League of Legends XXXII: Cupcakes and Kittens and Squirrels. Oh my!

[TechnOkami]

Pardon the double post, but since I've found my two roles in league are either mid or solo top, I need to ask for some solo top info.

For me, Junglers who come top have been a huge thorn in my side, and it's become a bit of a roadblock. I've learned fast that wards help me survive ganks, but when or how would you judge is a good time to kill the solo top w/o dying yourself to their Jungler?

[Eldariel]

Pardon the double post, but since I've found my two roles in league are either mid or solo top, I need to ask for some solo top info.

For me, Junglers who come top have been a huge thorn in my side, and it's become a bit of a roadblock. I've learned fast that wards help me survive ganks, but when or how would you judge is a good time to kill the solo top w/o dying yourself to their Jungler?

Eh, you can generally predict the jungler's path. As a rule of thumb, if they haven't ganked by 3:30, they're probably coming for you. If you see them elsewhere or they went to do a buff (you can tell 'cause they lack a key buff and went back to the jungle), that's a good time.

I personally seem to invariably enjoy jungle ganks when I'm toplane and I've lost more than one game to those (since toplane balance is so fragile and if you fall behind on a disadvantageous lane, you're gonna keep falling further and further behind as you can't CS as well). Even avoiding the gank isn't always an option.

[ex cathedra]

Speaking of stealth, damage doesn't break stealth, does it? Only the application of delayed stealth like Teemo or Eve, if I'm not mistaken?

I recently discovered that forced movement breaks Teemo out of stealth, i.e. Rocket Grab/Dredge Line/Explosive Cask/Monsoon/Command: Shockwave. I haven't tested Arcane Smash, Satchel Charge, or Broken Wings, though, but I expect that they do the same. TMYK. But, no, damage does not break stealth in any cases other than the initial stealth delay time or in addition to the application of forced movement.

Skarner.


What happened? Why did they Buff his mana costs for Q only to practically revert them? I feel kinda bad that they did this since he is the only champion that I payed RP for.

Why not change the damage, cooldown or slow? The mana cost is just crippling.

Probably because completely removing his dependence on mana was a bad idea and Skarner had too much going for him when he had zero disadvantages. Dude had strong initiation, absurd level 6 ganks with a low CD, strong pre-6 ganks with a movespeed buff, a perma slow, and tons of damage. I was thrilled when Skarner got nerfed.

[Eldariel]

I recently discovered that forced movement breaks Teemo out of stealth, i.e. Rocket Grab/Dredge Line/Explosive Cask/Monsoon/Command: Shockwave. I haven't tested Arcane Smash, Satchel Charge, or Broken Wings, though, but I expect that they do the same. TMYK. But, no, damage does not break stealth in any cases other than the initial stealth delay time or in addition to the application of forced movement.

Basically every hard CC ability does. I believe Riven's stun works too.

[toasty]

Skarner.


What happened? Why did they Buff his mana costs for Q only to practically revert them? I feel kinda bad that they did this since he is the only champion that I payed RP for.

Why not change the damage, cooldown or slow? The mana cost is just crippling.

The funny thing about skarner is this:
He was released and everyone said he sucked. This was true. His mana costs were absurd, he couldn't jungle.

Then he was buffed and everyone said he was really OP. This is funny because Skarner has the worst performance record of any champion in High Level Tournament Play.

Then he got nerfed because everyone said he was OP (even though... he didn't do much in Tourney matches) and now no one plays him. I feel that skarner might be an okay champion but, honestly, while his initiation is okay, he's a much better counter initiate hero and neither his laning nor his jungling is particularly good (his jungling is probably pretty weak). So no one plays him.

[TechnOkami]

and now no one plays him.

LIES. COMPLETE AND TOTAL LIES.

[PersonMan]

So no one plays him apart from TechnOkami and this one guy who you sometimes see in solo queue.

Perhaps this is more accurate?

[ex cathedra]

I don't see why anyone would actually ever Lane Skarner while WW exists in his current state. He does the same things but better.

[LordShotGun]

Probably because completely removing his dependence on mana was a bad idea and Skarner had too much going for him when he had zero disadvantages. Dude had strong initiation, absurd level 6 ganks with a low CD, strong pre-6 ganks with a movespeed buff, a perma slow, and tons of damage. I was thrilled when Skarner got nerfed.

Sounds like you just described tryndamere

Zero Mana reliance? Check.
Strong Initiation? Check.
Absurd level 6 ganks with low cooldown? Check.
Strong Pre-six ganks with a gap closer? (gap closer > MS buff) Check
Perma Slow? Kinda/Maybe depending on if you get lucky with mocking shout
Tons of damage? Heck to the yes Check.

Then again, skarner could go double gold per 10 items and do just fine while tyrn needs damage and critical chance which is difficult on a jungler's budget.

[PEACH]

My strategy with Skarner is basically: Always have blue.

If you don't have blue, you either donated your blue too early, or you aren't beating the enemy jungler enough to have both blues going at all times. The fact is that a lot of mids, while they benefit heavily from blue, aren't dependent on it, and Skarner can be dependent on it quite a bit later than other junglers. He makes up for this with some huge damage potential and invasion ability, so I honestly think it's worth it for Skarner to deny his mid blue a bit longer than normal.

You can also just, with cautious play, get by with just a triforce+FH for the flat mana and back after every other big play you're involved in, but that is somewhat less appealing.

Lane Skarner I still don't get, since his mana costs are absolutely crippling in lane even with regen, though against a melee champ he does pretty well (range can really hurt Skarner's 1v1 lane matchups, though).

EDIT: Also, Skarner's jungling is actually very good. It's quick, it's safe, he brings huge damage to fights at all times (granted, not amazing initiation unless you flash in, but if you can get into melee range in any way, they have to burn summoners or die), and he's really good at fighting the enemy jungler. Depending on what they're doing, it's quite possible to just outright steal their red after you grab their blue, though that's tricky. He's also an excellent duelist due to having the most mitigation of anybody besides WW and a good number of strong resistance item picks.

EDIT X2: Also, I don't like gold/5 on jungle Skarner. I pretty much build him as a traditional, old style jungle build: Wriggles, Mercs, Wits end, Triforce, and tanky filler (usually a FH). It works out pretty well, though I suppose going with a regrowth pendent and going for a Philo Stone might be somewhat helpful, though it would decrease his ability to go from blue to the enemy red without dipping dangerously low.

[fred dref]

Sounds like you just described tryndamere

Zero Mana reliance? Check.
Strong Initiation? Check.
Absurd level 6 ganks with low cooldown? Check.
Strong Pre-six ganks with a gap closer? (gap closer > MS buff) Check
Perma Slow? Kinda/Maybe depending on if you get lucky with mocking shout
Tons of damage? Heck to the yes Check.

Then again, skarner could go double gold per 10 items and do just fine while tyrn needs damage and critical chance which is difficult on a jungler's budget.

How the heck does Trynd initiate? Last I checked he has precisely as much initiation as Nasus, which is merely "Press R and run at people". Now Kennen can initiate by pressing R and running at people, that is true, but Kennen actually stuns the enemy and does enormous AoE damage while doing so. Nasus/Trynd/Yi type of people just have to hope the enemy team stays and fights (and even then being focused as Trynd means you'll need to leave the fight fairly quickly).

Also, Trynd has soft CC and the possibility of tower diving for level 6 ganks. Skarner has hard CC and forced movement. Not really a comparison there.

Trynd doesn't deal as much damage as Skarner early on, but his CC is comparable and he does have the gapcloser.

Trynd's slow is not even close to perma and I have no idea where you got that impression.

Again, Trynd does slightly above average damage with autoattacks, but almost zero from abilities. Skarner has abilities that deal significant damage. Early on, Skarner, Udyr, Gangplank, etc. are just going to be dealing more damage.

[toasty]

Perhaps this is more accurate?

Its even less than that.

[ex cathedra]

Sounds like you just described tryndamere

Zero Mana reliance? Check.
Strong Initiation? Check.
Absurd level 6 ganks with low cooldown? Check.
Strong Pre-six ganks with a gap closer? (gap closer > MS buff) Check
Perma Slow? Kinda/Maybe depending on if you get lucky with mocking shout
Tons of damage? Heck to the yes Check.

Then again, skarner could go double gold per 10 items and do just fine while tyrn needs damage and critical chance which is difficult on a jungler's budget.

Trynd can't actually initiate without eating more CC than both his Cleanse and QSS can handle and being forced to immediately ult. Is not a good plan.

His level 6 ganks aren't really that much better than his level 3/4 ganks and anything that requires tower diving is inherently risky, especially because jungle tryndamere wants smite, flash, and cleanse but can only take two and they're pretty much always going to be smite/flash.

Mocking Shout is just a slow. It's easy to juke and there's nothing perma about it.

My strategy with Skarner is basically: Always have blue.

Strats that require you to already be winning are weak strats, especially considering that Skarner isn't a hyper-dominant jungler and he can't counterjungle any of like the four most popular junglers.

If you don't have blue, you either donated your blue too early, or you aren't beating the enemy jungler enough to have both blues going at all times. The fact is that a lot of mids, while they benefit heavily from blue, aren't dependent on it, and Skarner can be dependent on it quite a bit later than other junglers. He makes up for this with some huge damage potential and invasion ability, so I honestly think it's worth it for Skarner to deny his mid blue a bit longer than normal.

Main issue is that an AP carry with blue, even if they aren't super blue dependent, offers more to a team than a Skarner with blue in like 90% of situations. Morgana, Ryze, Cassio, Ahri, and Karthus all just do more with blue, whether that means that they're roaming to top/bot or just applying pressure.

[PersonMan]

How the heck does Trynd initiate? Last I checked he has precisely as much initiation as Nasus, which is merely "Press R and run at people".

Tryndamere initiates with merry-go-round + chicken noise. I think they call the second one Mocking Shout in some circles. It depends on positioning, of course, but then again so do Kennen and Skarner.

Also, Trynd has soft CC and the possibility of tower diving for level 6 ganks. Skarner has hard CC and forced movement. Not really a comparison there.

IIRC, Skarner slows and can post-6 towerdive with FEEL MY STING to pull them back. Then again, that's just me and my whole 'point out the exception' thing, so...

Trynd's slow is not even close to perma and I have no idea where you got that impression.

To be honest, it might as well be perma if you die during it. Often merry-go-round + chicken noise is used in a fight that Trynd will win, so the slow can last from when it starts to past the point the fight has been decided. (Of course, with red this can translate into permaslow, but...)

EDIT @ CC: This depends on the skill and coordination of teams. The psychological factor of 'oh my, this man just merry-go-rounded through the wall and chicken noised us! oh, and he's killing [that guy]! let's run!' has to be overcome.

Oh, and any lone initiation will be smashed. Unless Kennen has Hourglass and Rylai's, he will be smashed when he runs in and uses his ulti into a crowd. Same with Skarner, of course - you sort of need a team to follow up with anyone.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

...WHAT IS THIS MADNESS

[XiaoTie]

It's a fun kind of madness, but it sucks that they don't have the cow in there D:

[PersonMan]

...WHAT IS THIS MADNESS

Well. Yeah.

Anyone else recognize the Xin voice?

[fred dref]

Tryndamere initiates with merry-go-round + chicken noise. I think they call the second one Mocking Shout in some circles. It depends on positioning, of course, but then again so do Kennen and Skarner.


IIRC, Skarner slows and can post-6 towerdive with FEEL MY STING to pull them back. Then again, that's just me and my whole 'point out the exception' thing, so...



To be honest, it might as well be perma if you die during it. Often merry-go-round + chicken noise is used in a fight that Trynd will win, so the slow can last from when it starts to past the point the fight has been decided. (Of course, with red this can translate into permaslow, but...)

EDIT @ CC: This depends on the skill and coordination of teams. The psychological factor of 'oh my, this man just merry-go-rounded through the wall and chicken noised us! oh, and he's killing [that guy]! let's run!' has to be overcome.

Oh, and any lone initiation will be smashed. Unless Kennen has Hourglass and Rylai's, he will be smashed when he runs in and uses his ulti into a crowd. Same with Skarner, of course - you sort of need a team to follow up with anyone.

When Trynd initiates, the enemy can still fight back and the enemy can still move. Skarner removes one enemy from the fight entirely for a time, and Kennen does the same to everyone in his AoE, while also dealing large amounts of AoE damage. It's honestly like saying Nunu has initiation with his snowball. It's just not nearly on the same category. Sure, you might catch someone who was out of position, but Udyr/Ryze etc. do it just as well or better.

Skarner doesn't even let them get to the tower, is the point. He has actual CC that stops dashes and flashes, Trynd has weak CC that lets the enemy simply walk away.

There are many dudes Trynd is incapable of killing in 4 seconds, especially early. Skarner isn't on a clock as far as permaslowing, he can slow people as reliably as Ashe once he's in range.

The main difference between a Kennen initiate and a Trynd initiate is Kennen jumps in, stuns everyone, and then might die. Kennen in that time has used a full rotation of skills, stopped the enemies from responding at all for a time and done a ton of AoE damage. his team can easily clean up the game is remotely close. When Trynd initiates, he jumps on them, slows them, and then probably gets CCed and attacked. This means he has to pop ult and pray he gets enough crits to spin away again before he just dies. He does a bit of single target damage and did not lock down a single enemy, they could all still attack and use their abilities. Trynd is great and cleaning up and coming in second, but initiating is something he does not do well.

EDIT: **** yeah CholeraNinja.

[Duos]

...WHAT IS THIS MADNESS

I love the Garen stick figure at the end.

JUMP OUT OF BUSH

SILENCE

SPIN

ULT

WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP

[fred dref]

So I just had a game playing with some low level friends of mine. They wanted me to jungle, so I said sure, I'll pick Mundo.

Well.

The enemy jungler was summoner level 6 and was running Nocturne. He only got one Red and 2 Blues. Everything else went to me. End of the game he had 50 farm, I had 180. All his jungle belongs to me. Mundo jungling against people who don't know how to deal with it is absolutely incredibly brutal. I was so far ahead at one point I dueled Nocturne to death, then noticed I still had 3.7k gold to spend. I was so far ahead I could easily kill him with almost 4k gold unspent. I gotta use Mundo whenever I play with those people, it is too much fun going where I please against poor junglers.

[LordShotGun]

I love the Garen stick figure at the end.

JUMP OUT OF BUSH

SILENCE

SPIN

ULT

WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP

Made me laugh. Also, looks like someone high up in the giantitp ranks got bit by the pony bug that has been going around.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

...WHAT IS THIS MADNESS

Oh wow. That is really nice.

[Qwertystop]

I just startd a game as Twitch. At the end of the skin list, there was an exact duplicate Twitch skin, except it was locked. Any idea?

[Delusion]

Well. Yeah.

Anyone else recognize the Xin voice?

*jumps up and down*

I do ^^

[Qaera]

Well. Yeah.

Anyone else recognize the Xin voice?

I'll make a man out of youuuuuuuuu.

~ ♅

[Lix Lorn]

This is the best day.
The forums went down, so I went to play LoL, expecting to have to do two games.
I played on-hit Lulu, as I do recently. We were 4v5 for a good chunk of the game. At one point we were down all inhibs to none and had one tower left. At one point I killed one of them, then died trying to kill super minions.

We won.

Spoiler

Show

We won hard.
On-hit-Lulu too stronk

And then, my reward was the Ponyland.

[PEACH]

Strats that require you to already be winning are weak strats, especially considering that Skarner isn't a hyper-dominant jungler and he can't counterjungle any of like the four most popular junglers.

Actually, Skarner can! Amazingly enough, Skarner's slightly longer than melee range Qs, decent base damages, fast clears, and good mitigation can let him trade with enemies fairly well. He may not win in a slugfest, but if you run in with two Qs, and E, a W, and autoattacks, you'll run out with less lost health than the jungler. As far as winning: It doesn't necessarily require you to be winning! It just needs buff control, which is, suprisingly enough, not something people care about as much as they should until very high play. As long as you know about when blue is going to spawn, you can take it before the enemy can do anything about it unless they're actively patrolling/warding it. Yes, at very high levels that might not work, but the majority of play doesn't take place there or even close to it; in hundreds of games, I've legitimately felt threatened by blue wards only a couple of times. Just combine that with map awareness (if bot and mid both go mia as you go for blue, flee) and stealing blue is something that can be done very easily without much improvement on general jungling skills.

As far as not hyper-dominant: He's almost as fast at clearing as Udyr, ganks as well or better, has better damage mitigation, better CC, and similar AoE damage. If Udyr is considered a hyper dominant jungler, the only significant advantage or disadvantage Skarner has over Udyr in general is Skarner's poor mana costs. Skarner is definitely better than you're giving him credit for here; his clears and ganks and durability are all similar in strength to the best junglers (I'm not certain who exactly you qualify in the big four, but assuming three are Udyr, Lee Sin, Shyvana, he has advantages and disadvantages over all of them) to a greater or lesser extent.

Main issue is that an AP carry with blue, even if they aren't super blue dependent, offers more to a team than a Skarner with blue in like 90% of situations. Morgana, Ryze, Cassio, Ahri, and Karthus all just do more with blue, whether that means that they're roaming to top/bot or just applying pressure.

I would agree with you that, for example, Cass with Blue is better than Skarner with blue. However, Cass without blue is probably better than 80% of champions with blue, so that's basically irrelevant. The point is more in the differential, and assuming your mid isn't super blue dependent, the massive multiplicative effect that CDR has on Skarner and the fact that it alleviates his huge mana issues is significantly better than, in the example of Cass giving her ult a lower cooldown and letting her E poke without poison to a greater extent.

EDIT: The point I'm making with the above is that, while giving blue to mid is great and far better than no blue buff, it is quite possible that you get more benefit out of having a Skarner who suddenly went from fairly threatening to "flash or die" range due to CDR and never requiring a trip to base for mana. Whether or not you'd be better off with a different jungler to begin with is a different argument.

[ex cathedra]

two Qs, an E, a W

Last time I checked, taking E in jungle was frowned upon since it offered less than Q/W and further contributed to mana starvation.

As far as winning: It doesn't necessarily require you to be winning! It just needs buff control, which is, suprisingly enough, not something people care about as much as they should until very high play.

Similarly, I think that strats that require you to be playing against bad opponents are weak. You have to be ahead of the enemy team or against bad players to safely and reliably steal buffs as a champion like Skarner against most competitive junglers. It's not exactly hard to know when your buffs are up and to know when they're in danger. Even junglers who don't time objectives in chat know when their buffs will be up.

As far as not hyper-dominant: He's almost as fast at clearing as Udyr, ganks as well or better, has better damage mitigation, better CC, and similar AoE damage.

Udyr has better pre-6 ganks, Skarner has better post-6 ganks. I think you're really understating the amount of damage that Turtle stance mitigates, and they just have different forms of CC. Skarner can suppress one champion and slow perhaps one or two more. That means that he's fairly good at initiating, but Udyr can apply four or five stuns in almost that many seconds in a crowded teamfight. He provides the ability to peel for his carry; slows don't stop gapclosers, after all. Their CC provides for differing roles and isn't too terribly comparable.

If Udyr is considered a hyper dominant jungler, the only significant advantage or disadvantage Skarner has over Udyr in general is Skarner's poor mana costs.

Udyr can start with any item at any camp and do well and he has zero blue reliance, nor does he rely on early mana itemization. Also, Udyr has a propensity to start boots+3 and Skarner kind of... never does that.

I'm not certain who exactly you qualify in the big four, but assuming three are Udyr, Lee Sin, Shyvana, he has advantages and disadvantages over all of them

THE ONLY JUNGLE TIER LIST THAT MATTERS:
God Tier: Lee Singah
Tier 1: Mundo (Mister "I was probably better than Shyvana and then she received a giant nerf")
Tier 2: Udyr, Shyvana (Miss "people thought I was OP because they didn't know how to counterjungle since the jungle rework")
obv not totally serious but I don't wanna make a real one and i'm just trying to up my clarity

I would agree with you that, for example, Cass with Blue is better than Skarner with blue. However, Cass without blue is probably better than 80% of champions with blue, so that's basically irrelevant. The point is more in the differential, and assuming your mid isn't super blue dependent, the massive multiplicative effect that CDR has on Skarner and the fact that it alleviates his huge mana issues is significantly better than, in the example of Cass giving her ult a lower cooldown and letting her E poke without poison to a greater extent.

You see, giving blue buff to Skarner gives you the potential to win additional lanes via gank pressure, but in fact that potential already exists because it's not as if Skarner can't ult without blue. Whereas it's pretty much impossible for Cassio to lose lane with basic items and blue buff and she gains the potential to shove mid and roam to a sidelane or simply shove mid and kill the jungler whenever they try to stop you.

Anyways, putting your team in the position where they have to choose between these options is bad play so you should feel bad for picking Skarner and pick a cool champion instead of Scorpinox or w/e you want to call that Rise of Immmortals reject.

[LordShotGun]

This whole argument is what makes me mad about skarner. Now, because all your points are valid about skarner, why did they nerf him so hard back into obscurity? If skarner was on par with udyr before mana nerfs and worthless after them...WTF?

Was it because of the crys of OP? Skarner was never played before the mana cost buff so it was like having an entire new champion added to the game and should have been given the development cycle to allow people to adjust to him.

I am just mad/sad that such a unique champion was elevated to greatness after one change and reverted to uselessness with one reversion.

[Math_Mage]

Skarner is good if you're running, like, Vlad/Kennen solos. Then you can just pick up blue and do what you like. Donating blue makes him sad.