Potential Buffs and Minireworks to Garen

emarythomp2·2/14/2019, 3:10:13 AM·1 votes·2,510 views

To start off I want you guys to go to my latest Solo q game. I'll try to link the video in the link option as well.

( Can't open the video because a hotfix messed with the replays BUT I do have stats because I artifically bought the items and used the stats in the game on practice mode so the stats you're seeing are extremely accurate to the stats in the actually gameplay [minus the veigar ap because of stacks of course])

The link is a picture of the stats extremely accurate to the ones I had and the ones veigar had. Specifically, my ad (plus the 100 magic damage from ) and veigar's armor and hp AND both of our levels at the time.

***********Edit: I currently don't have the link because I'm experiencing the "reconnecting" bug and getting that sorted out (Mac btw lol)

Essentially in the video, I'm a level 18 Garen with ,, , and as my main damage items.

My stats are:

I was botlane, getting the jump on a support veigar who only had a for armor.

His stats are:

So basically I get the jump on him and manage to get my first q off with a fully charged right?

Well the problem was that it took my ENTIRE combo and 2 auto attacks to get him into ult range (I didn't kill him because he flash in fog of war but you get the idea)

Essentially this suppose veigar with only an armor COMPONENT, was tanking my full combo.

Now this wouldn't be an issue, however, if this were any other toplane champion, specifically a juggernaut, they would have killed the veigar much faster and easier am I right? Like think of , , , (I only consider him a juggernaut because he can technically build tanky while also doing damage because of his q and he gets healing from his passive and he's also immobile. The common traits of a juggernaut). Where for example, would likely kill veigar with just 3 bleed stacks, conquer, and his ult, Veigar is able to tank 's entire source of damage and I find that to be a major problem.

Now let's hold it there and find out what issues are currently effecting garen. And to do that we should look at the past nerfs that essentially: gimped his damage and his current functional kit:

Enter patch 8.9:

Q - Decisive Strike

Base damage increased to 30 / 65 / 100 / 135 / 170 from 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130

W - Courage

MAXIMUM RESISTANCES 30 ⇒ 40

Now why was this buff so good? Well this gave garen more damage in lane and outside of lane. This means he essentially got significantly more pressure against the enemy team. This meant that he was a threatening presence in lane but also outside of lane. People could be punished harder for not playing against you properly, you could catch squishes out and punish them for being in range of you and having no resistances. This also meant could itemize more defensively in lane. Like going 's first and still doing decent damage that can't go ignored. It gave him the unit presence of being a juggernaut: A champion that does damage and is relatively tanky but is not both. Jack of all trades, master of none.
Also as quoted by the riot balance team themselves: "Compared to similar juggernauts (looking at you, Darius), Garen is underwhelming. We're adding a bit more damage and durability so he can better scale as the game goes on,"
This buff gave him better scaling. He had celerity to add to his damage and movement speed which went PERFECTLY with his kit! finally starting seeing higher elo play, with riste, a rank 1 high level garen player, reaching master tier in season 8 (Although he ended at diamond but I'll get into that).
Celerity gave minor ad to garen but it not only helped his q and e damage, but it helped a little with csing and it had reasonable scaling. tier 1 and 2 boots were technically powerspikes with the keystone and DeadMans made it even more worth it!
Now that's not to say you didn't get countered. In fact you could still very well be countered but you could also get phase rush for a safer lane which increased the celerity damage and gave you more e damage as phase rush was active.
All around one of the best times for

So what happened? Well. 8.17 and 8.23 happened:

Patch 8.17:

Q - Decisive Strike

BASE DAMAGE 30/65/100/135/170 ⇒ 30/60/90/120/150

Now this seems fine. Early game he still does normal damage, not too far off, but then look at the rank 3-5 Q.
that's -10/-15/-20 damage! That in terms of nerfing him, is a huge loss! they've essentially reverted the previous buff that was given to him and what is the reasoning?
Riot: "Garen's spun his way into top lane dominance as of late, and Q's early game damage leaves opponents with few opportunities to trade well,"
Okay so since he maxes q he had his damage lowered back to basically how it was previously. Alright. Well that does hurt a lot since it basically reverted the buff given to him. But it wasn't TOO bad since technically the damage was still higher than the previous Q before the buff
Well then enter 8.23:
Celerity

OLD EFFECT: Gain 1.5% bonus movement speed. Additionally, you gain bonus Attack Damage or Ability Power (Adaptive) based on your bonus movement speed. Grants (6% bonus MS) Attack Damage or (10% bonus MS) Ability Power.

NEW EFFECT: Movement speed bonuses are 8% more effective on you. For example, a 50% bonus is increased to 54%.

This was the final nail in the coffin. This is what basically gimped 's damage. See celerity had good synergy with because it not only gave him passive movement speed which helped his q ms, but it also gave damage relative to that movement speed (all be it low damage but it was still significant enough to matter). Essentially (yes I know I use that word a lot), this meant that garen could no longer get adaptive damage from the movement speed of Q. This meant that not only was his Q weaker than before, but his E was as well since you technically still had Q active if you cast Q and then E immediately after!
was weaker than the when the runes were reworked!
This is essentially what was reflected in my last game with the support . My damage even late, isn't significant enough for pressure or to make an impact
It's like season 7 as the only damage item and the rest full tank standard build . And in that season was forced to go and lethality runes other wise he would do no damage in teamfights and lane! And this was a real thing that happened!

Basically those two nerfs alone gimped garens damage. Which the result is not doing significant enough damage to a who only has a . An item that only gives 20+ armor.

That's not all however. I've run into a problem with dueling now. And I don't meant in general, I mean a GOOD .

See the interesting thing about vs , was that was stronger early due to his bleed and favor for extended trades, but would outscale him late game due to his tankyness and low cds with moderate damage( Moderate damage meaning you had to have in your kit and lethality runes to DO damage season 7). Also they were even mid-game with having a little advantage I believe?

But now, with conquer and the nerfs, he is completely dominant at ALL stages of the game (I've fought darius at all stages and to my surprise, he won late game fights significantly better. As he'd lose little health and I'd lose a lot. Of course this is all dependent on items too but for the most part he'd outtrade like, 90% of the time if you tested this).

I permaban as to not risk fighting a GOOD one, which good know how to give you early lane pressure significantly well. As in you can tell the difference between a good and a bad.

Also if gets a successful gank, it's over. He will hard snowball now due the lack of damage gets even from going defensively and I think that's a problem considering they wanted to buff BECAUSE of his underwhelming performance but now he's performing worse

So how can this be fixed?

Well I would like to introduce you to possible buffs / minireworks I would like to give garen to make him keep up with the other toplane champions:

See a lot of the problems with garen are from his kit scaling and presence in the game
I believe a garen main told me that back in the earlier seasons, garens silence was 2.5 seconds which gave him the pressure of having a threatening silence. (I can see why it was changed though since it makes it hard to trade against. And I know he had other broken things like e doing 400 damage level 1, but then again everything was broken earlier seasons ;))
Essentially, has no pressure or presence in his kit that all the other toplaners have.
I remember a gold 3 lux telling me in a flex game once: "Why play garen? It's like playing 5 kills behind"
These made me really think about how to give garen more of a presence in his kit but not completely reworking his kit as I don't want that to happen.

So I've made a list of potential buffs and reworks. To start I'm going to put buffs and minireworks in two different categories:

Category 1. These suggested buffs/minireworks will be SEPERATE from one another. As in I wouldn't want these buffs/minireworks to be applied all at once. Llke just a brain storm of different ideas that SHOULDN'T be put together (Again if you don't understand please tell me)

Category 2. The suggested buffs/minireworks of category 2 will be all around buffs to his kit. As in I would want these buffs/minireworks all at the same time rather than separately (If that doesn't make sense please tell me in the comments)

So let's start:

Category 1. Buffs:
Revert Q nerf: I mean it's that simple. Bring more damage too his kit as compensation for the celerity nerf.
Buff Q: I am a bit skeptical of this as this can bring the problem of garen doing a lot of damage since messing with flat stats like base stats can always be problematic.
Buff Q ad ratio: I think this is healthier because it gives more scaling. It also means you get rewarded for itemizing more damage at the sacrifice of tankyness but his damage doesn't go ignored if he builds damage anyway.
Buff passive: I was also hesitant on this since it technically wouldn't fix garens damage issue, but it would make him better sustaining in lane and outside. Potentially making a lot of bad match ups better, but also make good match ups worse for the enemy.....
Buff stats (Any): This is more vague but just a general buff maybe? Like more base health or more mr or more base damage. I'll honestly take what I can get.
Remove "Isolation mechanic": So if you guys don't know, 's E has a debuff that basically makes him do less damage when E hits multiple enemies (This includes minions, monsters, etc...). I can understand why this was here, (S1 garen e doing 400 dmg) but I think at this point in the game it just hurts him more than it balances him. It gives him significantly less team fighting pressure and dueling pressure if there is an unlucky minionwave that determines the outcome of the trade. I honestly just think removing it and touching nothing else could potentially buff him!
Give more E spin ticks per level; I'm too lazy to explain the lvling with E but basically you get an extra E spin tick every 3 levels (4 spins level 1), which me and the garen community both agreed can really hurt his damage early. I mean the lvl 1 E is slower than auto attacking and does less damage overall! No im serious! Go test it for yourself! I think it should be at least higher spins early but less damage and maybe at a certain rank the spin increases but it should not be at lvl 18 (I mean how often are games ending where players are level 18 right?).
Buff armor shred on E: Still hesitant as this could lead to problems with his better match ups but I think the shred isn't significant enough to matter really.
W lasts longer: Help with poke match ups.
Give ult an indicator: It makes sense why and don't have one because their ults do enough damage where you don't really need one. But too many times I've ulted someone who I think was in ult range only to be off by a small bit of health. and when I say small bit, I don't mean 200-100 health, I mean like 55-12 hp! It doesn't make sense to me why there isn't one yet. I mean , , and all have one! I think it's time to add it as it won't necessarily give that much of an advantage, it would be a quality of life change right?

Category 2. Buffs:
Faster Q and ult animations: The q animation I believe is a little too slow. I mean there have been times where my q would cancel sometimes because of the long cast time and the fact that the ult animation has a 1 second delay can just screw you over if the enemy flashes into a bush or fog of war, Blinks, or dashes in fog of war. And it also comes with a lot of bugs too.
Revert Q nerfs still: See Category 1. Buffs
W mitigates true damage: Honestly there is so much true damage in this game now and I believe this will significantly improve garens presence in a teamfight and help his tankier side. Conquer even the reworked one, can really hurt garen and because of his kit, it's hard to fight back against it.
Remove "Isolation Mechanic": See Category 1. Buffs
Remove villain mechanic: Honestly the villain mechanic is so random that I just don't think it provides any use or pressure. I mean 1 second I'll be chasing down the villain ready to kill to have more map pressure, and then the enemy jungler kills 2 more enemies than the villain and the villain sign changes to the jungler who is half way across the map. I just don't think the system works in this game anymore (I'll explain a fix in mimirework section)
Give ult an indicator: See Category 1. Buffs

Category 1. Minireworks:

Q or E or both scales with health: I think this will bring the more juggernaut feeling of garen to light. I mean it could give more incentive to build hybrid and variation in his build path. You still have the ad ratio, but the Q- Base damage should be lowered to compensate for the new scaling, but the ad ratio should be increased as to encourage garen to either build more damage oriented, or tank oriented, with a mixture of both equating to a decent amount of damage and a decent amount of tankyness. I am hesitant because the scaling could be too hard to balance though....
Q silence scales off (Insert stat): Just to make an effort to boost his presence of having a silence. Maybe ap scaling? My most desired scaling would be movement speed. You get rewarded for going movement speed for garen in sacrifice of other potential stats and it could even make something like Predator a more viable option!
Q ms has (insert stat) scaling: Same as the q silence above. It would reward you for going a certain stat that could potentially sacrifice another stat if that makes sense?
E spin scales off (insert stat): Not a big fan of this as it can damage creep E potentially, but it's something to think about right?
Passive scales off armor and magic resist or ad: Now I like the armor and magic resist route because it can reward you for going more tank oriented and in turn, you get more tank stats like health regen. I also like the ad scaling because this could mean that you going more damage oriented could leave your defenses lacking meaning you take more damage, but in turn, (sort of like 's W) you regen more as you go more ad.
Villain true damage removed and Villain mechanic is targetable (Like kindred passive) but gives passive ms towards target OR goes on cd after using 1 ability on villain but buffs that abilities damage for its duration OR gives no extra stats but gives stack if villain is killed: Honestly I like the stacking part more. Maybe it gives more movement speed as a stack? Maybe more ad? Maybe even ap if ap scaling is added to his kit? Maybe more health? It would give his scaling a big boost and make the villain mechanic more consistent.
W gives offensive capabilities and lasts longer: I believe this one is the most healthy since it will basically make the W like what a dash is for most bruisers. It can either give you that mitigation and tenacity, or you can use it in tangent with your abilities to do more damage or get more buffs like more ms on q or something. Obviously it would have to last longer but it acts as sort of a minibuff with scaling of course so it's not broken level 1.
Q stuns with (insert stat) scaling: Not a fan but it's something I guess LOL
Ult gets indicator: See Category 1. Buffs
Ult does magic pen (flat pen): I think this is a bit much but it would make his ult a scalier presence and give him the pressure of having a delete spell like right?
Enemy champions hit by E for the first time hit, get slightly stunned or knocked back: I'm talking like really small stun or small knock up (Smaller than knock up if that makes sense). Basically small enough that you can still out play it, but it has a good presence in teamfights for locking down enemies or it can be used as a disengage! I see a lot of potential if this is done right. Personally I prefer a small knock up because it would fit more with the spinning thing right? Let me know. (Btw usually if garen q+e spins against you it's unavoidable to take the full spin damage so the extra hard cc won't necessarily effect that combo)

Category 2. Minireworks:

To start off I just want to say I'm going to actually do a massive minirework that essantially gives garen an identity. See most of his time in league, his identity has been "noob champ" or "spin 2 win" or "JUSTICE" basically memes. He can't really do anything that any other champion can do. So I wanted to actually make him utilize a stat that I don't see utilized at ALL by any champion in the vast pool of 143 (Is that the real number?) of champions

And that is: Tenacity

I want to make garen the "tenacity" Champion. This can give him an identity in lane and outside that you have to play around. For example, he could be the juggernaut that "you don't want to hit with cc that is mitigated by tenacity" since it could give your team that tanky side of garen at the loss of hard cc or MORE hard cc. Yes I'm aware that this could potentially take away his weakness, which is slows, but I think especially in the state of the game right now, this can help garen find a place in the ranks of higher competitive play/interactions. Of course his kit stats should be adjusted to compensate (W tenacity or armor/magic resist per kill, and maybe damage).

So lets begin:

Passive or W should give passive tenacity that either scales with level or (insert stat): I think this will bring a new identity to light. An identity of being almost entirely but not fully, resistant to cc with the LACK of cc of his own. It could scale with armor and magic resist to encourage his more tanky side? Or health? Or it could be based on what level he is( Like most passives are). Or it can scale with his bonus tenacity from items or runes?
Q or E should give passive or active tenacity with scaling from (insert stat) or ability rank scaling: I love this too although i'd prefer the active tenacity (as in as soon as you activate the ability the tenacity will become active) since it can lead to outplay potential and or give more defensive options in his kit. Like lets say you're running away and you know they have slows so you activate your e to get that active tenacity, but you now have you e on cd and can't use it if you want to turn the fight around or if someone flanks you and you want to at least take them out. If that makes sense. Let me know.

Ult should get indicator: See Category 1. and 2. Buffs: I'm still agreeing that there should be one.

Remove "Isolation mechanic": See Category 1. Buffs: Still don't like this mechanic

Ult could be an active buff that increases tenacity significantly, decreases tank stats, but increases damage and HP and enhanced abilities: This would go in line with his Juggernaut style of doing damage and being tanky. Where this time you sacrifice tankyness for damage and tenacity, which could probably be like, 100% at rank 3 or something. And maybe like 's ult, he either gets magic damage on spells with ad scaling, or % health magic damage with ad scaling. Basically a tweaked villain mechanic that acts as his ult now and gives him a boost in power. As for abilities it could boost the ms on his Q, maybe boost the duration of W? And maybe E can be unchanged because of the added magic damage. Also name suggestion: "The Heart of Demacia" or "Backbone of demacia" or "The Radiant Vangaurd". Still don't know how long it will last though or the CD.
E should stun: See Category 2. Minirework: I'm still in favor of this extremely small stun being used as a catch out or a disengage. And it makes him have more pressure and more mechanics in his kit right?

THIS IS STILL ON THE TOPIC OF TENACITY GAREN BUT IT'S AN ALTERNATE VERSION OF HIS ULT AS WELL:

Ult % damage scales enemy missing health and with tenacity: This could be interesting but also overtuned so it's just a small idea....

Anyway that's my suggestions done. Honestly I don't mind if they keep the "simple champion" kit of garen because I really like it. That's why I only added "minireworks" instead of a full rework. I honestly wouldn't fundamentally change his kit as a whole.

Let me know what you guys think. (And please have respectful comments. I want more discussion into touching on garen.)

Also I'd be satisfied if just one person saw this and spread it or brought to light the fact that garen needs a change!

Potential Buffs and Minireworks to Garen

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