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Choose Champion Build:
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ULTIMATE GAREN
Recommended Items
Spells:
Ignite
Flash
Items
Ability Order
Perseverance (PASSIVE)
Garen Passive Ability
Introduction





Big Update: Guide was actualized onto S3 at PBE. Please take this into consideration before voting.

Songs for the demacian leader:


And, the special videos:


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8:00
spaaaaaaace |
Pros
+ Earlygame you win against nearly anyone + Counters the so OP ![]() + Same counts for ![]() + The tankiest assasin in the game, with only need for 2 defense items. + Many people will underrate you, because ![]() + His ultimate is one of the best finishers in the game. + DEMACIAAAA!!!! |
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Cons
- Why he couldn't kill ![]() - Has some probelms against ![]() ![]() - Can be kited - Deep deep lategame, your damage will fall off a bit. - People think you are trolling cuz they want tank ![]() - ![]() ![]() - Ranged tanky champs can make you cry early. |
Offense:
Sorcery: Pretty obvious, you don't want attack speed or increased minion damage. I would also say every form of CDR is better than the 5 AD and AP while
Ignite is on cooldown.
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Deadliness : More AD is definitly better than more AP, also unlocks
Weapon Expertise
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Weapon Expertise : Builds nicely out of
Deadliness and gives even more armorpen, what more can you want?
Defense:
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Durability : I would say, HP/lvl is best here. HP regen on low levels of HP is not that great, because you should stay at high hp nearly everytime. Builds also into
Veteran's Scars . why not
Tough Skin seems to be obvious.
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Hardiness : Armor helps you at toplane against minion damage and physical damage champions.
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Resistance : A good amount of resistances for earlygame? Why not.
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Veteran's Scars : ist the best mastery in T3 to get, flat health early is godlike.
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Unyielding : Because earlygame you will trade very much, this will help you to mitigate damage, especially damage over time.
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Relentless : Effectivity of slows reduced, definitly something good to have.
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Block : Again, many auto attacks will be done top and this will reduce the damage from all of the enemy.
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Tenacious : This is why we don't need
Mercury's Treads.
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Legendary Armor : If you calculate it for EHP-Increase, this mastery totall sucks. Earlygame you will have not enough resistances so it is ****. Lategame you wil have so much resistances that it doesn't do anything aswell.
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Reinforced Armor : Critting ad-carries are your biggest enemy's lategame, so get this.
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Honor Guard : No longer a **** mastery, 3% dmg reduction with 1 point is great.
Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: AD to increase the power of your 2 damage spells and the auto attacks. Makes last hitting way easier. If you know the enemy starts with a full armor runepage and
Cloth Armor, it could be also good to use greater quintessence of desolation.
Greater Mark of Attack Damage: The reason why I take now AD over Armorpen is, that
Black Cleaver,
Youmuu's Ghostblade and
Weapon Expertise now give enough armorpen even early. So we can abuses this and take more AD.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist: Scaling runes are way better than flat if you face a physical damage top laner. Also, they scale really well with
Courage.
Greater Seal of Armor: Standard runes for nearly any champ that isn't mana heavy. Helps to block damage from all auto attacks, reduce the damage of minions and make enemies with phyiscal damage spells deal way less damage early. Also with
Courage it is even better.
Situational:
- greater quintessence of desolation/ greater mark of desolation: It was changed, how armorpen is now applied. Flat penetration is now applied after percentage penetration. This means, this runes will stay effective through the whole game. I calculated that you will reduce a 200 Armor opponent with
Last Whisper,
Black Cleaver(4 stacks),
Youmuu's Ghostblade, masteries and this runes to 25 Armor. Means, you deal epic amounts of damage to tanks. This way you can become one of the best tank shredders of the game. But of course, our targets are carries and against them it doesn't make that much sence.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: The only reason to get this would be someone like
Rumble,
Teemo or
Kennen top lane, which you would loose most of the time anyway.
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Perseverance: Since the buffs that it no longer gets stopped by minions it is way better to keep high hp. Just don't let yourself get poked down by the enemy and you get free sustain.
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Decisive Strike (Q): Earlygame one of the best spells to harass the enemy. It deals good amounts of damage and the speed buff is nice aswell. But the greatest thing about it is the silence, which shuts down most enemies. Also, don't forget, on activation this one removes all slows on you.
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Courage (W): What an OP ability for a non-ultimate ability. This is basically a spammable mini alistar ult which gives you even more resistances aswell. This is why we don't need that much tank items. It also reduces the cc of the enemy, so we don't need
Mercury's Treads aswell.
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Judgment (E): Ah, our well known signature move. The change to it was a huge buff. Yeah, the slow while moving through enemies and that it no longer removes slows is bad, but for that, it deals way more damage, especially to minions. He can now easily clear waves. And not many people can trade with
Garen while he uses this.
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Demacian Justice (R): And this is our finisher move. This makes you really scary, because if the enemy gets low on HP, he is instantly dead. Especially with
Ignite, you can kill many people with ease or at least scare them away. But note that it only deals magic damage, no true dmg (damn you riot). This way it can be countered by MR, a simple
Black Shield or Poppy's passive. Generally shields and heals counter this ability hard.
Obviously, level









Item Sequence






Start items
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: Nothing helps
Garen more in the earlygame to harass the enemy than
Boots. With this, you will have a great MS-advantage over your enemy if you use
Decisive Strike, so you can easily hit the enemy. Also, 3 or even 4
Health Potion's are great for sustain if your
Perseverance isn't enough.
S3 Update: Boots have been made weaker, so you can start with different items if you want, but boots are still best.
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: If you face ad-heavy champs top lane which can cause problems like
Lee Sin,
Renekton,
Riven,
Darius,
Garen, etc., use this item to be resistant against their aggression. If they foolishly started with
Boots, you can outtrade them, if they try to harass you.
S3 Update: Even a better choise now because boots got nerfed.
Preferred Items
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: Garen needs very much gold to get very effective. For this, you need a G/10. Crit is a great stat on
Garen because he can proc it often even without high critchance.
Decisive Strike can crit, all 6 hits of
Judgment can crit and his basic attacks can crit aswell. They also increase
Garen's damage effectively.
S3 Update: A bit lower crit, but for that, last hitting gives now more gold. Definitly better than before. Also in S3 every champ gets less gold, making a g/10 much better.
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: I think one of the most unorthodox items of my build. It is pretty simple why I have them here. As I explained through the guide,
Garen's
Courage offers enough cc-reduction and
Mercury's Treads scale rather meh with it. This allows
Garen to basically build any boots he wants. This are the optimal boots for
Garen for winning the lane because CDR is very important. More
Decisive Strike, more
Judgment, more
Courage, more
Demacian Justice. Since all your spells cost nothing, you basically can spam the enemy to death.
S3 Update: The only upgrade I would consider isEnchantment: Alacrity, because it fits
Garen most.
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: Just look at the most important stats for
Garen: AD, Armorpen, CDR, Crit and MS. This item offers 3 of them without any drawback. Get it, it is just overally great. I get this after
Avarice Blade and upgraded boots, because for me the G/10 and MS is more important than the increased damaga, cuz
Garen needs the gold to scale into lategame and needs the MS to catch the enemy in lane. Also, 30% CDR on
Garen near lvl 9 is just the most ridiculous thing ever...
S3 Update: This item now also builds into remadeBlack Cleaver. Because of that, you have to get a second one after you upgraded the first one.
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: BEST ITEM FOR GAREN S3. Period. If you don't get this, better go back to playing tetris.
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: I don't want to instantly finish Youmuu's Ghostblade after I got
Avarice Blade and
The Brutalizer. This way, I can generate way more gold and this helps me to scale into lategame. But at lvl 18 I want to have it, because the active is really nice to have for lategame teamfights. MS is great to catch up to carries and AS is great if
Judgment is on cooldown. Also, having all stats you need in 1 item without waisting much gold is, I would say, broken.
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: People say the best item for
Garen, and they are right. If you don't buy this, you can also go back to super mario. This is the source of most of
Garen's damage. I don't rush it because earlygame you need gp10, CDR and HP to do well. But later in the game you will feel that your damage will go down a bit and you can easily solve it with this item.
S3 Update: After some more testings at PBE, I just how to say wow, how much damage he deals even withoutInfinity Edge. So it is totally possible to replace this with
Frozen Mallet, still deal great damage and be way more tanky.
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: The best defensive item in the game, no matter what. The resistances are just godlike, especially on
Garen with his
Courage. If started with
Ninja Tabi, you can also go for this item directly after
Avarice Blade to even further shut the enemy ad down. This way, nobody can deal with you in lane because you got endgame resistances at lvl 10, much like
Singed while he ults. And you can even increase that with the
Courage active. Normally, I don't get it early, because again, more important items and stats to get.
S3 Update: Got some small nerfs but is still manadtory onGaren.
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: This is a new item ooming from S3. As active, it works like
Quicksilver Sash but adds a 1 second speed boost on top of it. It also gives nices MR and AD. Definitly nice to have over
Maw of Malmortius
Situational Items
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: These items are optional to build. If you can't get any other item listed down here at once, while you have over 475 gold at base, buy a
Doran's Blade. It is never a wrong buy to make your laning phase stronger, but other items are more important. Note that these should only be bought in the first 15 minutes of the game, otherwise they will just slow your damage growth down.
What to replace: None, just get it early.
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: While many boots can be great on
Garen, I think this and CDR are the most important ones. Sure, you can go roam with
Mobility Boots or avoid even more cc with
Mercury's Treads, but this isn't as important as the other boots. You everytime buy
Ninja Tabi if you start with
Cloth Armor and that's basically it. This way, you can shut your enemy down even further.
S3 Update: I wouldn't upgrade them, because later I switch them withIonian Boots of Lucidity anyway.
What to replace:Ionian Boots of Lucidity
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: These boots with the new changes are definitly now usefull.
Garen loves movement speed and especially slow reduction helps him. But if you want to get them, you have to combine
Black Cleaver,
Youmuu's Ghostblade and
Spirit Visage, which isn't actually a that bad build. Seems to be again your decision here.
What to replace:Ionian Boots of Lucidity
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/
: This item and
Mercurial Scimitar battle for the the top of the MR items. What this item gives you instead of Mercurial is more AD early with
Hexdrinker instead of
Quicksilver Sash and more AD later with the passive. But for that, less flat resistances. Of course, the magic damage shield is nice, but it is your preference what to choose.
What to replace:Mercurial Scimitar
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: Your counter against true dmg. This item helps you if you face someone like
Olaf,
Darius or
Cho'Gath. Get it after
Avarice Blade.
What to replace:Mercurial Scimitar,
Infinity Edge
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: "This guide has an item with AP and mana regen in it, must downvote." Wait, wait wait. Did you actually look at this item before you voted? Yeah, it offers AP and mana regen, that is nice that you know that. But it also offers 20% Spellvamp and 10$% CDR. HOW AWESOME IS THAT!!! It can be a great replacement for
Youmuu's Ghostblade if you don't like it at all. I don't know which I would prefer atm, so, it is up to you.
What to replace:Youmuu's Ghostblade
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: Due to the fact that % Penetration is now applied before flat penetration, getting
Last Whisper and
Black Cleaver viable. I would replace the MR item for it, but that would make you even more squishy.
What to replace:Mercurial Scimitar,
Infinity Edge
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: Another option for people which dislike
Youmuu's Ghostblade. In this build
Spirit Visage would replace
Mercurial Scimitar with an early
Kindlegem, while
Infinity Edge takes the place of
Youmuu's Ghostblade. Of course, this build would have
Frozen Mallet in it, giving you even more HP, making you basically off-tank
Garen.
What to replace:Mercurial Scimitar,
Youmuu's Ghostblade
The most important part on how to build your champ is to counterbuild your enemies. Knowing when to buy which item comes with practice and you will play better as with a 24/7 standard build. It is also very important to build a champ earlier in the game in the order you feel is best. If you are a fan of specific items or no fan of other items, get them in a different order and test that out. It will improve your itemisation in games.

TROLOLOLOLOL BUILD
(Warning, only use if you are a pro

Item Sequence












Note: Every







- A tanky initiator jungler like
Nautilus,
Rammus,
Maokai,
Amumu,
Singed,
Skarner.
- Again,
Garen is no tank. He has no real way to initate fights and while he can stand against much, he can't stand against the fronloaded burst. Wait until he initates and do your job.
- Again,
- Very much CC
- To play
Garen best, you need people to hold the enemy in place. Some perfect choises for this would be
Morgana mid,
Nautilus jungle and
Alistar support. They can keep the enemy in place so you can spin directly through their heart. Another great partner is
Galio, he taunts anyone into your
Judgment. Combine that with a
Jarvan IV jungle,
Lux support and unleash DEMACIAAA!!!
- To play
Will of the Ancients
Will of the Ancients is a bad item on
Garen, but if a teammate gets it, then you can prefer from the aura, because
Judgment and
Demacian Justice proc on spellvamp.
Demacian Justice can easily deal 1000 damage lategame, which will heal you for 200 HP. And
Judgment heals for every target it hits for 1 second by 67 HP, means if you hit 5 champs for the full duration you heal yourself by 1005 HP!
If you now geSpirit of the Spectral Wraith and combine it with this aura, well, you know what happens.

Enough said? What you say? No? Ok then...

At lvl 1, try to poke down the enemy with















As for farming, try to last hit with basic attacks and




Another option would be to freeze your lane and zone out the enemy from exp and last hits. This is nearly as effective as killing him.

First, to maintain control you got to push your lane now, so your opponent can't gank. Don't forget to ward the top lane so you see the enemy incoming. You can stay in the lane and try to take down the tower.
Second, if you see another lane needs help or your team wants to get Dragon, you can roam and help them. You deal absurd amounts of damage now and can basically "oneshot" squishies. But if you accomplish nothing, this can hurt you badly.
Also, try to hold up your tower as long as possible, so you can easily farm if you want and decrease the map presence of the enemy.









If the teamfight runs bad, you shouldn't defend the lifes of others, your life is very important aswell. Try to break slows with



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