Garen rework, inspired by Garen 1.0 and Kha

Kowe The Ewok··1 votes·1,058 views

Intro The latest buff to Garens passive was a nice change for splittpushing. That being said there will always be way better splittpushers. Garen's main problem is the lack of meaningful choices he can make and the past changes to his kit which require him too heavily splitt itemization to be successful.

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.*

Several changes are inpired by Garen 1.0's kit, others are new and aim to support certain playstyles.

The rework

Upon leveling his ultimates Garen gets the ability to upgrade one of his skills each time he skills his ultimate, which leada to 3 upgrade points in total. Thia Kha Zix inspred feature however differs in one aspect: Garen can also the same ability a 2nd time to further specialize in a certain playsstyle. 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/paasive ability nerfs might be necessary. So, what are your thoughts?

12 Comments

Kingsgrave3 votes

Honestly all he needs is the following 5 changes:

  1. The duration of his Q MS to be 4.5 at all ranks instead of 1.5/2.25/3/3.75/4.5
  2. The duration of his W to be 4/4.5/5/5.5/6 instead of 2/3/4/5/6
  3. His R CD to be 120/100/80 instead of 160/120/80
  4. His R to be Physical Damage instead of Magic Damage
  5. Garen no longer moves 20% slower during his E when going through units

I don't really think Garen's tankiness or even his damage is the problem, he just needs a lot of his edges smoothed out. They artificially lowered the potential of his early game by messing with random factors on his Q, W and E and if they undid those he would be in a much better place.

Solnaga3 votes

There's no "I don't like this rework"

Kowe The Ewok1 votes

There's no "I don't like this rework"

"I don't want Garen changed"

Or is this about arguing semantics?

Solnaga3 votes

If I tell someone I don't like his/her cooking, it doesn't mean I'm not hungry.

Yes I guess you can call it semantics.

iamthegoatofwar1 votes

I'm on the fence about that ult range...and perhaps his E at rank one should just cut slows down by 50%? and then at rank 2 slows do nothing.

Kowe The Ewok1 votes

I'm on the fence about that ult range...and perhaps his E at rank one should just cut slows down by 50%? and then at rank 2 slows do nothing.

You have to consider that his ultimate deals magic damage, yet magic pen is not viable on Garen. As a result it usually deals far less damage than Jinx R which also benefits from last whisper, or Darius R which profits from true damage. The on paper performance of Garen's ultimate is misleading. Ingame it often feels unrewarding and lackluster. Improving the range does not "fix" the damage values but improves usability.

As for his E. There are still roots, stuns and knockback. Not that Garen has a speedbuff but no gapcloser. Considering that most champions these days have one I believe this is a fair trade. Also note that the E duration is relatively short. Jinx' trapps for example would be a great counter to this skill paths.

iamthegoatofwar1 votes

Yha but his ult assassinates tanks like no other ult i've seen

BastionKross1 votes

Keep in mind that Garen is supposed to be an easy to pick up champion like Ashe or Ryze. Choosing evolutions is a complicated mechanic.

Kowe The Ewok1 votes

Ashe is anything but easy to play effectively O.o

While I agree that he is easy to pick up I'ld argue that he'ld build a good bridge to learn different types of characters. The evolutions allow him to test certain playstyles and learn their pro's and cons. The basic laning phase is mostly uneffected thus making it more easy to to try these different roles than playing a new champion each time.

Narasimha1 votes

Thematically speaking, how does this make any sense at all. Kha is evolving, thats fits what he does and who he is. What's Garen's excuse?

Bharhash1 votes

CynicalGiant got it pretty spot on, I think. Garen's kit needs more tweaking than it does a total rework.

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