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Garen as a champion

HA I am Shaco HA··2 votes·1,302 views

Can we all agree that Garen is too high rewarding for doing very little work. "But SnackerMore, isn't that what easy champions are for?". In Garen's case, no, I don't think it's ok because his laning phase is very strong because all he does is run at you with his Q which silences you so you can't do anything to him while he shreds your armor while dealing a TON of damage, after he used his E, his Q movement speed is still up so he can run away if he cancels his E early. His Q negates slows which is kinda annoying tbh. His W is a free Tenacity rune fully stacked and Merc treads, which basically means he doesn't have to take tenacity runes. His passive healing recharge should be increased, so the enemy (melee) champs have time to get their poke abilities back so that the trades they took actually meant they did damage to Garen and he hadn't healed back to full health by doing absolutely nothing. Garen can build tank items and still completely dominate Bruiser champs that have armor because his E has armor shred and high damage with an Ad scaling. I was recently in a game with an enemy Garen as my laner, in the mid-late game, (I was Kha'zix top with Bruiser items) Garen ran up to me and used his E, it alone dealt 1179 damage before the E duration finished. Another time I was Kled top, Garen used his ult on me and did 1500 true damage. Can we pls do something about Garen?

16 Comments

Khabith3 votes

just play against him with his counter. Like I personally play Renekton and I stun him a second before he silences me. Which allows me to AA him when he spins and then i win the trade by leaving healthy while hes about half. But I HATE HIS ULTIMATE. his ult does true/magic damage. LIKE WTF IT DOES LIKE 1000 NI0REJMGIURNEQ GIHBDAMAGE

Doge20202 votes

{quoted}

just play against him with his counter. Like I personally play Renekton and I stun him a second before he silences me. Which allows me to AA him when he spins and then i win the trade by leaving healthy while hes about half. But I HATE HIS ULTIMATE. his ult does true/magic damage. LIKE WTF IT DOES LIKE 1000 NI0REJMGIURNEQ GIHBDAMAGE

If you can time your r as renekton (or nasus as both of their ults are very similar) you can get a big enough “heal” that his r won’t kill you.

What you should do with an early game bitch like renekton is get ignite and try to all in him right when you get your lvl 3 powerspike and he is still lvl 2. If you chunked him down enough with a quick q, or e and q trade you should be able to easily dive him under tower with jungler or solo kill him when you reach lvl3

Madsin252 votes

"Garen gets countered by stuns" is not a justifiable reason for his oppressiveness. Every champion in the game gets countered by stuns.

Doge20201 votes

{quoted}

"Garen gets countered by stuns" is not a justifiable reason for his oppressiveness. Every champion in the game gets countered by stuns.

But because Garen is a juggernaut with zero dash/blink abilities in his kit, he gets punished harder for being hit with a stun. The general premise of a juggernaut is that if they reach you, they can and WILL kill you. So the best way to keep a juggernaut from killing you is simply denying him the chance of getting close enough to do said killing of you. stuns are handy with this because you can stun him then put some distance between you and him or deal more damage and try to burst him down while he is stunned.

Having an instant CC is very handy when dealing with Garen because you can cc him without giving him a chance to use w and reduce it. it is best to use it right before the Garen silences you, that way he can’t take advantage of the silence to then use E and deal damage. Preferably use a knock up or stun rather than a root, Garen can still use w during a root and reduce it, but he can’t during a stun or knock up.

EbonyBladeJ883 votes

Garen, like most other Juggernauts, has an Auto-Attack resetting skill, his Q. This makes it synergize very well with Auto-Attack procced Keystones like Grasp, or Conqueror and others.

In regards to his kill pressure, it simply means he is doing his job as a Juggernaut. Juggernaut champions are DESIGNED to be able to deal out large amounts of damage, while also being able to tank large amounts of damage. But this comes at a cost. The cost being among some of the slowest champions in the game, with very limited (Or in the case of Mordekaiser , none at all) Crowd Control.

While simple on paper, Garen's kit (Thanks to his Visual Update and the Juggernaut Update) DOES have its complexities.

Garen, unlike a Juggernaut like, say Darius , does NOT have a strong early game. His Villain passive on his ult, for example, ONLY comes into play once he's LVL 6 at the earliest, AND a member of the opposing team needs to have gotten at least 1 kill for it to even activate; while Darius gets his Noxian Might at LVL 1 as long as he can apply all 5 stacks of Haemorrhage. In addition to that, his lane opponent might not even BE the one that gets made the Villain depending on how the kills are flowing in a particular game. In low-kill games, for example, the Villain passive can be near-on useless because there might be a long period between kills, and thus, no one on the enemy team is getting marked as the Villain.

Garen's W's passive that gives him free armor and magic resist requires him to get good CS rates, as kills (Whether of minions or of champions) are the ONLY things that increase it. Thus preventing him from farming not only reduces the amount of gold he can get, and thus items he can buy, but ALSO keeps him from getting stacks of his W's passive, making him less capable of tanking damage. His W also has a LONG CD, meaning if you can get him to use it prematurely, you've taken away his defensive capabilities even more.

His E does 33% increased damage when hitting a single unit. By standing with another champion, or in groups of minions, you prevent him from getting that potential damage boost. It can also critically strike, but due to the way most crit items work, it's not exactly the best idea to build it on him. (Critmaster Garen or others might take flak with this, but just speaking from my own experience)

His normal passive, his Perseverance/Regeneration, can be put on cool-down with something as simple as an auto-attack. Damaging abilities can also put it on CD. DoT (Damage over Time) abilities are even MORE effective as each tick resets his passive's CD. Constant poke keeps his passive on CD, thus greatly reducing his ability to regenerate and sustain through the laning phase.

Do it enough, and you could (Depending on your chosen champion) get him low enough for an all-in, as by constantly poking him, you prevent him from regenerating.

Let's Continue. Garen, like all Juggernauts, is susceptible to being KITED. He's actually one of the MOST susceptible, because unlike someone like Darius or Nasus or some other Juggernaut, his CC is not a Stun, Slow or Pull or something else. It is a Silence, which, yes, prevents the use of movement abilities such as Dashes, but it does NOT hinder actual movement speed, meaning you CAN move away from him after he's used it, and he largely can't do anything to stop you.

His play-making abilities revolve ENTIRELY around his summoner 4 , because, like I said above, he doesn't have a Pull, or a Slow, or a Stun for his CC. Get him to blow his summoner 4 and you've reduced his play-making abilities even more.

This is probably a way too long, and way too wordy response for such a short post as yours, but I'm making it anyway.

Doge20201 votes

That sir, was one of the best answers I have seen to the GAreN DeALs TOo MuCh DAmaGE! RitO nERf BraIndEaD ChaMp argument.

Nobody in low elo except us understands the point of juggernauts and their overall weaknesses. A lot of people think that all Juggernauts are tanks for some reason and refuse to listen to any explanations that I tell them.

EbonyBladeJ881 votes

It's like the third or fourth time in just the past week I've had to post this comment. I originally posted it in another thread of this nature about Garen about 2 months ago as of this time of writing, and have referred back to it and various continuations I've made of it ever since.

It's like, Come on! How many times do we have to go through this!? https://i.giphy.com/media/RQMkfKODe8Okw/giphy.gif

(An L7 Garen in Champ Mastery as well, so I think, trying not to sound condescending or rude or anything, but I think I should know what I'm talking about.)

Ralanr2 votes

I haven't played Garen in a while, but I don't think his Q movement speed is still up by the time he has stopped spinning from his E. Maybe if he point blank Q'd you, but then he's still affected by slows because his Q only removes slows when he activates it, it doesn't make him immune.

Doge20202 votes

{quoted}

I haven't played Garen in a while, but I don't think his Q movement speed is still up by the time he has stopped spinning from his E. Maybe if he point blank Q'd you, but then he's still affected by slows because his Q only removes slows when he activates it, it doesn't make him immune.

Yeah, this person probably only played against a fed Garen and not actually played Garen to see what his pros and cons are. You get kited very easily with CC and sometimes even slows if you don’t time q properly. And your r usually won’t execute unless the enemy has less than 10% on their health remaining (against non villains).

HA I am Shaco HA1 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, this person probably only played against a fed Garen

Like I said, he has a very strong lane phase and deals an incredible amount of damage even if he builds tank. I was equally as fed btw

Doge20202 votes

{quoted}

Like I said, he has a very strong lane phase and deals an incredible amount of damage even if he builds tank. I was equally as fed btw

Who did you play? Tell me who you main so I can give you tips on how to fight Garen and win. Generally playing somebody who is ranged and has a decent amount of cc and poke is good into Garen, somebody like Jayce, Quinn or even ryze.

But Garen is a juggernaut, he is supposed to deal a bunch of damage (and tank a bunch of damage) if you get caught in melee range by him

HA I am Shaco HA1 votes

I was playing bruiser Kha zix and I main Shaco

Critmaster Garen2 votes

{quoted}

I was playing bruiser Kha zix

lmao. lets put that aside for a moment.

garen is probably one of the best champions in the game to deal with frontloaded burst. while you blow all of your abilities on him, he presses w and negates your burst by 60%/30%. after that, what do you have left? garen still has q, e and r, while all your shit is on cooldown and hes probably still at 80% health.

this makes garen in general a champion who deals well with assassins. especially since he also likes to build a good amount of base defenses.

point is, you picked the wrong fight. juggernauts in general wreck assassins, and you shouldnt be surprised getting your face beat in by one.

thats not a problem with garen, but you not respecting fighters as assassin. and obviously a character who is meant to be a bruiser and builds for it, is still going to be stronger than a character who is meant to be an assassin and builds the same items.

steraks gage gives him more ad than you, he has higher base defenses than you, and higher base damage than your bonus ad scaling ass.

sneakydoug2 votes

There are so many places where you’re wrong. I just can’t.

By the way, if you start any comment with “his (insert ability here) is a free (x/y/z) just stop immediately and give your head a shake. It’s not a free anything. It’s an ability, and it occupies an ability slot. And an entire ability slot just for tenacity is, in my opinion, actually pretty terrible. And of course W has other attachments to it, being a very short-lived high damage resistance and long term late game passive damage resistance. None of that is ‘free.’ That’s an ability, and if he didn’t have that ability, he’d have a different ability, such as one that would deal damage or give steroids of another sort.

Shablagoo1 votes

Its really only the Villian mechanic, its a free kill basically which doesnt make much sense. There is no real counterplay to it really, considering he already has a execute ult. Other then that he is fine.

SwiftKitten881 votes

i dont think garen is very fair and i certainly would call him OP... IF half broken champs in the game weren'tt top laners.

i do thing garen should be adressed eventually. (like remove that fucking Armor reduction on his spin and remove the 90% tenacity.

they iterally gave him that shit for no reason becuase they hard buffed everyone else and garen fell behind

they need to nerf EVERYONE. and that INCULDES garen. they literally gives shoved extra shit into garens kit for no reason.

however i dont feel as of this moment he is a pressing issue.

i would like him addressed in the pre-season.. but as of right now we have bigger issues

(im looking at you Khazix Jax Irelia Pyke Nunu (and next patch that will likely include Ezreal )

so while i think garen is indeed an issue. we have more pressing concerns at the moment

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