Garen: Proposal of Perseverance + Courage Change

CaptainWednesday·Feb 21, 2014·9 votes·1,544 views

Garen, the Might of Demacia

(Jump to the bottom for a TL;DR)

The Might of Demacia: so called so because he is the widely known tank of Demacia. However, in the live game, it appears as though his passive (Perseverance) is rendered nearly useless. As any decent League of Legends player knows, Garen regenerate 0.4% of his maximum health after not receiving non-minion based damage for 9 seconds. Sadly, this gives Garen little counter while in lane and tanking damage late game. Unlike other regenerating or passive healing champions (Dr. Mundo, Trundle, etc.), their healing cannot be stopped. It is consistent and reliable. In Garen's case, all an opposing player has to do is deal any amount of damage to Garen without getting into an all out skirmish to disable his passive. What about top laners with ranged poke or who can heal off damage Garen returns(Olaf, Kha'Zix, Dr. Mundo, Shyvanna, Trundle, Cho'Gath, etc.)? Many top laners have a significant advantage over Garen provided they block his passive. These facts leads me to this. Allow Garen players counterplay. Give us the chance to strategically play against the standard top laners. Change Garen's Courage (W); here is what I would like to see:

Courage (W): Cooldown: 24 / 23 / 22 / 21 / 20 - Cost: No cost - Duration: 2/3/4/5/6 seconds

Garen gains a defensive shield for a few seconds, reducing incoming damage by 30% and granting 30% crowd control reduction for the duration. While the shield is active, Perseverance cannot be reset.

I would like to see these changes because for too long Garen can be bullied up to the point where he cannot fight in lane. In addition, his passive is nearly useless in a team fight because it is Garen's job to take damage (as a tank role would have it). A huge regeneration buff would help in any fight, and up to six seconds of powerful, consistent healing would be much appreciated it. It would allow a little more depth to Garen's otherwise simple play style. I appreciate you reading this, and by all means, discuss my idea! What do you guys think?

TL;DR

-Garen's passive is not effective enough.

-Add this to Garen's Courage (W): "While [Courage] is active, Perseverance cannot be reset.

-Discuss with me & thanks for reading!

26 Comments

LVNsNASmurfFeb 21, 20144 votes

You are so off the mark with your analysis that you are destroying garen.

1: Garen is a fighter, not a tank, and if you can't tell that, you have no place in proposing champion changes. He is not a damage sponge in a fight, he is a champion who laughs off the poke of the enemy team, who heals rapidly outside of fights and deals high damage inside them.

2: Garens passive is actually really powerful in lane, and any smart player can easily maximise it.

You're just tacking on extra power to a champion who does not need it, for the wrong reasons and with a misguided view of what the champion is. I suggest you learn to play the champion, and the ease with which they can sustain the passive.

TravaranFeb 21, 20141 votes

I'm great with Garen and I said I didn't think I lost the games I did because of the his passive. I was saying late and mid game it wasn't worth it because you're almost always fighting someone around then and don't have much time to use his passive, I know its useful early game. Garen is 100% a tank, sorry but his build and abilities work perfectly with someone who's going to be tanking, he even comes up in the League of Legends tank category. Id mind if they keep his passive the same, he's still really powerful without any changes.

LVNsNASmurfFeb 21, 20142 votes

Level 29 player thinks they're 'great' with a champion, and calls a champion with no hard CC, and no gapclosing dashes or blinks a tank. You're straight up wrong on your assessment. Garen is a fighter, and you tell by his fighter kit, which has an execute for an ultimate, rather than a engage skill like, say, malphite.

His passive is awesome late game where you can easily use it in a long seige, timing W activations to easily eat things like Nid spears if you have to, then regening before the fight starts. It lets you split push like a beast, and forces people to full on fight you rather than try to harry you down.

If you can't get the full strength of Garen to the forefront, maybe you should try playing a fighter as a fighter, and leave being a tank, with their engage and disruption to actual tank champions.

Newbert NewmanFeb 21, 20142 votes

He hasn't "Destroyed" garen just making a suggestion based off his experiences. Bite a guys head off will ya?

CaptainWednesdayFeb 21, 20142 votes

Riot classifies Garen as a Fighter-Tank. He is a bruiser: one with a great mix of damaging soaking and high DPS. It honestly depends on how you would like to, as daft inquisitor pointed out, you build him. His passive 20% increases to bonus Armor and MR in addition to a 30% damage and crowd control reduction allows him to fit nicely in as a heavy damage soaking bruiser (if you build him that way). However, it is ineffective to build Garen as a true fighter (Tryndamere, Riven, Aatrox, etc.). Two of his abilities have no itemized scaling in addition to his passive that scales off health, so in this case a mixture of HP, Resistances, and Critical Strike items or AD is healthy. End game, I like to have resistance boots (tabi or treads), Sunfire Cape, Infinity Edge, and the rest is strictly in-game related. Nevertheless, this discussion is not to talk about Garen's class. It is to get feedback (specifically from a Rioter ;D) on the small, yet clever change proposed. Do you think this addition would cause serious conflict with the G-Man? Why or why not?

LVNsNASmurfFeb 22, 20141 votes

Garen has no gapclose and no CC. He is clearly a fighter and has zero tank characteristics, being utterly unable to initiate a fight well nor disrupt one in progress.

Your ignorant change is designed to have him regening in a fight, exactly CONTRARY to what Morello has said the core aspect of garen is. He is an out of combat sustain fighter, the opposite of mundo, the in combat sustain fighter.

Please don't blur champion aspects and niches with stupidly proposed suggestions.

Oh, and to help you learn to play garen, the sole and only build you should ever use is item 3284 item 3071 item 3074 item 3068 item 3143 item 3065 Plenty of HP, AR, MR, AD and armour shred and regen.

Knight DevoutFeb 22, 20141 votes

care to elaborate how gapcloser and cc define that a champions belongs to a certain role? I'm pretty sure LeBlanc has both and I yet have to see her played as a tank.

When defining a role of a champion I don't think you can rely solely on "Has cc-has gapclosers". This said, I must agree that Garen is designed to be a full tank as he lacks enough utility to carry his weight in teamfights when he is not also dealing damage, but Garen isn't a top class fighter either as he also lacks steroids such as Aatrox and Shyv.

Garen strength resides in his W passive and damage scalings, combined with low cooldowns (with enough cdr) and manaless kit, that allow him to efficiently put up a sustained stream of damage while being pretty resilient. In this sense, Garen is pretty straightforward to tune, and if I were to change something, rather than give 0.8/1.2/1.6/2.0/2.4% of maximum health when he uses W (which don't really help, and it's rather poor to begin with) I'd fix the critical strike interaction on his E , as Courage damage increase is rather unappreciated (it adds 50% ratio to his Bonus AD ratio, which means ... really not much ).

LVNsNASmurfFeb 22, 20142 votes

Actually, the ability to close a ~1000 range gap rapidly, then place large aoe hard CC when there is the defining ability of a tank, found on Amumu, Malphite, Zac, Naut, Leona, J4, Sej.... You know, tanks.

Garen has no real gapcloser, and no hard CC at all. He is clearly a fighter. While you may think that lacks damage, I assure you, if you simply put a bit of AD and a BC on him, he will deal more than enough damage. Secondly, to suggest the Aatrox is in anything close to a good or powerful state is to be ignorant of how strong those nerfs were.

Garen's strength lies in the ability to fight at full power in bursts were he heals up with passive. He is a full on fighter, who can engage in as many full on trades as needed until the enemy can't fight or just dies.

Finally, anyone building crit on garen is just doing it wrong.

Knight DevoutFeb 22, 20141 votes

Yes, because Garen's E critical chance is stupid and needs to either be buffed to the point where it makes some sense or removed (as it is unwanted/unneeded power)

Also, Lissandra can also close a great distance and then place AoE cc. I don't think that's the only aspect that defines a tank, altough it helps.

I also agree that Garen damage is good with BC and some AD, and I wouldn't build him full tank, especially after SC nerfs.

NeroUSFeb 25, 20141 votes

So, according to you, Cho'Gath is not a tank?

LVNsNASmurfFeb 25, 20141 votes

He's not. He's big and tough, sure, but he's got no engage. He works best with some AP and some AS and some defenses. Next time you play him, try:

item 3257 item 3115 item 3151 item 3068 item 3143 item 3065

It's a bit of AP, some Mpen, and some AS. It really buffs his damage significantly, especially vs other tough champions.

CaptainWednesdayMar 12, 20141 votes

An AoE knockup and silence is not enough engage for you? What do you think Malphite does? Oh, that's right. He has an AoE knockup.

NeroUSFeb 25, 20141 votes

Zero tank characteristics? What about his W. That's more tank than most champions have.

No gap closer? What do you think his Q is lol?

No CC? He comes with a silence!

Seriously, this must just be a troll post.

LVNsNASmurfFeb 25, 20141 votes

Tank characteristics are the ability to engage a fight then disrupt it in an ongoing manner. Tanks are front loaded, and if they land their engage then immediately die, well thats ok, they've done their job.

Q is a MS steroid, and is not a gapcloser in the manner of a dash or blink. While you can press Q and run someone down, it won't start a teamfight in the manner of an Amumu Q-R.

The first strike with his Q does apply a silence to a single target in melee range, but it is not tank level CC in the manner of an AoE knockup.

Garen is not a tank because he lacks enage and disruption and does not focus on a front loaded fight style.

CaptainWednesdayMar 12, 20141 votes

Garen is a bruiser. A hybrid fighter-tank. Healthy and strong enough to push through enemy lines just as he should. Q+W allows him to run into an enemy group and silence a caster followed by a Randuin's Omen Active and E for shredding multiple targets. Something like that seems like enough disruption to me.

CaptainWednesdayMar 12, 20141 votes

He has a massive, long lasting speed buff. That enables him to close gaps easily.
I will agree he has no hard CC without items (ex. Frozen Mallet, Randuin's Omen).
His Courage (W) is a tank ability if I ever saw one. 30% damage and CC reduction as well as 20% increase to bonus Armor and MR? No "fighter" has anything close to that. You are off your mark by saying he has no tank stats.
This is not a "stupidly proposed suggestion". This is a small addition that allows Garen more counter-play where he otherwise has zero against poke. In addition, this is better his late game which is otherwise weak. By breaking through enemy lines and regenerating, he can deal more damage than he normally would.
You should never, ever use one build all the time, every game. You itemize according to the game. It is truly ignorant to say otherwise.
Every item you've posted is great on Garen, except for Ravenous Hydra. You have completely contradicted yourself. Why you build Life Steal on an out-of-combat sustaining fighter like you have called Garen? If you are sustaining in combat, his passive is less effective. That's destroying Garen.

daft inquisitorFeb 21, 20143 votes

Garen is a fighter, as Smurf says. However, he DOES make a pretty decent tank if you BUILD HIM like a Tank. I'm willing to bet you were building him like a fighter, but trying to use him like a tank.

That's not how that works. If you want him to soak damage, build him all Armor/MR and HP, like a tank is supposed to be built.

Garen Main

LVNsNASmurfFeb 21, 20141 votes

He doesn't make a good tank, ever. Tanks have engage and disruption. However, he makes a good meat-wall fighter, and can soak a lot of damage with high resistance items and his W while relying on base damages for offense.

daft inquisitorFeb 22, 20141 votes

Tanks having engage and disruption is a new meta adjustment. Old tanks didn't necessarily have either, let alone both. Old-school definition of tank is just someone that can take tons of damage, and is usually good at drawing attention away from other allies. Garen fits that bill just fine.

Sneak DogFeb 21, 20142 votes

This seems like a very small neat buff with sneakily more to it than what you'd think at first. It means he can smartly time his Courage to eat poke while keeping his passive intact. I like it.

TravaranFeb 21, 20142 votes

I 100% agree! I LOVE Garen but his passive really needs to be changed or boosted. Its pretty nice early game but mid and late its basically useless, I'm level 29 so I've played allot of Garen matches lol I've won plenty and none have been lost because of his passive but I've seen some awesome passives from other champions and Riot really needs to change his passive or at least juice up the amount of health he regenerates.

Worst Ezreal SAFeb 21, 20141 votes

I love this change. It provides counterplay against counterplay on a simple champion who is very easy to read, whilst staying simple and easy to identify.

ikNBHfkJjOFeb 21, 20141 votes

-Add this to Garen's Courage (W): "While the [Courage] is active, Perseverance cannot be disabled. If it is on cooldown, it cannot be reset."

I thought about this many times myself, but i am more concerned about the big plans Riot has with Bruisers, if that is still thing.

His passives have been nerfed several times, without actually gaining something in return somewhere else, so forcing his passive to start and keep it that way for a couple of seconds sounds good to me, especially when it is bound to a very long cooldown, which his W already has.

PirSultanAbdalFeb 23, 20141 votes

He still wrecks squishies, makes frontline champions feel useless and turns backline squishy champions lifes into a nightmare. He has pretty much anything to be afraid of if you are the one that should be taken down or a squishy that fall behind or if you are support.

I think Garen is ONLY good for himself. If only his Courage ability was able to be cast on ally. But if that was the case, he wouldn't be that much strong because he'd have to share his power and fallen from fighter/tank into utility/tank category.

In other words, he would be another Galio story. Garen is fine, he still spins and wins.