New Garen OP or UP
There has been a lot of complaints about the new Garen. A lot are from the side that considers new Garen OP. I have read many though who think the new Garen is worse than before. I admit he has some ability to do more damage than before in certain situations. But here is why I consider him nerfed, not buffed.
He gains 18 damage by end game - only real positive. He loses 200 health by end game. He gains 5.4 armor by end game. Mitigated by the nerf to his W and then some. A slightly higher, still melee Auto Attack range, which is not much a part of Garen's damage.
Q - ranks don't increase his silence duration anymore. Ranks also give movespeed for a shorter duration than before. Only at max rank does he get a movespeed buff that lasts as long as his E provided you don't click it more than half a second after. No more q , aa, then e, the q must be used to stick to a target for the full e duration.
W - No longer gives tenacity. No longer gives armor stacking. 150 minions to get the max armor of 30 from the new W. Previously W would give 30 armor from 150 armor , the bonus of which would far surpass 30 by late game and and 30 could easily be had long before you hit 150 cs.
E - This was the biggest nerf. Despite what people say about his damage, This is the major source of his damage and it has been nerfed in nearly every situation that old Garen would find himself in. I ran the numbers myself and was pretty simplistic, using 100 AD as his total AD throughout the game. Obviously early it will be lower than late game, But overall I think 100 is a decent number considering the people complaining about him mostly say that he does said damage while building pure tank. Here is what I came up with, and I could be wrong so feel free to read the notes and do the math yourselves if you think I am wrong on it. These are all full duration, by the way. Obviously he will do less damage if unable to stick to his target with the nerfed movespeed from Q but I am assuming he is building heavily into speed.
Level 6 garen, 3rd rank of E - 480 old garen vs 328 new garen. On single target, 436 . Still lower damage than before.
Level 10 garen, 5th rank of E - 690 old garen, vs 512 new garen. On single target, 681. Still lower damage than before.
Level 13 garen, 5th rank of E - 690 old garen, vs 612 new garen. On single target, 813. Lower damage than before unless you are still not fighting in groups. Possible.
Level 16 garen, 5th rank of E - 690 old garen, vs 688 new garen. On single target, 915. Lower damage than before unless you are still not fighting in groups. Unusual.
Level 16 looks the best, at end game he does almost the same damage as he died before. Garen as played before would either be splitpushing and fighting a group if they came to stop him, or he would be fighting with his group, spinning into the enemy team with BC to lower their armor for his ad carries and taking some focused burst damage away from his squishier teammates. In that situation, he almost does as much damage as before. There is basically no change to his E damage or Q damage end game.
So why does he get the nerfs to his Q, the nerfs to his E pre-16 level, the nerf to his W, and the loss of 200 health?
He gains situational extra true damage to one specific target which changes over the course of the game. Against an adc with 2k hps, a full combo of Q - E - AA would be 12 percent max health true damage to the tune of 240 extra damage as true damage. His ult does true damage instead of magic damage to that specific villain. Against an adc with little to no MR, the change does not make a huge difference either. It does no extra damage than before, just true damage but only to that specific champion.
That is the reason his early game was nerfed hard, his Q was nerfed, his W was nerfed and his health was nerfed. For that extra damage against one specific champ that he has no control over who it is. Not worth it for anyone who ever played old Garen and enjoyed him for what he was. He only gains an advantage against the villain, something that does him no good up in top lane, splitpushing, or team fighting. To make up for his nerfs, the only way he can do so is to consistently hunt down the villain in 1v1 situations. For what he is now, lets call it for what it is, he is an assassin. He needs to roam, and hunt down specific targets. He must build heavy armor and magic resist for fighting under turrets and engaging mages. He can't be top lane and hunt bottom lane or a jungler that can be on the opposite end of the jungle. He must be mid now, He must desert the team fights and look for 1v1 fights against the villain, who is hopefully for some reason not with his team at the end of the game. Forcing garen into the mid lane while giving him a nerf to silence is beyond my understanding. Forcing him into an assassin role while removing his engagement power seems to me to be nonsense. Nerfing his early game to give him late game cheesiness but making it situational upon the villain being stupid enough to wander around on his own late game, WHAT? An extra 465 damage to the ADC, but only when they are solo and the villain, and Garen is level 16, and otherwise a possible 225 or 240 damage increase for only one of those two or zero damage increase for none. That isn't even close to a decent trade-off when you consider that Garen already fell off late game compared to other champs and has almost no cc compared to other champs that build tanky.
On behalf of Garen mains, and all those hating on the new assassin-Garen, please please please, Riot, change him back!
