Talk:Garen/@comment-15020375-20140217212613/@comment-4542190-20140314000531

First, I need to say this. Garen is my fave ever since I started playing LoL, I just love him. However, I always try to be objective. Now, back to the discussion.

By using Decisive Strike smartly, I don't mean something farfetched. You just won't use it when the one you want to hit with it is a considerable distance away. You'll approach him/her first (directly or indirectly- they say that Garen likes to live in the bushes xD) and when the distance is calculated in your mind, you hit Q and go. Worst case scenario, you won't hit but you'll force him to move away (probably spending his dash skill) from the minion wave. Of course, there is the situation you'll be against pokers where this won't work- but there you won't be aggressive to begin with (at least, not from the start). This is for the laning phase. About teamfights, I'll add up later. The thing to note is that Decisive Strike hurts a lot early-whether you land it on a Malphite(tanky hero) or a Teemo(squishy).

You're right, Garen can get kited easy. Especially if he gets chain-disables (stuns, slows, knock ups etc). But the latter part goes for everyone. Again, more on that on the teamfights.

Let's talk about the 2 matchups.

Vs Renekton: Renekton wants to dash in, stun you, do the spinning attack that gives him life back, then dash out. Rinse and repeat until he gets you. But that doesn't work with Garen. The silence won't let him do his combo as stated above. Plus, even if he stuns you quickly, you just need to pop up Courage and Judgement fast beforehand and he won't be able to out-trade you because Spin to Win continues no matter what. And Perseverance is a far better sustain and lane staying power than Renekton's small life-steal. If Renekton wants to keep it down, he should engage Garen constantly. But as written above, this won't do him any good. Finally, Dominus won't help with Demacian Justice (if anything, it will make it even better for Garen). I am not saying this is a lost lane for Renekton from the start. But I honestly can't see how a good Garen would lose his lane vs a Renekton.

Vs Mundo: Ummm, not much things to say here. Aside from the difference in the passives being only 0,1% of maximum life with Mundo having it constantly on while Garen's will go on reset for 9 seconds whenever he takes hero (or neutrals) damage (I don't know about you guys but for me, this is very unfair for Garen) I'll just say the obvious (Captain obvious or not). Garen doesn't have to sit and eat cleavers on the face all day and all night like an idiot. Sure, he'll get some. But he can avoid most of them. If Mundo misses, he won't get life back (it has health cost). If he throws it to last hit minions, he won't be able to hit Garen with it. And cleavers are his only safe way to keep Perseverance down. Taking into consideration Garen's abilities, again, I don't see how he can lose the lane vs Mundo if played properly, especially since Mundo is prone to build HP and Demacian Justice scales off missing HP (plus, Ignite counters Mundo and is standard on Garen).

Now, let's talk about teamfights. First off, about Garen getting peeled. Umm, unless their team is really dominating or some other unexpected thing happens (like, he is getting all the kills unintentionally), supports tend to be really weak compared to the other heroes. So, a support peeling off Garen (who isn't your random hero but noted for his durability among other things) seems pretty unlikely to me. More likely a dead support.

Now, in an ideal situation (that Garen knows what he is doing and the teamwork is the proper one) I believe Garen's team can come out on top, whether the enemy team decides to focus Garen or not. If they focus him (which is want Garen and his team wants probably) as said already, Garen can be extremely hard to bring down, all thanks to Courage (and Perseverance). The passive makes so that each defensive item gets that much better on Garen and the active greatly mitigates incoming damage and cc duration (what more can one ask,really?). So, if they throw everything on Garen, even if they kill him, his team can capitalize and come out on top. Now, if they ignore him as you said, this is even more straightforward. Garen can dive the enemy adc/ap carry/most dangerous enemy and kill him. Even if they kill him in return (which again would require a big effort of time and resources), his team will have the advantage.

One of the reasons I like Garen this much is that he can both do pretty good damage and tank very good. Offensively, he is covered with a Brutalizer/Black Cleaver until much later (Judgement can easily stack the passive to the full on its own)-if he needs to get other offensive items (the game dragging too much etc) and he can use his remaining build to become that near-impossible thing to kill. And he does get picked in the competitve level, even in the Challenger division. He doesn't get picked very frequently, ok, but not once in a blue moon either.

Imho, Renekton sees that much play in the LCS currently due to having a very powerful early game (which he must use if he is to get an advantage because he falls off later) and he is difficult to kill with the double dash + Dominus (+ Flash). Paired against Garen, I don't think he'll be able to steam roll on enemy heroes like he usually does.

P.S. Sorry for the long post...:/