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Garen is classed as a Juggernaut, however is the only one to not be able to trade with tanks.

riste·4/1/2017, 2:36:21 AM·15 votes·1,735 views

Hi there, I'm ristiuMMask, Lolskill's rated #1 Garen in North America. I am currently sitting in Diamond 5, pushing the limits of this champion.

Juggernauts are classified as low-mobility classes with a good mix of defense and offense. In exchange for oodles of crowd control, Juggernauts can go toe-to-toe in fighting on their own or wrecking havok in teamfights. However starting in the laning phase, Garen can't even trade successfully with tanks. Maokai, Nautilus, Poppy, Gragas, Zac, and sometimes even Malphite give Garen excessive trouble. This is because Garen's armor reduction in his kit comes way too late to make an effective trade. Darius gets it guaranteed before he even lands an ability, compared to Garen who has to invest in an extended trade, which is simply impossible for him to win in this current toplane meta.

Darius has no issue staying in fights with tanks. In fact, he welcomes it. Illaoi has an easy hitbox for test of spirit and outheals in combat thanks to her tentacles and for a tank to all-in an illaoi by herself is foolish. Nasus can be bullied by tanks but not for long because of his passive and how he scales. And Mordekaiser isn't even a question. Garen's spin at level 1 does less damage than auto-attacks, and by the time he gets to apply his armor shred, the tank has already dished out his trade, most likely coming out on top. Black Cleaver doesn't solve the issue for Garen as now he takes even more damage thanks to percent heatlh damage abilities, and by the time he completes the item, laning phase is nearly over and Garen has missed out on a lot of cs.

Garen's early game damage needs to be examined, or have his armor shred component much more accessible, because as of right now he is bullied out by tanks in lane, and when it comes to teamfights, is ultimately inferior because of not only his lack of an initiation, but crowd control as well. His winrate has plummeted to 40% in Diamond and above, where players understand and punish Garen's early weaknesses.

Will Riot kindly give Garen the true strength of a juggernaut? What's the point of picking a juggernaut strategically that has another class doing what he does, and even better?

22 Comments

Big Lincoln4/1/2017, 3:35:17 AM11 votes

the problem is that Garen is a shit design and has no room for his kit to be budgeted when he is quite possibly the most brainless champion to be made in the entire moba/dotalike genre

he has extremely limited counterplay and no ability to play the game outside of melee range.

Garen wouldn't have a niche even if he got raw buffs; he is literally just a damage pump whenever he's good.

Titanium704/1/2017, 1:10:02 PM5 votes

Let's be honest: Looking at his passive is Garen actually meant to win trade against... anyone? I don't think so.

I won't judge on any balance state Garen is in but from an outsider perspective I think Garen actaully winning even trades while than getting his passive would be kinda... bad.

sej twen4/1/2017, 12:41:36 PM3 votes

garen is a tank that oneshots squishies, that's it

Anhartamin4/1/2017, 2:17:06 PM2 votes

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SnakDatSmilesBak4/1/2017, 4:16:53 AM2 votes

I don't see a problem with garen having trouble with trading with tanks. Thats like saying vayne is broken because she can actually somewhat deal with assassins when most adc cant. Honestly even if garen loses trades against most champs i dont see a problem with it because he can heal it up with that passive of his.

FireDrizzle4/1/2017, 9:04:20 PM1 votes

They should remove that villain crap, being overpowered against 1 person on the enemy team according to chance is the stupidest passive ever. If Garen got some bonus for killing the villain that would be better.

Juggernauts in general are weak picks because they get outscaled so hard by adcs late. The point of a juggernaut is damage but when an adc can just facetank they are useless. A tank like Zac or Naut can still throw out a lot of cc but juggernauts are mostly usesless late. Garen DrMundo Yorick especially, bloody Renekton is more useful late as he has a hard cc. `

It makes me sad no one cares about Mundo, theres all these threads about Garen and occasionally Voli.

Aldra4/1/2017, 2:52:57 AM1 votes

garen shouldn't be able to kill everything, his spin to win had it's glory and i find it powerful when i see my friends play it.

Guyy Fieri4/5/2017, 5:25:06 PM1 votes

If you can't win a trade against a Maokai you're drastically doing something wrong

doodlebob6664/1/2017, 3:09:07 AM1 votes

maybe they could have the shred apply like BC, or make it scale with the rank of his e? currently im more intimidated laning against a nasus, since he atleast has a strong mid/late game before falling off(or can be a dick and go push susan).

Silly Neeko4/1/2017, 3:28:09 AM1 votes

The thing is, with Garen what he lacks in overall damage he makes up for in crowd control and team fighting potential. As you mentioned, Darius has armor pen built in..... But that only works for him and him alone.

Garen has a speed boost that breaks slows built in that silences the first target he hits. This silence alone is enough to mess up almost any champion that wants to use ANY abilities for 2-3 seconds allowijg him to escape or engage against champions such as Riven or Kassadin that are brutally effective at escaping or engaging.

Not to mention armor and magic resist bonus from killing minions, active reduces CC time and grants him some damage reduction.

Garen's spin2win now applies an armor reduction effect by itself along with black cleaver due to it doing on hit effects, leaving an entire enemy team armor shredded for a lovely Twitch ultimate hurricane barrage or Wukong jungle with Garen top and Yasuo mid....... Who needs AP? garen goes in and spins, Wukong goes in and spins, Yasuo comes in and slaughters everyone with them all having armor reduction effects on them.

His ultimate will cause Garen to do true damage to an enemy, if it happens to be a darius, then darius will get true damaged. If they get low at all, Garen's ultimate scales off how much hp the enemy lost. Doing magic damage/true damage there will be little stopping him from executing any tank or enemy that is roughly 1/4th hp.... Occasionally higher.

What Garen lacks in early game damage he makes up for in late game tankiness and annoyance and utility. That is something next to no other juggernaut can do. After the 3rd up of his passive Garen will almost never be found below full HP .

Also, almost all the other juggernauts have mana they have to worry about. Out sustain them and poke often while dodging their skill shots, his passive will work for a while as you wait for ganks, and once the team fighting starts just charge in with your team and watch the enemies drop.

Critmaster Garen4/1/2017, 1:09:54 PM1 votes

problem is garens lack of in combat sustain.

all other juggernauts have some form of heal built into their kits to be able to take extended fights. be it illaois tentacles, yoricks and darius q, or nasus, mundos (+ ult) and volis passives.

in combat sustain becomes especially important in battles of attrition like against ad carries with lifesteal and tanks. due to his q, garen has effectively a slightly larger health pool, which is still outclassed by the health return of lifesteal and inbuilt champion kits.

DunkinNoobs4/1/2017, 5:23:37 PM1 votes

I don't really disagree with anything you said, but I've been doing pretty well with Garen at that elo anyway. Not sure why, exactly, but it works for me.