Hello, my name is Steelo (or because it was not available: Steelovic) and i am a long time Garen player. I used to play Garen as a Tank before the changes in masteries / runes, for reasons of very strong tanking synergies all coming together in Garen. However the patch changed a lot of things, the dodge along with the speed bonus has gone, warmogs has been nerfed and a lot of other things happened that make Tank Garen less viable.

Because i like Garen so much as a Champion i kept on trying various builds and ive finally setteled on this new tanky AD build as the perfect build for me (and therefore: everyone else ;)). I've done some incredible things with this build like 12:1 when all my team was negative or going legendary after 0:3 (negative, first blood to enemy included) in early game. This is a build to kill people, to kill them again and kill them even when they think they are safe. This is the Really Scary Garen Build!

- Your passive allows to heal when you are hiding in the brush or killing creeps unbothered. Be sure not to get random agro from the minions or let the enemy poke, since your regeneration will stop for 7 seconds as soon as you take the slightest bit of damage.
- Your shield does not hold very long, try to use it just before incoming peak damage happens.
- Generally your combo will be Q (Decisive), E (Spin), R (Ult) with the W (Shield) up when you get the most damage, usually after you hit someone with Decisive and everyone throws their stuff at you.
- The Ult comes last because the lower % health the enemy, the more damage it does.
- You take your shield at lvl 3 to max out the defensive bonus early
- Priorities to leveling up skills are Ultimate > Spin > Decisive > Shield, with the exception mentioned above.

- All out damage build in early game. Very low survivability in early game for Garen standards but TONS OF DAMAGE.
- The TONS OF DAMAGE should be enough to farm creeps with a single spin almost untill you have warmogs, then you'll need to wait till atmas finished untill this works again.
- Ninja Tabi works well with Garen's shield to make those AD carrys switch target to someone easier to kill.
- You may conclude this build with defensive or offensive items. Crit makes sense because you have the infinity, but not a very good crit chance yet.
- The yellow armor runes are not mandatory, but they help a little bit at the beginning if the enemy does not decide to run (the sensible thing to do) when you roll in.

- Try not to lose health with a bad tradeoff untill lvl 2. When you hit lvl 2 kill someone with flash - decisive - spin and ignite.
- Going back when you have the money for ninja tabi and giant's belt seems a good idea.
- Hide in the brush. this is a Garen thing, if someone facechecks, scare them away, it is your brush. control the brush and play mind tricks if the enemy uses missiles.
- Get farmed in early game to rush that warmog. Kills are good money but be sure to also lasthit creeps or spin them all to death (you can do this with this build) in early game.
- You will experience a low in dmg output at the time before you have atmas / parts of infinity. Assume a tanky role in that phase of the game. Garen is even with this highly adish build a serious tower diver as soon as you have a health item or two.
- In late game you will need to use your skills very precisely to do full dmg with your spin and silence the right enemy. If you cant get them out at the right moment and on the right targets, your damage contribution will be low because this build does include no cooldown at all.
- Garen needs training. To place his ult right, to judge proper when you have to run and mostly not to overestimate yourself because you seem very OP in early game.

These summoner skills are more or less mandatory for this build. You need the extra damage from Ignite to be able to kill on your own and counter all kinds of healing. And you need the Flash to get in range of people running away with low health.

- If you are going to ignite-ultimate someone, always use ignite first so the initial true dmg increases your ulti dmg.
- Flash, Decisive Strike, Ignite, Ultimate is the very quick and powerfull combo to instakill someone with low health. Tower dive with this and you still have all the health to run away after the kill.

At level 2 its First Blood time for Garen, because:

Basic Attack Damage: 93
Decisive Strike: 30 + 130 = 160
Judgement: 50 + 41 = 91 x 3 = 273
Ignite true Damage: 90

160 + 273 = 433 attack damage from a skill combo at level 2

I have no idea if this build is viable in ranked because i tend to avoid it for drama reasons. If you like this build and/or play it in ranked i hope you will leave a comment to tell about your experience. Of course any other comment is welcome too, but please if you dont have the runes or do other changes to this build, mention it in your post to give proper credit. And vote the build, not the guide, please ;) Thank you and the Really Scary Garen Build concludes here!