Minor Garen Buffs Possible? @Riot Reportoir

Hey dudes, It's been almost a year since the Juggernaut update has released. I think enough time has passed without Garen getting any patches to his kit to see where he sits in the game these days.

Since Garen's initial update, here's what has changed that has directly affected him.

These items have all been nerfed in either stats or cost efficiency. (Sunfire cape was buffed significantly initially, but made more expensive after the fact).

Cleaver was modified slightly to give less damage but also cost less. I think this change was overall neutral, it made it easier to get cleaver more quickly but reduced 6 item total power slightly. Not really a big swing in either direction in my opinion, the extra AD was worth the delayed build completion I think in most cases since Armor values are greater later on which makes the shred more impactful the further in the game you are, but getting the finished item faster has it's merits too like getting the Rage passive faster.

A great snowballing damage item and one that is strictly better than cleaver when the opponents are building little or no armor. Offering anti-kite via the active like cleaver, and higher AD + greater upfront penetration (and better penetration overall vs low armor targets). The AD was reduced by 5, not really super significant change similar to cleaver but it does reduce Garen's potential 6 item total power.

Infinity Edge gained 5 attack damage which is a small buff to Critical Strike Garen (remember his Q and E both critically strike, and he scales incredibly hard with these stats). Building IE alongside other snowball items (like ghostblade) make his total power net-neutral in a 6 slot build, but on the whole Infinity Edge is more effective on him now than when he was first released.

With the removal of Critical Strike Chance and the emphasis on attack speed Triforce is not really an attractive option on Garen anymore, where pre-change it had some situational usage as a snowball item. I'm sure most players would laugh at the idea of TF on Garen, but his high base AD makes the sheen passive more powerful on him than most, the movespeed was good anti-kite, and the health and attack damage are both good stats on him. Granted its too hard to justify building it today. Overall not a significant change to Garen but it reduces his build flexability some.

Warmogs actually became very attractive to me on Garen with the addition of the 10% CDR onto its build path. I don't build it every match but its worth mentioning that this item is actually quite good on Garen right now with how his W works. I think this buffed Garen's tankier builds at least somewhat. Its easy to get 40% cdr now with Cleaver + Warmogs + Visage.

The only significant summoner spell change has been to Ghost which makes it a very attractive option for long-term antikite now. I think if you can give up the ability to Flash onto a high priority target (such as an ADC villian or such) Ghost has a place on Garen now. I like to use it sometimes and it really shores up his kitability weakness in some cases. Depends on the enemy team comp mostly though, flash is better vs displacements/etc. Ghost is better vs higher mobility teams with less hard crowd control I feel.

specific changes to his kit post-update. Garen's Q movespeed was reduced from 35% to 30%, and Garen's base movespeed was reduced from 345 to 340. Both of these changes make him easier to kite. There were also changes to Villiany, both bug fixes (% true damage based on Garen's hp bug and not the enemy) and some slight mechanics change (Garen's deaths don't count towards villiany) but I don't think either Villian change can really be debated. Both looked appropriate but they did make him slightly weaker on the whole which makes it worth mentioning in my opinion.

Where does he stand now?

Platinum+ Garen's winrate has been consistently below 50% for a few patches in a row. According to some sites like champion.gg Garen's winrate in bronze is currently below 50%, and right at or just above 50% in silver and gold. In Diamond+ Garen's winrate seems to drop the most it does at any point and sits in the mid 40s to upper 40s (usually a range of 44% to 48% overall, varies day to day). I think its worth mentioning that Garen's playrate in upper tiers drops significantly because he is not a meta champion or considered to be very strong at a high level of play overall, thus you might be able to indicate that his mid 40's winrate in the diamond+ tier comes from mostly Garen players, and not player's who simply choose Garen because they think he will be the winning pick. Garen players should by nature be more proficient at him than non-garen players, so his mid 40's winrate in diamond+ could be alarming to his true state of balance right now. Average at best in a skilled Garen's hands, weak or well below average in a less experienced players hands.

So what's the point of all this? / TL;DR

I think Garen could use a minor buff to his kit to keep him competitive. Without reworking the fundamental mechanics of any of his skills I think there is one change that could boost Garen where he needs it most - his early game. I think right now Garen's biggest problem is that he is unable to lane effectively against ranged champions in top lane due to the nature of his kit, while he also falls behind in melee matchups too because he simply isn't strong enough to brawl against most other melees early on in the game.

Currently Garen's E scales in the following way (BEFORE ISOLATION) Physical Damage Per Spin: 15 / 18.8 / 22.5 / 26.3 / 30 AD Ratio per spin : 34.5 / 35.3 / 36 / 36.8 / 37.5% AD

If Garen's flat damage on his spin was instead changed to Physical Damage Per Spin: 20 / 22.5 / 25 / 27.5 / 30

It might give him the buff he needs to establish himself early on in the game. Right now Garen's rank 1 spin is just flat out pitiful, it feels terrible to use because of how slow it applies, and the damage is incredibly weak. I often find myself maxing Q first because of the increased movespeed duration, and the flat 25 damage boost on Q per rank is about equal to the damage gain on each rank of spin, and the Q damage is upfront instead of overtime making it better for trades in almost every way. Right now garen's Q which is supposed to be his main utility spell, is usually his best damage spell early in the game. Putting some power back into his E at early ranks should make his E the more attractive skill to rank up again, and it would give him a bit of extra damage to establish himself and allow a skilled Garen player to win some of the melee matchups where as right now he loses almost all of them.

I think Garen has become overall weaker post-juggernaut update and I think he is relatively well balanced in most aspects, but his early game is in my opinion too weak despite his ability to scale. Compare his early game to other juggernauts who have considerably stronger lane phases and scale equally well. More than that, Garen has none of the in-fight sustain these champions have which is fine as a contrasting difference, and Garen eventually makes up for it with tanky stats on W and the W damage reduction on activation, but again that is something that takes a lot of time to scale and in many cases Garen scales too slowly at a high level of play to become impactful quickly enough. He just needs a little boost in the early game.

Thanks for reading (or not) my wall of text. I hope you guys agree, I'd love to hear what any of you have to say and would love to hear from Riot Reportoir directly if he has a moment. Cheers dudes.