Despite early claims that Garen was balanced, just that people were finally learning to use him, Riot has admitted that Garen may be a little too strong at everything he does. It is just a tad ridiculous for him to be able to buy survivability items and completely melt an entire team. Also, the fact that his W has both a passive damage reduction buff and an active seems like overkill.
Lucky for us, he’s catching a nerf, and I can’t wait. It’s not the Garens that dominate games that are causing the problems. It’s the other Garens, the people who think they know how to play Garen, that are the issue. You’ve probably seen them trying to tank three people at level five, turret diving from level one, and stacking armor against completely magic based enemies.
It’s not a problem unique to Garen. Any time the community realizes a given champ is overpowered, players do anything they can to play him, even if they don’t know the champion. It’s already starting to happen with Kog’Maw. The little alien got a buff and now a lot of people who had previously ignored him are both picking and banning him. It’s a trend we’ll probably see nearly as often as there’s a significant patch. For now, though, I’m happy to wait on the Garen nerf, and when it becomes a problem with other champions, I’ll anxiously await their nerf patches as well.
