Talk:Garen/@comment-5211662-20140505051920/@comment-5211662-20140505191417

I prefer Black Cleaver because this item has armor penetration and reduction, Garen's base damage is horrible but he has amazing scalings, I think that a penetration item would make him do more damage than items like Infinity Edge, Ravenous Hydra, Frozen Mallet, etc.

You sacrifice some tankiness, but having a lot of tankiness means nothing when you can't do sufficient damage to the opponent. Any enemy champion that had sustain, a lot of damage and was not too squishy would be able to beat a full-tank Garen in a 1x1 battle. With a Black Cleaver, that does not happen.

Of course, Black Cleaver is the only offensive item Garen really needs; He can do the rest tanky.