A Garen Rework to fix his age old problems
Garen got a rework about 2 seasons ago. It tryed to fix his kit for what it did. Unfortunately it just made him more feast or famine. The goal of my rework is to bring skill into his kit to reduce the stat checks. By this I mean can you win through skill instead of just raw stats.
His kit as it is now (skip the first block if you know it):
Perseverance INNATE: Garen regenerates 「 0.2 / 0.4 / 1% maximum health every half-second 」 if he has not taken non-minion damage in the last 9 / 6 / 4 seconds. At level 11, damage from non-epic monsters will no longer stop Perseverance. At level 16, Perseverance's power is increased significantly.
Decisive Strike COOLDOWN: 8 ACTIVE: Garen cleanses himself of all Slow icon slows affecting him and gains 30% bonus movement speed for a few seconds. DURATION: 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3 / 3.5 Additionally, his next basic attack within 4.5 seconds deals additional physical damage, and Silence icon silences his target for 1.5 seconds. BONUS PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+ 40% AD) Decisive Strike resets Garen's autoattack timer.
Courage COOLDOWN: 24 / 23 / 22 / 21 / 20 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 reduces incoming damage by 30% for a few seconds. DURATION: 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6
Judgment RANGE: 300 COOLDOWN: 9 ACTIVE: Garen rapidly spins his sword around his body for 3 seconds. For the duration, Garen cannot basic attack, is Ghost ghosted and deals physical damage 「 in 5 - 10 (based on level) spins 」 to enemies within range, increased by 33.3% when damaging a single enemy. 「 PHYSICAL DAMAGE PER SPIN: 14 / 18 / 22 / 26 / 30 (+ 34 / 35 / 36 / 36 / 37% AD) 」 Judgment can critically strike, dealing 50% AD × (1 + bonus critical strike damage) increased damage. Enemy champions hit 4 times have their armor reduced by 25% for 6 seconds. Hits after the 4th refresh the duration of the debuff. After 1 second, Garen can Judgment 2 reactivate Judgment to cancel it immediately, reducing its cooldown by its remaining duration.
Demacian Justice RANGE: 400 COOLDOWN: 120 / 100 / 80 PASSIVE: The enemy with the most kills in the last 5 minutes is marked as the Villain. The mark cannot be assigned to another champion while Garen is in combat with the Villain. If more than one enemy has the same bounty, the enemy who received it first is marked as the Villain. Garen's basic attacks and each spin of Judgment.png Judgment against the Villain deal 1% 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, converted to true damage when targeting the Villain. MAGIC DAMAGE: 175 / 350 / 525 (+ 28.6 / 33.3 / 40% of target's missing health)
The problem with his kit is that it relies 100% on his Q to trade and his W to keep him ahead and then his ult to finish them off. His kit is meant to be a juggernaut, but his kit is all about killing a single person not CC'ing. The only thing that makes him remotely close to a juggernaut is the whole not dying once he gets but then that is contradicted by his passive which seems to tell him to leave.
Proposed rework to keep his image and achieve what I believe is the goal of most Garen players while removing the stat dependence.
R: Demacian Justice: Enemies that had killed or mortally wounded (like 75% of their HP) an allied champ within the last 10s are marked as Villains. Villains give Garen a 20% move speed boost towards them as well as a 10% damage reduction against them. Active: Garen leaps up to 400 units on target enemy champion does 125/250/375 physical damage + (+ 28.6 / 33.3 / 40% of target's missing health). If it kills someone, it marks the lowest health enemy champion as Villain. Visually I imagine him doing kind of a Darius leap but plunging his sword into the ground on his target.
Q: Decisive Strike: Garen leaps forward 400 units including through terrain doing 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+ 25% AD) + (5% of Garen's max hp damage) to any minions in the path. Stops on first enemy champion silencing them for 1.5s doing the same damage + 100% AD. Visual of this leap is similar to how he currently leaps on his Q his currently. Can critically strike for 50% increased damage.
W: Courage: Active: Gain 5* (number of enemy champs within a 900 range of Garen, so up to 25) + 15% bonus armor and MR for 2/3/4/5/6s. Second active or after wear off: Garen clears himself of all CC except suppression and loses the bonus armor and MR. Both activations are allowed during crowd control.
E: Judgment: Garen swipes his sword in a semi circle (180 degrees range of 300) dealing 60/100/140/180/220 + (25% AD) + (5% Garen's max hp) physical damage. Enemies in the center (about a 45 degree cone) are slowed by 25/30/35/40/45% for 2s and take 30% increased damage.
Passive: Perseverance: Upon falling bellow 40% hp, Garen gains 1% max hp per second health regen until he leaves combat. At 20% this bonus increases by 50% up to 1.5% max hp per second. (At 4k hp this is 40/60 hp per second).
The goal is to give Garen less stat checks and make him more about actually landing and using abilities rather than relying on passive effects and to give his passives more limiters while still having a use in his kit for the overall goal. The reason I started with the ult is I feel that it defines his kit pretty well. Nothing is more Garen than yelling "DEMACIA" or "JUSTICE" and plunging a sword from the sky onto someone.
And yes I understand the passive is very similar to Mundo's, but I have felt Mundo also has been in need of a full scale rework for awhile. And I'm sorry to all the crit Garen's out there. I hope the Q makes up for it so you still have something to feel like you are going ham. I just want him to be actually viable as the juggernaut he was meant to be while actually adding a little skill to his kit other than mechanics.
Thoughts? Ideas?
