Hello all, I am the mastery 7 Garen main who has more mastery points on Varus than Garen. According to Riot's in client system, my Garen averages are above Diamond levels and I've been playing him since season 5. I hope this guide helps many of you learn to play Garen to a high level and climb with him.

I would love it for you all to link your OP GG in the comments to show me your success and growth after reading my guide and polishing your Garen play.

Garen is not overly mechanically intensive, so he forces you to be sound in your decision making, which can also transfer over to playing other champions and help you improve at the game in general. If you do get a lead as Garen, you can carry hard and it can become hard to shut you down as even if they send 2 to deal with you you can usually kill both because of your ult and the execute healing from the Triumph rune. After killing an enemy laner Garen can gain 2 armor and mr easily from the minion waves before their return which will make him even harder to kill; many of your opponents won't even think about this.

Against other laners or someone who stands too close to minions to cs, look to stand in the skirmish line and farm until they move up to cs and then Q them and use extra move speed to run away and lose minion agro. Because you were farming while waiting, Grasp proc will be up and make your Q nuke harder while simultaneously farming max hp with Grasp and offering regen if they tried to trade back with you. Always look to make these "lightening trades" because Garen will win almost everytime, and even if he doesn't his passive will regen him up if he plays a little more passive for a short amount of time. Eventually the enemy should be low enough that if they try to move up for CS you can flash Q onto them and start your E. If you get the silence off before they can flash then they will be forced to take most of your E damage and you can use Ult right after they flash to finish them and burn their flash; if Garen stays ontop of an opponent then his Ult range exceeds that of flash. Follow up on kills by roaming to gank, looking for the enemy jungler, or doing tower damage.

That is the laning phase in a nutshell, so on to the teamfighting stage of the game. Pick the top target on the enemy team and tunnel vision on them and delete them at the beginning of every fight. A nice trick to get mobile targets is to Q E Ignite and Ult early for upfront damage before your silence wears off and Ignite will finish them in most cases.

Garen works very well as an aggressive champ and is fairly mechanically simple and straight forward while having huge stat dumps, this means he can be strong but at the cost of needing to be ahead to perform well in team fights. When behind focus more on securing a kill on anyone to get them out of the fight and go back to farming.

Ignite

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Ignite allows for earlier kills and you can ult someone early if you have ignite on them which can allow you to live by getting a kill and having time to get out. To ensure you get max damage on someone Q to silence followed by E and ignite while you are spinning on them.

TP

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Take TP against losing matchups like ranged bullies. If an enemy locks a ranged bully for Top, take TP and sit undertower so they are not allowed to play the game. To them playing the game will consist of farming while they wait on a chance to bully you, but if you play so passive that they cant even drop you to half they will begin to tilt and really go for you when you bait for the jungle gank coming your way or kill them yourself at 6. After getting sheen and a kill or 2 you can take control of the lane and pressure them with your stats and damage threat. Using Q to pretend to run at them and then finishing a minion with it.

Itemization changes from game to game, but I tend to rush sheen first every time for the insane extra nuke on Q. Garen tends to do better with more damage items and 1 or 2 survival items but may need more HP to deal with squishies that he can already delete focusing him down or more damage to delete squishies that are a problem.

Sheen

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High value rush item, fairly cheap for a first back and provides a surprising amount of damage to surprise the enemy with when you return. Also adds damage to auto after W and E which helps with early damage. Finish into Tri-force asap but finishing boots first when you arent very far ahead is also good. Bush trick often: Q the enemy and walk into the bush with your left over move speed to lose minion agro or walk into the bush and Q out to the enemy. Don't be afraid to waste Ult as you will have plenty of CDR in the build and the Ult will not take long to recharge. Get kills and do damage to tower or roam for objectives and then back to spend the gold if you have enough.

Boots

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Typically take tabi against AD heavy tops or comps and murc treads against magic comps and laners once you get boots or phage it becomes easier to use the isolation mechanic on Garen's E. If the spin is only hitting one enemy that enemy takes 33% increased damage from it on top of the shred causing it to do more anyway. When you start spining try to position just far enough away from the minions while keeping the enemy within your range, for ex when they run away from minons follow them with E for extra damage on an all in.

Ghostblade

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Buy this to stick onto mobile high priority targets that will be knocking you around like Vayne or Draven. The lethality it provides also helps to go through enemies trying to halfheartedly counter you with tabi and provides more roaming potential and rotation speed with it's passive.

Titanic

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Titanic can be activated to stack the buff with Q before autoing an enemy to increase the nuke by over 200 in the mid game and offers more survivabilty and pushing power for a reasonable amount of gold for the stats you get. Against enemies with more HP and less evasiveness, you can ring more damage out by auto weaving: Just Q normally and then immediately use the attack reset on hydra and then start spin. This second method provides more overall damage but gives the enemy time to flash and use mobility to avoid some of the spins damage after armor reduction; typically it is best to deal with high damage squishies in the first fashion to ensure a quick kill

Death's Dance

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Death's Dance gives alot of damage adds survivability in the form of sustain and reducing burst damage which makes it an amazing item to buy right after Tri-Force as it helps make up for the health disparity caused by opting for Tri over Black Cleaver. When combined with Tri-Force you now possess mobility, healing based on physical damage dealt, huge burst damage, huge AOE damage over time, an above average health pool, and hopefully by that point you have maxed your mr and armor gain from W.