PSA: Garen is a JUGGERNAUT
With all the people saying that Garen is doing too much damage, beating them in lane and whatnot else, I'd like to remind you about something regarding what he is. Garen is a JUGGERNAUT. Juggernauts are INTENDED to deal great amounts, and tank great amounts, of damage. They are described as such by Riot:
"Juggernauts are melee titans who relentlessly march down the opposition and devastate those foolish enough to get within their grasp. They are the only subclass who excel at both dealing and taking significant amounts of damage, but in turn they have a tough time closing in on targets due to their low range and extremely limited mobility."
So, what does that mean? That means that if Garen, or ANY OTHER JUGGERNAUT for that matter, gets on you; IT'S GOING TO HURT.
Garen himself is actually one of the most LIMITED Juggernauts of them all. His main tools for getting on a target come from his Q in the form of an MS boost, and other mainly MS-Boosting effects such as Rage ( 
or 
edition), the Dreadnought momentum effect of 
and maybe 
, but that's something I see built on other Juggers (Like 
and a few others) rather than Garen himself, and of course, there's 
.
There is also Phase Rush and Predator, but unless the Garen player INTENTIONALLY takes them as his Rune Setup, they are not always there and thus not as commonly seen (And thus as reliable) as the above things.
So first, his Q CLEANSES him of all slows affecting him at the time of activation, but does NOT render him immune to them afterwards. (I know about the Tenacity on W, but I'm talking about ONE PART of his Kit at a time) That means, if you save your Slow for AFTER he's used it, guess what? You've rendered his MS Boost useless. His Q also silences you, for a total of 1.5 seconds (Remember when it used to scale with the level of his Q, instead of being a fixed duration?), IF he can land it on you. If you wisely use your champion's skills to keep him at bay for 4.5 seconds after he's activated it, then he can't get you with it. Even if he does land it, guess what? Unless it applies an effect such as Glacial Augment, the slow of the Dreadnought momentum, or the slow of Frozen Mallet, YOU CAN STILL MOVE while you're silenced. You can literally just walk away, EVEN IF the Garen is following you with the remainder of his Q MS Boost and any others he might have. Not exactly rocket science here people.
His W. His W now, as a tradeoff for the increased damage of his E and R, has been pretty weakened. Instead of reducing damage from all sources for 60% for the first 0.75 seconds, he now has a 10%HP Shield, that becomes less and less effective as the game does on. Example: 3000HP=300HP Shield. That won't even block a lategame ADC's AAs if they crit. He now has the 30% Damage reduction through the entirety of the duration, which means he COULD block 1 AA, but the likelihood of that occurring is not very high, and he's also MUCH more susceptible to burst because of this reduction of his damage resistance. His stacking resistances have been reduced back to 30 (Like it was some time ago), making his other natural defenses even weaker too. That makes him even LESS LIKELY to be able to shrug off an attacker's burst like he was able to do before. As for the Tenacity, it's still 60%, and is still only up during the first 0.75 seconds. So, like I was saying in the Q section, he COULD theoretically reduce the duration of any Slows you might apply AFTER he's activated his Q, but the timing still has to be pretty pixel-perfect, as it was before the changes.
https://media.giphy.com/media/XGriKTsX8uFs1RQWGO/giphy.gif
Now, the meat and potatoes of the Rework: his E. Instead of that isolation mechanic (Which anyone with half a brain was able to negate simply by standing in groups of minions), he deals 25% extra damage to the nearest target, indicated by the old "Villainy" Mark above the head of the unit suffering the bonus damage. This largely does not change how Garen was rewarded for his E in comparison to the old one, it was about POSITIONING!
Old E: Garen would have to position himself in a way that his E was only striking 1 Unit, preferably the champion he was targeting. The champion he was targeting had counterplay simply by standing in groups of minions, monsters or with other allied champs, meaning every tick of his E hitting them did not apply that 33% bonus as long as those requirements were fulfilled.
New E: Garen now has to position himself to where if he wants that 25% damage bonus, he has to keep the champion (His presumed target) as close as he can for as long as he can. The enemy still has counterplay in the form of POSITIONING, as well. If they can force some distance between themselves and the Garen (Via minions, monsters or even fellow champs), those ticks of his E don't apply the 25% bonus; JUST LIKE THE OLD E.
The IDEA of using your positioning to counter the effectiveness of Garen's E is STILL THERE, it is just done now in such a way that you might have to THINK a bit more, rather than just mindlessly standing with minions to negate it. On the flipside, the Garen ALSO has to think a bit more too; he may be ghosted while spinning, but if he's chasing you THROUGH minions, that means that as he chases you, the 25% Bonus is getting changed from you to the minions AS HE CHASES YOU through them when they get close enough.
Now, the last thing everyone's shouting about: His E now GRANTS STACKS OF CONQUEROR. With an AA, Q and then 3 ticks of his E, he can gain all 5 stacks pretty fast. You know who else can stack it quickly? NEARLY EVERY OTHER JUGGERNAUT; as well as some Skirmishers and Divers too.
Examples:
- With a standard 1-2-3 combo (Pull, AA, W, Q), Darius can gain 4 stacks of Conq.
- With a standard 1-2-3 combo (E, Q, and then Ghouls) Yorick can gain 3 stacks of Conq, not to mention the attacks of his ghouls beyond that being able to grant him the remaining stacks without him even having to attack the target.
- 1-2-3 Combo (E, Q, AA) not only gives him "Darkness Rise" but gets him 3 stacks of Conq besides.
Now some non-Jugg examples.
: Dash in, W, and Dash out can grant Renekton about 3 to 4 stacks of Conq, depending on if he's using the non-empowered or empowered version via his Rage.
: E stun, Q Dash, followed by an AA gives her about 3 stacks in rapid time.
: Q Jump (Which has this little addendum: Jax will attempt to automatically basic attack his target at the end of the dash which could grant another stack), W Reset, AA while E is up can get him all 5 stacks very quickly.
: Now I could be wrong with this one, but... Each Q (IF it hits a champion at least, I believe) grants 1 stack of Conq. Weave one of her empowered AAs between each one, and you can get all 5 with just 1 Ability. I know that's not how most Rivens combo their attacks, but I think it is still possible nonetheless.
Look at that! He's not the FIRST to be able to stack it so quickly! In fact, because he stacked it so slowly in comparison to the rest of his class, or even fellow Fighters/Bruisers in general, it was nigh-on USELESS for him before. With this, he's actually able to use one of the Keystones MEANT for his Class!
https://media.giphy.com/media/UZtyaSGyC9Wbm/giphy.gif
Last but certainly not least, his R. In exchange for it being changed to always deal true damage, the amount it deals has been reduced. From 175 / 350 / 525 and 28.6 / 34.3 / 40% missing health, to 150 / 300 / 450 and 20 / 25 / 30% of the target's missing health. Sure, you may not be able to reduce the amount of damage via MR anymore, but you also no longer have to worry about ever being marked as the...
https://www.fightersgeneration.com/characters/venom-v.gif
...any more. No more of him dealing 1% of your health as true damage via AAs, Qs and his E. He has to get you LOWER to be able to execute you.
There. Now perhaps that I've explained it (Even if Meddler just said on https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/OzpQtsiV-quick-gameplay-thoughts-october-11 that he's a candidate for nerfs) you can see that Garen, while certainly improved with this rework, is not as strong as people are making him out to be.
This has been EbonybladeJ88, a lover of all Juggernauts, signing off.
or 
had similar stats, people would defend them to the same degree as 
or 
who only has 
