This is what pisses me off about Riot the most....
Disclaimer: Yes I'm a Garen Main, No I don't really care about these Nerfs as I don't think they will affect him at all, I'm just using this as an example cause its the easiest one to find since its literally happening right now.
> Garen nerf - Garen's too strong at this point. We'll be looking to take power out in ways that nerfs him more in lower MMR, less in high, given it's low MMR that he's particularly out of line
-Meddler
Okay so Garen is nub stomper, so some changes that would affect low elo only are a good thing.
> Garen's spun his way into top lane dominance as of late, and Q's early game damage leaves opponents with few opportunities to trade well
-Patchnotes
So what happened to Nerfing Low Elo only? This is a completely different direction of a nerf than what was original stated. How did we get from "Nerf Low Elo", to Nerf all Elo?
> Q - Decisive Strike BASE DAMAGE 30/65/100/135/170 ⇒ 30/60/90/120/150
-Actual Change
And here we go again, a change that doesn't reflect either one of the above statements. Nerfing Q's Base at the later lvls, is not an early game nerf, its a mid game nerf at best, as you wont even be feeling this change till lvl 8 or 9, even if you max Q, but some match ups you max E (
for example since they can ALWAYS block Q.
This type of stuff makes me believe even further that the balance team has 0 clue as to how to actually balance.
Here is some ideas on how they COULD have changed Garen like they said.
Low Elo Nerf - Reduce the first instance of W, making it even more of a timing thing that Higher Elo players wouldn't have a problem with, but Low Elo players would struggle with.
Early Game Damage - Nerf his EARLY game Lvls, 10-170 instead of 30-170 THAT is an early game nerf, Or even change his early game scaling of Q, maybe make it scale with lvl, back up to its original amount by lvl 11. Or Give the Silence Scaling per lvl maybe 1-1.75 compensating it a little in the later lvls.
There are a ton of ways to have changed Garen in both ways they stated, but the actually change has nothing to do with either statement.
Edit: something is wrong with the Quote Boxes, they show up in the pre-view, but not here. sry guy/gals :(