Something REALLY needs to be done about this champion. The fact of the matter is that he is just TOO good at everything really. He's too tanky to aggro starting with passive armor. If you do manage to hit him he has a passive health potion that heals him back into lane. His moves deal a lot damage even when he builds just black cleaver. You can not get away from him do to his silence/speed boost combo. Then, to top it all off he has the finishing move of Darius. He just is simply too good at everything.

I think if you want to keep him dealing as much damage as he does while being as tanky as he is, you HAVE to do something about his passive. 10 seconds just is not a long enough time to have to wait for a passive that is that good. Vi's small 55 shield takes 16 seconds to come back. in that time garen has regen'd all his health plus some.

Morello stated they're doing a pass on all fighters, starting with Vi, Xin and J4 apparently.
He also understands there is a bigger problem via items (namely health) hence the BotRK buff.

Onto the topic - Garen is easy to shut down in lane, starting with armor and poke.
Unless Garen builds damage, in reality, he doesn't do very much. He's more of an annoying disruptor when built straight tank.
When he isn't building tanky, he melts.
His killsteal ultimate is nice, but typically not enjoyed by his team.
It also does not reset on kills, deals magic damage and has no scaling outside of how much health you're missing.

You picked Vi against him (weak pick) and he built to counter you. I am not surprised Garen won the matchup.

Normal Blind Pick is no way to judge power of any given champion.
In draft, he's one of the easiest champions to counterpick.

ITT; champions have counterpicks - you were counterpicked.

Garen is easy to counter as you know when he's coming for you. See him Q? Run back. See him spin? Get out of it then auto him after. I actually find boots a better counter than armour as you can move out of his spin and run back from his Q doing so. A lot of Garen players tend to be rambo due to his armour and health regen, he's an easy hero to kite early for a jungle gank.

Please tell me who counters him then. Teemo? no garen is faster with more damage and more sustain. Nidalee? Garen is faster with more sustain and damage. Yorick? Close, but if you're playing a smart Garen he'll just ignore the ghouls and fight since he's, you guessed it, faster with more damage!

Nidalee post-6 has no issue staying away from him. 1 auto attack every 9 seconds shuts down his sustain. Garen can't regenerate when he's eating traps, spears and auto attacks.
Teemo has Move Quick to kite, as well as Mushrooms post-6, blind Garen's Q, and can shut down Garen's regeneration.
Yorick has better sustain, and a constant slow, meaning Garen's Q will not break it for long. He can poke in bushes no problem.

Think anyone with poke or MS buffs.
Elise, Jayce, Yorick, Nidalee, Teemo, Kayle, Pantheon, Cho, Kennen...
Fiora can parry his Q as well, but I wouldn't call her "strong" against him.

Source: 100% win rate Garen, Gold ELO 16/game 3/game 11.5/game 247.5/game

A good Yorick will beat a Garen any day. Yorick's sustain beats Garen's since Garen has to not be hit for 10 seconds, and if that happens, Garen will be missing a good chunk of cs while waiting for his HP to regen. However, that's considering the Yorick is nice enough to not damage Garen for 10 seeconds. Also, Yorick's sustain can be used in small skirmishes, and once Yorick gets a tear, he will have quite a bit of mana to spam his healing ghoul.

^ This

Yorick also has an MS buff and a crazy tanky passive (-15% incoming damage, +15% outgoing) with 3 ghouls active.

Teemo is the most commonly picked counter.

I main singed and always destroy Garen by out zoning him, smoking him when he chases me and flinging him into tower range. Wouldn't call him a counter, people pick Garen to counter me as singed, it's just about playing smarter.


There's a few decent Garen counters, Yorick is one. Jayce is probably my favourite. Then there's like Elise, Panth, Kennen and even Cho. Not too hard to counter mate.

It's not an "I want to learn" thread, it's a "This guy is unreasonably OP and not a single champion has any hope of beating him ever" thread.

Garen hasn't been touched in 6 months, he's pretty balanced.

And we all just stated champions that can out do him.

Trying to out bruiser him is where you lose out, and that's what happens when you pick Vi.