Riot Games reveals long-awaited new LoL abilities for Skarner VGU

Riot Games shared some updates on the Skarner VGU in the latest developer blog post, revealing new abilities and a revamped look of the LoL champion.

Skarner VGU – a whole set of abilities for the LoL champion

In the latest developer LoL blog post, Brad “Hoboboy” Gaffney went over Skarner and his new kit, which will have a new set of abilities for his Q, W, and E.

While everything is still a work in progress, Riot developers have been trying to bring a “primordial monster theme” into his kit. “Skarner’s core three abilities do the heavy lifting of making Skarner feel like he can really stomp all over Tokyo… Or Piltover.” said game designer Riot Llama.

The champion’s Q ability is his moment-to-moment combat ability: Skarner tears a piece of terrain from the Rift itself and carries it around with him. We want this moment to be a bit costly for Skarner so he can then have a very forceful ability. To make that effect work, Riot is considering longer cast times to be able to fully animate the moment he picks up the boulder.

Skarner’s boulder empowers his auto attacks, but he can also throw the boulder for a slow and a big chunk of damage. This should help me improve his clear and then give him the ability to finish off the escaping enemies.

While his W ability still gives a shield, the cast is quite different from the previous one: Skarner smashes the ground, releasing waves from the earth.

Skarner’s E is also completely revamped. The champion continually gains movement speed with limited controls and tries to collide with a target. If he finds a target to grab he has a short window to pin them to a wall for a stun and bonus damage. And apparently, if he manages to smash the target into the wall, Skarner will be able to grab another rock that he can throw with his Q.

“We’re toying with A LOT of the levers on this ability to make sure we get it right. It’s bringing together a few elements other champions have played with but we’ve never had it all in one ability before so we want to make sure it gets the satisfaction that “rip through a wall and smash an enemy into another wall” promises,” said Riot Hoboboy.

For the ultimate, game designer Riot Llama already hinted at the fact that the Impale might not be point-and-click anymore. He explained their goal is to move some of the ultimate’s power away from it, while increasing the satisfaction of pressing the button.”The team wants a version of Impale “that had awe-inspiring moments but could also get you question mark pinged by all four of your teammates,” he said, hinting at the fact that it may become a skill shot and something with a much higher skill expression.

Related: LoL Patch 13.21

Skarner’s complete new looks

In the post, Riot also went over the visual redesign process the champion is going through.

Producer Andrew “Riot Ubysi” Raabe mentioned that  Scorpiones order in the Arachnida class has eight legs, two pincers, and two chelicerae. That said, having that many appendages would’ve been problematic with gameplay clarity. Therefore, they decided to give Skarner six legs, with two positioned underneath his front bulk to help support his new gigantic status.

Not only that, but the team has been testing out ways to make his new form interact with the Ixtali earth magic thematic.

After numerous ideas, Riot settled on giving Skarner the ability to manipulate the ground, which is exactly what we saw from the new kit.

“Skarner isn’t pulling up a boulder with magical earth bending, he is reaching in and grasping it with his full body. His magical elements pull and release the earth so he can seize his prize: a gargantuan boulder to dissuade would-be attackers,” said Ubysi.

While Skarner VGU is still yet to be completed, fans can be excited about having essentially a new LoL champion, that has little to do with the previous version.

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