Talk:Garen the Night of Demacia/@comment-173.71.20.245-20110718200333/@comment-98.252.26.207-20110719041041

I'm leaning towards that idea too, about Youmuu's.

You need the Brutalizer early game. I think everyone can agree on that. Conventional wisdom says that Youmuu's is unnecessary and there are better things to spend your gold on, like a Phantom Dancer. The reason is because...

Late-game Garen is an autoattacking, unkillable, unkitable crit machine, and Phantom Dancer really helps him to do that.

But so does Youmuu's active ability. Youmuu's, Infinity Edge and Atma's give Garen a 60% crit chance. Its active ability gives him enough attack speed to really put the hurt on someone. Is that enough? Phantom Dancer bumps that crit chance up to 75%, but ultimately costs more gold and uses up a very valuable item slot. When I play Miss Fortune, I'm typically running at around 55% critical chance with a Bloodthirster, Phantom Dancer and Infinity Edge.

I think that might be worth testing in a normal. Youmuu's versus Phantom Dancer. I feel Youmuu's might be weaker offensively at times, but is more efficient and gives Garen a free item slot for another defensive item, which he might really need.

Sunfire is a deceptively item on Garen. Atma's Impaler stomps all over Sunfire. In my view, with Courage, you don't need both of them, and Atma's wins hands down because it synergizes better with Garen's late-game. The problem is that it needs a Frozen Mallet to reach its full potential, and the Frozen Mallet is expensive and will set you back some gold.

Banshee's Veil gives Garen more effective health than Force of Nature. Courage renders Force of Nature obsolete in my view.

I think building a Giant's Belt and then waiting to build the Frozen Mallet until late game is a viable option for Garen. The main draw of Atma's for me is the armor and the crit chance, not just the AD. Like I said, Garen is an unkillable, unkitable crit machine late-game who doesn't really rely on Judgment that much.

He's weird to figure out because he's actually a carry disguised as a tanky DPS. I know a lot of people will disagree on me about that, and they're probably right, but he reminds me a lot of Miss Fortune in a lot of ways, like how poorly his skills scale into late-game, and how his autoattacks become his main source of damage. He's got enough armor from Courage and a couple defensive items to get in a fight and stay there too.

But my experience is still pretty limited.