As a former Garen main, I can try and help you.
- His early game damage on his Q is good for short trades and cleans slow, if he's charging his q at you, use slow then because slow cleanse doesn't work if q gets activated before the slow applies.
- His passive and doran's shield (alternatvely second Wind mastery), are his source of laning and out of combat/teamfight sustain. His kit proves no in-combat sustain unless he uses
and Ravenous Hunter mastery, but the bleed effect it has counters his passive, so it can be exploited.
For the laning phase, make sure to keep a spell that gives you a safe distance poke to reset his lassive before it applies, and do it till he's too weak/dominated to make trades with you.
In teamfights, if Garen is on low HP with few of his teammates alive and has his Q ready and
stacked, do NOT chase him. The reason why is because if you solo chase him and his ultimate is ready, he can surorise attack you with his Q from the bush, disabling your ability to escape him with high chances of running away. Q + E + R is usually enough to execute squishier/semi-squshier targets. Runming away from his E is useful and pointless depending on the given situation:
A)If your movement speed exceeds Garen's
any upgraded
then you can run away from it and it's armor break.
doesn't count because it's movement stacks proc after he Q's, if he stacks it again while you're running away from him, he might outspeed you with another Q and execute you with R. However by the time his next Q is ready and he got away, you will be unsilenced and have time to slow him after his Q and run away to safety.
B) If he outspeeds you completely then you are dead. Don't go next to bushes witbout
or
.
Or, he will just bait you out and let his surviving teammates do the job. Another reason is his passive might heal him extremly quick after he get's away, so chasing him on the 1st place is not worth it, even if he is the only one to survive. Garen can't 1v5 and to make him even more useless go for objectives till his teammates respawn.
....unless your team is actually willing to hunt him down I guess.
- His teamfighting does force him in a do or die sitution. His W active and
with popular Legend Tenacity mastery(which is a necessity on him) make him chunk a lot of CC, while it's W passive toughes his defences. It is exploitable just like
W Shadow or
W Windwall, all 3 abilities are upgraded the last as they preffer enhancing offense for all ining their enemies.
does the same exceot he is supposed to absorb damage and usually take the fall. All 3 W's have long CD cause of that and can be easily exploited/baited out. Use that into you advantage by picking a light cc in him and sucker punch hard CC on their carry. THIS is the proper way to execute a team fight because:
A) All CC-ing him will let the other 4 not only punish you, but also stomp you. Or simply their carry will eat you for breakfast.
B) All CC-ing or CC spread everyone else but Garen will make him punish you with his Q E R combo and you can't stop it. Why? Because you used all of your CC spells on someone else and by the time they're ready again your teammate's dead(phreak refference)! Now you're just underdogs getting picked by his teammates and him himself(his chasing capabilities aren't as bad as you think it is).
So, overall,
weak to kiting, damage over time and CC. Use these either if the 3 or all 3 during the LANING PHASE. If you play it passively you are giving him a favor to rkam healthy. Mages can't do anything if they are silenced, supports can't protect their adc from a trio/quatra all ining them. Unless the enemy jungler doesn't gank bot lane too your unrighteously unsulenced toxicly despicably imfatile immature infuriated but smart Adc kites him down. Surprisingly, Bot
and her Silver Bolts are good in those kind of counter roaming situations.
is not efficient until he or any other adc builds
.
There are(or even 3 if you count the third one as adc) that mighz be good against him on top lane.
Another weakness on full note is that during the laning phase
is not to be all inne'd in 1v1 lane. Unless you have damage over time or range to pop his passive out don't do it.
So, the part you probably skipped the whole post for. Champions that can and will deny Garen to scale during the whole game. This list of Champion pool is not in Chronological order as Champions mentioned bellow have respectfully efficient parts of their kit or whole kit dedicated against him. So, let's start.
- The most obvious counter known to Garenkind. No, the most obvious does not equal the strongest. Teemo's poison darts deny Garen to proc his passive. This zone's Garen from taking any CS giving you the lead in both Gold and XP.
Everything Garen does, Darius does better. In-combat multi-targret healing. He's a Dictator in lane as he can simply pull you towards him, slow, heal and bleed you to death. Yes, that bleed is what make's Garen passive almost unusable. If I'm not mistaken, you can get 1st blood with Darius by starting with E and W(and do AA's between the two spells), amd max bleedstacks will do the rest. Glacial Augment help's with lvl 2 cheese two if I'm not mistaken. Garen is a Juggernaut? More like a JuggerNOT.
Conqueror made her even stronger, and made her hurt Garen even more. Her whole kit rotates around shredding Garen into piece's. Her passive, her Q for catching up to hi, her anti-CC spell, double enhanced AA's(one that crits too), and her ult that she can use easily as she can get all 4 vitals before garen could run to safety. Garen can't exactly 1v1 her, even with the same keystones.
You can 't say Illaoi without Owie(Mecha Zero Sion refference). Illaoi has the lane advantage unless Garen's jungler ganks you. If you jungler isn't near you, Illaoi will just roll over your body and rub her lantern right into your face. Her Q and E make her engage Garen before he can rush her down with his Q, and then she can follow up with her W. Oh? Have you heard off Illaoi's passive's sister, R? Yeah, a very nasty sibling of hers, great against any fool that thinks they can 1v1 Illaoi with her ultimate ready.
The only reason why Tryndamere beats Garen is he can endure/bait Garen's ult, and then finish him off.Pre-lvl 6, you can play offensively to harass him, or use your defrnses as cointer offenses(say, garem chases you with his q, and you slash away from him, amd then slow him when he's falling back and trade with him with his Q on cd).
Is also good because he she can use her utimate to deny execution damage from Garen's ultimate and heal while invincible. Her passive and PTA make her E hit like a truck. If Garen tries to trade with his Q, use yours to slow him(because he can't cleanse slows if he casts his Q befofe slow implications), then kite and chase him with his E for massive early game damage. If you fail to do it, your W csn givr you enough movement speed to fall chase or back away from him(plus it heals you). This also forces garen to buy
and
. Whether he get's to buy one or a other he still get's punished by your E. If he rushes Tabi, he will still have low MR and your E and Q deal (bonus) magic damage. If he rushes Spirit Visage, he loses armor again phyisical damage you deal, and 12% damage ignore from her E.
- The


Trio! Each one of them respectfully have something in their kit that is beneficial at fighting Garen while having one thing in common - range for kiting, which is Garen's one of the 3 biggest weaknesses. Quinn has near sight, ult denial amd great roaming potential at lvl 6. Kai'Sa's mix of damage and Plasma can chunk a lot of Garen's damage while using bonus movement speed from her E to counter Garen's Q and immedaetly punish him for chasing her with bonus attack speed and faster PTA and Plasma stacks. Meanwhie Vayne's pure savagery and fest of silver bolts and kiting/knocking back/stunning oughts the job. Warning, do NOT go Top Vayne if are not exlerienced enough to do so, unlike all other mentioned champions, Vayne and the next Champiom actually need practise in order to counter Garen.
Camille may be weak against Garen's Q due to his sile ce disablimg her to use her kit, it doesn't mean you can't play around it. Clever Camille players will know how to engage and Disengage Garen in most cases, however those trades are exenteded trades and cost way too much mana(unless you constantly poke him with your W with arcane comet/scorch proc). Both of their kits were designed for an EQUAL duel. Camille's W ti negate speed boost from Garen's Q(if he uses his Q before you), Camille uses her E while Garen's W reduces the stune. While you do your Q's he armor breaks you(or silence's you before you cam recast it for true damage). This match up shows skill expression on Camille's side and counter-skill(no, not anti-skill) expression on Garen's side.
So yeah, that's all the tips amd analizations I have to offer you. Hope if I was able to help, thanks for reading/skipping! ^-^