Skarner solo top

[Duilliath]

That's about 5k gold into the game. Won't help you getting first blooded at level 2.

[Isrozzis]

He can top, and he can be built very offensively, but it tends to not workout that well. As others have said, the farm is better used on a champion that needs a lot if farm. Skarner can function fully with just a HoG, boots and shurylias. Ideally you have more items, but skarner is about grabbing someone, and you don't really need items to grab people.

[Migrin]

Skarner can be played solo top and is amazing in team fights when his ulti is used correctly. A Philosophers Stone together with Sheen/Trinity will give you enough Mana to be not mana starved. If you are planning to get tanky items with mana on them Manamune can also be a viable way to push your damage output and let you spam your abilities.

The problem with Skarner really is, that when ever you want to harass, you will push your lane. Which makes its harder for your jungler to gank and will bring you into a more risky position. A good jungler will always exploit this. Also, Skarner is countered very easily.

[Deleted]

Also posted in the screenshots thread but since it's relevant here: just tried him for the first time. Absolutely dominated top against Zed, i greatly underestimated Skarner's damage myself, it's really neat. Great sustain too. Got a first blood at level 6 when Amumu came to gank top, good luck trying to get away from an Amumu and a Skarner nipping at your heels Throughout the entire game the damage is really good. I even got a 3v1 triple kill in late game.

Maybe people are still right that Skarner is better in jungle cause he needs less farm, but dunno. This game was one of my better solo top experiences (Ofcourse we've all had snowball games, but this wasn't one of them; only left laning phase as 2/2/0 (Hecarim and Syndra started babysitting top so I died twice cause of that)

[Deleted]

I've had Skarner tops do amazing shit and carry games but be careful with what you pick it against, he'll lose horribly vs range like Jayce unless Jayce missplays.

Skarner can receive ganks better than any other top laner, works insanely well with lee if he can time kick for when your ult releases.

---------- Post added 2012-11-29 at 01:38 PM ----------

No, just no. Skarner belongs in the J U N G L E. Nuff said
btw, thats like topping nautilus, he cant kill a laner solo.

Going by that logic a lot of other champs would be trash top. Just because a champion is popular in a certain position doesn't mean that he's bad at another.

One of the current worst top laners is Nasus and he's still being played in ranked and can wreck teams.

[Charge me Doctor]

I am not huge fan of skarners E skill, because i will use all my mana to spam it. So, will always play him jungle. And solo top line is playable as anyone if you know what you are doing.

Yesterday i picked xerath to counter yorick on top, my team called me troll and started swearing at me, speaking in something like polish language, and asking other team to report me. But i started with FB on yorick, dominated him and ended with 16/3/1.

I think you can master solo top skarner, but mastering wukong (for example) will give your team more profit

[Deleted]

Most of the issues with Skarner top is he doesn't really need the farm and many more champs can perform that role better. With farm he can become really scary, really fast, but I would still consider it wasted potential. Why secure one lane when you can secure them all from the jungle?

If you win 1 lane it means that their jungle pressure has to be focused on that lane. If they get forced to spend their time top then mid, bot and jungle suddenly can start taking dragons, kills and other objectives.

Your text makes it sound as if you don't have a jungler when Skarner is top o.0

---------- Post added 2012-11-29 at 01:42 PM ----------

I'd say that Skarner is better than Wukong but lacks a charge and isn't better against certain champs because of that.

[Deleted]

I think you can master solo top skarner, but mastering wukong (for example) will give your team more profit

Probably so! Main reason I wanted to try Skarner top is because for some annoying reason, the champions that seem most fun to play to me (Amumu Skarner and Rammus) are all junglers, and I absolutely suck at/hate jungling. I'm pretty much always solo top (can also mid and support but if I get the choice I'm going top), and I guess I've just kind of gotten tired to the traditional safe solo top picks like Irelia, Shen, Malphite etc.

[Toxigen]

Probably so! Main reason I wanted to try Skarner top is because for some annoying reason, the champions that seem most fun to play to me (Amumu Skarner and Rammus) are all junglers, and I absolutely suck at/hate jungling. I'm pretty much always solo top (can also mid and support but if I get the choice I'm going top), and I guess I've just kind of gotten tired to the traditional safe solo top picks like Irelia, Shen, Malphite etc.

There's the key right there. 95% of us are nowhere near high ELO, and can make just about anything work.

I've seen TRM play bruiser Rammus top and rip shit up. Basically, anything is possible and will work if you have good mechanics and a strong understanding of your opponent's capabilities. You're going to get flamed, but if you have fun and win, s'all goodski.

Granted, I don't follow that particular mindset in ranked. I guess I enjoy the ultra-competitive approach.

Hell, I've dominated playing Maokai top...in normals...with horrible friends that want to Q with me. Although lately my favorite has been the "I'm not going anywhere, bitch" Nunu solo top pick.

[Deleted]

Yeah I've done Maokai top too, pretty funny, same as Skarner if your jungler has some CC ganks are just pretty much guaranteed to succeed I do tend to try to pick atleast halfway serious things though; I hate being a burden to my teams and I am absolutely frightened of ever having more losses than wins :i

[Isrozzis]

Rammus top can be pretty lolzy. I had to play against one as garen that just went full man mode. I did not expect it to build a tri force right away... Was also a sisol wanna be. I couldn't really fight it when it had heal and ignite.

[Axethor]

If you win 1 lane it means that their jungle pressure has to be focused on that lane. If they get forced to spend their time top then mid, bot and jungle suddenly can start taking dragons, kills and other objectives.

Your text makes it sound as if you don't have a jungler when Skarner is top o.0

Put Skarner top lane and you only secure top lane. Put Skarner in the jungler and you can secure every lane. That's what I was getting at. Help one lane (probably top) snowball so the enemy jungler has to focus there, then win the other lanes, take objectives, and generally do whatever the hell you want because your Skarner.

Skarner as a champion snowballs ridiculously hard. There are very few tanky junglers that snowball as hard as he does. If he gets ahead, he will tear teams apart. This is probably your saving grace top lane. Get some early kills and you will become unstoppable. With the extra farm top lane you could actually afford to buy a TF and Wit's End. I've only ever played 2 games where I was able to buy both from the jungle and they were glorious games.

[Deleted]

makes me realize, for a top lane skarner would a build similar to Irelia's be best? no idea if I build my Irelia correctly but the items I usually end up with are like, boots, wits end, TF, GA, randuin's and frozen heart. order may change depending on game

only thing with Skarner is that he does need philo stone early so maybe replace FH with shurelya's.

[Axethor]

makes me realize, for a top lane skarner would a build similar to Irelia's be best? no idea if I build my Irelia correctly but the items I usually end up with are like, boots, wits end, TF, GA, randuin's and frozen heart. order may change depending on game

only thing with Skarner is that he does need philo stone early so maybe replace FH with shurelya's.

The best Skarner build I had from the jungle was boot's, wit's end, TF, Shurelya's, Randiun's, and FH. Replace FH with FoN against AP heavy teams and your set to destroy people.

[Deleted]

The best Skarner build I had from the jungle was boot's, wit's end, TF, Shurelya's, Randiun's, and FH. Replace FH with FoN against AP heavy teams and your set to destroy people.

I'd get FH over Randuins really. More mana, more CDR, more armor, dat passive effect .. Imo you don't need the slow from Randuins since with FH (and most probably Shurelya) you're CDR capped anyway, which makes your Q a AoE 99% slow which you spam more because you have more mana. The only positive thing about Randuins is that it builds out of a HoG, but that's not a necessity to buy.

[Deleted]

The best Skarner build I had from the jungle was boot's, wit's end, TF, Shurelya's, Randiun's, and FH. Replace FH with FoN against AP heavy teams and your set to destroy people.

Wouldn't gunblade be a decent item? Should give quite some sustain, has a nice active and gives you some damage to boot. It's horribly expensive though =(

[Toxigen]

Wouldn't gunblade be a decent item? Should give quite some sustain, has a nice active and gives you some damage to boot. It's horribly expensive though =(

Horrible item...way too expensive and absolutely unnecessary on Skarner.

[Deleted]

Skarners Q makes for good trades but lane pushes = easy ganks. To counter that ganking there on 6 is easy as well...
Still prefer Irelia, Jax, Jayce, Rengar... etc

[ddsad2212]

Okay played the hell out of it on friends account(200 higher elo btw). I have found out some things. He plays alot like Hec top, do well he can carry the game, do bad he can be meh. The difference between him and hec is that, hec carries harder, skanner does not fall off as hard. Building him Tri-full tank makes him such a ad carry killer.

His 2v1 lane is decent(this was done with a team) Give him a level 1 blue and he can do it, I feel as good as olaf, with imo better sustain and last hitting under turret also better for setting up ganks even pre-6. But he does not do the same late game damage and ofc he can be slowed up like olaf, but that been said he has his ulti.

Lastly I have been running a few different mastiers and runes. I feel that vs AP tops such as rumble you can do well early, as you can take lots of res and mana regain. Other then that I am liking 9/12/7, but i must admit that you do get some nice boost from mastiers later in the def tree(maybe 0/21/9, not sure how much magic pen is helping).

Anyway I feel he is good, but I also think he is a bit to much like Olaf, and I find olaf more fun, so I wont be playing any more of him, even though I am doing better with him at a higher elo.

[Deleted]

i've been playing him constantly tonight. I won 7 and lost 4 () but every single game except 1 i won my lane, most of the times i ended with great scores (12-1, 11-3, 11-4 etc). Every game I had a different enemy (except darius twice and singed twice), and the game I lost really badly was against Rengar, he just outsustained and outtraded me too heavily. Won against: Irelia, Darius (2x), Zed, Singed (2x), Poppy, Malphite, Lee Sin, Jax. None of them seemed like really bad players (I think I have a decent hidden ELO, never really meet super baddies) except for one of the Singed guys, against him I did the 12-1 game.

I start boots+3, B and get philo stone as soon as I get 800g. Then I also B asap for HoG at 825g. Usually between Philo Stone and HoG I kill my lane opponent for the first time. I let them push my lane and then I just Q spam + chase + ignite em down. Only failed against Malphite so far cause he's just too tanky. After the GP5 I usually first complete Wit's End before getting Merc Treads (I get tabi first if against really heavy phys dmg, before Wits end). After that I get sheen and then finish TF. Then I get GA -> Shurelya's -> Randuin.

I have a not-yet-optimal runepage (not terrible though) AD red, armor yellow, MR blue, MS quints. I run 0/21/9 masteries. Max Q->W->E (and the usual R stuff). I guess all pretty standard. Gonna try get AS reds and maybe blues soon though.

Overall verdict: This guy is fucking awesome top. Ofcourse I don't play super high elo ranked (I don't play it at all) but with the low amount of times I meet super bad people in games I think my hidden ELO is high enough to meet pretty alright people. Skarner wrecks shit.