Talk:Garen/@comment-83.196.94.64-20121201170100/@comment-128.36.173.159-20121206012321

In my experience in ranked games, I've seen a lot of people pick Jayce to counter my Garen. It happened many times and I didn't know why, as I took a LoL break when Jayce was released and wasn't aware of his set of abilities. However, I have never lost to a Jayce at top lane when playing Garen. And this match-up has played out at least 6-7 times.

You have to be very attentive to cooldowns for both Jayce and yourself. Going in for a Q, you might see the enemy Jayce switching forms to knock you back. In that case, you might walk back and use Q on a minion instead and begin the cooldown. You'll be ready to use Q very soon again, and this time land it followed by E. If you're going for a kill, you might try flashing for the Q and then following it up with E + ignite + R. Oftentimes the enemy Jayce will actually be trying to harass you because people assume he's a counter to Garen, so you can adapt your build to be more tanky. Then engage in some trades and make sure you're not at full health (the whole trick is psychologically based, you have to make Jayce want to keep you near instead of knocking you back). Your abilities are on decently short cooldowns, so do an appropriate amount of trading, retreat while Jayce chases, and go straight back in with Q + combo. Jayce won't have sufficient time to counterattack; instead, he'll be silenced and on his way to death (or at least low health). Basically, you just have to learn how to play Garen against his counters.

I don't consider Jayce very difficult to play against. I do think Darius, Teemo, Cho'gath, and Pantheon are tough opponents. I actually don't lose to Darius and Teemo anymore in-lane, but you have to be very aware of their micro-movements to know when to land a combo. Cho'gath is basically impossible to kill with Garen's skill set, I haven't found a good way of playing against him yet. As for Pantheon, it is very hard to deal with him because he can block Garen's Q with his passive block, preventing the silence and allowing him to continue throwing spears. Pantheon's harass > Garen's harass.