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So, Reddit is flipping their collective shit over Galio...

Malicious Metal··86 votes·10,721 views

And I'm sitting here, wondering how blatant complaints can just reach the front page of reddit without even offering solutions. It's all just them pointing fingers and calling stuff in Galio's kit "overloaded" and simply just seem to forget that there's a better way to formulate a complaint other than just base exaggeration.

So here I am, somewhat annoyed by the recent few Galio threads on reddit, offering my own view on the matter. Disclaimer; I am a filthy Galio player, he's by far my my favorite champion in recent years, rivaling Mordekaiser in terms of overall enjoyment and I personally think there is no underlying issue with Galio's current state.

But I'm digressing....

What is problematic with current Galio?

There are two issues with Galio currently, especially in pro play. He's a very strong pick there, primarily in top lane with no real strategic thinking behind picking him other than him being, how reddit puts it, the "BEST TANK".

And they're actually right in that regard, Galio is the best Tank currently in pro play, and it has to do with two things:

Firstly; item 1056 item 1056 item 1056 This is the primary issue with Top lane Galio in pro play. He just stacks triple dorans and brainlessly pushes the entire wave with basically no drawbacks.

He has constant lane pressure without expending a ton of mana, which is a problem. His WAVECLEAR on the other hand is an intended STRENGTH of the champion, compared to Sion's and Poppy's Q who serve as their primary wave clear Galio's Q doesn't have any CC attached to it.

Yet he's able to mow down waves with little to no AP, which defeats the original purpose of his design as the "Tanky AP Mid laner" that old Galio was, and what new Galio should be the spiritual successor of. In a Riot QnA they stated that Galio SHOULD be building at least SOME AP, E.G. item 3027 and item 3102 Yet his most prominent build, and the one usually seen in Pro play looks like this; https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/33264749/galiobuild.jpg This is problematic and is the SECOND issue Galio currently has, which is him building pure tank whereas he's supposed to build at least a little AP

Which leads me to Nerf suggestion Numero Uno:

#Nerf Winds of War's base and up it's ratio...Again! Currently Galio can get away with a pure tank build without sacrificing meaningful waveclear, which frankly, is kinda dumb

If this doesn't help amend his current issues, which I hope it will, there's still the option to nerf his overall durability by hitting Shield of Durand's BASE DAMAGE REDUCTION VALUE and upping it's MR scaling. This would make him be less tanky when facing a heavy AD team but be overall better against magic damage based teams, which is his intended strength anyways!

As seen before, his current build doesn't even incorporate a lot of MR but has TWO ARMOR Items as his most frequent items.

But hey, I'm biased.

https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/33264755/galios2.jpg

https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/33264751/galios.jpg

I absolutely ADORE New Galio, not as a tank, but as the tanky Bruiser-y Mage Mid lane. Like he used to be played as. It's only fair that when Tank Galio remains a problem that AP Galio won't suffer, as a lot of old Galio mains loved playing him as a more damage-heavy tanky threat.

Concluding, I feel Galio is in a great spot design wise, yet his opressive performance in pro play can be traced back to two Issues, both relating to HOW he builds. Doran's stacking and pure tank Galio one shotting waves is a problem,** AP Galio sweeping away entire waves is not**

MM

136 Comments

Critmaster Garen24 votes

how in the fuck could anyone think galios kit is overloaded?

its about as "overloaded" as sions. most of his abilities are incredibly telegraphed and overall simple.

and the best part is, hes a TANK. no shit hes going to have a lot of cc and utility.

like what exactly is the issue with his kit? his q which you can simply walk out of? his dash which doesnt go over walls and has a huge fucking tell of him moving backwards? or is it his taunt that makes him slow himself on the charge? even his ult is so delayed that you can walk out of it when youre at the center of the effect when it starts channeling.

you can be the slowest juggernaut in the game and still counterplay all of his abilities.

Penns4 votes

Youre not gonna walk out of his Q before already taking 1-2 ticks. And it only ticks 3 times xd Also the initial base dmg of his Q is almost double the base dmg from his full Q "dot" but without the %hp damage. Youre also not gonna walk out of his W unless you have a mobility spell, his E is pretty fair tho. It can also be kind of hard to get out of his ult but the main thing about it is that it 1) zones hard and 2) gives his target almost 50% dmg reduction with rank 5 W.

Ralanr15 votes

It seems rather petty saying you won't be able to walk out of his Q without taking one tic as a complaint. That's the case with any kind of ability like that, it's why you try to dodge it.

His W doesn't charge that fast so you can walk out of it. If he's not charging it for long then the taunt isn't going to be long either.

Penns1 votes

Other abilities like that tick much more tho, Morg W for example ticks 10 times over 5 seconds, Galio Q does 3 times every .5 second. And since walking out of Galio taunt isnt really an option he can just throw it out when you are taunted anyway.

From what Ive seen he can just charge it and walk next to you since the range is big enough for the 30% slow to not really matter.

Ralanr11 votes

Throwing it out when taunted is just his combo. That's his reward for taunting you.

And you can't outrun a Galio with a 30% slow?

Penns1 votes

You can outrun Galio, but when he starts channeling it around you, Im pretty sure the 350 taunt range is too much to outrun. Its basically like a 350 range blink vs a 2 second 30% slow.

Ralanr12 votes

But at that point the taunt is less than a second. You can outrun it if he charges next to you and waits for full charge. I know it's happened to me as I played Galio.

Penns3 votes

Hm, the few times I saw him picked Im pretty sure I saw him just fully channel it while walking next to someone. He is still walking at 70% speed and gets 350 range on it.

Move speed is a pretty weird stat with soft caps and stuff, but 30% of 380 move speed with tier 2 boots is 114 per second, so he gets "slowed by 228 units" over the 2 seconds, but the range on it is 350 units, so..

Ralanr9 votes

Idk. Imo it channels too slowly to get a full charge unless people actively stay near me. Often people can walk out just fine.

Placentas6 votes

I've become a big fan of Galio, I would have to disagree about his taunt.

At times it's painfully slow and the range is small unless you do a full charge. With how mobile so many champions are they can easily avoid it unless you as Galio plan it correctly.

Penns3 votes

I didnt say anything about mobile champs, I was talking about "even the slowest juggernaut in the game can walk out of it".

Placentas4 votes

But ya...if even the slowest jugg can walk out, what chance does his taunt have of catching a mobile champ which out numbers the less mobile champs at this point.

Personally I think his taunt is fine though. It should require a bit of skill to pull off instead of an insta-taunt.

I tend to do the E knock up, followed by a W taunt.

Critmaster Garen21 votes

if triple dorans ring is a problem on galio, then thats going to be fixed soon anyway.

Vallalan13 votes

triple dorans has been strong for a LONG time on anyone who wants to not have mana issues. legit have friends in master/challenger who have abused it for over a year if not more. its cheesy as fuck, but now that pros are doing it people are catching on.

i Used to get called a troll for going triple dorans > ludens echo lux back when she was strong in season 5. now who's the troll.

they need to make the mana passive you get on minions unique. no idea why it was ever not unique. sure you can stack dorans for mana regen thats fine, but the mana passive on top of that? you can get 12 mana per minion on top of having 150% mana regen from the 3 dorans. its just silly.

General Esdeath 2 votes

Yeah I remember when I was learning Diana and Kassadin I watched Anklespankin who told me "Pretty much any champ who has mana issues can do this triple doran ring build and be good to go"

That shit was broken back in the day

ForeverLaxx2 votes

This really just speaks to Riot's inexperience, something you'll come to expect with their rotating door of lead designers. They always design "first buy" items in this vacuum where they believe no one will bother stacking them. Yet, in nearly every season, stacking Doran items has been a good way to maintain a lead or reduce the impact of a setback.

Ralanr16 votes

As much as it would pain me to see base damage Q nerfs, I agree that they could probably hit those and up the scaling to better make AP Galio clear waves but still allow waveclear to be some strength of tank Galio.

Agree on the W change. His W should be more rewarding for tank Galio than AP Galio and whenever I see people saying they should up the base on it or give it AP scaling I cringe. Galio shouldn't be rewarded more durability on a defensive ability for building offense. He isn't Riven who is designed to build full offense and needs those scalings to live. He's a tank, building to survive is part of the job.

Big Lincoln13 votes

His Q's ratio is already ridiculous, lol

Better change IMO would be to add an AP ratio to the defensive values on his W/R's damage reduction and his passive shield. Currently bruiser Galio has a two-fold opportunity cost because building less defensively also means his defensive steroids become a lot weaker. This would help make AP builds more appealing than currently

Ralanr8 votes

But that's supposed to be the trade off. If he's not building defensively then his defensive abilities aren't going to be as good. Giving him AP scalings on his defensive abilities would just make AP bruiser Galio all around better than tank Galio.

I know you want Galio to be an AP bruiser but he's designed as a tank and should at least be more encouraged to build as such than as an AP bruiser.

Big Lincoln1 votes

then there's no point to complaining about him going tank in pro play

survivability trumps everything else

Ralanr4 votes

Except he's clearing waves too well with his tank build.

FeelsCampedMan13 votes

His Q ratio doesn't need buffs, it's already very good Hit the bases and that's it

Thumpin8 votes

And I'm sitting here, wondering how blatant complaints can just reach the front page of reddit without even offering solutions.

I just don't get this mentality here. Why does a balance-related complaint need to offer a solution?

We're not designers, we're players. We're perfectly capable of recognizing something that's OP without needing to do Riot's job for them. Leave the balancing to those who get paid to do it, and we'll continue to give feedback where necessary.

Slythion6 votes

your argument makes sense but Imo, I believe in a "discussions" board over a "feedback" board.

Because of my preference, I find blatant "nerf this plox" threads without any effort into anything beyond that single thought is bland and doesn't pave the road to a good discussion/debate. So technically your point is a respectable and viable way, it's not a very productive or engaging path from the way I see it

ModKnightsKemplar7 votes

I have consistently felt that there wasn't enough MR synergy in his new kit. If you first pick Galio, and the enemy team goes all AD, you SHOULD be punished. That's okay.

I think nerfing Q's base damage and increasing scaling is good, too. But I feel much more strongly that there is missed synergy with the MR scaling that old Galio had. Some of that is kinda unhealthy, but it's easy to tell that his kit is overloaded when he has MR scaling, but his BEST builds don't even use MR.

I don't have a problem with Galio winning with no MR. I think, to be healthy, he has to at least have a chance to succeed without it. But his BEST builds should ABSOLUTELY have MR in them; that should be when he is most strong. That's not the case right now, and that needs to be solved.

Sire Hippington7 votes

Imo Galiio has the same issue that the poppy rework had: They tried to precive the agresive options and bruisery feel of the original champ while adding a shit ton of utillity to it. The result for poppy was that her engage range and damage got nerfed serveral times till she now sits 46%win and 1.4%pick(https://euw.op.gg/champion/poppy/statistics/top) and yet still does decent on people that actually know how to use all the utillity she has.

Gallio will go down the same path. His current damafge(both with and without ap) is just to hogh for what he offers. Old Gallio could be allowed to do high damage because he only offered soft utillity outside of the ult. An Aoe-slow, aoe speed-zone that had high strategic value due to boosting minions aswell(one of the best abillities in game, a shame they removed it), def stat boost with selfheal, again one of the most awsome skills we ever had.... Now, he has two forms of hard cc in his base kit, hard mobillity, a semi global mobillity ult with hard cc, high %damage reduction for him self and an allie, there is no way he can be allowed to do similar damage than befor the rework with all the tools he now has, so he most likely will get his damage nerfed over and over again like poppy.

And for tripple dorans: everyone with decen ap ratios can do that and it's been common on other tanks like naut and mao aswell. I don't really know why dorans ring and blade can be stacked, but not shield, makeing all unique might help. It also shows a big issue of mana early on and tank itemisation. You NEED that mana to be competetive, and stacking rings is the only way to get it.

Another decent potential nerf would be slower misslespeed on Q, that shit is undodgeable till you got tier 2 boots, and even then it's really hard to avoid. It's as much of an skillshot as Lux E...

4th3t0s3 votes

Ironic, considering their connection in both the old and new lores.

brad7 votes

[{quoted}](name=Malicious Metal,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=IHAkUpVd,comment-id=,timestamp=2017-06-01T14:28:23.175+0000)

And I'm sitting here, wondering how blatant complaints can just reach the front page of reddit without even offering solutions.

https://puu.sh/w84Rh/07fa481154.png[/img]

?????????

King LeBong6 votes

The boards are much more guilty of offering nothing to a discussion and just calling something broken.

At least the Reddit comment sections offer discussion on the topic even if the post doesn't, unlike the boards for the most part.

SH Azykan6 votes

https://image.prntscr.com/image/87a31ef859bd4697a9b6ef7fd00887e6.png?noredirect I am probably going to be biased as well. but please do not buff his AP Ratios. His ratios are already insanely good and I don't want this to be FotM and prevent me from spamming him mid still...

if something needs to be hit, it is the 3 doran's rush that makes him basically unmatched at 1200 gold. Galio's early game is already amazing and 3 dorans is super gold efficient and just lets him snowball hard. Or thanks to the mana refund/gen lets him also low interact waveclear if he isnt going to bully hard enough.

item 1056 really if they just made the mana restore on killing a unit Unique, we wouldn't have this problem on multiple champions who have abused it.

If he is to be nerfed. Gust Magic Damage: 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+ 75% AP) Tornado Magic Damage Per Half-Second: 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 (+ 15% AP) (+ 2% of target's maximum health) Total Tornado Magic Damage: 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 / 105 (+ 45% AP) (+ 6% of target's maximum health)

To Gust Magic Damage: 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+ 75% AP) Tornado Magic Damage Per Half-Second: 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+ 15% AP) (+ 2% of target's maximum health) Total Tornado Magic Damage: 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+ 45% AP) (+ 6% of target's maximum health)

would actually be a fine nerf imo The gusts themselves are weaker and some of the power is shifted into them taking the full tornados damage

Requiemsfire5 votes

Furthermore other toplane tanks are pretty meh as far as statistics can go. Like it's not just galio being strong but other tanks have become pretty weak as they lack the one item power spike other laners need.

Stalinium5 votes

Speaking of BS base damages, Gragas anyone?

Blu3Jay4 votes

more like Chogath

DarkRitual4 votes

Would making the Doran's items unique (only can have one, similar to gold gen/boots of speed) solve some of the AP "tank" champs in toplane? It would have some minor splash damage in mid/bot, but I think that's not a frequent enough issue to be concerned over. Even in bot, Doran's Blade can be backed up by a Cull, and Dark Seal can help some in mid in addition to Rind if need be (not optimal in either case, but if you're needing to buy a second Doran's item, you're already not in an optimal situation).

TeCoolMage2 votes

Maybe there can be an AP scaling to shield of durand so that high AP galio can be played a bit tanky against armour teams

Ralanr2 votes

Why?

Galio is designed as a tank. He should be tanky for building tanky. If Galio ends up not being as tanky against an unfavorable enemy team, that's a good thing.

TeCoolMage2 votes

Well, if he's building AP he's going to have less armour and health too, making him less tanky.

It's just so AP Galio has a niche other than "tons of dmg on 1 abilityyy", which is if the enemy team is mostly physical damage. Right now AP Galio is just Q and passive damage which is why his AP builds are so weak. He either needs his damage scaling really high for it to be worth investing in (and that usually risks things like sapling spam maokai), or he needs to sacrifice less (but still some) tankiness to do so.

Ralanr2 votes

It's not that surprising considering Galio was more designed to be a tank than an AP bruiser.

Edit: and his E also has AP scalings.

TeCoolMage2 votes

And people want to build some AP like with Maokai, singed, Sejuani, Zac, etc. Hence the compromise. MR, Armour and HP will always beat a small 10% extra damage reduction from several AP items

Salson2 votes

Riven Fiora Darius Yasuo , these 4 have close to 50% playrate together.

I've no idea how you play Galio into them.

Or is he just a counterpick?

TheGoomyGamer3 votes

Galio does badly vs soma champs. Fiora especially, because she's a tank-shredder and its super easy to riposte Galion's justice punch

SH Azykan4 votes

Riven you can bully riven lv2 if you got at least 1 good Q off on her when getting lane advantage lv1 push. an AA>E>AA>Q>AA combo can kill her with 2 passive procs from about 75% hp if you hit 2 before her. Also your W isnt cancled by CC, so you can use it to avoid most of her damage if she jumps on you, then trade back really effectively. I personally would only go 2 dorans rings instead of 3 in this lane and then ninja tabi into bami's cinder

Fiora Also squishy level 2 with not the best all in until she has an advantage. she more wants to harass you with Q's on vitals and back off. Hardest part about this lane is all your CC is incredibly telegraphed meaning she has ample time to use her W. Really would just try to avoid this lane matchup but if you can abuse your stronger lv1-2 and then just use your abilities to keep her under tower and make plays elsewhere it is survivable.

Darius I would dodge if I got a darius picked into me as galio unless I had a jg who I could trust to really punish the pick. Since galio has phenomenal gank assist and darius is really gankable.

Yasuo dont play tank into him, legit go item 1056 item 1056 item 1056 item 3157 item 3285 and kill him every time he steps in lane.

LyingOnLine2 votes

Doran's Ring stacking is a much more pervasive problem, and should probably just be outright gutted.

Mira Arya Enthe2 votes

Just because he is a tank doesn't mean he cannot be just as bullshit as Fiora. But your post was actually quite fair, topical and well put together. So have an upvote.

mr Boombastic7872 votes

I currently main Galio and I agree that this is understandable nerfs, not just nerfs to be nerfs

Troll for Trump2 votes

If he autopushes, he should be an easy gank, especially since his escape is also his engage and easily blocked by the person ganking.

Shadow Hazard1 votes

Another point to hit is the ability to spam that skill on a pretty low CD without worry of going oom at basically all points of the game. That is 2 other points to look to hit him in, since his AP ratio's are pretty dam large already.

Ralanr2 votes

I wouldn't say he does it without worry about going oom is because of his costs. He grabs three Doran rings for this.

DarkLooN1 votes

I just rekt the triple dorans tank galio top with an on hit teemo... completely destroyed. he's pretty weak against constant range poke, otherwise hes busted.

DJMason888 votes

Almost every melee toplaner is weak against constant ranged poke though

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