Thoughts on Garen

I was thinking about Garen, and he is one of my favorite champions. However, he is just boring to play. He is highly predictable and easily countered, due to his cut and paste combo. What I feel makes Garen unique is his innate sustain / tankiness, the spin to win, and his execute. His identity is that of a tanky aoe team fighter with gap closer and execute. Now, Garen's Decisive Strike (Q) is his gap closer, and this is the part of his kit that I dislike. This ability is highly telegraphed, because Garen is easily blocked by minions. An experienced opponent knows this, and will recognize if Garen is attempting to use the ability. The ability is also single target, no counterplay. The change(s) I suggest would give Garen a higher skill ceiling, fix his current problems, and give him a more solid core identity.

Taking away Garen's gap closer, I think, would create more problems than it would solve. What I would like to see is a short ranged, skill shot based dash that either interacts with walls as a form of bonus damage, or does not allow him to pass through walls. The dash would either push aside minions or allow him to ignore collision. Following the dash, there would be a cleave-like ability that is similar to cone abilities that would damage all champions in range. However, having an aoe silence is extremely oppressive, especially for someone who deals damage like Garen. I know that Riot has begun changing who has a silence to allow more counterplay. To make up for the lack of his silence, Garen would receive another form of crowd control. If champions are at the end of his cleave, they are knocked back a short distance and take extra damage. If the champions are closer, they are instead stunned for an even shorter amount of time and do not take extra damage.

These changes would easily fix the problems that Garen currently has, and he would become extremely fun to play.

EDIT:

If you have a different opinion about Garen, please express it.