Source
r/leagueoflegends•
Whyeth

Questions about Garen

Ive got some general questions about Garen. I main Garen solo top (occasionally do bottom kill lane with taric). Why is Garen considered a "bad" champ? I usually build boots 3 pots -> bf sword -> giants belt -> IE, then tanky. I find this gives him outrageous early/mid game damage and let's him snowball into a tanky assassin who focuses the AP carry/support late game.

Looking for thoughts/critiques on what exactly makes him a much less desirable solo top pick?

Posted Feb 28, 2012, 10:00 PM UTC

215
Mrtakeiteasy•

People don't know how to fully utilize his bush passive yet.

6
Gasparde•

Smart people dont lose to Garen. And a non-fed Garen is useless lategame-wise.

Garen is kinda able to dominate nearly every melee at top lane... but those melees can easily just safe farm vs Garen, keep up in farm and be way more usefull.

He got not CC besides of his tiny puppy silence, making him a really bad tank... and his scalings are just too bad to make him a good damage dealer.

And ya... while other melee champs have problems vs Kennen or Yorick for example... Garen will just be totally stomped by those champs since they beat his early game and will take him out of the game from that point.

4
JokerSmilez•

Garen has a really scary early game. But by about level 5 or so, he starts to fall off.

I main Rumble and when I see a Garen I just play super safe for the first few levels and then start to get increasingly aggressive as we gain levels.

He will out farm me to start with because he can zone me from CS but after I've gained some levels (like I said, around level 5 or so) I can start to be more assertive and trade better and by level 8 or 9, I can completely zone him, force him out of lane and even kill him if he's not super conservative.

2
hamkels•

Allegedly garen is really bad lategame, but I think if you're able to crush your lane that really won't matter all that much. I think you can get a nice balance of tankiness and damage with an atmogs build, and while his scaling isn't great he's definitely not useless lategame.

Against a standard comp my ideal 6 item build would probably look like this: Mercs, 2x Warmogs, Atma's, LW, Thornmail. Pretty hard to kill and respectable damage

1
WhyethOP•

My ideal 6 items are merc treads, ie, warmogs atmas, FoN and randuins. The IE makes his spin formidable and his Q be enough of a pain to force opponents to focus you or watch as you rip through squishes.

1
Gasparde•

This is a nearly 16k gold build... Garen will never farm that much... and smart people wont feed Garen that hard to ever aquire this build.

You will most likely get Mercs, Warmogs and Atma... but still deal way less dmg than any other bruiser with the same items.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
minotour0024•

Why wouldn't you build Frozen Mallet, you need the slow really badly and the hp sacrifice won't hurt you. Depending on your situation, you may not want to get FoN and instead choose Warmogs, since the hp5 is only good during long fights, the odds are that if you are getting a randuins and atmas means that they are a high physical damage team(only 1 AP carry that isn't a hyper carry or fed). I would not build an Infinity Edge and instead go for a brutalizer(CDR and damage) and last whisper.

Also I noticed that other than you don't build any CDR, which is really important for Garen.

The build I would go is merc boots->Brutalizer->(phage or pickaxe)->FM->Atmas->(Warmogs or Last Whisper)->build ghost blade(probably not), sell brutalizer buy QSS, FoN or GA or IE.

I would probably go with the GA if you find yourself diving the enemy carries, QSS if they have a shit ton of CC on you, FoN if neither really applies, or IE edge if your diving the carries, they can't kill you but you think you need to kill him faster. But thats a best case 6 item build.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
Wakka_bot[Tribunal Sux] (EU-NE)•

Garen is bad because he is outclassed by Riven by every single aspect, and he has a passive which prefers passive play, while Riven has one which prefers active play, which is the "new meta", going agressive.

1
predo•

if riven goes aggressive vs garen she will lose hard. if he silences your q and spins on top of you there is just no escape. 1vs1 harrass is not the option as riven vs him

1
Wakka_bot[Tribunal Sux] (EU-NE)•

you are misunderstanding the entire text.

I tell once again: Garen is bad because if you have a job Garen fits in, Riven does it even better. nobody talked about garen vs riven lane matchup lol.

2
predo•

true :D

1
minotour0024•

He is an all melee champion lacking a gap closer short of his speed increase from his w, and many people have a lot of things to get away from him and kite him.

The first thing is that he is really hard countered by any range that has a speed modifier or get away ability since he cant really do much to them. As garen you may do well against bruisers, but many ranged do well against you.

Generally if you can get passed the first 3 minutes of a laning phase against him you can deny him hard, making a bf sword/giants belt take a while.

Next thing with him is that you see him coming, everytime. He has to run up to hit you and its obvious when he has his speed increase active so its really hard to outplay someone, you just have to wait in a bush and hope that your enemy comes close enough so that he can't react.

The third thing is his abilities don't synergize really well. His Q and E does, and R sort of. His passive is okay, 0.5% of your maxhp/5 is kind of low until you can build up a reasonable amount of health, and a ranged person can stop that from being active easily. His W is good by itself, providing a good passive and strong active but is only really useful in full on engages, which people will avoid when laning against him. His R is useful when you get them low, but once again, its a rather obvious thing when fighting him, it does not scale with attack power and gets reduced by MR. Also it has a fairly short range so when it "secures" a kill it basically means that the target will die without it being used unless its a tank(in which case it probably is reduced greatly).

Next, he lacks the utility many people have. Hes not a tank(lacks control), and not really a really strong bruiser for a teampick. In a teamfight he basically goes in, spins, silences, and then what? When compared to Pantheon he is really lacking since pantheon has the ability to get kills. Pantheon has a ranged ability for runners, a melee ability that does a good amount of damage if you stay in it, a stun, and then if he chooses to he can Ult across the map to help other lanes.

1
Jolly_Green_Giant•

Spin to win!

1
pewpewrabbit•

You said it perfectly. For Garen to have any presence in the game mid/late game, he needs to have snowballed off the early game hard. From my experience, Garen actually beats a lot of the powerful, popular top laners (Irelia, Kennen, Rumble, etc.) because his early game is absolutely, disgustingly strong. However, competent/good top laners will just play passively and farm under tower against a Garen. Without a significant lead snowballed off the early game, a Garen is not as nearly as useful to the team as an equally farmed Irelia or Kennen.

1
Gothika_47[Gothika47] (EU-East)•

Garen is good if you play agressive and rape people in lane if you get fed you can pretty much kill or take half of the hp of your enemy with 1 combo.

1