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Garen+Lethality has no counter play

Max the Dragon··8 votes·3,658 views

OKAY so my most recent game I was against a Garen who was building lethality. He was doing 120+dmg with a Q at level one and later on was able to just hit Q and then E for about 2 spins to kill most anyone, including our thresh. There was no counter play to him top lane nor later in the game. He literally just walks up, Q's then E for absolutely free dmg as any 90% of top laners need their abilities to do any dmg. This makes any counter play impossible because anyone he lanes against can't even fight back w/o losing 80~% of their hp in one trade off while garen loses little to none and what he does lose is just healed in 3 seconds. And the enemy laner can't even stop him from healing due to being at such a low health that walking up to garen is basically just suicide. Seeing as there is no way to show a replay of the game I can't really show you guys what happened. But there was literally nothing I could do. the only possible counters to that are Gnar and Darius is he is played right. otherwise Garen wins against every other laner just by using Q+E while building lethality. Near the time when we surrenders I had deathsdance, He q E'd me and I had about 200HP left when I ulted him, I died from deaths dance passive while inside garens shadow just from how much dmg all at once he did to me that deaths dance literally had over 200 dmg as DoT saved up after he Q then E'd me to 200 hp in less then a second. Btw this was after I had switched to Darkin Kayn.

24 Comments

Michael7023 votes

kite?

TimX24968B1 votes

or group

Big Lincoln2 votes

kite him. poke him down. play a champ who isn't spell reliant. realize that a garen who's stacking lethality isn't going to be tanky**, build armor **and then beat his face in.

Dog Butt2 votes

I've seen Garen in about 8 of my last 10 games and in every single one he been an unstoppable, untouchable nightmare of a force. I guess I will just have to start banning him every single game now.

1011001110001 votes

Just play Jayce, Gnar, Rammus even. Lethality Garen is just a squishy assassin with no real mobility. Kite and poke him and he'll just fizzle.

Max the Dragon1 votes

{quoted}

Just play Jayce, Gnar, Rammus even. Lethality Garen is just a squishy assassin with no real mobility. Kite and poke him and he'll just fizzle.

Garen has way more mobility then you realize, if he really needs to get away and has already used Q, he can hit E to just get a free PD passive and move through minions that will just block you from chasing him. And yes Jayce Gnar and good Darius are still counters to him even with that build, but otherwise there is no counter play at all. And a rammus might live throughout laning phase, but he won't ever do enough damage to actually stop Garen from just farming up with CS instead and waiting till he has his duskblade to just nuke any armour rammus has built. Add that to the fact that Garen can silence rammus and make him useless...

1011001110001 votes

Garen's mobility is a 30% MS buff with a scaling duration starting from 1.5 seconds. That's literally it.

If he activates Q, slow him. It only cleanses slows already affecting him, not slows applied after activation.

The counterplay to Lethality Garen is literally the same counterplay as regular Garen - Kite him, CC him a little bit, and laugh because he has no real gap closer or hard CC.

If he really needs to get away as Lethality Garen, he's losing lane and you have nothing to worry about. Lethality Garen is early-mid game cheese.

And the counter to Lethality is hard armor/hp stacking. Guess who does that? Rammus. Add that he can deal with the enemy ADC as well and easily survive a potential AD midlaner, and it's not just Rammus, literally any tank with decent hard CC can deal with Lethality Garen's laning phase.

You're overstating the effectiveness of one of the worst melee champions to build squishy on.

Darkdemon6532 votes

You played Kayn top, presumably had only +5 armor from runes, and started Doran's Shield.

I put absolutely no value in ranked, but I know some people do. You might, too, which is why I'm pointing it out - the Garen is gold 1 and you are bronze 3.

chipndip12 votes

You should. It's a good part of why he got stomped.

Darkdemon6531 votes

{quoted}

You should. It's a good part of why he got stomped.

I used to put a small amount value in it, but then the featured games feature came out. The shit that happened in diamond 1 and challenger was literally no different from the shit I saw in my bronze-at-the-time friend's games apart from better CSing.

chipndip11 votes

You honestly don't understand what you're talking about. If you think the action in high elo games is the same as Bronze, aside from cs'ing, then you don't get high elo games at all.

SääsMann1 votes

I am one of those filthy Garen players, here is some advice:

-Build early armor. Even if you are a champion that doesn't build a lot of tank items, a cloth armor or even some Ninja Tabis in your inventory can make a lot of difference when you want to counter lethality builds. -Never just fight Garen head-on. If you're a tank, avoid him, farm under tower and look for TP plays, if you are a more aggressive bruiser or carry champion, make sure to keep track of his cooldowns and kite his abilities. Once his E and his Q movement speed runs out, it's time to go in. Especially with Kayn you can't just expect to win early trades, use your mobility to avoid him and wait for item spikes, don't just fight him and hope for the best. -In the late game, vision is crucial. Lethality Garen can't do a lot in teamfights, he relies on you facechecking the wrong bush or catching you off-guard. If you don't make any missteps and you are careful around areas without vision, lethality Garen is next to useless.

Vekkna2 votes

Build early armor? Even non-lethality Garen shreds 50% of your total armor after his first item and has zero effect on the magic/true damage on his unavoidable ult. Building armor is gold-inefficient and mostly futile.

The thing about Garen is that he is now a pretty difficult champ to play against while also being literally the easiest champ in the game to play. If you take Annie, hide her passive, make all her abilities free, and give her 25% free mpen, you get Garen.

Darkdemon6531 votes

{quoted}

Build early armor? Even non-lethality Garen shreds 50% of your total armor after his first item and has zero effect on the magic/true damage on his unavoidable ult. Building armor is gold-inefficient and mostly futile.

The thing about Garen is that he is now a pretty difficult champ to play against while also being literally the easiest champ in the game to play. If you take Annie, hide her passive, make all her abilities free, and give her 25% free mpen, you get Garen.

The Garen he was facing didn't build Black Cleaver (it was the next item). Additionally, Garen's E takes time before it reduces armor. At levels 1, 2, and 3, for example, he has the hit with four out of the five hits before any armor is reduced. By that, only one hit will benefit from that reduction.

SääsMann1 votes

{quoted}

The Garen he was facing didn't build Black Cleaver (it was the next item). Additionally, Garen's E takes time before it reduces armor. At levels 1, 2, and 3, for example, he has the hit with four out of the five hits before any armor is reduced. By that, only one hit will benefit from that reduction.

^this The thing that makes lethality Garen so strong is the flat pen COMBINED with the percentage pen, since the flat pen applies after the percentage pen effects.

I was specifically talking about EARLY armor, so before he even finishes a Black Cleaver. When you see a Dirk in the enemy inventory and you expect it to be built into another item ( let's say a Duskblade ), the immidiate response is to buy a cloth armor in return, negating the effect of all the lethality he bought to begin with. Regarding your comment about cost efficiency, if you keep in mind that flat armor is much cheaper and easier to get than lethality and that the percentage penetration only comes into play later into the game and in sustained fights ( which again, you don't want to be in if you are up against Garen and you don't HAVE to be in if you have the kind of mobility a Kayn has ), a humble cloth armor is the best choice.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Garen's E pen combined with the Black Cleaver don't actually equate to a total of 50% armor penetration and instead shred your army for 43%, since Garen's E passive doesn't shred 25% of the total armor you have but 25% of the armor that remains after Black Cleaver has already penetrated it.

It's kinda complicated but if you look at how armor, effective HP and penetration works and then do the math, I'm pretty sure you will come to the same conclusion aswell. Some links you might want to check out if you want to learn more about it: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Armor_penetration

Max the Dragon1 votes

{quoted}

The Garen he was facing didn't build Black Cleaver (it was the next item). Additionally, Garen's E takes time before it reduces armor. At levels 1, 2, and 3, for example, he has the hit with four out of the five hits before any armor is reduced. By that, only one hit will benefit from that reduction.

you do realize that Garen spins increases in number based off HIS level not the level of the skill right? you can literally have E at level one for 90% of the game and still get the 10 or w/e amount of spins off when you use it which means he's still getting a good 3-4 spins in with the full armour pen from his level one E

Critmaster Garen1 votes

{quoted}

Build early armor? Even non-lethality Garen shreds 50% of your total armor after his first item and has zero effect on the magic/true damage on his unavoidable ult. Building armor is gold-inefficient and mostly futile.

The thing about Garen is that he is now a pretty difficult champ to play against while also being literally the easiest champ in the game to play. If you take Annie, hide her passive, make all her abilities free, and give her 25% free mpen, you get Garen.

hes not the easiest champion in the game to play anymore.

maybe to pick up. but not to play optimal.

lol. have you read his tooltips lately? with all the small mechanics theyve added, there is actually a lot of stuff to keep track of in his kit by now.

the timing of the slow cleanse on his q, how you activate the w at the right moment to parry enemy cc/burst, how you position to get the isolation damage on the spin. how you utilize the armor shred.

his ult against non villains is one of the most difficult abilities in the game to utilize to full effect due to its dependence on enemy missing health and mr. unless you want to ult too early, or too late by the point you could have killed your opponent without ulting and essentially wasted the ability.

just courious why people still think garen is any easier to play like, lets say Amumu Pantheon Jax

just because these champions have mana doesnt make them actually more difficult to play. there are a lot of other champions with simplistic kits.

Rockm Sockm1 votes

They keep buffing champions that don't need buffs for Lcs reasons.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Rockm Sockm,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=82BEz0Xh,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2017-07-19T18:52:26.844+0000)

They keep buffing champions that don't need buffs for Lcs reasons.

ya man. garen has had such LCS presence in the past. sheesh, he was just out of meta in pro play, why do they buff him right back?

Mig891 votes

lol I agree the buff some champs for no good reason but rockm sockm's point was way off the mark. I'd be afraid of garen as a champ if his numbers were buffed to be LCS viable

Critmaster Garen1 votes

{quoted}

lol I agree the buff some champs for no good reason but rockm sockm's point was way off the mark. I'd be afraid of garen as a champ if his numbers were buffed to be LCS viable

anything that shows up in pro play is generally overtuned in some way. even if its just initiates with 0 counterplay like gragas flash body slam combo.

so ye, i wouldnt want to see garen in pro play due to following nerfs.

King of Mongoose1 votes

item 3022

Max the Dragon1 votes

file:///C:/Users/Tomba/Documents/League%20of%20Legends/Highlights/7-14_NA1-2552241023_03.webm heres a highlight I took of lethality Garen with no black cleaver, just Duskblade and IE as his only two full items.

and heres the match itself at end game where he still doesnt have anything but Duskblade IE and a phage with Dorans and boots.

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2552241023/35552301?tab=overview

now go and tell me whats not unbalanced about that.

Max the Dragon1 votes

And to the people who think those added mechanics make garen a little harder, they really dont, you still use W at the exact same time you always have, the instant before or after you engage or get hit with CC, his E positioning takes little to no skill as minions won't follow him because it doesn't proc their aggro, and his ult tbh is easier to use then people realize, you dont always have to get the kill with it, I have used it to level someone down to like 1-2 hits which actually won me the fight rather than waiting and trying to get the execute, executes can be used as dmg turn around sometimes to letting you win a fight you otherwise would have lost w/o using it early. And his Q has always gotten rid of Slows the way it does now, instant but only once, and there is not really a timing to get rid of slows with it unless the enemy has a frozen mallet or is playing Ashe or someone with a constant auto slow of some kind. And that timing part has always existed.

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