Core Items
- Doran's shield in most circumstances is the best starting item possible for Garen. With the amazing amounts of hit points and armor it's just too nice to say no to and increases the enemies fear of you.
- Boots boots boots. The choice is so difficult to choose which ones you want whether its
or
while normally I go with Boots of Swiftness in most cases due to being able to
out of Slows. But if there are more than 3 major CCs on there team E.G. Stuns, Fears, Charms, Taunts then I'd choose Mercury's Treads, even though being the tank against a good team these wont be targeted on you it's still important to have the 35% less timer on it during laning or ganks.
- AD, CDR, ARP and the amount it costs is 1337! With this it allows you to take caster minions from full to dead at level 9 with one
Most people would argue that it's better to go straight into being more tanky and I used to agree until champions started to survive on low hit points as I faced better and tougher opponents, but with this I seem to be able to kill most squishies with one combo until around about level 16 while still being able to effectively tank people out with the passive from
(giving 25 Armor and Magic Resist if you've last hit 25 minions from getting the skill not hard considering your Garen solo top)
- Armor, Health, Aoe Damage with great synergy to Garen's
This is the perfect item for Garen giving him enough armor and health to tank late game aswell as the 35 damage from his sunfire per second. Imagine charging into the enemy team while there all stacked, silencing blah blah... Then "JUDGMENT!" while dealing damage from Sunfire Cape, there going to have to scatter to avoid losing all there health to just the tank. And lastly this item again adds alot of fear and makes people have to target you due to having high damage output.
- Not only having the highest amount of Magic resist in the game, giving +8% movement speed and 0.35% of your maximum health as regen per second It's cheap too! This item is pretty much all you need to stay alive. Once you've got this the core build is finished and your good to go. With your passive and the health regen you get from this you will regen like a boss not even really needing to go to base for health after being jumped by 5. The movement speed along with Decisive Strike, Ghost and Youmuu's Ghostblade. Makes you Uncatchable, Unescapeable and to be honest extremely scary when charging in to initiate against the enemy team allowing you to get there before they even know whats hit them.
- This is where most people go ? Why build Youmuu's... It's not cost effective blah blah, well having so many games played as Garen I find it to be the "tip of the iceberg" as you might say. 15% cooldown reduction... Any Garen player is limited by cooldowns. And 15% reduction is just wow, more silences, more spins, more 36% damage reduction and can't forget that amazing ultimate Demacian Justice or Execute! I also find Garen not that strong an initiator as other champions (Amumu, Rammus, Malphite etc) So with the active from Youmuu's it kind of makes up for it, (
,
,
) You'll be running like a mad man, then for some reason your enemies try to slow you and BAM,
them slows are gone. Overall I find this item to indeed be a necessity for initiation, running, damage etc.
Optional Items
- "Why isn't this item in your core build?" To be honest it's not necessary for survival. After you have Sunfire and Force of Nature the enemies are going to have to be doing ALOT to take you down. But if both teams have high damage output I normally go with this because of the 68 armor & 38 magic resist, not even mentioning the amazine passive (Revival). But sometimes you'll find yourself on an extremely tanky team. I once found myself on a team with:
Solo top (me)
Jungle
AP Carry
AD Carry
Support
You might be thinking ... Wow. What a team... Unkillable. Well to a degree thats quite a justifiable statement but we seriously lacked damage, so this is why Guardian Angel isn't in my core build, because sometimes it's just better to build a DPS item, E.G.
or
- Ooooh. When I get this item I just feel like a wrecking ball. Every time I buy it, it still surprises me as to how much it increases my damage output. "80 Attack damage" Wow. It's a hell of alot considering Garen's High AD ratios and the fact that Judgment
CAN "crit" and
CAN "crit" for the extra 50% damage. Because of the amount that it increases Garen's DPS, I have considered many times to put it in the core section but, I think other items are just "more" important for this build.
- Like 1000 hp. This item makes you go from Tanky to pretty much unkillable. But you have to be careful buying this, would you want to focus a Garen with 150 Armor, 150 Magic resist and 3500 health? This is the reason it's in my optional guide, you need to make sure your a high priority target while still being tanky enough to survive alot of damage. If you find yourself in need of this extra health be my guest buy it, it will increase survivability so much (I find myself liking this with Infinity edge, because you HAVE to be focused to avoid the enemey team from being torn apart while having that extra TON of health.)
- 45 Armor (on par with Sunfire cape) +18% crit. I think this item is great for Garen as any "good" Garen player should know having around about 2200 flat health (without items) at level 18 which means you get about 44 damage from the passive without taking any items into consideration.
-The formulae for working out damage bonus. --
Health * 0.02 -- This will give you the exact amount of damage you will receive based on the health you have E.G.
Flat Health -
2200 * 0.02 = 44
Warmog's (non stacked) -
920 * 0.02 = 18.4 (rounded to 18)
Warmog's (Stacked) -
1270 * 0.02 = 25.4 (rounded to 25)
Sunfire Cape -
450 * 0.02 = 9
I'll explain later on in the "Builds Section" when/if I buy Atma's
- One of the best late game items for Garen due to having the High ARP which is crucial to Garen's damage. Simply, if your 3 or more of your opponents have more than 75 armor get this after your Force of Nature (if you chose to buy it) and you'll still be able to deal with them appropriately. But, you'll find yourself not actually dealing that much damage to your opponents, you'll still need to get your Infinity edge or Atmog's, to actually warrant enemies attacking you.
More items to be added soon!
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