Potential buffs and nerfs to garen to make him balanced across all elos

Painbringerbabe·2/20/2019, 3:04:10 PM·1 votes·893 views

This is a post i made hours before and moved it back to the top again , because i got no feedback . I got a degree in english language but it is not my native one , so i am sorry for any mistakes , i hope that at least what i say makes sense . Bear with me , it is a really long post . Let's get started :

Hello there. This is a smurf of mine , in which i enjoy playing full ad garen . I am a low dia - low masters otp garen player in reality , so i think i have some authority to give some thoughts about garen . Thing is , garen is a simple mech champion and will probably remain one , even after a potential rework . This is totally fine tho . Beginner friendly champions are required , the problem tho is the following : he is so simple that he cannot be balanced for both high and low elo with number buffs/nerfs . We saw that when his q got +40 dmg at rank 5 , he got to an astonishinh 52% even at low diamond , something that lastly occurred during juggernaut update . If average at high , he is completely broken at low , if the opposite occurs then he is average to weak in high :( . He has room for improvement tho , improvements aimed towards the higher brackets , impacting nearly non at all the lower ones .

Change number 1 : Uncap resistancies gained via farming , lower the gain for each minion , by 10-15% . Lower elo players cannot farm properly , thus this will make garen weaker for lower elo , stronger for higher elo , rewarding people with decent farming skills . Bear in mind that average game is around 30 min . MIND THAT GAREN NEEDS 160 CS TO GAIN + 40 ARMOR AND MR . This means that with the 10-15% nerf to gain same value he would need 180-200 farm just to reach same value . This is more like a nerf , not a buff tbh , especially since it makes his early game weaker

Change number 2 : I BEG YOU . Remove the time to cast the abilities of q and r . I do not ask for any number buff here . Heck , if winrate somehow skyrockets by this , nerf the damage of the abilities . Seriously , im open for nerfs there if needed to balance . I would even trade 3/4 of the true damage of villain mechanic to have this . BUT , for the love of , where i play , 0,20-0,25 seconds for my q/ultimate to land after clicking is a way to give me depression . There is an extremely high amount of plays , favorable trades , farming under pressure and extended combos that could have been made if someone utilized it fully . Just to give an example , landing q and ultimate on a carry could be 0,4-0,5 seconds faster , meaning i could have got more spins on my e , 1 more tick of ignite before executing . In lane i could have been able to harass and maybe not get hit back , now q is not an autoattack refresher , rather a damage steroid . Not to mention that it is impossibly difficult to even hit ultimate vs mobile champions that have f , even tho it is targeted , since it cancels if the enemy got out of window range / vision during ultimate channelling . LOW ELO WOULD GET ALMOST NOTHING OUT OF THIS , since they just randomly try to oneshot an adc / apc without further thinking or knowledge of exact damage limits , high elo would get an extreme buff that would make garen viable without breaking him , for inexperienced people to abuse . Just the q immediate animation would make garen able to beat fiora , jax , darius , camille and so many others if played properly . Now it is really easy for a mechanically adept person to cancel every single q you try to hit ( fiora w , jax e , camille shield/e+e -> stunned before q lands ) , as for darius you would not have the delay , so it would be way easier to escape the extended trade afterwards + his q .

Change number 3 : Fix the passive . It is either comically broken or comically useless . Pre 11 useless , post 11 the most broken thing in game in my opinion as a garen main player . Give him a stronger pre 11 passive , nerf his post 11 one . BUT , because early game dictates the flow of the game , if i were to balance it , i'd give garen 1/4 stronger pre 11 passive to take 1/2,8 of his post 11 one. Number can change , fluctuating potentially to lower/higher values but the concept is : stronger pre 11 passive for way weaker post 11 passive , at a value of around +25% early value for a -35% later value (probably)

Change number 4 : REMOVE villains true damage ( or its bonus damage in general ) . Instead give me healthy bonus AD when i am fighting the villain , but in doing so , i would like also slightly higher base stats for compensation or a prize for kills / assists on villain ( or potentially both at a lower degree ) . Atm , villain is doomed to die even to a 0-100 garen because of the outrageous true damage + % true damage , melting squishies and tanks alike , while it is based on completely random situations and has difficulties in its usage for the garen player as well .

(((((((Change number 5 : Higher base ms , lower tankinkness . A + 20 ms for reduced level 1 armor ( - 5 ) , base hp ( - 48 ) without nerfing their scaling tho , or mr . Fixes some of his immobility issues , keeps his mobility issues still (remaining a juggernaut) but makes laning really , really harder , giving him a supremely hard time early on to reap the above benefit . Good players will manage the waves of the minions and survive the blow , bad ones will die)))))))) This is highly experimental , potentially wrong in many ways , including the thematics of garen as a juggernaut . However , one can only dream :D

FINAL THOUGHTS : I just hope for 1 or 2 of those changes to come live , not all of them , since all of them at once would leave garen at a pretty liquid state without testing . However , in time , i would like all of them to implement , adjusting numbers accordingly so that he stays as close to 50% win rate as possible from iron to challenger tier

1 Comments

Critmaster Garen2/20/2019, 4:36:38 PM1 votes

**number 1: ** i dont agree with lowering the resistance gain even further. either uncap his w entirely (it already takes a lot of time - 25 to 30 minutes - to stack up to the 40. reducing the gain further would take him forever to reach the same value)

or, the other option would be to give it the same treatment as Chogath ult. decide on a baseline of his passive, either 30 or 40 that he can stack up on minions. then allow him to gain an additional either 1 or 0.5 points of resistances for every champion takedown that dont count towards that cap.

this means you could gain additional stacks by fighting and skirmishing and wouldnt be incentivised to sit in a sidelane to push waves the entire game.


**number 2: ** the cast time on his r is not a problem. infact, it can be a benefit since it often times baits out and wastes the enemies flash. even if the enemy uses any form of mobility after the ult cast already started, it will still connect. a lot of the time, enemies will waste their flash to get out of his ult range, when the cast already started just to die at their new location.

as far as the q goes, i tend to agree. id like a rather simple change to the ability. speed up his q animation with his base attack speed (per champion level). it makes the q more worthwile as a playmaking tool and auto attack reset around mid to lategame. its also thematically consistent with his spin getting faster as he levels up.


number 3: i wouldnt make any changes to his passive at this point


number 4: villainy is a problem, because the ability makes up a massive chunk of garens power budget. but the way the mechanic is implemented gives us no control over it and it just feels downright useless half the time, when it lands on inaccessble, or low priority targets.

if the mechanic is kept on garen, then id suggest making garens ult fully "unlock" at rank 3, similar to how Darius gets the full reset on his rank 3 ultimate.

meaning upon leveling his ult to rank 3, garen gets to chose the villain entirely himself with a mechanic like Kindred passive, on like a minute cooldown. this would give him some level of control over the mechanic.

in return, they could remove the true damage from his rank 1 ult against the villain, and it gets added back with his rank 2 ultimate.


number 5: i dont like this. just increase his base stats tbh. garen has 6 lower base ad at lvl 18 and 200 less base hp at lvl 18 than the other juggernauts. just bring him up to par with the rest of the class.


overall i honestly dont mind his early game being as weak as it is. there are many similar scaling champions in this game who start out weak. but garen has to actually scale into a carry at some point of the game. right now, his weakass lategame doesnt nearly make up for the issues he has making himself relevant early and midgame.

youll realize that all of the changes i posted here are mainly buffs to his lategame, where his real issue is in my opinion. if garen gets bullied around in lane, he just cant fall off as he does currently. he has almost 40% winrate for games that last longer than 30 minutes.

back in season 5 when he received his juggernaut rework, all of his lane bully potential was destroyed and his early game nerfed in favour of promising us better lategame scaling. obviously he didnt get that, and its about time they did something to buff his later game stages. we shouldnt just get outscaled by every other carry.