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Garenteed to Garen [Discussion]

Sageace··3 votes·1,690 views

Garen, the Demacian Vanguard who leads the charge and brings justice to those who deserve it. I have played him for 2 years and would like to say he is very balanced, but just a little under par of balanced due. I am curious whether he needs a kit rework or adjustments to his current kit?

Garen Garen, the Might of Demacia

Garen is a Melee Fighter, a good set of offense and defense, that is capable of becoming a tank, a regenerating meatshield. Garen's early game power can help him destroy his enemies and carry his team. With his full combo, he can delete one enemy carry, either that target is a mage, an assassin, or a marksman. Garen maintains an Easy Learning Difficulty with his resourceless bar, which his abilities are restrained by high cooldowns. Garen needs Attack Damage, Defense, Mobility, and Cooldown Reduction so that he can prove his Might on the Fields of Justice.

Passive: Perseverance

If Garen has not been struck by Damage or Enemy Abilities, Garen regenerates a percentage of his Health each second. Level 1: After 9 seconds, Garen regenerates .4% of his HP each second. Minions do not deactivate Perseverance. Level 11: After 6 seconds, Garen regenerates .8% of his HP each second. Monsters do not deactivate Perseverance Level 16: After 4 seconds, Garen regenerates 2% of his HP each second. Hardcore Perseverance

The buff that reinforced Garen's late game. I question whether it will be buffed to NOT deactivate from non-damaging abilities at later levels, but I think Riot will not pursue this.

Q: Decisive Strike

Garen gains a burst of Movement Speed, breaking free of all slows affecting him and enhances his next auto-attack to deal bonus damage and Silences his Foe. Movement Speed 35% for (1.5/2.25/3/3.75/4.5) seconds. Deals (30/55/80/105/140) + 140% Attack Damage. Silences for (1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5) seconds.

Garen's only CC ability, it does nice damage and can make his target vulnerable for a couple seconds. It can be used to lead the charge of battle or to retreat from an ambush. I question if it can receive an auto-attack range buff by 25~50 units while his movement speed buff is enhanced by his Q's activated ability due to the rising challenge of hitting high mobility champions so that it can get the job done more often, but I think Riot is not pursuing this.

W: Courage

Garen passively increases his Armor and Magic Resist. Upon activation, Garen grants himself a shield that reduces all incoming Damage and Crowd Control Durations for a short time. Passive: 20% additional value from Bonus Armor and Magic Resist. Active: Garen gains a defensive shield for (2/3/4/5/6) seconds, reducing all Incoming Damage and Crowd Control durations by 30%.

Garen's only defensive ability, allowing him to passively and activate his much needed durability and Tenacity for a few seconds. I am curious if Courage needs a buff, whether to allow Garen to be immune to armor/magic resist shred WHILE Courage is activated, or upon activation of Courage, he gains 50% damage reduction and Tenacity for the first .5 seconds before decaying to its normal amount, or allow Garen to reduce TRUE damage as well as all physical and magical damage while Courage is active.

E: Judgement

Garen spins his sword around him, dealing damage to those that enter his dance of death. Spins for 3 seconds, dealing (20/45/70/95/120) plus (70/80/90/100/110% Attack Damage) as physical damage.

Garen's main Damage, Spin to Win. I do question a buff idea where if enemies are being affected by Garen's Judgement, they also have their attack speed slightly reduced.

R: Demacain Justice

Garen calls upon the Might of Demacia (wait... he calls himself?) to deal a finishing blow to an Enemy Champion, dealing additional damage based off his Target's missing Health. Deals (175/350/525) magic damage plus 1 point for every (3.5/3/2.5) HP target is missing. (Approximately 28%/33%/40% of missing Health).

Justice, the cause to remove a living threat. The Heavenly Sword to Remove a Target so that your team may live. It has a long early game cooldown, but makes up for it late game. I have 3 preferable buff ideas for this ability: 1) The Target of the Ultimate is revealed until the ultimate collides upon them. 2) Garen has slightly increased range on his ultimate. 3) Garen has a partial amount of true damage to his ultimate. It deals (150175/300350/450~525) true damage plus 1 point in magic damage for every (3.5/3/2.5) HP his target is missing.

Overall Garen is quite strong, but does not seem to have a lot of competitive play. His popularity still remains decent and his winrates hardly ever go over 50%. I do not know what other factors are in play, but to me, he needs a very small compensation to all of the indirect nerfs upon him (due to his core items being nerfed/removed). I hope my ideas are reasonable but I ask the community if Garen does need a buff or not, and if he does, which of my ideas are reasonable and can help him out on the Fields of Justice. REMEMBER - I AM NOT SUGGESTING FOR ALL OF THESE IDEAS TO BE APPLIED, I AM ASKING WHICH ONES DOES GAREN NEED IF HE NEEDS TO BE BUFFED?

*Changes to clarify what Garen may need. *Additional changes for clarification. Last Edited: 2/2/2015

16 Comments

Erijian2 votes

I think the things that need to be looked at most for Garen are the Self-Slow from using Judgment, how Judgment still deals reduced damage to Super Minions, and the Cooldown for Demacian Justice. Those are probably the most diminishing things I can think of about him currently. I remember when Riot gave Gragas a self-slow as an idea and removed it immediately. It'd be nice if they made the self-slow reduce with the rank of Judgment, in intervals of 10% per rank starting at 40%. (40%/30%/20%/10%/0%) while the cooldown of Demacian Justice needs to be either reverted to 120/110/100 or changed to something like 120/100/80, which is less likely.

Things that would be nice to have, but don't need to be currently looked at would probably be the animation time for Decisive Strike, reverting Courage's Passive to total armor instead of bonus, figuring some way to make the slow removal for Decisive Strike more consistent, and modifying how Critical Strike damage works with Judgment. The animation time for Decisive Strike allows time for people to dash away from Garen before he is able to finish the move even, pretty much making your attempt at a trade pretty crummy. Why I mention reverting how Courage's Passive works was because it gave Garen his own unique niche, in that he's able to grab a Giant's Belt instead of armor/magic resist and build damage instead in order to be the lane bully that he is while retaining his tankiness. One-time Slow Removals are pretty iffy as any persistent type of slow will just waste it, such as Red Buff, and I've seen people suggesting adding a type of Slow Reduction to it as you rank it up, 10%/20%/30%/40%/50%, which means that you remove the first slow completely, and then reduce the effect of incoming slows after by x%. Finally, Critical Strikes with Judgment work based on each individual hit on an enemy rather than rolling the chance of a Critical Strike for each tick of Judgment altogether, which I think would be a nice QoL buff for the move itself.

Cheers.

Kowe The Ewok2 votes

O gosh... For a second I missread your post and thought you wanted to make Garen's ultimate global, gosh that'ld be fun :D But remember you can't hide from heavenly wraith!

(That might actually be a fun little idea if the damage gets tweaked)

Sageace2 votes

O gosh... For a second I missread your post and thought you wanted to make Garen's ultimate global, gosh that'ld be fun :D But remember you can't hide from heavenly wraith!

(That might actually be a fun little idea if the damage gets tweaked)

Imagine if they did make Garen's ultimate global on Doom Bots?

Kowe The Ewok2 votes

O gosh... For a second I missread your post and thought you wanted to make Garen's ultimate global, gosh that'ld be fun :D But remember you can't hide from heavenly wraith!

(That might actually be a fun little idea if the damage gets tweaked)

Imagine if they did make Garen's ultimate global on Doom Bots?

Am I the only one who'ld consider this fun? :>

RowGo1 votes

An idea I thought of once was to have it where if his ult kills the target it deals aoe damage to champs around the target ( think of the kill animation already on his ult)

  • this would reward skilled players for knowing how much damage it does raising the skill roof of him without raising the floor as well.
  • and would also give him strength in team fights differing him from Mundo. since Mundo is a champ that single targets people and just soaks up poke .
  • maybe to make that team fight strength more prominent you could make the slow on his e more powerful, giving him utility for his team.

But hey I aint no designer so there could be problems with it that I don't see.

Sageace1 votes

An idea I thought of once was to have it where if his ult kills the target it deals aoe damage to champs around the target ( think of the kill animation already on his ult)

  • this would reward skilled players for knowing how much damage it does raising the skill roof of him without raising the floor as well.
  • and would also give him strength in team fights differing him from Mundo. since Mundo is a champ that single targets people and just soaks up poke .
  • maybe to make that team fight strength more prominent you could make the slow on his e more powerful, giving him utility for his team.

But hey I aint no designer so there could be problems with it that I don't see.

I forgot others have mentioned AOE's on his ultimate too. It's a cool idea but I wouldn't know whether we should see that in action or not. It has also been mentioned that if Garen secures a kill with his ultimate, it should create an AOE shockwave.

LordTobiothan1 votes

Garen after his last buffs is a very good champion, he will likely be crap again after atmas is removed but until then he does his job as a bruiser. Aside from a shorter ult cd to match other executes, he will be fine if atmas is replaced with another tanky crit item.

LordTobiothan1 votes

Courage with total armor leaves him just way too tanky, he does plenty of damage with nothing but an IE and an atmas, meaning yuo can go straight tank after that.

I like to try to get away with going sunfire, mercs, thornmail, warmogs, atmas, IE. The health usually dissuades ap's from hitting me and if i charge anything that autos they don't have much of an answer to it.

Erijian2 votes

Courage with total armor leaves him just way too tanky, he does plenty of damage with nothing but an IE and an atmas, meaning yuo can go straight tank after that.

That's what Garen was supposed to be able to do, and a bonus of 13 armor/magic resist isn't going to make him any tankier than he already is. :
It was his niche until Riot removed it.

LordTobiothan1 votes

Courage with total armor leaves him just way too tanky, he does plenty of damage with nothing but an IE and an atmas, meaning yuo can go straight tank after that.

That's what Garen was supposed to be able to do, and a bonus of 13 armor/magic resist isn't going to make him any tankier than he already is. :
It was his niche until Riot removed it.

If it isn't going to make him any tankier then I don't see how it removes his niche. He is still the champ that gains more from resists then anyone else.

Erijian2 votes

If it isn't going to make him any tankier then I don't see how it removes his niche. He is still the champ that gains more from resists then anyone else.

It hardly makes him tankier late game, yeah. What it allowed was for Garen to pick up HP items as he passively gained more Armor and Magic Resist per level due to Courage, letting him focus on picking up damage items early game instead of having to pick up armor or magic resist like other laners do. That's what it let him do, which others weren't able to at the time it was around.

LordTobiothan1 votes

If it isn't going to make him any tankier then I don't see how it removes his niche. He is still the champ that gains more from resists then anyone else.

It hardly makes him tankier late game, yeah. What it allowed was for Garen to pick up HP items as he passively gained more Armor and Magic Resist per level due to Courage, letting him focus on picking up damage items early game instead of having to pick up armor or magic resist like other laners do. That's what it let him do, which others weren't able to at the time it was around.

in that case it could also be solved just by raising his base armor/armor scaling. I don't see why making it attached to courage is needed.

Plus 9/10 bruisers go a damage item first, jax rushes botrk, rene/jarvan at least goes brutilizer before buying a chain vest, jayce goes manamune. Thats all the bruisers i can think of off the top of my head, but most do go damage first.

Bharhash1 votes

Courage with total armor leaves him just way too tanky, he does plenty of damage with nothing but an IE and an atmas, meaning yuo can go straight tank after that.

IE? Atmas? On Garen? That's funny.

Black Cleaver is a considerably better item on Garen as he can shred the armor of an entire team in about 3 seconds.

LordTobiothan1 votes

Courage with total armor leaves him just way too tanky, he does plenty of damage with nothing but an IE and an atmas, meaning yuo can go straight tank after that.

IE? Atmas? On Garen? That's funny.

Black Cleaver is a considerably better item on Garen as he can shred the armor of an entire team in about 3 seconds.

shredded armor + 0 damage leftover doesn't do you much. You are not the tank, you do not peel, you in fact cannot peel, your job is not to make the carry hit slightly harder, it is to pressure the enemy carries.

IE + atmas gives 40% crit and over 300 ad by end game, which is enough to grant reliability, meaning Q+E usually allows an R to finish a squishy/off tank. Atmas being a sub par item in most cases doesn't mean it isn't a super cost efficient buy on Garen who loves every stat.

Bharhash1 votes

Garen's biggest problems really are his self-slow on his E and the Rank 1 cooldown on his ult. At Rank 3, 80 seconds is more reasonable for an ult that does 525 + 40% of their missing health in damage. I'd happily trade a bit of that power for some utility or some sort, such as an AoE blind or slow for something like 1/1.5/2 seconds on successful executes.

SparrowPriest1 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXwzA9bqBac&list=UU9F1zQlakBV3zBzXypAbtWg Garen is completely viable as he is.

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