Garen Build Guide by UlisesFRN

Hi there! My name is Ulises and im a Garen Main since season 7! I´been playing Top Lane in LoL since 2016, with different accounts and long breaks

This is made for new players, so they can pick Garen, read this guide and be ready to start playing in the top lane! But everyone can learn something new from this, give tips, etc...
The Guide is currently on progress, and i expect to update it at least twice per week until i manage to finish it with all the chapters and explanations i can give
I hope everybody who spend time here will leave with new knowledge from our favourite fidget spinner. As we all know, Garen is a very good pick for low Elo(Iron-Platinum) and is a very nice champ to Main. He is rather popular and hated tho, so chances are a lot of times he is going to get picked or banned by the enemy team, thus i suggest to learn other champs you like in order to have an ace up your sleeve.

Also dont get discouraged if someone mock on you for playing Garen. He is considered a NoobChamp, but that is something stupid i want to cover in the next chapters.



Stay tuned for new updates!

Garen is the stereotype a Bruiser. What is a Bruiser you may ask?

A Bruiser is a kind of Champion that mixes the characteristics of both AD Carry and a Tank. They are very flex champs that can play around a more Aggressive role, but can also work as a secondary Frontline. They build items with Damage, Health and Armor/MR, becoming tanky while being able to deal some damage. Also they are usually AD CAsters, wich mean that they playstyle is oriented towards Skills rather than Auto-Attacks.


As you can see, Garen just was designed around this idea, to make an easy Champ to play that can be builded and played in a lot of different ways and fill any role the team lacks.

Pros → Easy to pick and play → Strong Early/Mid Game → Tanky but able to deal lots of damage → Can be builded in a lot of diff ways → Sustain in lane → Can be played in Top and Mid

Cons → Easy to kite → Lacks hard CC → Has lots of hard matchups → Doesnt have any outplay capabilities → Hard to engage with him → Relies on Cooldowns

Now relating to the term NoobChamp i would like to put it clear. There is not such thing in LoL. Yes, of course there are certain Champions better suited for new players, and there are others that requires much more mechanical play to do good with, but there is no Champ that you pick and instantly Win, mainly because what matters the most in League is MacroGame(aka Objectives). Garen is a champ with a fairly Easy Kit,but has his weakness like all others, plus he has a lot of Counters, and is very easy to play against once you learn how to. His Win-Rate in High Elo is pretty low because you actually need to know pretty well how to play the Game in order to win with Garen,like all his "noob" partners, grant new players with an efficient Champion to Start Playing, yet you need to learn the same Macro that a Riven, Lee Sin, Aphelios main needs to know to win Games. Champions with an easy Kit tend to be more predictable, more easy to Counter and also have less Skill Cap, so playing Garen, Annie or Master Yi can actually be pretty challenging

PASSIVE ABILITY

PERSEVERANCE (PASSIVE): Garen heals over time after being 8 seconds out of combat. Receiving minion damage doesnt reset the 8 seconds counter. The amount Garen heals depends on the level, being 1,5% of his maximun life at first, and 10,1% at max level over 5 seconds. This means you have decent sustain in Laning Fase to make trades with your opponent, but also you will be healing a lot later on,so Garen can stay a lot of time without doing a reset. While healing during the first minutes of the game, try to hide on a bush near the minion wave. This way, you will still get the Experience from the minions, rather than healing under your Turret. Epic Monsters, Turrets and Champions will reset your Perseverance counter so be careful when engaging them at low life. Also try to evade Ranged Matchups, as they tend to Poke you down and is very hard to trigger your passive without receiving damage from them.

Q

DECISIVE STRIKE (Q): Garen removes all Slow Effects applied on him, gaining bonus Movement Speed (30%) while also empowering his next Basic Attack, dealing bonus damage and Silence the opponent. Now this skill is key in Garen´s Kit, and may be hard to understand to any newcomer to the Game. First of all, Garen removes al Slow effects, wich means that if you were hit by any skill that makes you move slower, press Q and it will be removed, plus you also gain an extra 30% Movement Speed that last for 1/1.65/2.3/2.95/3.6 seconds depending on the Level of the Skill. Also,the next Basic Attack within 4.5 seconds will deal a lot more Damage and Silence the opponent, wich means he will not be able to use any Skills or Summoner Spell during 1.5 seconds after being hit.Another important thing is that your Decisive Strike is an AutoAttack Reset. This means that if you Auto Attack,then press Q and attack again, it will be faster than 2 regular AutoAttacks. An ussual way to do this is AA+(Q AA)+AA. I will explain all the possible combos with this later on the Guide.

W

COURAGE (W):This Skill is divided in two parts, one is a Passiveeffect and the other is an Activeeffect. Its Passive starts stacking since the beginning,gaining 1 stack for each UNIT killed. Each stack grants permanent 0.25 Armor/Magic Resistance. At 150 Stacks(30 of each Armor/MR) Garen will also gain a bonus of 10% Resistances. This Passive makes Garen tanky even if we build Full Damage. The Second Part, the Active Skill reduces incoming damage by flat 30% during 2 to 5 seconds depending on the Level of the Ability. Also, for the first 0.75 seconds, he will gain a buff of Tenacity(60%) and a Shield that scales with our Maximun Health. This Ability is key for Garen, you need to time it well and try to stop the majority of incoming damage during the first 0.75 seconds so the Shield blocks it.

E

JUDGMENT (E): Main Ability and the re***on why people mocks on Garen. Easy to explain, during the next 3 Seconds Garen spins around him, ignoring Unit Collision and dealing damage to everyone near him.Some things to say: → Garen spins for flat 3 seconds, but the amount of hits depends on your Attack Speed. This means that the more AS is in your build, the more damage this Skill does. More about this on itemization → Garen can Critically Strike while spinning. this deals 33% more damage than a Regular Spin → The Damage is increased by 50% against Non-Epic Monsters → Garen deals more Damage to the closest Enemy,so if you are hitting 5 people at a time, try to get closer to your Focus → If you hit the same Champ 6 times while spinning, he will get his Armor reduced by 25%. Nice for dealing damage to the Enemy Tank → You can Early Cancel the skill by pressing it again. You can use this to execute a target with your Ult rather than risking for an enemy Flash

ULTIMATE

DEMACIAN JUSTICE (ULTIMATE):Point an Click Ability, click on an enemy Champion in the area around you, gaining True Sight of Him( No Escape) then after a brief cast, a Big Fokin Sword fells from the Sky landing on his head, dealing True Damage depending on the level of the Ability + a percentage of the Target missing Health. If you time it well, this is one of the best Executes that arent True Executes. This allows you to win almost any 1v1, so level 6 is a huge Power Spike for Garen. Just dont drop it very Early, wait for the target to be at around 30% of life before Ult. The first matches will be hard for you to tell when the enemy is in execute range, but later on there will be no problem, is just a matter of practice. Also dont waste your Ult, it has a large cooldown and is not always necessary for securing kills.

So, here i will speak a bit about your possible Combos

1--- Decisive Strike+ Judgment---Simple Combo for Poking,just use your Q to chase and Silence him,then Spin around to prevent the Trade Back. You can use your E to run through the Minions, so the opponent will be blocked by them.

2---AA+ Decisive Strike+AA+ Judgment---This is Garen basic All In Pre6 Combo. Your Q works as an AA reset so you can hit 3 Attacks much faster.

3--- Judgment+AA+ Decisive Strike+AA---Classic Combo against heavy Tanks without mobility. You shred their Armor with the E Spin then use the AA Cancel Combo to apply Max Damage

4---AA+ Judgment+AA+ Decisive Strike+AA---You can also cancel the AA animation with your E, so you can do this combo to All In if you are at melee Range.

As you can see, Garen doesnt have a ton of Combos to learn. As far as you know how to cancel the AA animation you are fine. As a side note: You can use both Courage and Demacian Justice at any moment during any of this Combos. You have to time your Courage just in order to prevent the most damage with it, and time well your Demacian Justice to Execute them. You dont get any benefit from Last Hitting with your Ult, but some Champs can escape very low or even Heal back and kill you so be careful.

PRECISION

So Conqueror is the best KeyStone for Garen hands down. He is one of the best users of the Rune since your Judgment grants 2 stacks per hit. At 12 Stacks, you Heal for some of the Damage done.It also gives you extra AD per stack so you will deal more damage wich again is great, plus the Secondary Runes of the Precision Tree are the best ones in my opinion. Only real downside is that you are less tanky.

RESOLVE

Grasp of the Undying is a personal favourite of mine. While its offensive power is far away from Conqueror, you become so much tanky with it, plus you have a really strong laning phase and a very good teamfight later on. With this KeyStone, you pretty much stop being a Bruiser in order to fill a Tank role on the team. Tips i can give with Resolve are: -Max your Decisive Strike first as a poking tool and to keep proc the Grasp -Build more tanky. You should build Divine Sunderer but go Tank after that

SECONDARY RUNES

Nothing to say, the other 2 doesnt really do anything for Garen, plus restoring Health per kill is nuts during teamfights and in clutch situations

All 3 Runes of this Slot are actually very good, but Tenacity is one of the better Stats to have on Garen. Sometimes you can choose Legend: Alacrity, if the Enemy Team lacks CC or if you want to go for a more AD Build

Is the best of this Slot. While Coup de Grace may seem a good choice,the Damage it provides is ussualy lower plus Last Stand gives us more "Outplay" Potential. Coup can be a nice option in matchups against more Squishy Champs tho, so its actually a flexible Rune Slot. Cut Down is never good on Garen




SECONDARY RUNES

Best Rune of the Slot. With 45s Cooldown, you can deliver a heavy blow to the Enemy Tower. The Damage is a flat 100 +35% of your Max Health

This Slot is very situational. Bone Plating is the best one for Laning Phase and Trades, but is very bad in Poke Lanes. Second Wind is the way to go against that kind of matchups. You heal a bit after getting Poked, paired with Doran's Shield will give you lots of Sustain. Conditioning may be the worst of the 3, but is still decent if you are comfy about Laning Phase and want to be more Tanky later on.

Standard Option here. This Rune will grant you around 250 Extra Health. Very usefull to be more tanky. Revitalize can be decent at Poke Lanes. Unflinching is ok if they have tons of CC.




SECONDARY RUNES

If you pick Sorcery as your go-to, its because this. Take Ignite with this and you become a Lane Bully that can SnowBall really hard. Nullifying Orb can be good against certain matchups.

Best one of the 3. I liked old transcendence more but this one is neat too.You recover cooldowns when getting eliminations wich is huge in teamfights. Celerity can be good against ranged matchups.

Really bad Slot for Garen, this one at least helps him into Late Game when he becomes weaker.



FLAT RUNES

Your E doesnt scale with AS from runes so more AD

Extra AD that helps us deal more damage.

You may use or depending on the Enemy Team Comp



VS
When to pick each one? I used to run Ignite but im currently playing with Teleport and feeling more comfy with it. I would suggest to test both of them and pick the one you like the most. If you dont know which one yet,have in mind that Ignite can be usefull when you want to snowball,but can be useless in certain hard matchups,in the other hand Teleport allows you to dont loose that much CS and Gank other Lanes to help.