I recently purchased Skarner and I have to say, I am very disappointed with him overall. Where other junglers can gank earlier, I am either half dead or OOM. I can't keep up with the other junglers (on this one champion). It's sad I can't play the champion I really like because he's underpowered.

He isn't underpowered just because he can't get early, some champions are just better suited for it then others. I don't see any reason why you can't play him. While he might not get to gank early without a decently hard leash he still has one of the best ganks at level six.

Don't write him off because you can't gank at level 2.

Skarner is a great champion, just pretend E doesn't exist and you'll do great. He's tanky, He has a shield and speed buff and he has a build in AOE
with slow on a low cooldown, so nobody is getting away from you and if you think their gonna get away hit R and then drag them back to their death

Except that E and Q combo are his sustain in the jungle, and just "forgetting" about E will ensure low health clears since he doesnt benefit a great deal from wriggles. That whole lack of ad thing you know...

In other news, not forgetting about E makes skarner a viable top lane which is where i see him do a little better recently. Ranged poke, sustain, Q and passive to punish them for brawling, and the ultimate anti turret dive at 6.

I love his kit. His looks... his voice laugh etc. Just a champ I really like. Just I got dishearted when the enemy jungler is ganking and I can't because either A. The team is on the enemy turret over extended or B. I'm almost dead.

So when people are flaming me for not ganking at lvl 2.. Just disregard it? I can usually pull off a successful gank at 4. Almost every time with W Q (perma snare) and I ignore E.... Hp problems only when I get a fail leash in solo queue.. but usually I'm OOM or pretty darn close to it. VERY shortly after my blue wears off. (

Then, of course, you get the fail jungler hate speech and threatened to be reported for trolling etc. >.> lol.

Completely wrong...

His W is his sustain in jungle...

His E is a manaburn red button that somehow got placed there to make noobs burn mana like crazy.

Q-W-Q-W repeat level up will give you farm more sustain with shield and attackspeed than any pathetic health for huge mana you get from E... also, with greater shielduptime he will have greater clearspeed cause of increased attack speed while shield is on and that will also translate in better sustain overall, farmspeed and movespeed for ganks.

Level E at the last 5 levels where youre force too... or just troll Riot and leave 5 points unexpent that will help you to not accidentaly hitting E and wasting mana.

Ok, take this from a guy who mains skarner, and consistently uses him in ranked. He's my favorite champion.

First of all, max Q/W/R first, ignore E. It does mediocre damage, the sustain isn't much, and the shield lasts longer/mitigates more damage than a measly 30-90 HP. I play skarner like I play amumu, if you can't gank early, since some champs are designed to gank at 2, and some are made to gank later, then level up/farm up first. I usually gank after going blue->wolves->wraiths -> red -> gank. Level 3-4 is a great time to start ganking. Once you hit 6, then your ganks are almost a 90% kill rate. There are better top laners btw, skarner is perfect in the jungle, I can even bypass wards by quickly moving with W and then flash/ult, his kit was designed to kill creeps really fast and have a lot of HP, there are better top laners.

28-7 skarner, that's my two cents.

Never get E until you have to, period. Sorry, but the hay day of skarner has passed. S2 he was so strong with his aoe clear, resit heavy build, and ult that could pull people even if the blinked or flashed. Now he jungles slow, ganks ok, and tanks not that great.

Judicious use of E isn't bad, but you don't need the heal to clear the jungle in a good state.

Mana-wise: Charged Q rank 1 will do more than 2 damage per mana, while E does 1.6/Mana. Rank 5 comparisons are worse, with Charged Q doing over 5.5/mana, and E doing a little less than 3.5/Mana. A difference of over 2 damage/mana.

E is more efficient against an un-charged Q, but not by enough to make enough difference to favor it over Q even if the slow was ignored, or use it more than situationally or during a gank when you know you need to do more DPS or need the heal.


(Note: I still quite like E, and think it's a good ability, but when the concern is mana efficiency, you want to skip it or at least hold back on over-using it.)