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@Meddler can we talk about Garen? How long do you plan on ignoring any advice from Garen mains?

King of Hearts11·11/28/2016, 4:31:12 PM·44 votes·32,682 views

Okay so just before I start, I want to say I tried the 6.24 changes or "buff" to Garen which has 25% armor shred on his E which was actually nerfed from the initial 35% scaling with levels.

My question is this: What exactly did you accomplish by giving Garen this "buff"?

Did it change any of his match ups? No Did it lead to a more dominant laning phase with the shitty base damage on Garen's E? No Did it give him a means to trade better against almost all of the champions he struggles against? No Did it accomplish E max on Garen again? No

Now hear me out, Garen has one of the weakest laning phase amongst all champions in top with no real form of sustain which means he gets decimated by champions who have either more means of sustain, burst, or a shield mechanic (the new cheese on every champion from Riot in S7) than him in the early levels. Examples of such champions are Riven, Tryndamere, Renekton, Irelia, Poppy, Trundle, Darius...the list goes on. Its even hilariously sad that Nasus, a champion with a supposed terrible early game gives Garen trouble in lane with E max unless you run a very specialized rune page on Garen to deal with it.LOL

Right now you literally can not trade with much if any champions in the laning phase successfully considering they will outduel you at any point in the early game due to their kits inherently offering more dueling potential due to sustain or shields except maybe level 6 where you can get a cheese kill with ignite + Ult combo or level 11 when the ticks on Garen's E start scaling with levels.

To top it off, Darius literally does everything better than Garen at any point so what is the point of even picking Garen when you have a champion like Darius who is better at every stage of the game and fulfills the same niche? Like why should any sane player pick Garen over Darius except for the dedicated Garen mains who genuinely enjoy playing a shittier version of Darius?

Its honestly disheartening when you completely ignore the cries of Garen players in higher elo and give him a small "buff" which at some point is going to be completely mediocre approaching into Season 7 and on top of it you nerf it as well by 10%.

To quote you Meddler, you said something to the effect of we will be toning Garen's numbers in patch 6.24 as well. In that case I would like to see those Movement Speed nerfs reverted along with the Silence Duration nerfs reverted.

Its absolutely downright disgusting how Garen doesn't even do well in the match ups he was once supposed to during the multiple nerfs he recieved along with the big hit to the bruiser items.

Keeping all this in mind, I just have a question for you Meddler:

So what is the point of such a mediocre change and what do you think its going to accomplish for Garen?

UPDATE: MEDDLER'S RESPONSE

{quoted}

There are a few things we're hoping to accomplish by adding a shred to Garen's E:

  1. We want to buff Garen moderately. He's underperforming, and has been for a while. At the same time though when he's strong his kit leaves some opponents feeling unable to deal with him. He's certainly not unique in that regard, he is one of the tankier champions to have that trait though, with a really reliable combat pattern in those match ups. A moderate, rather than large, buff is our target for a single patch as a result.

  2. We want Garen to be more impactful on team compositions. We want champions in general to have a moderate degree of impact on which champions you pick alongside them. Garen at present's pretty soft in that regard, with a low degree of team power contribution (as opposed to personal power). Adding an Armor Shred, rather than just increasing his own damage, makes it more attractive to pair him with multiple other champions with significant physical damage. It also means that Garen getting a lot of kills, as he can be prone to do with his ult in particular, feels like a better use of those kills than at present - the items and XP he'll be getting from them should at least somewhat improve his ability to keep that shred up.

  3. We want to increase the impact playing well as Garen and playing well against Garen has. The shred comes all at once after 4 E hits, rather than gradually stacking, to both slightly reward good Garen play and good play against Garen more (clear success/fail cases).

  4. We'd like Garen to be a bit more target agnostic. When ahead Q/E/R can burst squishies pretty hard. When behind though he can really struggle to have any impact of note on tankier enemy champs. A % armor shred evens that out a bit.

In terms of listening to Garen mains we always want to get some understanding of how the most frequent players of a champion feel about that champ's current state. That can offer some really good insights. At the same time though listening to mains doesn't necessarily mean doing what's asked. Some players do a great job of separating out personal feelings from suggested changes and offer really nuanced feedback that solves problems. Others however will push for buffs to their favorite champs until those champs are the strongest, or close to strongest, members of their class, without regard for the impact on other champs or the game as a whole.

**MY RESPONSE: **

First of all I'd like to thank you for finally commenting on what direction you plan on taking Garen. It means a lot when you show you actually care about a champion's base of players even from a balance perspective.

Couple of things:

I am in favor of moderately buffing Garen as long as they are significant buffs to his gameplay. I am going to quote one of the other players in this thread:

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NrIimRFN,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2016-11-28T17:09:03.454+0000)

" hes at a point, where he deserves a significant buff. giving him the wrong one seems like a wasted opportunity. i think there are other changes possible tha would really help him in the long run."

To put it bluntly I don't want to have to suffer for the entirety of S7 with feeling little to no reward for playing Garen when I could be playing someone like Darius. I am not asking for Garen to be at a stage where he's OP. However, what I am asking is to be rewarded for picking Garen in some situations feeling like he excels at something which other champions do not.

Putting personal feelings aside, Its pretty frustrating playing Garen when you know the other champion i.e. a champion like Darius who will simply offer more at every stage of the game and you can't even outscale him. Does that mean I should simply just not play Garen as long as Darius exists in his current state or what? Its more or less a simple fact that you will lose to him Early, Mid and Late game. I don't think its unreasonable to ask that I should feel as Garen at some point I should feel like I will fare up or do better at some stage. I mean if Darius can exist in such a stage in fulfilling the exact same role while having obvious counters, why can't Garen? Does that mean Darius is now too strong and unhealthy?

Keeping all this in mind, I suggested utility buffs not number buffs such as reverting back to 2.5 second silence at max level and reverting the 30% movement speed back to 35%. I understand everyone has their own way of looking at the situation judging from the multiple posts and I expect you guys to take the best. I just hope I did my job in bringing to light some major issues which need to be addressed while looking at these changes and move them forward in a significant way rather than offering wasted opportunities which won't be revisited for over a year.

Garen

168 Comments

RiotMeddler11/28/2016, 11:23:02 PM30 votes

There are a few things we're hoping to accomplish by adding a shred to Garen's E:

  1. We want to buff Garen moderately. He's underperforming, and has been for a while. At the same time though when he's strong his kit leaves some opponents feeling unable to deal with him. He's certainly not unique in that regard, he is one of the tankier champions to have that trait though, with a really reliable combat pattern in those match ups. A moderate, rather than large, buff is our target for a single patch as a result.

  2. We want Garen to be more impactful on team compositions. We want champions in general to have a moderate degree of impact on which champions you pick alongside them. Garen at present's pretty soft in that regard, with a low degree of team power contribution (as opposed to personal power). Adding an Armor Shred, rather than just increasing his own damage, makes it more attractive to pair him with multiple other champions with significant physical damage. It also means that Garen getting a lot of kills, as he can be prone to do with his ult in particular, feels like a better use of those kills than at present - the items and XP he'll be getting from them should at least somewhat improve his ability to keep that shred up.

  3. We want to increase the impact playing well as Garen and playing well against Garen has. The shred comes all at once after 4 E hits, rather than gradually stacking, to both slightly reward good Garen play and good play against Garen more (clear success/fail cases).

  4. We'd like Garen to be a bit more target agnostic. When ahead Q/E/R can burst squishies pretty hard. When behind though he can really struggle to have any impact of note on tankier enemy champs. A % armor shred evens that out a bit.

In terms of listening to Garen mains we always want to get some understanding of how the most frequent players of a champion feel about that champ's current state. That can offer some really good insights. At the same time though listening to mains doesn't necessarily mean doing what's asked. Some players do a great job of separating out personal feelings from suggested changes and offer really nuanced feedback that solves problems. Others however will push for buffs to their favorite champs until those champs are the strongest, or close to strongest, members of their class, without regard for the impact on other champs or the game as a whole.

SecondComing11/29/2016, 7:17:32 AM5 votes

@Meddler Garen has a LOT of issues that make him a sub-par pick currently. Any buff is certainly most appreciated and welcomed but his damage department is fine for the most part. His struggles are elsewhere.

He definitely needs his stats to be upped; the gutting of his HP and HP scaling gutted his early game, making it very easy to fall behind. Scaling to late game is good and all (Judgement max spins and therefore dmg, passive starts really doing work, Courage lasting more etc) but not all games reach there; many are decided long before that. By stats alone, Darius is a far better damage dealer AND tank than Garen (level 18) :( Garen is a better tank while W is active but that's just about it. And Rito's official statement was "We don't want a game where champion X is better than champ Y at all things Y does so you won't have a reason to pick Y over X." Currently, many do that to Garen...:/

His passive could definitely be looked at. I liked how it got buffed but early on, it's not much use-you must sit away from combat a lot to regen, which will cost you cs/get you behind. Many have the in-combat sustain which leaves you at a disadvantage. When it kicks to overdrive you really see the difference but anyone who meets the requirement's with Warmogs essentially gets a max power Garen passive for free again bringing him on the losing end (it's pretty much a 'winmore' item on him). A not OP and not changing much change could be to make it so that you get the full heal from passive when you activate W and it cannot be interrupted/stopped for the duration (until we can come up with something better).

Q seems fine as is (although the nerfs to ms bonus it gives and base ms made Garen the easiest champ to kite or of the most easiest at least). What you could do with it would be to make it into some form of a gap closer; every new champ which has the same role (and not only) with Garen gets that- more disadvantages he has to compete with.

W was hideously nerfed in juggernauts patch. A % bonus of armor/mr coming from everything (items, runes, masteries) gave you huge value the moment you leveled the ability and made every defensive item that much more worth on Garen. The measly flat 30 bonus isn't something great imho (which you need cs to achieve). I also don't understand why it should be capped; Sion has no cap, Veigar has no cap, Bard has no cap, Nasus has no cap. I don't think it's that OP, especially since it comes in lame doses of 0.25/creep. Also, removal of tenacity hurt a lot; Garen WANTS to absorb cc for his team. The "we don't like/think built in tenacity is healthy" justification didn't quite cut it imho (Irelia's passive still stronger version that's ALWAYS up and the recent change didn't do much to end the frustration she creates as a champ). Idk, it needs to be changed a lot imho, just keep the core essence- reduced % dmg taken.

E is ofc his trademark and iconic ability, the original and still best spin2win in the game, wouldn't want it to change ofc; except maybe a few things. I don't like how, at some points, someone can just sit there, auto attacking you and do more damage than a full E on his face, especially in early levels. That's why many max q first now (bigger ms and for more time) since e also scales with champion level. Also, "Judgement can crit for bonus damage" but what items for crit are you expecting Garen to build? IE-which was nerfed, then buffed (a little) but still very expensive? Or any of the Zeal items (RFC and PD could be nice but still not optimal)? Youmuu's was neat but they removed crit chance from it. That's why you put 1 crit chance rune in the page and pray to RNGesus. You could make it so each subsequent tick you land does increasingly more damage (reward for sticking to target). Maybe increase its range a bit.

R should also remain as is- or Rito could do us a favor and make it AD scaling at long last. Villain mechanic does seem fitting thematically but the bad thing is that it is very unpredictable (supports or anyone you shouldn't be focused on killing gets it). On the other hand, if the one you should go for is enemy adc and you can already 100-0 it without it then again, it's not much help. Considering this was the 'counter-balance' for Garen's nerfs, it doesn't seem that OP. What they could do maybe is giving the ult reduced cd if you manage to kill the Villain/give a recast time window if you execute the Villain (that would make him very Darius like ofc..). Or when you successfully kill the Villain, get a buff that gives E increased range and damage and cd reset on kill.

You've said that you want to "keep Garen a beginner-friendly champ" and this kinda ruins the hopes of a potential bigger rework... You don't want Garen being able to make plays/used at competitive level? If you look at the Battle Training you have Ashe, Ryze and Garen- 3 'beginner' champs, each considered the easiest for his role. Ashe had to be nerfed, Ryze is having a resurgence, both are prevalent in the highest levels of play. Poor ol' Garen? Struggles in obscurity... I believe you can find a middle ground where you can 'modernize' his kit up to today's standards while keeping him beginner-friendly.

P.S. Sorry for the wall of text, it just goes on to show how much I love Garen.

BastionKross11/28/2016, 5:26:02 PM4 votes

At this point, Garen should be happy he's getting any attention at all after the constant nerfs to his core items and the complete apathy of the balance team to hand out compensation buffs for him. Sterak's, cleaver, and swifties nerfs, boot enchant removal, and the marksman update joining the vast majority of crit items with either attack speed or mana gain all indirectly took power from Garen.

Individually not a big deal, but all together they took a lot of power away in the form of less MS, less HP, and less damage.

Riot seems to be responding to those losses by adding armor shred. Missed the mark a bit; but let's hope this is just the first stop in a train of buffs and not the end of the tracks.

Jon117411/28/2016, 4:50:27 PM2 votes

Im sure Garen mains will be fair and balanced and not have any bias towards how the champion should be buffed or nerfed

legionnaire9911/28/2016, 5:41:29 PM1 votes

It was made to give you a reason to pick him not just flat buff