The problem I have with Garen's design

Mira Arya Enthe·Dec 18, 2016·20 votes·3,227 views

I understand he is not OP and was trash before the buffs. But hear me out. I want to talk about WHY Garen being trash is healthy for the low Leagues and why he is a terrible design.

There are 3 forms of countering a another player. counterpicking, counter building and counterplay. Before this buff you could counterpick or counterbuild Garen. Now you can only counterpick him(this is in the low Leagues, few sub plat Rivens or Shyvanas or other countered champions know how to play around him). So you are fine if you pick a good champion into him. But pick Riven or Shyvana or other melees who rely on being on top of him but aren't as good of stat sticks. And you lose. So like, against Darius even though he counters Riven and Shyvana, I can step inside his spin or outside, I can dodge his pull, counterbuild him with HP stacking and armor. Garen I cannot counterplay or counterbuild. I can only counterpick. Because he counters HP stacking and armor.

Which is a terrible design. League should never be rock-paper-scissors. Even in the low Leagues. However the problem extends into higher Leagues. Where Garen is next to useless... still. Why? because in high Leagues he lacks OPTIONS. Shyvana for example has options, even if she is fairly linear and low mechanical skill cap, she has options for play, and counterplay. While Garen has few. This means while he may be a bully if picked against certain champions, he lacks the ability to be useful overall in a teamplay map-wide setting.

What this means is that Garen is either OP or Trash in low tiers, as a linear champion who is counterpicked but has little to no counterplay or counterbuilding. While in high tiers of play he is always trash, as he lacks tools and options.

What do I suggest? A rework. A re-rework. Like Mordekaiser and Skarner I do not feel that his Juggernaut update was successful. I feel it didn't go far ENOUGH on the rework. And therefore left him with the same problems as before, and even more to boot.

Thank you for reading. Thoughts below.

57 Comments

PermabannedGarenDec 18, 201611 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cVBhQcpa,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-12-18T21:06:02.734+0000)

I understand he is not OP and was trash before the buffs. But hear me out. I want to talk about WHY Garen being trash is healthy for the low Leagues and why he is a terrible design.

There are 3 forms of countering a another player. counterpicking, counter building and counterplay. Before this buff you could counterpick or counterbuild Garen. Now you can only counterpick him(this is in the low Leagues, few sub plat Rivens or Shyvanas or other countered champions know how to play around him). So you are fine if you pick a good champion into him. But pick Riven or Shyvana or other melees who rely on being on top of him but aren't as good of stat sticks. And you lose. So like, against Darius even though he counters Riven and Shyvana, I can step inside his spin or outside, I can dodge his pull, counterbuild him with HP stacking and armor. Garen I cannot counterplay or counterbuild. I can only counterpick. Because he counters HP stacking and armor.

Which is a terrible design. League should never be rock-paper-scissors. Even in the low Leagues. However the problem extends into higher Leagues. Where Garen is next to useless... still. Why? because in high Leagues he lacks OPTIONS. Shyvana for example has options, even if she is fairly linear and low mechanical skill cap, she has options for play, and counterplay. While Garen has few. This means while he may be a bully if picked against certain champions, he lacks the ability to be useful overall in a teamplay map-wide setting.

What this means is that Garen is either OP or Trash in low tiers, as a linear champion who is counterpicked but has little to no counterplay or counterbuilding. While in high tiers of play he is always trash, as he lacks tools and options.

What do I suggest? A rework. A re-rework. Like Mordekaiser and Skarner I do not feel that his Juggernaut update was successful. I feel it didn't go far ENOUGH on the rework. And therefore left him with the same problems as before, and even more to boot.

Thank you for reading. Thoughts below.

The irony of insulting a stat stick champion while playing a stat stick champion who is much stronger at the moment.

Like... you play Shyvana. A champion whose design is based around whether or not she can kill her enemy before she is peeled off. And right now, the answer to that question is almost always "yes", and is why she is a problem champion.

But you bash Garen, who actually has far more counterplay than Shyvana does (not that this is a good thing).

Keira HelshDec 18, 20162 votes

{quoted}

The irony of insulting a stat stick champion while playing a stat stick champion who is much stronger at the moment.

Like... you play Shyvana. A champion whose design is based around whether or not she can kill her enemy before she is peeled off. And right now, the answer to that question is almost always "yes", and is why she is a problem champion.

But you bash Garen, who actually has far more counterplay than Shyvana does (not that this is a good thing).

The difference is, that Shyvana is a stat stick champion that wrecks havoc through the jungle, but can be avoided because of the size of the jungle. Garen is a stat stick champion that someone is forced to deal with and essentially lose a lane to the enemies for half the game.

Like Mira was saying, it's not that Garen is 'OP', it's that he's incredibly frustrating to face, especially now that he's shredding half your armor while doing % max hp true damage.

PermabannedGarenDec 19, 20164 votes

[{quoted}](name=Keira Helsh,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cVBhQcpa,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-12-18T21:22:12.229+0000)

The difference is, that Shyvana is a stat stick champion that wrecks havoc through the jungle, but can be avoided because of the size of the jungle. Garen is a stat stick champion that someone is forced to deal with and essentially lose a lane to the enemies for half the game.

Shyvana is a stat-stick champion that the enemy jungler is forced to deal with when she takes their camps with literally nothing they can do about it if their lanes can't help. Just about no one can duel Shyvana early game, and just about no one farms faster than she does.

Like Mira was saying, it's not that Garen is 'OP', it's that he's incredibly frustrating to face, especially now that he's shredding half your armor while doing % max hp true damage.

Yeah dude, cause Shyvana isn't at all frustrating to face when she dives through your team onto you and blows you up.

Mira Arya EntheDec 18, 20162 votes

Actually I made a post about Shyvana being OP just a few days ago. Haven't been playing her since she became FotM. Despite being stronger she has more counterplay. AS slows. Armor since armor pen and cleaver are crap on her. She also has no CC and no point and click execute nuke. She is more OP but has more counterppay by far. The ones Garen has like Kiting, she shares.

PermabannedGarenDec 19, 20169 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cVBhQcpa,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2016-12-18T21:22:24.885+0000)

Actually I made a post about Shyvana being OP just a few days ago.

Her being OP or not isn't really the issue.

It's her design is. Her design is awful, sort of just like Garen's.

Haven't been playing her since she became FotM. Despite being stronger she has more counterplay.

She really doesn't.

AS slows.

Hurt Garen in duels. Against a squishy not really.

Armor since armor pen and cleaver are crap on her.

lolwut

http://champion.gg/champion/Shyvana

Nearly half of Shyvana's damage is magic damage, and quite a bit of that magic damage is percent health.

She also generally has far superior DPS than Garen, since she is an AA-based champion with steroids and on-hits benefiting her who builds attack speed, whereas Garen is a slow fatass who has slow as shit auto attacks with no steroids backing them up (unless he is fighting the villain).

Shyvana is hardly as good a tank buster as Trundle (the best tank-busting juggernaut), but she does way more damage against people building durability than Garen, who can still be hampered by HP and MR alone for the most part.

She also has no CC

She has an AOE displacement.

Garen has a single target silence with a low duration.

She has more CC than Garen, and it's also much easier for her to apply, which is the main point.

and no point and click execute nuke.

No, she does not have this.

She is more OP but has more counterppay by far. The ones Garen has like Kiting, she shares.

All right, so let me run this down for you.

Literally every single aspect of Garen's kit, requires him to be in melee range, or very close to it. His longest ranged ability is 400 units, and it's his ult, which only does damage if you're already low.

That is barely over the radius of Shyvana's W. Her E has 925 range. Her ult has 850 range. She has a speed up that is better than Garen's (on top of her better base movement speed), and has a dash with an AOE displacement that now makes her unstoppable.

You look at Garen and see a low counterplay champion because all of his abilities are essentially targeted. But he's so incredibly close-ranged, without even having the means to get close enough to use those close-ranged abilities. This is why Garen has more counterplay than Shyvana. Because Shyvana has fairly reliable means of getting into the enemy backline. Garen has none.

Garen only has "low counterplay" in the sense that some champions in lane might lack the tools to deal with him, like Wukong. This is just a lane counter, and is not a particularly significant issue. Darius has essentially no counterplay for a Wukong either, to a greater extent, but throughout most of the game Darius has plenty of counterplay.

Not that Garen being so filled with counterplay is healthy. It's not. He has so much counterplay due to his incredibly limited kit that he essentially can't be strong. He needs more tools to give him an identity beyond "like a shittier version of Darius".

Shyvana is also a champion who is so binary (and easy to counterplay) that if she's strong she is game warping. She also needs a rework.

GigaPubeDec 19, 20162 votes

http://na.op.gg/statistics/champion/ flavor of the month lmao

AhristocatsDec 20, 20162 votes

The outplay to garen is getting good and walking into minions to reduce his E damage by 25% of he hits other units, and then laugh at his damage.

The outplay to shyvana is trying to run from a motherfucking stat stick right click melee champ that runs as fast as a jinx under passive for a long duration if she keeps attacking

ACENOXDec 20, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=playfive Koopska,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cVBhQcpa,comment-id=000100010002,timestamp=2016-12-20T00:13:50.379+0000)

walking into minions to reduce his E damage by 25% of he hits other units

33.3%*

NuparuDec 19, 20161 votes

Shyvana's niche as Riot described it is a Juggernaut with conditional gapclosers. This was traded off for sustain - something that, in combat, Garen also lacks - but both are really good at killing anything they get near.

Both champions are very binary (and frankly, cancerous) in that when either are in a good position (Shyvana has items, Garen has items or positioning on an enemy villain) they will kill someone. The issue is with Garen is that you can't truly counter-build him - he shreds armor and has Black Cleaver right in his build path, whereas Shyvana can be counter built with Ninja Tabi and Spectre's Cowl, and his kit is extremely punishing of you roaming to gain advantages in other lanes since he can be extremely binary to lane against.

Both champions have about the same amount of counter-play, but one is more gated to melee with a return of being able to pretty much 100-0 anything that has the villain mark, while the other has the option of gap closing in to try and force a fight/pick.

Also, no lie, I can't think of any of the Juggernauts as having good kits. They're all bullshit designed around one particular niche to obliterate anything in their path.

TyrekGoldenspearDec 18, 20169 votes

Just gonna reiterate some ideas I had on his kit about two months ago on a similar thread:

Identity wise I believe he is the paragon soldier of Demacia, first and foremost. Fighting through thick and thin. He is not a judge jury or executioner of justice like his kit suggests, as he simply fights for Demacia's values, one of which happens to be justice. An actual warrior of justice would be Kayle.

Kitwise-

Passive. This can go honestly. Demacian soldiers do not retreat from battle, and his passive encourages it so he can heal up and jump back into the fight.

Q. This is his gapcloser as a Juggernaut to get to his target. This can be buffed or changed without messing with his identity too much. If it is replaced it has to let him charge into battle somehow.

W. This is his general defensive steroid. It fits with his theme of being a heavily armored soldier. In this day of league it stacks up way too slowly and hits a cap too low for it to be of general use. Perhaps it could give him some tenacity as well like in the old days. Or give him some kind of infight sustain so he can keep dishing out justice.

E. This is his identity. Spin2Win. It shouldn't be changed. The tickrate/damage of his E late game should be more impactful.

Ultimate This is also his identity. The giant sword from the sky execute that is super satisfying to land. However the Villain passive saps up too much of his power budget. However his nerfs were meant to be compensated by the Juggernaut items, which have since been nerfed without compensation to him. His Villain passive needs to be changed to be more useful or scrapped altogether as he is a soldier, not necessarily an active seeker of justice like law enforcement.

##What's fun about playing as Garen? It's fun to be the "hero" of the team. When an enemy is getting too big for my team to handle, or if there is a carry that's on the enemy team that tries to be all fancy with outplays and insecs, that's when I come in to shut them down. I am the effective anticarry. I'm too tanky for an assassin to kill and my damage will take them effectively down, and since they like to play around low health my execute is super satisfying to land on their head.

##What frustrates, and what is he missing? The point of being an anti carry frustrates me sometimes. He has one job and that is to take out the villain. What is frustrating is that I do no real damage to anybody else but the Villain. Another thing is that Garen's kit is kept super simple so that I cannot be outplayed, this leads to a very shallow skill ceiling where after a certain point, there is literally nothing I can do to win a teamfight, especially if the Villain happens to be the enemy support who got a lucky kill. Basically he's missing reliable damage. Also permaslows kill him so hard it is depressing.

##What's miserable about playing against Garen? Personally I have had little issues playing against Garen. Mostly because besides him I don't really play any other melee champs, and all the ranged champs I play have some form of CC that lets me abuse his kiting weakness so hard I feel bad for the Garen. I don't even feel concerned as the Villain, and that troubles me. He has to work so hard to even get to me, often having to burn his flash, that when he finally catches me and executes me I feel nothing but respect for the Garen for managing to pull it off despite the odds.

TL;DR, He needs help, and a simple numbers change isn't going to cut it. He's the most range restricted juggernaut in the game, and this coupled with his Villain passive makes it impossible for them to make his numbers too strong, or else he will be a spinning zone of instant death that can't catch anybody due to his glaring kiting weaknesses. Not fun for either side.

Teridax68Dec 19, 20163 votes

This is very well-written, and sums up many of Garen's core issues pretty well. On any champion with some degree of reliable target access, the Villain mechanic could have perhaps worked out better, but Garen can do literally nothing to enemies more than about 400 units from him, which makes him perhaps the least well-suited champion in the game to have that kind of passive, which he has no real control over. He needs to have a lot more agency in order to not get auto-dumpstered by teams that know how to kite, but he also needs to have more counterplay baked into his kit in order for melee champions to have at least some agency when fighting him.

JedenVojakDec 18, 20167 votes

Stat sticks champs are good, mechanics based champs are good too. There's nothing wrong with the design of Garen, and you need more direct and straightforward character types in these types of games.

MunchCrunchLunchDec 18, 20165 votes

garen is weak. i think hes still subpar. he isn't as good as darius in melee range. the only thing hes good for is flashing on a fed carry with a cpl ad items and ulting them after QE

Mira Arya EntheDec 18, 20161 votes

I never said he wasn't weak. I said due to his design he is either pubstomp in low tiers and shit in high tiers. Or just shit in all tiers. Because he lacks options and proper counterplay in his design. Both for him and the enemies. Basically like Yi but you have to lane against him and he isn't squishy.

MunchCrunchLunchDec 18, 20166 votes

true he is pubstomp in lower tier. and hes useless in high tiers. meanwhile annie is pubstomp in all tiers lmao. because she has range on her abilities.

range is so broken in this game.

Big LincolnDec 18, 20165 votes

the real issue here is that he has one game plan. Q, run at you, then E. His Q has a ridiculous windup (iirc longer than his actual silence is now; used to be a cool front flip, too) so he can't even make a basic fakeout play.

Garen's E is fine and shouldn't change mechanically. I would say the armor shred buff should be replaced with something more interesting, but I have more issue with his Q and his passive.

Garen I cannot counterplay or counterbuild

Read above. Garen's Q has a huge windup and you can trade CC with him when any other champ with something similar (Leona's Q, Riven's W, Irelia E, whatever) would have already stunned you. Garen can not trick you at all; you can react to this easily with hard CC of your own, or you can flash it if you need to, and you will negate most of his ability to win trades (silence->spin)

THE RlVER KlNGDec 19, 20165 votes

The whole juggernaut rework was a failure. It made Darius a lane bully that never falls off, gimped Garen's power budget behind the Villain mechanic, made Morde every more polarizing and binary than before. Skarner's spires are stupid and the rework didn't fix any of his inherent problems.

sit kidDec 18, 20164 votes

This is nothing new.

They're giving out true damage, armor pen, armor reduction and %hp damage like they're oprah

Dominick DestineDec 18, 20164 votes

I tend to agree.

Garen could use a buff.

Mira Arya EntheDec 18, 20161 votes

Agreed. If it comes with a rework to his gameplay.

Dominick DestineDec 18, 20162 votes

That's irrelevant.

Then again he might not need a buff, he's sitting at almost exactly 50% win rate with a modest 6% play rate, hmm. https://champion.gg/champion/Garen

Mira Arya EntheDec 18, 20163 votes

*and rising. Plus that is plat+ where he suffers the most. After one patch. Doesn't change the fundamental point and click issues of Garen. Even if he was the weakest champion in LoL he lacks interactivity.

Dominick DestineDec 18, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cVBhQcpa,comment-id=0004000000000000,timestamp=2016-12-18T23:13:23.229+0000)

*and rising.

Because he recently got a small buff.

Obv.

RogueWillDec 19, 20164 votes

How you work around Garen....wait for him to go on you by activating his Q....avoid it and then go in (basically just bait the Q).

LordSoulsDec 19, 20161 votes

You cant bait garen q unless your a fucking teemo that got blindness or panth the twat who get a shield that block AAs something garen use in almost all of his attacks

RogueWillDec 19, 20163 votes

any champion with ranged abilities can, and ranged abilities are far and wide on top lane.

Even shyvana, landing an aa+twin fang will force garen to use his Q which then you can outrun from the similar movement speed from your W.

Critmaster GarenDec 19, 20165 votes

{quoted}

You cant bait garen q unless your a fucking teemo that got blindness or panth the twat who get a shield that block AAs something garen use in almost all of his attacks

even riven beats garen in lane by cancelling his q with her w, or by just dashing away and shielding the damage with her e between the time the animation starts, and the attack connects.

RequiemsfireDec 21, 20161 votes

well if he's reaching you without using his Q, then you're a very terrible player.

Jeddy017Dec 19, 20164 votes

Problem is that Riot wants to keep him super beginner friendly. Like 10 year old Little Tim can pick him up & do well with him.

I wouldn't mind trading some of that beginner friendliness for a somewhat higher skill cap. This gives opponents some counterplay or counterbuild options & give Garen player more options in higher elos.

NovaDiskApr 2, 20171 votes

Absolutely agree. Garen needs a little more outplay potential in his kit in exchange for a little power taken off of the easy skills.

Teridax68Dec 19, 20163 votes

I agree with OP, and to a larger degree, Garen's issues are pretty much the same issues as with almost any juggernaut, except ratcheted up to 11: his slow speed and poor reach means he gets hard-countered by a vast amount of League's roster, and automatically loses in competitive play purely because of how hard kiting shuts him down, but his total lack of interactivity when in melee range means he trashes melee opponents way too hard when he's even at an okay power level. His recent armor reduction effect on E has only made these issues worse, and runs into the same issue as his Villain mechanic: if Garen were able to get to his targets with at least some degree of reliability, those mechanics would work, because there would be some gameplay he could rely on to apply his effects, but since he has some of the worst target access in the game, the success of his kit often relies on blind luck or enemies playing poorly, which feels terrible for both him and his opponents.

I agree that Garen needs a rework, but to be honest, at this point I also think the entire juggernaut subclass needs another look: "weakness to kiting" was a good starting point, but the pure focus on that, both in terms of their strength/weakness profiles and its intensity, has created a class that, in practice, ends up having either no agency or no real counterplay, depending on the opponents they face up against. Juggernauts often dominate in solo queue and low elos, because they punish hard anyone who can't kite, but they're still mostly invisible in the competitive scene, because at that point everyone knows how to kite and counterpick, and they end up being almost completely useless. Binariness at that level is not healthy at all, and Garen is just one example of this, with Mordekaiser, Skarner and Illaoi also presenting many of those same issues. Juggernauts need to be able to reach their targets eventually, no matter how good at kiting they are (in fact, kiting should never totally prevent any champion from reaching their target), and they need to have genuine counterplay to their kits beyond just "never get near me". One of the reasons Darius is one of the few successful juggernauts out there is because he has means of forcing fights against targets beyond his attack range (i.e. his E), but also can have large amounts of his power mitigated or denied (i.e. his passive and Q bonus damage/heal).

I think one potential improvement to Garen would be a significant range increase to his ult: Riot's been scrambling to find him a proper gameplay niche even to this day, since the Villain mechanic didn't really succeed at doing so, but really, his ult should have been the first thing to capitalize on, and allowing Garen to execute targets beyond his ultra-short attack range would a) give him more agency, and b) give him a niche as a reliable executioner for his team, no matter how hard he gets kited. It wouldn't drastically affect his laning, since even now he can execute targets the moment they fall low enough, but it would make him significantly better past the laning phase, since he could execute the enemy marksman or mage even if he's still being kited out of Judgment range. He could use some other changes, and could likely have his armor reduction and Villain mechanic both scrapped completely, but that change at the very least could make him a bit less binary than he currently is.

Mira Arya EntheDec 19, 20162 votes

This basically.

FallenAngel16Dec 19, 20163 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cVBhQcpa,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-12-18T21:06:02.734+0000)

I understand he is not OP and was trash before the buffs. But hear me out. I want to talk about WHY Garen being trash is healthy for the low Leagues and why he is a terrible design.

There are 3 forms of countering a another player. counterpicking, counter building and counterplay. Before this buff you could counterpick or counterbuild Garen. Now you can only counterpick him(this is in the low Leagues, few sub plat Rivens or Shyvanas or other countered champions know how to play around him). So you are fine if you pick a good champion into him. But pick Riven or Shyvana or other melees who rely on being on top of him but aren't as good of stat sticks. And you lose. So like, against Darius even though he counters Riven and Shyvana, I can step inside his spin or outside, I can dodge his pull, counterbuild him with HP stacking and armor. Garen I cannot counterplay or counterbuild. I can only counterpick. Because he counters HP stacking and armor.

Which is a terrible design. League should never be rock-paper-scissors. Even in the low Leagues. However the problem extends into higher Leagues. Where Garen is next to useless... still. Why? because in high Leagues he lacks OPTIONS. Shyvana for example has options, even if she is fairly linear and low mechanical skill cap, she has options for play, and counterplay. While Garen has few. This means while he may be a bully if picked against certain champions, he lacks the ability to be useful overall in a teamplay map-wide setting.

What this means is that Garen is either OP or Trash in low tiers, as a linear champion who is counterpicked but has little to no counterplay or counterbuilding. While in high tiers of play he is always trash, as he lacks tools and options.

What do I suggest? A rework. A re-rework. Like Mordekaiser and Skarner I do not feel that his Juggernaut update was successful. I feel it didn't go far ENOUGH on the rework. And therefore left him with the same problems as before, and even more to boot.

Thank you for reading. Thoughts below.

your actually very wrong

there IS counterplay to garen

the counterplay to garen is laughing at how weak he is lategame game

what i mean by this is

give me ANY pick into garen, even ones that are "bad" into him, and ill tell you how you beat garen

you let garen freefarm
you never try to kill garen
you let garen push nonstop. and in return, you get to farm minions too

what is the end result?

garen farms 300 minions in 30 minutes. you farm 300 minions in 30 minutes

and guess what?

garen is fucking worthless at 30 minutes. while you are useful. your gold/exp/items are equal. and now garen is useless

proceed to win 5v5 teamfights

there IS counterplay to garen. you ignore him, laugh at him, and watch him be worthless after 30 minutes

garen is a "lose game after 30 minutes" champ. i guess that itself is bad design, but whatever. the counterplay to garen is he cannot kill you before 30 minutes if you are skilled, and he loses the game after 30 minutes. so simply chillax and farm for 30 minutes, then win

NovaDiskApr 2, 20171 votes

In my games I find the exact opposite to be true. I main Garen in low Diamond, so laning as Garen is a lot tougher here. I find myself absolutely useless early game, but if I make it to the 15-20 minute mark with okay-ish farm (~60CS@10 is pretty good) and without any disasters in the jungle, I usually have no problem making an impact with him in the mid-game.

Once I hit 16 or get Warmog's I can basically stay on the map forever and I completely counter my opponent's poke. Or, if they're a burst team, once I finish Sterak's I can completely zone them out while being able to tank their entire team's combo.

In the late, late game, at 6 items, yeah Garen's often underwhelming but most games don't last that long.

Smitty ManjensenDec 19, 20163 votes

When a silver guy tries to make a shitpost about Garen while maining Shyvanna and RIVEN, like seriously? So Garen has low counterplay? His counterplay is that he is slow af, and you have to be melee to do anything, I like his kit and it shouldn't be changed, except maybe the passive so he has it accessible in combat somehow. This game has enough champions with 3 hit passives and some gimmicks and LCS play mechanics, although he has that shitty Villain mechanic which should go, not being able to control something is bad, no one needs that.

RequiemsfireDec 21, 20163 votes

Garen has plenty of counterplay but it's literally to the point where he's useless against anyone who knows said counterplay because when you do, he has no counterplay to you.

LordSoulsDec 19, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mira Arya Enthe,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cVBhQcpa,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-12-18T21:06:02.734+0000)

I understand he is not OP and was trash before the buffs. But hear me out. I want to talk about WHY Garen being trash is healthy for the low Leagues and why he is a terrible design.

There are 3 forms of countering a another player. counterpicking, counter building and counterplay. Before this buff you could counterpick or counterbuild Garen. Now you can only counterpick him(this is in the low Leagues, few sub plat Rivens or Shyvanas or other countered champions know how to play around him). So you are fine if you pick a good champion into him. But pick Riven or Shyvana or other melees who rely on being on top of him but aren't as good of stat sticks. And you lose. So like, against Darius even though he counters Riven and Shyvana, I can step inside his spin or outside, I can dodge his pull, counterbuild him with HP stacking and armor. Garen I cannot counterplay or counterbuild. I can only counterpick. Because he counters HP stacking and armor.

Which is a terrible design. League should never be rock-paper-scissors. Even in the low Leagues. However the problem extends into higher Leagues. Where Garen is next to useless... still. Why? because in high Leagues he lacks OPTIONS. Shyvana for example has options, even if she is fairly linear and low mechanical skill cap, she has options for play, and counterplay. While Garen has few. This means while he may be a bully if picked against certain champions, he lacks the ability to be useful overall in a teamplay map-wide setting.

What this means is that Garen is either OP or Trash in low tiers, as a linear champion who is counterpicked but has little to no counterplay or counterbuilding. While in high tiers of play he is always trash, as he lacks tools and options.

What do I suggest? A rework. A re-rework. Like Mordekaiser and Skarner I do not feel that his Juggernaut update was successful. I feel it didn't go far ENOUGH on the rework. And therefore left him with the same problems as before, and even more to boot.

Thank you for reading. Thoughts below.

I main Garen and these are all the problems I have. Garen need a buff not just his E shred but his W is shit its useless asf the reduced will always be 30% even though it should go up by 5% every lvl. The armor snack "30" wtf? Nasus can go to 9999 with his Q and Garen can only go to 30% stack? that should aleast be 100 or 150 if Garen a "tank" I barely even go full tank Garen cause its so bad man Riot pls buff him.

VoraciousXDec 19, 20162 votes

Can Riven even beat him now? I haven't tried since he got the armor pen on his E and the basic strategy to beating him was fighting him while inside it so I feel like he'd probly win this now.

NovaDiskApr 2, 20171 votes

Riven can absolutely beat Garen. It's definitely skill matchup. If If Riven lands Q3 or W on Garen, she wins the trade HARD. If Garen lands his Q, he wins the trade HARD.

I think if both players play perfectly Riven should win most of the time, but in any ELO where Garen shows up the Rivens aren't good enough yet to win this matchup decisively.

VoraciousXApr 3, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Riven can absolutely beat Garen. It's definitely skill matchup. If If Riven lands Q3 or W on Garen, she wins the trade HARD. If Garen lands his Q, he wins the trade HARD.

I think if both players play perfectly Riven should win most of the time, but in any ELO where Garen shows up the Rivens aren't good enough yet to win this matchup decisively.

I posted this long ago, but still haven't faced a Garen with this update to test it, however I've seen BoxBox play against Garen and struggle when Garen didn't have the armor pen. It was doable(fighting Garen inside his spin and being confident in your damage) before, but pretty risky still. Now with his armor pen I haven't played against one in a while as her, so I didn't know whether it was even possible with the armor shred being added into his kit. It was already pretty risky, and a Q3 wouldn't really give Riven much, as after the 0.75 seconds Garen could just Q>spin and deal a lot of return damage. A W might could do something, but he'd probably silence you somewhere between W and Q3. The only way to win against Garen that I remembered was to eat the Q with shield, then combo him inside his spin. Even then that was dangerous depending on certain factors.

The new lethality build might help with that though, but if Garen rushes ninja tabi you probably might as well just try to survive.

NovaDiskApr 4, 20171 votes

Couple of things with that logic. First off, Boxbox probably plays that matchup 3 times a year. If he played against Garen more often I'm sure he'd learn the matchup and do pretty well.

Second off, there are a few ways for Riven to get an advantage trade-wise. You can sit on your Q3 while you farm, making you unpredictable, whereas it's harder for Garen to farm. You can abuse your slight range advantage. Also note that your ability range increases by 50 when you ult, giving you an advantage in all-in situations. You can also abuse your ult's range advantage, which does as much as Garen's ult at Level 6. After that, he'll probably get too tanky to kill for a while. But your ult continues to scale, whereas Garen's is flat, so you will do quite a bit more damage around Level 9-10, while Garen's ult will still do 300 damage whether you are Level 6 or Level 10, because you're gaining Magic Resist (Unless you're the Villain!). You can also abuse him at Levels 1-3.

Let me tell you that you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT TO TRY TO TANK HIS Q, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Even if your shield blocks it, he can save his W for your retaliation then you only do 2/3 damage, and his spin will outdamage you. Best case scenario for eating a Q is shielding the Q as you disengage. He may or may not be able to continue trading, but if his E's on cooldown you should be fine.

VoraciousXApr 4, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Couple of things with that logic. First off, Boxbox probably plays that matchup 3 times a year. If he played against Garen more often I'm sure he'd learn the matchup and do pretty well.

Second off, there are a few ways for Riven to get an advantage trade-wise. You can sit on your Q3 while you farm, making you unpredictable, whereas it's harder for Garen to farm. You can abuse your slight range advantage. Also note that your ability range increases by 50 when you ult, giving you an advantage in all-in situations. You can also abuse your ult's range advantage, which does as much as Garen's ult at Level 6. After that, he'll probably get too tanky to kill for a while. But your ult continues to scale, whereas Garen's is flat, so you will do quite a bit more damage around Level 9-10, while Garen's ult will still do 300 damage whether you are Level 6 or Level 10, because you're gaining Magic Resist (Unless you're the Villain!). You can also abuse him at Levels 1-3.

Let me tell you that you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT WANT TO TRY TO TANK HIS Q, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Even if your shield blocks it, he can save his W for your retaliation then you only do 2/3 damage, and his spin will outdamage you. Best case scenario for eating a Q is shielding the Q as you disengage. He may or may not be able to continue trading, but if his E's on cooldown you should be fine.

I haven't played the matchup very often myself. Not many people play Garen and when they do sometimes they just pick him thinking he counters Riven despite not even knowing how to play him at all and do idiotic things. I don't think I've played a Garen matchup in well over a year. Despite that, that was the only way I remember anyone saying you could beat Garen. Standing on your Q3 wouldn't do much good since you'd have nothing left to fight with after that fact and your Q3(or W) isn't gonna do much damage, it's your autos mostly that hurt and he could Q combo you right afterwards. He could even go in on you with Q and after you Q3'd him, still have plenty of time left on his Q to auto you with it and silence>E you. As soon as he rushes ninja tabi I can't see you winning any trades anymore. I could be wrong though. Perhaps you could win slow trades by holding onto your Q3 and W, and Q3 into W into auto+E away every so often, but his Q lasts longer than your Q3 and W combined I'm sure and unless you were near tower he'd probably still get you with Q after you E'd away. Of course I could be off base, but I'm pretty sure I'm right about most of my analysis. Not really worth arguing since I see Garen very rarely, just think that it'd be pretty hard with that buff considering it was already pretty difficult.

As for BoxBox not knowing the matchup, he claims he does, but it's easy to lose lane just as easy as it is to win, and fighting Garen isn't really a situation where you wanna go for kills anyways if he knows what he's doing.

NovaDiskApr 4, 20171 votes

I'm a Garen main, so I play this matchup fairly often. Playing against a Riven main is very fun and rewarding, since either player can win, and control the pace of the game with it. I think it's one of the quintessential skill matchups. I play in D5, so I'm not playing against the very best Riven players, but they generally have an idea how to trade.

Riven wins if she wears Garen down to the point where she can one-shot him. Things also get exciting if either side gets a gank. Q3 and W put out a decent amount of damage if Riven can land it for free, and Garen won't be able to Q if you space it properly. The only reason Garen's Q finishes is if you get to close, and he starts to channel it.

As for disengaging, Garen usually won't be able to run you down with Q and spin on you unless you mess up. Riven also needs to abuse the fact that she can knockup and stun minions so Garen can't retaliate.

On the other hand, spacing is very critical, because if you get Q'ed before you channel your Q3 you're going to get silenced and owned. Garen will nuke you with Q, and when the silence wears off you'll have to trade with him for reduced damage in the middle of his spin.

There's definitely a lot of nuance in this matchup, though I think if Riven plays perfectly she will always win. Hence the reason we see several Challenger Riven mains at any given time, but the highest ranked Garen mains in NA are D5. (There were two of us in D3 earlier this season but that was quite a while ago now).

DracocrashDec 19, 20162 votes

Weren't you asking for shyvanna buffs, before shyvanna got buffs. Now garen, who has essentially the same flaws as shyvanna, you have a problem with being meta. 10/10.

Xela SyabDec 19, 20161 votes

Am I the only one that thinks Garen is actually in a good state? His itemization is good, he deals better damage towards front lines, it's easy for him to farm, and his laning isn't atrocious.

NovaDiskApr 2, 20171 votes

Again it depends on the ELO you're playing at. I play Garen in low Diamond and I find his laning here to be terrible. While his itemization isn't awful, he can't really use any of the keystones very well.

I often run Stoneborn just for the extra 5% HP even though I can't proc half of the ability.

Xela SyabApr 2, 20171 votes

I watch Sirchez play Garen, Nasus, and Singed, if any part of his game is weak it is the midgame unless he can flank into a winning fight and get some kills. The problem with Garen is that he doesn't really spike or pop off, he just plateaus really well and he has old design random scaling and damage on his abilities(passive armor/mr, crit scaling e, magic damage ult?), the other problem is that he can't effectively jungle and I think that's where Riot can improve on him. Essentially if they gave some of his abilities real scaling where he can benefit from going full damage, bruiser, or full tank would help give him a solid niche.

Garen is my safety pick top,but he really has trouble with poke/all-ins in the laning phase I also feel like he should just go full asshat push to win/spin to win because he doesn't teamfight well unless his team has alot of cc lockdown and it's just easier to bully lane and force the jungler to come top.

GET SCHW1FTYDec 19, 20161 votes

They should rework Garen into more of a Sion character tbh, a huge tanky juggernaut who offers disruption, utility, and aoe damage rather than someone who 100-0 carries himself. Some rough ideas:

Too much power in his villain mechanic, remove it.

P: Increase the healing it does at lower HP levels while nerfing the healing it does when he's closer to full. Alternately change the cd to scale with missing health. Both of these ideas will help out a ton in lane with helping him survive tough matchups while, if tuned right, still leaving him low enough to not pose a threat to opponents winning against him in lane.

Q: Add a slow resist to the sprint making enemies unable to slow him past his base movement speed, forcing them to blow hard cc on him if they want to stop his engage. With the addition of CC on his W maybe the silence has to go to balance him.

W: Aoe slow on his W active, this would promote decision making and counterplay since you'll either be vulnerable to damage when you're charging in or you'll waste the slow to soak damage.

E: Still spinning still winning.

R: Changed to a skill power up ultimate similar to Heimerdinger's, ultimates like these are a bit lazy but it really fits with the theme of a seasoned soldier adapting to the battle while providing much needed depth and decision making to his kit. Q - Big increase to its damage making it similar to the current R. W - Increase the CC it offers and make it a stronger tank cd, maybe allowing his passive to work in combat for a short period. E - Increased duration and/or a damage increase per spin.

Some changes along these lines, especially the ultimate, would keep his core identity and even strengthen it, while making him a strong versatile champion that can tailor his playstyle to what the team and the fight needs. It doesn't look too overpowered but what do I know, I'm no CertainlyT.

Smitty ManjensenDec 19, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=BRUTALE 2016,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=cVBhQcpa,comment-id=0015,timestamp=2016-12-19T09:15:39.856+0000)

They should rework Garen into more of a Sion character tbh, a huge tanky juggernaut who offers disruption, utility, and aoe damage rather than someone who 100-0 carries himself. Some rough ideas:

Too much power in his villain mechanic, remove it.

P: Increase the healing it does at lower HP levels while nerfing the healing it does when he's closer to full. Alternately change the cd to scale with missing health. Both of these ideas will help out a ton in lane with helping him survive tough matchups while, if tuned right, still leaving him low enough to not pose a threat to opponents winning against him in lane.

Q: Add a slow resist to the sprint making enemies unable to slow him past his base movement speed, forcing them to blow hard cc on him if they want to stop his engage. With the addition of CC on his W maybe the silence has to go to balance him.

W: Aoe slow on his W active, this would promote decision making and counterplay since you'll either be vulnerable to damage when you're charging in or you'll waste the slow to soak damage.

E: Still spinning still winning.

R: Changed to a skill power up ultimate similar to Heimerdinger's, ultimates like these are a bit lazy but it really fits with the theme of a seasoned soldier adapting to the battle while providing much needed depth and decision making to his kit. Q - Big increase to its damage making it similar to the current R. W - Increase the CC it offers and make it a stronger tank cd, maybe allowing his passive to work in combat for a short period. E - Increased duration and/or a damage increase per spin.

Some changes along these lines, especially the ultimate, would keep his core identity and even strengthen it, while making him a strong versatile champion that can tailor his playstyle to what the team and the fight needs. It doesn't look too overpowered but what do I know, I'm no CertainlyT.

Absolutely not, that ult is the worst idea for him I saw in years, his current ult is his identity, did you even see countless memes for Garen adn his ult? Literally would destroy his identity if they change R and E, the only thing I agree with you is removing the villain mechanic, it's shit.

GET SCHW1FTYDec 19, 20161 votes

Yep the kit is not perfect but I strongly believe in the idea to move Garen to a juggernaut/vanguard mix like Sion, from the current juggernaut with an execute thing he's got going on - A role that Darius stole and outperforms him in. To balance Garen across all levels of play while keeping his ult and not just turning him into Demacian Darius, the rest of his kit would have to be drastically changed to turn him into a diver or even a skirmisher.

People always have different ideas of what any given champions true identity is, I think of Garen more as the huge guy in bulky armor who gets in the middle of the fight spinning his sword around and fucking everyone up rather than the guy who goes sprinting to execute a single target.