Garen Guide from an OTP since 2013

Welcome to my Guide, I'm FABFAN an OTP Garen since season 3 on the EUW Server, I play every playstyle that ever existed on Garen, my goal is to share you my experiece to help you to improve on the champion and on the game!

I'm rarely playing ranked I was only doing my placement in season 4 and 5 as silver 2 & 1 but when I really tried to invest into it in season 6 I hit platinium pretty easily, I didn't really wanted to climb higher after that until season 9 to see if I can reach diamond I managed to hit Plat 1 but sadly the season was over right after I hit that rank.

I sometime do videos on Garen on my Youtube Channel mainly Garen Montages, my most popular Montage was the one on the Demacia Vice Skin.

I also got the opportunity to make some montage for Fsat one of the OG Garen Mains, a big thanks to him it was a honor.

My Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@FABFAN

Garen is a Juggernaut, a subclass made to deal a lot of damage while having a natural tankyness but lack in mobility and utility in exchange, Kitting and Chain CC are their main threat but if they managed to be in melee range they become a big problem for their enemy.

The more the juggernaut stay alive in the fight the more threatening it become, but Garen is an exception here, indeed he is the only Bursty Juggernaut in the game which make him different from all his cammarades.

Garen is also designed to be a beginner champion which make him a good choice if you want to learn the other aspects on the game than just managed to hit your spells correctly but in exchange you become very limited in options the higher you climb in soloQ, so be perfect in macro and decision making is crucial.

Your goal as any other toplaner is to gain a lead in lane or survived if you are against a hard matchup of course getting a lead is better since it give you a chance to carry the game.

Wave Management is the key since Garen is a very basic champion, he is limited with the base of the game and you had to mastered them.

I highly recommend you to learn how slowpushing, freezingand the minion rules work to have a good start, once you learn those concept you lane will drastically improve.

LAST HITTING

Last hitting as Garen is important to get golds for your items like any other champion but also to stack Courage's passive.

Decisive Strike is really helpful since it got a Auto Attack reset, especially when it for a canon minion since you will deal bonus damage.

Don't use Judgment on the wave otherwise it will destroy your wave management and put you in a vunerable postion to get ganked. However if your goal is to thin the wave or you want to push it, Judgment will be your best tool for that.

TRADING

You want to trade for 3 reasons:

1. To zoned your opponent and outfarming him
   

2. To kill him of course
   

3. To force your opponent to recall and having free control on the wave or get his tower.
   

As Garen for trading you have to identified what ennemy spell/attack is the most problematic in lane and use Courage to counter it. You want to trade when Courage is available, if it in CD and you want to trade you have to be sure it gonna work!

Also you have to be carefull about the minion's wave and how to manipulate it, it will be your main tool to allow you to trade, wave manipulation is king in lane.

As a general rule, you want your wave to be bigger than the ennemy one, so you had to know how to do a slow push, with a minion advantage your enemy had to take a lot of risk to fight back.

COMBO

Classic Garen combo start with Decisive Strike then Judgment, versus some matchups you will prefer start your trade with Judgment for different reason (beneficiate the armor shred, bait a ability who can block your Decisive Strike like Fiora Riposte or Jax Counter Strike), in both case if you can start the trade with a Auto attack it even better.

After you land Judgment you don't want to go to far in the enemy side to not take too much damage from minions (if you land an auto attack or Decisive Strike at the start of the trade) and if your opponent's ability are gonna be up soon, it better to back of when your spin is about to end.

With Conqueror you can allow you some sort of extended trade but Garen's Auto attack are not the best, he doesn't have anything left when all his spells are on cooldown.

As you can see Garen doesn't have many way to fight but if you know how to play around cooldown (especially enemy one) and know how wave management work, you can win your lane pretty hard.

ROAMING AS A TOPLANER

Even if top is an Island our Role as the purpose to control all the topside of the map and the Midlane can be kind of be included. To allow you to roam you need to gain what we called “Tempo” it the time who let you do whatever you want (recall and back on the lane, put some vision, and Roaming) meanwhile your opponent can’t contest you.

Q: How do we do that? A: To gain that tempo all you need to do is crashing your minion wave under the enemy tower, then think about 3 possibility in order of priority.

Can I ward?

1. Yes: Ward the river/enemy jungle (see the vision section for more details)
2. No: Then go to the second option.

Did I need to recall?

1. Yes: Recall then
2. No: then DO to the next option

Roam to mid or in the enemy jungle

Then you can gank midlane if the enemy one is pushing, or steal a jungle camp from the enemy side then back to your lane, it doesn't matter if you didn't kill the midlaner because atleast you are putting some pressure on the map or if they are no camp to steal because you are giving extra information for your team on the jungler position.

While you are doing all that, your opponent had to stay to last hit under tower or he will miss a bunch of gold and exp. The bigger the wave you crash is, the more time you have.

Doing that is not only for helping mid it can also be used to help your jungler aswell to get the Rift scuttler in early game (we called that lane priority), it provide a good spot of vision, a tool for roaming faster but also a lot of exp and gold for your jungler this role is most of the time decided by the first 2 Rift scuttler , so yea just because of that you had impacted the jungle role.

After the laning phase as Garen you can Splitpush or Group with your team, which allow you to change your way to play depend on the game.

Q: How do I decided to splitpush or group? A: By looking at the Sidelanes!

Your Role in mid and late game are played on the Sidelanes (Toplane and Botlane) you will only go mid when both lanes are pushed in the enemy territory otherwise it too dangerous and you risk to get caught for free, of course that doesn’t mean you will never teamfight it had to happen at some point.

It exist 2 concepts that allow you to do both, theses concepts are called “Splitpushing” and “Split to group” (these concepts can be applied to every champ but since Garen can only apply the basic of the game I detailed it here).

HOW DOES SIDELANING WORK?

If you didn’t know already for Sidelaning we use 3 zones.

Collection Zone (an enemy wave is near your tower, this is when you can go to the lane to get the wave)

Neutral Zone (Between the Collection and Pressure Zone)

Pressure Zone (It when your wave is in the enemy territory you will apply pressure by doing that)

The goal is to push as much as you can while the enemy team is busy (because of your team or by an objective), during that time you want to put a lot of pressure and force the enemy team to send as many people as possible on you and let your team do whatever they want (in the best case getting towers/Epic Monster).

When to splitpushing?

Its better to start a splitpush or a split to group when there are a wave nearby one of your Sidelanes Towers (the collection zone).

Then you have to answer 2 questions:

1. I am strong enough to 1v1 the toplaner opponent or even 1v2 (toplaner + jungler)?
2. Did I know where the rest of the enemy team is?

If yes to both then it the best time to Splitpush and get some towers if the enemy team doesn’t respond they will lost a lot, meanwhile your team will be ahead in Gold (a fair amount), and if they try to stop you, your allies have free time to do whatever they want to impact the map.

If you have no vision on the enemy team or If you are not strong enough to 1v1 because of a hard matchup (a fed Fiora for example or because it the 10/0 adc who match you) or you can just not get a tower because there are playing to safe under it then it just better to apply the “Split To Group”.

It a kind of splitpushing but more focused on helping you team and be there for them at the right time, you can apply this strategy whenever you want in the game and it a good solution if you can’t go really far in the enemy territory without getting caught (and lose all your pressure).

To do a Split to group your goal is to send your wave in the enemy territory (The pressure zone) and then group with your team.

If you can’t 1v1 the enemy toplaner (the fed Fiora in our example) just push the wave into the neutral zone you will still buy some time and stay safe).

By applying this strategy 2 scenario can occur in the enemy team:

1. They send nobody to collect the wave and lose gold and exp and get outscaled in the long run.
2. They send someone to collect the wave.

If the second scenario happen this is where the split to group get all is potential!

By sending someone to collect a wave on a sidelane and you grouping with your team,** you will get a number advantage** and can try to contest anything (tower, drake , baron nashor , Jungle's camp etc.), by roaming it can happen you pick someone alone in the river who just ask to get killed for free, and the best of that, if a Teamfight had to appear it will not be a 5v5 but a 5v4 in your favor since you force someone on the enemy team to collect their wave.

Just remember, Teamfight in SoloQ are coinflip the only way to win them is to control as many factors as possible to make them unfair, vision and number advantage are kings for that.

As Garen your goal is to remove the main threat of your team, Your Utimate will be your main tool for that.

Of course if it the ADC/AP Carry they are a big chance they are getting peeled by their frontline and support, when you play Garen in teamfight you play like a assassin (without having the tools, it like a Hard mode difficulty), the best way to catch the backline is by flanking them you can buy Oracle Lens to remove any visions and make your flank less predictable.

You can play Garen like a frontliner if you prefer but your actions will be very limited since you will rely on having an ally who can engage like Zac in your team.

Garen can also peel for his team but he is clearly not the best at it since his only CC is a Silence, if you are fighting a champ with a cast who can be interrupted like Katarina's Ultimate it can be a good solution to stay near your carry and wait for her trying to engage and then silenced her to deny her for example.

Thanks you for reading my guide I hope it help you on 1 things or 2, let a comment to tell me what you think.