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"garen is a beginner champ so we shouldn't change him"

Big Lincoln··85 votes·4,147 views

i'm tired of this shit argument, does nothing but impede progress and try to stifle discussion

garen is a shit 2009 design that has no place in league anymore the way he is. he's not a "learner" champ because a learner champ implies that he'll teach you anything at all about how to play league today.

if we went with the "learner champs shouldn't be touched or viable at higher levels" approach, then we would have never gotten Warwick 's amazing rework. warwick still a strong champ for beginners, still mostly the same champ, but because he now has actual depth and complexity, he's** ALLOWED TO BE GOOD IN ALL ELOS **. This is what any reasonable person should want for Garen. He doesn't need a whole new niche, or to be totally rebuilt with his current kit completely discarded; he needs to be built on and expanded, given tools to succeed with the fair chance for enemies to defeat him instead of it being a toss-up on whether he can get in range or do absolutely nothing

Being an easy champion meant for beginners is fine; what's not okay is having literally zero depth to a kit, being so simple that he can't even be balanced to be decent in Gold without turning into a Bronze-lord's worst nightmare. to say that "learner/easy champs" shouldn't be changed or reworked means that we're going to deny that Nunu Pantheon MasterYi DrMundo XinZhao Irelia etc need to be modernized, too.

it's not an excuse anymore. the game has changed dramatically since Garen's time; if he's going to have a future where he's relevant at any level of play, then he needs to change with it.

161 Comments

Critmaster Garen24 votes

the entry level juggernaut for new players should actually be Nasus in my opinion.

he has everything riot pointed out they wanted for garen in a beginner champion. heck, he even teaches beginners the value of lasthitting. his kit is just simple to pick up and understand while already being more effective in most cases.

he also fits into more roles. you should easily be able to pick him as a jungler in lower divisions or as a new player.

power wise nasus is kindof in the shitter too right now, but he still has more tools to work with than garen. at the very least he can still be a nuissance to the enemy by withering them.

Big Lincoln17 votes

I feel the same way, Nasus is a far better new-player champion and he has, at least occasionally, been viable in upper levels of play.

He could stand to be changed a little just to push him towards being the late-game beast he was meant to be, but he has a very strong foundation

Champion Skin3 votes

Nasus will almost never be that strong late-game in teamfights anyways... simply because damage scales better then defense which means Nasus gets less and less time to reach his targets before getting killed (and as the game goes on champions usually get more and more utility as they level up their utility skills and buy utility items like QSS to deal with his Wither/CC which means it will usually be easier to kite Nasus.... though his team also usually get more CC so they might be able to set up the enemy team so Nasus can get to them)

Of course 1v1 he gets really strong if he can reach his enemy but games usually devolve into teamfights and it can be somewhat dangerous for Nasus to split push because of his lack of mobility to escape with if he is getting collapsed on (though it might make the enemy overconfident making them move too close and letting Nasus punch their face in with his Q)

Big Lincoln8 votes

Nasus USED to be a good late game champion though

the issue is that damage outscales defense so much harder, but also that Nasus is really shit at dealing with/getting past tanks, so he can't flex his high stack count on tanks because they have so much armor, and squishies are usually out of the question because he can't get past the tanks

50000000000000002 votes

What if Spirit Fire's armor shred was % based and not flat amount?

DeusVult2 votes

Nasus has always been construed, wrongly, as a late game monster simply because that's how people look at champs who can scale endlessly. "the longer the game goes, the stronger they get." Wrong. No one outscales the level of DPS that a full build ADC has with their crit, IE, AS and pen items, simply because they scale MULTIPLICTIVELY AND FROM RANGE.

Nasus is strong when no one but tanks has any defenses and he has 300 stacks and a sheen, because he just two shots the enemy ADC/mid. Late game he gets shredded 99% of the time before he can run at them

notice me Sin pi2 votes

There's actually was a a KR Master Tier streamer who two-tricked nasus and teemo.

Critmaster Garen5 votes

[{quoted}](name=SAO T1 Yui,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Wocwhn0i,comment-id=00140002,timestamp=2017-05-30T16:58:20.814+0000)

There's actually was a a KR Master Tier streamer who two-tricked nasus and teemo.

which is why nasus is ideal as a beginner champ.

he has a very simple kit, but still enough mastery to him to make it into top teir play.

50000000000000002 votes

I'm not sure this is particularly a good example, though. The beginner playstyle is focused on getting Q stacks, but the high elo Nasus playstyle is about lane pressure with E. It's not so much about mastering the first playstyle that makes you better in high elo as well. It's practically like playing a completely different champion.

Critmaster Garen2 votes

{quoted}

I'm not sure this is particularly a good example, though. The beginner playstyle is focused on getting Q stacks, but the high elo Nasus playstyle is about lane pressure with E. It's not so much about mastering the first playstyle that makes you better in high elo as well. It's practically like playing a completely different champion.

however, he has a simple enough kit to learn the basics and from there focus on improving your overall gameplay.

Dominick Destine11 votes

I'd be HELLA down for a Garen rework.

I liked him best when he was the ultimate tank in League of Legends (Was this S2? S3? I don't remember.... his W still had tenacity and % armor/MR boost) with mediocre base damage and awful scaling. A front-line fighter with AoE damage and a (semi) powerful execute. That was an awesome Garen.... modern Garen is .... really weird, as if they wanted to make him comparable to Darius without understanding what makes Darius such a tremendous threat.

I liked playing Garen, now he just sucks.

DunkinNoobs11 votes

Just being super tanky isn't enough to be useful anymore, unfortunately. You also need to actually do things. There's a reason Mundo is shit tier whenever his damage sucks.

NovaDisk3 votes

Exectly. Gragas, Mao, Naut, Shen, Poppy, Galio, and Zac are very durable, because they have a way of turning off the enemy's DPS with stuns/displacements/slows/invulnerability etc.

Damage is so high these days that having a ton of effective health, even if you have Damage Reduction, just doesn't make you all that tanky anymore.

If you're taking 1500 DPS, every second of CC basically gives you an extra 1500 effective health. (This argument does not even take into account that true Tanks can turn off DPS to PROTECT THEIR ALLIES too, not just in duels.)

Need Gold 4 Tent2 votes

Actually, Garen back then did damage by just stacking sunfire capes lel

TyrekGoldenspear10 votes

Finally a Big Lincoln thread I can get behind. :P

Upvoted. This world needs hope. And justice.

Volibear Boss8 votes

Fuck you, why do you need to change every champion?! Just let the players that like him, play him.

Jeddy01731 votes

"I don't like change."

Come on mate, you can be honest here. That's all you had to say.

I like Garen too. It is for that very same reason that I feel Garen should be modernized so Garen players shouldn't feel limited in their options & be rewarded for putting time into learning him.

Mira Arya Enthe17 votes

Sadly this is all 99% of old player complaints. They hate change, they have been playing the game too long and are bored, so like some old guy they look back on S1-3 with glory-days rose tinted nostalgia goggles and insist that the game is factually in its worst state ever. I have seen it in dozens of gaming communities and in real life. Ignore them they are just nostalgic for personal feelings they imposd over the game when it was new to them.

Big Lincoln5 votes

don't get me wrong, i despise most reworks because the end result is a different champion ahem Sejuani Taric Malzahar Galio etc and I think that's a perfectly valid reason to hate them

i want Garen to still be Garen, but improved

Mira Arya Enthe6 votes

I kinda liked the Taric rework. I don't play Galio and have not tried new Sej yet. Malz I hated. Shy I loved.

Big Lincoln6 votes

you're not allowed to disagree with me

Ralanr4 votes

It's actually really amazing how Internet communities speed up the perspective aging process of people.

People in their 20's really shouldn't be looking for nostalgia and complaining about it imo.

BIAKaboose4 votes

TBH as an older player of the game most reworks don't really phase me. Sure it's a huge pain to have to break through the muscle memory of how you used to play against the old champion, but you can get over it decently quickly as long as they aren't permabanned at your MMR.

What makes me sad is the removal of cool items that could have potentially had some good uses without just being statistically superior. Most of them so far weren't on Summoner's Rift, but still, there have been some neat item concepts that just got thrown in the garbage.

Mira Arya Enthe2 votes

S2 preseason myself. I agree some changes suck. But change as a concept is neutral. And stagnation typically a negative. So saying things should never change like this guy. Is foolish.

Dextix LT5 votes

I think it is more like "I dont like shite change", at least for me.

I am all for a rework if it ends up as warwick success, but if it goes down the road of malzahar, then id rather not want to see him changed at all.

Mira Arya Enthe3 votes

Well that is different. Some people identify singular problems and address them while moving forward. Others just sit around saying change is bad in general.

Ralanr3 votes

Like most people that complain about reworks in the first week.

Glory ln Death2 votes

Or who complain about reworks while they're on the PBE. When they don't have a PBE account.

KirotheImmortal1 votes

This guy is right thou? The point in changing is to make a champ valid with changed game play. Garen is still as strong as ever. Maybe not as strong as his FIRST REWORK (yes guys. He has already been reworked)

Big Lincoln8 votes

Garen is dog shit, he works in low elo because low elo are bad players

50000000000000001 votes

Garen is not objectively good or bad, he's linear. He has one success case (get on top of them, which is only possible with Q), so if he can't do that, he can't do anything. Other juggernauts have more reliable CC (Darius, Mundo, Nasus, Trundle, Yorick) or greater zoning with ranged abilities (Mundo, Illaoi, Shyvanna (gapcloser, I mean), Trundle, Yorick). They have multiple ways to get on top of the enemies. Garen doesn't have options, but if he succeeds in that one option, then he's powerful.

What you're saying isn't wrong, but it's just a bad way to put it.

Rouwhorst3 votes

Do not forget that even if he manages to get on top of his target he has to stat check them or deal enough damage within 3 seconds. Since these things are predetermined even before the fight starts, there is not much Garen can do but hope that he gets a big enough lead over his opponent (very dependant on the succession rate of the enemy).

PermabannedGaren13 votes

[{quoted}](name=Marcus Phillida,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Wocwhn0i,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2017-05-30T04:51:37.347+0000)

Fuck you, why do you need to change every champion?! Just let the players that like him, play him.

I like him.

I want him to be reworked so that he isn't a piece of dogshit.

Big Lincoln6 votes

this. I have mastery 6 on Garen, why are people assuming that this is coming from a position of me wanting Garen reworked to spite his player base? I'm part of it lmao

TyrekGoldenspear3 votes

Mastery six on Harem?

Big Lincoln2 votes

phone autocorrect

Mira Arya Enthe3 votes

Sounds like some anime thing going down.

Teridax688 votes

I think at the core of exemplary reworks like Sion's or Warwick's is that they all have inbuilt sliding scales of power versus reliability. In both cases, you can make tremendously skillful plays by, say, ulting from several thousand units away, or chaining your abilities in such a way that you use them all to their full potential, but you can also both play them more simply, ult from point-blank range or the like, and not fail completely. They're both champions with clear indications of success and failure, but unlike many others, they also give more control to the player over how much risk they want to take at any given time. Because of this, players who are learning the champion, or who just are at a lower elo, can still get good mileage out of them, but as they master that champion and the game, there's a very smooth curve that allows them to unlock more and more of that champion's potential all the way up to much higher levels of play.

To go back to Garen, and even similarly simplistic champions like Xin Zhao or Annie, I think the key to making them viable at higher elos is to similarly alter their mechanics so that they can control how much reliability they want to have versus raw power. I think it's perfectly fine for his WQE combo to suffice as a learning experience, but there should be a clear path for him to improve from there. Giving him more back line access by pulling off more difficult plays, for example, could let him become a top-tier executioner at higher levels without affecting his low elo play too much.

I completely agree that the whole "learner champion" argument is bullshit, not just because we now have several learner-friendly champions that scale up properly with mastery, but also because simplistic champions like Garen are terrible for learning the game: sure, you can get a good win rate with that champion without having to know too much about them or the game, but once you truly start progressing, you hit a wall, and suddenly have to end up relearning the entire game, and finding out it runs along very different lines from what you thought. Most other champions aren't as forgiving, don't have as much free power, or need to interact more with the environment just to be able to contribute, and learning that much in one go in the middle of your gameplay experience is intimidating as hell. Many players power through, mostly by de-learning bad habits they picked up with the easy mode champion and re-learning good ones, and some just stay at that level indefinitely, stuck in that local minimum until some larger force pushes them forward, or simply leave altogether out of discouragement. At best, Garen is a crutch that newer players will find themselves tricked into liking, and at worst he's an impediment to a proper learning experience. In both cases, he's not contributing positively to the game in his current state, and deserves a proper update so that he can be viable across all elos.

DeathBurst3 votes

I think at the core of exemplary reworks like Sion's or Warwick's is that they all have inbuilt sliding scales of power versus reliability.

That's a very good analysis, I never looked at it that way. Power versus Reliability is a super classical trade-off in game balance, but the idea that the player can choose where they want this trade-off on the fly on a situation by situation basis is kinda new to me. Like, when they made Ryze Q a skill shot, they gave it more range to compensate, but you cannot decide on a whim "well, I don't need range right now, let's make it point'n'click for now". Thanks.

Giving him more back line access by pulling off more difficult plays, for example, could let him become a top-tier executioner at higher levels without affecting his low elo play too much.

That would be an interesting niche, but without a concrete idea of what "difficult plays" means, that's not very useful.

I completely agree that the whole "learner champion" argument is bullshit

Yeah it is, but it's absolutely not Riot position on that matter. We all agree that Garen needs work, both Riot and his playerbase. It's just not urgent and so not prioritized high, sadly, but everyone is aware of the fact.

Teridax682 votes

Thank you for the reply!

{quoted}

That would be an interesting niche, but without a concrete idea of what "difficult plays" means, that's not very useful.

You're right, after posting that I realized I was kind of light on details as to what would constitute "difficult plays" for Garen, which is particularly bad since an ongoing issue for Garen is that it's difficult to think of any play he can make that could ever qualify as difficult. I guess difficult plays would mostly have to rely on either the timing of some of his abilities (e.g. pressing Q to cleanse important CC, or maybe pressing W just as a major source of damage hits him) or his positioning (landing the full Judgment on an enemy champion might not always be so easy). In that respect, his current kit would have to change so that his abilities would actually have any kind of potential for skillful use, instead of just providing persistent effects with no real strategic or mechanical requirement.

{quoted}

Yeah it is, but it's absolutely not Riot position on that matter. We all agree that Garen needs work, both Riot and his playerbase. It's just not urgent and so not prioritized high, sadly, but everyone is aware of the fact.

I agree that everyone, including Riot, is aware that Garen needs changes, but the devs also did trot out that argument for real, as it was the basis for his rework during the Juggernaut update, which gave him minimal changes and a "learner" passive on his W, because him being ultra-simplistic was then thought of as key to cementing his identity as a new player-friendly champion. Garen's rework then was done specifically with the idea of him being a "beginner champion", but unlike the Warwick rework, which used that to preserve the champion's ease of learning while substantially increasing his skill ceiling, the changes that followed didn't really bother to make him scale with mastery at all.

DeathBurst2 votes

as it was the basis for his rework during the Juggernaut update

I think you're over-interpreting too much from a few comments. Riot probably didn't avoid on purpose to raise Garen ceiling and then changed their mentality when Warwick rework came. Most likely, they just didn't have any good idea on how to raise his ceiling at the time and they settled down on what we finally saw. Also keep in mind that it was their very first Roster Update, so their process wasn't perfectly established yet and there was a lot of bumps in the road.

Teridax682 votes

{quoted}

Riot probably didn't avoid on purpose to raise Garen ceiling and then changed their mentality when Warwick rework came.

Riot is not a perfectly unified entity, and in these cases we're talking about two different teams of designers. What I'm saying is that Warwick's design team used the idea of a "beginner champion" to anchor his skill floor while raising his skill ceiling, whereas Garen's dev for the Juggernaut update took it as direction for not changing either. Granted, there are massive differences in scope between the two reworks, and I definitely agree that the Juggernaut Update was very experimental as a format, but the core point here is that a champion should never be held back on the grounds of being a "beginner champion", because true beginner champions have good skill ceilings in addition to low skill floors.

Acheron166 votes

And some champs like Pantheon dont even play League, he's just playing a point and click adventure game.

Thilmer3 votes

I really hate that argument.

Warwick is supposed to be a jungler for beginners, and Soraka is supposed to be a support for beginners, and both received massive reworks.

Rigth now some champs of 450 pi have an absurdly high skillfloor.

NovaDisk2 votes

Ashe is a beginner ADC too, and she's often top tier.

AcidTheWarlock4 votes

Ryze is a fucking 450 IP champ.

I have a good number of games on him and I still suck.

WHY DOES RITO STILL LABEL HIM

AS A BEGINNER CHAMPION

IF NO ONE CAN EVEN WIN ON HIM?!

Meep Man5 votes

450 IP =/= beginner. It's just they are that old and their cost has decayed to that amount over time. Ryze is just really old.

Kal Vas Flam2 votes

We don't need all the champions to be complex and require 100 games to master. We need some champs to be entry level. Garen is fine IMO. I don't like your example with WW because his kit has a lot of little innuendos now that require a lot of practice to learn. I get tired of every champion being turned into a high ceiling champion with some kind of dash or blink - I like to have something simple like a Garen, Nasus, or Trundle to play now and then.

Jeddy01711 votes

No one is saying to turn Garen into Yasuo (in terms of complexity). He can still be simple, but just have a little depth. That's all.

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