Unfortunately, Garen is following the trail Gangplank did before he got his rework

Before Gangplank had gotten his rework, it took a very long time and a ridiculous amount of empty threads until a Rioter finally decided to take it upon himself to look at Gangplank and put him in a better place. However, the trail Gangplank had to tread to get there was harsh. And unfortunately Garen is following the same trail with no better place in sight. To better understand what I'm talking about, let me tell you what Gangplank was like before getting his rework.

At the time, playing Gangplank could be a huge setback to his team due to being a slave to the RNG Gods with his Crits & Cannon Barrage and a weak laning phase against competent players. In order to even play Gangplank decently, you had to max his (W) for the obscene heal to even properly play him since maxing Q could make you go OOM quickly and E wasn't good at all other then just being a one point wonder that you shouldn't ever use until much later in the game. You primarily had to focus on just punishing obvious mistakes of your enemy laner to win which only worked up until Platinum or so.

Teammates would always tell you that Gangplank was terrible and could potentially harass you for playing him if you didn't do extraordinarily well with him as he wasn't up to par with the rest of the roster. It was terrible, yet the general forums was even worse. If you went to the forums to talk about Gangplank and possible changes for him, you were immediately shot down by posters who would tell you how "good" he was and how they just beat a game or two with him and thus needed no changes. Gangplank mains who wanted to see change had to make so many threads just to get something going as they were constantly brought down by people who refused to see something more for Gangplank and the majority on the forums who remained quiet and ignored Gangplank topics.

After a long period time and constant empty threads, Rioter Gmang, started a thread on Gangplank and wanted to give him a shot, and later he gave us a Gangplank that is now without a doubt in a better place than his previous iteration.

Garen as of late has been mirroring the fate Gangplank had prior to his rework. Starting a thread to say that Garen needs changes is brought down by people who say he is fine and posters who willfully ignore Garen topics. I'm not sure why people had such a bias against Gangplank back then and why it is applying to Garen now...

The Juggernaut patch "rework", which had gutted Garen of his HP/LV growth, gave him a weaker (Q) & lower MS, and a removal of (W)'s Tenacity in return for a Quasi-RNG True damage he can't control is bleeding through more and more. The rework didn't address Garen as a champion and the Villian mechanic that was thrust onto him has failed to give anything meaningful besides a few random situations to where it works only somewhat well. After the nerfing of the overtuned Juggernaut items and the movement speed items, Garen has fallen while his dark twin, Darius, has remained in a balanced state... It's very unfortunate see Garen be put in such a low state and be rendered a champion stuck to being "an easy champion" and be mediocre and at times very weak while Sivir, Annie, Kayle, Ryze, Soraka, Poppy, and Nunu remain good or very strong picks.

And so, I write this in hopes that a Rioter and most importantly you, as your participation and willingness matters most will make the time to discuss Garen to bring him to a state of balance that can bring forth new opportunities for him while remaining recognizable as the Might of Demacia.