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Garen as a support?

Styopa·4/5/2015, 1:35:13 AM·1 votes·1,618 views

If you don't want to see math, skip to the main point.

So I've been thinking about (and actually done some testing with) the in game executes and come to the conclusion that Garen's ult lacks the same utility that other top laner's ults do. For example, if I use the League Wiki's numbers for the five most common executes that come to my mind (Nidalee's Q, Volibear's W, Garen's R, Darius' R, and Riven's R), and standardize the damage output with no items at 50% hp for an opponent that has 1k health and no armor or magic resist, I found that unless Darius has 5 stacks of his passive up, Garen comes in first with 318 magic damage, Darius has a range from 320-160 True damage, Volibear comes next at 255 physical, then Nidalee at 194 Magical, and finalyy Riven at 160 Physical damage. So, in order: Garen(318)>Darius(320-160)>Voli(255)>Nida(194)>Riven(160).

However, no champion has zero armor or MR, and no one walks into lane without buying anything. So I did in-game testing at around ~50% hp Yasuo with no items, but with standard flat armor seals and scaling MR blues. Pretty standard top lane stuff. The champions that I tested played the top lane like they normally would, CSing as usual, buying whatever items they normally would. So at around 850 max hp and no flow, with 47 armor and 39 MR, I tried to get him to as close to half hp as possible before executing. The numbers were as follows: Darius(335-168)>Nida(221)>Garen(208)>Voli(197)>Riven(172). How Nidalee beats two ultimate executes, I can't answer. (Riot please!)

Anyways, on to my main point. Since I don't see Garen getting any buffs any time soon, I started playing him as a support, and surprisingly, it did much better than I thought it would. His only bad matchup that I have found up to this point is Blitz, and that's due to the nature of his hook. From my testing so far, I found that the best spells to grab are Flash + Ignite, because if you can pull off a level one invade, a silence prevents them from escaping and the ignite and a few autos is perfect for securing first blood. If you can get first blood, you can upgrade your Targon's Brace, and get the lane advantage faster. If your carry gets it, have them back and get a long sword. In addition, Garen pairs really well with ADCs who have a lockdown like Ashe or Varus, since the Silence rush-in-and-spin combo can chunk them for all of their health.

Garen's Early game damage and natural tankiness is better used in the bottom lane as a support than in the top lane as a bruiser, since the damage and lane sustain will help your carry get fed to ensure the late game will be better.

So what do you guys think? Is Garen better in the bottom lane?

9 Comments

redniwediS4/5/2015, 1:58:02 AM2 votes

Garen is most definitely not better in bot lane than he is in top or mid. I'm not saying he's bad down there, I don't have much experience trying that so I can't really say either way, I just know what he is capable of in solo positions.

Bruisers will always have a cheesy spot bot lane, as either the support, the ADC, or both, so if you can play a bruiser well enough you can pull off a nice kill lane. It's high risk, high reward though, so when it fails it will fail horribly, where as regular lanes have far lower risk.

arcinex4/5/2015, 2:23:46 AM2 votes

You mean level 10 and under queues?

ZeeDrakon4/5/2015, 2:26:23 AM2 votes

If you'd lock garen support in my ranked game i'd 100% dodge. He has no cc, no peel, the execute will take the kills, running ignite is worse than exhaust in most cases, youll get punished Incredibly hard for beeing melee and noone is going to die to your cheese anyway.

BeatzBoyFTW4/5/2015, 4:52:39 AM2 votes

Pros of Garen support:

  • one rare champion to have a silence.
  • natural tankiness
  • .....yea that's it.

Cons of Garen support:

  • has only 1 form of CC. Even Bard has more usefulness than him.
  • His E can hinder the laning process a lot, in terms of accidentally taking cs/pushes lane & getting heavily damaged in return.
  • Typically useless when bot gets ganked hard. No one is getting slowed or stunned around here.
  • As support, his ult really contributes a lot less, as "softening" an enemy isn't too strong on a healthy enemy, and taking kills with his ult really takes away some of his team's power advantage.
IcyPepper4/5/2015, 2:34:46 AM1 votes

Garen mid is better than Garen bot, imo :/

ZephyrDrake4/5/2015, 10:33:54 PM1 votes

why would you pick Garen in the bottom lane? all he can do is run to people and smack them while being harassed constantly by either the enemy support or the enemy ADC... Why not pick Blitz which does what you want to do with Garen but is actually useful? if you get no kills with Garen early then he is going to do nothing the entire game since he cannot get tanky with support income unless you disregard support items entirely and even then you're still not getting much gold. Garen has 0 support abilities and has no way of protecting your ADC or doing anything when he gets behind and he offers other than a silence which won't do much if anything against semi-competent enemies