deletes everyone that he’s got,” Smith says. “That’s kind of his dream that he’s working for.” Dream? As an enchanter main, I call that a nightmare.
Skarner’s rework is available on the League of Legends PBE from Tuesday, March 19, and it’ll hit live servers on Tuesday, April 2.
I expect that the LoL tier list is in for quite the shuffle, but there’s no harm in being prepared for the chaos that’s probably about to ensue. Alternatively, if those new and improved Skarner skins have caught your eye, we have a rundown of which League of Legends skin are currently on sale so that you can deck your new pain out with a sleek new carapace.
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