User:NeonSpotlight/Strategy/Garen

Skill usage

 * health regeneration is greatly increased due to his passive, . This only activates if he can avoid receiving champion or monster damage for 9 seconds, granting him exceptional sustainability in lane, and minions don't stop his regen.
 * makes him a powerful chaser, easily closing the gap and silencing enemies before they can cast a slow or any debuff. It can also be used to make a swift escape since it removes slows.
 * can be used effectively to push lanes, as this ability also affects structures (turrets and inhibitors).
 * Using to catch up with, silence, and deal damage to a fleeing champion is the perfect precursor to a killing blow with.
 * can be used to return to/move between lanes more swiftly, as it has no mana costs and a fairly low cooldown.
 * can be lethal in early game fights, especially after getting his ultimate. deals good continuous damage to enemies.  speed boost is good for chasing enemies.  also does extra damage based on how much health the enemy has missing
 * best starting skill is, as it can be used to last-hit, silence, speed himself up, remove slows, reset autoattacks and has very high burst damage at early levels.
 * and mix well for a powerful chasing and escape combo. The speed boost from  letting you get into, or out of range, while the damage reduction of  allows you to take reduced damage from nearby minions and enemies when chasing or escaping.
 * Because of strong early game damage from, lanes well with a partner with an early game stun such as  or.
 * Unlike other abilities, remains active when  is stunned because it is not a channeled spell.
 * With some points into, can easily farm and push minions with it.
 * is main source of damage, but has a significant cooldown and long duration to maximize its damage. Make sure you activate  properly or you will be left being fairly ineffectual in combat while it cools down.
 * Beware that can be blocked by  and its damage depends on the enemy champion's magic resistance and health.
 * can be activated during on an enemy at low health. This will cause  to immediately end his spin and cast if the target is in range.

Build usage
is a melee champion, who excels in killing enemies and being able to take lots of punishment.

Damage
 * is a good early item for him. It can later be built into, which is very effective on as  will be able to fully stack the armor reduction passive.
 * Another option would be ; it gives similar AD and Armor penetration, but it also gives critical chance and a short boost to movement and attack speed. This makes it a great late game item when critical chance outscales raw AD and Garen can use the extra attack speed to help destroy turrets.
 * They can also be built together for an easy source of 20% CDR to combine with . This also increases wave minion clear due to minions having low armor values.
 * is a good counter to teams stacking mass amounts of armor.
 * As both and  benefits from critical strike, items such as  increases the ability's damage output as well as his basic attacks.
 * is a good item to top off build, as it gives more AD and crit chance along with armor.
 * is a good anti-mage item. An early can help  against magic damage.

Resistances

scales with armor and magic resistance; therefore, purchasing items with said stats makes the ability more effective.
 * synergizes well with, easily allowing him to regenerate 0.48% of his health each second.
 * is an excellent health item for, as it provides some attack damage and a powerful slow to help stick to his target. It also synergizes well with.
 * is great on Garen as well. The item's passive along with allows him to regenerate 0.6% of his health per second, allowing him to recover health quickly after teamfights without going back to base. The extra health along with  makes him very hard to kill in a teamfight.
 * In combination with, an early helps with  wave clearing capabilities, as well as providing mixed damage.
 * helps reduce being kited by enemy champions and reduces the enemy ranged carry's DPS. An early is good against autoattack-reliant champions such as, , , et cetera.

Countering

 * damage output is very high early game; avoid early confrontations.
 * Harass in lane every few seconds, if possible, to minimize the effect of.
 * Ranged champions can easily stop with an autoattack (unless  goes farther back, which has him give up last-hits) and farm in lane while a safe distance from him - they generally also have abilities to let them keep away from  even if he charges at them. Ranged carries in particular will scale far stronger than  in this situation, avoiding his early-game advantages while securing their own late-game advantages.
 * Avoid going into a brush that does not have a ward in it if Garen's current whereabouts are unknown. players have a tendency to hide in bushes, due to the synergy between his silence from  and damage from.
 * is a cooldown based champion. However, all of his ability cooldowns are very high. Try to attack him when they are on cooldown.
 * Be very cautious when low on health and is off cooldown.
 * It is often worth the investment to purchase armor to counter Garen's high physical damage.
 * Think carefully before using your Crowd Control abilities on Garen. His  will removes Slows, and will reduce the duration of such abilities by 30% while Active. Additionally, hard CC will not stop the channel on   only his movement. Keep away from him, especially if playing softer champions, as it deals very high damage over a short duration.
 * Like most melee champions, is quite vulnerable to ranged harassment.
 * But because of his really high damage and the fact that most ranged champs are squishy, at lvl 6 he can burst them down instantly. So if the ranged champ doesn't get a good advantage over him, he will melt anyway.
 * Buying a may help as it may block most (if not all) of the damage from . Do not forget that his main form of damage is still physical, however.
 * Because Garen usually builds a lot of health, getting champions or items that deal % health damage can cause him to melt quickly, such as  active and passive,, ,  and .  High lifesteal is also an effective counter.