I'm Dazz HD on EUW servers, and i mained Garen jungle in season 7 and intend to do so in season 8 as well.
On my main i ended up in plat 1 as my highest rank and ended the season plat 3. I was blessed with becoming a father just before the season end, so unfortunately i didn't get to make the last attempt for diamond. On all of my accounts i have gathered up over 250k mastery points with Garen jungle alone, and i never got tired of it. I thought that jungle Garen was dead when season 8 would hit, but boy was i wrong, i've spent all the time on my smurf theory crafting, and making build patterns, and i'm finally able to present to you the final result.

My stats from my main:
Some stats from my gold 2 smurf:

But why Garen jungle?

A question i have been asked many times, to put it short, i never liked playing tank Garen, and i kinda felt forced to play it in top lane, so i played him jungle and got absolutely destroyed, but i kept trying and began to evolve my unique play style, and i slowly started finding success. Now, Garen isn't a bad jungler aslong as you know what you are capable off and what to do in certain matchups. Something that will only come from experience with the champion and the playstyle. That is why i ask that you do not judge this guide off of one game.

Anything i should know before i go jungle with Garen?

Absolutely, first of first, you should read and learn as much from this guide as possible, to prevent you from doing the stupid things i had too.

2nd you really need a strong mentality, if you do not know how to mute other people or like being flamed because of your pick, this is your time to turn away, cause "every defeat will be put on your shoulder, and every victory you are non-existing" - All of my teammates.

3rd Enjoy the victories and learn from them, my playstyle might not suite you, but that doesn't mean you can't evolve your own.

This is your primary rune set:


- Mandatory to get successful ganks of.
-Proc on Q. Can be swapped with for a bit of sustain
- I wouldn't swap this, but can be good too.
- Gives you predator cooldown reduction For more passiv ms.

Second tree:

Works well with predator/Q/ghost
Just a nice rune that only increase in value.

Alternative second tree:


Nice boost that helps jungle clear early.
Nice for nuking, but you get a lot of dmg anyway, so its hard to see the efect of the rune.
Notes:

Predator make Garen jungle really scary, he gets extremely fast with his Q. Imagine the predator dmg, Q dmg, dusk blade dmg and sheen dmg from trinity force, deadmans plate all in one proc. We are easily talking 1k+. dmg on his Q. And with the overall ms he gets, he flanks around the most mobile teams.

A quick run through what Garen can do

Garen passively regenerates 0.2 / 0.8% maximum health every half-second. This regeneration is interrupted for 9 / 4 seconds if he takes non-minion damage or if he is hit by an enemy ability. COOLDOWN: 8

Garen cleanses himself of all slows affecting him and gains 30% bonus movement speed for 1.5s / 2s / 2.5s / 3s / 3.5s.

Additionally, his next basic attack within 4.5 seconds deals additional physical damage 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+ 40% AD), and silences his target for 1.5 seconds.
Decisive Strike resets Garen's autoattack timer.

Note: This can be good to cancel slows in ganks or escape enemies, and having an AA reset in jungle is a lifesaver. COOLDOWN: 24 / 23 / 22 / 21 / 20

PASSIV: Garen permanently gains 0.25 bonus armor and bonus magic resistance every time he kills an enemy unit, up to a maximum of 30 bonus resistances.
ACTIVE: Garen reduces incoming physical and magic damage by 60% and has 60% Tenacity for the first 0.75 seconds. For the rest of the duration Garen reduces incoming physical and magic damage by 30%.

Note: This makes full AD Garen a lot tankier than he looks and bait many enemies into thinking they can kill him. It will be easy to stack when you get raptors going. Remember to safe the active before you get hit by a stun, or a full dmg rotation. COOLDOWN: 9

ACTIVE: Garen rapidly spins his sword around his body for 3 seconds. Dealing 14 / 18 / 22 / 26 / 30 (+ 36 / 37 / 38 / 39 / 40% AD)

For the duration, Garen cannot basic attack, is minion block immune and deals physical damage in 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10 spins to enemies within range, increased by 33% when damaging a single enemy.

Judgment can critically strike, dealing 50% (+ Infinity Edge 50%) bonus damage.


Enemy champions hit 4 times have their armor reduced by 25% for 6 seconds. Hits after the 4th refresh the duration of the debuff.

After 1 second, Garen can reactivate to cancel it immediately, reducing its cooldown by its remaining duration.

Note: this is your bread and butter, it helps you with jungle clear. It also has a AA reset. COOLDOWN: 120 / 100 / 80

PASSIVE: The enemy with the most kills in the last 5 minutes is marked as the Villain. The mark cannot be assigned to another champion while Garen is in combat with the Villain. If more than one enemy has the same bounty, the enemy who received it first is marked as the Villain.

Garen's basic attacks and each spin of Judgment against the Villain deal 1% of their maximum health as bonus true damage on-hit.

ACTIVE: Garen calls upon the might of Demacia to attempt to execute the target enemy champion, dealing them magic damage, converted to true damage when targeting the Villain. 175 / 350 / 525 (+ 28.6 / 33.3 / 40% of target's missing health)


Note: The villain mechanic is so f*cking good in jungle, it basically make you use the full effect of it "ohh the adc is popping off, lemme just gank that" And it will do over 1k dmg on tanks late game. One of the reason Garen jungle is scary.