INTRODUCTION

Garen is a League of Legends champion that is easy to pick up and play. The chief purpose of this guide is to introduce players to Garen and his mechanics so that he can be played well at all levels of competition. His simple abilities and straightforward role in team fights (along with the recent buffs he has received) make him an excellent starting champion. This is true for both normal and ranked playlists.

Strengths: Garen's biggest strength comes from his simplicity. This means that players can have a significant impact on a match without a high level of skill. However, practicing and mastering Garen will greatly increase your impact. He is also extremely tanky and works in many different team compositions.

Weaknesses: Garen's main weakness is his lack of Crowd Control (CC - the ability to manipulate the locations, speeds, or movement of enemy champions). He also lacks a "gap close" ability making it so that he has to run at champions to get close to them. However, his movement speed and ability to remove slows make up for his lack of gap closers.

RUNES

Runes are small passive buffs that you equip before a game. They are purchased with IP in the store and can be equipped in your profile. If you are not level 30 you will have weaker runes than I will list here, but you can use the weaker versions at your level to similar effect.

I use the same runes every game as Garen:

Marks: Attack Damage +.95 (9) - These help you with last hitting and add a little extra harass from your Q and E.

Seals: Armor +1 (9) - Flat armor seals help A TON with early game damage trades in lane. This means you stay in lane longer and get more farm.

Glyphs: Magic Resistance (MR) Per Level +.17 (9) - These runes will help you stay alive in late game team fights while magic is flying all around.

Quintessences: Movement Speed +1.5% (3) - Movement speed is essential on Garen. His ability to run in and out of fights while his health regenerates depends on these runes.

MASTERIES: 9-21-0

Masteries are another set of small passive buffs that you bring with you into a match. They are decided beforehand by filling out a mastery tree with points. The points are earned by gaining experience points and summoner levels (not to be confused with champion levels in game). This specific set of masteries make sure Garen will stay alive in lane and team fights with 21 points in the defensive tree. I bring these masteries with me into every game. The 9 points placed in the offense tree should be focused on Cooldown Reduction (CDR) for abilities and Attack Damage (AD) for last hitting.

SUMMONER SPELLS

Ignite and Flash are the best choices for Garen in the top lane. Most top laners should take Teleport so they can have higher map presence, but Garen's ability to execute and his built in movement speed make Ignite the better option in my opinion.

SKILLS/SKILL ORDER

Passive - Perseverance: Slowly regenerates Garen's health while he is out of combat for a short time. This ability automatically gets stronger throughout the game as you level up.

Q - Decisive Strike: Removes slows from Garen and gives him a 35% movement speed boost for a short time. Garen's next auto attack will also apply additional attack damage and a silence.

W - Bravery: Garen's main defensive ability. Passively, it buffs up Garen's defensive stats (Armor and MR) by 20%. The active reduces all incoming damage and CC by 30% for a short time.

E - Judgment: This is Garen's signature ability and his main source of damage. Garen's spins and deals damage in a circle around himself for a short time. He can also move slowly through units during this time.

R - Demacian Justice: Garen's ultimate ability is an execution. It does a massive amount of magic damage and bonus magic damage based on the target's missing health

You should be maxing E first in lane. Garen's spin does a lot of base damage early game as long as you are putting points into leveling it up. After that I usually level my Q but you can level up your W if you are having trouble keeping your health up.

Leveling priority is as follows: R>E>Q>W

ITEM BUILD

Starting Items: I usually start with boots and 4 health potions. Starting with boots allows you to better dodge skill shots from your opponent and the potions help your passive keep you healthy in lane. Cloth Armor and 5 potions, Ruby Crystal and 2 potions, or Doran's Shield and 1 potion are also viable starts depending on your opponent.

Mid Game: On your first back you should pick up Bami's Cinder. Unless you are facing a lot of heavy AP, then you should pick up a Spectre's Cowl. You have a few options for upgraded boots but I usually get Mercury Treads against teams with a lot of CC or Boots of Swiftness if I am ahead. Ninja Tabi are another option against auto-attack heavy teams. From there you will want to build your Sunfire Cape (or Cinderhulk if you brought smite as a summoner spell), Randuin's Omen, and Spirit Visage. These items will give you the area damage, tank stats, and health regeneration you need in the mid game.

Final Build: Late game items should be catered to the team you are playing against. Are you playing against mostly AD champions? Build a Thornmail. Are you facing AP? Finish your Spirit Visage and get a Locket of the Iron Solari if you need it. Warmog's Armor also works very well on Garen because it basically doubles or triples the strength of his passive health regeneration.

A good generic final build would be:

GAMEPLAY

Laning Phase: The first part of the match is called the laning phase or the early game. Here you will be in top lane matched up against 1 or 2 opponents. Your general rules in lane are push, kill, roam. You can push the minions as soon as your E is level 2 or 3 by activating it in the middle of a wave. If you are trying to trade with your opponent try to wait until after they use one of their skill shots or slows and then use Q to close the distance.

Once you have landed Q then you can E and W if you are going to be taking damage during your spin. Once you have pushed your opponent out or killed him you can roam down to mid lane to get a gank (surprise attack from the jungle) on the enemy mid. You can even roam all the way down to bot lane, but be sure you are back in time to save your turret from the enemy top laner.

Group Phase: The group phase is also known as mid/late game. Here you aren't spending nearly as much time in your lane. Instead you will be following your teammates around, taking objectives, and getting kills on the enemy team. Team fights can be chaotic, but remaining focused on your role is vital to your team. In general you want to be doing one of two things in a fight.

First, you can dive onto the enemies most powerful champion, silence them, ignite, spin, and execute them if you have the damage. Second, and probably the better option, you can peel for your teammates. Peeling is simply staying close to your most powerful teammates and doing everything in your power to keep them alive. Garen isn't the best peeler in the game because of his lack of CC but he can still do a lot of good in that situation.

Something else to mention is that Garen's passive will be very powerful towards the end of the game. This means that you can jump into battle, loose a bunch of health, sprint away for a few seconds, and come right back with most of your missing health regenerated.

CONCLUSION

As one of the first champions made for the game, Garen is very simple. I will be the first one to admit this fact. He is often not played at the highest levels for this very reason. His simplicity makes his skill cap fairly low meaning that the professionals can make better and more advanced plays on the newer champions. However, I believe this makes Garen a perfect champion for beginners and a good "dark horse" champion for more experienced players that can catch opponents off guard.