For Demacia

Welcome to the Top Lane, where you’re pretty much on your own. Fighting toe to toe with the enemy’s champion that is trying to steal your glory from the lane. Do not fear though. Garen the Might of Demacia got you covered here. With the strength of his attacks and the advantages that his abilities provide, you’ll probably have a good laugh in any part of the match. Whit his spin, Garen can steal the enemy’s health away. Additionally, this champion has another ability that helps him stay in lane by giving him extra life regeneration.

There’s more, I haven’t told you the best part about this Champion yet. Due to the champion’s mechanics, he’s able to make his build according to what your team really needs. If your ADC is doing poorly… no worries, buy some items that can help you deal more damage; or if your team dies quickly, get more armor and stay in front of the team fights to absorb all the damage.

Lastly, this champion is easy to obtain for your collection and can be either picked up by new players or veterans that want to rank up even more in their accounts. If you’re really interested to learn more about this champion, stick around as we dig for more useful information that can give you more chances of winning in a match of League of Legends.

My heart and sword always for Demacia (Lore)

Since he was a little kid, Garen knew the importance that his family had towards the protection of the royal family in the kingdom of Demacia. Along with his sister Lux, they trained day and night to be the rightful protectors of their kingdom for any magical threats that could harm their people.

As the time went by, Garen had the chance to meet the prince of Demacia (Jarvan IV) from which he gained a lot of respect and became close friends. But this friendship was interrupted after a group of Noxians attacked on a village in Demacia and escaped. The prince being bold, followed the intruders just to be captured in one elaborated trap. Garen along with a rescue party was able to track the Noxians just to find the armor of the prince and tracks of blood everywhere.

After a period of deep mourning and sacrifice towards the events that took the prince and his friend away, the king of Demacia took some compassion towards Garen and rewarded his loyalty towards the family. Till this day Garen is still focussed in protecting his kingdom and prevent any similar episodes that took his friend away.

Tl;dr: Magic is an abomination! Demacia for life!

Show them the strength of Demacia! (Top Lane)

Top lane sometimes feels like one private game against another enemy player. In the early game, this lane is mostly habited by two players with the exception of a possible visit of a jungler from time to time. In this lane you try to gain control of the minion’s wave and collect as much lasts hits as you can while giving some scratches to the enemy.

Garen can take full advantages of this lane due to his dominance in the lane and the abilities that restore his health to keep him more focused in gaining levels and gold faster than in any other lanes.

As the minutes pass and the tone of the game changes, the other abilities on Garen take a major role in winning the game: Decisive Strike (“Q”) can keep that obnoxious ADC from spamming skills and the awesome mechanic from his ultimate (the villain thing), helps you in dealing more damage to those troublemakers.

Pros & Cons

Pros	Cons
Easy to pick up One of the main strengths of this champion is how easily can be picked up by anyone regardless of their skill in League of Legends. Garen can be useful when you’re beginning your journey in this game. At the same time, Garen can be a good pick for any veteran that wants to focus in Top Lane and finds this champion as a reliable source of points to level up their rank.	Ranged weakness One of the biggest problems that Garen has is the inability to cope with ranged attacks. His passive requires a little time to be active and if you’re in constant harassment from long distance, this can keep you from regaining health quickly. Sometimes even force you to hide behind grass in order to prevent them from dealing more damage. You can still be present on the lane, but your last hits may be affected by this.
The continuous threat in lane Due to Garen’s passive “Perseverance”, this champion is able to maintain his dominance in the lane for as long as it’s needed. This champion doesn’t require mana and the health can be fully restored in a couple of seconds while you stand near the minion’s wave and earn more experience in the process. And when you spin, there is no other choice for the enemy’s champion but to retreat and hope that you don’t take their armor away.	Low mobility Either escaping or running towards you “villain” mobility can be crucial in order to keep the damage going. This can be prevented by choosing summoner’s skills such as “Ghost” or “Flash” but at the same time, they can reduce the options for other utility spells. Even though Garen has some abilities that can boost your speed, there may be occasions where the terrain can be an obstacle or minions in the way.
Build variability As stated before in this guide, Garen has a lot of options to be a great factor in winning the game for his team. Whenever you see that damage is needed in order to win team fights, you can go “Rambo” and get some items that can boost your damage and crits. The other liable option is to go full armor in order to “tank” all the damage from the opposite team.	Lack of mana Even though this point may be helpful for new players, since you only have cold downs to reduce you from spamming skills, this can limit your options in other ways. For example, there are items that can boost your mana in some champions and increase the effectiveness of your skills. But Garen being manaless can reduce the effects of the items you buy.
Villain Mechanic Garen’s ultimate can bring more fun in your games with the “Villain” mechanic. In this feature, you’ll see a little picture near your health bar that represents your target. Which means that you’ll deal more damage to the villain with your ultimate. This can be really helpful in reducing advantages when an enemy tries to earn gold by hurting your comrades.	Few crow control abilities Other than your Decisive Strike (“Q”) which gives a silence status, there are no other abilities that grand control. Judgment (“E”) can be good to keep awareness of your enemies’ position, there is no stun that can lock them in a place. You may think of using the summoner’s spell exhaust, but this means that it reduces, even more, the repertoire of utility spells.

Garen’s Abilities

Perseverance:

If Garen has not recently been struck by damage or enemy abilities, he regenerates a percentage of his total health each second. Minion damage does not stop Perseverance.

This passive makes Garen a powerful adversary in the Top Lane to almost all the possible clashes. Since he doesn’t require mana for his skills, the only thing that requires regeneration is his health. After some seconds of being unharmed, Garen is able to recover all the damage taken in the lane and keep his presence for as long as the laning phase extends.

Decisive Strike:

Garen gains a burst of movement speed, breaking free of all slows affecting him. His next attack strikes a vital area of his foe, dealing bonus damage and silencing them.

With this ability, Garen gains crowd control with the form of silence to one target for 1.5 seconds. Although it doesn’t look that much spectacular if you only see the duration. But that’s not all, this skills grants movement speed and a great chance for you to close the gap between your champion and any enemy.

Courage:

Garen passively increases his armor and magic resist by killing enemies. He may also activate this ability to give him a huge burst of Tenacity and damage reduction for a brief moment followed by a lesser amount of damage reduction for a longer duration.

Besides focusing on getting gold from last hits, you also are getting more toughness with this ability. With every minion that is pray of Garen’s broadsword, his armor and magic resist gets pumped up for a moment. Which means that after you finish a minion’s wave, there is a chance to trade some blows with the enemy. Taking less damage from your opponents, especially on Top Lane.

Judgment:

Garen performs a dance of death with his sword, dealing damage around him for the duration and shredding the armor of enemy champions hit.

Spin and spin to your heart’s content. If you’re able to hit 4 times the enemy heroes, their armor is reduced by 25% for 6 seconds. This can easily be used as a combo with the benefits of “Courage”. For example, kill some minions and spin towards your enemy. This skill is also used best on the Top Lane because it gains additional damage when you hit one enemy. Adding more tools to dominate the lane.

Demacian Justice:

The enemy champion with the most recent kills is the Villain. Garen’s attacks deal additional true damage to that champion. Garen can call upon the might of Demacia to deal a finishing blow to an enemy champion that deals damage based upon how much health his target has missing. This damage is true damage to the Villain.

This skill is what makes Garen a fun champion to play. This helps you in “restoring the balance” when one of your foes tries to bully one of your teammates. If you have the picture of the before mentioned “troublemaker” next to your health bar. Which means he/she is marked as a villain. Why don’t you go a pay him a visit? Show him who’s the boss, and return to Top Lane afterward. With the Villain mechanic, your ultimate does true damage to that one lucky enemy. Which means that it doesn’t matter how much armor or magic resists he/she has, your ultimate is going to hurt…a lot.

Skill and Item Build

For the ability sequence, is best that you put one single skill in your three abilities. Starting with “Q” and ending with “W”. After that, try to maximize Decisive Strike (“Q”), after that follow it with Judgment “E”. The rest of your point can be easily placed on your Courage (“W”). Remember to place any skill point on your ultimate when your able to.

For the build, you can start with:

• Health Potion: 
• Doran’s Shield/Cloth Armor:  or 
• Warding Totem: 

And finish with one of these possible builds:

Armor based build

• The Black Cleaver:
• Dead Man’s Plate:
• Spirit Visage:
• Gargoyle Stoneplate:
• Mercury’s Treads:

Damage based build

• Trinity Force:
• Spirit Visage:
• Ninja Tabi:
• Mortal Reminder:
• Duskblade od Draktharr:

Conclusion

Garen is a great champion if you want to venture in the mechanics that the Top Lane brings. His abilities are easy to learn and have a great impact on the match if used well. The ultimate also delivers more layers of fun. Especially to anyone that likes to hunt any possible troublemakers and keep your party for winning the game.

Being matched against a ranged champion is considered a weakness to Garen, and yes it is. But the actual fact relies on that almost all the champions for the Top Lane are melee. Which makes this “con” almost non-existent. When the team fights are more constant in the match, you already have some items that can boost your armor and reduce the damage income. Which makes Garen a champion that can be reliable in any part of the game.

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