[EndlessAgony]

I play mostly solo top characters, but I always have a lot of trouble laning against a Garen. One of my mains is nasus and when a garen starts with a dorans blade, there is nothing I can do. His q and e combo at lv 2 does 60% of my health... lol

Which non range AD characters counter him? And whats are good starting items?

My elo is around 1350~1400 so the junglers aren't that good yet....

Thanks:D

[Esthasolyte]

Trundle should do fine because you steal him AD, meaning Q+E deal significantly less damage. You can escape with W and reduce silence duration and your E keeps him from ulti-ing or spinning you down. At level 6, you can reduce his armor and mr greatly and improve your own by a lot.

Riven should also do fine as long as you play with armor runes and cloth armor+pots. As long as he doesnt get massive amounts of farm, you can win the lane by just don't dying since he falls of late game and you don't. Unless he starts with his Q you can stun+EQQQ away from his spin and you can shield some of his skills/ult/ignite. I made a lot of good experiences laning Riven vs. Garen.

Malphite is another possible choice since you have to stack armor anyway and won't lose any potential for mid/late game by doing so.

Maokai should do fine against him as long as you stay safe and farm (maybe under turret), every time he uses some of his skills (and most Garens do because they dont need to watch resources), you get charges and can heal back. Taking excessive amounts of armor (and therefore rendering him useless) is not a bad idea with Maokai, too.

Renekton seemed to work well for me in the past as well since your sustain is more reliable and you can stun him everytime he thinks he can go in for a kill, possibly getting more damage from you than the other way round. The mobility and your ultimate will keep him at bay too.

I am sure there are a lot other picks but these are the ones that came to my mind first.

[Patyfatycake]

I play cho gath against him(cloth 5hp). Just trade with him but don't die.

[damm]

Try yorick and trundle.

[Deji]

Garen straight up hardcounters Nasus, which is why you shouldn't pick Nasus before you know the enemy solo top - he's just too weak early and that makes him very easy to counter.

Garen is annoying, but possible to play against with other champions that have a stronger game.. start with cloth+5 and outplay him if he started doran's. Also, his spin to win pushes the wave, if you have to take the damage from it, do it so in your creep wave so he keeps pushing it. Champions with high sustain and/or strong harass can work well, if you know what you're doing. Renekton (stun him), Cho'Gath(stop his harass with either Q or W), etc.

[Ginko]

Meh, Cho isnt a hard counter. He can outdamage you early and if he zones you away from minions you have no way tot sustain it back.

[FYA Umashi]

Trundle, Renekton, Etc

Not Yorick, Garen murders Yorick.

[Frogger]

Try Kayle Hybrid. Every one of her skills counters Garen. Her E gives her the range to farm and harass without getting into his range. If he uses Q you can use your w and run away. If he does manage to get on top of you, your q will slow him. And if by some unknown way he manages to get you to a sliver of hp, your ult will completely negate his ult.

[MiinJa]

Frogger, on 22 November 2011 - 01:49 PM, said:

Try Kayle Hybrid. Every one of her skills counters Garen. Her E gives her the range to farm and harass without getting into his range. If he uses Q you can use your w and run away. If he does manage to get on top of you, your q will slow him. And if by some unknown way he manages to get you to a sliver of hp, your ult will completely negate his ult.

But still, he will outfarm and win the lane, probably?

[Isobri]

Pretty hard to hardcounter garen early game- he is extremely strong early game in top lane. The best thing to do is to simply farm as much as possible as he falls off a cliff lategame.

The two worst champs to play against him top are Nasus and Irelia in my opinion. Basically garen is hard counter to both. I think the strongest choice is actually cho. Cho's tankiness and high sustain should allow him to farm against Garen, particularally with a few feeds. With even cs and no deaths, you'll be much stronger come mid and late game than garen.

I'm also able to play singed very well against garen. If he's chasing you with his q, you can poison trail. Your adhesive also prevents him from being able to chase. Finally, you can clear waves by simply waiting for yours to "break" then poisoning while theirs advance.

[Soulouri]

Brand is a hard counter to garen (lots of others also like Cho, Singed etc also). He's an odd pick for top lane, but if you want to really hard counter a Garen, a well played Brand can just zone him all game long while farming like a boss.

IF you want to stay in the realms of normal top laners, not that many champs hard counter him, but lots do fine against him, and if you play smart can continue to farm and from mid game onwards are simply more useful to their team that Garen is to his, these champs include;

Irelia
Warwick
Singed
Galio
Gangplank
Teemo
Yorick
Ryze


Champs like Tryndamere and Wukong might do ok for him - i'm not sure how well they trade damage, I haven't tested.

Also the most interesting matchup i'd like to see is Garen vs Olaf. Seems like it'd be a pretty even lane in terms of damage exchange, not sure how it'd work out.

[Avelice]

Lanewick Bot, on 21 November 2011 - 09:06 AM, said:

Trundle, Renekton, Etc

Not Yorick, Garen murders Yorick.

I disagree. I actually find the lane matchup to be quite the opposite (or perhaps I play against bad Garens). Yorick is really good at keeping Garen off his passive by just throwing a ghoul out and letting it chase Garen. This means he'll have almost no sustain, because you'll be wearing him down, which means a lot since Yorick's sustain is quite good. Then if you time your slow ghoul right, you can stop him from landing a full spin on you, which will save you a lot of damage.

[Cormag]

If you know you are going to face Garen top solo, a +40 armor rune page works wonders.

[Frogger]

MiinJa, on 22 November 2011 - 02:03 PM, said:

But still, he will outfarm and win the lane, probably?

Actually, Kayle's farm is incredibly good. Just max e first and watch your farm build up ^^

[stomp]

Frogger, on 22 November 2011 - 07:11 PM, said:

Actually, Kayle's farm is incredibly good. Just max e first and watch your farm build up ^^

Teemo works, Gangplank works, Pantheon works, Kennen works. As far as my experience goes that is.

Teemo can harass well and kite him constantly, driving him nuts.

GP (early boots + philo) can outrun him, his q is ranged harass with a slow attached - perfect.

Pantheon blocks his silence, has ranged harass, a stun if he does catch u in his spin and practically equally high early game damage. Not exactly the perfect counter, but he does well.

Kennen ... destroys him. Ranged farm and endless harass, e to get away every time he tries to get close.


I'd say about anything that can hurt him and stay away from his silence+spin combo at the same time should do fine.

[Lachrymose]

Alistar

[Ginko]

Avelice, on 22 November 2011 - 03:20 PM, said:

I disagree. I actually find the lane matchup to be quite the opposite (or perhaps I play against bad Garens). Yorick is really good at keeping Garen off his passive by just throwing a ghoul out and letting it chase Garen. This means he'll have almost no sustain, because you'll be wearing him down, which means a lot since Yorick's sustain is quite good. Then if you time your slow ghoul right, you can stop him from landing a full spin on you, which will save you a lot of damage.

Garen doesnt use mana. I think that you can lose against an agressive Garen. not one that waits in the brush on you to throw ghouls on his face.

[Grim Jester]

Garen is all early game laning, He deals massive damage early and will tend to push you out of lane with most melees. My favourite counter to him is AD Kayle rushing black cleaver is a nightmare for him. Slow when he Q's and kite him with E stupid range damage early beats stupid melee dmg early any day of the week.

If you dont want to play kayle then you will have to play very very passively, or alternatively get someone who is more moblie than him early unfortunately solo top that leaves you with Basically Riven or Renekton off the top of my head anyone with defensive (Retreatable) dashes or movespeed buffs.

Hope this helps

Grim