Hello, I'm RandomMoped, and this is my guide to jungle Garen. After the buffs to tanky junglers, garen has became a surprisingly decent jungler. His Judgment combined with gives him pretty good clear time, and thanks to Perseverance, he has decent jungle sustain. You can also gank easily using Stalker's Blade. However, I do not recommend using this for ranked play, there are far better tanks who are meant for the jungle such as Jarvan IV and Amumu.

Pros

• Not reliant on jungle buffs
• No Mana problems
• Strong mid game
• Can chase with Decisive Strike

Cons

• Early game clear time and jungle survivability isn't that great
• Has no CC aside from Decisive Strike and Chilling Smite
• Easily counterjungled

Aside from Demacian Justice, you're pretty much always going to want to max Judgment first, because it is your main tool for clearing jungle camps and you can dish out a lot of damage to enemy champions when you combine it with Decisive Strike. Maxing Decisive Strike second will give you more overall damage and a longer silence, making ganks easier. Maxing Courage last will make you extremely tanky late game. There are rare instances where you'll have to change these orders.

Recommended
Always take Smite. This will greatly increase your early game clear time and help you secure buffs for you and your team.

For your other spell, I recommend Flash. Garen is a fairly predicable champion, and this will allow you to pull surprise initiations and escapes, and give you far more ganking potential.

Alternative Spells
Because Garen has no form of slow/stun/root, Exhaust isn't a bad choice if you want to have more effective ganks. Exhausting an opponent that's pushed into lane is almost guaranteed to burn enemy spells or net a kill for your team.

Ghost is decent if an enemy is just a bit too far away to get hit by Demacian Justice, or you aren't level 12 yet. Most of the time, your Decisive Strike and Flash will suffice.

If you want more map presence at the cost of not having a great gap closer, Teleport is a decent spell for easily ganking lanes, split pushing, or securing buffs.

Not-so-great spells
Heal and Barrier are both unnecessary considering how tanky you are. If you need some resistance in a pinch, activate Courage.

Cleanse isn't that great because you can use Decisive Strike to break out of slows, and you won't be in that much danger of dying that much considering your tankiness.

Ignite is a decent spell if you're laning, but typically the rest of your team or Demacian Justice will be able to take care of fleeing enemies.

If you want the effects of Clairvoyance, buy a Scrying Orb

You don't use mana silly, you don't need Clarity

Revive has a 9 minute cooldown and all it does is...revive you. I see no use in this unless you're convinced you can take on an onslaught of 5 enemies and super minions destroying your base.

As Garen, you're probably going to want to grab Gromp first. The poision passive synergizes with how tanky you are, than go from blue to red buff and B, unless you're healthy enough to gank. If you start golems, get your red and blue after getting them. Remember, due to your low early clear time you can be a target of counterjungling.

As the teams tank, your job is to basically eat bullets. Your passive on Courage makes you extremely tanky, and once you have your Black Cleaver, you can actually dish out a decent amount of damage. Remember to secure objectives such as Dragon and Baron in order to give your team gold and make them stronger. Remember that your skills have no cost, so spamming Judgment is completely viable.
If you're fed and decide to build damage, you're job is to dive into the enemy team and destroy their health bars. Remember to invest in some defense or else you'll get melted

Despite the fact that the health regen changes in this patch won't help you too much jungling, the changes in general make Garen a stronger champion which is always welcome!

Remember not to always follow the example full build of this, build situationally according to your enemies (don't build magic resist against a full AD team), and always use the Stealth Ward and Vision Ward, it isn't only the supports job.

Thank you for reading my guide on jungle Garen, it is my first guide, so please rate it and let me know how I can improve :D

10/05/14- Added updates chapter, fixed masteries
11/05/14- No changes but holy ****, 12k views? I'm surprised that that many people are interested in my guide. Thanks everyone for using my guide :D
6/3/15- Jesus christ 62k views I don't even
Changed around the items a bit, changed masteries to 21/9/0