Hello All,

I am a relatively new player to the LoL community looking to start playing my second serious champion. I have narrowed it down and I think that Garen will suit my preferences best in-game.

In this thread I am looking for people's insight in playing Garen, whether that may be tips, or anything they do to make Garen's gameplay successful.

So far this is what I know about Garen and how I plan to use him in Summoners Rift.

First off, one thing that makes Garen unique is the fact that his abilities have no cost, and his health automatically regenerates while not fighting anything EXCEPT for minions. This allows him to outlast others in lanes as long as the others are being poked/drained of mana.

Increasing the effectiveness of his health regen could be increased with a Warmogs and Spirit Visage by A) Increasing what the 0.5% regen counts for and B) Increasing the 0.5% to 0.6%. However I do not know if purchasing both of these items is wise as it will eat up a third item slot including boots.

Next there is his Q ability. It breaks snares, increases speed, increases the damage of his next swing, and silences, unless it is affected by other means. I can see myself using this for engaging someone or chasing them down for a kill, given that I have enough CDR to use it more than once.

His W is a shield that reduces damage taken by 30% and reduces snares and such on him by 30%, increasing this abilities effectiveness does not increase the percentage but increases its duration. I'm assuming that this would mostly be suited by maxing it last.

His E is his AOE. It makes him automatically hit all enemies within melee range of him, ignore unit collision, and slows him by 20%. I'm assuming this is only usable for a few things, fighting champions that AREN'T running away from you, and farming minions, even though it does -25% damage to minions. This ability I would just use as stated.

His ultimate is his execute, does more damage when the targets health is lower, so the only logical use would be to use it while the target is below 30% health.

As far as building items in game, this is where I have a problem.

I understand that Garen is a tanky fighter, does not require mana, and he can benefit from Cooldown Reduction. I am looking for ideas for building Garen to be a strong Champion.

Please let me know if you have any tips or suggestions to me.

Please post your opinions and suggestions if you are willing to help a newer player out.

Point the tip at the enemy.

brutaliser, randuin mercs/tabi, maw, warmog, you can put anything on garen and it will do something, the trick is to build accordingly since no matchup will ever be the same. If youre smashing and can get away with it rush black cleaver, if youre needing defence rush that warnog or the appropriate resistance.

all you have to remember is what stats are best on him, you want crit chance, movement speed, health. resistance, CDR and AD.

crit chance since both decisive strike and judgement can crit, thus allowing you to further increase their damage output by a factor of about 1.5, my normal build will end up with about 45-55% crit chance which is huge.

movement speed or flash just because all your abilities are short range and your also melee, you want to be able to keep up with your enemies and also being able to slow your opponent will help glue you to your enemy.

health and resistance because your in melee range and thus higher probability that you'll be focused on, especially if your doing massive damage with your crits on judgement. you want to be able to survive, though resistance you wont need too much since courage can increase it so small amounts can be worth more.

AD since your primary damage is scaling with AD and thus increasing your damage output and also increasing your threat level thus making you the focus target instead of your squishies. and of course since majority of your damage is physical armor pen will be a primary stat as well.

Cooldown reduction sine you have no other limitations on your abilities. so that your able to cast these abilities more frequently thus dishing out more damage.

things you dont really want is attack speed, life steal, ap, and any mana related items.

attack speed you wont want especially if your getting cooldown reduction because majority of your damage is gonna be coming out of your abilities and thus the amount of auto attacking you'll do is very minor and additional attack speed wont show much difference in most of your conflicts.

life steal is for the same reason, since the amount of auto attacks you'll do is very small, life steal wont show any difference much at all.

and AP and mana items should be obvious since theres very little AP scaling and garen has no mana.

my typical build is:
Boots (mostly swiftness or merc treds),
Atma's impaler(last to be upgraded but avarice blade at the beginning to help farm and get gold easier)
black cleaver (additional health, armor pen, and the shred works on most of garen's damage abilities also cooldown reduction),
Defensive item (omen, maw, or bulwark'),
Frozen Mallet (to keep your enemies close to you)
and the last item is infinity edge (massive damage, crit chance, and additional crit damage to further improve your damage)

my typical build is
13 hp pots (or cloth+5...)
Brutalizer
Boots
IE
BC
[whatever I feel like]

Masteries
21/9/0 or 0/30/0

Runes
ArPen
Armor
MR/lv
Movement