League of Legends XXXI: I'll Start My Own Team! With TF! And Janna!

[fred dref]

Jungling: I'd have thought the idea that Smite goes on you and stays with you all game was a quite strong indication that one guy should take the jungle all game.

Smite is not needed for jungling, but is primarily useful for securing and stealing buffs. You can take Smite on a laner and still control Baron and Dragon.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Again, that passage wasn't meant to refer to nofarm support at all and I apologise if it was misleading. It was simply meant to refer to the practice of popping an AD carry with a support character bottom, regardless of whether the support was played by someone who staunchly refused to farm or by me who turns it into a little game of how many last hits can I sneak with my terrible animation.

Oh, that part of the botlane. Well a bunch of carries are sorta bad in solo lanes, so there is that. Fred Dref has outlined why you don't stick carries mid, but I'm mildly curious as to whether you'd benefit from swapping the carry with the tankydeepstopguy.

It should give you slightly better Dragon control, since the guy you put top is usually more useful than the carry in early-midgame fights. And lets face it, if toplane ends up being the stereotypical 20-minute farmfest then that's pretty exactly what the AD carry wants, isn't it?

Nofarm being better:
Hey remember when people used to send carries mid and there were thousands of convincing arguments for it and it was a bit of a joke if your opponents didn't have a solo carry?
Ideas change and I think it's a tad presumptuous to say that nofarm is the best option.

Way before my time, I'm afraid. Perhaps it would be less presumptuous to say the 0cs is the best option currently known? I don't doubt that if someone figures out a better way and it is proven superior, we'll all have some jolly good laughs about those silly old 0cs days. 'Tis the nature of progress.

[fred dref]

Oh, that part of the botlane. Well a bunch of carries are sorta bad in solo lanes, so there is that. Fred Dref has outlined why you don't stick carries mid, but I'm mildly curious as to whether you'd benefit from swapping the carry with the tankydeepstopguy.

It should give you slightly better Dragon control, since the guy you put top is usually more useful than the carry in early-midgame fights. And lets face it, if toplane ends up being the stereotypical 20-minute farmfest then that's pretty exactly what the AD carry wants, isn't it?

I was thinking about that, mainly spurred on by the fact that double bruiser kill lanes **** all over AD/Support lanes, but later on you really need that AD carry damage to deal with the bruisers. The answer being to send the AD top against a bruiser. AD carries are ranged, which makes them good against top lanes, right? Sadly, there are two champions that come to mind immediately that make that a really annoying prospect. Specifically, Irelia and Malphite. A team composed of two bruisers bottom (melee physical damage), a jungler (usually melee and physical damage) and a ranged carry (ranged physical damage) is basically Malphite's dream come true. Irelia, on the other hard, will just kill the enemy lane over and over in most cases. I guess countering the enemy AD carry with bruisers would show that sending your own AD carry against a bruiser is a bad idea. Again, the AD carry could go mid, but it would have to be a strong laning AD carry to not get killed by the currently overwhelming power of AP mids, and the top lane mage would have to be able to deal with strong top laners like Lee Sin and GP. It would be interesting to see, and it has potential, but it seems woefully vulnerable to counterpicks.

[SlyGuyMcFly]

Smite is not needed for jungling, but is primarily useful for securing and stealing buffs. You can take Smite on a laner and still control Baron and Dragon.

Have to disagree. For starters, Smite is completely useless* in lane, while junglers can at least use it to farm faster. Second, the only lane you can put it on is midlane. Anywhere else and you'll lose out on buff control (ok, this isn't actually an objection, just an observation). Third, every time you want to ensure buff control you must leave lane - which means pushed towers and ganked lanes. The cost of leaving a camp or two unattended is much smaller, and since the jungler is participating in buff-killing, they'll be unattended anyway.

The advantage is... stronger ganks, which is largely offset by the fact that your midlane is at a disadvantage relative to the other guy who has ignite-flash instead of smite-flash


*unless you're Blitzcrank trying to do cute tricks with smite-pull

Edit: Re: Toplane Carries. Yeah, I was thinking along those lines. I'd be interested in seeing how carries Graves, Ez, Trist or Corki handle that sort of matchup.

Edit: Re: Smite. Sorry, misunderstood that bit. But I'd say that a jungler is pretty much spelled out given the current jungle? I mean, I guess it was a bit of an unintended thing originally, but the recent jungle changes were made assuming a jungler in every team, no?

[fred dref]

Have to disagree. For starters, Smite is completely useless* in lane, while junglers can at least use it to farm faster. Second, the only lane you can put it on is midlane. Anywhere else and you'll lose out on buff control (ok, this isn't actually an objection, just an observation). Third, every time you want to ensure buff control you must leave lane - which means pushed towers and ganked lanes. The cost of leaving a camp or two unattended is much smaller, and since the jungler is participating in buff-killing, they'll be unattended anyway.

The advantage is... stronger ganks, which is largely offset by the fact that your midlane is at a disadvantage relative to the other guy who has ignite-flash instead of smite-flash


*unless you're Blitzcrank trying to do cute tricks with smite-pull

I am not saying in any fashion that putting Smite on anyone other than a dedicated jungler is a good idea. I'm saying that it is possible to run a 2-1-2 lane setup and still take advantage of the jungle. Yes it's weaker, but that's why people use a jungler. I'm just saying that a full time jungler is not necessarily spelled out mechanically by the options in the game.

For the record, I think that the most promising next big thing is going to be double bruiser bottom with AD carry and AP carry going top or mid, depending on specific picks, but like I mentioned above I don't know how well it will work against current conventional setups.

[Nadevoc]

Oh, that part of the botlane. Well a bunch of carries are sorta bad in solo lanes, so there is that. Fred Dref has outlined why you don't stick carries mid, but I'm mildly curious as to whether you'd benefit from swapping the carry with the tankydeepstopguy.

It should give you slightly better Dragon control, since the guy you put top is usually more useful than the carry in early-midgame fights. And lets face it, if toplane ends up being the stereotypical 20-minute farmfest then that's pretty exactly what the AD carry wants, isn't it?

I think a large part of the reason top ends up a farmfest is because it's tanky DPS vs. tanky DPS, though. I've seen a ranged carry go top a few times, but usually the tanky DPS opponent jumps on him (most TDPS have gap closers...) and gets a few kills, then totally takes over the lane. The only reason they tend not to go for kills now is because their opponent is also a bulky dude with sustain.

Jungling: I'd have thought the idea that Smite goes on you and stays with you all game was a quite strong indication that one guy should take the jungle all game.

I believe that after the first couple buffs, Smite is actually supposed to be held in case a dragon or baron opportunity comes up, rather than used for more speed/gold. Since the jungle redesign, Smite really isn't necessary for junglers. It's not even really necessary for buff control; an enemy isn't likely to try to smite steal a buff if they know you've got Smite, too, and if they do, you should see them entering your jungle via wards. So I guess it grants buff control by simply the threat of it. It's really dragon and baron control, though, from my understanding

----

And I think carry + 0cs is mathematically better than two champs with farm in the same way that jungle is better than no jungle due to multiplicative scaling. There is a limited amount of gold available, and you want to get the most value out of it. You stick it all on the carry, it's all multiplying with each other and giving you big results. You split it, and you get much less from multiplicative scaling. Which is compounded by the fact that your non-carry character (because I'll assume you didn't send two carries together) gets less value per point of gold anyhow; that's why the champ isn't a carry.

[Eldariel]

So Math, as per your suggestion I finally ended up playing in a Dominion tournament. Though through a somewhat weird chain of events; a team was missing their 5th, and one of their players happened to be an old friend of mine so I was taken in as a sub randomly 5 mins before the tourney.

Some outtakes:

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We ended up taking second (our team was Oh My God). The tournament itself was weird; there were 6 bans but after that the picks were done as blind pick with replicate characters allowed Ah well, it did work out in the sense that it's supereasy to get exactly the comp you wanna run but it does remove about half a billion strategic layers from the game. Prizes are relatively minor but apparently you should get a Ryze-skin and 15 euros worth of RP so enough for the Runepage Bundle at least.

Player-wise, I unfortunately came to the conclusion that tournament Dominion players are little better than what you face in the queue. People still have this weird fixation on a small handful of champs, there's little experimentation and a total lack of game awareness. When I asked why people don't run Ezreal for example, the reason was that "Bruisers with gapclosers kill him". Which...is kinda silly since that's specifically what Ezreal is at his strongest against since he re-establishes the gap after the closer and then maintains it. And people tell me Urgot beats Cassiopeia on bot; things that are clearly just a consequence of players of different skill levels facing (or just plain bad players). And that poking doesn't work 'cause of some bogus reason.


Ah well, at least there's more team cohesion in tournaments, at least slightly. Three of the four games (I forgot to screenshot the first one); check the summoners, btw:
Game 2:

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Funny part is that far as mechanical skill goes, theirs was the strongest team in the tournament by far (Xymii is a 2400 solo queue player, for instance, and a consummate AP caster user). They just got outpicked so damn hard though that it didn't make a lick of a difference and it was never really even close.

Game 3:

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Game 4:

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[fred dref]

I expect to be disappointed, but I'll ask anyway: Is that the IMMVP?

[Eldariel]

I expect to be disappointed, but I'll ask anyway: Is that the IMMVP?

Unfortunately not He's a German fella who appears to be an MVP-fan (and hell, who wouldn't be). Somehow I doubt THE MVP would find the means, the time and the interest to play a small Dominion tournament on EU West server in League of Legends, anyways.

[Qwertystop]

Who else thinks that there should be the option to "rent" a champ for one game, with a cost of slightly more than, say, 1/3 their RP cost? Makes it cheaper to try a champ out if they don't get on freeweek much, and doesn't make Riot lose money because it's too pricy to replace buying.

[LordShotGun]

Who else thinks that there should be the option to "rent" a champ for one game, with a cost of slightly more than, say, 1/3 their RP cost? Makes it cheaper to try a champ out if they don't get on freeweek much, and doesn't make Riot lose money because it's too pricy to replace buying.

Maybe if you replace one game with one day or better yet, one week. After all 1 game is hardly a fair way to get the feel of a champion when you could have a DC or a feeder or any number of problems.

[Maeglin_Dubh]

Rather than ask if she's any good, since I'm starting to accept the Dogmantra view that most characters are at least some good, I'm wondering what MF's strengths are, and how she compares to other AD carries.

I mostly play Caitlyn, with Graves, Ashe, and Sivir being the next most used, in that order. I always get bullied as Vayne bot because of my weak range (which is why I want to learn her top, because I'm pretty good as Teemo top), and I don't own/like Ez or Corki. So, any comparison that can be drawn from that information would help as well.

TL:DR; What is Miss Fortune good for, compared to my other AD carry types.

[Neoseanster]

Rather than ask if she's any good, since I'm starting to accept the Dogmantra view that most characters are at least some good, I'm wondering what MF's strengths are, and how she compares to other AD carries.

I mostly play Caitlyn, with Graves, Ashe, and Sivir being the next most used, in that order. I always get bullied as Vayne bot because of my weak range (which is why I want to learn her top, because I'm pretty good as Teemo top), and I don't own/like Ez or Corki. So, any comparison that can be drawn from that information would help as well.

TL:DR; What is Miss Fortune good for, compared to my other AD carry types.

Very strong laning phase, a healing debuff, incredible AoE damage with your ultimate early/mid game if you can channel the full thing (up to 520/760/1000 base damage). I'd say she's probably the carry I most reliably enjoy supporting.

[Eldariel]

Rather than ask if she's any good, since I'm starting to accept the Dogmantra view that most characters are at least some good, I'm wondering what MF's strengths are, and how she compares to other AD carries.

About damn time.

Also, MF's strengths? Well:
- Healing debuff. With the current Heal-summoner, this is huge. If the talked-of nerf happens, we'll see what becomes of this. Also great against Soraka.
- Incredible early burst thanks to Double Up. Stacks up your Impure Shots real fast too. Comparable to Graves except benefits even more of AD boosters, and has a highish range.
- Decent steroid in Impure Shots. No Vayne or Kog but significantly stronger scaling than with Ashe or Caitlyn.
- Ulti that starts off strong but becomes weak for actual fights as the game goes on due to it dealing magic damage. Lategame it's mostly relegated to creepwave clearing duty.
- Passive keeps her mobile as long as you predict things a bit; great for running just before a guy reaches you, useless if they do get even one hit off.

Weaknesses?
- No hypercarry scaling.
- Ult poor for teamfights.
- Abilities in general do magic damage; they don't scale well with normal AD itemization.

She's really rather similar to Sivir but with the healing debuff in exchange for not having spell shield.

[TechnOkami]

I have returned to League, and have re-discovered something. Going for Tear + Giant's Belt is worse than just going into a straight Catalyst into RoA. I felt stronger and more confident with Skarner with a RoA rather than the other direction. My gears of Skarner Itemization have begun to turn again, hopefully I can raise him to my main once more.

[Math_Mage]

yay dominion tournament

also, minor epiphany that I REALLY should have arrived at sooner but finally realized when I saw Eld post: rather than just run from MF, I should trade and THEN run, so as to kill her passive and eliminate free pursuit damage.

[TechnOkami]

A Revelation.

A Skarner Build that Finally works for me.

TechnOkami's (Most Likely Insane) Skarner Build:
-Catalyst into RoA
-Mercs
-Sheen into Triforce
-Recurve Bow into Ionic Spark
-Negatron Cloak into Force of Nature
-Glacial Shroud into Frozen Heart

+ Blue Buff

[Suedars]

Generally after the first or second Blue you should be giving your AP carry blue buff.

[ex cathedra]

Techno, I believe, is highly opposed to jungling Skarner in the first place. Unfortunately, because of that, there's no realistic situation in which Skarner would ever even receive a blue buff.

Anyways, mind walking us through your thought process? I wouldn't exactly say that I see a lot of synergy in your proposed build.

[PEACH]

I... don't understand not jungling Skarner, since he's mana hungry as all hell (to the point where, yes, it is legitimately better to give Skarner bluebuff past just the second one with some mids; if it's somebody who is relatively CDR independent and has built mana items, like Cass with an early RoA, skarner probably needs it more) and loses a lot of his strengths in lane, but anyway:

Iconic spark: Wit's end is better. Like, always, especially with Skarner, who has two ways (shield and healing) to get multiplicative scaling on resists but nothing that scales health.

Other than that, it's very different than I normally build Skarner (since I normally run him as a jungler, and thus really like the early advantage you can get from a nice Wriggle's, and find RoA almost entirely worthless on him), but it's not terrible, in that anything with CDR or defenses is pretty good on him.

[Dogmantra]

About damn time.

Also, MF's strengths? Well:

I would add that she is pretty much the best trader 'cause she can drop a Make It Rain on you for the slow, hit you three times while you're running away 'cause of autoattacks and Double Up, with the healing debuff for funsies.


(I found that she's also really good, at least at my level, at turning EVERYTHING into a fight to the death. You ran up to CC me? FIGHT TO THE DEATH. You tried to harrass me? FIGHT TO THE DEATH. You used your /l and it got really annoying? FIGHT TO THE DEATH)

EDIT: now where did I put Miss Fortune on my tier list I feel like she should probably be higher

[Winthur]

Other than that, it's very different than I normally build Skarner (since I normally run him as a jungler, and thus really like the early advantage you can get from a nice Wriggle's, and find RoA almost entirely worthless on him), but it's not terrible, in that anything with CDR or defenses is pretty good on him.

While I find RoA a questionable Skarner item as well, Wriggles is also rather unnecessary. Skarner does quite a lot of AoE damage and tanks creeps very well so you can just rush a Philo Stone and sustain yourself with your mana. I pretty much always give my blue buff to mid after the first run, and I just sustain myself with Philo; mostly by not spamming Q cooldown every time it's up if I don't have blue, I prefer spacing it out so that I only proc the bonus magic damage from the mark. Later I get a Sheen or a Glacial Shroud.

All this talk about Wriggles reminds me of a Wriggles Skarner on my (premade, no less) team who was mad at me for "not letting him level up" because I would push bot lane to the enemy turret. It was beneficial for us at the time (I just poked the enemy AD lane under their turret while they missed CS), but said Skarner managed to get himself outfarmed by a Fiddlesticks out of all people. He was also underleveled for teamfights, despite having a Wriggles.
It didn't matter for him that all he had to do was farm his jungle and then come for a towerdive with his ult once he actually got it (he camped lanes while he was level 4...), instead I got blamed. With that, my little PSA to upstart junglers: don't neglect farm just because "small camps got their gold gain nerfed". Jungling isn't "securing buffs and ganking", at least not in the sense that "I will ignore my small camps to camp a lane for hours". Not farming is going to make you weak even if you're one of those junglers that naturally have a lot of CC and other stuff that doesn't require levels or gold (Alistar, Maokai). If there is no gank opportunity now, kill small camps, keep an eye on the minion waves and the movement of the enemy jungler, and move to a lane when you see an opportunity arise in the next minute or so. Also, remember that at a certain ELO* everybody wards everything so a lot of the time your window of opportunity after entering a lane is extremely small.

*My 10 level account on EU West relies on playing Jungle Alistar and ganking mid lane right after taking blue, then just running around and ganking. So far, I have like a 95% win ratio with the cow.

[Zen Master]

(I found that she's also really good, at least at my level, at turning EVERYTHING into a fight to the death. You ran up to CC me? FIGHT TO THE DEATH. You tried to harrass me? FIGHT TO THE DEATH. You used your /l and it got really annoying? FIGHT TO THE DEATH)

Anyone can fight to the death tho - isn't the point more like, winning? Tho I suppose she's fairly good at that too.

I seem to recall many attempts to run away from her ulti - then dying, and then thinking to myself that I should run sideways out of it, not away.

The thing seems to be that I meet her rarely enough that I forget, and make the same mistake again next time. I can't decide if that's a blessing or a curse - or both.

[Dogmantra]

Anyone can fight to the death tho - isn't the point more like, winning? Tho I suppose she's fairly good at that too.

My point was that she is very good at making you have to fight, rather than giving you the option of disengaging. While everyone can fight to the death, not everyone can force a fight to the death. It's like the difference between, like, Ashe and Caitlyn. Ashe often forces you to fight because if you try to run she WILL catch you, whereas Cait is much easier to run away from (no permaslow)

[LordShotGun]

So....AP chogath anyone? Been playing him recently mid when my team lacked an AP character. Granted he is a better tank, but he is a passable AP as well.

With his huge AoE and CC and innate sustain from carnivore, I was able to dominate a few of the more traditional AP mids in my last few games. Swain got destroyed, Annie couldn't push me out of lane and eventually I scaled better, one weird lanesticks was completely DOMINATED since both my Q and W interrupt his drain.

I got merc treads, catalyst, abyssal scepter, D cap, and then finished my RoA before the game ended with me doing a flash Feast on baron.

Blue buff is insane on cho, just use Q and W to clear the wave and then go gank top or bot or steal some jungle.

[Talesin]

How do people feel about Fizz? I've seen him dominate lanes but last night I saw him screw mid up so bad it almost cost us the game. At around 25-30 minutes into the game the Cass he was against had 5x his farm, 156 to about 31, had 8 kills, because she could clear the waves and then roam with their jungler, and had turned a won top lane and a winning bot lane into even lanes because of her roaming.

I own Fizz but i've never got round to playing him. Would you say he's a viable mid or should he go top? We managed to win the game after Cass got out of place in the first team fight and a Blitzgrab resulted in her dying almost instantly. A second teamfight results in another our of place Cass. She ults and is blitzgrabbed as it happens. After the stun wears off we blow her up, take 2 turrets an inhib and a nexus turret before they all respawn.

That win put me at 7 wins and 1 loss in the last 8 with the loss coming from Shaco not being banned and him just destroying the game. He counter ganked top to change a 1-0 exchange into 2-1 in his favour. Ganked mid straight after and killed our Cass. He snowballed the game into a 20 minute surrender though only got 2 kills on myself and my support in bot lane as we controlled the minion wave really well and he showed up during the times we attempted to kill their carry.

[TechnOkami]

I... don't understand not jungling Skarner, since he's mana hungry as all hell (to the point where, yes, it is legitimately better to give Skarner bluebuff past just the second one with some mids; if it's somebody who is relatively CDR independent and has built mana items, like Cass with an early RoA, skarner probably needs it more) and loses a lot of his strengths in lane, but anyway:

Iconic spark: Wit's end is better. Like, always, especially with Skarner, who has two ways (shield and healing) to get multiplicative scaling on resists but nothing that scales health.

Other than that, it's very different than I normally build Skarner (since I normally run him as a jungler, and thus really like the early advantage you can get from a nice Wriggle's, and find RoA almost entirely worthless on him), but it's not terrible, in that anything with CDR or defenses is pretty good on him.

Generally after the first or second Blue you should be giving your AP carry blue buff.

True, but the blue buff isn't really necessary until late late game with this type of itemization, so for the most part, the AP carry will have blue buff for like 95% of the time.

Techno, I believe, is highly opposed to jungling Skarner in the first place. Unfortunately, because of that, there's no realistic situation in which Skarner would ever even receive a blue buff.

Anyways, mind walking us through your thought process? I wouldn't exactly say that I see a lot of synergy in your proposed build.

I am opposed to jungling period. I know off the bat I wouldn't be good at it, and I much much prefer to lane.

Ooh, thought process... hm...

RoA fixes two main problems I have with Skarner at the same time: health and mana. It also happens to give AP, which is nice, but mainly it is for both the hp and the mana. I've tried going into more direct mana/health routes, such as Tear & Giant's Belt into Manamune and Warmog's, but it didn't work as well for me. I found that taking care of both at the same time with fewer items better than building two individual things whose creation weakened you into a worthless member of the team.

Boots are pretty much situational, but knowing how often Skarner gets into the thick of things, I prefer Mercs on him.

Sheen is for damage and more mana, later goes into Triforce for the bajillion things it gives him.

Recurve is simply for the attack speed. Ionic Spark is for the attack speed and the extra bit of health you get. Also, the lightning passive thing is a nice touch. I took another look at Wit's End, saw the extra Magic Damage to auto attacks... I'm going to try this build with Wit's End and see which I prefer.

Negatron to FoN is so I have a constant MR that doesn't require me to attack something several times to pump up, as well as giving me a whole bunch of useful stats I like on Skarner. I'm considering swapping the FoN for a Banshee's Veil, but I haven't tried it out yet, and I think it might take a bit too long. Not 100% sure though, Banshee's has less MR than FoN.

I settled on Frozen Heart because I felt like I needed some sort of armor item. I like Frozen Heart because of its great passive, because it gives mana, cdr, and the badly needed armor. I haven't tried anything else armor-wise yet, but this would be my go-to for the time being.

So, yes, if that's a good explanation of my thought process, there it is.

[Eldariel]

How do people feel about Fizz? I've seen him dominate lanes but last night I saw him screw mid up so bad it almost cost us the game. At around 25-30 minutes into the game the Cass he was against had 5x his farm, 156 to about 31, had 8 kills, because she could clear the waves and then roam with their jungler, and had turned a won top lane and a winning bot lane into even lanes because of her roaming.

Never take individual bad games from randoms as an example for anything ._. He's a fine champion when played properly. He can mid or top though he hates certain strong toplane bruisers; he's particularly good against mages that need to land their skills to do anything, like Cassiopeia, since between Q and E he's really slippery. As such, he's often played as a counterlane.

As always with assassins, his snowball is really scary, and he has the handy healing debuff too to deal with Spellvamp-based champs and heavy self-healers like Swain or Vlad. He's also got percentile damage and inherent Lichbane-synergies which make him quite scary indeed.

[fred dref]

How do people feel about Fizz? I've seen him dominate lanes but last night I saw him screw mid up so bad it almost cost us the game. At around 25-30 minutes into the game the Cass he was against had 5x his farm, 156 to about 31, had 8 kills, because she could clear the waves and then roam with their jungler, and had turned a won top lane and a winning bot lane into even lanes because of her roaming.

Fizz with a Blue buff is one of the most irritating things in the game. He just dashes to you then trollpoles away, over and over and over. His power in mid seems fairly directly linked to how many early Blues he can get, and he is especially strong against skillshot based champions. I happen to know that Ahri, as an example, has trouble with Fizz.

[ex cathedra]

How do people feel about Fizz? I've seen him dominate lanes but last night I saw him screw mid up so bad it almost cost us the game. At around 25-30 minutes into the game the Cass he was against had 5x his farm, 156 to about 31, had 8 kills, because she could clear the waves and then roam with their jungler, and had turned a won top lane and a winning bot lane into even lanes because of her roaming.

Fizz's main problem is that he has a ton of bad lane matchups. This might be an unpopular opinion but I really don't think that AP Fizz is terribly viable while assassins like Akali and Kassadin exist. He's super easily counterpicked and there are several matchups that he simply can not win (Fizz vs. Ryze is, like, the worst). He also takes a ton of gold to get off of the ground with the Hat+Lichbane core, and he lacks the survivability of melee mages like Mordekaiser.

I like him better in top lane or the jungle, personally.

True, but the blue buff isn't really necessary until late late game with this type of itemization, so for the most part, the AP carry will have blue buff for like 95% of the time.I am opposed to jungling period. I know off the bat I wouldn't be good at it, and I much much prefer to lane.

Well, Blue Buff, for several mages, is most important lategame, and it can be hard enough to secure one in the first place...

There's nothing wrong with going into a role with the knowledge that you'll be bad at it. To be fair, most people are pretty bad at League in the first place. The point is to learn and improve. In my opinion, You don't really need any skill to become a decent League player. You need the basic abilities required to push buttons and aim skillshots. Past that, I really only find that knowledge and practice are all that you need to separate yourself from most of the playerbase. Of course, this is coming from my perspective, and my normal, ranked, and dominion Elo are all hovering around 1500. Past that, I expect that skill and mechanics become increasingly important but breaking out of 1200 mostly just requires you to actually understand the game. Jungling is a very important role and it's worth learning for most players.

RoA fixes two main problems I have with Skarner at the same time: health and mana. It also happens to give AP, which is nice, but mainly it is for both the hp and the mana. I've tried going into more direct mana/health routes, such as Tear & Giant's Belt into Manamune and Warmog's, but it didn't work as well for me. I found that taking care of both at the same time with fewer items better than building two individual things whose creation weakened you into a worthless member of the team.

Manamune is definitely worth skipping, and I'm not sure if Skarner really has room for Warmog's in the first place. However, Have you considered rushing items like Philo Stone (into Shurelya's, which is fantastically strong on champions like Skarner. His role as a damage dealer isn't nearly as important as his role as an initiator and tank), Glacial Shroud, and Sheen to handle your early mana problems?

Recurve is simply for the attack speed. Ionic Spark is for the attack speed and the extra bit of health you get. Also, the lightning passive thing is a nice touch. I took another look at Wit's End, saw the extra Magic Damage to auto attacks... I'm going to try this build with Wit's End and see which I prefer.

Ionic Spark isn't really a worthwhile item to build in any situation ever. The 250 HP isn't that much more than a Ruby Crystal, and it's really, really easy to purchase Health. Wit's End gives as much MR as a Negatron Cloak and is pretty much one of the best items in the game. If you're really thinking about the damage, you're making a mistake. The MR and Attack Speed are priorities.

Negatron to FoN is so I have a constant MR that doesn't require me to attack something several times to pump up, as well as giving me a whole bunch of useful stats I like on Skarner. I'm considering swapping the FoN for a Banshee's Veil, but I haven't tried it out yet, and I think it might take a bit too long. Not 100% sure though, Banshee's has less MR than FoN.

FoN's okay, I guess, but I feel like you're going overboard on MR. Rarely do you actually need this much against anything other than double AP teams. Physical damage is much scarier in the majority of games. Both FoN and BV are really expensive (BV especially), too...

I settled on Frozen Heart because I felt like I needed some sort of armor item. I like Frozen Heart because of its great passive, because it gives mana, cdr, and the badly needed armor. I haven't tried anything else armor-wise yet, but this would be my go-to for the time being.

FH is a fantastic choice.