How to get better at calculating Garen's ult damage.

Áion·Dec 1, 2014·1 votes·4,452 views

Garen was the first character I ever played, and my most comfortable champion. I can usually dominate top lane, but I struggle against some of his harder match ups. I feel like if I could become better at judging my ult's damage I would be to cope much better. Far too often I miss the chance to execute someone or attempt to use my ult as a finisher and the enemy survives with like 10 HP ( plea). Due to this, as of late, I've become way too hesitant to use my ultimate at all. It has such a high cooldown, especially at lower ranks, and influences Garren's impact on the game in a big way. Now of course I know how his ult's damage calculation works. Sometimes don't have the time to calculate how much your damage is being boosted due to your foe's missing HP in the split second it takes to lose a teamfight. If there are any Garen pros here, please, help me become the unkillable man beast I was meant to be! inb4hatearinobecauseIplayGaren

9 Comments

Leti the YetiDec 1, 20141 votes

Do the math? have a good estimation of everyones maximum hp? count the lil squares on health? 1 bar = 100?

ÁionDec 1, 20141 votes

Huh, I actually didn't know what 1 bar equated to. Though, once again I think that would take quite a bit of time. People on low health, that aren't dumb, generally tend to not one to be around a Garen. I doubt I'd have enough time to count all the little squares.

Leti the YetiDec 1, 20141 votes

i can sorta just look at the health bar and immediately see they have like 3 bars left or so ;l it doesnt take very long, especially when low health is all that matters to you... less bars to count people with low health arent dumb but...

they tend underestimate garens ult cast range
you are probably right next to them from spin2win when their health gets low

ÁionDec 1, 20141 votes

Aye, it's a pretty safe bet that someone with 3 bars of health is going to die to Garen's ult. However, I'm speaking about min/maxing here. A Cho'gath with 4000 health and no MR is going to take significantly higher damage from Garen's ult, compared to an ADC.

Rock RockburghDec 2, 20141 votes

If it helps, the thicker bars represent increments of 1000. (At least by default, you might be able to change it.)

Try to use your ult to take out fleeing targets after a teamfight. It makes Garen pretty decent at single-target cleanup, kind of like Lux.

As a rule, a rank 3 Garen ult will probably take out a non-tank from half health. (It goes up to 60%-missing-health plus scaling, right?)

QuantumLightDec 1, 20141 votes

calculations like your talking about are products of experience. I dont play garen, but i see this with other things, like whether or not you can nuke someone with kat before you get ccd. The only people truely able to calculate that much in so short a time is sora and shiro....

Play more garen, see how your ult affects people with more armor/mr, (not sure what type damage it does) and remeber it. Experience will teach you better then some calculation you have to run through your head every time you want to ult.

looked it up: its 1 damage for every 3.5/3/2.5 hp the oponent is missing, plus 175/350/525. I guess you could see how much their missing and divide by 3 for an estimate. use reference points, like a guy missing 600 hp you know will do about 600 at tier 2.

still dont forget about their mr.

ÁionDec 1, 20141 votes

Using reference points was the general idea. For example, a level 6 Jarven will have 1091 HP granted he goes Deodorants and has no other HP items as the time, this means at 500 HP (any lower and most people don't feel safe in lane) I can easily flash Q 1-2 ticks of spin2win and he's dead since my ult will be doing around 150~ Extra damage. I was just hoping I could ask some pro's for advice so I wouldn't have to draw up some references myself, haha. Guess I'll have to do it the hard way. I mean, look on the bright side, it gives me something to do while waiting for minions to spawn?

ZerglingOneDec 2, 20141 votes

It's usually why garen wants summoner 14 .

Ignite them, ult them when they're close. Usually does the trick.

Garen doesn't really need his level 1 ult for anything, it's more of an insurance policy than a core part of his killing potential.

It does 175 + 28.5% of their missing health at level 1. So figure on ulting them around 1/4 hp. Which is 175 + 21% max HP. 175 would be 4% of 4375 so chances are they're gonna die.