Give Garen's ult the Darius treatment

thejoelhansen·Jan 5, 2015·3 votes·547 views

Give Garen's ult the Darius treatment * /r/leagueoflegends

Q: Curious why some execute-style ults have visual identifiers and others do not. Garen is a "simpler" champion, great for new players to learn on, yet his ult in particular can be a bit difficult to calculate...

Darius, Zed and Chogath all apparently have this. I think this simple consistency in clarity would help his adoption with newbs and be a sorely needed buff to his mid/late game team fights (scaling). I would view it absolutely as a buff.

10 Comments

Sire HippingtonJan 5, 20153 votes

maybe cause garren gets no actuall bonus from killing with his ult? Cho gets a stack, Darius gets a reset(and his indicator does not show when it kills, but then it deals maxdamage due to reaching 6 passive stacks), garen gets nothing(besides the kill, obviously. If we give garen such a indicator, we could also give Syndra an indicator for when her ult can kill a target, or Veigar....

thejoelhansenJan 5, 20151 votes

I think it's more fair to compare Garen to Cho/ Darius as their ults are execute spells, while Syndra and Veigar's ults are simply single-target-nuke spells. Executes are designed to deal the finishing blow, and due to Garen's ult scaling with missing health it is undoubtedly an execute. I do agree with you that Darius and Cho gain more by executing - this is even more reason to buff his ult with this clarity change!

To clarify, I think the larger argument for this Garen buff is two-fold:

His ult is currently VERY difficult to calculate. Other similar execution-style ults (meaning they excel at finishing off the target) are either far more straight-forward (Cho, who has indicator) or even slightly obtuse (Darius, which scales off of passive stacks). Garen's ult actually varies in damage based off their missing health, which means the visual % representation of 'When to press R' changes based on how much total health they have.
This would be an intuitive buff to his mid-late game team fighting, allowing him to better administer "Justice" to the appropriate target amidst the chaos without just cranking up the raw numbers.

junglerboy16Jan 5, 20152 votes

Of the three champions you keep mentioning, only Garen actually has an execute. Darius' is a pseudo execute (You stack it up yourself, instead of any health scaling), and cho'gath's isn't at all, it just gives you a reward for getting the kill. Execute spells are exclusively spells that either scale directly off of percent missing HP, or deal percent increased damage based on the target's missing HP.

thejoelhansenJan 5, 20151 votes

I think that's a really good point. An ability can't be considered an execute because it's really good at killing other champs... (lol). However, something that yields additional benefits (Cho's R) isn't necessarily an execute, lest we be forced to expand the conversation for the sake of reset champions. For this conversation I'm using the term 'execute' in context of the original design of the skill - its purpose is to deliver the finishing blow. And, while on a fundamental level Garen's R may technically have more in common with Elise/Jayce/Nidalee's execute abilities, we're talking about his 'Ultimate', which, given its difficulty to use, doesn't always feel so ultimate... I still believe that this clarity buff would bring his finishing move in line with other champ's finishing moves :)

junglerboy16Jan 5, 20152 votes

It needs far more than just a clarity buff to be truly useful and unique. This change would be fine in my opinion, I just wanted to make sure we were talking with the same terms. Maybe they could give it an actual damage scaling

thejoelhansenJan 5, 20151 votes

Aaah I see what you're saying. While I don't disagree that some broader improvements are needed (someone on Reddit suggested that on kill he receives double his passive healing for 10, uninterrupted seconds or something) I think that an icon amidst the chaos of combat would be a great short-term improvement to help him do what his R is designed for - administer justice ;)

Done25Jan 5, 20152 votes

Cho'Gath has one, it's just very low key. Riot simply refuses to let Garen have any early game power because of tramatic memories where he would repeatedly destroy bronze people over and over again at levels 1~3

thejoelhansenJan 5, 20151 votes

I believe this would buff his late game more than anything. The ability scales with missing health and has a huge impact on tanks with tons of health late game.