week 3 top lane juggernaut thoughts

Since I really don't play bot or jungle (right now) I'm only going to comment on Garen, Darius, and other Juggernauts that existed previously (Olaf, Nasus, etc.) in the meta, what it means for top lane, and looking forward.

We saw what happened with Darius. He was pretty OK at first, and Riot was right to buff his Q damage slightly since as his main source of damage and now being harder to hit it really felt underwhelming, but the heal was a bit overboard. I'm looking forward to the changes coming up. He still feels like Darius, and feels like a juggernaut, and can still just be kited, or if you're melee, engage in short trades with him to prevent his passive turning on. I feel like his heal should be healing over time like shen if you just hit one person, but instant if you hit multiple people, which might fix some of his power just walking up and q'ing you and winning the trade purely because of his instant heal.

Garen feels...odd now. Slow as heck. He has real trouble dealing damage to people without his speed, and even items like phage/cleaver and dead mans plate still leave him feeling slow. He was exceptionally powerful before, but now I fear he's going to be too easy to kite, and to curb his power we're going to see champions like , , and top lane much more frequently. Retrospectively, I think the only positive change to his gameplay feeling interesting was the single-target-more-damage on his E. Removing the tenacity from his W really removed a lot of gameplay from his W in that you'd be figuring out in lane if using your W now for this CC was going to translate into you taking less damage, or if you saved it if enemies started trying to dump damage on you, or maybe you want to dive for your team in a turnaround. The long cooldown and low duration of it level 1 kept this an important part of playing garen well until you had your q and e maxed, then it was pretty much easier to use once its cooldown and duration went up by a lot. The stacking mechanic is... ok I guess. It feels out of place and you just end up getting a flat bonus as the game goes on, but if you're losing or dominating you end up snowballing harder or getting snowballed harder. Q silence duration feels bad, like its only used to break channels and prevent flashes.

With more kitey champs coming top, nasus and other juggernauts and champs that have trouble dealing with Lulu and Lissandra and those ilk, champs that can farm easier under tower will be in high demand, and Irelia will probably become stronger than she was earlier, despite her being at a disadvantage against darius and occasionally garen and nasus. Darius will be better against kitey champs however, because of the W change. It really gives him something to do against these champs that he otherwise feels helpless against.

Mostly I'm just waiting for people to realize is the true Tyrant of Top lane with Titanic Hydra, because all his matchups against popular champs are either favorable or winnable, except maybe against lissandra. Time will tell.