Boards›Gameplay

@RiotRepertoir: How Juggernaut Garen succeeded and failed

Sageace·3/26/2018, 3:46:06 AM·3 votes·334 views
[FOLLOWUP] Garen Juggernaut Update

This is a discussion about where the Garen Juggernaut update succeeded, failed, and to potentially figure out a correct path for a future Garen kit rework. (This is mainly my personal experience and opinions so I cannot speak for the community. However, the community is free to discuss whether they agree or disagree with me as well as throw ideas to improve Garen's kit and thematics.)

I have mained Garen since I started playing at the end of Season 2, and have almost quit at the end of Season 5 when they reworked him, but I gave him a chance, and now here we are in Season 8. Over the years, it FEELS like Garen has improved as a champion, but feels further from the theme that he was supposed to be. So I want to create a discussion that will help clarify who Garen is, how he represents himself in the current state of the game, and what to rework to solidify his theme.

Let's establish who is Garen, the Might of Demacia:

Let's start with information based off of his lore:

  • Born to the Crownguard, an honorific given to the family charged with protecting the king
  • "While training with the Dauntless Vanguard, Garen met Jarvan IV - the boy likely to become Demacia's next king, and thereby Garen's future ward."
  • (I have heard that Garen is one of the leaders of the Dauntless Vanguard, but I have been unable to confirm and would like this issue resolved)
  • "Garen is more than Demacia's most formidable and feared soldier, he is the embodiment of her core values - Strength, Courage, and Unity."
  • Equipped with a magic-resistant armor made of Demacian Steel, a Broadsword, and the capability of delivering the Heavenly Wrath of Demacian Justice to those that deserve it.
  • "Garen gained a reputation as a particularly fearsome fighter - one of the greatest in all Demacia, willing to risk life and limb to protect his fellow soldiers and defeat the enemy."
  • Main Lore: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Garen Look under Biography Tab.
  • For Demacia: https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/story/for-demacia/

Now let's take a look at his kit, both Juggernaut (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Garen) (Under the Abilities Tab) and Predecessor (http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Garen) (Under the History Tab). We will compare both kits to his lore to see what parts play and/or feel more thematically like Garen, the Might of Demacia.

  • Innate - Perseverance: Both Garen innates allow you to constantly regenerate health while out of combat. This ability feels like it encourages a hit&run playstyle. You go in, do a full combo, back off, and regenerate health. Then you rinse and repeat. I mean, it surely DOES keep him on the battlefield more often, and gives him less of a reason to recall back to base. So overall, it "partially" fulfills his theme, a man that remains on the battlefield to keep the fight going in order to defeat the enemy, but... It's the "during combat" portion that just feels off.
  • Q - Decisive Strike: Both Garen Q's break you out of slows, increase your Movement Speed, reset your autoattack timer in order to deal extra damage and silence your target. Predecessor Garen Q had better stats, so it naturally feels more useful, ESPECIALLY the 2.5 second Silence it had. I have saved so many lives with that ability in the good old days, it felt nice and reliable.
  • W - Courage: Both Garen W's reduced 30% incoming Physical and Magical damage for a duration. Juggernaut Garen gives 60% of that PLUS 60% Tenacity, but only for the first .75 seconds. Predecessor Garen however gave 30% Tenacity for the whole W duration. Predecessor Garen feels better and it feels like it represents Garen better, and here's why: When I have Tenacity along with Courage, I feel like I would be more willing to risk taking incoming attacks and CC for my team, protecting my comrades from as many threatening spells and CC as possible in order to ensure victory, and this made me feel more like a Dauntless Vanguard. Being able to charge through the battlefield while shrugging off CC, seeing an incoming ult aimed at a high priority comrade, and you are willing to charge into it because you have the Tenacity for it. This is what a true Dauntless Vanguard does, a true Demacian.
  • E - Judgment: Both Garen E's allow Garen to spin to win. Juggernaut Garen spins more as the game progresses. Juggernaut update to Judgment was one of the best changes, allowing Garen to 1v1 better due to the isolation damage, getting more spins as the game progresses, and tacking on the Armor Shred made him feel even more powerful reliable throughout the game. Allowing E to progress as the game progressed balanced out Garen quite well, and is a deserved well done. However, I hate to report this but Garen's armor shred tends to benefit Garen too late in many trades because it usually occurs at the END of a trade when you need it sooner, preferably in the earlier part of a trade.
  • R - Demacian Justice: Both Garen R's allow him to deliver heavenly wrath of justice to those that deserve it. Juggernaut Garen has an improved ultimate because it has a Villain Mechanic. Giving Garen's ult true damage based off of a condition is something I approve of, because it helps him be able to take down even the most powerful tanks that just don't die, blowing through shields that were protecting thier squishy carries, and bypassing those bastards that have health sustain throughout those fights. In some cases it REALLY does feel like true Demacian Justice, because some of those Enemy Champions just REALLY deserved it. It's the conditions on why Garen gets this true damage that infuriates me so much, and here's why: It's a 2v1, and you're holding off the only Enemy Champion. The enemy champion kills your comrade. But you're okay with this, because the enemy champion became your villain. He just became an easy target, so you proceed to kill your villain with an ult. You are grateful... that one of your teammates died... because it unlocked your true damage. Why... does Garen get free damage whenever a teammate dies? Why do you encourage ALLOWING a teammate to die in order to make Garen stronger? WHY DOES A COMRADE HAVE TO GIVE UP THEIR LIFE IN ORDER TO MAKE GAREN FIGHT BETTER??? We are talking about a Demacian... "willing to risk life and limb to protect his fellow soldiers and defeat the enemy"... and he's gets free true damage AFTER his comrades falls in battle? You let him fail one objective to accomplish another? Why couldn't I ult sooner? Because it would not have killed the enemy champion. I HAD TO LET MY COMRADE DIE so that I can get that extra free true damage I need in order to secure a kill. I get this extra power because of my fallen comrade. This.... is not justice... THIS IS VENGEANCE. This is the most... Un-Demacian thing... you have done to Garen.

Now let's discuss Riot's attempt for creating Garen to become a Juggernaut. https://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/page/gameplay-update-juggernauts and look under Garen tab. https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/vGeO1pR9-followup-garen-juggernaut-update My question to the community is if the changes that RiotRepertoir implemented on Garen made him feel or play better as a champion compared to Predecessor Garen? And do you agree or disagree with his changes and why? My answer lies in the next paragraph:

So overall, Juggernaut Garen IS a better champion, he has maintained a reasonable amount of survivability, has better (and worse) 1v1 capabilities, and a wonderful amount of true damage on his ultimate based on a Villain mechanic. However, it was also worse, and here's why: RiotRepertoir's thought process on Garen was that he was an Anti-Carry, and wanted to promote that further. That was his greatest downfall, because, yes, Garen is an Anti-Carry... 70% of the time. What Garen really is is an Anti-Threat. Whoever was the MOST threatening Enemy Champion, Garen wanted to focus keeping them off his comrades as best as possible by doing as much Silence and Damage as possible. If he can't, he targets the one he can, and so on. Carries, were USUALLY a threat, but not always. That's why the Villain mechanic falls short on Garen's true potential. Garen wants to fight in order to protect, deal as much damage as possible to the one that was the most heinous of all the Enemy Champions, and deliver them the justice they deserve. This is why Predecessor Garen FELT better as a champion THEMATICALLY. A 2.5 second Silence was usually enough to keep that pesky bastards off your comrades so that your comrades so that you can do your job, or to help you're 1v1 trades because the Silence locked them down so hard. The Courage with Tenacity to bait as much CC as possible so that you can charge through the battlefield to find your target and deliver them as much justice as possible, or to charge at an ally in danger and save them. And while Garen's old ult had no extra damage, YOU FELT FREE to choose whoever you wanted to deliver justice to, without any icon next to your HP bar, giving you schizophrenia on who the "real Villain" is BASED on the game's programming and NEVER changing the villain to who you needed it to be the most before a teamfight, it's gotta be DURING or AFTER one, but that's when it's "too late" because your comrades... are dead. It basically feels like you took too much of Garen's heart, his theme, and pumped that into his muscles, in order to give him more reliable damage. That's what almost tore me away from League, and that's why I am still infuriated to this day on the Juggernaut changes.

So the final part of this discussion begins: What should we keep track of when he receives his next rework? This is a change list I have come with to help keep track of the primary objectives.

  • Remember that Garen was trained as one of the Dauntless Vanguard, and he is the embodiment of Demacia's core values: Strength, Courage, and Unity.
  • Finding balance between Juggernaut Garen's Damage Output and Predecessor Garen's durability, and the modernization of his kit.
  • Find balance between what is a Juggernaut and what is a "Dauntless" Vanguard, and modernize it to his kit. (This could mean giving Garen more "soft CC".)
  • Find balance between using him skillfully for high elo as well as low elo, while maintaining a simplistic kit.
  • Perseverance - Find a way to make Perseverance more useful than just an Out of Combat Regeneration, meaning give Garen more reasons to remain in combat. Also, find a way to ensure the ACTUAL definition of Perseverance is applied more correctly: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/perseverance?s=t
  • Decisive Strike - Any attempt to make this ability less binary, and a more useful tool to help Garen in many more "decisive" situations while maintaining the "CHAAAAARGE!!!"
  • Courage - Find a way to maintain Predecessor Garen's Courage and modernize it to the rework.
  • Judgment - Changes or remain the same, keeping the damage output and the Armor Shred but with some tweaking and better reliability for early parts of a trade.
  • Demacian Justice - Keeping True Damage that only activates based on certain conditions. Change the "Villain" Mechanic to feel more Demacian than Avenger. Make the ult feel powerful without really amplifying the damage.

Now I will attempt a list of changes that I think might work out, doing my best to maintain his theme, assuming this IS the best way to go (PLEASE note that these are theories, and are NOT meant to be taken to change Garen all at once, they are just directional theories):

  • Q - Decisive Strike COOLDOWN is higher than 8 seconds. Passive: Garen's first autoattack on an Enemy Champion every [8/7/6/5?] seconds Silences his target for .75 seconds. Active: Breaks Garen free of all slows, enhances his movement speed, PARTIALLY resets his autoattack timer and enhances Garen's next autoattack to apply a 1.5 second Silence instead.

Hopefully this direction will help Garen's Q feel less binary. Might be too Overpowered though, but it's just a theory.

  • W - Courage: Passive: (None as of right now) Active: Reduces All incoming Physical and Magical Damage by 30% while granting Tenacity equal to ((Number of Nearby Enemy Champions) * 2) + ((Number of Nearby Allied Champions) * 2) + ((Number of Dead Allied Champions) * 2) + [12/14/16/18/20%] for [2/3/4/5/6] seconds.

I have combined 2 Demacia core values together: Courage and Unity. Meaning Courage is even stronger during teamfight, with the presence of your Allies and the objectives of your Enemies give you purpose, gives you a stronger will and Courage.

  • R - Demacian Justice: Passive: Enemy Champions that have dealt damage or used CC against any Nearby Allied Champion will be marked as a Villain. The amount of their mark fills up as they continue to deal damage or apply CC to Garen's Allied Champions. The mark drains if they have not done anything within the last few seconds. If the Enemy Champion fills up their mark because of their continued assault, they are marked as a True Villain, and the mark cannot be removed for several seconds. Any damage dealt to the True Villain receives an extra 1% HP in true damage from all of Garen's damaging attacks and abilities. Active: Garen calls upon the Might of Demacia in an attempt to execute an Enemy Champion, with a percentage of the damage converted to true based on how much of their Villain mark has filled up. A True Villain receives 100% true damage from the ultimate. Once the ultimate lands on his target, the Enemy Champion is Knocked-Down.

Hopefully this makes more thematic sense for a Man of Justice, and is hopefully balanced. My only concerns are if it's too op (It should ACTUALLY feel like an opposite of a Darius Innate I believe) and if Garen players are "too confortable" allowing their comrades to take damage just so that he can get some "Free Villains", and could potentially mess up his theme I attempted to fix.

So, that's the discussion. All in hopes of clarifying what Riot did right for the Juggernaut rework, what Riot did wrong for the Juggernaut rework, and an attempt to try to fix Garen for a future kit rework. I would like to know what you guys think about my post, I want RiotRepertoir to respond his thoughts and opinions since he was the main one responsible for reworking Garen.

Most previous edit: N/A

0 Comments