i bought garen recently, and im really loving him. He doesnt have much damage output early game, and his build is rather expensive (warmogs and force of nature to start), but mid-late game he's epic. So hard to kill, and despite having minimum attack damage, his abilities do shit loads inherently.

I gotta tweak my build though for optimum performance. I think Warmog + FoN + Thornmail + + Frozen heart (for armor and CD) is a good start. Maybe sunfire, but recently i've found you dont particularly need it for anything other then farming faster. Then maybe Whisper and Ghostblade thrown in there for good measure.

I've tended to skip boots on a few occasions since you get a speed boost from FoN, but i'll switch boots of swiftness with for thornmail if there isn't too much physical damage on the other team.