Brand New Garen Rework Idea
#####~~ League of Legends Garen Rework Concept ~~
This is an entirely experimental, fanmade VGU-level rework for Garen.
Passive: NEW Dauntless Resolve
Innate: Garen’s abilities are restricted only by cooldowns. In place of a secondary/resource bar, Garen has “Resolve”. Garen gains “Resolve” by dealing damage with his attacks and abilities, for a maximum of 100 stacks. At every 25 stacks of “Resolve”, a new effect is unlocked or empowered on his abilities.
At 100 stacks, Garen gains “Dauntless Resolve” for 5 seconds, granting him a 5th level of empowerment to his abilities, but it cancels out the others to balance out the increased strength. After “Dauntless Resolve” has ended, Garen loses the 5th level of empowerment, and his “Resolve” counts then start to diminish at 10 counts for every second, (the weaker empowerments are also disabled during this time) and he cannot start regaining “Resolve” counts until the bar is fully depleted.
Garen also starts to lose Resolve if he does not deal damage within 5 seconds of gaining “Resolve” counts.
Garen gains Resolve counts by mainly damaging Champions. He can gain it by damaging Minions or Monsters but at a greatly diminished rate.
Basic Attacks and “Decisive Strike” gain 5 counts of Resolve per hit on Champions, reduced to 2 on Minions and monsters.
Judgment Ticks grant 3 per tick on Champions, 1 per tick on Minions and monsters.
Taking damage also grants Garen "Resolve" stacks, at the rate of 1 per every instance of damage. (DoTs only grant 1 stack regardless of how long the DoT itself lasts)
"I will fight as long as I stand!"
Q: Decisive Strike
Garen cleanses himself of all slows upon activation and gains bonus movement speed for a few seconds.
Additionally, Garen's next basic attack within 4.5 seconds lunges him towards the target, dealing bonus damage and silencing the target for 1.5 seconds. Decisive Strike resets Garen's basic attack timer.
Bonus MS Period: 1/1.5/2/2.5/3 Seconds
NEW Resolve: Garen’s Resolve causes him to refuse to be impeded, reducing the effectiveness of all slows applied to him by 10% for every 25 counts of Resolve.
Dauntless Resolve: Garen now becomes IMMUNE to all slows while the bonus movement speed is active.
"I will lead the charge."
W: Courage
Upon activation, Garen steels himself, reducing incoming damage by 30% for a few seconds and gaining 60% Tenacity for the first 0.75 seconds.
Garen permanently gains 0.25 Armor and Magic Resistance, for a maximum of 30 by killing units (Champions, Minions, Monsters, etc.)
NEW Resolve: Garen’s readiness allows him to shrug off the incoming damage, causing him to store the damage he otherwise would have taken via the reduction as Grey Health, and at the end of the ability, he then consumes the Grey Health, healing him for the same amount. He stores 10% of the reduced damage as Grey Health for every 25 counts of Resolve.
Dauntless Resolve: The Damage reduction is now increased to 60% during the 0.75 seconds of Tenacity and Garen stores 50% of the damage as Grey Health.
"Our courage must never waver."
E: Judgment
ACTIVE: Garen rapidly spins his sword around his body 8 - ∞ (based on bonus attack speed, gaining 1 spin for every 30% AS from levels and items) times over 3 seconds, dealing physical damage with each spin to nearby enemies. Judgment can critically strike for 50% bonus physical damage.
Enemy champions hit 5 times have their armor reduced by 25% for 6 seconds. Hits after the 5th refresh the duration of the debuff.
NEW Resolve: Garen’s whirlwind of steel increases in deadliness the closer his targets are. The nearest enemy is dealt 25% bonus damage per spin, and this is increased by 5% for every 25 counts of Resolve.
Dauntless Resolve: Garen’s whirlwind of steel is now at its deadliest; the bonus damage to the nearest target now becomes 50% and the armor debuff is increased to 40%.
"Justice, by law, or by sword."
R: Demacian Justice
ACTIVE: Garen gains true sight of the target champion for 1 second, dealing them MAGIC damage after a 0.5 second delay.
NEW Resolve: Garen’s determination to end the Villain increases the power of his attack, increasing the Missing health bonus effect by 5% for every 25 counts of Resolve.
Dauntless Resolve: Garen’s determination is at it’s peak, converting the damage dealt by the attack to TRUE damage and carrying over the maximum level of the Missing HP bonus.
"For the cause!"
#~~ Explanations ~~
So, what do you all think? Remember, this is entirely fanmade and experimental.
Here’s a few Q&A style things to hopefully provide some answers.
1: WHY I am making this heavy of proposed changes for Garen?
This is a proposed change to allow Garen to fit more with fellow Juggernauts such as Darius and Mordekaiser, who have what players such as myself, Critmaster Garen and a few others call a “Juggernaut Mechanic/Steroid”. You can see my discussion and feelings on THAT here:
2: WHY am I entirely getting rid of Perseverance in this proposed rework?
Well, the main reason is because I PERSONALLY FEEL (REMEMBER, this is just my OPINION) that increased Regen, even IF it’s quite rightly associated with Garen since he’s had it for so long, is a very FLAT and UNINSPIRED method of sustain. That’s one of my few problems with Sett, the upcoming Ionia Juggernaut, but he’s not the focus here.
So, WHY am I gating Garen’s heal behind his new “Resolve” idea? The reason I’m doing that is to allow a form of Skill Expression, like how we would always want to time our W’s to maximize the effectiveness of the old 60% Damage Reduction and Tenacity. The more “Resolve” he has, the more damage Garen can “absorb” and then heal from. This also allows Garen to have a true in-combat heal like Darius or some of his other fellows like Illaoi, though I didn’t want it to function the same way as theirs, so I came up with this.
3: WHY did I even come up with this ‘Resolve’ Idea?
This kind of factors in partially to the “Getting rid of Perseverance” thing. The idea of removing Perseverance came from how “Juggernaut Steroids” such as Darius’ Noxian Might or Mordekaiser’s Darkness Rise are on their PASSIVES. So, I decided, by getting rid of Perseverance, that opens a WHOLE NEW part of Garen’s Kit for me to play with!
I also SLAVED over Garen’s lore, design and overall niche and tried to come up with something that hopefully fit those intentions, including the pre-VU version from 2013 and back, the Juggernaut Update version, and our new mini-reworked version from 9.20 onward.
The main idea for the “Resolve” was inspired by this line from his Lore:
“Only by following their founding ideals, and by displaying their unshakeable pride, could the kingdom be kept safe.”
Some other influences were how he is the head of the “Dauntless Vanguard” and I wanted to try and bring that into his kit somehow. (And so, the “Dauntless”, which by the way is defined as: “showing fearlessness and determination” was put in as part of the name.)
4: WHAT does this accomplish?
Well, for one thing, it gets a project I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks (Ever since the 9.20 Mini-Rework went live, actually; as well as posting on the r/Settmains subreddit since I’m psyched about him, hehe) out the door at long last.
It also fulfills, in MY PERSONAL OPINION, a way of making Garen into a TRUE JUGGERNAUT with a Juggernaut Steroid that hopefully has counterplay for opponents while also giving Garen himself Agency over it, while trying to implement, to the best of my ability, all his previous incarnations, along with something entirely new.
Thanks for reading.
