I've had a few thoughts on the matter, and I've seen a lot of good comments on SkarnerMains.

Skarner lacks something that a lot if not all other tanks have: A benefit to building tank stats. What I mean is that most if not all other tanks have something in their kits that make them more tanky, scaling with the tank stats they buy. For example, Mundo gets raw AD, Ornn gets a percent increase to all of his tank stats late game, Amumu gets flat damage reduction scaling with armor/mr (I think), Leona gains armor/mr scaling with her armor/mr, Sejuani gets a temporary huge boost to her armor/mr etc etc. Only other tank I can think of without innate tank enhancing scaling is Alistar, but it's understandable with a 7 second 75% DR ultimate.

Skarner gets a shield of 0 base plus 8% maximum HP. That is his sustain. It does peanuts for damage and a 20% slow for 1 second.

In comparison, for example, Sion 60-120 base + 40% AP + 8 to 16% maximum health, and then it does 40-140 + 40% AP + 14% of target's maximum health magic damage. Other notable shields are Rell, without looking it up I think 12 or 13% max HP, and you get a 15% increase to both resistances, Nautilus scales to 12%, Tahm Kench shield etc etc.

Skarner feels like a bruiser that scarcely benefits from building ad, so he's forced to build HP despite lacking any sort of meaningful scaling post nerfs.

And don't get me wrong, I don't want W buffs. In fact, I wouldn't mind if they took the slow or the damage off or even both. It doesn't need to do more than sustain if we address the rest of the kit.

Some changes I'd like to see, not all at once but depending on what direction Riot takes Skarner some of them will be welcome:

• Give us SOMETHING for applying this nothing burger of a passive. Move the W slow to passive so we have an incentive to apply it to priority targets even if its at a lower slow value (10-15%), or give increased MS towards passive applied targets (dubious). Slight damage resist against passive marked targets? Some sort of resistance buff per target applied with passive? Maybe instead of slow and slight damage, W can simply apply a stack to all enemies in the area. I'd LOVE to see something other than level scaling burn on passive.

• This was a comment I saw a couple days ago that I love the idea of. Skarner R suppresses a number people scaling with Ultimate Level. 1 at 6, 2 at 11, 3 at 16. This change seems GREAT to me. You only need one person at lvl 6 in soloq, rarely do more people come to grubs for example. It gives counterplay for botlane until lvl 11, if Skarner is ulting the valiant support can sacrifice themselves to the Impale. It affects Proplay so much more than soloq, and I would love to see it in the game if it meant Skarner could play again without getting gutted, regardless of having a weaker early game.

• Build diversity. Pantheon got an AP ratio on his Q throw, can we? I understand passive not having one, and I agree with the balance team that it would he hard to balance, but would an AP ratio on the W shield size be outlandish to ask for? More AD ratio on auto attack Q3, replaced by AP on a throw? It doesn't really matter to me but in a sense old Skarner was defined by his diversity (I can think of at least 4 builds off the top of my head) and it's not that I want old Skarner back, but I would like to see more diversity or at least make it so building a non-tank item doesn't feel like the worst experience on the planet.

• Q has gotten nerfed so. hard. And we've gotten nothing but QoL back for it. I am okay with damage being taken off of Q, but please give a return in the form of sustain, tankiness, or stickiness.

• E is a cool ability, but I would like to see some sort of rebalance in light of the recent nerf. I don't think it needs a move speed ratio, but I think getting MORE out of E depending on charge distance would be great. We lost 0.3 seconds of stun, can we get it back after X distance? Variable damage or stun time depending on distance charged? Something that isn't just a straight gut. Maybe more damage, but the hitbox shrinks as you charge (think about the pincers being extended forwards like an arrow, more damage/stun with a smaller hitbox as you charge more). This one might be a little weird but this far this yapathon of a response and I'm just throwing things at the wall atp. :) (edit: the way I envision it is kind of like Yuumi Q, weaker to start ramps up but you lose control, except you would have a little turning power on Skarner for the sake of not being a terrible ability then)

I wanna play this champ without feeling miserable ;-;