Garen sucks at being a beginner champion
An ideal beginner champion would be an introduction to basic mechanics of League and help them get an understanding so that they can translate it to other champions. But what does Garen teach you?
Does he teach new players how to farm and last hit? No, Nasus does that, and his reward for it is far more visible than Garen passively gaining resists. Does he teach new players resource management? No, he doesn't have a resource. Does he give players some simple skillshots to practice? No, he doesn't have any influence beyond melee range. Does he teach you how to position for high damage, or how to kite as melee? Not really; E does more damage to isolated targets, but that will almost never happen until laning phase ends. Darius does 'conditionally higher damage' much better and in a way that new players can clearly understand and consciously strive for; hell, even Illaoi does it better, with her soul-pull mechanics and positioning for double-hits. He can't even teach newbies about the usefulness of attack resets on fighters, because his is so much drastically slower than his normal AAs that it can be easily interrupted for every second until the attack actually connects to someone. His passive doesn't teach you anything; there is no gameplay to it beyond 'avoid interaction, heal up.' Juggernauts with missing HP heals in combat will teach you about risk assessment in fights far better than Garen does for the majority of the game. Even Volibear does it better with his regen passive.
Garen is so fundamentally lacking, so completely simplistic and minimalist in design, that he is a piss poor recommendation for beginner players and will not help them to learn anything. He's just a thoughtless, spinning bullet sponge with a kit that is too barebones to be acceptable with Riot's new gameplay direction. Is he fun? Yeah, he is. Is he good for new players? Not at all.
RIOT, you need to accept that this kit is dated, and if he's meant to be babby's first juggernaut, he needs huge changes.
