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Can't believe Garen is in this state..

KoalaDoll·11/28/2016, 10:49:43 PM·11 votes·1,429 views

As a Garen main, I honestly feel like Garen should get some sort of REAL rework, on the scopes of the newer class updates (assassins, mages etc.). His kit is outdated and dull, and his play style is too telegraphed and linear. Juggernaut update was too small (touched only 4 champions while recent assassin one touched like 8, and on a much larger scope) and felt kinda lazy.. Darius was the only one who benefited from it, mord got tossed around the lanes until they just gave up on him, and they decided that skarner is actually a tank.. LMAO.. Mean while all other juggernauts were just left out in the cold..

Meanwhile, Garen's kit has barely no synergies, and being kept boring, easy to counter and weak for reasons that aren't exactly clear to me..

  • P - is negligible at ALL stages of the game (range creep all over the place).Doesn't synergises AT ALL with the rest of his kit.

  • Q - offers very minor stats and coutered super easily (almost every champion has a slow these days, or even better CC).

  • W - got gutted, turned into hidden stats that are barely felt ("Oh no (~Cried the ADCs of the rift ) Garen's shoulers turned silver and he yelled "DEMACIA", better to just... continue delete him in 3 or 4 shots anyway Vayne Jhin" )

  • E - overloaded with gimicks.. so much power is being kept away from it for the sake to let it crit, the isolated damage and the reduced CD mechanic, that honestly as a juggernaut garen player, I NEVER utilise (at least out side of lane). The upcoming armor shredding is a nice buff but it just worsens the problem..

  • R - LMAO why is this still magic damage? Why does Fiora get to have the %max hp true damage but much more gracefully implanted, and with scalings? Why is the true damage only there so garen can be even more of a Darius wannabe?

  • Stats - Just came back from the wiki cause writing these lines really worked me up, Darius has much better scaling in every aspect that matters to both (armor, MR, hp, hp scl, ad) EVEN TAKING GAREN'S W INTO ACCOUNT.

Ummm, rito plz?

Here's what I'm suggesting: If Darius is the "Build tanky, while have Innate High-damage" juggernaut (yeah they all do I get it but darius is the most tank builder of the bunch), Garen should be the "Build damage,Have high innate tankiness" juggernaut. A. It would play really well with their thematics, being opposites and rivals. B. Would differentiate garen amongst juggernauts for having abnormal build paths. C. Could validate crit garen as a/the meta build. D. Might not need too much changes to his kit and play style.

What I was thinking was give him (and bear with me on this) INFINITE stacking on his W (or at the very least, a much higher cap), and maybe a new passive of some sort.. This way Garen can become a late game monstrosity, building pure damage while still being tanky..

Just some thoughts.. Sorry for any bad english! DEMACIA! Garen

8 Comments

Lıttle Boy11/29/2016, 4:27:34 PM3 votes

I used to main Garen and I've just kinda grew to accept it even though I don't want to. I've seen riot pay more attention to more popular champions aside from champions with a lower play rate like Galio, Urgot, or even Aatrox who I personally never see in games. Although Galio is only now just getting an update I can point it that it's been a looong time since I've seen him played at all. It's only just now they're doing this.

To this very day I wait for Garen to get a better ultimate that doesn't rely on "Magic Damage". I hated it so much because it always proved useless, everytime I tried to execute an enemy champion at 10% health they would still survive no matter what. It didn't matter whether or not they had 3000-4000HP they would survive with the tiniest sliver of health. I always had to take ignite just to finish the job.

Hexdrinker can also be a problem against Garen's ultimate which is supposed to be an "Execution" skill. This single auto-proc item can negate all of the damage you're going to do with the ultimate unless they're the villain in which the case would be if they have "Heal" then it would also be useless.

QSS had the nerf being Zed's ultimate would be canceled by it but they removed that in a patch. Whereas Hexdrinker soaks up ALL of the damage Garen's ult dishes out regardless of the target's missing health.

Even from before Garen's juggernaut rework I still wait to this very day to get a proper ultimate. Darius still has his true damage and it just doesn't make sense not to make Garen's ult true damage because it doesn't reset.

My only gripe is his Ultimate since he's been like that for so long already. Although I do see the problems with his PQWE with more and more champions being made.

Twitch Chat11/29/2016, 6:50:44 PM3 votes

Garen just needs his early game spin to not be completely useless. The armor shred is nice but this thing does something like 190 damage for staying on top of someone for 3 seconds come on now.

jadelink11/29/2016, 6:20:47 AM3 votes

Agreed, removing the crit on spin takes away silly powers only used by smurfs abusing poor newbies.

I don't think the armour strip he is being given counters his main 2 problems. Firstly, he loses lane hard to ranged poke, or to solid melee champs, and that's most of top lane. The passive, in its current state, is never used vs ranged people who have a clue, unless you want to get zoned.

Second, he is still just going to get slowed and kited, or cc'd and kited, at any decent level outside of lane. Yes, you can get out of lane and stomp with him in bronze, but that's due to the inability of enemies to kite, and the awful lack of cc prevalent in low elo teams.

Having his Q make him immune to slows, or shrug off the next cc or in some other way buffed, would deal with his issues, wheras the armour strip just makes him even more powerful spinning on the enemy frontline late game, which isn't what he needed at all, he needs a way to finish lane phase without feeding or being chronically behind in 80% of matchups, and a way to stay relevent in the face of kiters.

Having a shield on q might also do it in lane phase, as it would allow him to CS without being poked too hard, but that might push his tankyness to overkill levels. Immunity to slows for Q's duration sounds a better deal, though most top laners will still dumpster him if well played.

Papa Slothy11/29/2016, 12:30:08 AM2 votes

Q - offers very minor stats and coutered super easily (almost every champion has a slow these days, or even better CC)

I think his q should just make him unslowable for the speedup duration

Maple Crusader11/28/2016, 10:56:48 PM2 votes

I agree. His passive has to get changed. His passive health regeneration's really meh because it forces him to play passively. He has no access to his passive during combat. Garen's E is pretty bad at the moment. It's base damage is meh and it's an aoe spell that does more damage against a single target? It's very rare when Garen will be able to hit an enemy champ who's completely alone with his E. I think he needs a real gap-closer/better Q (breaks free from first CC that hits him?)

KoalaDoll11/29/2016, 8:34:00 AM1 votes

Honestly as much as i'd love seeing these Q changes, I think it'd never happen, because it goes againts riot's philosophy of juggernauts. Pretty sure they're letting the other ones exist in their current state because it's core to their identity as champion (Shyvanna is a juggernaut with uninterupttable long dash? Olaf is immune to CC and has MS towards champions?). So theyre unlikely to add more mobility creep to juggernauts than there already has.. Thats why I think his P and W needs attention the most..

ShinkoMinori11/28/2016, 10:52:24 PM1 votes

Too long didnt read

Tychusfindlay91911/29/2016, 5:35:32 PM1 votes

If Riot does go this route. he should have smaller scalings or bases, or the nature at which his W scales infinitely is dampened so as to not become too absurd.

The correct ratios in this hypothetical garen change would make it so that garen wants to build a bunch of hybrid tanky-damage items: item 3053 item 3748 item 3071 and maybe one pure damage item (and one or two item slots reserved for traditional tank items) instead of just cleaver full tank. Building healthy and letting his W beef him up a little with the needed resistances can turn him into that traditional stat check juggernaut.

Carefully ensuring that his bases and scalings on his damage aren't too high will help to ensure that such stat checking doesn't get too out of hand and opens room for counters to his kit to still outplay him.