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Swiss Garen is the most fun I've had in top lane in a while.

MetalGearTeemo·11/20/2017, 9:21:15 AM·5 votes·1,068 views

So I've been mucking around with Garen in the top lane using the new runes. And I think I'm in love with the Inspiration tree

Lately when I've been playing against counterpick toplaners like our friend teemo, kennen, jayce, mobile people I'll never proc on, I've taken to running a neutrality build designed for max sustain, and god damn does it sustain

Keystone could be a couple things, against ranged harass, you're not going to get value out of klepto with Q very often, If you expect ganking you can go with glacial for extra stickiness ( and more potent activations of things like randuins later ) or spellbook to keep the threat of flash up.

with Inspiration + resolve I get a 145 hp boost, as well as 20% additional pot uptime

  • in inspiration I get access to extra sustain or extra GP5 (depending on if you sell them) - Biscuits
  • More gold value in magical boots (i'm not looking to play aggressive anyway unless they set themselves up for a kill tanking too much creep damage while ranged harassing.
  • And Celestial Body. Why Celestial body? because even with its damage reduction. Garen's trading power is enough that even operating at -10% on his damage until 10 minutes, he can still chunk a guy out of position, and he wouldn't be able to 100-0 them anyway. Its also for the immense syngery it provides with his passive, and the rest of his talent choices. We'll get back to this.

In fort I have 2 things.

  • 2nd Wind - after you do eat auto attack or spell harass, this will start you topping up even faster along with Dorans shield regen. Making it even harder to wear you down and actually stick damage without extended tanking of creeps.

  • And Conditioning. This another 10 minute investment with garen, and pairs up well with his courage stacking as well. if you need more immediate armor and magic resist you can go with the other 2, but I find the staying power of the build in lane is already so good that this would only be under dire situations.

Normal Dorans+healthpot start.

You have 942 hp going into lane. With A Dorans and 2nd wind heal on hit.

Your higher hp means more health per second from your passive, since its % based, as well as better value return from biscuits you're forced to use.

You have value in your boots which will arrive in 10 minutes, meaning you're effectively making up 300 gold in lost cs at 10 minutes, as well as additional stats from conditioning proving further value.

Even if you're chunked to 20-30% and forced back under tower, Just between your item regen thanks to Dorans/2nd Wind, and your buscuit/garen passive, its not uncommon to recover enormous amounts of health in short time. Often against top lane harassers, even like kennen, they're burning through their healing dealing with creep damage from harassing you faster then you're running out of methods to heal and endure.

and then when 10 minutes hits, you suddenly explode with value, as you pick up better boots, and your extra armor stats, which when combined with the courage stacks you already have is significant, often pulling back to even, or ahead of your counterpick lane, simply for existing.

i don't know why, but I just love it.

13 Comments

The Yetii Rider11/20/2017, 3:39:27 PM5 votes

"At 10 minutes you explode with value" - You forgot to mention that the 10% damage debuff wears off at this time as well, meaning that your opponent will be caught off guard when you're suddenly dealing much more damage with seemingly no item explanation. You can bait an opponent into a longer trade because they are expecting you to hurt a lot less.

Sasogwa11/20/2017, 10:14:48 AM3 votes

Yeah I've had a similar build with Nasus and the inspiration + resolve tree is damn good to survive laning. Biscuits, amplified in duration because you took inspiration as main tree, CDR, boots are so good, I like spellbook for the 25% summoner CD and take whatever the f you want for sums (#DISCO NASUS).

I would take that tree if I'm faced with ranged champs, but usually would prefer grasp against melees.

The only thing that I find slightly sad is I can't take 3 options from defensive tree, while I really like Unflinching for the increased tenacity/slow resist which is just so good in teamfights, conditioning I love as it increases my defensive stats, and second wind is such a powerful tool in lane (free doran's shield passive). The counterpart overgrowth is kinda greedy and not as worth as something who gives much easier laning. But can be taken in easy matchups I guess.

BobaFlautist11/20/2017, 9:33:07 PM1 votes

Bet this would be pretty good on Mundo too...

AL00011/20/2017, 10:51:55 PM1 votes

Can confirm that It works much better than I thought.

Another note... focus on villain and you can damage like normally. pretty crazy.

Critmaster Garen11/20/2017, 11:05:08 PM1 votes

i just dont like second wind, which might sound weird. its way too early game.

at 10 to 15 minutes overgrowth starts to massively outscale second wind.

its a 4% max health increase frontloaded around 20 minutes vs. a 4% missing health heal over the course of 10 seconds. so basically not only do you need to be low health to get about the same benefit out of the rune, but you have to stay alive at a very low health value without being grievous wounds debuffed for a long time to make the rune work.

celestial body though is a rune that i like a lot against certain lane bullies. start resolve/inspiration with celestial body and cloth + 4 pots against pantheon. or you go dorans shield. not only are you starting with very high base health and resistances but also a lot of sustain. youll be extremely difficult to push out of lane.

AL00011/20/2017, 7:41:05 PM1 votes

Interesting POV...

But what if your tanky jg want to gank... how can you damage it?

YuGiHo11/20/2017, 10:37:12 AM1 votes

Its nice that u found something that works for garren, i feel like the boy has been neglected by riot for a while.