Hello everyone, my name is Sheepyamon i play on the EU Servers under the same name.
This here will be the start of my Guide making career as my old one sort of dissipated after a long brake from LoL due to work and in real life stuff ofcourse.
Now that ive got more time on my hands i'll get right back to makeing, or lets rephrase that, try to make Quality guides which are mobafire worthy.

Starting off with my new found love in Garen The Migh of Demacia.
First off, alot of changes have been made to this champ, first reducing his movement speed while using Decisive Strike, then increasing it again and so on.
I will not go THAT in dept on all the patches that will be comming with changes but i will try to adapt my guide as im abit rusty on the guide overall layout of today.
So without further Odue, lets get on with it shall we?

+ 2.5 Second Silence
+ Courage gives you Armor and Magic Resist for each enemy unit you kill and upon activation gives you 30% reduction to incomming damage
+ Does a fair amount of damage even earlygame
+ Execute(Ultimate) A Finisher that deals damage based on how much health they have lost, an excellent way of finishing of people thinking they are safe.
+Very Beefy, and can take alot of beating, passive health regen synergize PERFECTLY with force of nature


- Cooldown dependant to some degree
- Timing based(You can't just run in without a single CD ready and think you can come out on top, in most cases that is)
- Not much CC besides his 2.5 Second Stun
- He doesnt have alot of Cons to mention :(
*Besides beeing highly underrated

My runes are Self Explanatory, i play Garen as a Hybrid Tank & DPS.
He is not THE best tank by far, he has no Stun or Taunt, he does have a Silence that do piss people off quite some bit, but here is the clue to why i go as a hybrid, my runes are Very Tank looking besides the Quints which are ARP.

Marks: ARP(Armor Penetration) as this is an AD based champion so the ARP is needed for all his attacks, both basic and Ability wise.

Seals: Flat Armor, it makes him more Tanky and a tad more Beefy and able to take on more damage than your regular cookie cutter melee.

Glyphs: Flat Magic Resist(MR) Again this is to make him more beefy and less of a target for spellcasters, meaning you can lock them down easier.

Quintessences: Armor Penetration, Gotta say i love that stat more than anything on Garen, you will more or less ignore damage on low armor champs early game with this much armor pen, some say it aint worth it, but its personal prefference.

Movement speed & flat health are viable choices for quints aswell.

My masteries are not tanking masteries, they are based on melee dps champions, not even putting 9points in defence for dodge, what is this you see?
Is this guy really for real here?

Yes i am, ive been trying everything on him, even utility masteries, but i found these to be the best ones to go with him, having improved ghost and exhaust, both helps you get in/out of team fights, or chasing, and improved exhaust helps alot in ganks, teamfights and are all over an excelletn support spell to help yourself and the team!

As far as my masteries are concerned they are my personal preffered masteries, but if you think the standard 21/9 are better for your playstyle im not the one to deny you that!

You are a hybrid, meaning ur ment to tank damage, and deal it just the same.
By that stated i sincerly urge you to level up Judgement first, putting a point in courage on lvl 4, and leveling up Decisive Strike after, ofcourse you are grabbing your ultimate whenever you can.

Rotation wise, it is somewhat dependant on the Situation, by that i mean that in teamfights u don�¦t just press Q, and hit the first target you see, you can go in and dropp Judgement however to soften them up a tad, but save your Courage for that KEY carry on the other team, you know the one right? the one thing on their team that will rip through all your Squishies in a matter of seconds unless stopped..
Champions i can name are: Malzahar, Karthus, Miss Fortune, Corki Specially, are just some of the cooldown dependant champions, but every single cooldown based champion as a carry are your main target, and ofcourse you can make your Decisive strike a defensive ability to help your team mate out from ganks aswell, do this whenever you see an opportunity!

I always start out with a Dorans Shiled, it gives you Health, Armor and Health Regen.
It is the best item to start with using this build, The health Regen along with your passive regen will kepp you in the lane for a long time before you have to go back.
the armor makes you more beefy along with the added armor its overall an excellent item for your starting phase.

First Trip Back:
I always get Boots of Swiftness on my first trip back, i get this in 7/10 Games, the other remaining games i will get Mercury treads depending if they have ALOT of CC (Slow, stuns) And so on and so fourth.

Second Trip Back:
Sword of the Occult...
Wait, what? Snowball AD item on Garen?
Yes that is correct my dear friend and reader of this guide, it might look bad at first but, as Garen you arent ment to die, so bare with me here please and read why ive chosen this.

It gives you a total of 100AD at 20Stacks+You get 15% movement speed
So this is an insane item IF you can make it worth it, if not, other items like Y-Ghostblade are viable aswell, less AD, but you get ARP, movement speed on activate and you get some Critt rating from it.

Third Trip Back:
Leviathan...
comeon, another snowball item? Really?
Yes, and this is where things get interresting, most Garens take Sunfire first, health, armor and 40damage.. We will get to that, but snowball items needs stacks to be usefull, this one in particular, if YOU can keep the stacks growing not falling off, this will give you alot of health on 20stacks, not only that, you will get 15% Damage reduction from all Source..
15% from leviathan+ 30% from Courgae= 45% reduction in damage?
Can i sense some people smiling right now?
It seems rediculous, and thrust me it is, it might not seem smart, but when you know u can singel handedly towerdive a guy on lvl 14if u got 20stacks, and tank tower damage, his damage, minion damage, kill him and get out without loosing 50% health you will start to see how this is viable!

Fourth Trip Back:
Sunfire, oh dear sunfire where art thou?
Yes good folks we always get this item, it has nearly everything we need, Armor, Health, and 40damage which synergizes perfectly with Judgement, and makes you a farm machine, and someone not to fool arround and mock.

Now to the remaining parts as you can get 2 more items now, from here i always asess the situation, and in what order i get the parts depends on how my team is doing, what my team is up against, how im doing stack wise and so on, if im on 20 stacks on both occult and leviathan, im beefy enough so ill go for force of nature first, then take guardian angel, but people are wondering do i ever change my build?

Yes i do, for heavy carries and tank killers Kog Maw(THE Tank killer of all time), Tryndamere, Tristana, Miss Fortune, Yi and so on, heavy AD carries Thornmail, Randuins Omen are All viable choices, so the choice is Yours to make.

There is not one spesific item build for a champ as Garen there are multiple, and the only one to decide what to go for is YOU, Take a good look at their team, you pick what item suits your sitution and your teams situation, that is what makes a good tank or a bad tank.

Some people are to filled up with following guides that they go for the exact same items as the guide suggests..

Prime Example: read a rammus guide which said you needed Thornmail as it synergizes with your Shell so well when you taunted, sure it does, what if they are only AOE casters?
They wont even take damage from you until you taunt them, and it has a cooldown, they can mroe or less kite you arround, powerball? Exhaust i say.

Another Example: You take this guide and get Swiftness boots, and the other team has, MF, Karthus, Veigar, Tryndamere, Mundo..
How are you ment to get to any of them if you move 5 Bricks at a time?


As ive stated earlier, items are up to you, this guide is just a show & tell on how i build garen most of my games, item wise i go for whatever fits the situation, the only core items i get every time are, Force of Nature, Occult, Leviathan(Sunfire might get taken instead), the 3 other are up to you.

I always go with improved Ghost and Exhaust.

Ghost gets you in & out of teamfights, and lets you chase down fleeing enemies or gets you away from ganks aswell!

Exhaust locks down a player in a teamfight, can slow for a kill if needed, and can be used to save a teamfight in teamfights and should be used for this in 9/10 times, its ment to help the team overall, so use your summoners wisely, think of them as "oh snap we need this now ir we will die spells" Rather than using it on a teemo with 150hp hugging a tower knowing you can just dive him without dieing...


Summoners are just as much a part of a players desiscions as everything else.

All in all i know this guide are not THAt classy and original, but i will keep updating this guide, adding pictures, further information about the champion in detail, make this guide more in dept over time, and hopefully it will in the future be mobafire worthy.

I look forward to see peoples comments, as i do not care much about what votes i am given i do hope they are justified with a comment as to why you took ur choice on the vote you gave me.

I will also keep answering comments on this guide.

I will also say sorry to all of you for any bad language, or grammar in this guide as i do not speak english fluently, beeing a Norwegian/Swedish guy i feel abit set aside when writing in english so i hope the guide is overall readable, anything you might want to add, put it in the comment section and ill review it and maybe add it to the guide if i see it fit!

Best Regards:

Sheepyamon@ EU LoL