Garen is so "unfun" to play against

evilswitchkix·Sep 3, 2015·10 votes·4,540 views

Passive Regen, Movement Speed, Silence, Tank, DPS Crit spell, Massive true dmg point and click ultimate, and now he does additional true dmg to his enemies. He makes top lane stale and doesn't have any clear weakness. He's literally good against every type of champ, squishy or tank since he can pummel and retreat and out sustain most anyone. Of course he received some debuffs this patch (-5 move speed... look out now!). IMO this champion needs to be reworked entirely from the ground up to become fun to play against again.

57 Comments

BharhashSep 3, 20155 votes

Gnar Jayce Quinn Any mobile champ

Literally all of Garen's old weaknesses are preserved. In fact, they're magnified now; silence duration down, MS boost down, base MS down, no bonus tenacity. CC. Kite.

And for the love of GOD - his ult deals true damage AGAINST THE VILLAIN ONLY!!! Read the MOTHER F****ING PATCH NOTES! At least Garen's ult doesn't have a reset ( Darius Lookin' at you, buddy )

You literally have no ground to stand on to try and say Garen needs a rework.

evilswitchkixSep 3, 20151 votes

Again, this topic is about a champion not being fun to play against. Please stick to the topic or join your trolling buddy above. We are not talking about win rates or debuffing an OP champion. Please "read the mother fucking" thread topic.

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20155 votes

{quoted}

Again, this topic is about a champion not being fun to play against. Please stick to the topic or join your trolling buddy above. We are not talking about win rates or debuffing an OP champion. Please "read the mother fucking" thread topic.

whats fun to play against and what not is subjective.

i bet if you played against a gnar that game you would complain against him right now. shen has shit laning. the problem isnt garen, its with shen.

{quoted}

Why anyone is defending garen is beyond me. While no weaknesses isn't quite true, him dealing 1k aoe damage while nuking the enemy villian for 1.5k true damage with a black cleaver is far from ok

all o the juggernaut champs are broken.

so what youre saying is we should also nerf adc, because theyre nuking people with damage values like these with 3 auto attacks ion 2 seconds.

luckmallorySep 3, 20155 votes

Just because you can't beat him in lane doesn't make him unfun.

Unfun is nasus or Shen. That is an unfun lane

I think the word you are looking for is annoying. Which plenty of other champs are in lane Darius Fizz Gnar Irelia Jayce Renekton Rengar Riven Tryndamere Volibear MonkeyKing XinZhao are all champs that are annoying and very strong in the laning phase. They have a lot of strengths that allow them to dominate at this time. It makes them annoying, not stale

While garen needs some nerfs and will most likely get them in the next patch, he isn't stale. He isn't even completely broken, he is just extremely strong and does two jobs better than most champions do one. He can tank more than most tanks while dealing more damage than most fighters. That is the issue, they need to solidify his identity. I think they should remove his W active and replace it with tenacity and something else.

JamareeSep 3, 20154 votes

Someone didn't play a ranged champion.

evilswitchkixSep 3, 20151 votes

This thread is not about what I did or did not do vs Garen, this is about a champion not being fun to play against. Please stick to the topic or find yourself trolling another thread.

JamareeSep 3, 20153 votes

{quoted}

This thread is not about what I did or did not do vs Garen, this is about a champion not being fun to play against. Please stick to the topic or find yourself trolling another thread.

I personally have fun against Garen because I pick ranged champions against him and kite him all day. It is probably why I just don't get it, I truly don't get all this Garen QQ. I never had problems with him, still don't, the exact same concept of kiting him hasn't changed, the only difference is I have to be a bit more careful because of his slightly higher range. Hell, if anything, he is even more susceptible to being kited since his W doesn't have tenacity anymore. People have been whining since season 2 on why Garen was bad. "Omg, he is bad, he is good during laning but then he leaves lane and does nothing." So they made him actually do damage while nerfing his tankiness, his tenacity, and his early game Just because you don't have fun, doesn't mean everyone doesn't.

disregardableSep 3, 20151 votes

I did. I played Lucian. He built item 3009 item 3742 , outkited me, and killed me. With The Culling and all of my abilities, I took out about 40% of his health.

JamareeSep 3, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Very Toxic Jinx,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EU6LIucF,comment-id=00000001,timestamp=2015-09-03T15:51:33.277+0000)

I did. I played Lucian. He built , outkited me, and killed me. With The Culling and all of my abilities, I took out about 40% of his health.

How fed was that Garen, legit?

disregardableSep 3, 20151 votes

He was 8/5. When he killed me, he had 12.1k to my 13.3k. I even had bork.

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20153 votes

"he makes top lane stale"

you played one against him in your last 10 games. and fun fact, his laning is weaker than pre rework.

luckmallorySep 3, 20152 votes

until around level 7

BharhashSep 3, 20152 votes

I'm sorry, but trying to compare an ADC against a Juggernaught (Bruiser) in a literal stand-still fight is absurd. It just doesn't happen. Vayne rolls. Jinx chomps. Draven Draaaaaaaaavens. They're not gonna just stand there and take damage. They're gonna dodge it.

BharhashSep 3, 20152 votes

CC. Garen is more vulnerable to CC than ever before. He cannot reliable flash/dash/blink out of the way. Hit him and run.

"But he built Dead Man's Plate and Boots of Swiftness"

Well, then you'd better build around that. Frozen Mallet / Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Kite him. Gank him.

Garen is stronger now, yes. But you are blowing his power out of the water.

You wanna complain about absurd power, complain about Morde or Skarner. Garen is just about perfect where he is now.

Xx420n0sc0p3sxXSep 3, 20151 votes

Why anyone is defending garen is beyond me. While no weaknesses isn't quite true, him dealing 1k aoe damage while nuking the enemy villian for 1.5k true damage with a black cleaver is far from ok

all o the juggernaut champs are broken.

BharhashSep 3, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Why anyone is defending garen is beyond me. While no weaknesses isn't quite true, him dealing 1k aoe damage while nuking the enemy villian for 1.5k true damage with a black cleaver is far from ok

all o the juggernaut champs are broken.

Judgement doesn't deal total true damage itself against the villain, just proc's the 1% per tick. As far as his ult dealing true damage against the enemy villain, it's theoretical high number I view to be reasonable alongside the other big true damage ult in the game ( Darius . Chogath doesn't get mentioned because his is normally used against minions to build stacks, but otherwise has no additional mechanic attached to the damage.) which can get successive casts. And that's against any target. Garen's only deals true damage against the Villain. Otherwise it's still magic damage.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

Garen can auto cast it as soon sa they are low, Darius has to ramp up to it and it doesnt do as much damage. Darius ult with just a black cleaver can do a max of 847 True damage give or take depending on runes. Garen's can do up to 1500 true damage depending on the target.

BharhashSep 3, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Garen can auto cast it as soon sa they are low, Darius has to ramp up to it and it doesnt do as much damage. Darius ult with just a black cleaver can do a max of 847 True damage give or take depending on runes. Garen's can do up to 1500 true damage depending on the target.

Right, but here's (still) the kicker;

Only true damage against the Villain. Otherwise it's still magic damage.
No resets
If there's no Villain, like if you're team is winning or deadlocked going into midgame with no kills, then it's still magic damage.
To ramp up that damage, you need to be missing health. It's not just an Instant Delete Key

Yes, it can do a lot of damage. Thing is, the fundamental change here only affects TANKS. Against squishes, it's always been brutal. 525 base damage at Rank 3. If you're a squishy who only has about 2k health, he's always been able to QER 100-0 you. Tanks who get the Villain Mark are the ones who really get slammed by this change.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

I wasn't saying one is better than the other. Garen has a lot more damage in his kit then darius without their ults so Darius gets more potential power in his ult than garen

JamareeSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Garen can auto cast it as soon sa they are low, Darius has to ramp up to it and it doesnt do as much damage. Darius ult with just a black cleaver can do a max of 847 True damage give or take depending on runes. Garen's can do up to 1500 true damage depending on the target.

That isn't how comparisons work and this is why Riot doesn't take community balance into effect as much as these forums like. You can't compare two moves, say random numbers, list the pros of one move and not list it cons AND then only list the cons of another move to try to push your point across, it makes you seem scrubish.

Yeah, Garen's is instant, HOWEVER, it doesn't reset, it only does true damage on the villian, so if the support got the last kill, your damage is now the exact same it has always been which people once again complained about, and these numbers aren't even right for god's sake. To do that much damage, they would need to be the villian obviously, and on say a 3 k life target, they would need to have lost 1200, or about a third of their life.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

I wasn't really saying either of them was better, was just explaining the difference since in every single garen thread someone has to bring up Darius's ult. They have completely different kits that make up for the pros and cons in their ult. Garen does much more damage with his basic abilities while Darius relies heavily on his ult for kills. There fore more power can be put into Darius's ult. If darius had a Q that increases his MS by 30 percent and a I'm a gigantic tank for 6 seconds W im sure his ult wouldnt be the way it is.

JamareeSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I wasn't really saying either of them was better, was just explaining the difference since in every single garen thread someone has to bring up Darius's ult. They have completely different kits that make up for the pros and cons in their ult. Garen does much more damage with his basic abilities while Darius relies heavily on his ult for kills. There fore more power can be put into Darius's ult. If darius had a Q that increases his MS by 30 percent and a I'm a gigantic tank for 6 seconds W im sure his ult wouldnt be the way it is.

No one ever looks at this shit though, ever...FUCKING EVER.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

True however my point still stands. Most people should be able to understand that Garen is much much stronger without his ult so therefore Darius gets a much more powerful Ult because his basic abilities are weaker.

BharhashSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

True however my point still stands. Most people should be able to understand that Garen is much much stronger without his ult so therefore Darius gets a much more powerful Ult because his basic abilities are weaker.

Actually, thanks to Noxian Might, Darius' damage is actually probably still on par, if not greater, than Garen's.

The point I'm driving at is that Garen is not suddenly OP. Yes, he does more damage now that his E scales into late game better. But he has lost a bit for what he's gained. People are just jarred because prior to the Juggernaught work, Garen was functionally invisible since there was basically no reason to ever pick him. Now that people are seeing him, they're still in that adjusting period where they figure out what does and does not work.

Yes, with the addition of Dead Man's Plate, some of Garen's weakness is addressed, but that happens with a lot of other champions when they pick up items. And like others, Garen just makes really good use of the item, so it just seems to exacerbate his "problem".

He'll keep getting tweaks in the future, I'm sure. And I'm sure DMP will get tweaks too. But Garen is still the same spinning Demacian top he was before. People are just noticing him now.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

I never said they should nerf bat him, but he does need some tweaks. He is too strong in two different areas. Juggernauts are tanky bruisers which means they deal good damage and have good tank. Not Rammus level Tank with Riven Damage. That is the problem. My solution was to take Garen's W active away and replace it with his old tenacity and then give him something else with it like included in his passive something like on top of the stacks for every certain percent of Health Garen is missing, he gets bonus resistances. something like that

BharhashSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I never said they should nerf bat him, but he does need some tweaks. He is too strong in two different areas. Juggernauts are tanky bruisers which means they deal good damage and have good tank. Not Rammus level Tank with Riven Damage. That is the problem. My solution was to take Garen's W active away and replace it with his old tenacity and then give him something else with it like included in his passive something like on top of the stacks for every certain percent of Health Garen is missing, he gets bonus resistances. something like that

Well, if you're looking to target his tankiness, then just taking away the active is not the way to go. Since making it scale would make it too weak early on, maybe lower it to 25%. If you remove it, then his base numbers are gonna need to jump up pretty significantly as this is the source of most of his active tankiness in a fight.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

My point was he doesn't need all of that tank. Darius doesn't have crazy natural tank and neither do other fighters. The passive W already makes him tanky enough after level 6 and that new addition would make him pretty tanky late but not out of control like he is now

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

My point was he doesn't need all of that tank. Darius doesn't have crazy natural tank and neither do other fighters. The passive W already makes him tanky enough after level 6 and that new addition would make him pretty tanky late but not out of control like he is now

other fighters have innate in combat sustain. darius has the heal on his q, so has renekton, nasus sustains off the lifesteal on his passive, and his ult. or they have better synergy with lifesteal items like irelia or jax. garen doesnt. lifesteal sucks on him since he doesnt auto attack. and his only sustain mechanic is his passive out of combat which is equivalent to running to a jungle camp or creepwave to heal up after a fight while pushing out.

so yes, garen needs to be that tanky upfront since he doesnt get health return in a fight like the other dudes do. a midgame darius can easily heal 1k hp off a single q. he should hit his q multiple times during a fight. and dont get me started on how much health other champions heal off lifesteal items while fighting their opponent.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

Sustain =/= Tank

They are completely different, if you wanna make his Ult not be able to be turned off after level 16, i would be ok with that. But having sustain doesnt make you tanky and being tanky doesnt mean you have sustain. They arent related.

If riot wants to do something to give him sustain like i mentioned that would be good because sustain requires you to be in combat close up to utilize it, tank doesn't.

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Sustain =/= Tank

i disagree. sustain with enough up front tankyness makes you a lot more tanky. a lategame jax with lifesteal will be hard to take down with burst. while youre fighting him in extended trades, the health he returns from items like bork becomes more valuable with his inbuilt defensive steroids.

the same goes for darius. just imagine the 30% damage reduction on garens w as a compensation for not being able to lifesteal or otherwise sutain himself during a fight.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

If sustain = tank then Adc's are tanks

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

If sustain = tank then Adc's are tanks

ffs i never said sutain = tank.

but sustain makes you a lot more tanky vs sustained damage.

and believe it or not, but an adc with a bork and bloodthirster, i.e. crits to lifesteal off, heal and support shields is actually stupidly tanky against other forms of sustained damage. pre rework some full build adc could actually just sit in place and tank certain champs llike garen with lifesteal. theyd just out sustain any damage he could deal with his spin and kill him.

the only way to fight this was thornmail, but riot trashed the item.

{quoted}

Life steal requires you to be attacking, tank does not. Makes garen's passive be on permanently after level 16 then do what i suggested for his W. That will balance him

there is a problem with this idea. it would make him exceptionally binary. more than he already is.if his passive was turned on its head and gave him in combat sustain instead of healing him out of combat, it would cause him to absolutely crush already favourable matchups and get completely destroyed agsinst unfavourable matchups.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

A full build Garen would destroy a full build ADC if they just stood there unless it was Vayne or Draven.

Sustain doesn't make you tanky as a full combo from a mage will still kill you whereas it wouldnt if you had 200 MR or 30 percent reduced damage by pressing a button

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

A full build Garen would destroy a full build ADC if they just stood there unless it was Vayne or Draven.

Sustain doesn't make you tanky as a full combo from a mage will still kill you whereas it wouldnt if you had 200 MR or 30 percent reduced damage by pressing a button

its not just vayne or draven. but also graves, jinx, and sivir. so basically all of the adc that are being played would deal so much damage that they could sustain themeslves through his spin.

these champions woud reach a point where they could just kill him without even the attempt to kite. for a champion whos only supposed to be strong in melee, and susceptible to kiting, and doesnt have more to work with than his damage and defense, this was unacceptable.

he would never get into range of a tristana, or a lucian who knows what hes doing.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

I said to do it at level 16, you are good at picking out individual things but ignoring the rest of the post. I can't take you seriously when your name is critmaster garen. If garen had his Q changed to a charged that knocked people up with the same damage and cooldown you would still say he was balanced

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I said to do it at level 16, you are good at picking out individual things but ignoring the rest of the post. I can't take you seriously when your name is critmaster garen. If garen had his Q changed to a charged that knocked people up with the same damage and cooldown you would still say he was balanced

youre trying to attack me instead of my argument now. so im supposed to take you seriously?

what youre proposing is to change the entire mechanic of his passive at level 16? what champ works like that?

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

If you press W only draven and vayne can rip throug hthat. If they have 32 percent life steal, 12 from botrk and 20 from BT and they do 700 damage on a crit to you they heal for 224 health per crit, so if they have 40 percent crit thats around 400-700 health in 3 autos, your E does 1700 damage, your Q does 400, and we all know what your ult does. They wont sustain through it

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

If you press W only draven and vayne can rip throug hthat. If they have 32 percent life steal, 12 from botrk and 20 from BT and they do 700 damage on a crit to you they heal for 224 health per crit, so if they have 40 percent crit thats around 400-700 health in 3 autos, your E does 1700 damage, your Q does 400, and we all know what your ult does. They wont sustain through it

the problem is that his spin only lasts 3 seconds. they didnt need to kill him in that time. they just needed to sustain through the damage he dealt with his spin enough, so they would stay out of kill range from his ult.

if garen couldnt bring the adc down into ult range with q and spin, then his kill potential would equal zero. and after the spin when the ability is on cooldown he posed no threat so they could just keep auto attacking until he was dead.

yes, that worked with most lategame adc. they could hit the bork active on him for an extra health boost and sit out his spin while auto attacking and sustaining with lifesteal.

that doesnt work anymore.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

God forbid a champion is unique right? lol

and I'm not attacking you, im just saying your opinion is as biased as it gets which makes it hard to take seriously because you will argue for garen no matter what. I main tryndamere and i always defend him regardless so i don't usually argue for him for that reason

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

God forbid a champion is unique right? lol

and I'm not attacking you, im just saying your opinion is as biased as it gets which makes it hard to take seriously because you will argue for garen no matter what. I main tryndamere and i always defend him regardless so i don't usually argue for him for that reason

you literally attacked me directly by my name and told me you dont want to take my arguments seriously.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

I never said a full combo from garen shouldn't kill an ADC because it will, but from how it stands now his E into Ult with easily kill an ADC

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I never said a full combo from garen shouldn't kill an ADC because it will, but from how it stands now his E into Ult with easily kill an ADC

yes, thats the entire point of him.

hes supposed to counter snowballing carries. and hes supposed to be able to kill them, once he gets in range. so the obvious choice is not to try to 1v1 him when you have the villain mark or youre a carry like tristana whos close to impossible to catch for him.

the way you described it, you were pretty much even in gold, and he killed you because he was able to get in melee range.

a 2v2 scenario with your support at your side would ahve already looked entirely different.

luckmallorySep 3, 20151 votes

If my name was critmaster tryndamere would you take my tryndamere arguments seriously?

BharhashSep 3, 20152 votes

{quoted}

I never said a full combo from garen shouldn't kill an ADC because it will, but from how it stands now his E into Ult with easily kill an ADC

This is really just a simple product of his E now doing more ticks of damage as he levels, which is quite frankly something he needed to help him scale better into late game. To keep it from being too crazy, they also lowered the damage in groups and raised it up against a single target.

If no other Juggernaught had a successful rework, Garen did. He has clear goals and capabilities to distinguish him from other top lane picks. He has clear strengths and weaknesses. The trick is to wait for people to get through this transition and settle in with his new kit additions and the new items. Once that's done, he'll settle into place.

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

If my name was critmaster tryndamere would you take my tryndamere arguments seriously?

yes, if you had serious arguments. why the hell not. you known the champion probably better than most people.

Critmaster GarenSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

because someday they are going to rework trynd into something the level of Garen right now and when everyone is bitching about it i will be defending it, just like you are with Garen. If you can't see that garen needs nerfs you either are

Really low elo

Super biased

Completely blind

trynd definitely needs a rework as his lane phase is too rng based. and if they turn him into a high skillcap melee adc like yasuo and fiora, ill probably try him out and play him.

im not even objecting that garen was pretty strong. but he wasnt 65% winrate skarner crazy. he sat at just below 55% before the nerf. that double nerf to his movement should have brought him down slightly, into a good spot.

just like darius is in a good spot right now. as far as i understand, riot considers about 53% winrate acceptable for champs with pickrates like garen.

Xx420n0sc0p3sxXSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Judgement doesn't deal total true damage itself against the villain, just proc's the 1% per tick. As far as his ult dealing true damage against the enemy villain, it's theoretical high number I view to be reasonable alongside the other big true damage ult in the game (. doesn't get mentioned because his is normally used against minions to build stacks, but otherwise has no additional mechanic attached to the damage.) which can get successive casts. And that's against any target. Garen's only deals true damage against the Villain. Otherwise it's still magic damage.

Look at jugment's damage. I didn't include villian damage. With a cleaver alone it easily reaches over 1k in total (10 ticks at over 100 damage each)

BharhashSep 3, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Look at jugment's damage. I didn't include villian damage. With a cleaver alone it easily reaches over 1k in total (10 ticks at over 100 damage each)

I admit I made a mistake reading your comment. My bad there.

Still, that kind of damage isn't particularly grotesque when you realize that he won't have 10 ticks til Level 16, which means you're solidly in the late mid to late game, at which point there are plenty of champs who can have non-ult abilities with 1k~ damage.

Silents429Sep 3, 20151 votes

Kite. Kite. KITE.

He is damn near the same thing as before, he got his ability to do jack to kiting nerfed further, his overall damage is the same except towards villains.

People hate him because they regarded him as a beginner champion, and don't know what to do with him now that they play against him.

Sire HippingtonSep 4, 20151 votes

he has some more singletarget damage than befor, but mostly it's the stupid villian thing. If you kill him in lane, your screwed afterweards as melee. Vs old garen, you could win lane with some other strong laners, now it's a yoyo-lane at best. And kiteing isn't a good solution designwise as it means you need a range advantage, which means only half of the champs have realistic acces to the counterplay.