Playing Garen

OmegaRed85·Jan 10, 2016·1 votes·627 views

So, I main garen. I do really well in blind pick most of the time. Lately, i've been playing a little ranked, when work permits it.

Can I get some tips, on how to make garen work in ranked play? It seems like when I play ranked, no matter who I go against, their somehow stronger, than I am at lvl 1. It's frustrating, and i'm trying to work past it. Plus, I don't want to feel guilty, about dragging other people on the team down, when I have a bad game. All comments are appreciated. No flaming please. :) For Demacia!

11 Comments

FioraWillCarryJan 10, 20164 votes

People actually lose with Garen ?

Garen should be auto win in ranked, at least in Bronze anyway. Build item 3071 as your only damage item and just build anything with HP and MR/Armor after that. Make sure to stick in a item 3083 some where around your 2nd-3rd tank item to boost your already insane HP regen. Have fun running into entire teams 1v5 and killing half of them without dying by mid game.

BTW how are you maining Garen in ranked ? He's almost 100% banned in Bronze. I'm on that train too as I always save a ban for Garen when I get 1st pick.

OmegaRed85Jan 10, 20161 votes

Well, Right now I'm facing alot of change ups, as far as who I play as. The problem, is i've only been playing since October, and I'm only good with garen. I don't really have money to buy the champions i'd like to try, and all my ip goes towards runes and rune pages. It's really hard to be honest.

I'm trying to find another champion I'd like to play as, but no luck yet. I'm in love with Garen.

I usually tell my team, not to ban him. That I play him. Then I'll get lucky with the other three bans. :P

TehNACHOJan 10, 20161 votes

Beware of Summoners. Just looked up your most recent game; Yi has two Summoner Spells dedicated to outdueling you. Going in when he has both up is terrible. Try to time your engages and disengages so you don't succumb to those Spells.

I think you need to learn how to judge trades. Keep track of enemy cooldowns, know when it's smart to sit in your minions or run, know when you stat check the enemy, and so on.

OmegaRed85Jan 10, 20161 votes

What are the two summoner spells that are dedicated to outdueling me? What is your starting items?

TehNACHOJan 10, 20161 votes

Exhaust AND Ignite. With both of those up, you're just not gonna beat him early.

Against an AD like Yi, I would've started Cloth and 4 and tried to rush into either Sunfire Cape or Dead Man's.

OmegaRed85Jan 10, 20161 votes

I almost always build sunfire cape, and thornmail right after. Then Warmog's armor. If it goes in far enough, i'll get guardian angel after that, and swifties I always get.

LadyRenlyJan 10, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I almost always build sunfire cape, and thornmail right after. Then Warmog's armor. If it goes in far enough, i'll get guardian angel after that, and swifties I always get.

Personally I tend to get Cleaver, dead mans, swiftness, warmogs and the rest situational such as maybe banshees or sunfire I don't personally bother with thornmail unless they have 4 right clickers

ShonjlJan 11, 20161 votes

Thornmail is pretty useless unless they are very AD heavy since it doesn't really deal any noticable damage back to them unless you have a good 250-300+ armor, which when most teams are balanced, you usually will be in the 100-200 range. Also since it doesn't give any other stat makes it a fairly poor item.

Sunfire is usually nice if you play a champ that has poor waveclear but with Garen's E he has no problem with it. I would personally reccommend replacing it with Dead mans plate. More armor and hp and also gives a nice passive that makes you move faster and your next hit hits much harder.

A pretty standard but very successful build for Garen is usually item 3071 item 3009 item 3083 item 3742 item 3065 with your last item being open to a lot of things. I usually get item 3053 if I am the sole tanky champ, item 3748 if I am ahead but still worried about being dropped, or item 3031 if I am very ahead and almost certain I can kill a few people before dying or kill a few and escape alive.

Also I apologize if I sound nitpicky here. If builds work they work. Far be it from me to say what you can and cannot do. So sorry if I come off that way.

ShonjlJan 10, 20161 votes

Garen is weak early game. Just focus on living in the beginning. His passive is weak and while his damage is decent, he more focus's on sustaining til the end of time then blowing you up like say a Riven. So just sit back and farm as best as you can while landing a few pokes if you are able to til 6 I believe is when his passive gets stronger as well as you get your ult. By then you should also be near your first item.

Basically just see who your opponent is, who the rest of the enemy team is, if you can handle your opponent then build from there. If I have an AD user I struggle against, I will build Dead mans immediately. If it is an AP user or an AD user I can easily handle, I will build Spirit Visage due to the CDR and it helps his passive a lot. If it is someone I am confident I can keep kicked out of lane or even kill, go Black Cleaver. Also get Swifties. I seen a lot of Garens still buy Mercs and its the worst option ever. They are pretty bad right now and most CC atm is slows, so not only does Swifties make you faster than all other boots, it is stronger against slows. Next to impossible to escape a Garen with Swifties, Dead Mans and Q every 6ish seconds. I had times I could even keep up with a Rammus/Heca when they are using their MS moves.

OmegaRed85Jan 10, 20161 votes

All really good advice. I struggle against Jax, and Illaoi for the most part. Those are the two hardest to face for me. Sometimes I overpower them, but alot of times, I sit under the tower, and defend.

Do you have a special rune build, for tanky garen? I usually go tank with him, and he's unstoppable once I get 3 kills to the good in.

What is CDR? I've only been playing since middle of October, so I'm new still.

ShonjlJan 11, 20161 votes

Illaoi I usually ignore for the most part, unless she builds pure damage she will never kill your ghost and Garen can regen the health quick. After a few times its usually very easy to force her to waste her ult then just casually kill her after it.

Jax I usually just starve him early on since he focuses so hard on getting his ball rolling by not dying. He scales hard late game but you will get tankier quicker than he gets damaging. You may not 1v1 him but you will usually be more useful if neither of you get fed or even if you both get fed.

I use a fairly standard 0/12/18 mastery page for him and for runes I actually use a fairly offensive page of 15 AD, 9 Armor and 5.7% Attack.Speed. That extra AD and AS helps quite a lot in last hitting and poking and just being a nuisance and since most top laners are AD, that little extra armor helps take a little less damage.

CDR is cooldown reduction. Let's you use your abilities or spells depending on how you say it more often. Garen usually always gets Black Cleaver that has HP, AD and CDR.