This guide is not for the feint of heart, only the courageous. My goal for this guide is to really bring out Garen's most shining moments. He is a heavy hitter early game and a decent mid game character, but he starts to wither late game. I will show you a way to make him viable and at least command a presence late game instead of being ignored. This build is expensive but considering his ability to farm it shouldn't be a problem.

For my runes i put attack dmg into red, because it stacks the best with his judgment early game. I've tried armor pen. and even crit chance (Garen's judgment increases in dmg by his crit chance as well) but neither worked as well as straight attack dmg. The rest of the runebook is mainly for survivability and lasting in lane to farm.

With the attack dmg reds and a doran's blade, u shouldnt have to worry about dmg in the beginning. So i mainly focus on his tankier stats. After all a garen alive and spinning>dead garen.

The items i chose maximize his survivability, damage, and his effectiveness alte game. Unlike alot of champs early game, garen can withstand and even outplay someone with boots and 3 pots. Mainly due to his passive, it allows you to instead start out with more attack damage and health. Toward mid game you should be in spin to win mode. The shield is optional if you're still in laning phase. It gives you more durability and staying power. With IE in your inventory, little should survive your spin of win. By late game with a warmog's, Atma's, banshees or sunfire, you should be Slightly beefy with a chance of crit. The main reason for crit on garen is because once the team gets armor his spin wont be able to do as much. only way to get around armor is magic or lots of crit. Hence the IE, Atma's, and Phantom. In the end your build should be Boots of Swiftness, Infinity Edge, Warmog's, Atma's, Phantom Dancer, And a Banshees veil or Sunfire cape depending on the other team.

Maximize your judgment first for the most damage output from garen in the beginning. Then you lvl his decisive strike and his courage last. Level his ulti when you're able to ofc.

Flash is pretty standard now a days. No flash no dash. with garen its a great intiator, finisher, or an escape. Why is flash>ghost?, flash has more utility than ghost. You can flash over walls or you can juke someone hard in bushes. Say they are chasing you into the first bush in top lane. you wait by the edge of the bush for them until they get close and flash the opposite way they are running.
Ignite has great synergy with garen's ultimate. Sometime you won't be able to finish off people with your ult. in case of emergency, light them on fire. Problem solved.

Garen has great potential, its just a little costly to bring out his true skill. with the end game stats of 4000+ health, 200+ attack dmg, and 73% chance to crit, I'd say you'd be a force to reckon with, so **** off kayle.