I use to know when you could start to actually fight him but now I can't for the life of me know what to do with him anymore. The only champ I can even come close to dealing with him is Renekton but then I'm just going even and waiting for him to outscale me. Any advise at all?
And yes I know he's getting the bug fix but I don't see this giving him any clear weakness other than not getting close.
Early in lane, and lategame teamfights.
As I'm sure you know Garen is pretty darn good at setting up a zone around him that cannot be entered without being forced to trade with him. He can get ahead and keep people behind by abusing his zoning power.
The thing is he is really good against champions with low zoning potential because of this. Champions who match or beat him, however, just have to play his game. Most zone heavy champions scale well with experience, which completely matches Garen's other strength that keeps him from falling off later on.
You want someone who is either very good at hit and run trades where they don't have to fully commit and have ways of escaping Garen's own damage (Irelia, Jax, Vlad, and the like) or who has enough burst early on to make Garen's usual hit and run trade strategy risky (Riven, Zed, and sometimes a well played Jayce or similar champions). You can go with someone who simply has range and CC like Lissandra or Xerath, but they have other downsides and don't really stop him, they just have an easy time going even with him without taking ganks into consideration.
As a garen main since S3 I can tell you that his early game is actually much weaker than before his rework. And he is extremely kit-able now, much more than before.
Any form of a slow, root, or stun absolutely shits on garen in team fights. he is easily kited and/or peeled. I really don't see why people are banning and complaining about him, they made his early game weaker in exchange for late game potential. The only difference is, more people want to play him cause he got reworked. Most supports should easily be able to peel garen off any one by them selves, allowing the rest of there team to focus on who they need to or to focus on him if need be. He is also very easy to gank, as he has no gap closer and a very short MS buff. Junglers should now this and camp him in the early game, completely shutting him down and making him useless in the mid/late game.
In lane or in game?
In lane, Garen is weak to consistent harass. The likes of Vladimir and other AP tops can constantly throw at him, shutting down his passive and forcing him into lackluster build paths just to stay alive.
In game, Garen is weak to a combination of DPS and CC. As a tanky DPS, his weakness is primarily to consistent damage that outpaces his health pool, and due to Garen's limited mobility, hard CC is usually more than enough for an APC or ADC to simply tear through him. Do NOT use Assassins or Burst Mages unless exceedingly fed.
My buddy plays Gangplank at a very good level, he leaves Garen open every time, whenever he has met a Garen in top, he has destroyed him. In my opinion Garen needs a champion that gets some sort of armor penetration, naturaly, like gp barels do
Have u tried pantheon against him?
When he gets behind.
Basically up until level 6 he really shouldn't have kill pressure. Even at 6 he cannot fully combo you, he needs levels for his spin to actually help him win.
Garen is weak as hell early game now. Just dont eat his full isolated spin and he does jackshit.
