Boards›Gameplay

@Statikk Garen's problem isn't his skill ceiling, it's his "buffs"

Wingling·8/22/2014, 7:54:53 PM·8 votes·1,010 views

context

This is all anyone at Riot has said about Garen. There might have been a couple other posts, but I'm pretty sure they say the same thing, that the problem with Garen is needing to keep him simple for new players and that they were going to do nothing about him. We need a real discussion, not "nothing for now" and I believe I'm the man for the job. I've played a ton of Garen since season one and I honestly believe he's never been in a worse state. The main problem isn't that he has a low skill ceiling (it's honestly not as low as you think), it's that he is almost never in direct control over his own success; he has so much counterplay that your enemy's skill is more of a factor than your own.

But there's good news! Fixing Garen is easier than you thought. A lot of his problems could be fixed with a few well-aimed reversions and some QOL buffs. I don't claim to know exactly what he needs, but I certainly have ideas and the first thing we need to look at is the two biggest nerfs Riot ever gave him (both were called buffs).

Patch 1.0.0.145

  • E - No longer removes slows on activation
  • Q - Now removes slows on activation

This was the patch where Garen was reworked. Among a number of buffs and nerfs that in total were a buff (barely), slow removal was moved to Q, the MS boost was tweaked, and tenacity was added to W, all with the purpose of reducing Garen's vulnerability to kiting. Problem is, Garen became more vulnerable to kiting after this patch. See before if you were facing a champ with a ranged slow, for example, you would Q at them and spin once the slow landed. Now in the same scenario you either walk at them like an idiot or you Q at them and eat eat the slow. The reasoning for the change was something about how putting E on cooldown just for slow removal felt bad, but the thing is if you're running for dear life and use E, it's extremely unlikely that you will suddenly need the damage in the next ten seconds. Putting the slow removal and MS boost on the same cooldown made for a single, easily countered gap closer and if it weren't for the other buffs Garen would have been destroyed.

Patch 1.0.0.145

  • W - Changed to passively increase armor and magic resist by 20% rather than 0 to 25 based on kills

Patch 3.03

  • W - Passive changed to now increase bonus armor and magic resist (from items, runes, or masteries) by 20% instead of total armor and magic resist by 20%

"But Switzer," you say, "Do you really want to revert his W back to it's old crap form?" No, in this case the old seeker's armguard-esque version of his W caused more problems than it was worth: an overpowered early game (+25 armor/mr by the time you reached level 9) and a weak late game (only 50 resists for endgame). The changes were a step in the right direction, but the execution was awful and the kiting problems introduced in the rework combined with the season 3 nerfs killed him. See, even though most people thought it was a crap skill, W was always one of the most powerful defensive abilities in the game. It allowed you to spare extra item slots for damage items, enabling you to buy big-ticket, difficult-to-build damage items (like IE) that simply weren't available to other bruisers. The problem with the passive now is that it gives you no tankiness until you build a lot of tankiness. You need to buy 125 armor and 125 MR just to match the old value of the passive portion of W. It's now a huge risk to build an IE (or any damage item, really) before you've completed at least two tank items, and even though 6-item Garen gets more from his W passive he lost the build flexibility that was so vital before. There's a reason that no other champion in the game has a %resist boost without at least a flat base value (except for Malphite, and even his multiplies total armor, not bonus).

Patch 1.0.0.145

  • E - Ignores unit collision during Judgment but takes a 20% movement speed penalty when spinning through minions

This is some serious BS. There are 4 champions in the game that slow themselves, and 3 gain range for doing so. Gragas had a self-slow once, and it was reverted in the next patch.

Final thoughts / tl;dr

Garen has too much counterplay. Way, way too much. He's easily kited, his passive can often be negated entirely, his Q is essentially negated by the mega-rare ranged slow, and his single-target, damage-only ult has a 160 second cooldown (6th highest in the game). It's to the point where I constantly feel like when I'm doing well it's because the enemy made mistakes, not because I outplayed them. So if I were to try and fix Garen, the first step would be to reduce his counterplay to give control of the champion back to the player, not the enemy. Only then would I think about raising his skill ceiling.

Patch 4.20 (blaze it)

  • Move slow removal back to E
  • Change W passive from (+20% of bonus resists) to (10/12/14/16/18 + 10% of total resists or something similar)
  • E no longer slows Garen when moving through units
  • Change R tooltip to use percent of missing health instead of 1 health per X missing health (unimportant, but nice)

The stuff that separates the men from the boys with Garen is mostly W/R timing, milking the passive, and a few other tricks like spinning during a Warwick ult. If you're really set on increasing his skillcap (which for all my complaining I can get behind), I'd move power into the active of W or his passive (or both):

  • Passive can't be removed when W is active or by the non-initial ticks of a DOT
  • Base values on E nerfed slightly (with more reliable comboing his damage might get oppressive, but number tweaks are relatively easy)

13 Comments

redniwediS8/22/2014, 8:08:24 PM4 votes

Finally a post about Garen that I can fully get behind! Well done, I really hope Riot takes this to heart.

Omnipherious8/22/2014, 11:58:02 PM4 votes

The problem is his design is no longer as relevant, not bad, please do not misunderstand, there is a difference. Also, Ghostcrawler doesn't like the idea of beginner champions so it's unfair to assume that Garen is forever relegated to stay as is.

Look at newer champions, specifically tanks, then look at Garen. The design philosophy and power budget are worlds apart. Garen suffers from being not very good at dealing damage or being tanky. He has bursts where he is brilliant at both but for the most part, he is not much more than a mountain of stats. Getting CDR simply allows more 'bursts', it doesn't reduce his mechanical disadvantage. Right now, Garen has only 2 win scenarios - 1. Opponent fucked up. 2. Too many stats to give a fuck.

Additionally, Garen has no built-in synergy to speak of unlike other modern champions. This comes down to design philosophy which has changed over time. If Garen didn't already exist, such a champion would have come out very different today; the same applies to other old champions like Fiddlesticks/Blitzcrank, who arguably would never be released today in their current forms. The only ability Garen has that I would consider relevant in modern LoL is Q; it is his one true choice - do I use to cleanse or to close > silence. "But.. but the spin is his signature!", uh.. actually no, plenty of champs spin or have PbAoE abilities that are better (be it in damage or utility); Garen's niche is he is a fighter with a silence and an execute with a god awful CD + scaling outside the player's control.

Slow cleanse from Q to E - Disagree. It never felt good having to use the primary damage spell to cleanse. Moving it to Q + flat CD were the best outcomes of the little gameplay rework.

W breakpoint - Braum W is the modern day version of Garen's W passive, but passive isn't the problem, it's the active. The active CCR and DR have a lot of potential power, and is where so much of the power budget has gone; while the ability never feels good until it is rank 3, the potential power alone limits everything else.

E self-slow - Dumb and unnecessary given all the tools champions now have.

Suggestions

Passive - IMO, it needs to have a weaker, always-on component - e.g. "Garen regenerates X hp every second. While out of combat, this effect stacks up to X times." Feels way better and doesn't create gameplay confusion. Also, wouldn't it make sense that "Perseverance" perseveres even in battle? -_-

Q - Fine as is. If changed, replace silence with slow/stun instead. I mean come on, a decisive strike shuts someone up? They aren't maimed or winded? I've suffered desicive strikes from kendo sticks and my first instinct wasn't to just be quiet for a bit. Otherwise, rename it to "Surprising Strike".

W - Your suggestion for the passive was fine. If active component is too strong and preventing power from being distributed elsewhere, change the CCR and DR. Make the active more immediately tangible like, "Garen ignores the next attack/hostile ability" OR "Garen reduces CC effects to 1s for 2/2.5/.. s" OR "Each damage source cannot exceed 15/12.5/10/7.5/5% of Garen's max HP for Xs" OR "Double AR/MR for 2/2.5/... s" OR "Become immune to armor and magic penetration for Xs". Obviously if any of these are done, the duration and cooldown need appropriate adjustments.

E - No self-slow, rest same. If you want to add some skill to Garen this is the place to do it! Give E a charge mechanic ala Varus/Vi/Xerath. A tap just uses ability as it is right now. Charge could remove MS penalty at 50% charge and turns into MS boost at 75% or higher OR charge to reduce E time - e.g. 50% charge reduces E duration by 1s but E deals full damage over 2s instead of 3s OR charging guarantees crit - e.g. 50% charge = half the ticks will crit OR charging adds armor pen/shred

R - Small CD buff pls. Current ult ratio of +1 dmg for 3.5/3/2.5 pt of HP missing translates to 28.57/33.3/40% missing HP. Consistency pls - 30/35/40%.

Wheatloaf8/22/2014, 8:15:53 PM3 votes

I think I can get behind everything here but moving the slow removal to E; it just seems like it would be awkward to me. This isn't the opinion of an avid Garen player, of course, I usually only take him out when I want a "low skill" champion, though he takes a lot more than it looks.

EzraTwitch8/23/2014, 7:23:18 PM1 votes

E No longer Slows Garen as he Spins is really all he needs. it frustrates me to no end that he is THE ONLY champion in the game who gets arbitrarily punished with a debuff for fighting in the minion wave.