The Legend Of Garen

Throughout Valoran, the resolve of Demacia's military is alternately celebrated or despised, but always respected. Their "zero tolerance" moral code is strictly upheld by civilians and soldiers alike. In combat, this means Demacian troops may not make excuses, flee, or surrender by example. Garen, the valiant warrior who bears the title "the Might of Demacia", is the paradigm to which these leaders are compared. Thousands of great heroes have risen and fallen on the bloody battlefields between Demacia and its preeminent rival, Noxus. It was beneath their mighty banners of war that Garen first met steel with Katarina, the Sinister Blade. The infantrymen who beheld this event (and survived) commented that it seemed as though the two were locked in a mortal waltz set against a symphony of clashing blades.

Garen, the pride of the Demacian military and the leader of the Dauntless Vanguard, returned from this battle breathless for the first time in his career, though some speculate this was due to reasons other than exhaustion. The plausibility of these rumors was bolstered when, in every instance thereafter, Garen seized the opportunity to encounter the Sinister Blade again. A paragon of Demacian ethic, Garen never entertained such allegations, for he knew others couldn't understand. Even simply the pursuit of a worthy opponent on the battlefield is, to a true warrior, the reason to rise each morning. The promise of one, particularly one so beautifully and diametrically opposed, is the validation of his existence.

"The most effective way to kill an opponent is to slice through the man next to him." - Garen, on front line strategy.

Why should Garen be a Tank? READ ME!

One thing I have to say is: Never use Garen for tanking unless your team can focus squishies and carries down first and fast. If your team doesn't have enough coordination to do that, they will most likely not succeed. Garen can only hold down CC and the enemies focus for about 2 seconds, but thanks to your Atma's Impaler , Decisive Strike , and your Frozen Mallet , you have enough damage and CC to hold focus for about 3-4.5 seconds. Your team needs to coordinate their fire at whoever needs to be killed first. That is enough time to eliminate a threat and start killing another person. Make sure you don't have a teammate that just throws their spells at the nearest living thing. I can't stress this enough: Warn your teammates about who to focus.

Now, this doesn't mean you have to run a premade every game, it just means that you have to step up and call out who to focus, and you have to place the wards. Some people may call this an unnecessary complication. I call this common sense. Garen is by no means the easiest person to tank with, but once you get it down, he can come up to a level that is comparable to say, Malphite . You just can't initiate as good as him. Many people don't agree with tanking with Garen, but I recommend all Garen players to try it.

I highly recommend that players new to Garen try out my Tanky DPS build first, and step up to tanking later. Luckily I covered this. The build above is my Tanky DPS build, as most players that try out a champion for the first time decide to just take a look at the top items and not read the guide until later. Covering all angles of a champion is hard, but you can find most of the information that you will need by reading my whole guide. It is a bit of a lengthy guide, but I assure you, it is possible to have great fun with it.

Pros & Cons: Know Your Limits

Pros

+ Great Tank
+ A great mix of health, Armor, and MR
+ Hard to catch
+ No mana

Cons

- Not as much damage as a DPS build
- Not so great at initiating
- None of your abilities are that good at protecting people(No taunt, Snare etc.)
- Cooldowns are annoying