Talk:Skarner/@comment-24212263-20131210025140/@comment-5763148-20131214130558

I would say that Skarner isn't being used as often is cos of his inconsistent CC and the fact that he focuses more on Single Target Lockdown rather than an AOE CC which brings to the table an extreme Impact. That and the fact that The Mastery Changes in Season 3 made Skarner less viable. Cos in Season 2 You had Swiftness which gave 2% Perma MS and Initiator in the Defence Tree which gave you Perma MS of 3% so long as your total HP was 70% or above. Combined with Skarner's W and MS Quints, you could just stick to your enemies literally like a magnet. Season 3 lost both masteries which crippled Skarner's Early Gank powers significantly.

Seriously, his E is like utterly useless unless its for Lane Phase, or you're goin AP Skarner which is really gimmicky and inconsistent. Your W needs alot of Defence to be used to its fullest and your Q requires you to not only charge up to make use of the CC, you also need to stick close to your target to make sure you can slow em down.

Skarner is just too hard to use for newcomers and is a type of Champion that follows the High Risk, High Reward concept. If you max Q first, your Farm rate in the Jungle will be one of the fastest. At the same time your Ganks won't be tooo reliable.

If you focus on maxing W, you will become bulky much earlier, survivability will go up an most importantly, your gank success rate would, skyrocket. But again, your clear time in the Jungle would drop to an all time low.

I dunno about Season Four cos I haven't played Skarner yet. But in Season 3, you had to either focus on farming by maxing Q first or max W to maximise your Ganking powers. And you had to build Skarner like a CDR Tank to make use of him.

But again we have another Champion who does that and does it like 3x betr than Skarner, Hecarim. The poneh is the reason to why Skarner is near obsolete.