Hey there. I am Nomine, a 23 year old male player from Finland who has been playing the game since around 09 summer. I've played a bit over 5k games of league so far, which translates to around 2500-3000 hours. On a bit unrelated note, I've also completed over 1000 games from gen 1 to current gen/PC. (Yes, I know.)

I haven't played much ranked, but i was Gold season 2 (only doing it for the reward), silver in season 3 (10 KDA, 42% winrate, lost a lot of games because of trolls) and I will aim for diamond/challenger this season and believe I can do it.

I'll tell you about my playstyle first so you hopefully understand this guide a bit better. I play defensively/"perfectively" and prefer jungle and support role because of it. This has some meaning in the builds I use. Some builds I post here (the non-ranked ones that I have success with) will be "fun" builds meant only for normal SR queue.

Now that you know something about me and my playstyle, let's get started with the guide; a AD heavy, somewhat risky garen jungle, with focus on assassination and crowd control/aoe.

+ 13 Armor
+ 31 Physical Dmg at level 18
+ 1.5% Move Speed %
+ 24 Magic Resist at level 18

For that extra damage lategame.

The build tries to balance around offense and defense around mid-game and Garen will do jungle just fine with this setup. I've picked Bladed Armor for this just because it helps a bit with Blue/Red and especially with Drake.

Because it's a fun build.

First buy:

1x Hunter's Machete
5x Health Potion

Second buy:

Boots
Spirit of the Elder Lizard

Full build:

Spirit of the Elder Lizard
Mercury's Treads - Furor
Sunfire Aegis
Rylai's Crystal Scepter
Atma's Impaler
Liandry's Torment
Sweeping Lens

OR

Spirit of the Elder Lizard
Mercury's Treads - Furor
Sunfire Aegis
Rylai's Crystal Scepter
Infinity Edge
Liandry's Torment
Sweeping Lens

OR you can replace Rylai and Liandry's with Black Cleaver + other item.

Starting blue:

1) Get a leash from your team.
2) Hit golem with auto-attack.
3) Use E ability.
4) When it ends, auto-attack the golem until its at 390 or lower hit-points.
5) Smite the golem at 390 or lower hit-points.
6) Auto-attack the other (lower hp) small golem 2 times to kill it.
7) Quickly level up Q, then auto-attack the next small golem.
8. Finish the last monster with a auto-attack and Q ability, then use the small speed boost to WALK to Red.
9. Auto-attack Red, quickly press Q and then press E to spin for AoE damage.
10. After the spinning ends, keep auto-attacking (and perhaps kiting) the Red.
11. When you get red low enough, use Q when it comes back from cooldown and then Smite to get it.
12. Finish the camp by auto-attacking / using Q on the smaller lizards. If you somehow aren't level 3 yet, do Wraiths and then go gank.

+ High AoE damage.
+ Good burst around mid-game
+ Stays strong lategame
+ Great assassination build
- Lower health, less tankier build
- Being less tanky and having different masteries, will also have less CC reduction
- Hard to gank lanes that have CC or dashes.
- Garen ultimate tends to kill instead of assist.
- Not meta, expect flaming from your team
- Requires teamwork with jungling unlike champions like rammus, shaco, kha etc.
- Not uncommon for your team to ignore your pings when you are playing garen jungle and require help from enemy junglers that have higher damage than you at level 2.

Early game:

1) Get level 3 from jungle
2) try to gank
3) do double golems or wolves
4) try to gank
5) do wolves or double golems
6) try to gank
7) do wraiths again
8) try to gank)
9) possibly try ganking more or do double golems
10) if you have time for another clear before backing, do wolves
11) recall and buy spirit stone + boots + pots
12) do blue and get level 6
13) repeat

Basically, keep trying to gank while keeping up the experience from jungle and getting buffs at the right times to allow faster and more surprising ganks.

When ganking, Try to think of playing as the enemy and see where you'd be most open for ganks (behind the screen, most likely). Come from the Fog of War so that enemy doesn't see you until it's too late (or bush) and then walk behind them/towards them a bit and when you get a little closer, use Q to get a speedboost and silence on the enemy. then use E and try to make sure the enemy stays CCed. Finish with ultimate. You might want to stop E and use ultimate before silence wears off to make sure the enemy doesn't flash/dash away.

The enemies just won't be able to do much damage on you when you silence them and do your sustained damage spin + execution move. You might even want to flash + silence + E + R on the enemies.

Garen is a little weak to counterjungle early in the game so it's a good idea to ask for cover on both buffs. You'll need at least level 3 to be fine.

When ganking before level 7, you'll want to be careful of taking damage from both enemy laner and jungler; you should only gank when 2vs1.

At level 7ish, Garen will be just fine in the jungle by himself and will get a nice heal from the jungle monsters with his spirit of the elder lizard item.

Garen will get stronger midgame after getting a defensive item / enough levels to increase his attack damage from runes. Your role is to assassinate people from non-warded bushes/walls/fog of war/behind corner 1vs1 while having your team ready to help you. a surprise Q + E R combo gets enemies very low, if not dead (squishies).

Mid and lategame you start moving from assassination to tankier aoe mixed DPS / CC machine. Build items depending on if enemy gets much armor or not. Scare away the enemy carries by activating your Q and if you can't reach them, go for the enemy CCers to stop them from harassing your team's carries. Be careful in teamfights; try to burst down enemies instead of taking all the damage unless you are tanky enough. With full build, you can take all the damage while doing enough damage with your AOE (if the enemy is grouped near each other). Your dots will make sure the enemy stays slowed for a good while after you are dead so your team can finish them off.