Smite
The core item of this champion guide is Smite. Allows for extra damage and control on your enemy champion.

The reason for that is since the last patch 4.20 changed the jungle and added new smite paths and roles to it, allowed for certain champions and roles to use the new smite as a normal spell on them rather than only use it for junglers.

Having Smite available with your jungler's allows for an early use of yours during first leash of either blue or red for
the jungler instead of his own Smite. Where he can easily secure both buffs or any other monster depending on the strategy that is going to be followed in the game.
At the very first levels , you won't have use of ignite except for securing big minions. your first focus during the very early laning phase is to secure the upgraded Stalker's Blade to allow more use of it during early laning phase and since it won't take that long to have the gold for it. When you have the upgrade ready you will add another spell to your abilities and allows more options during fights and lane control either when you push or ganked.




Teleport or Flash

This comes to your personal preferences and/or team composition/countering enemy.

I personally and for this guide go for the Teleport and will be using it for this guide as the spell of choice over Flash (I don't find flash as a useful spell of my type of play anyways).

Teleports allows Garen to split push when needed and/or clear waves as soon as possible which will definitely make the enemy team rethink their mid push or their general game. I use it so I can divert some of the pressure away from where they are and to push that wave that is taking tower or Inhib already.

The second benift of Teleports is of course (and focused in this guide) is to gank other lanes from behind with your ult ready and tanky build to stop a losing fight and secure kills for you or for your teammates there (like bot).


For this guide: you want to use your first Teleport when you return to shop for the smite upgrade and return ASAP for laning. Wait for TP cooldown and then you can return to shop and back to lane quickly.
or you can go help other lane, and then teleport to your lane to stop the push. This is usefull if you don't want to push and want to zone them for jungler gank.

Simple: I use flat Attack Speed on almost any AD champion. (you can go whatever you want honestly)
With the Attack Speed in masteries as well, you get a total of 41% Attack Speed buff.

I don't like to have one buffed a couple points and have the other buffed the same. I instead would prefer to have either my Attack Speed or Attack Damage buffed early game. Tons of damage either way.

I like Attack Speed for the quick autos on minions and on champions when I spam on them. Sometimes though I go for Attack Damage depending on what I know of my Top opponent. If you want for Full Armour.

My idea for flat Attack Speed is to be careful to other aspects of the game like their attack damage output and their armor and build/play accordingly.

I personally go for Full AD here. With my flat Attack Speed setup I get a bit of Damage buff early game as well and with the right items I can easily have tons of damage early game which is gained from Attack Speed (more autos)

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OFFENSE

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Fury : Maximize my Attack Speed from Runes to 41%, so you need it all 4 of them.
Sorcery : Cooldown early game for your Q and Ult. You need all 4 of them.
Brute Force : Extra 10 Attack Damage at level 18. Obviously you want that.
Martial Mastery : Extra Damage
Warlord : More Damage
Spell Weaving : You want your spells to be to have more damage from your basic attacks.
Executioner : Must have. You want more damage on your enemy, and this is perfect for your Ult.
Blade Weaving : You want more damage to your basic attack from your spells.
Expose Weakness : More damage from your teammates.
Havoc : More Damage.

as for

Dangerous Game : I wanted that 5% health of me when I secure a kill for extra/quick/guaranteed sustainability

during teamfights and/or solo. Although Garen won't exactly be grateful for this mid-late game since he will have tons and tons of health from his own passive.
Yes you don't use Mana, so that to the waste.

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DEFENSE

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Block : Less damage from enemy
Enchanted Armour : Garen is to be a fighter for this guide and this require tank items. This is useful.

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Utility

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Fleet of Foot: Mobility!

Depends on your type of play.

If you follow this guide, you want your Q leveled up quickly for extra Movement Speed and Spell Damage (with the mighty Silence).

Your focus should be R>Q>E>W.

Obviously, you want your R leveled up on levels 6,11 and 16.


For Q vs E
Q gives you Movement Speed, Silence and damage to turrets (which we need to push with Garen.
with Q having silenced the enemy champion, you can simply attack him with E without getting spell damage from them.
and basically that's what you want to do. Q first, when silenced, attack with E and care for silence recovery, you want to move away just before they are up with spells. RULE OF THUMP: Do not take damage when unnecessary.

W
Extra armour and MR when you go in with your E, or when you are caught in a fight or a spell.
Now you can change the ability route on this guide by only leveling up W a couple more over your E, certainly not your Q not beyond your Q level. One extra to two points should be enough.



A great balance is as seen on the chart above. When you have your R, you will have W ready for those sticky situations, Q leveled up two notches along with E.
Another way is to have no W up to your first R level, allowing your Q to have 3 points. This works if you have open play in Top and want that tower down NOW!

Sometimes you want W to have at most equal to your Q if you are having tough time keeping up with the damage input you get from enemy Top. although I consider this a fail and start asking for ganks. Try to hug tower instead and/or freeze lane and deny their farm, they will either leave the lane to look for more farm elsewhere or just stay back so they don't get ganked from your jungler and there will be your chance to get up to pace.

TL;DR

Your choice of Trinket+Always get bots as needed, at least up until level 9 when you will have your passive buffed.


---Building First Items---
1st Items : Hunter's Machete + health bots (Smite upgrade+leash assist).

2nd Items : Stalker's Blade -with one or two long swords- (If you have enough for long swords).


---Now you have smite available to use on enemy champ with Smite's True Damage / Smite's 50% slow---


---Building Core Items---
3rd Item : one or two Long Swords or The Brutalizer (whichever available in that tree).

4th Item : Stalker's Blade - Warrior (ITEM 1)


--Now you have Full Smite build, +45 Attack Damage+Smite's /+10% Armour Penetration /+10% CDR / Smite 50% Slow--


5th Item : Boots of Speed or Boots of Movility or Boots of Mobility - Distortion (whichever available in that tree). (ITEM 2)


--Now you have +25+105 Movement Speed / +20% Teleport and Flash CDR--


6th Item : Pickaxe for your Taimat. (don't go for long sword first, save for Pickaxe) -with Long Sword.

7th Item : Long Sword or Tiamat whichever available.


--Now you have +40 Attack Damage / +100% Base HP Regen / Passive: up to 60% bonus AD / Active: up to 100% AD--


8th Item : Cloth Armour or Chain Vest (whichever available in that tree).

9th Item : Giant's Belt or whichever available (whichever available in that tree).(ITEM 3)

---Building Situational Items---
This depends on your preference and the evolution of the game itself

10th Item : Long Sword or Vampiric Specter for your Tiamat upgrade (whichever available in that tree).

11th Item : Ravenous Hydra (You should have this fully built first for the extra damage).(ITEM 4)


-- Now you have +75 AD / +12% Lifesteal --


12th Item : Build toward Randuin's Omen (+500 HP / +70 Armour) or Guardian Angel (+50 armour / +40 MR / Passive +30% HP on death) (ITEM 5)

13th Item : Build toward Last Whisperer (+40 AD / Passive: Ignores 35% of target armour) (Get it for TANKS) or Infinity Edge (+80 AD / +25% Critical Strike Chance of 250% AD) (ITEM 7)

14th Item : 3065_32.png Spirit Visage (+400 HP / +40 MR / +10% CDR / +20% Regen, lifesteal) or 3102_32.png Banshee's Veil (+450 HP / +55 MR / Enemy Spell Block). (ITEM 6)


Apart from the Hydra, you can build any preferred item depending on gameplays, enemy build, champion combos and other factors in the game.