Question. What would it take for Garu as a theme to be competitive. Theme equips? Champ reworks? More utility? What? Or, If you think they already can be competitive in higher ranks, please share your bg.
Garu are super good right now due to them being bugged. I would advise against playing them right now. That said, not too sure. Maybe some alt damage and better ways to purposefully destealth your champs.
Yeah, Hibernate is bugged and allows movement and ability activation when it shouldn't. You can play them and manually enforce your hibernated champs not to move or attack when they shouldn't but that has to be done on your honor. Even if you try your best to manually override the bug by being honest, your opponent may not realize that you are handicapping yourself to "fix" the bug.
With that said, I think the Garu can be played competitively. They actually have a decent array of debuffs like Seismic Leap, Glorious Leap, Stun, Paralyze, and Mind Wipe. They have decent buffs like Battle Leader, Guarded: Garu, Commander, Battle Harden, and Warcry. They have a stealth/healing racial ability that, while bugged, will eventually be playable by honest people. I think they'd be better with a few tweaks to support non-champ runes to make it feel more like a complete theme. They currently have Ancestral Anger (which is fine as is) and Unassuming Tree (which isn't very good). Mend and Oaken Mace could be revamped to work well in Garu decks, IMO. Overall, I think they could be played pretty well. The potential alone from Slipstream Fulcrum + Warcry is enough to create a decent power turn (+5 AP and + 2 DMG). They do have a lot of physical damage but, I suppose, decks should have a weakness (KF is getting a ranged Frost Garu with the coming expansion, BTW). Garu also don't have a good Shatter option but, with the coming expansion, there will be a nice non-champ Shatter option for KF as well. Edit: In summary, wait for the coming expansion and the bug fix for Hibernate and they should be good to go! A few minor changes to Unassuming Tree, Mend, and Oaken Mace would all be bonuses for the theme.
What do you all think would be a better version of Mend that might have a special additional effect for Garu? The current Mend is pretty terrible.
Mend (25 Nora)- Target champion is healed 4 HP for every friendly real champion in play that shares a race with it, to a maximum of 20 HP. If target champion is a Garu, it is also Cleansed.
This spell would be a sizable and cheap heal in any race-based deck, mid-game, and would double as a spot cleanse in Garu decks.
make it 35 nora. Target champion is cleansed and healed for 10 HP, if target is a garu it gains Purified and regeneration 2 for 6 turns
not really, most single target spot cleanses cost less than 35 now. Its strenght only really comes out in garu i find
Herbal is an AoE 3 cleanse, 4 HP heal and immunity to poisons and diseases (something that hard-counters FS Poison theme for example). It's just that - as a meta rune - HA's immunities part is just disregarded.
is that a bad thing? something can be ran in most bg's and not be OP. it could simply be well worth the slot. spot cleanse isnt exactly game breaking either. just my two cents. on another note, I like all the ideas.
If a rune (especially a theme rune) is put in every single KF bg without a thought, yes, yes that is definitely a bad thing.
Playing Garu puts me to sleep. Too many Attack: Physical Melee champions, kinda like Draksar. Flavorful racial, but very boring.