Is this design intentional? Why not change the damage to physical instead?
Now that DFG is gone you don't have to worry about ruining his "for fun" build.
Garen is supposed to be a straightforward champion so it seems odd that you can itemize magic resist to counter his ultimate. New players would certainly have issues understanding this and even many experienced players seem to miss this fact.
AetherKingdom5 votesYea and if they are building magic resist against garen they're doing it wrong.
Drunk Rummate3 votesYea and if they are building magic resist against garen they're doing it wrong.
Not really. I play Riven top all the time and while Garen is considered a counterpick to her, once she finishes her hexdrinker she actually wins most duels (assuming she doesn't die prior to that).
It's especially good if he rushes sunfire which also deals magic damage.
AetherKingdom4 votesThat garen is bad then.
redniwediS2 votesI have to agree, that's a pretty bad Garen if he still goes for magic damage after his opponent gets a hexdrinker. Just stick to the components of Sunfire and rush a Brutalizer and upgraded boots.
redniwediS5 votesCorrection, Garen's rank 1 ultimate is completely countered by hexdrinker. Also if they build a hexdrinker you no longer need to ult them, if you had needed to do so to begin with.
Drunk Rummate1 votesMaybe not completely countered past rank 1, but it still gives you 30 magic resist and a 250 hp shield. The magic resist alone mitigates about 12-15% of the damage unless he's going nuts and building a void staff or sorc shoes, the shield typically takes care of the rest of the damage unless you are sitting at a tenth of your HP for the ult.
The breakpoint for dying on a melee champion with standard resistances at level 11 is about 200 hitpoints out of their 1300+ base amount. That's rather ridiculous in my opinion for such a long cooldown ultimate.
redniwediS4 votesPast rank 1 other factors like allied damage, Sunfire Cloak, and Thornmail damage must also be taken into account. The ult can be used early, likely followed up by an E, Q, or Ignite to completely get around the shield, or it can be used alongside Flash to simply wait the shield out.
Ignoring the fact that Garen will quickly outdamage his opponent if they go even in lane and his opponent goes for a hexdrinker, all it takes is a bit of smart play to get around. I would bet that a skilled Garen would only fall for it once in lane, if at all.
KnivingDude2 votesThis is a good thing to know. Awesome.
Blue Collar Bear1 votesTo be honest, I'd rather it deal true damage. It still wouldn't be stronger than Noxian Guillotine.
JustMyBassCannon3 votes"wouldn't be stronger than Noxian Guillotine"
It's 125/250/375 +28.6/33.3/40% missing HP damage, compared to 160-320/250-500/340-680 +0.75-1.5 bonus AD damage
In order for Garen's ultimate to match Darius' ultimate in damage at maximum stacks at all ranks, his target needs to be missing 682/751/763 HP, plus 5.24/4.5/3.75 HP per point of AD Darius has.
To put it another way, rank three Garen's ultimate on a unit missing 1400 HP--Around the point where Darius' base execute damage is guaranteed--has a potential of 935 damage; if it were true damage, Darius would need 170 bonus AD to match it.
Basically, Garen would be a better executioner if his ultimate were true damage, without building AD.
Blue Collar Bear1 votesFirst off, your numbers are off. 175 / 350 / 525 are the stat values for Garen's ultimate. Second, it's magic damage. It will go through resistances. At 1400 missing hp, that's 560 extra magic damage on Garen's ultimate. That's a little over 1000 magic damage, which on a target with 100 MR (not unusual with scaling MR glyphs and one MR item) will be reduced to ~500.
A (tank) build that I found from C9 Meteos had about 140 bonus AD. That means at full stacks, Darius has a potential to deal 960 true damage with a reset if it kills. Meaning on a 2000 hp target (which is not an unusual amount for an ADC), Darius will be able to kill it at half health. Garen fighting the same target, who let's say has a Mercurial Scimitar and scaling magic resistance runes (72 + 30 = 102), attempting to execute a target at half health will only deal 960 magic damage before resistance, ~480 after. Just to point out, this will not allow Garen to kill the target.
Also, Darius's bonus AD ratios on his execute means that he can build early damage and benefit hard from it. Darius also has more damaging abilities than Garen. How can Garen be the better executioner when Darius can deal more damage in burst form and execute from a higher health?
JustMyBassCannon1 votes[{quoted}](name=Fluffysaurus Rex,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=wPB17hxu,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2015-01-31T05:11:15.388+0000)
First off, your numbers are off. 175 / 350 / 525 are the stat values for Garen's ultimate.
My bad. That only means the numbers are even more in Garen's favor
Second, it's magic damage. It will go through resistances.
The point, however, would be if Garen's ultimate were theoretically true damage.
525+40% of missing HP...good god, Darius couldn't build enough AD to keep up with Garen's execute damage if it were true damage.
A (tank) build that I found from C9 Meteos had about 140 bonus AD. That means at full stacks, Darius has a potential to deal 960 true damage with a reset if it kills. Meaning on a 2000 hp target (which is not an unusual amount for an ADC), Darius will be able to kill it at half health. Garen fighting the same target, who let's say has a Mercurial Scimitar and scaling magic resistance runes (72 + 30 = 102), attempting to execute a target at half health will only deal 960 magic damage before resistance, ~480 after. Just to point out, this will not allow Garen to kill the target.
Again, you were suggesting if Garen's ultimate were true damage. I was pointing out that Garen's damage potential outscales Darius', meaning that if it were true damage, Garen's would be superior in damage output.
Also, Darius's bonus AD ratios on his execute means that he can build early damage and benefit hard from it. Darius also has more damaging abilities than Garen. How can Garen be the better executioner when Darius can deal more damage in burst form and execute from a higher health?
Because Garen wouldn't have to sacrifice defense at all in order to do the same, if not better, if his ultimate were true damage. No, he wouldn't get any AD scaling on it, but he could just play human bulwark while his ultimate would have higher damage potential.
Blue Collar Bear1 votesIf Garen's ultimate was true damage, I feel there would need to be number tweaking. His execute would become stupidly overpowered on high health targets. I'm just angry that Garen is not competitively viable at the moment.
SlackerboyTC1 votesIt is dumb, garen would be much more useful if his ult scaled off attack damage but no, some idiot decided it should be magical instead
Ligerzz1 votesIm sure hexdrinker nullifies any damage when enough damage is taken to activate a passive, or with Maw of Malmortius . I've seen a marksman survive a karthus ult at around 400 health at lvl 18.
Fizz is not Fish1 votes
's ultimate is completely countered by 
.
Changing the damage to physical would be a TRUE NERF to Garen.