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Garen kit changes confirmed to be on the schedule. Speak up fellow Demacians!

JusticePauldrons·7/31/2015, 2:11:22 PM·9 votes·4,434 views
Red Post Collection: Darius, Garen, Mordekaiser, & Skarner added to Champ Update Schedule, HUD Changes in 5.15, & more

Welp it is official. Garen is on the list of champions to be worked on with a gameplay update following Fioras. So far all we that can be confirmed is that

  • They will not be removing his silence

That's pretty accurate as to our thinking on silences (can be a good fit on champs where there are things you can do to avoid the silence, generally not appropriate on characters who have the tools to silence you with really high reliability). Garen's keeping his silence as a result, for while it's click to hit it's also a melee ability and he doesn't have a dash/jump/blink.

  • His changes will be reflecting itemization changes.

  • They plan on giving/changing something with Garen's Kit that doesn't overlap with other champions roles (such as being able to ult objective monsters)

Very with you on the value of distinct benefits for bringing a particular champion to a team. We've got something else in mind for Garen though that doesn't overlap with other objective controllers (ult on monsters would give a very Cho/Nunu sort of feel)."

So how is everone feeling so far? Without numbers or hinting at what the changes will be I am riding the edge of excitement and fear right now folks. Could he possibly be getting the changes he needs to actually perform well outside of blind pick? Or will his changes be negligible at best or remove all of his power at worst?

From what I can see so far I can tell you that the decision to keep his silence and the reasoning behind it speaks volumes on it's own. With this in mind we can tell they will not be giving him any increased level of mobility/gap closers (like the ever popular suggestion to "add a leap to the end of his Q"). To be honest I suppose this is a good thing, while I can say one of Garens main problems is his ability to get into a fight, his silence is more or less essential in his role in a teamfight and is his only form of crowd control.

I am also glad to see they will not be making Garens ult usable on objectives such as Baron and Dragon, while I agree that his ult definitely needs SOMETHING to be worthy of the ultimate status/cooldown I always felt like ulting monsters was a cheap bandaid to the problem that would increase his viability only in certain clutch moments but add nothing else.

As for the part about his changes reflecting itemization changes, this part concerns me. Garen has always been extremely reliant on his early game items in order to function. With this in mind his is stuck with costly fighter options in order to have any semblance of power outside of his silence. While I don't have problems with them wanting to make sure he stays balanced with current itemization it also raises concerns over what could happen in the future if those items are changed. It seems like a temporary solution to a long term issue.

What do you want to see?

The big thing I feel we should get out there while these changes are on the table is what as players want to see added/changed from his kit. What do you feel is necessary to make Garen function, what are his main weaknesses and what issues about his kit should be addressed?

For me the biggest issue of all his the problem with his ultimate: Judgement. Now don't get me wrong here folks, I love the ability. What I don't love is how little impact it has for an ultimate ability on a large cooldown. Every other execute ultimate in the game has serious advantages in comparison to judgement and because of this I don't see where Garens fits in.

Darius Most similar in function and cooldown. Deals True damage, has an AD Scaling, repeated dunking, longer range. Jinx Literally a 5% difference in missing health scaling, but has a global range, is an aoe, has a lower cooldown (by a lot), has an AD Ratio. Riven Longer Range, AOE Cone, AD Ratio, AD boost to aid in autos and the rest of her abilities.

Now I am not going to pretend these champions have_ nothing but _ advantages over Garen here. But in terms of their ultimates they all used as an execute to finish off low health targets. While Garens missing health scaling is higher (in a whopping 5% in jinxes case but with higher base damage) it doesn't justify the lack of versatility in its use.

Suggestions

  • Make the ability have an aoe knockback or slow effect. Simple, it already has the animation for it, change the functionality to something similar to a XinZhao ultimate (would also be cool to have a similar theme to their ultimates), enemies are knocked away from the ulted target. This would allow it to have both increased functionality, the ability to err, and provide more options for it. Do you waste your ult on a high health target in perfect position for knocking the enemy team backwards towards your own or save it for a low health target for maximum effect? (Hell, maybe both if the positioning is right) Does your ultimate knock an untargeted enemy to safety over a small wall by mistake? All of these options are opened from this small change.

  • Make the ability have aoe damage at a reduced percent. Same concept as the above minus the crowd control but with aoe damage instead. Simple buff overall but doesn't really fix the problems with his kit (namely lack of crowd control).

  • Give the ability an AD ratio or increase the percentage. Please,_ at the very least _do this if nothing else, it is sad to see what is supposed to be such a powerful finisher tossed behind others simply because it lacks this simple scaling mechanic. It would allow offensive builds to function better when finishing off a single target without harming anything else in his kit.

37 Comments

Colgate Gator7/31/2015, 3:08:09 PM5 votes

Bring back the punch animation!

Hasztalan27/31/2015, 2:57:58 PM5 votes

Chill your tits added to rework schedule means it'Ll be likely 1-1.5-2 years till it sees a daylight.

MrBuffington7/31/2015, 5:14:54 PM3 votes

There's so much on Garen's kit that's iconic, I don't think there's any way they're changing his E, and they already confirmed his Q and ult are pretty similar. His W could probably afford to be more interesting (it's not a bad ability, it's just kind of boring). If most of the changes are meant to be in line with the new fighter item updates, I don't see it being too bad; they updated BC for fighters and it works beautifully on Garen.

Garen's supposed to be this tanky champion that leads the charge, shrugging off poke and stuff, so it'd be cool if he had something to support that, kind of Sion-ult feel where he just runs at you deflecting stuff, maybe something like taking reduced damage + tenacity when he's running at you?

Ultîma8/1/2015, 5:13:30 AM2 votes

Two different ways I could see Garen changing with regards to an ultimate;

AoE melee execute; if Darius is a guillotine, then Garen is a propeller - his signature "spin to win" is used for one massive swing that cuts down enemies in an arc for huge damage. The ability no longer deals damage based on missing health, but gains AoE as a result. Would make Garen less frustrating to play against when building defense, and give him some additional team-fight power.

The commander; The might of Demacia commands his allies forward, giving them a movement-speed boost and armor/resist based on his bonus defenses. This would give Garen massive team-fight utility, play into his theme as a great general of Demacia. Suddenly his strength wouldn't entirely lie on his ability to kill a single target, but also in how he leads his allies to victory with a group ultimate. A bit of overlap with Sivir here, but given that she's the only champion in the game with a team-steroid, Garen might be good candidate for another.

DragoonRuin7/31/2015, 11:03:41 PM2 votes

I hate to be the "negative nancy" in the bunch, but its not going to make a difference with what Riot does to Garen. Just look at the recent MF mini-tweak/update. MF players got exactly ZERO things they've been asking for literally for years. (Strut to get the Garen treatment at lvl 9/11, and/or Q logic cleaned up to prioritize champs). What Riot did with MF, wasn't on ANYONE's radar for MF requests. So don't fool yourselves thinking that your inputs on these boards, or Reddit, are going to make one lick of difference in what they do/change with Garen.

Again, I am not trying to be disrecpectful to anyone, I still love and play the game, but they are going to do what they want to with the champions, regardless of what the majority of its player base says.

Slamurai Jack7/31/2015, 9:47:02 PM1 votes

I love Garen's ult and I think people vastly underestimate it's value. Just use it as a zoning tool in a teamfight. Enemies will be extremely wary to be anywhere near you when below half health and your ult is still up.

Shandrake7/31/2015, 9:58:57 PM1 votes

I kinda want to see them go with an AoE skill shot Ult. Imagine it like the Twist of Fate cinematic.

About the size of Xeraths W. Maybe with a slight delay to give it a little more counter play. Making up for the fact it could possible multi execute.

90017/31/2015, 3:30:55 PM1 votes

I wonder what it would be like to change his ult to being an AoE short range skill shot so it would be able to be whiffed but it could hit multiple targets for execute damage. Or at least they could give it some splash damage around the target that's ulted and leave it as a point-click.

Schreg da Slayer8/1/2015, 1:17:45 AM1 votes

Why try to fix what isn't broken :( #RIPGaren

Ser Garland7/31/2015, 3:55:09 PM1 votes

"Performing well outside of blind pick" nigga, Garen is stupid strong right now. He's received nothing but buffs for a whole year now. He's equipped to deal with Teemo's and other former lane counters as he stands. Has ridiculous health regen that makes Mundo blush.

And it sounds like all they're doing to his kit is giving him some -more- jungle viability, that just sounds like tentative buffs to me.

As he stands, Garen is a walking ball of stats. I wouldn't say he's in the Darius Zone as he's practically unkitable atm with Black Cleaver. Garen's in a good position but buff him any more and he'll turn into old Kassadin