Riot Games shared the first details of Skarner's upcoming VGU (Visual and Gameplay update) in League of Legends. They changed the champion's appearance and shed some light on his future skillset. The information was released on the official website of the game.
The develpers explained the reasons for Skarner's rework. The champion was unappealing to the players, being a monster with a poor background and an uninteresting style.
Skarner's new look
Right now, Skarner is a crystalline scorpion from the type of Brackern. During the rework, the developers decided to separate him from the minerals theme, making Skarner look more like a daemon with a "King Kong vibe." In terms of lore, he would also relocate from Shurima to Ixtal and would have his sentient creature personality boosted.
Skarner’s theme has found an appealing home as a "revered, larger-than-life daemon" who’s highly protective of the place he calls home. Expect to see him easily rip through the Rift to hunt down intruders. One way he could do this is by picking up enemies and moving them where you want. And lucky for us, it just so happens that Skarner kinda already does that with Impale!
Skarner's new abilities
The developers tried four concepts for the update: "poison" with damage over time skills, "Hextech" with explosive playstyle and active/inactive phases, "skarnerlings" with ultimate-based "cute-followers," and "carapace" with changing the shell to become stronger.
For various reasons, Riot Games abandoned these ideas and chose to rework Skarner's ultimate. The new R will now grab everyone instead of one opponent for the cost of a duration decrease. Other abilities will work to improve Impale, but they aren't revealed yet. Here's how the new ultimate will supposedly look like:
Skarner's release date has yet to be announced. Riot Games announced his VGU in February. The developers also said that they would share more details in the upcoming months. That means that the champion's rework will not come out earlier than the end of Summer 2023.
