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Riot Games has been hard at work in the last few years to fine-tune the kits and looks of older League of Legends champions through its mid-scope updates, comprehensive gameplay updates (CGUs), and also visual and gameplay updates (VGUs). Skarner was voted by the community as the champion that would receive a rework in 2023. However, the VGU was delayed and now players are starting to get more information about the champion's rework.
Last year, a dev blog revealed some new details about the Skarner rework while it was still not a full reveal. Now, Riot Games is slowly teasing Skarner's rework and its release in Season 2024. Here's all you need to know about Skarner's rework and his new abilities.
Skarner VGU Rework & New Abilities Explained
On 15th March, Riot Games posted a teaser image of the newly imagined Skarner and what seems like his new splash art on its social media handles with the caption, "Beyond myth." League of Legends players immediately flocked to show their excitement.
One Twitter user said, "WE HAVE BEEN WAITING 30 YEARS FOR THIS LET'S GOOOOO." While another commented, "OKAAAAY BUT HE LOOKS BADASS."
Last year, in a dev blog, Lexi “Riot Lexical” Gao presented some updates about Skarner's VGU rework. She said, "Skarner’s been on the radar for a VGU for quite a while at this point, and it’s been a while since he won the VGU vote last year. We always knew that Skarner would be a challenging and large rework, but he is admittedly a bit more challenging than we had anticipated."
The blog also discussed some of the pain points with the VGU for Skarner and delved deeper into the designs Riot Games had in mind for the champion. Riot also moved Skarner from Shurima to Ixtal as his new region.
Skarner's Potential New Abilities
It is safe to say that Skarner is still in development and his kit is subject to change and we will only know when he officially undergoes a rework on live servers. However, all the abilities were revealed earlier.
Skarner's Q: Skarner picks up a rock and throws it at enemies, dealing some kind of area of effect (AoE) damage and inflicting slow. Additionally, it also seems that he can hold on to the rock for a while and choose when to throw it, though the duration is not clear.
W: Skarner stomps the ground gaining shield dealing AOE damage and gaining extra shield for each enemy hit.
E: Skarner charges foward (Similar to Sion R or Nunu W) allowing him to pass through terrain. If he collides with an enemy champion, he grabs them and is able to pin them to a wall stunning them and dealing extra damage. If Skarner goes through terrain he automatically grabs rock for his Q.
R: Skarner new ultimate is now a channeling ability and is AoE damage which can be used on all five enemies. R is also now able to damage monsters.
It was recently revealed that Skarner’s rework would be arriving to the PBE on 19th March 2024. This means that the VGU should go live on all servers on 3rd April with LoL Patch 14.7, according to the official patch schedule.
