Talk:Garen/@comment-186.59.12.98-20120906035913/@comment-216.58.9.28-20120906182355

You need attack damage, critical strike and armour penetration to do damage. You also need armour and magic resistance (possibly with more health if the enemy has sources of true damage which you think will be used against you) to survive long enough to do damage. Get all of these.

It's also generally better to choose Garen when you have a team which can initiate and lead you in with CC than to have Garen be starting fights late-game due to the risk of being kited when you're the first man running into 5 people. Champions like Kennen, Jarvan IV, Amumu, Malphite, Galio, Shen and Nautilus to give some examples.

Get Ghostblade, Force of Nature and Randuin's when the enemy team is at least fairly mobile, you'll need the movement speed.