Garen Build Guide by Palthios

nice build ill test it ;)

Nice build !

Nice build, tried it out in a game, i didnt get optimal results, cuz i went negative and lost the game, BUT! we had almost got them, while i was doing lots of damage, securing kills with my ulti, this build is great for dps garen. definately +1 from me.

EDIT : I forgot to mention, this build also makes Garen extremely squishy, even when you do get a FoN and the Frozen Mallet and such, any items to counter this, while staying in the fight? i think that would be a nice addition to this guide that new Garen players will appreciate, so they dont go all "I KEEP DYING, THIS BUILD IS NOOB!" because if they dont know how to survive a team fight, they are just gonna troll you. So, any thoughts of how to make garen as durable as an off tank while still hitting like a truck?

You can build more bulk, but its not possible to do so and still deal good damage. If you do your going to turn yourself into an off tank. High damage means being squishy. Although I never felt like I was too squishy with this build.

Im guessing one of three things happened with the game you were in. 1. You didn't have a tank, 2. You were up against a fed team, or 3. the game lasted a really long time.

1. If you didn't have a tank, that's an unfortunate situation for Garen to be in because everyone is going to be looking at you to fill the role. I would suggest not playing AD Garen unless you have a tank or an off tank like Blitzcrank that can initiate a fight.

I dont recommend building Garen full tank under any circumstance. But if you dont have a tank and you want to play Garen you should go with the off tank role. Technically off tank Garen is a better tank then full tank Garen because he can actually pull aggro. My off tank build is Doran's Shield, Boots of Swiftness, Frozen Mallet, Atma's Impaler, Force of Nature, Infinity Edge, with the last slot open to the situation. If you need more magic rez get Banshees. If you need more armor get Sunfire because its also giving you more AD with Atma's. This build works very well but I dont feel that your doing nearly enough damage to justify the amount of kills you'll be getting.

If I get enough requests I'll put my off tank build in the guide but as for now Ive chosen to focus on AD Garen.

2. If the team was fed there's not much you can do because you're already playing catch up.

3. If the game lasted a really long time and most players finished their builds, just about everyone is squishy at this point under the right amount of focus.

One thing people need to realize it that you cant play AD Garen like a tank. You cant start a fight, spin and expect to last more then 2 seconds. Your tank needs to start the fight and you should follow afterward. And make sure you aren't spinning late game to deal damage. Late game your auto attacking and using Judgement for its utility. Like any carry the lifesteal is going to help sustain yourself. Also, there's a reason Flash is in this build. If you pull too much aggro, Flash and get back into the fight after someone else pulls.

I would suggest giving it a few more shots to let yourself adjust to a different playstyle and to see how it works with different team comps.

Anyway, thanks for the votes and comments. Im glad you guys are liking it so far.

+1, though your hate for Tank Garen is completely unjustified and I think you have just had some bad experiences with terribad Garen players, and there are a LOT of them out there...

First off, thanks for the vote and comment.

But there's bad players for every champ. That never stopped me from seeing the good in them. I also have 2 good friends that play tank Garen. Both good players, but I cringe every time I see them pick Garen. Why? Because I know that the rest of the team is going to have their work cut out for them if the game lasts more then 30 minutes.

The 30 minutes mark is the point where tank Garen becomes almost completely useless. He has no control over the battlefield and his damage is hardly noticeable that late in the game. All he can do is throw himself in the middle of the enemy team but there's no reason to focus him. At all. He has no strong CC and hes not a threat. Those are completely justifiable reasons he shouldn't tank. The only thing he can do that late in the game is hunt down runaways with his ult. That's if he didn't use it sooner KSing someone.

I dont know all this just from observation. Ive tanked Garen. I know what his uses are and they are few. If your going to tank Garen, off tank is the only way to go. Hes not indestructible and he does damage so there's a reason for him to be focused. But even still... Id much rather have someone like Blitzcrank on my team any day of the week.

Ive seen AD Garen in high elo matches and even in tournaments. But Ive never seen a tank Garen in either. The reason being that its not viable at all.

your guide is perfect, but your items sucks. And your completely wrong about tank garen, aswell as judgement. Judgement is one of the skills with highest lategame damage in the whole ****ing game lol. feel free to check out my build, and if you like what you see, add it to your guide, as im a terrible guide- writer. and btw, what the hell does a garen need a phantom dancer for? and you might wanna add 2-4 crit-chance marks.

EDIT: why dont you build warmogs lol???? you will end up at 4000 hp if you get a sunfire too. and that will make you have the same damage as FM gives you + A LOT of hp + 35 magic damage per second. only minus is the loss of the passive of FM, but if you learn to allways activate Q before E, it should be fine.

oh, forgot 1 more thing. you need more aPt. you can hope to crit a maximum of 200 with your current amount lategame. brutaizer is a must.

Garen was the second champion I bought and I dumped him after finding out how weak he is. I read your guide and realized I've never played DPS Garen before. I have the exact same runes as you except i have flat AD quints and 3 flat ad marks. So I tested this guide out. I never new that judgements early game damage was so broken. It must be the runes but at level 1 judgement takes like 70% of a squishes health.

I've only played a few games so far and still have trouble staying alive long enough to kill more than 1 person in a large team fight late game but still +1.

It doesnt surprise me that my first downvote came from a competitor. One who didnt even bother to actually try my build. Thanks a lot.

I have seen your guide before and I have no intention of copying your build. You do know that this is a DPS guide right? You can say what items work best on him and whatever works for you is great. But dont go into other peoples guides and downvote without even trying it out, because you dont see how it would work. If my items sucked I wouldn't have risen to the top 5 guides in under 48 hours.

As for tank Garen, Ive said plenty and I don't feel like defending my position on that any further, just so I can repeat myself.

But you are completely and totally wrong about Judgment. The only way your doing good damage with it late game is if no one builds bonus health or armor. It doesn't scale well into late game. It doesn't proc with lifesteal and it doesn't proc with the 250% crit bonus from Infinity Edge. Judgement isn't going to kill late game when people have attack speed, lifesteal, health and armor. Especially since Judgement never does X amount of damage faster then one hit per second. It doesn't scale against health and armor and it doesn't hit hard or fast enough to compete with attack speed and lifesteal.

I think your tricking yourself into thinking that your doing more damage then your are. Probably by spinning an enemy that's being focused by other members of your team. If you want to see how much damage your spin is doing late game, play a custom game with a friend. Have him or her play someone like Xin with a normal DPS/Lifesteal build with one health and one armor item. Have a fair fight after you finish your builds, with no summoner spells. Your spin wont be doing any notable damage because Xin will get it all back with lifesteal. And your build contains no attack speed outside of ghostblade and no lifesteal either. You'll get wrecked. Obviously this is a team game but this is just a way to see how you damage stacks up.

At the end of a game look at the "Damage Dealt" graphs in the end game lobby. With a build like that I wouldn't be surprised if you were in last place if the game lasts more then 30 minutes.