I am doing this guide because garen used to be my main champion I have played him for a long time. In season 3 it is one of the best Bruiser tank, a good thing about him is that everyone can play him, he is an easy champion with really nice skills but I will explain his skills at that section

Garen is a top lane champion there are 2 main reasons of why he is a really good top laner
1 No mana/health cost to use abilities.
2 Really nice health regeneration passive

Pros:
- Good farming ability
- High movement speed
- Naturally tanky
- Good finishing skill
- Strong early game
- High sustainability
- Easy to play
Cons:
- Easy to kite
-No strong CC
-Not the best late game scaling

In Season 2 masteries for garen were 21-9-0 but now with the change in the masteries and the new meta for Season 3 the best masteries that you can get as a top laner are 9-21-0, also the reason of why a 9-21 masteries are better than a 21-9 is that there are some masteries that reduce the damage that you take, this combined with your runes gives you a really nice advantage in early game, this is better against an ad top cause the runes that I recomend are Magic resist per level so you will get more mr after lvl 6 or 7 I don't remember at this time. I will explain more at the building section.

Garen skills are these:
Passive Perseverance

(Innate) Garen will regenerate 0.4% of his maximum health per second after not receiving damage for 9 seconds. The regenerative state will stop if Garen receives damage.



Decisive Strike

(Active) Garen gains bonus movement speed for 4 seconds and removes all slows currently on him. In addition his next melee attack within 4.5 seconds will deal physical damage and silence its target.
No Cost
Cooldown: 8 seconds
Bonus Movement Speed: 35%
Total Physical Damage: 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130
(+1.4 per attack damage)
Movement Speed Duration: 1.5 / 2.25 / 3 / 3.75 / 4.5 seconds
Silence Duration: 1.5 / 1.75 / 2 / 2.25 / 2.5 seconds




Courage:



(Passive) Armor and Magic Resistance Garen gains from Items, Runes, and Masteries are increased by 20%.

(Active) Garen places a defensive shield on himself, decreasing all damage taken by a percentage and reducing the effectiveness of Crowd Control by 30%.
No Cost
Damage Reduced: 30%
Duration: 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 seconds
Cooldown: 24 / 23 / 22 / 21 / 20 seconds



Judgment

(Active) Garen rapidly spins his sword around his body for 3 seconds dealing physical damage to nearby enemies every half second. Minions and neutral monsters only take 75% damage from this ability. Garen can deactivate Judgment early by activating the ability again after 0.5 seconds. Judgment's damage can critically strike, in which case, only the bonus damage will be multiplied. While spinning, Garen ignores unit collision but takes a 20% movement speed penalty when moving through minions.
No Cost
Radius of AoE: 330
Cooldown: 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9 seconds
Physical Damage per Second: 20 / 45 / 70 / 95 / 120
(+0.7 / 0.8 / 0.9 / 1.0 / 1.1 total attack damage)
Total Physical Damage: 60 / 135 / 210 / 285 / 360
(+2.1 / 2.4 / 2.7 / 3.0 / 3.3 total attack damage)



Demacian Justice

(Active) Garen brings down Demacian Justice on his opponent, dealing magic damage, plus additional magic damage based on how much health his opponent is missing.
No Cost
Range: 400
Cooldown: 160 / 120 / 80 seconds
Magic Damage: 175 / 350 / 525
Additional 1 Damage per: 3.5 / 3 / 2.5 health missing (29 / 33 / 40% of target's missing health)



The skill combo for garen is in lane just use Q,E,W then retreat, use your ultimate(R) as your killing blow use it when your enemies have low health about 40% of his health.

As all of you know or as a lot should know you should buy items depending on the enemy team so for example if you are against an ap top like nidalee, rumble or elise you should rush a hexdrinker, also remember to ALWAYS BUY WARDS at low levels wards aren't that important because you usually play with double top but after level 20 you will be facing with junglers so to prevent ganks you should buy wards almost every time that you recall, if you don't have a ward don't overextend and just last hit don't use your skills to farm cause this will push your lane and without a ward the enemy will gank you and get the kill.