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Garen changes for more interactive game play

Creator: NicknameMy August 12, 2018 4:58am
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Permalink | Quote | PM | +Rep August 12, 2018 4:58am | Report
So, while I currently main Garen, I dislike his play style a lot. Instead of being the Juggernaut that dominates lane and slices everyone up with Judgment, his main damage ability, he builds on-hit items, only hits Decisive Strike and nearly forgets Judgment and in lane, he sucks, loosing out to nearly every enemy as he is out damaged by anyone while spinning. This feels very lackluster. Plus he is a very easy champ to play with low thoughts level and less interactivity, which also needs a little change. So I made this:



Point 1: More interactive game play

We all know what Garen does right now, he runs at you, hits you with the Q, spins a bit and then runs away, trying to take minimal damage with Courage and automatically less damage through Courage's passive resistances. But if you are ranged, he does absolutely nothing. Later in team fights, it is the same thing, he has no real goal except dealing damage. This should change a bit to give him more utility and possible decisions to counter play.

Changes for that: Health Regen, Health, Armor, Passive, Courage, Decisive Strike Silence and MS duration, Judgment armor reduction

As you can see, most of the changes I did go into this aspect. The biggest change of them is the health regeneration change. You basically loose your innate health regen and rely by 100% on your passive to regenerate. Means no more dumb 24/7 running on the enemy, as you then lack health regen, but more precise choosing of timing. Also, it is disabled if you attack something, so to use it, you have to stay for 8+ seconds completely out of combat, which is a hard thing to do without loosing something meaningful, so it is a trade-off.

Then, the next thing is to help him a bit against ranged champions, which he has absolutely 0 chance against, while making him a bit more fragile if he is inside a fight. For that, courage now has with the same range of Xin Zhao's damage reduction ultimate a 15% damage reduction if an enemy is outside of that range, but for that, he looses the up to 40 resistances from stacking courage.

This means multiple things. A ranged champion that always sits outside of his range will deal less damage than before. But a ranged champion that decides to get inside his range, so taking more risk, will be rewarded with more damage, allowing Garen to counter play against him. And melee champions in general will be stronger against Garen. To compensate some of the loss stats, the armor and health were adjusted.

Garen also has now an easier time playing around this because early, his movement speed duration on Decisive Strike is longer.

And now, to the increased utility with his silence and armor reduction. Silence is a very strong disable, as all bot laners should know by now thanks to Fiddlesticks. Adding 0.5 seconds towards the late game for Garen makes him more relevant in team fights, as this is a very serious disable for a carry. For that, early game the duration is reduced, so you can easier get away if Garen overwhelms you.

The second point is the armor reduction. Now, instead of giving 25% after 4 hits of Judgment without a possibility to refresh it, Garen now gains 5% armor reduction per hit, stacking up to 30%. And even more important, he can refresh the duration by continuing to damage the enemy. This adds a strong utility to Garen and his physical damage teammates, as they can now go through tanks way easier and if Garen beats his nemesis that is called kiting, he is rewarded for that. This also means the enemies can reduce the damage they take if they can stay out of Garen's range for long enough, another way of interactive game play.

Point 2: Too strong mid game, weak early and late game

Many players may not know this, but since Garen got reworked with the Juggernaut update, he became a very weak laner. Basically, everyone out damages him in the first 5 levels and he can't really trade with anyone unless he makes big mistakes. Instead, the goal of the Juggernaut changes was to reduce his mid game power spike around level 7-9, which was obnoxious back then already, but that didn't change at all. Even more offending, the latest damage changes for Decisive Strike, which made his mid game power even more obnoxious. This is terrible balance. And Riot also changed it so he is stronger late game, which they also failed at, his late game is still laughable, especially compared to other Juggernauts like Darius. (200 AD?)

Changes for that: more base damages on Decisive Strike and Judgment early, while less late, higher AD ratios later, spin number changes

First, you will question yourself, why the strange scaling curve. Instead of linear, it is stronger in the first points but weaker in the later points. This exists to increase the power in the early game while reducing the power in the mid game. Yeah, late game it is a reduction as well, but then the higher AD ratios kick in and you actually have more damage, especially with the higher AD per level. You also have to think about how you max your skills now, because every further point is worth less. So less brain dead, more thinking about what you are doing.

But probably the biggest change is in the number of spins on Judgment, instead of going 5/6/7/8/9/10 at 1/4/7/10/13/16 it is now 6/7/8/9/10 at 1/4/10/13/16. Level 7 is where your mid game comes around, so this isn't changed while early game is extremely buffed thanks to that. Now you can't just sit in the spin 24/7 while laughing Garen, his spin is now a serious threat early.

But don't just say this would make him overpowered, look at what other Juggernauts do around the same levels. Darius, Illaoi, Urgot, Aatrox, etc. completely crush you around that level, if the enemy gets close to them, so Garen should be allowed to do the same.

Point 3: Weaker Decisive Strike, stronger Judgemnt

Like I already said, I currently dislike the play style of Garen a lot. You basically only rely on Decisive Strike while Judgment is ignored, especially after the latest brain dead changes from Riot games. This must change.

Changes for that: Reduced damage overall on Decisive Strike, while increased on Judgment

Well, this is pretty straightforward. Decisive Strike damage from point 3 in the ability on is drastically reduced while Judgement damage is increased, mostly because of the way higher AD ratio. So you are rewarded if you buy more AD, making tank Garen less obnoxious to deal with, while rewarding AD Garen.

Point 4: Stronger against tanks, weaker against carries

One problem many carry players have right now with Garen that he can just one shot them. He buys Trinity Force, Dead Man's Plate, uses Predator and with his Decisive Strike he takes over 1/2 of their damage away, allowing him to ult afterwards for a clean one shot. This feels wrong, Garen should be more about slicing up tanks with his spin than one shotting carries, unless he goes full AD.

Changes for that: Less damage from range, damage shift from Decisive Strike to Judgment, Armor reduction changes, ultimate changes

Some of the changes I already talked about, like the less damage from range, the damage shift or the armor reduction changes, but they also play a greater role in this topic. First, taking less damage from range means he doesn't need to focus on the enemy carries if he wants to stay alive. Instead, he can focus the tanks while the ADC's can't just shoot him down from far away. This makes it more likely for Garen to successfully focus the tanks. Then, the damage shift from Q to E helps as well, being reliant on E to deal more damage means carries have more counter play towards a Garen trying to one shot them. And the better armor reduction, obviously, helps against tanks.

But to increase that further, the ultimate is changed. Basically if you math it out, around 2.5k health is the damage equal, means it deals more damage against tanks than against carries. Plus, the fact that it is now physical damage has higher synergy with his Judgment armor reduction and makes it stronger against tanks again, because against carries he can't really fully stack his armor reduction and carries usually have higher armor values than magic resistance values.

So carries, while feeling less rewarding in focusing a Garen on long range, should feel a lot safer playing against him, which overall increases the fun at games. So it is a win win situation for both sides.

Point 5: Some cosmetic changes

I also had to include somethings because they are cool or need adjustment because of the latest item changes.

Changes for that: Judgment now always deals 33% increased damage against monsters, Critical Strikes now double the attack damage ratio instead of multiplying it by 1.5.

The increased damage against monsters exists so jungle Garen is actually more viable. He was kinda hurt by the passive/health regeneration and Courage changes, so this plus more spins early should make up for it that he can be a strong and fast jungler that uses Predator.

The buff for Critical Strike exists because before that, Infinity Edge used to increase the ratio massively. Now that Infinity Edge changed, it must be compensated. It also gives AD Garen nice build options for late game if he is incredibly overfed. Still is more a gimmick tho than a real usable thing.

So yeah, waay to many words here, but I hope, they were worth it, explaining every aspect in detail. I hope you did understand everything and why I did certain things.

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