Here is a problem that has always perplexed me. Garen is an AD bruiser, he has excellent AD ratios, his spells can crit for massive damage and he has great sustain and mitigation with his W and passive.

So why do people always build him as if he was a tank? He has no cc outside of a silence, and if building tankiness does absolutely no damage to make him a viable target or force the enemy to focus him, yet every other Garen player I ever see builds health and resistances on him as if it was going out of style.

Some people may say "oh but his W and passive promote tankiness" Well in response to this I would like to point out that while these are improved the more resistances/health Garen has that the way they are meant to be implemented seems to be less for tanking for your team, and more to add a decent form of damage mitigation/sustain to yourself without having to invest in it, allowing you to take more risks and go completely balls to the wall insane on an enemy without having to waste the valuable gold building it early game.

What do you all think? I main Garen and am normally the number one champ killer on my team with him so I know what works for me at least, is there any situation where a tank Garen is viable? What would you rather have on your team? Any experiences relating to matter you would like to share is completely welcome. I just want to get an idea where this idea of Garen tanking is coming from.

You build as a tank because he can take alot of hits i mean alot of hits, just play bot with him and let him kill you a bit then youll see why.

Last game I went 22/5 and someodd assist as a Garen, I carried...easily, and my build was Force of Nature, Ram Omen, Ninja Tabi, Frozen Mallet, Last Whisper (Which I built after FoN) and was working on Maw of Mal.

The point of building Garen as a tank is simple. If built correctly in a bruiser style, he can put out a great amount of damage while being able to take it. I top lane with him, and to me, the whole point of top lane is to make sure your team can do its job, meaning I have to be ready to bully the ADC and APs out of the fight or into a good picking off position, and possibly initiating or taking some interceptable attacks to protect my team. Building him tanky has great synergy with his W and his passive, but full tank is not the best idea, just like building him like a carry isn't a great idea.

Assuming you are following the meta and topping: You have a ADC bot with a Support, who is usually Sona/Taric/Soraka/Jana/Lulu/Leona of all of those, Taric & Leona are the only non squishes. Further this with your AP mid who is going to be squishy unless the wild mid Diana appears, Leaving the jungle and top to play either tank or bruiser style characters. Now if you build pure damage, you've done two things, your bringing a glass cannon to the table who is susceptible to kiting, and if your jungle is the tank and gotten behind for whatever reason, cannot fill the role Garen is usually used for. Coming out of top lane, I have to be ready to bully everyone, be it a tank, support, or carry.

Can he provide great damage? Absolutely, but why not add some survivability to this as well? Just like the pure tank Garens should add some damage into their build to ensure they can fill their role as well. My suggestion is to build the tanky items that apply the most such as Ram Omen/Thornmail and FoN follow it up with health in any style you want Warmog/Frozen Mallet, and build some damage somewhere in between (Usually I try to go for damage items that offer some tankiness as well just to further the cause.)

i think the same, i do go a little tanky like sunfire and warmogs but then i go heavy damge like ie, bt,ygb, then i sell my boots for another bt

I like building him ad bruiser. Dose excellent damage, and is still very tanky.

Why? bottom line, you have no steroid spells and aspd does not work well with your spells, thus ADC is out.

Correct way to play it is either tank or bruiser like Darius. I would say Mallet, Infinity, last wishper, Boots, warmongers and force of nature. Either that or go CDR or tank.

There is no logical reason for full tank Garen against decent enemies.

If anybody thinks they played tank Garen and carried, I encourage you to look at the damage you did after the match. I doubt it was anything more than just kill steals with his ult. I agree, tank Garen should not be played, as the primary characteristic of a tank is CC. Garen has none, and as tank also has no damage, so people ignore him.

A good Garen will have his IE and Brutalizer for offense, and Randuins, FoN and Frozen Mallet for defense. The passive on his W allows him to build more offense because he benefits more from defensive items. If you build all tank you do no damage. The poster above that went 22/5 probably had the lowest damage on his team outside of the support. You can build damage and defense and retain the survivability you get from building full defense because of how powerful his W is.