Boards›Gameplay

5.16 Garen Judgement Nerf

Ulfgar Torunn·8/4/2015, 10:17:29 PM·3 votes·1,367 views
5.16 Garen Judgement Nerf * /r/leagueoflegends

The Garen changes to be arriving in Patch 5.16 were announced earlier today. In exchange for an increase in damage in the form of higher AD per level, more Judgement ticks, and true damage from his ult Garen is now slowed by 20% when moving toward an enemy he is hitting with Judgement.

This self slow combined with Decisive Strike's silence duration being a flat 1.5 seconds (from 2.5 at max rank) mean that without being supplemented by allied CC Garen will be a non threat to ranged targets. Even in Garen's current iteration he can barely close the gap to far off opponents, and even then struggles to remain close. Now he will have to contend with CC from the target a full second sooner in addition to a 20% self slow just for doing what he was designed to do, all without the aid of Courage's tenacity, which also got removed.

Having a 20% self slow cripples his turret diving, team diving, and solo kill potential.

Even his laning phase is worse. Right now I can AA -> Q -> E -> AA or E -> AA -> Q and get full ticks of Judgement, after this change I will either miss out on 2-3 ticks per trade or the attack at the beginning/end.

Of all the ways to change Garen, punishing him for using his only source of damage seems like a rather foolish choice. I urge Riot to reconsider this change.

There is a sister post on Reddit (linked above) for additional visiblity.

TL;DR Garen now has higher damage and a better late game, but in exchange he has completely lost his ability to stick to targets (and therefore deal damage, defeating the purpose of the positive changes). Rito pls.

3 Comments

Critmaster Garen8/4/2015, 10:49:42 PM2 votes

they removed his crit scaling (nerfed ghostblade as an option), his tenacity on his w, gutted the silence on his q, and added the slow on the spin.

they outdid themselves in terms of mobility nerfs. hes basically back to his season 1/season 2 state when it comes to getting kited. actually even worse. and that in an environment where pretty much every champion is loaded with mobility and cc.

only that season 2 garen was actually tanky, since bork didnt exist.

magic pole8/4/2015, 10:44:01 PM1 votes

it is really disappointing. I love Garen but am doubtful I will like this change.

Seemed like his identity was already fine. Strong/safe early (laning) phase. If you can get ahead, you can get an early tower, then roam and attempt to snowball your lead into other lanes and ultimately the game. If ahead he can be a terror, but the fact that he falls off so hard makes it necessary to be quick about increasing your lead and ending the game.

With these changes, he seems to have received a huge nerf to his early game (and consequently his mid-game) in favor of a better late-game. While still an identity change, seems to have really taken the fun out of playing my sweet prince.

That said, i'm still gonna try him out. I love my purple caped man, "come come come come come come come come come" anyone?

And , well, if this update proves to be disappointing and/or unfun, well, ill start spamming another favorite champ of mine who also excels at the "strong early game>snowball lane>snowball game>end game quickly". I think you might have an idea of who i'm talking about. I know you're all big fans.

hint: she's supposedly countered by Garen (heh, so much for that), and she's getting a new skin. :)

SavemeEric8/5/2015, 12:57:30 AM1 votes

Yea realistically these changes are shit, it takes away so much diversity from his play style. It is the death of crit Garen and a severe nerf to his snowball potential. It is also a nerf to full tank Garen as his silence on his Q is nerfed as well as his innate tankyness in his W and his late game regen from his passive. These are are things he desperately needs if he falls behind or gets counterpicked so that he doesn't feed. His early game nerfs will also limit his potential as a counter to Riven, Renekton, and other early game powerhouses. We end up with less stickyness, less tankyness,, and less damage that a full crit garen. This forces us down a linear build bath of brawler. The new Ult passive is also gimmicky and will make it harder on new players learning tom focus the carry. Now they will attempt to kill whoever is marked even if it is a 5k tank Sion with his passive up. Overall this is a serious nerf to Garens; playability, tankyness, stickyness, damage, and diversity. They are essentially making him mediocre at everything instead of allowing him to build what he wants to be good at situationally. Right now he is not in a bad place as he can try to snowball early and failing that transition to a tank or brawler. After these nerfs I really feel he wont be nearly as viable or diverse.