Hello, Community, and welcome to my guide of Garen, the Might of Demacia. This will take an in depth look at Garen, and why this build works. I can't give you any specific stats off hand of how many times I've used this build, and how many times I've won with it, but the ratio should look something like 5:1. I find that I very rarely lose with this build, have excellent survivability, devent team fight control, and a high damage output to boot. I hope that this guide will help you, if not win games, better understand Garen, and I encourage you to try and create your own build.

Note, that this is a high-DPS Control Off-Tank Garen, as he should be played. Not attempting a Physical Carry or even the Tank role, as Garen does not provide particularly high Damage VS Survivability going into a Carry build, and lack some key abilities that a Tank would often posses, as in a chain of excellent CC (EX Leona, Allistar) or anti-focus fire capacities such as Shen or Rammus. Garen was designed as a Tanky-DPS, better known as an Off-Tank and he does what he needs to quite nicely.

Let's get into the details, shall we?

Let's discuss the Pros and Cons to using Garen.

PROS
-Incredible Lane-Stay Capacity
-Mana-less Champion (Less Micromanaging of stats!)
-Strong foundation of natural bulk
-Judgement (Elaboration Forthcoming)
-Tank-Buster Ultimate

CONS
-Lack of Crowed Control effects
-Becomes reliant on Team
-Easily CC'd
-Lacks substantial Defensive Cooldowns

Garen is a bulky Off-tank/DPS who is constrained only by Cooldowns, making CDR excellent for Garen. Garen provides excellent damage and acts as an effective off-tank, also provides a frequent Insta-Kill Ultimate (Low Health Targets) that is great for tank busting, an effective anti-castor and all-around badass.

Let's take a look at one of the most basic things when it comes to building a Champion, Masteries. As you can see, I suggest building through the Offense Tree and then subbing into the Tank Tree, instead of vice-versa. Why? Garen already has substantial natural bulk as a strong, solid foundation. The Offense Tree compliments this by providing Garen with plenty of extra DPS. A few key decisions are the Cooldown Reduction (CDR) Talent, the additional 4% Damage overall, and the Armor Penetration Talent that bypasses a small amount of the opponent's armor completely. The few talents in the Tank Tree synergize with Garen's passive and provide better survivability against Mages in lane at earlier levels.

Though you can use Runes of your choosing, I would suggest Attack Damage Marks, Health Seals, Cooldown Reduction Glyphs and Attack Damage Quintessences to further hype up Garen's brute power.

Other Choices You Can Use (And Why I Don't)

MARKS
Armor Penetration Marks: Since you're not looking at dealing damage EXCLUSIVELY, I feel just sheer attack damage has more Utility on Garen. You can hit Mages harder, and have the capacity to deal more sheer AoE damage with Judgment amidst a Team Fight.
Health Marks:This is an easy answer; the Health Seals are simply a better choice for overall utility.

SEALS
Critical Strike: The reason I don't use Critical Strike Seals, since they would Synergyze with Judgement, is because of the fact that they alone do not offer a significant change in damage. Thusly, they do not provide quite as much utility as Health Seals.

GENERAL OTHER CHOICES

Health Regeneration Runes: Due to Garen's passive, he doesn't need forced Health Regen quite as badly as other Champions for Lane Staying Power. It comes natural to Garen.

Armor Penetration: Again, you're not looking at a Champion that was designed to take down other Champions, so the need to pierce armor isn't quite as necessary on other Champions like Tryndamere, who need to bypass large chucks of armor and do significant damage, particularly to tanks.

Armor:
Simply put, you won't need it. Between the passive from Courage and the items you should be building for, it's not necessary.

This is all for now.