another comprehensive (small scale) garen rework by a garen main

why rework garen?

one major reason really. hes doing terribly. next to his overall weak state, he is probably the champion with the lowest skillcap in the game, with the highest ranked garen mains capping out at diamond 5 with the champion.

the goals for the rework:

• increase mechanical depth while keeping his kit easy to understand and pick up for people who are new to him.
• tackle a couple of his core issues, like the complete lack of access to even minor forms of in combat sustain that every other juggernaut has available, and allows him to stay in extended fights without being guaranteed to lose battles of attrition.
• increase his overall performance

i will go further into detail following each individual change to his abilities that ive thought out.

one major thing that i havent adressed is his villain mechanic, and apart from the specific changes that are mentioned, his abilities stay the same.

---

so lets get into it

Perseverance (passive): regenerates a % of his missing health every second while out of combat

changed from 2%/4%/10% of his max health over 5 seconds.

cooldown: changed to 8 seconds from 9/6/4 seconds

context: not much of a change here. during the lane phase, his passive shouldnt change much except for working better at low health when pressured hard by his opponent, and less when his health bar is close to full.

the regeneration around mid and lategame should be largely decreased in favour of a new interaction between his passive and his spin.

decisive strike: slow cleanse removed

context: the functionality of the slow cleanse was moved to his w.

courage (active): changed to negate all incoming crowd control within .75 seconds and granting 30% damage reduction for 2 seconds upon activation. if movment impairing crowd control is negated, the damage reduction is extended to 6 seconds.

from: 30% damage reduction for 2/3/4/5/6 seconds

context: this is the first big change. similar to fioras riposte it becomes a game of trying to anticipate and negate enemy crowd control effects for garen, and trying to bait out the ability for his opponent to be able to then follow up with cc and be able to kite garen.

on its own, the ability becomes a lot less reliable as a defensive steroid. but should garen be able to use it to full effect and anticipate and negate enemy cc with proper reaction, it becomes a lot more impact full in return.

judgement: armor shred debuff removed

added effect: when enemy champions or epic monsters are hit by spins, perseverance activates for 0.5 seconds when judgement ends, even while garen is in combat. (stacks up to 5 seconds max)

context: while the armor shred debuff was a decent idea on paper, ultimately it did little to make him any more viable of a champion overall. considering is one of garens most stat effective items and was a staple on him since its rework in season 3, combined with the fact that its passive stacks poorly with his own % shred, it didnt actually add anything new or helpful to his kit. as far as im concerned, its excess power that can easily be cut off in favour of something more useful.

here comes the second big change into play. garen is a juggernaut. hes a slow moving champion who is supposed to try and get into arms length of his opponent, deal large amounts of damage, and be rewarded for being able to stay in range and take extended fights.

his passive is in my personal opinion one of the largest factors that holds him back. hes not a skirmisher. he is one of the slowest champions in the game. the expectation to be able to engage to be able to take trades with his opponent, then disengage to regenerate health and then reengage to fight is almost laughable in my opinion. it just doesnt work out. he doesnt have the mobility of a skirmisher to pull that kind of playstile. even amongst juggernauts hes not exceptionally fast, considering champions like udyr and shyvana are being grouped in with him. which effectively leaves him without any form of in combat sustain at all.

this is a massive factor in extended fights against any champion with access to lifesteal or their own inbuilt sustain mechanics.

this change aims at two things:

• reward him for being able to stay in fights and make his passive more versatile to allow him to take battles of attrition
• increase decision making around the ability. in large scale fights against many opponents, his passive would charge up faster than against a single opponent. the fact that the health regeneration is tied to the cancel of the spin, allows him to chose to trade damage for sustain when neccessary.

if he manages to charge up the heal quickly, he has the choice between letting the spin keep running to deal more damage, or to cancel it early to immediately regain health. the nature of the % missing health heal also incentivises him to take risks and cancel the spin as late as possible to maximize the regeneration effect.

---

final thoughts:

there are a couple of other mechanics i havent touched, that could be addressed going further. mostly because i havent come up with really fleshed out ideas in those cases yet.

• the 33% damage amp on his spin against single targets as it is implemented is a clear case of invisible power. while its a mechanic that increases mechanical depth on his spin, playing around choice and positioning, it probably needs change or just be more readable overall.

• some of the more recent abilities like talons new q, and the rework warwicks q are case sensitive if theyre being used as a gap closer or while already in melee range of the enemy. imo it would be very fitting for garens q to have an empowered effect when activated in melee range over using the ability to close the distance to his opponent. one option would be an increased silence duration. even if its just half a second.

• his villain mechanic could probably use an overhaul. the general idea, of giving him the villain mechanic to create a specific strategic nieche as an anti-carry, is good. but right now it takes up a large portion of his power budget for too little payoff. even in his nieche hes still outshined by darius, who can just fight anyone in front of him and be just as effective as garen against the villain. then he can continue to bulldoze through the rest of the enemy team. garen isnt even better at fighting the villain 1v1 than darius as "aoe teamfight juggernaut" is in a 1v1.