Hello, readers!
Garen is a tanky, high damage AD Caster who fits toplane's requirements perfectly, he has high base statistics, good scalings and amazing sustainability, and his main reason of existence is his capability to make his way through crowds of enemies in order to kill the most dangerous ones the enemy team has; his kit is well suited for this role, but it does need the help of some specific items, that we'll cover in this guide for sure!
Apart from his ADC/APC Reaper role, Garen suits well the role of a regular tank aswell, thanks to his Courage and his amazing passive ability: Perseverance, although he lacks an engage, which can make him less useful than other tanks: be aware of this when picking champions, a team without engages is often a team that gets poked down too easily before teamfights start!
Garen is often Built full AD with only one or two defensive items, although this build does work, it's much less gold-efficient, and can turn into a waste of time if you don't get fed enough to realize it, plus remember a tanky champion is always more useful than a full AD one to the team in most cases!
With all this being said, let's get into the core details of this guy!

Garen in S12

After the rework and the S10 changes, Garen's one of the best 1v1 melee toplaners in the game. There's still some unwinnable lanes, like Heimerdinger and similar ranged picks, but in melee lanes he's a strong pick who can use Conqueror very well and still offers his usual overly tanky stature. S10 seems very interesting and I'm almost certain Garen is in a good spot for it! Note that I haven't really changed much in this guide following patch 9.23 because not much has changed when it comes to Garen. Conqueror remains a very good rune for melee lanes and some ranged lanes and I'd still recommend it!