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Garen Build Guide by DinoUCV

Top Garen Build/Guide: Be The Garen Your Team Needs

Top Garen Build/Guide: Be The Garen Your Team Needs

Updated on November 24, 2017
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League of Legends Build Guide Author DinoUCV Build Guide By DinoUCV 31,432 Views 2 Comments
31,432 Views 2 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author DinoUCV Garen Build Guide By DinoUCV Updated on November 24, 2017
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Choose Champion Build:

  • LoL Champion: Garen
    Tank Build
  • LoL Champion: Garen
    Letality Build (For Pros)
  • LoL Champion: Garen
    ARAM Build
  • LoL Champion: Garen
    Jungle Build (Letality)
  • LoL Champion: Garen
    Jungle Build (Tank)
  • LoL Champion: Garen
    Twisted Treeline Build
  • LoL Champion: Garen
    Urf build
  • LoL Champion: Garen
    Titanic Hydra Build
  • LoL Champion: Garen
    Ravenous Hydra Build

Runes:

Resolve
Grasp of the Undying
Demolish
Conditioning
Overgrowth

Precision
Triumph
Coup de Grace

Spells:

LoL Summoner Spell: Flash

Flash

LoL Summoner Spell: Teleport

Teleport

Threats & Synergies

Threats Synergies
Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny
Show All
None Low Ok Strong Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Synergies
Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Introduction: Who i am? Who is Garen? A humble guide to sucess!

Introduction: Who i am? Who is Garen? A humble guide to sucess!

Hello, first of all, thank you for browsing my guide, i may not be a platine or higher player now, but i only joined the league this year, so i have much to learn yet. So i want to help the ones like me, that are starting, to become great players and even pro players. This guide is about the champ that i feel invincible playing with, and is meant for starters as well for experienced Garen players, so lets get to it.

Who i am?

My name is Guilherme de Carvalho Ferreira, i'm a Brazilian amateur LoL player, 17 years old, i started playing ranked games 2 months ago, i'm still in my md10 on Flex, and Silver 2 on Duo, yeah, i know, pretty lame right? But i don't care about elo, as elo isn't document, as long as you play like a diamond, your elo is just "another" thing about you.

Who is Garen?

Garen is a fighter/tank, a very good champion and my main since i started, he's very good and fun to play with, but has his flaws as well as his ups.
SKILLS: Q or Decisive Strike: He can remove SLOWS and gain MS, also his next attack deal extra AD and silence his target, plus it can critical strike, very useful and deadly, as it can help you reach enemies as well as help you run away and recover.

W or Courage : Passive: Garen gains permanently 0.25 bonus armor and MS everytime he slays a minion, up to 30 bonus resistances.
Active: Reduces 60% damage and gain 60% tenacity for the first 0.75 seconds, for the rest of the skill duration, you gain 30% damage reduction. OP skill, you can use it right when receiving a hard CC spell to almost deny it, and it's damage.

E or Beyblade pos... ahem, i mean, Judgment : Spin for 3 seconds, dealing damage to all enemies, plus 33% if it's a single enemie, also on the 4th hit you reduce enemies armor by 25% for 6 seconds, you can after 1 second deactivate the ability, doing this reduces the cooldown of the skill by the remaining time of the skill duration. OP obviously, who wouldn't want to become a ****ing Spinner for 3 seconds and deal damage, plus reducing armor? Also you can't use your other skills while Judgment is active, so is better to use them before hitting E.

R or OP THING THAT KILLS AND TILT PEOPLE, or you can call it Demacian Justice : Passive: Garen marks the enemy with the highest killing spree as the "Villain". While in combat with the "Villain", Garen's basic attacks and each spin of Jugdment deal an additional 1% of "Villain" life as true damage.
Active: Calls Demacian Justice on the enemy dealing 175/350/525 MAGIC DAMAGE plus 28/33/40% of the target's missing HP, additionaly, if the target is the "Villain" you deal TRUE damage instead of magic damage. Such Opness, you can delete an ADC if he's low and has the "Villain" buff, you can outplay your enemies, tilt tilters, break the mexico wall (WHAT!?), anything you like to destroy.

Passive : Garen regens 2/8% of his maximum health per 5 seconds after not receiving damage for 9/4 seconds (at levels 1/11). it gets stronger if Garen is below 25/50% of his life, increasing to 4/16% HP regen per second. Before lvl 11, champions and epic monsters stops the regen, after that epic monsters don't stop the regen anymore. That's why i like Garen, he REGENS life when out of combat, like, you run away then after 5 secs you're back to full health and ready to kick butts again, OP!
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Runes

TANK GAREN (TWISTED TREELINE TANK):Grasp of the Undying
Vital for tank Garen, it is very simple, everytime when in combat for 4 seconds, you trigger it, your next AA deal additional magic damage and heals you, also increases your health PERMANENTLY, always use it in lane whenever you can, imagine this, 20 minutes you will have almost 3000 HP or even more if you proc it regularly.
Demolish
When you get close to the enemy tower you will see 6 cristals breaking, when they all break your next attack against that tower will deal extra damage, you can get up to 600 damage with a Q, and even more, i like this one for fast lane winning and split push.
Conditioning
after 10 minutes, you receive 8 armor and 8 MS, also increases your MS and armor by 5%
Simple yet effective.
Overgrowth
permanently gain 0.2% maximum healt for every 8 minions that die NEAR you
Simple right? you don't even have to kill, they only need to die near you (1400 range).
Triumph
Takedowns restore 15% health back and grant additional 25 gold
Catch my vision, you kill an enemy but you die to his ignite, my reaction? TRIGGERED!
NO MORE, kill him, get some life back, and some extra 25 gold, it helps.
Coup de Grace
Deal 10% more damage to enemies with less than 40% health, also, kills grant an adaptive of 9 AD or 15 AP for 10 seconds
Procs with your Ult, and is really useful for taking down low life champions.

LETALITY GAREN (TWISTED TREELINE LETALITY)Electrocute
Hitting an enemy with 3 unique attacks or abilities within 3 seconds deal a ****ING RED LIGHTING THAT DEALS DAMAGE.
50-220 DAMAGE BASED ON LEVEL + 50% BONUS AD OR + 30% AP BONUS DAMAGE!
Although having a cooldown of 50-25 seconds -_-
Cheap Shot
Sudden Impact isn't good anymore, so, i did some gameplay and i found cheap shot a good alternative.
Deal bonus true damage to enemies with impaired movement or actions, SILENCE included, with means your Q will proc it, and is better than Sudden Impact and Taste of Blood anyway.
Eyeball Collection
Something that procs well with Draktharr, gives you 2 eyeballs for champion kill and 1 for ward kill. Eyeballs give an adaptive 0.6 AD or 1 AP per eyeball, Stacks up to 20. Upon completing your collection you gain an extra 6 AD or 10 AP.
Buy Wards, destroy wards, kill champions, buy Draktharr, and you will have 20 eyeballs in no time, 20 eyeballs = 12 AD + 6 AD = 18 extra AD.
Relentless Hunter
Earn Bounty Hunter stacks upon enemy champion kill. Stacks up to 5 and each stack increases your MS, while out of combat, for 8.
8 x 5 = 40 MS while out of combat, helps with chasing and running away.
Triumph
Already explained, will give health back upon kill and grant extra 25 gold.
Coup de Grace
Already explained, gives you 10% more damage against enemies with 40% health.
Procs with your ult, and gives extra AD for 10 seconds upon champion kill.
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Pros/Cons

PROS+ Sustain and Tankness Early to Late game!
+ Good Mobility and CC resistance!
+ Utility and CDR limited!
+ Good Anti-Tank and ADC deleter thanks to "Villain" System.

Being manaless, he's only limited by CDR, overall, Tanky, hard to push out of lane, very damaging against tank and carries alike, can become an invincible tank late game or an extremily fast and vicious letality fighter late game.

CONS- Very easy to kit, even with letality build.
- Lacks CC (silence is good against 1v1, but a little bit useless in TFs)
- Low mobility, can have better MS, but he lacks a fast tranportation, making us use flash in early game ganks.
- Being manaless means some good itens (Triforce and Iceborn for example) aren't viable on him, which is bad.

Garen isn't THAT much OP like people say, but in a good player's hands, he can be devastating, some of his flaws liike mobility and MS can be fixed in mid game, but he lacks gaping and hard CC, but don't worrie, you won't be needing then when you learn how to play with this champion, and i will make sure you learn! ^-^
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Spells

SPELLS:
Some summoner spells you will generally use:

100% of all the times you play as Garen, you will use flash.
It gives you 2 things, an engage that Garen lacks and a quick escape through walls.
You will chose between getting in the lane faster or doing some crazy TP escapes or Backdoor, generally going faster in some areas of the map.

OR

This is for lane winning, you will use this to take champions health down for your ult, but i stopped using it because e like TP better, but its still good if you plan on climbing Solo with Garen.

Use it on urf if you want, or if you want to troll a normal game with the urf build, you're very welcome to use ghost instead of flash.
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Tips and Tricks

Want to learn how to combo and stuff?
First i need to explain some things, Your Qclears SLOWS only, not hard CC such as stuns or taunts. Your ult deals MAGIC DAMAGE (unless the enemy in question is marked with "Villain", in this case you deal TRUE DAMAGE and a sound will shout when he is killable by your ult), which means itens like and 's passive can deny it, be careful about it. Also, your ult deals damage based on the enemies missing health, which means, ulting a full life enemy will deal 90 Magic damage (miserable)
but against a 200-400 HP or less enemy champion, it will delete him.
Now with that said, i will teach you his combo:
Normal Combo:Q =====> E. Simple right? you can also use your Q before your E to increase your speed so you can reach your foe and then canceling your E before your Q fades for maximum damage.
Always keep an eye on his life bar, if hes 400 HP or less you can do the Flash Q combo:
Flash ===> Q ===> R, guaranted kill, If you have ignite it will be even easier and you can kill enemies with 500 or less HP.
How to Harass: i farm with Q (Yes, and for me it's not uncommon), but you can harass enemies that are too close or trying to farm, it's simple, let's say a riven is trying to farm close to you, bad move, do the Q and E combo. Or an Irelia player will Q onto a low HP minion close to you, bad move, Q and E combo her.
When to use W:Courage is one hell of a ability, giving you tenacity and damage reduction, but when to use it? Let's take Riven as an example: she has her W which stuns right? You use it to negate part of that stun effect, or you can use it to negate some damage from her ult, or her combo.
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Playing the Champ

How to play garen?
Now we get to the funny part. I will post a video on my youtube channel explaining this part more perfectly, but it will be in portuguese, as i am brazilian (sorry Gringos), but don't worry, i will explain it well in here too.
EARLY GAME
The tip of the day, FARM and TRADE, his early is good so don't do it like me that likes to farm more than trade, don't waste your Q on minions. Whenever your Q is up, use it on your foe and then back away, aways stacking your Grasp of the Undying if playing tank Garen, keep harassing him and WARD your bush and the river bush, as Garen's greatest early game CON is ganks, you will be forced out of lane if you are ganked by some lee sin main or graves main, AND THIS MUSN'T HAPPEN AT ANY COST (but not wasting your flash really helps too, play safe and trade well and you will win witouth much trouble), or you can kill both or make them run away from you, but EXPERIENCE will help you solve out most of these cases.
IF CAMPED
So his jungler has something with you? Or you're too advanced on your lane? Anyway, Ward and keep an eye on it, as i said, a main jungler will take advantage of your advance and go for you, and you are weak against early game ganks, if he's camping you, stop advancing the lane and farm under tower, if he insists call for your jungler to counter gank, as he's so hooked to you he will forget to farm, bad move, show him why he chose JG instead of Top.

MID GAME
15-20 minutes has passed, welcome to Mid Game, some quick TFs, Dragons and other objectives, Push your lane, What to do?
HELP ALLIES
You can TP bot for a quick gank, or mid, or walk there yourself (Run Top laner, Run), also take the tower of the lane you gank if you have time and are safe to do it.
Push your jungler to do a Dragon or the Rift Herald, Help him and secure the objectives, kills are good, but objectives wins games, keep that in mind.
PUSH YOUR LANE
If doing some other allies favors, like Drags, Towers or Ganks, don't forget about your lane, you're still a top laner and your lane will be pushed, also keep an eye on your top lane, if your foe is dead and revive, he can take advantage of your absence and push top, or he will follow you and things will get risky.
If your allies are doing well, you can keep pushing your lane, but watch out for their jungler as he will keep an eye on you, as you will be far from your tower, open for a 3v1 (you against their Mid, Top, and Jg) and without escapes (if you don't have flash), you will be camped really hard.

LATE GAME
Welcome to the last minutes of the game 30-god knows what minutes, Huge TFs, battle for Dragons, Baron Nashor etc, If they don't surrender, of course.
Your main priority in a TF will be to eliminate the one that's carrying, if hes the "Villain", it will be easier. If he has high mobility, then tell your team your will engage him, activate W and go for him, hopefully your team will follow you but if they don't then turn away and run, you aren't God, and if you get focused by 5 champions in late game you will end up dead.
I'ts the same as Mid Game, secure objectives, get some inhibitors and nexus towers for you to win the game. Also, i will teach you a LoL basics: If they still have their inhibitor towers, and your only choices are Baron and TF do this, win a TF and do Baron, and you will win the game, simple as that.
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Jungle Builds

LETALITY JUNGLE
Ok, so, i watched some videos and did a gameplay, and i gotta say, Predator rune is INSANE.
So here we are, a jungle Garen build.
I already teached how to play the champ and his combos, so i'm gonna skip to the part you kill monsters and get fed.
You will start with Red Buff, then go for Raptor Camp (the birds), then Krugs (Rock like things), then the Rift Scutler (green **** on the river), now you have 2 choices:
Gank Early, if you are a main jungler or play lee sin, you will know how to do it, but if you don't know, then watch for the enemies health and if your allies can keep up the gank, or look for a counter gank if your allies are in trouble, but honestly, Garen early ganks only work on advanced enemy champs (usually Top for some reason -_-).
Or
Go for your Blue, then Wolfs, then Gromp, and the Rift Scufler.
You will follow this routine, and always keep an eye on the drake, as you will want to do it before the enemy jungler, but for you to do it you must first gank and kill the ADC and SUP of them, and call for your ADC and SUP for help, it will be easier this way, also, CALIBRATE YOUR SMITE!
17 minutes or so, kill the enemy TOP and do the Rift Herald with your TOP.
20 minutes till the game end, you will do your routine, steal the enemy camps, and around 30 minutes, if your team manages to win a TF, go for Baron, and Game Over!
Another alternative for the runes is the Dark Harvest rune, both Dark Harvest and Predator are good runes on garen jungle, so try both!

TANK JUNGLE
You won't believe it...







It's actually the same as letality jungle, XDXDXD.
But with one exception, you will be a tank, so you will be in charge of the TFs.
Also, with Glacial Augment, your ganks will be more effective, as you will slow them with each AA and also smite then for the extra slow.
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Alternative Builds and Letality Build

TITANIC HYDRA GAREN
This is a build that i use for, like, 70% of the time i play Garen, and it WORKS, but most don't know about it, but now i will show it to you.This is the item we will be aiming to build everygame, giving you AD, HP and it's UNIQUE passive:
Cleave: Adds a cone on-hit effect to your AAs, witch helps with wave clear and fighting, how? Adding a new combo, the AA ===> Q ===> Hydra ===> W and E ===> ult (if he's low), my opinion? Best combo ever, you will deal insane damage togheter with your, proc it is easy as **** with the combo.
Also gives you 100% health regen to proc with your passive. This build focuses on making garen healty, tanky, and damaging at the same time, AND IT WORKS!

LETALITY GAREN
It focuses on making garen a deadly ADC/APC reaper by giving him letality, which is basically armorpen, see the broken shield that appears in his basic attacks or E? when it makes the breaking sound, it means you have penetrated some of your enemy's armor.
This build focuses on letality itens, Youmuu's Ghostblade, Black Cleaver and Draktharr are the Core of the build.
It are meant for Pro Garen players because of it's Flaws, you WILL do heavy letality damage, but you will become squishie and not tanky anymore, meaning you won't be of much use in teamfights. Also, if you keep dying using this build, like, early you be 1/5, IT WILL BE FEEDING, and there's no telling if you can get into the game again, so train a little before using this build.

RAVENOUS HYDRA GAREN
This was supposed to be a troll build, but i managed to get 22/10/8 with it, so it is viable.
This one is complete crazyness, as the letality and Hydra builds, you will be squishie, not of much use in TF, but it mixes tankness, High AD and Lifesteal (Yes, you heard it right, Lifesteal). This is this build's Core itemit gives you AD, An area UNIQUE active, health regen to proc with passive and lifesteal, i consider it a good item, and a troll iten, but it's a good iten neverthless.
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Some Thanks and Conclusion

First, i skipped a night creating this guide with the intent of helping other players, so please feel free to coment if you got questions or you've found some grammar mistakes in the guide (as i said, i'm brazillian, but speak english fluently, but i sometimes do some mistakes, everybody has it's flaws since nothing is perfect), rate it, like it, favourite it, and i'm glad i was able to help you guys.

Now to conclude i would like to thank 2 guys:
1st - The Glacierr, i an subscribed to his channel and always watch his videos, he's a pro Garen main and a good player, inspiration came swiftly, so thanks Glacierr, you helped a lot. (subscribe too and watch some garen videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN7x-gVHN_AO0DMtBWMxN3Q)

2nd - FSat, when i started to play Garen, and LoL, i was searching for a good build here in Mobafire and found his guide, since then his guide always helped me out and the Titanic Hydra idea was his, so all credit go to him, he's an inspiration to me, so i wanted to thank him and his guide (you can view his profile here: https://www.mobafire.com/profile/fsat-577848 and his guide here: https://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/garen-can-carry-pre-s8-7-22-matchups-chapter-included-403437)

So that was it, and a big thanks to you who is still here reading, now go play and slay some noobs for me, DEMACIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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