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Garen Improvement

D0P3ST·4/13/2018, 7:01:39 PM·7 votes·5,275 views

I was a witness to a post this morning about the current "identity" of Garen. To me, he is a anti-carry pick, able to deal with even the roughest melee match up well if played properly, but I would agree that current he really lacks an identity, especially scaling into late game. I came up with just some suggestions for what "identities" he could be put into, and how to possibly do it, so I'm just spit-balling here. Is he "Bronzies First" - Split-push Carry, is he a Tank, is he a Juggernaut? No one knows and there are problem with all three of those definitions.

A. If you want to emphasis the damage, which would be good cause he feels like he is lacking the most here in comparison to other Juggernauts, you have tons of interesting options:

  1. You could add 1.5% max health to attack damage ratio on the passive, basically old Atma's Impaler. This would reward him like other Juggernauts for building health, without missing out on the damage he needs.

  2. Remove the 33% percent damage amp from the E on a single target and just make it auto crit. I like this option the most cause it would maybe be interesting to see Garen's when ahead build IE more, something no other Juggernauts do.

  3. Increase the movement speed duration of the Q to the full 4.5 seconds, with the movement speed decreasing overtime past the initial 1.5 - 3.5 seconds(based on rank). This would emphasis his mobility past other juggernauts, though I think this is the weakest option since it doesn't fix any other his direct "identity" problems beyond buffing the Ghostblade build.

B. You could also put emphasis on his tankiness, though since unlike most other Juggernauts, he lacks any in-combat healing options:

  1. Remove the armor/MR stack cap from the W, so good players can infinitely gains defense for late game, at the same rate of 30 per 120 cs.

  2. Make Garen Unstoppable for the first 0.75 seconds of the W active instead of just adding 60% tenacity, fully committing to that outplay potential when used well.

What do you guys think?

7 Comments

Critmaster Garen4/13/2018, 9:35:00 PM4 votes

Make Garen Unstoppable for the first 0.75 seconds of the W active instead of just adding 60% tenacity, fully committing to that outplay potential when used well.

this is at the same time the most promising, and the most terrifying change. im all for it.

however, this doesnt fix all of his problems. he still has issue with being stuck between skirmisher and juggernaut in playstile. meaning, his kit has huge windows of strength and weakness depending if his spin is available, or on cooldown.

very similar to a skirmisher, this incentivises a hit and run playstile where you want to get into a fight with your spin, and then disengage when its on cooldown.

its very similar how Renekton and Riven have bursty ability chains that are on decently long cooldowns, tend to go into a fight for short trades, and then dash back out to gain time to recharge their abilities.

unlike a real skirmisher, garen doesnt have the tools to disengage a fight. when he takes a fight, hes forced to commit 100% almost all the time. unlike other juggernauts, he doesnt have tools to be effective in prolonged fights either. like he isnt designed around auto attacks like other fighters, and has no steroids to trade properly with just auto attacks.

Garen is basically Renekton if renekton had a movement speed buff instead of a double/triple dash, and had a silence instead of a stun, and couldnt heal in combat.

Triumphant Glory4/13/2018, 9:23:49 PM2 votes

Personally my favorite is your A:3 and B:2

Elkington4/14/2018, 1:19:00 AM1 votes

Garen could do 200% more damage and he would still be a binary pick on SR. In order to be a reliable immobile melee dps he needs a way to contribute to a team's victory outside of just damage output. In other words, he needs some kind of unique utility.

He may not have the best winrates/pickrates, but Trundle is imo an example of a juggernaut done right. In addition to being a dps, he has enough utility to even be played support. I feel all of the juggernauts should have that kind of flexibility, since their dps is generally unreliable.

JusticePauldrons4/18/2018, 1:03:51 AM1 votes

My biggest thought on the issue would be to add a Small Rengar/Illaoi like "leap" to his q, where once he reaches a certain distance he leaps at the target and silences them. Garen's biggest problem is he has no initiation, he basically has to burn flash or ghost to engage every single time.

On your suggestions.

  • I actually like the idea of making his E auto crit. This would keep his core identity as a critable bruiser, something cool and unique to him, and would make IE a core item again as well as helping him transition to late game better.
  • I love the Atma's Impaler suggestion, as it is the item I miss the most on Garen and would allow him to compete in damage with bruisers who scale harders than him normally, while not affecting his early game too much.
  • Uncapped Armor and Magic resist is fine in the situation that it scales slowly as you suggested. A farm heavy game would allow him to get 60 extra Armor/MR, nothing insane really when you consider all the reductions available to his opponents.
  • I like the idea of the w granting him unstoppable, but it doesn't stop the fact he doesn't have a reliable engage, allowing him to shrug off a stun is cool, but I would much rather have something more reliable like my suggested Q change and I feel having both would be too strong.