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My Ideas for a Garen rework

Dredge Mammus·3/5/2015, 3:22:31 AM·6 votes·1,232 views

The goal of this rework is, many things really. The main goal was to make Garen actually FEEL like a front line warrior. As it stands, the best way to play Garen is to just kill any assassin that dives in because of his silence. He isn't going to "lead the charge" because he'll just get kited to oblivion. These changes (in my opinion) help alleviate these issues while adding counterplay to his rather simple 1 dimensional kit.

Do note that these changes are probably going to make him more jungle oriented. Take this with a grain of salt.

Perseverance: Unchanged

I feel that Perseverance is in a really good state as it is.

Decisive Strike

Range: 250-1000

Cooldown: 12/11/10/9/8

First Cast: Garen channels for up to 2 seconds, increasing the damage and silence duration of Decisive Strike over the duration and the range over 1 second. If interrupted the cooldown is reduced by 50%. Garen can pivot during this time.

Second Cast: Garen charges forward, dealing physical damage to all enemies he charges into. If he hits an enemy champion, the charge is stopped and he deals physical damage to that champion and silences them. Enemies in a small area behind the champion hit take 1/2 the damage but are not silenced.

If a champion is killed by the charge damage of Decisive Strike, Garen will continue his charge. If Garen hits a wall, he'll stun himself for 0.75 seconds and cause 1/2 the damage the ability would do in an area around him. Decisive Strike causes 50% less damage to minions.

Minimum physical damage: 30/60/90/120/150 + 75% AD Maximum physical damage: 60/120/180/240/300 + 150% AD Minimum silence duration: 1 Maximum silence duration: 2.5

**This is probably the biggest change. I took ideas from Vi and Sion's Q while maintaining Garen's Q identity. This gives a bit more options when facing Garen as a melee character while still allowing Garen to counter spell reliant enemies. This also gives Garen a more reliable initation, which when combined with the changes to Demacian Justice allows him to initiate fights. ** Courage Cooldown: 22/21/20/19/18 Passive: Garen's bonus armor and magic resistance are increased by 20%.

Active: Garen gains a defensive shield for 3/3.5/4/4.5/5 seconds, reducing incoming damage by 30% and granting 30% tenacity for the duration.

A small trade off. Reduced CD and increased duration early for less duration late game. In effect this is a 1.2 second cooldown decrease at 40% CDR for 1 less second of Courage. I feel this helps slightly alleviate his loss of a (somewhat unreliable) escape while reducing the power of an amazing ability in the end game.

Judgment Range: 165 Cooldown: 12/11/10/9/8 Garen rapdily spins his sword around his body for 3 seconds, dealing physical damage each second to enemies within range. Minions take 75% damage from Judgment. Garen ignores unit collision while spinning. Garen gains 50% reduction from slows while Judgment is active (this is seperate from tenacity).

Physical damage per second: 20/40/60/80/100 + 70/80/90/100/110% AD Total physical damage: 60/120/180/240/300 + 210/240/270/300/330% AD

Another small trade off. 20 less base damage for 50% slow reduction allows Garen to heavily shrug off slows, one of Garen's biggest weaknesses (because nothing is worse than getting red buffed to death). It also gives fun synergy with Boots of Swiftness.

Demacian Justice Initial Cast Range: 500 Second Cast Range: 900 Cooldown: 120/100/80

First Cast: Garen marks a target for Demacian Justice for 6 seconds, giving true sight and vision of the target.

Second Cast: Garen leaps to the target, causing 200/300/400 + 1 per 3.5/3/2.5 health the target is missing (+90% bonus AD) physical damage and rooting the target in place for 1/1.5/2 seconds.

If Garen kills a target with Demacian Justice the cooldown is reduced by 50%.

The other big change that I did. The initial cast range was slightly increased and was given some utility (true sight and vision). The second cast is the big part. This is another somewhat reliable engage but it also gives him multiple options to utilize his ultimate. You can choose to save it for an execute or use it to root an enemy so your team can help you kill the target. Root duration at 16 combos perfectly with his Q.

The basic gist is that this adds more gameplay to Garen while giving him more utility. His damage went down but he has a role that makes sense for the character. He's supposed to be the one leading the charge not some assassin/anti-assassin character. These really change his playstyle a bit and I know that this will make some issues with those who enjoy his current style but he needs more options at this point.

If you have any questions or concerns please ask. I'm not good with words but i'll try to explain my thoughts on these reasons more in detail.

3 Comments

MigYalle3/5/2015, 3:32:41 AM1 votes

I like. Upvoted.

Omnipherious3/5/2015, 6:37:26 AM1 votes

I love Garen and I find your proposal quite interesting but I feel it is full of unnecessary power.

Power Overwhelming

  1. Q max range 1000? Even for a 2 second channel, that is ridiculous. As far as dashes go, ~700 is already in the top percentage.
  2. Q2 splash for 50% damage behind enemy champion is unnecessary and doesn't make sense thematically. Sword/dash stops at enemy champion, damage should stop there too.
  3. The 50% slow resistance on E is too much. If you insist on keep this, at best it can be 30%. You can try and justify the 50% value since you removed the slow cleanse from Q but I still believe that is way too much.
  4. R2 at 900 range? Sure, the initial cast is 500 range but a 900 range jump that you can't dodge, can't be intercepted, reveals you, has execute damage and roots you? Holy shit would be so obnoxious to deal with. Not only did you make it one of the best manaless abilities, you even reduced the cooldown at ranks 1 and 2. But that's not even the end of it, you then added 50% cooldown for a kill. Good God man, do you actually think this is okay? o_o

I'm sorry man. This would be fun but also OP as all hell.

Garen could use a tweak to help solidify his niche but damn, this ain't the way.

Ra1d3/6/2015, 5:24:48 PM1 votes

I like this to a point. The decisive strike you propose wouldn't be a decisive strike anymore that's a full front charge a lot like sions ult but no where near as much range. It does have it downside where you end up stunning yourself. It's a very interesting ability and it'd be hard to get a hang of considering the current q. The w is a very small change but I tend to become more reliant on it late game due to all of the burst damage from mages and assassins. The e is a small change. You kept the initial idea of it but with a few tweaks. I like it. The ult is something you changed a bit too much. I like the idea of him simply jumping towards an enemy. The range is probably considerably similar to jarvans ult or I may be wrong since I don't know his range off the top of my head. It'd be a very interesting ability to see and I've thought of another use for it. If you have a group of two or three enemy champs running away you can ult first to catch em charge the other two and spin to finish all three off. It'd make some very great gameplay and allow garen various ways to engage the enemy. If riot does a rework I hope it similar to this. The ult I'm iffy on but its good.