This guide is solely designed to reduce incoming damage, hold and take your tower first, and to soak up damage in team fights to win. There are many Garen guides out there that I have tried and they do work, but I went ahead and built a customized Tank Garen and have been successfully winning in games as long as my bottom lane and middle lane are not feeding (it is a team game after all.) You will notice that there appears to be little damage in this guide but you will find out after using it that since Garen's abilities are only hindered by its cool down alone and not mana, rage or energy, you will be burning down enemies and taking kills at every opportunity! This is my Ranked Garen build and I have gone games without dying simply because I have the HP5 and armor/Mag res to out live and out survive my enemies. Mid and end game you will be sitting on over 300 HP5, 4k health and more armor and mag resist then your enemies can burn through!

The summoner spells I prefer to get are Teleport and Flash. Depending on their team make up, sometimes I switch out Teleport for Clairvoyance. Teleport comes in very handy when using this build because it allows you high mobility across the entire map. A favorite trick I like to do early game is to teleport to my teams wards in a bush and run in from behind and Spin to Win! If your other lanes are doing bad you can always teleport in and hold off the enemy. What I end up doing is going back to base to buy and teleporting back in to get the gold and experience advantage over my lane.

Everything in this guide goes hand in hand. Your runes will keep your HP5, Armor and Mag resist high right out of the gate while the masteries also reinforce these runes by adding their bonuses and then giving you 5% more Armor and Magic Resistance at the very beginning! Starting with 2 Rejuvination Beads with all these bonuses give you a lopsided advantage in the lane because you are always going to be hitting your enemy because you are not limited by mana, energy or rage. If you start getting nuked on simply pop Courage (Your Q key) and back out, wait 9 seconds and then let your natural .5% increase to HP5 kick in and heal you up very fast. By mid game, you should already be at about 180 HP5. Thats about the equivalent of a single ad melee attack and most of a regular ability attack. You will be sitting there taking a pounding and surviving through it and then coming back for more as you burn them down and they have to retreat to get health and mana back.

When I play in my ranked matches with this build, I tend to just Dive in with Decisive Strike and they will try and run away, then hit Judgment and if they are aggressive also hit Courage. This build is not a heavy damage build but for how much damage Garens abilities do and you're unlimited ability to keep using them over and over will surely burn down your opponent very fast and you can always dive turrets and expect to get out of them really easily. Late game, if you build everything I have put in order, you can easily tank turrets as your team DPS's down the enemies and you Spin to Win or Demacian Justice your kills. Its really easy to do!

The main goal of playing Tank with this build is to get you in-between your enemies and your teammates. The enemy will range hit you and you can take the hits with ease. If they start slamming you, just walk back to your minions and HP5 with your Passive. If you are arriving late to a team fight and your team is losing the fight you just simply Charge at one of their DPS or whoever is punishing your team and silence with a Spin to Win which will give your team a chance to retreat then you hit courage and get out of there.

Farming is really easy with this build. As long as you are maxing out your Judgment (E) you should be able to mow down the ranged minions everytime. I try to position myself inbetween the ranged minions and the melee minions. The trick is to learn just how far Judgment extends and Spin to Win!!

Pro's:
A true Tank build with decent damage that allows you to play a tank and enjoy it at the same time!
Survivability is INSANE!!
You really have to be focused HARD for them to drop you end game.
Health Per 5 Seconds easily passes 350 late game.
Damage is very decent for a tank.
If your team is not doing to well, you have the ability to jump in and take heavy damage and survive.


Con's:
If you are used to DPS classes, you may not like the idea of getting hit or not being able to nuke.