Increasing the MS boost from his Q a bit. It's a tab low considering how intense mobility creep is today.
Desirable but I would vote against. I think Garen's Q is actually one of his best spells in terms of use (how you feel, is it powerful, etc) and balance. I don't think adding flat MS to the Q is fair because then it is just power without any real gameplay.
IF you really wanted to add another speed component to Q, I would suggest something more like, "Dealing damage to target's silenced by Decisive Strike extends the movement speed bonus (e.g. by 0.5s per tick of damage) OR extends the movement speed bonus while moving towards the target". This way, you have to follow up on it instead of a simple fire and forget when going aggressive WHILE ALSO preventing it from being a press Q to run away super fast.
But honestly, I would leave Q functionality as is and do stuff elsewhere.
Remove the self slow when he use E in minions. He is already easy enough to kite, does he really need this handicap?
I agree that the self-slow doesn't feel good but this exists to prevent him from being more overbearing while in lane.
I think a very fair trade here would be to reduce the self-slow as you put ranks in E. So it would be more like 20/15/10/5/0%. Considering you cannot get max rank E until level 9, I think it's pretty reasonable.
Make his AA and cast animation on Q and R smoother. I don't know, but Garen's AA currently feels so slow and...clunky. It's like he's having trouble lifting that big sword of his. The "swing" just takes too long. I can't count the number of CS I have missed because of that since his rework back then. I did not have this issue prior to it.
Cast speed is tricky because just like champion stats, it is not standardized.
Garen has a pretty long AA wind-up, yeah, and it does feel pretty shit. Is it fair that Renekton and Darius have shorter wind-ups despite having a similar type/class as Garen? Probably not, since even some non-fighter "tanks" have better wind-ups than him. But as I said, this is more an issue of standardizing.
I don't know how you can make R smoother since it has roughly the same cast time as Darius R. True damage aside, Darius R probably feels better to use because it has ~50 range advantage on Demacian Justice.
Honestly, I want very simple QoL changes that don't punish us for using Q.
There are quite a few auto-attack resets in the game now and Garen's Q feels fucking awful as a reset.
1. Reduce the wind-up for Q. By ~0.1s
2. Fix the way Q works with attack speed.
Once your AS is a little above 1.1, try using Q to reset. Watch as Garen finishes casting Q and just sits around like he still has 0.625 AS. Sure, you can bypass this by attack moving or right-clicking your target couple times as he finishes Q but who else needs to do that? Why does Garen have this AA slow attached to Q?
I really don't think this is asking for a lot.
In the time it takes for Garen to use AA - Q, Leona can AA - Q - AA, so can Nasus, so can Darius; Fiora can AA - E - AA - AA. I think about that and it makes me real sad.
Garen's current kit does not allow him to be a pick in pro-competitive OUTSIDE of being a very specific counter. This is because he isn't specialized at anything really desirable for a teamcomp. What makes him unique? Best out-of-combat healing and the now rare CC, Silence. Other than that, he doesn't really have anything going for him. Not being versatile is fine if you are VERY GOOD at what you do and the problem is Garen isn't.
His silence being melee range and execute being relatively short-range as well would suggest that his IDEAL tank role is to peel versus a single assassin/diver. But then again, Garen only has this binary type of offensive support. Maokai, Sion, Jarvan, Renekton, Darius, and even Mundo can protect against assassins/divers better because they have offensive and defensive support options.
Garen can silence 1 assassin/diver for 2.5s and that's it. Everyone else that you could pick as an alternative have way more options than that. Maokai, Mundo and Sion can slow persistently. Sion, J4, and Renek can reduce armour. Darius can displace and use ult for True damage burst instead of waiting for an execute.
So even in his IDEAL tank role, there are those better OR more generally useful than him. So what about tanking ability? The damage and CC reduction are godly but people are smart enough to stack CC or ignore as necessary. Garen is strong, sure, but Maokai, Mundo and Sion can all stay in fights more reliably. Mundo can force an Ignite Summoner without losing his insane MS. Maokai can heal during combat while reducing damage in AoE. Sion has an absorption shield and threat post-death.
Okay, so what about healing? Just like stacking multiple CCs, people run multiple poke sources. You would never pick Garen as your lone frontliner because there are simply better options. Garen isn't specialized at offense or protection of others. He is good at surviving multiple bad engages. But if an ally gets caught in one of those with him, they can't recover like Garen and he won't be able to really protect them.
I don't believe Garen in his current state is bad. His niche just isn't as desirable as other champions.
If the goal is to increase Garen's general appeal, needs one of the following:
1. More focused role
It can be either more offensive or defensive. Most likely defensive since Darius already exists.
Once a more focused role is decided upon, tweak abilities as necessary.
2. Incentive to specialize in specific stats
Right now, Garen wants Tank (HP, AR, MR), Carry (AD, ArPen, Crit) and Utility (CDR, MS) stats. He gets benefits from all but no big benefits from any at the same time. Give him a reason to invest heavily into something.
Examples:
- W duration increased by 0.5 seconds for every +500 HP
- Reduce damage from critical strikes by 10% for every +100 AR
- Reduce damage from AoE by 5% for every +100 MR
- Increase base damage of Demacian Justice equal to Garen's Critical Strike chance
- Increase basic attack range equal to Garen's Armour Penetration
- Perseverance gains an extra tick of regeneration per second for every 10% CDR
- Gain slow resistance equal to 10% of bonus MS
Obviously, these are just examples. At most, take maybe 1 or 2; anything more would probably cause a lot of balance issues in the long run as runes, masteries and itemization change.
. Now, how would you guys want to change his kit?
Audacious Charge has 650 units of distance BUT it's only a slow and the next viable CC requires 3 auto attacks to initiate.
with appropriate balancing and such. Perhaps something similiar to Face of the Mountain
or Taric's W passive
, he can max out on CDR no problem.
