Garen is one of the most popular champions in League of Legends, who is a powerful and easy-to-learn top lane character. Thanks to its survivability, mobility and ability to deal good damage, Garen performs well in long battles and is suitable for both beginners and more experienced players. In this Garen guide, we'll look at the best Top Lane build for the current meta, including its runes, items, and strategies.

• Garen top lane build
• Runes for Garen
• Garen on other lines
• Masteries and order of leveling up skills for Garen

Over the years of its existence, players have changed their builds for Garen a huge number of times, turning it from a hyper tank to a mobile damage dealer. In this section, we will provide you with the most current and popular League of Legends champion builds for the current meta.

Build 1: Stridebreaker + Phantom Dancer + Mortal Reminder

This build is focused on good control of the opponent both in the lane and throughout the game. Thanks to this, you can both slow down and quickly catch up with fleeing opponents. The first ability “Q” Decisive Strike and the set of things presented below will help you with this.

• Stridebreaker: The main item for controlling enemies. After squeezing it, you slow down your opponent for a short time, which gives you a huge advantage over him.
• Phantom Dancer: An essential items in most Garen builds. His passive ability is what makes him such a good fit for a champion, as his ghost ability gives us the ability to run through minions, which greatly increases our mobility.
• Mortal Reminder: Considering that we play on the top lane, we shouldn’t delay purchasing this item. After all, many champions of this line use items or abilities to restore health, which can work against you at the early stage of the game.

According to statistics at the time of writing this build, with this build the win rate is 56.16%, and its tick rate exceeds 25%.

Build 2: Stridebreaker + Phantom Dancer + Dead Man's Plate

The second build for Garen in LoL is not much different from the first. However, his third item focuses on increasing survivability, making the champion more tanky and giving him much more survivability and additional control.

We leave the first two slots unchanged, and in the third we take Dead Man's Plate.

• Dead Man's Plate: An excellent item that is ideal for the top lane champion Garen. It not only increases your physical defense, but also gives you a good increase in running speed, and also reduces slowdown effects applied to you by 25%.

Although this build has a higher win rate of 57.30%, its pick rate is half as high as 12.16%.

Build 3: Stridebreaker + Phantom Dancer + Infinity Edge

Another build with a difference in the third gear, which makes your champion more homey.

We leave the first two slots unchanged, and take Infinity Edge in the third.

• An item that I often use as an ADC, which can often be found on the Garen character. Thanks to this, your build becomes more damaging, but at the same time loses most of its survivability and mobility, which is not always the best solution for a top laner.

However, despite this, this build has the highest win rate, which exceeds 61.94%, but lags behind in the pick rate of 10.48%.

READ MORE: Best Vayne ADC Build - Runes, Masteries, and Builds for LoL

Runes for Garen

We choose precision as the main rune tree for Garen, which is focused on good survivability and goes well with the champion's passive ability Perseverance. Below we will provide you with the best list of runes currently available:

Main Path: Precision

• Conqueror: Increases survivability well by quickly gaining stacks through “E” Judgment, thanks to which you quickly gain stacks of adaptability and restore health more effectively.
• Triumph: Not the best ability in the branch, but the best of the available options, capable of giving you small bonuses with good cooperation with the jungler.
• Legend: Haste: A very important talent that reduces the cooldowns of our abilities, given that Garen does not have a mana/energy resource, it is required to be selected so that you can actively spam skills.
• Last Stand: Another important talent that significantly increases our damage, at low health, given our role, we will constantly run at a low health threshold.

Second Path: Determination

• Conditioning: A good talent aimed at increasing resistance to both magical and physical damage.
• Overgrowth: Increases your health until the end of the match and helps maintain your HP during the laning phase.

Garen on other lines

Garen is a fairly versatile champion and can perform both as a mid and surprise you with his presence in the jungle. However, his build reveals the character’s potential so well that on each of the lines you can safely take a variation of the first build. 

Masteries and order of leveling up skills for Garen

Below we will provide a small priority for leveling abilities for the Garen champion in the top and other lanes.

1. The skill "E" (Judgment) is maxed out first, since it deals the main damage in battle.
2. The second one to max is "Q" (Decisive Strike), which helps initiate battles and deals extra damage.
3. "W" (Courage) is upgraded last to increase defensive characteristics.

The skill "R" (Demacian Justice) improves at levels 6, 11 and 16, as it is Garen's ultimate ability. This leveling order is used 43.84% of the time and has a 58.63% win rate.

Conclusion

Garen remains one of the most versatile and popular top lane champions in League of Legends. Thanks to its ease of learning and high efficiency in team battles, it is suitable for both beginners and experienced players. In the current meta, there are various builds that allow you to adapt it to different playstyles - from a tank with a high level of survivability to a mobile fighter with impressive damage.

The best builds include items such as Stridebreaker to control opponents, Phantom Dancer to increase mobility, and additional items depending on the player's preferences: Dead Man's Plate to increase survival rate, Mortal Reminder to reduce the healing effect of enemies, or Infinity Edge for a more aggressive play style. Properly selected runes and the order of leveling up skills also play an important role in Garen's effectiveness, providing him with additional survivability and damage at critical moments of battles.

These guidelines will help you make the most of Garen's strengths and dominate the top lane. However, do not forget to adapt your build and strategy depending on the composition of the enemy team and the current game situation.