Welcome to my guide for the AD Bruiser character Garen - The Might of Demacia.

All of my guides are written as cheat sheets, meaning they are short, concise, and focus on general tips and rationales. This is not an in-depth guide and is geared toward an already experience player who wants to quickly learn about a champion they may not be too familiar with.

This guide includes builds and strategies for this champion and assumes you are familiar with the basics concepts of the game.

My build focuses on early tankiness, while improving damage output in Late-Game to become an Anti-Carry Tank.

Pros: Strong Farmer Very Fast Strong Harrass Ultimate Kills Anyone Under 25% HP Passive Regenerates Large Amounts of HP Can Break Slows

Cons: Lack of CC Lacks True Escape Easily Poked Passive Can Be Denied Falls Off Late-Game Ultimate Difficult to Master

This Mastery build is considered a standard 9/21/0 page for a physical tank.

With Garen, I like to augment HP as much as possible and take Tenacious with Unyielding / Block to stack with my Doran's Shield starting item to reduce his poke vulnerability.

If you use Exhaust or Ignite you'll want to get Summoner's Wrath and if not put that point into Fury .

My overall plan with my mastery page is to reduce the incoming poke damage which is our biggest vulnerability. In my opinion, a few extra points of AD are not worth as much as these defensive augmentations.

Attack Damage

Provide DPS advantage, particularly early. Improve farming efficiency. Large increase to poke damage. Available as Marks, Quintessences.

greater mark of armor penetration Armor Penetration

Shreds starting armor, improving early game damage. Useful vs. enemies who build armor or use armor runes. Most useful late-game rune you can have. Available as Marks, Quintessences.

Armor

Reduces enemy poke damage. Reduces enemy AD-Based Jungler damage. Allows you to stay in lane longer. Flat runes recommended over per level since most useful early-game. Available as Marks, Quintessences, Glyphs, and Seals.

Magic Resistance

Reduces enemy APC damage in team fights. Reduces enemy AP-Based Jungler damage. Recommended over flat runes because more useful late-game. Available as Marks, Quintessences, Glyphs, and Seals.

Health

Increases ability to stay in lane. Increases survivability. Large Level 1 advantage. Available as Marks, Quintessences, Glyphs, and Seals.

Movement Speed

Increases ability to avoid poke damage. Allows for faster response time. Increases escape chance. Available as Quintessences.

Flash

Versatile Spell, can be used for offense or defense. Best when conserved for an escape. Can be used to move between terrain obstacles. Does NOT cancel incoming projectiles.

Ignite

True damage-over-time provides large damage boost. Reduces incoming heals for duration, counters Heal. Best if applied before enemy decides to escape. Grants very strong Early-Game DPS advantage.

Teleport

Allows for quickly returning to lane if you need to RTB. Allows for fast back-door tower/inhibitor destruction. Can be used on to wards. Can be used to gank other lanes, particularly useful if used on brush wards for surprise element.

Barrier

Increases lane endurance. Can be used to bait enemies into a losing fight. Increases escape chance if conserved for that purpose.

Exhaust

Massive reduction to enemy damage output. Also reduces enemy movement speed, allowing easier chase or escape. Can be used to bait enemies into a losing fight. Highly useful in Late-Game.

Perseverance (Passive)

When this passive is active, your champion glows green. This passive is more effective with higher HP, low Early-Game effectiveness. Can provide early sustain negating the necessity of buying Health Potions. This effect will be interrupted if you receive damage from champions or towers. Minions do not interrupt this ability. Use brush or positioning to prevent enemy champions from poking you so this ability will not interupt.

Decisive Strike (Q)

Initiation and escape ability. Hits very hard early. Makes sound and sword will glow when activated, which warns the enemy. Best if used to initiate before activating Judgment. Breaks all slows but has no effect on future slows after cast. Silence can be used to cancel channels or stop enemies from using combos. Silence can ensure your Judgment is used to full effect.

Courage (W)

Best if conserved until you are being focused. Useful to hinder burst damage, particularly if ganked. Passive only scales off bonus armor/magic resistance, so less effective early. Cast when diving carries in teamfights to maximize survival chance.

Judgment (E)

Primary DPS ability. AoE damage ability. Ignores minion collision, however penalizes movement speed for doing so. Provides very large damage output level 5-9. Can be used to farm entire minion waves at once. Less effective vs. non champions. Can critically strike.

Demacian Justice (R)

Only targets champions. High damage will kill most champions below 25% health. Damage scales with lower enemy health. Only use against low health champions as a finisher. High CD, conserve use to only when kill assured. Single use, attempt to use highest value target (i.e. ADC/APC) Combo with Q-E-Ignite will kill most champions below 40% HP.

Provides HP, HP Regen, Armor, and Damage Reduction from champions. Syncs with defense tree masteries to significantly reduce poke damage. HP Regen syncs with passive to keep you in the lane.

Ninja Tabi sync with runes/masteries to further reduce damage. Sunfire Aegis's passive AoE magic damage syncs with Judgment poke ability. Phage's passive slow will further increase effectiveness of Judgment.

Frozen Mallet builds out of Phage and increases passive chance to 100%, also provides massive HP boost. Black Cleaver gives Cooldown Reduction, HP, AD, but most importantly, armor penetration. Garen is countered by armor, this item will help alleviate that problem. Enchantment: Homeguard allows you to return from healing much faster and can make defending your base or catching over-extended enemies easier.

Mercury's Treads, at some point before Late-Game, you should sell Ninja Tabi for this unless the enemy is a very high AD-Comp. Atma's Impaler will prove AD, bonus crit chance, and armor for a low cost. The AD bonus scales with HP which is why we get the item later. Guardian Angel will give you increased armor/magic resistance which will beef your general tankiness and stack with Courage. The passive revive, combined with high HP, will make you a very large threat to enemy carries as well. Infinity Edge should replace your Sunfire Aegis in the very Late-Game.

Randuin's Omen reduces the effectiveness of enemies for a short duration. Useful against High-AD comps. Runic Bulwark is a highly useful support item for the team and you should build it if no one else does. Warmog's Armor gives a large boost to HP and effectively doubles the power of your passive. Maw of Malmortius is an essential item against high AP comp. Mercurial Scimitar can remove de-buffs and gives AD and magic resistance. Last Whisper if the enemy stacks armor you'll need this item or your damage output will be compromised. Blade of the Ruined King drains HP and provides AD/AS with lifesteal. A good balanced item particularly useful against tanks. Sword of the Divine with high AD and an Infinity Edge, this item will allow you to deal a lot of damage very quickly. Frozen Heart provides massive armor and a passive that weakens enemy AD champs. Boots of Swiftness can replace Ninja Tabi or Mercury's Treads.

Weak vs. Ranged poke/harrass. Weak vs. escape. Depends on passive to regenerate which can be denied by poke. Depends on sustained damage from Judgment to harrass, escape mechanisms can counter this.

Strong vs. melee champions. Strong vs. short range casters. High damage burst skills wreck low HP champions. Decisive Strike removes slow, making him strong vs soft-cc.

Any comments, suggestions, or mistakes I made that you find I will appreciate reading and thanks for taking the time to read my guide!

03/06/13
Version 1.0 posted.