Stridebreaker: You are buying this item basically every game. You might have 1 out of 200 games where you don't buy it at all, but almost always you get it. It is extremely good for
Garen. The slow is very good and it gives you a way to activate
Phase Rush quickly by doing Q
+E
+
Stridebreaker.
Phantom Dancer: Another incredible item for
Garen. You get 2/3 spins
from this item just by itself, it's absolutely massive how much more damage you get with it and the high
movement speed
is also insane for
Garen.
Mortal Reminder:
Garen usually really likes this item due to the
armor pen
it gives and in most team comps the enemies have at least a healing champion so it's great for shutting down any heal.
Lord Dominik's Regards: You only build this if the enemy team has
no extra healing, and when I say none, I mean literally no champion on the enemy team can mega heal off anything, because otherwise
Mortal Reminder is just better.
Chempunk Chainsword: Seems very wired to place this as an item for
Garen, but it's actually quite good in a setup where you want to do
Black Cleaver but also need heal reduction, because you cannot buy both
Mortal Reminder and
Cleaver
at the same time.
Infinity Edge: You can get this when you are going to get either 50%
crit
total from it or 75%
. The damage amp is nuts and your spin
will melt people insanely fast.
Warmog's Armor: Very underrated
Garen item. You can take it dead last to make sure you full heal from 1% to 100% in 20 seconds because of your passive
and the item combination. You can also take it as a second item right after
Stridebreaker into some specific matchups where you can use the sustain to perma hit and run. It can be an extrmely annoying thing for the opponents to deal with, because literally any trade that you take, as long as you don't die, you will win. If you want to take it second you need to take 2 small
health runes and
Overgrowth to get to the 2000 bonus
health mark.
Sterak's Gage: Very good item to take as your last item against anti burst, or can be done in a more bruiser focused setup, or even somewhere around your 3rd item. Also, because your W
and
Sterak's
tenacity stack additively, it means you will have 80% tenacity when you pop your W
, and with
Elixir of Iron you go all the way up to 100%.
Serpent's Fang: Very good item for
Garen. The
lethality
from it is a very underrated aspect about it and the shield cut is very good vs a lot of matchups and team comps. A lot of bruiser top laners will buy
Sterak's Gage to eat
Garen's ultimate
and this will make the shield go to half instantly.
Spear of Shojin: The way this item stacks up for
Garen is very interesting. Your Q
will give you 1 stack, but your spin
will always give you only 3 stacks
no matter how many spins you have, so even if you have like 12 spins you won't get more stacks. That being said, it gets fully stacked after the full rotation, meaning your ultimate
will deal the maximum damage. If you also take the rune
Axiom Arcanist you will nuke people from much higher
health totals and it can really catch them off guard.
Trinity Force: This item is usually only taken when you are looking to hard 1v1 your opponent and you need as much dueling power as possible. It's also good to take it when you run a
Conqueror setup, but not always needed.
Garen has one of the highest base
AD totals in the game so he can use the
Sheen effect really well. You can also use it in a lethality focused setup to absolutely nuke someone with just your Q
.
Black Cleaver: Very good item for
Garen, though the issue with it is that you cannot buy both
Black Cleaver and
Mortal Reminder, it literally locks the option to buy
Mortal
, so you can do it in specfic cases where you actually need it as a second or first item for the matchup you are playing vs or if your team is close to full ad and needs someone with cleaver to shred down in fights. If you combine it with your spin
you will actually shred a lot in teamfights, almost half of the
armor of an enemy.
Jak'Sho, the Protean: This can be done as a close to final item or the final item itself, the stats it gives are very good for
Garen and it pairs up very well with your W
passive, giving you even more stats. With just this item you can have 200
armor and 150
magic resist, and no other
armor or
mr
giving item.
Iceborn Gauntlet: Can be a very solid item for
Garen the slow actually feels pretty good, on top of the extra tankiness the item provides. It's basically the more utility focused
Sheen item, so if you don't need the duel power of
Trinity Force you can take
Iceborn
instead. You can also take this when you max your Q
to get some good damage and have good stick potential.
Force of Nature: Solid
magic resist choice for
Garen if you are also looking to get a lot of
speed
as well. You won't be super low when it stacks fully due to the fact that you can use your W
to block damage or cc, so you can use the
magic resist and
speed
it gives a lot better.
Kaenic Rookern: Nothing beats
Kaenic Rookern for bruisers who buy a lot of
health, the shield is nuts and helps out a ton. If you want to never get 1 shot by
Evelynn or half healthed by a
Zoe bubble
+Q
, buy this and they will probably barely break it alongside your W
shield.
Youmuu's Ghostblade: This can be very good if you are playing into a very squishy team comp, the burst and speed the item provides is pretty good. You can also do it in a high
lethality
setup.
Edge of Night: This item is built vs
Vayne so she cannot use her E
on you so you can stick to her, or can be tried vs
Singed as he also cannot use his E
on you as no spell of his breaks your shield. You can also try it in a
lethality
focused setup.
Opportunity: You only really build this when you are going for a heavy
lethality
setup, but it can deal a lot of damage.
The Collector: This is only built into a heavy
lethality
focused setup, but it can allow you to execute people from higher health totals with your ultimate
, you can do it at almost 40% health in the late game due to this.
Axiom Arc: You buy this in heavy
lethality
setups and abuse the lower ultimate
cooldown
to kill people a lot around the map.
Serylda's Grudge: The slow is decent but usually after they are below half health they will die anyway if your ultimate
is up.
Immortal Shieldbow: Can be done as a final item, usually when you get this you will have either 75% or 100%
crit
from it, and you go all the way up to 100% every single spin
you do will
crit
without fail, so you will melt people. The shield is also decent protection, but nothing massive.
Sundered Sky: You can get this in matchups where you really need to sustain up hard and take only short trades. I haven't found anything in particular where's it's amazing, but it can work decently.
Hullbreaker: You can buy this if you really want to sit on side lane and demolish turrets. It works great to give you side lane pressure and it makes it to where the enemy cannot really clear out the wave as quickly due to the buffed up cannon.
Death's Dance: Not a bad item for
Garen, though you take it dead last and no sooner. You can jump into an entire team and if you hard burst someone and get the bleed heal you probably win the teamfight, as long as your team backs you up. You can eat so much damage with this item.
Rapid Firecannon: Extremely niche item, you don't really build it but it can be fun to have an increased Q
range, but most of the time you basically never do it. Can be fun though.
Guardian Angel: Can be a decent last item if you know you need to trade 1 for 1 in a late game teamfight. Usually late game a single fight decided the outcome of a game, so if you revive but the enemy you took down doesn't it can be enough to win you the game.
Dead Man's Plate: Very solid item for
Garen, the
speed
is really good and even though your Q
cleanses slows, the slow resist is not bad.
Randuin's Omen: Can be built vs
crit
champions such as
Tryndamere,
Yone,
Yasuo, etc. Into
Tryndamere specifically you can do it as a 2nd or 3rd item to deal with his
crit
damage, because his
crit chance will probably be 100 very quickly point.
Thornmail: You don't really do this item on
Garen as you go for
Mortal Reminder, but there are some niche cases where it can be good.
Spirit Visage: The passive increases both your W
shield and your passive
healing, but usually you want to build it when there is also some healing or shielding enchanters such as
Soraka,
Sona or
Seraphine.
Tier 2 boot upgrades:
Berserker's Greaves: They used to be your go-to boots, but they've slowly lost a lot of power through repeated nerfs and now I feel like they're not always a take. There's still matchups where you take them, but not as many by far. When you buy them you will only gain a single spin on your E
.
Boots of Swiftness: I think generally speaking they are now the default boots choice for
Garen. The
Movement Speed is really good, and combined with the slow resist it's really tough for peoeple to ever catch you.
Plated Steelcaps: Solid boots vs a ton of auto attackers or some specific lane matchups where you wanna surive, such as
Tryndamere.
Ionian Boots of Lucidity: They can be really good if you need your
Flash up sooner vs specific team comps, and combined with
Cosmic Insight you can have your summoner spells up my quicker than your opponents might expect
Mercury's Treads: Very underrated choice. The tenacity you get from your W
will stack additively, meaning you won't get diminishing returns from it, so if you use your W
you will have 90% tenacity for that small duration, meaning you can basically go through any crowd control effect and keep going. This is great in some lane matchups such as
Gragas or
Kennen.
Symbiotic Soles: I think they are actually very good, especially when you look to proxy a lot. Getting a 4 second recall is great to quickly reset after you clear a wave behind the enemy turret and to ensure you get out in time, as well as allowing you to stay in lane for a bit longer than normal before rotating to an objective on the other side of the map. Once they actually upgrade into
Synchronized Souls they become even better, making you very quick around the map, giving you a lot of side lane pressure and rotation power.
Tier 3 boot upgrades:
Gunmetal Greaves: The speed you gain when you hit an enemy champ with an auto attack feels pretty solid, the only issue is that
Garen doesn't ever use his auto attacks during his spin
, so during that time there's no way he can proc up the speed unless he cancels it, and that's not really worth it.
Swiftmarch: Very good boots if you can actually get them. You will be insanely quick with them and you will be way less kitable.
Armored Advance: The shield these boots give basically means that against physical damage you're most likely never going to lose the short trades anymore.
Crimson Lucidity: His E
only procs the
Movement Speed effect for damaging enemy champions a single time and it will not refresh it. That being said, the duration of the
Movement Speed buff is long enough to where it should be on for the entire spin duration.
Chainlaced Crushers: Very good shield to have vs magic damage. If they have a lot of long range
AP champions that want to poke you down it will take them longer to chip you down consistently.
Forever Foward: They are just like the
Synchronized Souls but even quicker, amping up how fast you move when out of combat even further.
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