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I just feel like Garen is a champion whose skills are outdone by other champions. (Noob Rant)

GloriousKaiser·12/1/2014, 6:31:17 AM·14 votes·3,309 views

Passive: Actually, this is great, too bad it only really kicks in at mid-late game. But still, extremely fun to have especially with Warmogs/SpiritVisage combo. And also a love tap can turn this off. BOOO!!!! Also DrMundo actually builds around HP Regen/Health and is consistently reliable. Then again, he hasn't seen much play for a while.

Q: Against AoE comps, the slow removal is useless, and teams can and will coordinate their slows against him. It's so binary with it's success. 1 slow = Yay, i got you now. 1+ slow, get slugged kid.

Udyr Lol I get a mini dash stun Volibear Lol I move faster when looking at people (Plus my passive actually works when I need it) FLIPPIN

W: Oh Riot, I thought his new passive was amazing, but then I realized you made it scale off bonus armor and cut down his scaling base defenses effectively making this a "Sion" passive. Oh yeah there Alistar , wanna ignore an entire teams damage and skills? Go right on ahead.

E: What if we made an ultimate where it was basically Garens Dreydal spin and make it knock people up while moving faster? MonkeyKing

R: You know, % HP executing attacks are nothing new. Garen's is especially potent. But then I realized everyone had one, with better range I might add. Riven Darius . . . item 3155

You might say: "Hey, this just means Garen takes a lot of the GOOD from everyone around him."

I call bull, everyone had influence from him and vowed not to have mediocre representations of what he had. Their skills while only matching individual, evolved beyond Garen's and created something: A true niche.

  • B-But Garen is a regen tank... Yeah and if he doesn't build damage, he can be ignored.

  • He can still execute people!! Ok fine, let's seem him do that when league of hard CC actually permits him to.

  • B-But his damage mitigation is like a mini Alistar ult!! Oh hey!! That would actually mean something if the last few champions actually had softer CC.

  • B-But he can crit on E. Wow I bet he could lay on some mean damage to INSERT EVERY CHAMPION WITH CC AND DASHES HERE!!!

  • His execute does magic /%health damage. EXCELLENT!!! Let's see he can actually finish someone who doesn't have 100 MR or item 3155

  • He can remove slows!! And after Caitlyn netted away with 50 HP, Soraka arrived with a fresh heal and a summoner 3

  • His speed is not consistent or fast enough catch up to ANYONE except Mordekaiser

  • His passive cannot be utilized in fights let alone teamfights. Sure, go Regen in a bush, so you can lose all your HP again. It sucks that you can only use 4 out of your 5 skills when you have to do your main job. FIGHTING

  • His executioners ability is laughable as you can't directly power it up, yet enemies can directly counter it. Plus it's subpar compared to someone like Riven's who also has AoE, and Dmg/Hp AND longer Range, AND ACTUALLY IS OK WITH 1 DAMAGE TYPE BECAUSE OFFENSE IS DEFENSE also because she can build both LW and BC without sacrificing any defense because of the aforementioned.

He's like a tanky Jayce while only being Melee, and really slow, with no gapclosers.

I understand: It's the mobility meta. Always has been. Garen hasn't been strong in years. His semi-rework got him 5 minutes of fame before they decided he wasn't that strong but nerfed him anyway.

  • He can't pull off #LCSBIGPLAYS.
  • He can't tank like Alistar
  • He can't initiate like Wukong (Plus wukong passive > Garen W)
  • He can't execute like Darius

What CAN he do Better? He can only be himself, but even that's not much because Garen is "niche" yet he can't even successfully silence casters without suffering a lot. You can't say he's a Tanky AD Caster that can execute people because then you'd be giving too much on his plate.

My conclusion on Garen: Too many mediocre mechanics on 1 champion.

Feel free to refute.

41 Comments

MrSc0tty12/1/2014, 2:15:02 PM9 votes

You know, I used to think this too, but I played Garen last night after getting shoved into top and panic-picking the only champ I knew I could play...and Garen's got a lot of things other champs can't do. I think the mistake people make is thinking he's an offensive bruiser, they try to charge into a teamfight with Q and get kited, when you can do a lot more as a defender and damage-soaker in a fight.

  1. that instant silence is waaaay undervalued. The enemy team had a Kat who wound up super fed, with 20 kills..,and none of it meant shit because I had an instant point and click way to just turn her off. That silence screws over dash champs and assassins much more than an Apprehend or Bearflip does.

  2. the real power of his kit is that he just keeps going. Garen doesn't get low, if Garen survives a teamfight Garen is at his full power level in no time flat thanks to no mana and dat passive. We managed to barely win a teamfight losing 2 to their 4 with all three of us incredibly low, and I was still able to heal back to almost full and go tank baron for my team afterwards. You may lose out in a straight up fight vs Wukong or Darius or Volibear but you win out in prolonged engagements. You just gotta know how to hit and run.

  3. the sexecute is indeed weaker than other champs like Darius and Riven. The point is for Garen to remain a threat in a fight and put out an unexpected burst of damage-picking your target is the important part.

Garen is the energizer bunny of the nearly-tank bruisers. He builds the least damage (usually just a cleaver does it for me) and has to play it smart in individual engages, but in prolonged skirmishes and hit and run battles Garen wins out over time. Sure he's easy to play, most of his class is. But comparing individual moves in his kit with A) Udyr, which is stupid because Udyr gains power in all his moves for giving up an ult (and besides I think Garens silence is better anyway) and B) two long CD ultimate abilities is unfair. Are you gonna say that Lucian's E is underpowered because Malphite can go four times the distance and gets an AOE knock up at the end?

Saianna12/1/2014, 12:51:08 PM4 votes

I really wish Riot would return Garens R into true dmg like before, OR change Darius R into magic damage. That would be funny looking at Darius fanboys crying for exactly same nerf as Garen had :D

EffectFX12/1/2014, 4:39:36 PM4 votes

I almost always do well when playing on garen personally.

WeFlyNoLie12/1/2014, 3:16:14 PM4 votes

From looking at your ranked statistics, it doesn't seem like you play Garen often, which makes me take your argument on this a little less seriously.

Garen's primary role, in my opinion, is to be a damage-soaking tank, while dealing some damage and being able to execute high priority targets. He can effectively eliminate a champion from a team fight for 2.5 seconds at max rank. While this may not seem like a big deal, it destroys an AP caster's damage output and keeps them from escaping allowing your teammates to lock them down.

Teamfights can go two ways for you, if you get focused, activate your W and spin, if they decide to waste CC on you, you're still spinning and dealing damage while your teammates are free to strike. If they ignore you, jump on their carry, silence them and start spinning. As long as you have a black cleaver (which is generally the only damage item Garen needs) if you jump on an ADC a Q->E->R combo will eliminate them most of the time.

Garen thrives on prolonged engagements. He can get in and out of the fight and be ready to back in faster than any other champion (besides a few like Mundo or Volibear who have HP Regen abilities that have long cooldowns). Garen jumps out and after 5 seconds his HP's already jumping back up, throw in a Warmog's and a Spirit Visage if you need some MR and you'll literally be regenerating at least 40-50HP every second. I know this because I play Garen frequently.

Most of your comparisons, besides the ultimate discussion, don't really have any ground to stand on. Why would you compare a basic skill with an ultimate? "Garen spins and Wukong spins but Wukong's is better because it has knockup!" Well yeah, no kidding, Wukong's is an ultimate, it should have more utility. Same with Garen and Alistar.

Your argument of "Well if they have more than one slow, I'm doomed!". So then use your Q when you know they have nothing left. A good Garen doesn't blow his Q to start chasing halfway across the lane. They'll see you coming, of course they're going to slow you. You have a CC reduction on your W that stacks with tenacity, so unless you're trying to chase an Ashe, I don't see how you can't get to your target. What? You don't take flash? You know how effective that is? Oh, their carry is over there, well, all right, I'll just flash and silence and complete my combo to eliminate them.

I'm not a pro by any means, I'm Gold III currently, and I'm no expert, but I do play a lot of Garen. My question to you is, do you truly understand Garen's role? Do you play him enough to understand him? How do you build him? If you're building all damage, then you're going to die pretty quickly. If you're building straight tank, you're going to be a spinning feather duster. You need to build to meet your needs. Fighting Riven in lane? Start grabbing armor, watch her attacks tickle you as your base damage rips through her. Fighting Rumble or another AP champion? Grab yourself some MR and you literally ignore all of their damage.

Garen's not top tier by any means, but he gets the job done if the person playing him actually understands what he's meant to be doing. I think you might want to practice a bit more before you judge.

CaptnJakSparrow12/1/2014, 10:29:46 PM3 votes

As I read this, I lawl at the fact my friend made it to diamond exclusively playing Garen.

Gunpoint12/2/2014, 12:53:39 AM2 votes

There was once a thread comparing Nami's bubble to Cho'gath's rupture. It turns out rupture is just a superior version of Nami's bubble. What the OP neglected to realize was, Nami has another large aoe knockup/slow, a heal, a ally buff that deals bonus damage and slows, and speed boosts her allies with her spell casts. Cho'Gath has the one knockup sure, but the rest of his kit is a pretty bad on hit magic damage, a low damage, low range, short silence, and a short range execute. Not that Cho'Gath is bad, it's just Nami's utility is substantially more than Cho'Gaths, while Cho'Gath is much tankier and has more damage. The point that I am making here, is that just because one skill is a better version of another champions skill, doesn't mean that that champions entire kit, is stronger than the other champions kit. I think Garen's fine, he's actually one of my favorite champions, by the end of the game right now you can get 50+ regen per second out of combat and with enough resistances take more damage than most other tanks. Also, Garen's resistance buff is his W, Alistar's is an ultimate, Garen's spin is his E, and it can crit, while Wukong's spin is his ultimate, and can not crit. Udyr can dash stun, while Garen can only dash silence, however Garen's silence does more bonus damage. On top of this, Garen is a MANALESS champion, which means he can cast any of his abilities only being hindered by cooldowns, Udyr may have short cooldowns, but it costs mana to shift stances and so he suffers. Darius isn't as mobile as Garen and has a completely different kit aside from their ultimates so I wouldn't compare the two as Darius is very dependent on his ultimate and Garen is nowhere near as dependent on it. HOWEVER, if there is one thing I would like to see changed about Garen is his ultimate cooldown lowered.

TL; DR, It's unfair to compare certain abilities to other abilities on other champions as all champions have different kits and base stats.

Wingling12/2/2014, 12:53:56 AM2 votes

You're absolutely correct about his slow removal and you're kind of correct about his W passive, but you misidentify the problem. Everything else is either overly dramatic or flat-out inaccurate.

So, you're right that his slow removal is effectively useless most of the time, but when you say "1 slow = Yay, i got you now; 1+ slow, get slugged kid." you're actually giving slow removal too much credit. Even if you only have to worry about 1 slow, you're options are 1: Q at them and get slowed or 2: walk at them while they walk away. It used to not be that bad when slow cleanse was on E (you had an option 3: sacrifice Q damage/silence until after the spin), and while it felt better to have it on Q it gave him way too much counterplay.

As for the W passive, you're right that having no resists early is terrible. However, the fact that it's a "Sion" passive means nothing. There's nothing inherently wrong with "Sion" passives as long as they're well implemented and they only really got attention because there were two questionable examples released simultaneously (Cass and Sion, and the presence of Liss's awful passive didn't help). No, the real problem is just that the W passive is massively powerful, yet provides almost nothing early game. W passive takes up a large portion of your power budget so to actually reach full power you need to invest thousands of gold just to make that passive not shit. It kills his build diversity: previously you could get a giant's belt and rush an IE (and yes, that was viable at all elo's), you had an actual choice for when you built your tank items and your damage items.

But Garen isn't simply outclassed. He brings some of the best peel in the game, because not only can he stop the assassin's combo, he can murder the assassin too (there are reasons he's considered one of the classic counters to Akali). Most peelers just CC and hope their team has enough damage to finish the job. He can also initiate/assassinate, although that requires the winds to be blowing just right; he does still have that problem with counterplay I mentioned earlier. His ult is also a huge contribution to teams: you have the uncommon option of bursting down a frontliner, and you can secure kills that would have been lost otherwise with no questions asked (Darius needs to set up his execute, Riven needs to build damage). He has nearly-unrivaled late-game sustain (Mundo's is CD-gated, Garen's is not), and he is the bane of a fed caster's existence.

All he needs is a better option for handling slows, a flat value on his W passive, and to get rid of that fucking 20% self-slow, and I would bet you anything he gets LCS play.

Lachd12/1/2014, 1:32:07 PM2 votes

The removal of atmas was kinda the nail in the coffin of garen(wich is also sad because he just saw some love in his passive change) besides low elo or extreme counterpick and needs some QoL changes or a rework..... or atmas back

DUDE BRO12/1/2014, 6:48:44 AM2 votes

Stop building him like a tank. Build damage and see the true power of garen.

SleepyLionCub12/1/2014, 9:43:41 PM1 votes

If they rebalance the way he seems to endlessly charge. His E shouldnt let him pass through minions, however his Q should let him break out of all forms of CC imo.

PatMcGroyn12/2/2014, 3:13:02 AM1 votes

I had over 300 ranked games on Garen in Season 3, and I climbed out of bronze playing him. He's not as bad as some people make out, but his kit is pretty underwhelming. I would like to see him get a reworked passive (that didn't reward him for PLAYING passive, considering he's really an aggressive champ), perhaps a crit enhancing passive like Yasuo has to improve his interaction with Crit. His Q, W, & E all work quite well, even though they're very simple and easy to use. I think it would be cool if they changed his ult to an AoE, ground targeted skillshot, that did more damage towards the center, scaled with AD, and did physical damage instead of magic.

His passive, as it is, just doesn't make sense with his kit at all. He's supposed to be an aggressive, tanky brawler, but the way his passive works encourages him to run away & avoid taking any damage after blowing his cooldowns.

TehNACHO12/1/2014, 6:39:20 AM1 votes

He's in a really bad position honestly. His skill floor is low and the ceiling is extremely close to it. Playing against Garen tends to be incredibly binary. Some things in his kit flat out don't make sense. It's just...no.

Arsenals12/2/2014, 7:25:20 AM1 votes

Garen is meant to be decent in lane and a starter champion for new players. He's the top lane Annie mid (Annie mid was supposed to be a "beginner mage", she just happened to turn into a good support).

Knight Devout12/1/2014, 12:22:10 PM1 votes

I think the slow removal on Q is also quite weak, except maybe for running away.

The execute damage , as you said, it's overtuned early, but weak as fuck lategame. Oh, it can deal up to 400 damage after resistances---to target with 200 Hp. Most ult at rank 3 already deal 200 hp, so why bothering? Just make it physical damage so that it makes sense for garen to spin with Black cleaver before using R. "But muh lane damage" Garen is already pretty solid in 1v1 scenarios, unless you want to assassinate. Plus, point-and-click execute are never fun, for no one.

Dryditch12/1/2014, 2:20:49 PM1 votes

Kind of agree, but I have one thing to point out.

Dreidel.

Plus, why should it be bad that an ult is a stronger version of someone else's normal skill?

MrSexyHobo12/1/2014, 3:11:27 PM1 votes

make his q a dash plus move speed boost and he would be meta

CoolKnightST12/1/2014, 3:17:05 PM1 votes

Garen is still strong. Litterly the only problem with him right now. By the time he gained his needed buff the meta shifted. Garen is actualy really effective against dubble AP. Just like DrMundo but more damage oriënted. He can destroy Teemo 's but if he has to lane against him their are not plently other reason why you want to pick him.

Bharhash12/1/2014, 4:10:32 PM1 votes

I'm more annoyed by the low skill floor, low skill ceiling. It makes it very hard to make good plays happen. His laning phase is pretty black and white; either he spins on your face and kicks you out of lane while never needing to go back himself, or is completely destroyed and left without any gold to add anything meaningful to a teamfight.

His E's self-slow needs to go, badly, and I really do wish he had a better gap closer than a brief MS spike. As a pure melee champ, he has no poke to harass with, so he's in a constant all-in mode. Against other pure melee-types this isn't too bad, but given the growing popularity of ranged tops, and the prevalence of tops with with dashes, it's hard to justify picking Garen over another. Practically anything he does, someone else does better. But that's never going to change as long as Riot holds him back because he's an "easy" champ.

Meanwhile, with Ryze, Annie, Kayle, Master Yi, Amumu, Warwick....

Gorgannan12/1/2014, 4:30:24 PM1 votes

He needs a rework. He can't be good in his current state. The issue is, while most people think that a champion shouldn't be any better than others because of a high skillcap, Garen is so easy that if he were even slightly viable, he would have an insane pickrate. Like Xin whem he's strong. There's just nothing that excuses him being stronger than any other champion when he is so easy to play, and I'm fairly certain Riot likes him as a Noob Champ to teach beginners.

Basically, he'll either get a rework, or rightfully stay trash.

Kowe The Ewok12/1/2014, 4:30:27 PM1 votes

I suggested this a while back:

My aim My concept does not aim at simply improving his powerlevel. It aims at giving him a unique set of growth paths upon which he can decide each game, making him less predictable and adding the ability to successfully specialize in one path each match without being a too powerful jack of all trades.

The following rework would most likely require slight base stat nerfs to compensate for the gained power.

The rework Lore perspective: As an extraordinary soldier Garen learns from each battle fought, allowing him to refine his abilities.

Upon leveling his ultimates Garen gets the ability to upgrade one of his skills each time he skills his ultimate, which leads to 3 upgrade points in total. Garen can also the same ability a 2nd time to further specialize in a certain playstyle. So in total there are 8 possible upgrade bonuses, but only 3 upgrade points.

  • Upgrading Q aims at improving his utility for the team.
  • Upgrading W aims at improving surviveabilty.
  • Upgrading E aims at improving his offense.
  • Upgrading R aims at improving his teamfight presence.

Q: Rank 1: Each time Garen looses more than 20% of his current health or is struck by an AoE spell this abilities cooldown is lowered by 0.5s. Rank 2: While Garen's Q is activated his during the first 0.75s after its activatin his Q applies silence

W: Rank 1: Garen gains 1 armor and 1 magic resist for each creep kill. This bonus is capped at + 15 armor and magic resist. Rank 2: Garen's passive can't be deactivated by champion hits, but the bonus regeneration is halved.

E: Rank 1: Garen can't be slowed while his E is active. Rank 2: When Garen would get slowed while his E is activated, he spins faster this abilitie's damage gets increased by 33% during it's duration and the duration is increased by 0.5s.

R: Rank 1: The range of this ability gets increased by 225 Rank 2: Killing an enemy with his ability resets Garen's other abilities.

Keep in mind that base stat/passive ability nerfs might be necessary.

Final comment Garen currently is a champion whithout much depth, he's beginner friendly. While some people migth argue that this positive aspect might get lost in the progress, I would argue that this would allow new players to pick a champion they're comfortable with and learn different roles with him while they early and mid game remains barely changed.

I believe that this rework might also make Garen more attractive for experienced players since he gains the ability to adept to enemy playstyles.

Yfrappefort12/1/2014, 6:17:06 PM1 votes

Makes me mad to say it, but Riot once said that Garen is underwhelming because he is a newb champion....

Sure, meanwhile Ryze, for exemple, is also a newb champion, but does not get punished for it.

Garen is just way too binary, so Riot are afraid to buff him. Regardless, it's a poor excuse. I wish he could have a higher skill floor, while not being too complicated.