Boards›Gameplay

Garen

Elphrihaim··2 votes·770 views

The primary issue is the tool-tip for his Ultimate, which reads something like:

...dealing 175 / 350 / 525 Magic Damage, plus 1 for every 3.5 / 3 / 2.5 Health the target is missing.

Can this be changed to

...dealing 175/350/525 (+28.57 / 33.33 / 40% of target's Missing Health) Magic Damage.

And the second thing is his passive.

Garen will regenerate 0.4% of his maximum health every second if he has not been hit with an enemy ability or taken damage from any source (excluding minions) in the last 9 seconds.

Dr. Mundo's passive is

Dr. Mundo restores 0.3% of his maximum health each second.

Since they are both tanky manaless champions that sustain through things... Can Garen's passive get some buff? For example; reducing the reset timer or increasing the health per second; or making it take time to deactivate; have the reset timer be reduced whenever he deals damage, have it not be turned off by passive auras (Sunfire Cape), maybe making it a 'resource'--

After not taking damage from Champions, Turrets, or Monsters for 9 seconds, Garen generates 2 Resource each second. If Garen has Resource and is below 85% Health, he consumes 1.33 Resource each second to restore 0.4% of his Maximum Health. Maximum of 14 Resource (+1 at level 3/5/6/8/10/11/13/15/16/17/18, +2 per rank of W).

Perhaps you could even make Garen's Perseverance not so severely gimped in the jungle (reactivates sooner if being damaged by a Monster, say 5 seconds instead of 9), and we could see him roaming the rift that way (heck, I know I want to see more Garens in bushes that I haplessly walk into, if only because that means that Garen's seeing play).

... and why does Courage have a 24/23/22/21/20 second cooldown, anyway? Would it be unreasonable to ask that it be lowered to 20/19.5/19/18.5/18 seconds (or at least flattened to 20 at all ranks), since mistiming the shield slightly is difficult to make up for when laning (at least, with the current Perseverance).

But really, if I'm being honest, just the first part of rewording the ult to say that it scales directly off of a % of target's missing health instead of 'dealing 1 more damage per N health the target is missing' would be wonderful for new players to be able to grok him quickly, that it is to be used on enemies below certain health thresholds.

..and can Deathfire Grasp be put on his recommended items already, with some AP ratio added to his kit?

17 Comments

67chrome3 votes

The re-wording of his Ult I can sort of get behind, though those numbers are kind of messy.

His fairly lengthy cooldown on his ~eh %DR steroid is also kind of...awkward, especially for a manaless champion. Most opperate under, well - exactly what Judgement causes Garen to do as opposed to just bursting things. Mana costs in general are tied to a lot of front-loaded damage, where a lot of manaless skills/kits tend to favor the Judgement style of sustained damage, where you need to stick to targets over a solid chunk of time to surpass what burst is capable of. Compare Riven vs. Jax and you get that - Jax only needs 2 hits to unload his entire rotation, where Riven needs no less than 5.

Dr. Mundo's passive is

Dr. Mundo spends Health for his abilities, and he doesn't have an Aatrox, Vladimir, or Olaf skill in QWE that replenishes that resource. Also, considering HP regeneration is incredibly common in bruiser kits (on their passive no less), it makes sense Mundo would get a little more than most considering he has to spend health to use skills.

..and can Deathfire Grasp be put on his recommended items already, with some AP ratio added to his kit?

AP ratios I can get behind, only ~8 champions have no AP ratios to speak of, and AP does nothing when it has no ratios (compared to AD, HP, AS, Crit, Armor Pen, life steal, spell vamp, CDR, MS, Armor, MR, HP/5) which all do something regardless of being a sub-optimal choice or not.

DFG though - is a terrible thing to have Garen for pretty much every possible design reason. First, Garen isn't an assassin. He's a bruiser. Second, Garen is manaless and generally reliant on sustained damage. Which is essentially the opposite of burst damage. Third, Garen is supposed to be tanky DPS, where he's tanky and deals DPS. DFG is not a tanky DPS item - it's a glass-cannon item. It's anathema to his kit and aesthetic in pretty much every way, and the last item he should be grabbing.

Lord Graves III2 votes

First, Garen isn't an assassin. He's a bruiser.

Well to be fair it depends on how you play him. Given 2 damage items Garen makes a nasty tanky assassin. His damage is strong enough with just 2 items to shred a marksman or mage before his silence wears off and his Courage makes him tough enough to survive the dive to do it.

Though I agree that DFG AP Garen is vile. Just like Crittlesticks......

What if Garen's utility stuff scaled with AP? Like the damage soak on his Courage or the movespeed on his Decisive Strike?

67chrome1 votes

Well to be fair it depends on how you play him. Given 2 damage items Garen makes a nasty tanky assassin.

Garen's tank is 90% reliant on purchasing tank items, he's not like Alistar where he gets to be tanky regardless of what he builds. If that's 2 damaging items period than he's a squishy "assassin" that lacks the level of burst and mobility you'd really expect from an assassin. If it's 2 damage items and 2 defensive items - 50% offense and 50% defense is more definitive of the fighter class than any other quality.

Tanky assassin is mostly a long-winded way to say "fighter".

In a few cases like that of Wukong, Xin, and Vi it might be appropriate to use tanky assassin over fighter, as there kits tend to be more a combination of extremes rather than something in-between and pointing that out has it's uses. Garen's entire kit is very much in-between tank and assassin capabilities though, landing him pretty squarely in exactly what it means to be a fighter. He's not as mobile and bursty as most assassins, he's not as disruptive and CC heavy as an actual tank.

Elphrihaim1 votes

I was re-reading this and am sure you've lost interest

A tanky assassin is somebody who can deal lots of damage quickly, but then has almost none to fall back on. DFGaren's ultimate is a huge nuke... that's available pretty rarely. His primary damage skills won't actually do too much damage, as he's lacking the quintessential AD needed for such a thing.

I would not call that a fighter. A fighter is somebody who wants to be in a drawn out brawl, like Graves or Ezreal (if they were, y'know, not adcs).

I would argue that Garen's kit is a combination of the edge cases when thrown with a DFG, because you can delete any single non-tank that's around 50% health. Just like Wukong, Xin Zhao, Vi, and Yasuo.

67chrome1 votes

A tanky assassin is somebody who can deal lots of damage quickly, but then has almost none to fall back on.

I feel like you're trying to force this definition.

One of the big issues with calling Garen a tanky assassin with DFG is his itemization path.

Garen, quite simply, is not a tank without tank items. 30% damage reduction is decent, but 30% less damage on pure squish is still pretty squish. 30% DR on respectable tank is a considerable amount more of respectable tank, as it amplifies the potency of defensive itemization required - but is fairly useless without defensive itemization. Especially when you consider stuff like Counterstrike and Plyful/Trickster existing, offering 100% DR against a solid range of damage.

I feel like I should point out the average income per-player is only 11,000 per game. 3, 3k items, 1k in boots, 1k left over at the end from the winning fight, or spent on wards/starting items/boot enhancements. Go for DFG 2nd and you're only left with 1 tank item, go for DFG third and you have it for, like, 1 team-fight.

As far as 50% -->0% goes - that's not rare.

Base values in QWER rotations actually stay remarkably close to 50% of the average HP values at most levels. At level 18 when the average HP is a hair under 2000, most QWER rotations hit for 1000. Like, Braum, Leona, Amumu, Diana, Annie, Lux, Ziggs. You can actually 50%-->0% a typical squishy with most CC heavy tanks, without even building any offensive items.

Also - a lot of actual assassins do have some pretty solid fallow-up. Assassins in general tend towards either really low CD skills or resets. Most of them are glass-cannon AD champions, which means really potent auto-attacks as well. Not to mention AP tends to have some really solid AA steroids. Akali may be ability-reliant, but she can easily do some pretty serious damage with just auto-attacks. Same deal with Fizz, and up until his recent rework Kassadin.

Either way you look at it, DFG Garen is a 50%-->0% tank with lacking defenses, or he's an assassin with lacking fallow-through.

That's not really a different play-style meriting a term like "tanky assassin" so much as it's sub-optimal and weak. Especially when you consider champions like Jax, Diana, and Irelia exist that can easily 50%-->0% a squishy, then proceed to beat the snot out of a tanky-derp with their low-CD damage and auto-attacks.

Elphrihaim1 votes

I know. I wasn't asking for Garen's passive to be as good as Mundo's (that would be silly), but that Garen's passive is pathetic compared to anything else. Considering that it's only 33% better than Mundo's passive, but requires him to (almost completely) disengage for an extended period of time to get it, it is quite weak. In my opinion, too weak.

We can agree to disagree on the DFG-- I think that it's good because it makes his ult deal 105 (+8% target's Missing Health) additional Magic Damage, on top of having a (15% target's Max Health) nuke. It gives him the ability to walk up (bruiser) and delete one enemy (assassin) and walk out (bruiser). It exchanges DPS for the ability to eliminate the biggest threat to your team, and being able to stay there because he's Garen. He's still reliant on his sustained damage (he has to get them low to execute), but the point at which he can execute is bumped up significantly.

Don't you remember the cinematic, when Garen calls the sword and it opens a hole in the ground? Is that not supposed to be the defining moment of playing Garen, distributing justice by sword? Personally, I think that casting Garen's ult is the most satisfying part of playing him; and that getting to that point is just a contest of being tanky enough to get in your mark's face.

Syvenon1 votes

I'm sorry but you should never ever ever build dfg on Garen. You are essentially taking up an item slot for an activated ability and some cdr because the ap from dfg is completely useless to you. It's is horribly inefficient in an item slot and it would be better to just build more damage or tank attributes.

Elphrihaim1 votes

Building DFG on Garen, in my opinion, efficient, because it greatly increases the point at which you are able to remove somebody from a fight. It also gives you a way to support your Magic Damage allies; because you can just DFG first, let AoEs wreak havoc, and then finish your target's deletion.

Trading off tankiness for damage is a thing that everybody does; but the real reason why I asked for AP scaling is that AP does nothing unless the champion that gains the AP has some AP scalings, and it seems backwards that a champion has literally no use for a stat, instead of just not having synergy with a stat. Any stat in the game, besides Ability Power, Mana, and Mana Regeneration, can be used by every Champion in the game.

acepil0t1 votes

It's anathema to his kit and aesthetic in pretty much every way, and the last item he should be grabbing.

I bet its better than Runaan's.

Lord Graves III1 votes

Assuming your math pans out on the ult, which I don't feel like checking, I'd love that wording change on his ult.

Also, mistiming the shield is hard to make up for, but its supposed to be. Its one of the few tactics the enemy can take against Garen that is even slightly skill based. If you bait the shield, Garen deserves to miss 24 seconds of farm at least and at worst badly lose a trade (cause you still aren't likely to outright kill him).

And no, garen can't have AP ratios. I'm sorry. Just no. AP garen is funny, but it doesn't need supported. It can go live in the troll build bin with Wizard Lizard and Crittlesticks.

Elphrihaim1 votes

Numbers are from the wiki \o/ I was too lazy to redo them myself.

24 seconds of missed farm = a whole wave of creeps. No, Garen does not 'deserve' to miss a whole wave of creeps-- Compare to [almost any other champion], and you will notice that they are punished less for the error. Reducing the cooldown does not reduce his skill floor (still have to press W before things hit you), but your point of "badly lose a trade" actually hangs true even if the opposing Garen uses the shield properly; because it has a 21 second downtime at rank 1. This means that Garen cannot actually capitalize on using his skill successfully, but you can capitalize on the fact that he used it by attacking him immediately afterward.

Garen can totally have AP ratios. Just sticking a +100% AP on his ult would be perfect. AP Garen is not funny. DFGaren is, but DFGaren is not AP Garen. DFGaren is DFG followed by nothing but tankiness.

Lord Graves III1 votes

I disagree. If garen whiffs a shield, he totally deserves to miss a creep wave. Because he missed his shield, and thats what happens when you mess up. If garen used his shield properly he beat the tar out of you and won his trade hardcore. He does in fact deserve to suffer for missusing his skill and whiffing. If he runs properly he won't take much damage. Waiting till shield is up is plenty and fair punishment for poorly shielding.

Elphrihaim1 votes

Okay. I didn't disagree that 'Garen, when he uses his shield successfully, always wins trades'. Because he does.

What I actually said was that Garen, compared to anybody else who has a similar mechanic (must do X with good timing), has a much longer cooldown on Courage than their mechanic. This means that even if Garen uses the shield properly, his opponent can still beat him up.

He does deserve to suffer for not properly using his skills. He does not deserve to suffer as much as he does; he does not deserve to suffer that much more than the rest of the resourceless bunch (which he does), just because he's Garen.

Lord Graves III1 votes

I see you feel strongly about this, and I appreciate the discussion but I'm not convinced.

If Garen capitalizes on good shield use he can survive the downtime coasting on his won trades. Garen is good at avoiding fights he doesn't want (against melee) and he has strong and hard to answer to trading. Save the shield for long engagements or specific bursts of damage. Hes good at quick trades with just Q and E(to escape through minions). His shield makes him a monster at long trades as well. He needs that downtime on the shield.

Also, if Garen shield is up too often he becomes (even more) oppressive and hair pullingly hard to fight against.

While I agree that its cooldown is very long, I ran a comparison against similar spells. (Timing based defensive steroids on bruisers.)

Garen's indeed has the longest non-ultimate cooldown among them. But non of them offer an effect nearly as powerful. Gragas may have more uptime on his damage reduction, but is barely half as strong as garen's and doesn't offer the bonus CC resistance. The only one I found that even came close is Hecarim E Hecarim and it gives him massive bullshit drain tanking abilities.

Courage is a really really really strong spell man. And lategame it has 1/3 uptime assuming a modicum of CDR. Its not great in lane I'll admit, because even there it is a I WIN THE TRADE button. Regardless of minions or positioning, Garen will win that trade unless he totally shits the bed.

A lower cooldown on courage would make Garen stronger, but I'm not sure the trade off for what its gonna do to people laning against him. The only way you could go through with it is if you made the spell weaker in general or weaker at lower levels somehow. Cause I don't wanna lose my 6 seconds of freight train Demacia late game. Slamming into the enemy team while shrugging off tons of the damage and all the CC is just too sweet to give up.

Lord Graves III1 votes

I realized I missread this originally. Or its been edited. Either way, if Garen uses his shield properly, he beats the tar out of the opponent. If they then keep attacking him as soon as their cooldowns are back, Garen can STILL win trades using proper minion positioning and his silence. The shield just gives an extra ability to win fights that he has no business winning normally, and escaping ganks that he really shouldn't escape. otherwise.

The spell singlehandedly makes Garen able to be aggressive when aggression might otherwise be dumb, and it makes him a pain in the ass to gank against.

If you are gonna buff its cooldown, that power is coming out of somewhere on his kit.

ILoveTiramisu1 votes

According to me, Garen need a passive more interactive like "When Garen take damage, his regeneration health (0.4 maximum health) is incremently for a short time(5 seconds).". (Because Garen hate darius and viceversa).

MightyMaose1 votes

what Garen needs is a way to get into a fight, they should make his Q that you can't be slowed while the speed buff is active and increase the silence duration...he already lacks a proper gap closer, with all the stuns, dashes and slows in the current game it's just laughable to have a champion as lackluster as Garen, he literally can't get into a fight without losing half his HP or just getting kited to death without flash.

his laning phase isn't that great either but his biggest detriment is the fact he can't initiate a fight at a point in the game where he actually should be useful, Riot needs to start thinking their shit over with all the mobility creep that has polluted the game where every new champ has a slow/dash/speed and escape mechanism, why would i ever pick Garen over the much better champs that not only have tankiness but also long range gap closers and CC??

basically if the enemy doesn't literally jump on you, you can't do anything as Garen at any point in the game

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