I'd like to put this out there, this build will not get you many kills you prolly won't get many turrets either so if thats all you care about too bad I like this build. It is the build of you can't kill me!

Simple very simple. Follow the age old philosophy of "If you can't kill me I can't loose". That being said allow the method to this madness to be explained! This build, after testing it myself(Clear I would have) has proven to be an AWESOME tank. This is because of several factors. 1 Armor and Magic resist through the @#$%ing roof, 2 High HP, 3 Garen's passive augmented by item and masteries.

Now as we know every tank needs armor and magic resist...if you do not know such get off now...

Annnyywwayys, The first half, armor. Now With runes masteries and items you can make a good tank, common LoL knowlage. With Garen you have the distinct advantage of his passive on courage.

The passive that is on courage gives you to advantages, 1 higher armor then other tanks(clearly) 2 it gives him to ability to get non armor items at low level. With his passive on courage he doesn't need to worry about armor at lower levels.

Now with the magic resist part of it I've always found that magic resist isn't needed till about 10-20 min into game. Which means you have the bonus that you've got it from level 1 on. Once you start getting magic resist then your really tankin then.

To put things simply, with your armor your going to resist about 65-70% and your magic resist will do about 55-60% of the damage....Don't forget courage so ontop of that not 65-70 and 55-60 your going to reduce that damage by another 36% for 3sec. Excellent for charging that nuke and making him $%^& himself because you took next to no damage

Everyone loves HP...I mean really who doesn't? ...And for that person who doesn't get off my build page -_-.

Ok so HP, Tanks best stat. Garen can get some nice HP going with the items listed he gets a @#$% ton of HP. Not much eles to say on it...it's HP..that green bar you love seeing full. Oh and it helps Garen's passive as I describe below

Health regen, highly under rated in the game, at least to my genius IQ perception.

Now the advantage of Garen's health regen is his passive. .05% of his max health is added to his regen when he's not in combat for 7 seconds. Now you may ask what good is that? I'd say shut up and ask questions at the end I'll explain in due time.

With this dreadnought tank build garen has himself a nice pile of HP at least 4700 of it. Now if you take that into account along with his items that gives him roughly 145/5 sec health regen. What good is this? Doesn't seem like much huh? Now take into acount that your gaining about 3% of your health ever 5 sec. So if you sit there for a 60sec your gaining, 1740 HP(37% of your total HP) that means you don't have to portal back and get your @$$ back to the fight. Just stand there it works.

Now lets throw in this little tid bit lets be positive and say you were able to get to warmogs in the game, which would be your last item. And lets be a bit conservative on the bonuses and say you've gotten a few kills and assists enough to maxed out the HP and regen bonuses. So that your at about 5200 HP and have a base regen of 104.03/ 5sec.

Ok so we'll say your low on health so you sit there for 60sec not in combat. Your regen will be "OK". By that I mean roughly 149/5sec so that means your gaining 1788 a min. Now that is rather nice is it not? And so you see this is the second best of the basic stats in this build, the ability to stand there a regen rather then portal back.

Quick wrap up here to make things clear, with all your items passive and masteries and basicly if everything is going right(Which is rarely does) your going to get about 154.96/5sec health regen thats pretty good.

Now it's common practice with a Garen to use the idea of "Spin to win" I find this a complete cliche and boreing.

The order I show in this build has exact reasons. 1 your a tank courage is your best friend be nice to it and it will save your @$$. First level always take courage, the sooner you have maxed out it's passive the better. Next your going to want a rank in spin...yes you need it. But this is so that you can farm easier or escape chasing enemies.

Once Courage is maxed out just start improving your Q and E how you see fit depending on if you want to take out turrets or minions. And let me tell you this build can turret dive!

These are pretty basic for a tank, Heal and cleanse no questions plain and simple

Now I'll explain partly though this won't take much to. Heal is a life saver, yes everyone calls it a "Nub or Noob" spell because they can't think of anything other then noob to say about it. But when it comes down to it if it saves your @$$ it works.

Cleanse, pretty straight forward none likes debuffs this gets rid of them so you can go back to soaking up damage.

Masteries are pretty straight forward if your not dumping into defence your stupid and should not be using this epic build so shoo

Alright quick over view of the masteries, Armor and magic resist ones. Don't put in the blue health regen because you have no mana and it won't do anything. Now you may ask why bother with the dodge mastery if your not taking dodge items? Simple because it's more useful then the AP AS mastery. As this build you will have no AP or AS items so any auras that you gain from allies won't be worth those points. The dodge is just a Hail Mary of "OMG I'M GONA @#$%ING DIE!...WEWT DODGED AND WENT ZOOM!". Not likely to happen I know but you needed 20 in it to gain your last defence mastery.

Now as for his utility masteries these are just to get the XP, everyone loves geting to level 18 fast. But also the regen mastery will help add to your health regen which is already goddly.

Your a tank, you should have HP armor and magic items...nothing eles!!!

Items in the order I like to get them.
First I like heart of gold...it's gold passively and HP nice thing to keep for a while
second ionian boots, a nice 2 movement and some cool down reduction
Next a little damage to augment your now rather good amount of health, Phage good item if you can by now push frozen do it!
After that is when your going to want to think about maybe some magic resist, you courage passive gives enough armor for now. I would suggest the Aegis of the Legion, this gives you a touch of magic resist some armor and health
Next I would highly recommend the Spirit Visage, goooood item for Garen gives some cool down reduction health magic resist and most importantly it improves all of his health regening abilities
Next up is a good old Randiun's Omen, great item with the last of the armor you will need some health regen and a nice active for chasing or running away
Your last item is Warmog's the dream item of tanks. this item is nice very nice with the extra health and health regen you reach your true Dreadnought status with this

Runes, those little things you toil to gain so you have that extra little edge

runes that buff armor and magic resist are most useful to Garen. Now sense Garen has a bit of armor and magic resist at begin game with courage you can use the runes that increase in power as you level up. These will give much better bonuses by end game then the little edge at beginning game. the best way to go about it as I've shown above though slight variation can help due to player style.

Your a tank, don't chase don't try and get kills unless you can ult someone and for the love of demacia DON'T FEEEED!

Now this Garen build is moderate early game, it depends on who your fighting and how well your doing exactly how well it will do. So long as you farm your minions to get you courage passive up and don't try and dive turrets or go on a killing spree you should be fine.

Once you hit mid game when everyone it starting to get powerful you will notice the steady increase in his power will jump as you start to get the armor and magic resist items. This is due to the early game you not needing it as much with your courage passive and high HP.

Now once you hit late game you are the true and almighty dreadnought. By now you've gotten your armor and magic resist as high as it's going to go which is about 213 armor and 178 magic resist, after those numbers your ratio for armor/reduction and magic resist to reduction become too much to bother with buffing them more. But what you will have is your god like HP which will be your saving grace. Once your at this point get your team ready charge in and soak the first assault from the enemy with courage and let you team mates do the major damage When someone gets low enough chuck you ult on them and have yourself a nice shinny kill.