By GamGem ResearchLast updated 18 Oct 2026
The Might of Demacia
Patch 26.20 · Stats from the 26.18 Master+ sample (2,563 games).
Garen, the Might of Demacia, silences with Decisive Strike, spins through enemies with Judgment and executes with Demacian Justice. Master+ players took him Top mostly and Mid sometimes, split between Conqueror and Stormraider's Surge, and bought Stridebreaker then Youmuu's Ghostblade first.
FighterTank
Patch 26.18 · Top · Ranked Solo/Duo · Master+ · EUW · KR · NA · 2,563 games · Preview sample
2,563
Games
High
Confidence
Win rate by lane
60.3%Win Rate
Flash
Ignite
This exact page: taken in 25.8% of games·50.0% win rate over 660 games.
Gain stacks of adaptive force when attacking enemy champions. After reaching 12 stacks, heal for a portion of damage you deal to champions.
Takedowns restore 5% of your missing health and grant an additional 20 gold.
Takedowns on enemies grant permanent Basic Ability Haste.
Deal more damage to champions while you are low on health.
Your Ultimate has increased damage, healing, and shielding. Scoring a takedown on an enemy champion reduces your Ultimate's current cooldown.
All Move Speed bonuses are 7% more effective on you and gain 1% Move Speed.
Stormraider's Surge46.5% taken · 51.2% win1,193 games
Unsealed Spellbook1.8% taken · 43.5% win46 games
Grasp of the Undying0.9% taken · 47.8% win23 games
Sorcery + Resolve38.0% taken · 51.3% win974 gamesPrecision + Sorcery35.0% taken · 49.7% win897 gamesPrecision + Resolve13.9% taken · 53.2% win357 gamesWhich ability to max first, and the level each point goes in — Garen's most common path.
QGaren gains a burst of Move Speed, breaking free of all slows affecting him.
Cooldown 8s
WGaren passively increases his Armor and Magic Resist by killing enemies.
Cooldown 22/19.5/17/14.5/12s
EGaren rapidly spins his sword around his body, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies.
Cooldown 9/8.25/7.5/6.75/6s
RGaren calls upon the might of Demacia to attempt to execute an enemy champion.
Cooldown 120/100/80sMax E first, then Q, then W. Take R whenever available (6 / 11 / 16).
| Ability | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QDecisive Strike | Q | Q | Q | Q | Q | |||||||||||||
| WCourage | W | W | W | W | W | |||||||||||||
| EJudgment | E | E | E | E | E | |||||||||||||
| RDemacian Justice | R | R | R |
How Garen performs against enemy top laners
Recommended items by enemy team composition
GarenTop average
102030
102030
102030
Avoid extended fights — its sustain grows with every trade it survives
Build percentage damage — flat penetration falls off against the stats it stacks
Punish the cooldown — Garen is exposed while its rotation is down
Ward the flank — vision is what turns its best opening into a worse one
Respect the spike — Riot rates the kit 5/10, so a practised player gets more out of it than the average
PPerseverance
If Garen has not recently been struck by damage or enemy abilities, he regenerates a percentage of his total health each second.
Passive — never cast
QDecisive Strike
Garen gains a burst of Move Speed, breaking free of all slows affecting him. His next attack strikes a vital area of his foe, dealing bonus damage and silencing them.
Cooldown 8sRange 300
WCourage
Garen passively increases his Armor and Magic Resist by killing enemies. He may also activate this ability to give him a shield and tenacity for a brief moment followed by a lesser amount of damage reduction for a longer duration.
Cooldown 22/19.5/17/14.5/12sRange 0
EJudgment
Garen rapidly spins his sword around his body, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies.
Cooldown 9/8.25/7.5/6.75/6sRange 325
RDemacian Justice
Garen calls upon the might of Demacia to attempt to execute an enemy champion.
Cooldown 120/100/80sRange 400
Riot's notes from patch 25.S1.1 to 26.20 change Garen in 7 patches. The latest is patch 26.14, published 2026-07-14.
RDemacian Justice
Garen is dishing out too much justice across all skill brackets right now. So, we're going to tap down the Demacian Justice just a tad to make him a little less oppressive, while still rewarding well-timed target selection and inspiring fear in the hearts of those who shirk justice.
QDecisive Strike
EJudgment
Garen is moderately popular but statistically underpowered, and we’d like it if he was as powerful as other straightforward top lane juggernauts. We’re continuing on the trend of making traditional fighter items more comparable to his crit builds and giving him better trading power before he has access to tools like Stridebreaker and Phantom Dancer.
EJudgement
Critical strike chance on Garen is pretty good since both his basic attacks and Judgment are improved by it. We want to continue to make space for non-crit Garen builds, so we're compensating the global critical strike damage increase and updating the calculation to properly discount bonus crit damage.
EJudgment
Garen is hitting a historical low breadth (the amount of unique players), and we'd like our signature accessible top lane fighter to be more enticing for more players. We're going to buff him up by showing some love to his E AD Ratio, which should further incentivize more fighter-y runes and items.
EJudgment
Garen’s adjustments last patch were overall quite successful in opening up more fighter itemization but they left him a bit weaker than we anticipated so we’re here to buff him back up. Judgment’s damage will be increased from 100 total AD and above (which is reached very early on with typical builds) and we’re fixing a long-standing bug that would prevent Garen from shredding armor. His increased appetite for bonus AD should continue to push him toward enjoying items like Spear of Shojin and runes like Conqueror.
WCourage
EJudgment
RDemacian Justice
We're updating Garen to make his fighter pattern much more functional. The headlining features are a reduced cooldown on Judgment in order to allow him to play out sustained combat and an improved Courage active in order to better soak up damage. As compensation, he's losing a bit of burst damage through critical strike chance on E and overall damage on R. Our hope with these changes is to make fighter builds for Garen his best option and raise their power, as fighter Garen is currently underpowered.
EJudgement
Garen is crowding out a lot of other top laners and deals a shocking amount of mid-game damage with his crit builds, leading to a sort of tanky assassin play pattern. We'd like to reduce how much burst damage Garen is dealing by weakening his crit binding, which won't nerf his more balanced juggernaut builds.
Riot's data lists 17 looks for Garen with their own art, the base skin included and 37 chroma variants.
Best ARAM build
This champion’s win rate on each patch the preview sample spans, over its own games there. What actually changed each patch is in Riot’s own notes.
| Stat | Garen | Rank | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| Base health | 690 | 2nd | 620 |
| Health per level | 98 | =142nd | 104 |
| Base armor | 38 | =9th | 30 |
| Armor per level | 4.2 | =122nd | 4.6 |
| Base magic resist | 32 | =32nd | 32 |
| Magic resist per level | 1.55 | =86th | 1.55 |
| Base attack damage | 69 | =1st | 59 |
| Base attack speed | 0.625 | =117th | 0.656 |
| Attack speed per level | 3.65% | 10th | 2.5% |
| Move speed | 340 | =37th | 335 |
| Attack range | 175 | =87th | 175 |
| Stat | Level 1 | Per level | Level 18 | Rank at 18 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Health | 690 | +98 | 2356 | 108th of 173 |
| Armor | 38 | +4.2 | 109.4 | =71st of 173 |
| Magic resist | 32 | +1.55 | 58.35 | =87th of 173 |
Riot Data Dragon 16.20.1. Growth curve: League of Legends Wiki — Champion statistic.
Garen, The Might of Demacia, is a Fighter and Tank champion in League of Legends. Riot rates the kit 5/10 for difficulty, 7/10 for attack, 7/10 for defense and 1/10 for magic. Garen spends no resource on abilities and has 17 skins with their own art. Garen's base attack damage of 69 is the highest of 173 champions on patch 26.20 (shared with 3 others). Garen's base health of 690 is the 2nd-highest of 173 champions on patch 26.20.
A proud and noble warrior, Garen fights as one of the Dauntless Vanguard. He is popular among his fellows, and respected well enough by his enemies—not least as a scion of the prestigious Crownguard family, entrusted with defending Demacia and its ideals. Clad in magic-resistant armor and bearing a mighty broadsword, Garen stands ready to confront mages and sorcerers on the field of battle, in a veritable whirlwind of righteous steel.
