How to Modernize Garen
I love Garen, I played over 300 ranked games on Garen (over 50% win rate) in Season 3. But as it is, even with the ult CD buff on PBE, Garen is just an outdated champ. His only mobility is a MS boost, and his only CC is a single target silence. As it is, I think the abilities that need revision are his Passive, Q, and R. Here is my idea:
Passive - Perserverance: To me, Garen's passive is weird. Everything about his kit says "FIGHT!" but his passive encourages him to take long breaks to heal up. Instead of increasing his regen while OUT of combat, I think they should increase his Regen while he's IN COMBAT. It could read something like this:
Garen will regenerate 2% of his maximum health every second he's in combat or taken damage from any source (excluding minions) in the last 3 seconds.
Q - Decisive Strike (Active): To be a modern fighter, Garen needs a gap closer. I think having a slow cleanser makes sense in his kit, but I think it could be moved to his W. Taking away the silence would only be fair, and keeping with Riot's preference against targeted, ranged silences (which really isn't core to his thematic design, anyways).
Garen leaps 600 range to target enemy with his next basic attack, and deals additional physical damage. Critical strikes will not interact with the bonus damage from Decisive Strike.
W - Courage (Passive): This ability is largely fine. I would prefer if the old W nerf would be reverted, so that he increases his total Armor/ MR, instead of his Bonus Armor/ MR.
W - Courage (Active): As aforementioned, I believe it makes sense to move the slow cleanse to Garen's W active. That way, when he's running at people and they slow him, he can cleanse it with W, which offers windows of play/ counterplay, because his W active comes with Damage Reduction, so if Garen uses W for the slow, he might miss out on the optimal period of damage reduction.
PASSIVE: Garen's bonus armor and magic resistance are increased by 20%. ACTIVE: Garen breaks free from all slows affecting him and gains a defensive shield for a few seconds, reducing incoming damage by 30% and granting 30% crowd control reduction for the duration.
E - Judgement: Garen's defining ability, I think it functions just fine, it would be nice if they removed the randomly slowed move speed when spinning on minions.
R - Demacian Justice: Also a defining ability on Garen, I think visually it looks awesome. With that said, it's a little boring as an actual ability. It randomly does magic damage, which doesn't make much sense thematically. I think they should make this ability an AoE, ground targeted skillshot that does more damage the closer to center you land it, similar to Xerath W/ Pantheon R. I also think it should do True Damage, or at least Physical Damage so that it scales with the Armor Pen that Garen often builds. On paper it could read:
ACTIVE: Garen calls upon the might of Demacia to attempt to execute an enemy champion up to 300 units away, dealing True Damage plus additional True Damage based on his target's missing health. Enemies within a 500-unit radius of the point of impact will take True Damage. The True Damage diminishes over the area down to 50% to enemies at the edge.
I think this would make Garen a strong (but not overpowered) modern fighter. This kit also fits better thematically with his persona as a courageous, manly fighter - "The Might of Demacia," and the brave captain of the Dauntless Vanguard. The numbers could be tweaked as necessary for balance purposes.
