Garen's buff to his E still doesnt fulfill him as a Juggernaut

While the additional 25% armor shred to his E is a decent buff and draws parallel to his rival, Darius, it does not solve is innate issue during the lane phase and his overall effectiveness to teamfights. As the concept of a Juggernaut is essentially immobile tank champs that can become carries if left unchecked. The longer the Juggernaut remains on the field, the more threat they pose. Think of a raid boss. Darius and Nasus (if well stacked) is the perfect example of this.

However the difference between Darius and Garen is their overall effectiveness where Darius reigns supreme in almost all forms. In both lane phase and team fights. Even their threat presence is night and day. I dont know about you but I think Garen is supposed to be the more defensive version of Darius but I cant see how when Darius can last/sustain teamfights much better.

It's not that I dont think Garen's damage is the issue, I think that in order to draw contrast with his spinning rival Darius, the issue lies with his defense. Mostly during the early phase. Aside from his Ult and unreliable Villain mark, what can he provide that other tanks cannot? I'll list out the issues I see with his kit and my suggestions if you're interested but overall, what do you think about Garen's current state?

** Perseverance**

His passive in the late game is already good. There is no issue there. However before hitting level 16 is where he is going to struggle the most. Especially with the harsh cooldown of 9 seconds and wont even see an increase until level 11. Pre level 11 is where he is at his weakest and any lane bully like champs such as Jayce or Gnar will surely dominate with ease. Which thus would mean that Garen will not hit his spikes when the time calls.

> Suggested Perseverance > INNATE: Garen regenerates 「 0.25 / 0.5 / 0.75 / 1% maximum health every half second at levels 1, 6, 11, 16」 if he has not taken non-minion damage in the last 6 seconds. > At level 11, damage from non-epic monsters will no longer stop Perseverance.

This would help even out his early and mid game. Allowing him to _Persevere _through the lane phase.

Courage

With such a gigantic long cooldown and such a short duration, it's main value comes from it's passive of gaining armor and magic resist. However it's active becomes almost nonexistent as it's normally the last skill to level up and with the measly 2 second duration makes the active more of a random trigger than strategic timing like Fiora's counter skill. Even when the skill is maxed out, it's actual overall effectiveness is minimal despite that 30% damage reduction. Assuming that the reduction works in the same way as Doran's Shield Block passive that if it blocks before resistances is applied rather than after, then the actual damage reduced will be less than expected.

> Suggested Courage > COOLDOWN: 30 / 28 / 26 / 24 / 22 > PASSIVE: Garen permanently gains 0.25 bonus armor and bonus magic resistance every time he kills an enemy unit, up to a maximum of 30 bonus resistances. > ACTIVE: Garen's Perseverance comes off cooldown and cannot disabled throughout the duration > DURATION: 6 seconds

This will allow him to have a lot more of an active roll in teamfights by allowing him to stay in battle for a longer period and at Perseverance's max rank, he will live up to his role as a juggernaut. This will also encourage more variety in offensive builds since this can make up for his lack of his usual go to defensive items.

Demacian Justice

The added bonus of additional damage against the Villain is fine, it is however too random to be used as intended. If the enemy front liner is a Villain? Fantastic! If their enemy back liner is a Villain? Good luck reaching them without being peeled and kited away. How Garen's ult was designed was to be an execution against tanks and front liners. That is fine. However unable of having a choice on who gets to be the Villain makes it counter intuitive at best.

> Suggested Demacian Justice > RANGE: 400 COOLDOWN: 120 / 100 / 80 > PASSIVE: Select an enemy champion to be marked as the Villain. The mark cannot be assigned to another champion while Garen is in combat. Garen can choose another champion to be marked as the Villain once the previous has been slain. Villain's successfully slain cannot be marked again for some minutes > Garen's basic attacks and each spin of Judgment against the Villain deal .5% of their maximum health as bonus true damage. > ACTIVE: Garen calls upon the might of Demacia to attempt to execute the target enemy champion, dealing them magic damage, _half of the damage is converted as true damage when targeting the Villain. _ > MAGIC DAMAGE: 175 / 350 / 525 (+ 28.6 / 33.3 / 40% of target's missing health)

This allows more control for Garen to use his Villain mark to its fullest potential while nerfing the true damage output in compensation of having full control. I dont know how significant the nerf to his active ult since I havent done hard math on it so that's free to be changed.

But as I said before, what do you think?