Serious Inquiry About Garen (Not A Rant)

Tumble OP·10/11/2018, 12:36:50 AM·3 votes·1,432 views

Why does Garen have/ do so much for a champion with a 0 skill floor? I understand he's a beginner champ and understand all of his other problems but come on...

No resources P: Heals a lot in lane if you can utilize it properly. Q: Low cd, long silence, aa reset. W: Short window of massive (60%) tenacity and DMG red. followed by a longer but still relatively short window of 30% dmg red (Duration scales with rank). Increased Armor and MR. E: Does increased dmg against 1 target, shreds armor, ghosts, and does good dmg. R: Execute and gives his auto attacks and 'E' bonus true damage all the while converting 100% of his ult damage into true damage when attack the 'Villain'.

Any Rioters or other players have any idea as to why?

11 Comments

Critmaster Garen10/11/2018, 1:07:17 AM2 votes

1.) skill floor isnt the same as skill cap

garen doesnt have a high skill cap either, but still higher than most people give him credit for. there is especially a lot of strategic mastery to his item build choices.

2.) he pays for it in other areas.

like no in combat sustain
his kit entirely limited to melee range,
low mobility (even as far as juggers go, a 30% ms buff isnt very fast; ex. udyr, shyvana)
no hypercarry potential like darius
no special scaling or split pushing power like nasus and yorick
absolutely no team utility like trundle pillar or aatrox cc, and i guess as long as riot is grouping him in there, chogath

its really mostly the first 3 points in combination that justify so much upfront power in his base kit and stats.

even most juggers have one or two of those drawbacks (like darius is short ranged, and low mobility while having a % missing health heal on his q that helps him survive drawn out fights), while garen has them all.

Critmaster Garen10/11/2018, 1:17:42 AM2 votes

by the way, if riot ever gives garen another rework and doesnt want to make him more mechanically complicated, i hope they just add a shitload of strategic options for him.

give him like 5 or 6 different playstiles while staying within the juggernaut category and have his mastery curve be entirely strategic, and have part of his win condition be to chose the correct playstile for the appropriate game.

similar to how Kayn choses to be either an assassin or skirmisher depending on what he needs for the game.

like literally give garen something like 15 oddyssee passives and have him chose 3 per game, to modify his abilities and playstile in some way.

from straight up 1v1 carry juggernaut, to utility synergy with items like item 3800 , to split pusher, to jungler and other ways that keep him as a juggernaut, just in different team roles from game to game.

Judah the Hammer10/13/2018, 6:33:55 AM2 votes

Many of his strengths are also weaknesses. No resources, means mana items are inefficient on him. No AP scalings means, AP items are also inefficient. And actually attack speed is also an inefficient stat on Garen. That means that life steal is also inefficient, and it's difficult for Garen to itemize to fix his inherent weakness of in-combat sustain. Garen players are forced to work around this problem. (Digging around you can find many proposed builds, but none really work well enough to be viable in high-mmr, apparently.)

One way to think of Garen, is half-assassin / half-tank. But only half.

DuskDaUmbreon10/11/2018, 1:01:56 AM1 votes

Because that's about what most champions have.

His simplicity reduces his numbers, just like for all champions. Point and click always is less damaging/effective than it would be as a skillshot.