Skip to content

Can we talk Juggernauts (Garen Specifically)

GOL Undecayed··2 votes·915 views

Garen is going to be the main focus of this discussion compared to the rest of the healthy juggernauts, here's why: Laning as Garen isn't difficult to begin with, for anyone who isn't ranged and requires up close and personal encounters to pump out damage Garen makes quick work of, trades early on aren't in Garen's favour and he is possibly at his weakest at this point in the game which is your cue to capitalise on as a player who can recognise this.

Here's where things get out of hand, a fair amount of top laners have decent sustain and when trading with Garen and not managing to kill him, it leaves both you and Garen low on health, given it's an even trade you usually have to stick by enemy minions to life steal or heal yourself back up to health, so in a way you're leaving yourself vulnerable to ganks and what not in favour of gaining xp and killing minions... Garen however can sit by his tower and his passive heals him back to full health, not only putting you at an extreme disadvantage but you end up working twice as hard just to keep up with Garen standing still underneath his tower. Granted he misses out on xp and lowers his cs count, which would be a less than proportionate consequence for a lot of other champions where they would have to base and allow themselves room to lane without the constant threat of death. There is a general unfair cycle when laning againts Garen.

  • Deal damage -> he heals up
  • Return to base to heal -> he heals up and gains levels while not losing out on cs
  • He bases -> Comes back with a Sunfire cape making him harder to kill but he chunks down on your health.

It gets to the point where even pre level 6 Garen is able to successfully zone you out of cs'ing and win trades with the simplest rotations of spells, which post level 6 leaves you with a grey screen and a respawn timer. He engages with an on click silence which actually deals enough damage as it is, presses his w to take less damage from the opponent and e which deals insane amounts of damage AND CRITS and since you are silenced for the duration of this you can't use spells, can't flash (or use any other summoner spell for that matter); you are left with auto attacks which isn't very helpful for your average top laner, at this point all he has to press is r and flashing isn't going to help unless you would rather die happy knowing you where underneath your tower. It does increased damage based on your missing health, it is an on click spell, it does TRUE DAMAGE if you are the villain, meaning if no one has a kill early on in the game in your team but you and you aren't far enough ahead to be considered 'snowballing' this becomes the perfect opportunity for Garen to trample over you. It basically says 'I do more damage to you because you are beating me' in essence. His e and auto attacks also deal %health damage to the villain, and it literally becomes a disadvantage at this point to be doing well. I'm getting angry just thinking about how this is even a thing.

Garen has anything you could possibly want in a single champ, not only being equipped with on click cc and an execute making him easy to play, he has damage, he has tankyness, he has insane regeneration, (I'm not even kidding I saw a Garen become the embodiment of item 3083 late game WITHOUT the item), he has a silence, he's got decent mobility, he has true damage, he has increased damage to a single foe on his e (which is op given that he is a top laner, (even Kha'zix has counter play to his isolation), his e has critical damage on top of the damage it deals already, permanent armor increase based on the amount of people you have killed on top of an active that reduces a further 30% of damage dealt, A cleanse on his q for slows, he doesn't fall off into the late game just like Irelia, compared to the rest of champions who do... I'm the least to say astonished. I'm sure a lot of people can agree with me that this guy is noob champ honestly, I thought Annie was bad.

This is extremely out of proportion in comparison to the rest of the Juggernauts like: Darius Skarner Mordekaiser These guys are examples of healthy Juggernauts that aren't broken, a lot of people say Darius is, but think about it he doesn't get an insane movement speed bonus doubled up with a silence for one of his abilities, his mobility is abysmal, so if caught out he can't simply run away and is usually forced to fight. He has normal regeneration stats and can't AFK heal under tower after having an unfavourable trade, if he doesn't cs well he will fall offand he will be irrelevant later on, his q has counter play mechanics as you can position your character to take less damage, his ultimate although dealing true damage doesn't deal increased damage for however how much health you are missing and although considered an execute a bulk of its damage is gained from his 'Haemorrhage' stacks so you can't just press r in most cases and be done with it, unlike Garen.

I'm sorry that I keep going on about this guy but changes need to be made to a layers of skill to this champion and level the general fairness of the game, that's all I have to say. (Didn't proof read; I'm tired spare me ;-;). #NerfIrelia TL;DR

26 Comments

ModWulf Helhammer2 votes

Don't really know what you're saying when you say Garen is weak early. Maybe if you start Doran's Shield or Ruby crystal yeah. Start long sword 3 pot, and with grasp you pretty easily bully out anyone. Which is exactly the point of Garen.

HEAljvLykd2 votes

Either you got rekt by Garen or you Don't know how to play against garen. Rip

Wolfess2 votes

Garen's heal is absurdly strong, his passive is almost a mundo ult all by itself. If garen gets away with even a sliver of health, he'll come back 10 seconds later at full health. that plus he has a ridiculous execute strength ult that doesn't even need any damage items.

Garen probably makes Karthus question if he picked the right form of un-death.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

{quoted}

Garen's heal is absurdly strong, his passive is almost a mundo ult all by itself. If garen gets away with even a sliver of health, he'll come back 10 seconds later at full health. that plus he has a ridiculous execute strength ult that doesn't even need any damage items.

Garen probably makes Karthus question if he picked the right form of un-death.

boy, people like to exaggerate.

the passive heals 2% max health per second at level 16 and has a 4 second windup.

after 10 seconds out of combat he would have healed 12% of his total health pool. include spirit visage, masteries and natural regeneration, then it gets maybe up to 15%. in that time.

if warmogs is part of the build (which i often dont find that useful) it would just about have kicked in, as it has an 8 second windup.

but the important part is, that it is out of combat regeneration. it doesnt help him in an actual fight, and only in siege scenarios and after a teamfight to heal up enough to push in minions with his team. mundo can turn on his ult and it keeps him alive in the middle of the enemy team. thats a huge difference.

and mundos passive is actually basically the same as garens, only that it doesnt get deactivated in a fight.

anyone who buys lifesteal items can just heal up on a jungle camp or a minion wave like him.

Meriipu2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=n7m3hKVF,comment-id=00070000,timestamp=2016-04-27T17:36:52.476+0000)

anyone who buys lifesteal items can just heal up on a jungle camp or a minion wave like him.

yeah but you actually have to buy lifesteal which means you are probably not buying tank items

Garen can build tank/hp stuff and that even helps him regen faster.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

{quoted}

yeah but you actually have to buy lifesteal which means you are probably not buying tank items

Garen can build tank/hp stuff and that even helps him regen faster.

well, so what? its still only out of combat. most sustain mechanics like lifesteal actually help you through a fight.

dont get me wrong, its useful in certain siduations, but its not that strong.

even mundos passve is overall just as strong as garens passive. it might heal less per second, but its not deactivated in combat.

i dont really know what your point here is to be honest. yea, garen has a passive that heals him for free when out of combat. every champ has a passive that does something for free.

Meriipu2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=n7m3hKVF,comment-id=0007000000000000,timestamp=2016-04-27T18:04:17.208+0000)

i dont really know what your point here is to be honest. yea, garen has a passive that heals him for free when out of combat. every champ has a passive that does something for free.

he benefits more than other champions from hiding in bushes and you have no feasible way to ward those bushes now

Critmaster Garen1 votes

{quoted}

he benefits more than other champions from hiding in bushes and you have no feasible way to ward those bushes now

item 3363 is probably the safest way to look into a difficult spot from a distance. i dont generally like this ward, as its too easily removed, but its the best options for squishies to sniff out ambushes.

well, aside from item 3092

but otherwise, if youre not able to facetank a garen. (and if youre not the villain, a lot of champions can actually do that). then dont run face first into it.

aside from wards still being a thing, there are so many abilities in this game that can be used to check bushes. most skillshots actually work. even if they dont grant vision on a target, they all have a sound indicator when they hit someonething even when you dont have vision on it.

there are a couple of tricks when it comes to checking bushes that may not be painfully obvious. i recommend googling for it.

but, well. like i said. this isnt something unique to garen. a lot of fighters and assassins, and even some mages will just straight up murder you if you walk face first into them.

GOL Undecayed1 votes

What if you aren't? Say your a mage you don't have life steal / utilise spell vamp, how do you deal with Garen? It isn't like you can burst him down obviously because he is a tank, once you've used your rotation of spells you can no longer kite and he can easily catch up and 100 - 0 you. If not he runs away where his passive effectively negates all of the initial damage dealt only for him to come back healthy and fight you again where he will kill you 99% of the time. Losing health for him isn't a problem and if your team isn't there to back you, you can't fight him...

Swiftstrike42 votes

Garen is OK where he is at. I don't think any of his abilities are outrageously strong, my biggest issue with Garen is that he has no mana. Combine that with his passive and his mobility and he can stay in lane indefinitely. This is annoying because out side of getting him very low in health from combat, him tping, or him roaming he doesn't need to leave lane. Good Garen's will always leave lane after their lane opponent has left so that they remain one full wave ahead. I main Nasus, the ultimate sustain and lane-loving champ, but I still have to back when my mana runs out, which is always before the Garen does. I think Garen is just a frustrating lane opponent, but he isn't oppressive. He just wins the small battles out of attrition which can add up and making him challenging to kill. But he has the same characteristics as all the all juggernauts: sustain tanks that can deal damage but are easily kited. I would argue that Garen is probably the lowest scaling compared to the other Juggernauts. Nasus, Darius, and Poppy, all scale better in the late game than Garen.

Big Lincoln1 votes

saying Mordekaiser and Skarner are healthy juggernauts when neither of them even fit the bill and both of them are cancer whenever they're actually strong picks

that's a great meme

Critmaster Garen1 votes

garen doesnt have pentakill potential like darius. he can fight 1 guy on the enemy team really well. the rest is situational. meanwhile darius damage is geared to escalate through a teamfight to the point where he can chain dunk your entire team.

means between both champions under ideal conditions of getting great support from their team, darius has more carry potential.

thats why garen gets to be a little more mobile than darius. its not like in darius case, where its good enough to get anyone in range long enough to trigger the passive, and plow through from the front rows to the back. garen often has to be able to bypass a support and a tank to get to the villain.

also complaining about his passive, especially by midgame is stupid when everyone can literally buy a garen passive with warmogs. id trade garens passive any day for volis passive on him. not to mention it only really does the same as lifesteal on other champions who clear a minion wave until theyre back at full health after a fight.

Meriipu1 votes

my problem is that you can no longer buy wards, so there is no way to ward the bushes he hides in or well you can but if you do there is no way to ward river and tribush for ganks

Critmaster Garen1 votes

{quoted}

my problem is that you can no longer buy wards, so there is no way to ward the bushes he hides in or well you can but if you do there is no way to ward river and tribush for ganks

just expect him to sit in there when you cant see him?

i have literally the same problem with most of my opponents, including protecting myself against jungle ganks. this isnt specific to garen. anyone can set an ambush.

Meriipu1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=n7m3hKVF,comment-id=00040000,timestamp=2016-04-26T23:05:21.956+0000)

just expect him to sit in there when you cant see him?

i have literally the same problem with most of my opponents, including protecting myself against jungle ganks. this isnt specific to garen. anyone can set an ambush.

The thing is garens kit is literally made for this sit in bush, run out silence + spin/lasthit, run back in to regen his regen buff was complete bs

Critmaster Garen1 votes

{quoted}

The thing is garens kit is literally made for this sit in bush, run out silence + spin/lasthit, run back in to regen his regen buff was complete bs

first of all, his regen is weaker or the same as before its change until lvl 16. and at that point, like i said. lifesteal basically does the same as his passive.

also, there are a ton of champions that work like this. mostly assassins and mobile fighters who can also blow you up by jumping on you from a bush.

Meriipu1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=n7m3hKVF,comment-id=0004000000000000,timestamp=2016-04-27T07:51:53.247+0000)

first of all, his regen is weaker or the same as before its change until lvl 16. and at that point, like i said. lifesteal basically does the same as his passive.

It is stronger than it was before they reworked him (years?) ago

with the new tank item changes the regen is unnecessary.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

{quoted}

It is stronger than it was before they reworked him (years?) ago

with the new tank item changes the regen is unnecessary.

its not stronger early game. just read the tooltip. it scales up. its weaker until lvl 11, where its as strong as it used to be, and at lvl 16 it basically turns into a better warmogs passive.

it wasnt unecessary. it gave garen more of a nieche outside lane phase. the idea was to not make him completely useless in siege scenarios. he cant poke or do something usually in these situations. so a stronger passive allows him to body block a few skillshots, maybe waveclear a bit, and then fall back and heal up instead.

its actually rather mediocre for a sustain mechanic. its not as good as in combat sustain of champs like voli, illaoi with her tentacle heals or darius with the heal on his q.

in lane its kindof a safety net that he needs, so he doesnt get completely destroyed by ranged poke.

GOL Undecayed1 votes

Not everyone is practically invincible building full tank and deals an insane amount of damage in such a short space of time, Nasus can't necessarily sit in a bush and demolish them when they decide to face check in such a short space of time unless extremely fed which Garen can do regardless. Clearly though you're a Garen main and are trying to justify his bull, so I would rather hear from non-Garen mains to get a better idea of what people think.

Critmaster Garen1 votes

[{quoted}](name=GOL Undecayed,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=n7m3hKVF,comment-id=000400000001,timestamp=2016-04-27T22:04:35.758+0000)

Not everyone is practically invincible building full tank and deals an insane amount of damage in such a short space of time,

no. youre right. thats a trait specific to juggs.

not anyone can flash all over the place and deal burst damage to isolated targets like assassins.

not everyone can take down turrets like adc.

not everyone can cc entire teams from range like mages or tanks.

congratulations, you just figured out that there are multiple diufferent types of champions each with their indivudual strength and weaknesses.

have you considered that youre simply wrong with your opinion, just because you havent figured out some of the games mechanics yet that might help you dealing with him?

9L9L9L9L9L9L9L1 votes

Mordekaiser Healthy?

https://youtu.be/lhckuhUxcgA

Venowolf1 votes

Is Skarner still a juggernaut? I feel him more like a vanguard tank (maybe an hybrid Vanguard/juggernaut)

GOL Undecayed1 votes

Yh probably not but that's what they advertised him as with the juggernaut update >.>

Venowolf1 votes

Maybe they changed with all those nerfs! its my grammatic correct in the message above?

GOL Undecayed1 votes

So many down votes wth ;-;...item 3070

More from Gameplay

More by GOL Undecayed