Garen is my main champion. I always played him as an full tank, and always called people a fail after they build a DPS Garen. Those builds were pretty bad, but then I said maybe Garen could be an Offtank damager. So I came up with this build.

Garen is an early game champion, but he is stronger as an Tank late game, and a DPS early game.
Since he has very high early game damage with his abilites you can be sure you will get first blood, well if played smart.

Anyways this is my first build im posting in MobaFire and be sure to check out other stuff I wrote in this build what will really help you and explain why these items, runes and masteries that I posted.

- Why Armor Penetration? - Armor Penetration is an Must for Garen, since he does a lot of damage with his Spin, and it does stack with Penetration, early game this penetration will make your enemy at solotop an 0.

- Why Armor? - Since you want to be a tank, Armor Seals will do the job.

- Why Magic Res.? - Same as the above, you need to be tanky, so these Glyphs will help.

- Why Magic Res.? - Again he needs to be tanky.

- Why Armor Penetration? - Late game you will have High AD, so Penetration will be needed to boost your damage input.

Masteries

21 - 9 - 0

I took 21-9-0 because I think its good, the 3% Lifesteal seems like nothing, but late game before you buy lifesteal you will already see that you heal about 20 per hit with only 3% lifesteal. Also the Offensive gives you Armor Penetration, which you need!

I took 9 in defence since its good, the bonus Magic Res. and Armor, also the Health is usefull.

: You want to max this skill first because its going to provide the most damage early game. Unfortunately Judgment scales poorly late game, but its very powerful early on.

Thankfully its not completely useless late game. Judgment crits and scales with AD so its going to be your main farming tool.


: This is the skill that you'll be using to initiate fights because of the speed boost/silence and it does really good damage as well. There's no reason to save this unless your playing against someone like Nunu and you need to shut down his ult. Max it second.

Remember this skill is your main chase skill since it does give you the Bonus movement speed.


: There's not much to this skill and it doesn't improve much per level, so I max it last. It doesn't last very long either. Use it whenever you draw focus and you plan on staying in the fight. If its off CD you can use it to help escape ganks and such as well.


: This skill is ridiculous. It does more damage based on how much health your opponent is missing so any champ at low health has good reason to fear you. You'll have to practice yourself to see how much damage it does, but this is a good guideline to follow if you want to ensure a kill.

Level 1: Use when your opponent is around 10% health
Level 2: Use when your opponent is around 15% health
Level 3: Use when your opponent is around 20% health

: We all know flash is probably the most usefull spell, it is used to escape, or catch an enemy, I highly recommend you taking this spell.

: Heal seems to you like on every other champion, but its not, I use it when I go tower dive, but mostly I bait with it. When im low HP I just know they will go tower dive, so what I do is I wait for him to tower dive, when he comes I use Q, W and E, silencing him making me lose less HP from his abilities, when I come on 100 Health I then Heal, and R him, getting the kill, and able to farm a little more.

Infinity Edge - Garens spin stacks with his AD and Critical Chance, meaning that Infinity Edge is an perfect item for a damager garen.

Warmogs Armor - We all know it gives you a bunch of HP and some HP/5 regen. Needed for tanky garen.

Atma Impaler - Atma converts his HP in to AD, and thats what garen needs, but dont forget it gives 45 Armor, and Critical Strike, I mean, already 2 perfect items for garen. :D

Force Of Nature - It gives him Magic Resistance, what is good, but dont forget the HP/5 Regen and the epic passive which is good since you will have tons of HP.

Ninja Tabi - Boots are needed, and since FoN gives 76 MR. and Atma 45 AR. these boots will balance the AR and MR, and also dont forget the passive reduced damage, which is great also when you use your W, you will be unkillable.

The Bloodthirster - It gives you AD, but lifesteal what you will need late game, but if you are to squishi you should take Frozen Malet, what will give you bonus HP and AD (20+ since you even have atmas).

Pros:

- Naturally Tanky.
- Very strong early game.
- No mana/energy.
- Not hard to learn how to play.
- Can ensure kills with Ultimate.
- Very big sustain duo to passive.
- Hard to counter

Cons:

- No CC!
- Weaker late game.
- Not much damage late game.

Your job in the team is being the tank, so you are always the closest to the enemy team. You need to start the team fight, and you do that by using your Q to gain movement speed and the second the enemy starts killing you you press your W, making the enemy team waste their spells on you, and your team will then go in, when the team fight starts, your job is to kill or scare their AD Carry, and you can do that fast with Q, E and R. After that, your job is to rush to your AD Carry and protect them, as you have heal, and do dmg.

Why not protect our AD Carry? - Well thats the supports job aint it? :)

When Defending your base your role is to just defend your ad carry, stay close to him, and kill creeps, if they jump on him you can save her by killing them, as in she is baiting.

Early game you should be able to farm with your basic attacks, and if 2 minions are about to die, use basic for 1 and quickly Q to get the other minion, and just farm untill you get gold for B.F Sword. (You will have sustain duo to passive and potions).
Late game you should be the one clearing minions that are pushing other lanes by going there with Q and then just with E you can clear all the minions and then with Q again get quickly back.

Your goal is to have the most miniions early game since you wont recall much.