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I honestly don't know what to do with Garen anymore, he needs...something?

JusticePauldrons·3/27/2015, 5:43:46 AM·30 votes·5,086 views

So I have been playing Garen as my main basically since I hit level ten years ago. I always loved the guy and thought his playstyle, aesthetic and theme were cool and I have usually been content with as much. But quite frankly I losing my hope in this demacian paragon of badassery. I am not sure if I am just having an off day or if how little he can compete in the high moblity, high burst meta is just starting to get to me but I was recently playing a match with my diamond friends and I have never before felt so useless in a match and it really showed me how weak he is competitively.

He just flat out has nothing he can do if he isn't fed. In a situation where Garen did not receive early game advantages he has absolutely no power throughout the rest of the game. His E, while powerful early on quickly loses damage as people start dealing more damage each second to compete. Later game you would deal nearly as much damage with an auto. With almost anyone else I can say "well steamrolling isn't an option, guess I have to X instead" but that just isn't an option with Garen. Usually when playing a bruiser you feel that your secondary role is as an offtank or initiator. As a tank he has no way to protect and peel for his team due to his lack of crowd control, and as an initiator he has no way of getting into a fight without burning flash or attempting to run straight at them.

To gives you a better idea of what I am talking about I am going to run through what other similar bruisers can do in the situation where they can't just steamroll a match.

Darius Has hard CC in the form of his pull, allowing him to initiate a fight easily on an enemy out of position. His passive armor shred and potential for burst damage allow him to stay a threat throughout the game even when building tank.

Riven Knock aside, shield, aoe stun and gap closers allow riven to be a monster of an initiator when building health. Her ultimate provides a substantial steroid which empowers her auto attacks, abilities and provides the threat of an aoe execution.

Nasus Huge threat if left alone, built in battle sustain, substantial slow is a powerful chase and escape tool and ultimate makes him a tougher target while providing % max health damage in a constant aoe. This allows him to succeed easily as a tank even if he still does suffer from his lack of an initate.

So looking at these common top bruisers kits I seem to always find myself at a disadvantage if I can't out trade them. Garen's lack of crowd control make it impossible for him to stay a relevant threat unless he is already steamrolling because he can't protect his team. All he has going for him is massive damage potential when that potential is taken away he little more than a sponge that can be ignored.

Something I feel like I should mention here is I realize Garen's ultimate is powerful on paper, but considering other bruisers have ultimates that are just as useful against nearly dead targets or can be used multiple times like Darius or in an aoe like Riven it doesn't seem all that great. Especially when you consider those champions have it readily available on lower cooldowns.

So help a guy out here, what place do you think Garen is in right now? What do you like/dislike about him and if you could change anything about him what would it be. It seems obvious to me that he need something, but aside from a lower cooldown ult I can't really place my finger on what else could be added.

EDIT: Suggestion from a friend discussing this with me, he didn't have any ideas on how to help with peeling seeing as Garen being able to stun would be broken but he did have some suggestions for improving his damage late game without breaking him early.

  1. Lower the scalings on Garen's E and add in %health damage. Allowing the skill to remain relevant even if not powerful late game, this would allow it to at least be seen as a threat by fed players and provide more damage than autoattacking against high health targets.

  2. Allow Garen to auto attack targets while spinning, this would improve his late game damage but require he sacrifice the mobility of spinning ahead of a target constantly to auto them. This would add a bit of extra power to his early game as well though. If Jax can auto people while spinning his Lamppost above his head, than why can't Garen do it with a sword.

109 Comments

MarshallBananna3/27/2015, 12:39:37 PM13 votes

He just needs lower CD on his ultimate, which is inexplicably high

ThePlasticSpork3/27/2015, 11:51:25 AM9 votes

Garen is better at tanking than all 3 of the champions you brought up. Amusingly, Garen would shit on Nasus and Riven in lane, and could go even with Darius if he plays well. He's a pretty strong laner, and so naturally falls off lategame because his early is strong.

KING OF MASKS3/27/2015, 8:48:02 AM8 votes

Excellent. A Garen thread.

But in all seriousness, as a fellow Garen main I have to say your complaints are off the mark. It's true that Garen brings almost zero utility to a team (silence notwithstanding), but he makes up for it with an incredibly good laning phase, even against the most oppressive top lane picks. The thing is that he is a steamroller; if you're locking in Garen in champion select, you're not thinking "Oh, I'm going to bring a lot to a teamfight," you're declaring your intention to stomp your lane and then cut through the enemy carries like butter.

I mean really, he has no power late game? What are you on about, m8? He tanks better than most tanks, and can annihilate squishies with just one damage item. If you ask me Garen is in an incredibly good spot right now.

tl;dr Garen is not an initiator, and he's not a peeler. He is a steamroller who wades through the enemy team to get at their carries.

Rinky Dinky3/27/2015, 7:26:12 PM5 votes

Demacian Justice ( R) cooldown lowered to 120/100/80 from 160/120/80

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/03/327-pbe-update.html#more

Thank fuck

Darius buffs too

67chrome3/27/2015, 7:01:05 AM4 votes

I am not sure if I am just having an off day or if how little he can compete in the high moblity, high burst meta is just starting to get to me but I was recently playing a match with my diamond friends and I have never before felt so useless in a match and it really showed me how weak he is competitively.

From what you've written?

I am going to have to go with an off-day.

If you're playing with friends that are Diamond and you're nowhere near Diamond, or Master or Challenger - they're going to out-perform you by a landslide. And their Elo will insure your opponents are similarly skilled, allowing them to exploit weakness you didn't even know you had.

Skill is such a massive factor in LoL that you want to focus on how to improve as a player rather than deflect poor performance to game balance, because from everything I've seen - it doesn't take much skill to make Riot's balance irrelevant. The worst to best champions don't exactly have a valley separating them.

Also - your comparisons to other champions seem off.

Riven building health? Darius's pull being an easy initiation tool? Garen not having CC?

Maximum Zilean3/27/2015, 7:20:30 AM4 votes

A few ideas my friend had since he is a huge Garen player. Since his ult is really, really bad as you said.

1: If his ult kills the target, it fires off a shockwave of damage dealing 70% of the damage dealt to everyone.

2: Leaves an AoE slow zone of about 80% - 90% if it kills.

3: Simple. Half cooldown on kill.

ModelT3/27/2015, 6:18:39 AM3 votes

I know exactly what you mean. Garen is one of my favorite champions, but if he isn't getting fed he isn't really doing anything.

I do like the idea on the E effect, but why even make it able to critical hit? It just isn't really worth buidling the crit items to make that extra damage happen when the champion needs health and defenses just to stay relevant in team fights. The only reason I can think that would make that effect useful was removed from the game, and that was Atma's Impaler, which was the item that really MADE tank Garen. Though I get why they removed it. An idea I had for the E, rather than the afore-mentioned %health based damage, would be to replace the crit damage with applies on-hit effects. Suddenly Life Steal Garen seems like a sustainable fighter, and Frozen Mallet makes him a little bit better at initiating while acting in the tank fasion.

His Ult is really weak compared to Darius and Riven. Darius is much closer range, but he can dunk a whole team. Riven has to deal with a skill shot, but she gets AoE execute and a steroid on top of that. I get that Garen's IS a longer range targeted effect, but even then it doesn't compare to the other two. It needs something. A lower CD WOULD be nice, but that isn't going to fix the whole problem. It'd be hard to make it a non-targeted effect. Given my suggestion with his Spin-To-Win applying on-hit effects, perhaps it could passively give Garen something in the way of an on-hit effect like passive life-steal which would fit well with his powerful survivability. Fed Garen is already powerful, and the extra survivability would be something to deal with, but things like Ignite would mitigate the effect, and Thornmail would become a very powerful anti-Garen item.

TLDR notes Changes Suggested: E: Remove Crit Chance and allow hits to apply On-Hit effects 1 time per second Ult: Give Passive Life Steal

Pros:

  • More itemization options other than useless Crit Build no longer aided by Atma's Impaler
  • Fed Garen easily countered by Thornmail
  • Solidifies role as Off-Tank Fighter with good sustain in fights and drawn out engagements

Cons:

  • Garen's Early game might be a bit too powerful with his increased sustain, consider scaling back some flat damages
Zarxis3/27/2015, 7:06:46 AM2 votes

Ideas: Lower his ultimate's cooldown. It's a single-target, short-ranged nuke... It doesn't even have CC, yet it's on a longer cooldown than most damage+CC ultimates. Add some sort of CC to his kit. Perhaps his abilities could apply a slow when his W is activated? Lower his W's cooldown. Allow his Q to negate slows throughout its duration. The Garen player can decide whether he/she wants to apply the damage/silence as quickly as possible or soak up some slows. Change his passive so that it is never removed by neutral monsters (other than Baron and maybe Dragon). Give him some form of %health (current, missing, or max) damage so that he isn't so easily beaten by other tanky melee champions.

Edit: Please allow Garen to flip when his Q crits, and give him back his punching autoattack animation.

Talamare3/27/2015, 6:32:02 AM2 votes

It's a little weird to consider mathematically how well Garen actually scales with Critical tho

Let's compare just for fun 5 Infinity Edge Garen vs 5 Bloodthrister Garen (the point is to keep the AD the same, while having 0% Critical and 100% Critical)

5 of either Item is 400 AD + 100 from Garen is 500 AD

BT Garen will deal 2010 damage in 3 seconds, 670 DPS IE Garen will deal 3330 damage in 3 seconds, 1110 DPS

Jofeyy3/27/2015, 8:09:24 PM2 votes

I never understood why his Q silenced. It dosent really make sense. I feel that his Q should smack someone hard enough that they're stunned for a second or two. That would give him some kind of hard CC so he can get free damage with his E. The % health idea is pretty good too.