Can we please buff Garen's Ult?

Matezoide·Jan 3, 2015·40 votes·3,371 views

Compare his ult to Riven's.

Garen's is single target, melee range with a long cast time that does not scale. It is good at killig tanks. Seriously, how many times have you barely missed out a kill that Riven would get?

Riven's is AoE, boosts her AD and range for 15 seconds with a short cast time. Hás a much easier time at killing her targets.

Garen's CD: 160/120/80

Garen's CD with 30% CDR: 112/84/56

Riven's CD: 110/80/50

Even with 30% CDR, Garen's still has a higher cooldown, while dealing less damage on less range and providing zero benefits outside of the execute.

Ok, she is supposed to deal more damage (Though Riot qualifies both as Fighters), but why the fuck does it matter? How can one ult completely out-class the other in every single thing that is not "Kil this 1000 HP tank"?

They are execute Ultimates that are supposed to achieve a similar effect, but one of them is hilariously out-classed.

Nidalee's Cougar Q out-damages it lol

I am not even mentioning Jinx, Darius, Cho, etc. Why is this allowed?

79 Comments

redniwediSJan 3, 201520 votes

Riven is a Fighter/Assassin, where as Garen is a Fighter/Tank (A.K.A. Bruiser). Comparing these two is quite literally like comparing apples to oranges. Sure they are both fruit, but so what? There's not many similarities after that.

If you want to compare champions you have to look at their kits as a whole, not individual skills. Certain skill are allowed to be stronger or weaker than the skills of other champions because of the strength of their other skills.

Garen has a built in, temporary tenacity damage reduction ability that passively raises his armor and MR, with a MS boost slow removal skill that has a fairly long silence attached. He can also pass through minions while dealing AoE damage that arguably scales better with levels than items, allowing for easy defensive itemization. On top of all this his passive scales into full beast mode at level 16, allowing him to heal from 1 to full health in 30-40 seconds, depending on items.

This is a rather strong kit by itself, and if he is placed against a full AD or low CC team he can reach the point of solo carrying a game, depending on his player's skill level. This is the context you need to use when looking at his ultimate, rather than using Riven or some other champion as context. A buff to Garen's ult may make it closer in power to Riven's ult, sure, but what does it do to his overall power?

If you look at the wrong things when talking about balance you could end up overshooting and creating an oppressive champion, rather than a better balanced one.

Chaotic ReksJan 3, 20154 votes

Yet Darius can tank for days while doing oppressive amounts of damage while having pretty much the same ult as Garen but dealing true damage with a reset. Though Darius has less mobility and tankiness, he makes up for it with damage that's very difficult to build against (AD from auto's and abilities, magic damage from bleed)

redniwediSJan 3, 201510 votes

Darius is scheduled for a rework due to his naturally oppressive kit, where Garen is not.

AkesgerothJan 4, 20157 votes

Darius is scheduled for a rework because people run into him face first and die. It's why Morde has been nerfed into a joke. Meanwhile, champions like Akali, Irelia and Riven are left to dominate their lanes and scale into late game monsters because they're not as efficient at killing idiots early on.

Riot needs to take a tip from Icefrog and stop balancing around morons.

AkesgerothJan 4, 20152 votes

Darius is nowhere near as tanky as Garen. This isn't even debatable, Garen has better base tanking stats, gets +20% to armor and MR for free as soon as he puts a point in W AND he can activate his W to get even greater damage reduction, never mind his passive.

Chaotic ReksJan 4, 20151 votes

Yet all that armor doesn't matter cause Darius has passive armor pen and true damage

AkesgerothJan 4, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=NyX Reks,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6TJLJabQ,comment-id=0000000000020000,timestamp=2015-01-04T18:40:53.970+0000)

Garen is not tanky because Darius can ignore armor

That's not how logic works.

MatezoideJan 4, 20151 votes

I see your point. The biggest issue for me, really, is how Garen's Ult still has a higher CD even with 30% CDR. I fully understand that Riven's is stronger, and thats not uncommon. The issue is the ridiculous CD, mostly.

Champion SkinJan 4, 20151 votes

Garen is pretty much as much of a tank as Mundo is... if they don't deal enough damage they can be ignored as their CC isn't all that great.. so pretty much they tank by dealing damage and if they don't deal damage you can just ignore them And Garen's damage late game is almost non-existent if he doesn't actually build damage (Don't build full tank on Garen unless the enemy team focuses you for some reason that is)

And Garen passive will heal him to full hp in 50 seconds if he is at 1 hp well it will be 54 if you count the 4 seconds it will take before his passive kicks in and at that point it might be better to just back and homeguard your way back if you have homeguard that is (which you possibly have at level 16 or higher) And there is also the whole thing about it doing nothing in combat

Brenticus12Jan 4, 20151 votes

I still enjoy playing Garen wih Yomuu's, running innwih Q, silencing the dumbfuck who got in range then E for the crits. You're still going to be tanky because evem if you want more damage you're really only going to need an IE after that.

ErijianJan 4, 20151 votes

{quoted} Garen has a built in, temporary tenacity damage reduction ability that passively raises his armor and MR, with a MS boost slow removal skill that has a fairly long silence attached. He can also pass through minions while dealing AoE damage that arguably scales better with levels than items, allowing for easy defensive itemization. On top of all this his passive scales into full beast mode at level 16, allowing him to heal from 1 to full health in 30-40 seconds, depending on items.

Courage has a painful cooldown time, but yes it is extremely powerful if used at the right times. Courage was nerfed in the bonus stats it provides in Season 3, causing Garen to take a hit as he had relatively low Armor per level. Though he only lost around 14 Armor and 13 Magic Resist, it changed how he gets to build immensely.
He removes one slow, and then proceeds to be hit by another slow. He loses the Speed Boost and the mobility is wasted. Using it at the right time can make a huge difference, but with the amount of CC in the game now Garen has a harder time getting to anything even if he can tank a couple shots in the process.
He moves 20% slower when going through units, with his low mobility spinning through things screws him over more often than not. They gimped it as it was oppressive during the days of Sunfire stacking as he dealt a huge amount of hybrid damage without being able to be peeled off. (Used to have Slow Resistance/Immunity on Judgment)
Somewhat. It scales well without offense only on Champions that build zero defense, since Judgment is a DoT each individual tick has its damage reduced by their armor. They buffed its average DPS output for mid-game fights but nerfed the Early-Game and Late-Game, Full-Build damage of it drastically.
Yeah, the Passive is pretty strong now. Only comes into usefulness if the game lasts that long, though, which Garen isn't supposed to want as he scales poorly into the Late Game, even more poorly than he used to due to the nerfs he's received over the time. (Riot's trying to change that I think.)

He's outdated and they beat his kit to death with the nerf bat. I don't want huge buffs or changes on him by any means as it's easy for a Champion with his kit to become extremely oppressive, but at the least his Cooldown on his Ultimate at Rank 1 is severely unjustified. I don't mind the other timers that much.

Kowe The EwokJan 3, 20154 votes

Garen's ultimate is outdated. The fact that it deals magic damage, a completely unviable choice for Garen, speaks by itself.

It's damage is hilariously low. I've continiously seen enemies survive an ult with 1/4th or even less health (meanwhile Syndra deals 75% against a full health target...)

Garen's ultimate needs to be physical or true damage. That will most likely not be enough though.

redniwediSJan 3, 20155 votes

How is the damage type a choice? It's not like it scales with AP or anything, it simply does magic damage.

Joe DreddJan 3, 20152 votes

Actually, his ult doing magic instead of physical damage is great for garen, because the enemy can't itemize against it.

Kowe The EwokJan 3, 20155 votes

I don't know why people keep saying it. It's bullsh1t (no offense to you).

That logic ONLY applies in a 1v1 situation.

there a team, you have a mage, a support and possibly even a carry (Ez / Corki) who also deals magic damage. Your opponent will buy MR. "Ow, sh1t it's a Garen! Everybody - forget about Syndra - stack ARMOR!"

Your opponent needs nothing more than a GA on his carry and your ult suddenly looses 44~55 % of it's damage, without anythign you can really doa gainst it.

If it was AD you could at leats build an item that actually makes sense on you to amplify it.

Joe DreddJan 4, 20152 votes

That logic applies in all situations. Magic damage is much harder to itemize against than physical damage. If it was physical, even if Garen was able to amplify it with Armor Pen, it would do a lot less damage because

Everyone (except Thresh, i think) has better scalings for armor, meaning it will innately do less damage than if it was magic.
Nothing is stopping you from buying a void staff (may i introduce you to our lord and savior dfgaren) Also, GA wouldn't reduce it's damage by 50%. It would, if it was the only item bought on a ranged champion, cause them to take 60% of the damage, with 15-20% of the reduction coming from innate mr. GA would only decrease the damage by 20%

Kowe The EwokJan 4, 20151 votes

I you're starting to name special cases (Thresh) one might as well with Galio. Fact is, you won't - or shouldn't be using your ultimate on tanks anyways.

Champion SkinJan 4, 20151 votes

Actually each point of MR/Armor makes your effective hp 1% higher so if you get 50 MR more the enemy needs to deal 50 extra damage for each 100 hp you have

If we say Garen ults someone with 700 hp and they have bought a Guardian Angle Garen ult needs to deal 350 extra damage or about 50% more damage (this is if the target has 0 MR) then against a target with no Guardian Angle

StephenizgodJan 3, 20154 votes

I say this in every post about Garen and i will keep saying it until it is fixed.

Garen's Demacian Justice should be based off of his missing health.

This fits more to his build and the theme of the ultimate. It makes building straight tank more viable as it gets stronger late game and he can be more reliable late game as his damage will actually be something to be wary of. It also fits the justice theme as Garen is dealing justice out to those who have harmed him. Not to mention it wouldn't require us to do a bunch of quick math to see who it will actually kill, it can just tell us how much it will do at any given time. There will be balance issues of course as this could get too strong, but i doubt it will be too much of a problem.

Also i think its funny you compare Garen and Riven, with Riven's ult being stronger, yet Garen destroys Riven in lane lol. Not criticizing you its just something i noticed and thought was funny, its obviously not Garen's ult that allows him to wreck her.

Champion SkinJan 4, 20151 votes

Well Garen is a lane bully kind of.. as he has pretty good base damages and his scaling isn't all that great (His ult doesn't even have a scaling pretty much) And silence screws Riven pretty hard

The Red WardenJan 4, 20154 votes

May I tell you the legend of DFGaren

Garen is secretly a wizard Garen + item 3128 = instant death for anyone under 50% (except Galio cause Galio )

Look up "the legend of DFG Garen" and you will learn of the true Ion cannon

TheKingDodoJan 4, 20151 votes

it's actually 40% or 1000 hp for anyone with over 2200 hp.

GloriousKaiserJan 4, 20151 votes

Back to GD, envoy of Ouroborus.

TwoDJan 4, 20154 votes

His Ult should burst out a huge circular AOE that stuns or slows enemies all around the target

Rustling BushJan 3, 20153 votes

heard somewhere that making garen's ult ad would nerf it.

Kowe The EwokJan 3, 20152 votes

Actually it depends on how his enemies build and wether he builds Last Whisper. if garen builds last Whisper (which eh always should do), changing his ultimate to physical damage would be a significant improvement for it.

killd0zerJan 3, 20153 votes

Where does Garen fit in a LW into his build? It's a late game fantasy item for him because he wants 1 major damage item at most before going tanky.

Kowe The EwokJan 3, 20152 votes

Wrong. It's an item which works very well at all stages of the game when combined with Arpen runes and a Brutalizer. AD carries don't build it because they need Attackspeed more. Garen however does make poor use of attackspeed - but great use of arpen and CDR.

redniwediSJan 3, 20157 votes

LW isn't bad on Garen, and would be a better item if his ult did physical damage, but as is Black Cleaver is arguably better. It provides team wide armor pen, gives a small amount of health, and gives Garen some much needed CDR.

I'll always get LW as a last item if I'm tanky enough already, but I would never replace Black Cleaver with it under current conditions.

soulbanana8Jan 4, 20151 votes

Making it AD would be a nerf because people would go DFG for their offensive item and one-shot people with DFG-ult. It's also a nerf because you want to build armor against Garen, not MR. The fact that his execute is magic damage means that you still have to be on your toes.

Joe DreddJan 3, 20153 votes

Garen is oppressive when good. I'd rather him be where he is, just average.

The TrentJan 3, 20152 votes

Not even going to read what ever this guy is talking about but here is my short answer: HELL FKING NO MOST ANNOYING PIECE OF SHIT TOP LANER I CAN DEAL WITH FKING TEEMO BUT NOT HIM Plus Garens are always cocky and rude in all chat

LittleBlastJan 3, 20152 votes

I think the award for most annoying top goes to Pantheon Not garen...

supes the lostJan 4, 20151 votes

what about Teemo , for most auto attacking champs, he's hell on earth to deal with.

LittleBlastJan 4, 20151 votes

So is pantheon

OJ191Jan 4, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Compare his ult to Riven's.

This is entirely the wrong thing to do, because the relevancy is with their entire kits.

I have a better idea, give Garen Riven's ult and tell me how it would NOT be broken. Then realise that garen's ult is worse for a reason. Could it do with some buffs? Probably. Does it need to be on par with Riven? Hell no!

[{quoted}](name=i am theboxghost,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6TJLJabQ,comment-id=000f,timestamp=2015-01-04T02:47:10.445+0000)

There's a big difference between a targeted ability ult and a projectile. Once you are in range, Garen's ult cannot miss. I don't see the logic in it doing the same amount of damage as an ult that has to be aimed and can be easily dodged by movement abilities or flashing. The issue is counterplay, and garen's ult has none if he's in range, especially since he has a silence in his kit.

Ahahahahahaha can be dodged. Right. Except in 90% of situations where a riven needed ult to kill you, it's BECAUSE you dashed/flashed away from her to survive the rest of her kit, and you no longer have something to dodge it with. The other 10% of the time she needs wind slash because it's a close fight, except it still can't be dodged because she has two hard CC.

foristJan 4, 20151 votes

Ahahahahahaha can be dodged. Right. Except in 90% of situations where a riven needed ult to kill you, it's BECAUSE you dashed/flashed away from her to survive the rest of her kit, and you no longer have something to dodge it with. The other 10% of the time she needs wind slash because it's a close fight, except it still can't be dodged because she has two hard CC.

Not really the point. This akin to arguing that syndra's stun is stronger than talon's silence was, and we all know who got the nerf. I agree with you, but riot obviously does not. They feel that counterplay is defined by an ability that can be avoided, not by the probability of avoiding it. Yes you may only be able to dodge riven's windslash 90% of the time (which i completely disagree with, mind you), but 90% is still less than the 100% accuracy garen's ult affords. That is the reason garen's ult should not be on par with riven's.

OJ191Jan 4, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=i am theboxghost,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=6TJLJabQ,comment-id=00100000,timestamp=2015-01-04T03:10:36.694+0000)

Not really the point. This akin to arguing that syndra's stun is stronger than talon's silence was, and we all know who got the nerf. I agree with you, but riot obviously does not. They feel that counterplay is defined by an ability that can be avoided, not by the probability of avoiding it. Yes you may only be able to dodge riven's windslash 90% of the time (which i completely disagree with, mind you), but 90% is still less than the 100% accuracy garen's ult affords. That is the reason garen's ult should not be on par with riven's.

No I'm saying you can dodge it 0% of the time because if you are in melee range she can stun/knock up then wind slash, and if you aren't well... the only way you are no longer in melee range is because you used your escape/flash... which means you can no longer use it to dodge wind slash.

foristJan 4, 20151 votes

Done it before, and if a gold nub can do it so can others. There's always been counterplay to a riven stun. I've dodged this "0% combo" with many different champs, hell I've even outplayed a riven ult with twisted fate.

supes the lostJan 4, 20151 votes

It's a skillshot, there's always the chance the enemy Riven can make a mistake, and throw it in the completely wrong direction, or threw it just barely missing you because it's a cone, there are chances for mechanical error on the summoners part, while Garen gets to drop an ult on your head with 0 chance of missing (minus him failing to get into range).

GloriousKaiserJan 4, 20151 votes

You know, I think people are willing to sacrifice some of Garen's simplicity for mechanical buffs. For an ult like his? EASY PRICE to sacrifice point n' click for a change.

Champion SkinJan 4, 20151 votes

Even if you can doge the windslash you can't really dodge the damage increase the 20% increase in AD (and there is also the increase in AoE of her Q and W)

JusticePauldronsJan 4, 20151 votes

I agree it needs a buff. Honestly he has the worst execute in the game.

Riven: Lower cooldown, ranged, aoe.

Darius: Lower cooldown, True Damage, resets

Jinx: Map range, aoe, does 5% less health scaling but HAS AN AD RATIO

So why does Garen get the shaft? Honestly there are plenty of ways to fix his ultimate into being a good execute and none of them are being done. The simplest answer is just to give it a bonus ad ratio, this would keep it weaker in the early game while having it scale better into the late. Giving it an AD ratio might actually make it feel like an ultimate. Maybe give it a chance to crit to promote him building some crit chance? Or make it so it has a leona like effect where there is an aoe slow around the target.

DownfallJan 4, 20151 votes

They need to reclassify Garen as a tank. His passive and his w are built around it, and his ult doesnt scale. his Q and E scale off of AD and then Crit chance, and when was the last time you saw a fighter build crit?

Champion SkinJan 4, 20151 votes

Garen is a fighter not a tank... A tank has low damage and generally builds mostly or only defensive items and relies on their CC (+ CDR) to remain a threat and Garen doesn't really have good enough CC to enable him to build and play like a tank

DownfallJan 4, 20152 votes

But honestly thats the only option i see for him right now, abuse the passive and soak up harass for your team.

Champion SkinJan 4, 20151 votes

Sounds almost like a worse version of braum though more durable

Knight DevoutJan 4, 20151 votes

I'dd a crit interaction, like on E, but, instead of being random, it would be a % damage increase based on crit chance. Like, 20% crit adds 20% extra damage.