Galio, a general guide coupled with a rant. (or will be)

To start with, I'll list the strengths of Galio.

• Impressive base damages allow him to be a hybrid AP/Tank

• Shield is a hard counter to DoT champs, (In your face Malzahar) they heal!

• A decent slow, a decent MS boost

• My favorite ult, period. Taunt, good damage, massive teamfight potential.

And now, the insane weaknesses.

• Base mana costs prohibiting early game, requiring you to get chalice, and making you very vulnerable in the early laning phase.

• Damage is decent , but rarely enough to kill a target (excluding 8 AA's ult + QE....). And then you wait 7 seconds doing nothing.

• No closer to make ult more useful. Without flash his ult is much harder to proc well, making it increasingly situational, sometimes requiring flash to be able to ult.

• High cooldowns coupled with mediocre burst damage lead him to be more of a poke champ. You'll make hell on earth for the enemy laner, but if he goes all-in you're screwed. (If he can deal damage to you :P)

• Damage skyfalls by late game, you're a glorified support/tank thing, with no reliable CC and meh damage. Ult is the only way to deal any damage by then.

• Passive is one of the most noob-trolls in existance. Effectively "hidden" power that none-the-less is partially useless.

• Non-existant siege. Pushing is also ridiculously slow mana-draining.

• Little team-utility outside of his ult. The % MS on his E is.....very very situational.

• Sky-high CD's on his ultimate.

As you can see, there are far more inhibitions that he has. I see him as a champ at the cusp of viability, and coming from experience he is a pretty powerful force. That said, there are far too many limitations placed upon him, severely limiting anything he can do. He's not an early game champ, he's not a late game champ, he's a sort-of-mid-game champ. Having a champ be useful in only 33% (at best, if not behind) of the game is just asking for obscurity.

I'm not exactly sure in what way to express Galio's triumphs and failures. I've tried numerous build on him, I obviously haven't played him in 100's+ of games but I feel fairly confident that I can express the issues.

There are, to start with, many many ways to build Galio. I'll list a few general paths now:

• Full tank. I highly recommend NOT doing this. I'm currently about to test out a few variations on this, trying to see if I can make him a decent "tank top laner" , much like Shen etc. As of now, I feel that this just makes his mid game all that more sucky, and just turns you into a "support" role far quicker.

• AP/tank hybrid. My go-to. Since his damage is separated by insanely long cooldowns, the goal is to survive for the next 7 or so seconds of the enemy spamming at you. The damage is quite nice, chunking out a lot of the enemy squishy's HP , perhaps a kill with a QER+Q combo.

• Full AP. Don't even bother, scalings don't justify this at all. Banking on your ult being up every 2 minutes is a retarded way to play a champ.

I'll now go over more in-depth on the AP/tank hybrid builds.

Maxing: ALWAYS R>Q>W>E. NEVER max E second. EVER. I have done that in the hopes that it might boost damage. The CD is long enough that if you use it for damage you won't have any escape at all up in time when getting ganked (ow that hurt XD). And it's WAY to mana heavy, you can't shoot both Q AND E , definitely not worth it, even going full AP (and then you die since your W doesn't give resistances).

By mana heavy I mean you're wasting 160+ mana/ 7 secs.....lol gl sustaining that, and even if you do manage to do so it isn't very rewarding.

Masteries: Double edge + Butcher. Everything else in tank masteries, 2/28/0. Utility doesn't benefit him much, and damage falls off insanely hard mid-late game so don't even bother. (Not that good early game anyway, you'll take more poke than you'll dish out).

If you want, you can put 3 points into Expanded Mind for 75 mana, but , once again, your early poke does shit for damage and costs too much. Better to get that extra AR/MR/HP regen.

Starts: 1.Armor + (3-2)HP + (2-3)MP pots if you're going down option 4 Zhoniya's. (I prefer mana for more shield spam, etc.)

2.Dorans + 1 HP + 1MP pots in all other situations.

Note about Chalice/Grail:

I absolutely abhor grail. 20% CDR doesn't do much to help you, Abyssal offers far far far more damage, and the only reason you're getting it is for the mana regeneration. 2 solutions:

1. Get chalice, don't upgrade. Sell late-game for cash.
2. Get MP5/level seals, glyphs, and Q's. I've done that, it actually helps your early game considerably, in addition to removing the need for chalice. MR doesn't help much, neither does AR etc. , I'd rather spend that 900 gold on tank or damage stats instead of mana regen.

Part 1:

1. Rushing Abyssal.

Mid-game spike adds insane damage, but you lack any sort of tankiness. Quickly falls off as MR becomes more common, and their jungler will walk all over you. I do this if the enemy jungler doesn't have gap-closers, (EX: NOT Vi or Xin), otherwise you're dead with the lack of tank. W alone just doesn't cut it , you need HP badly to deal with AD. (95 AP + 50 MR + 20 magic penetration OPOPOPOPOP)

Building: Get negatron if your target is bruiser-ish (Diana) or has good shields/stuns (Syndra,Viktor). Otherwise get the blasting wand, (ex: vs lux). Your Q now seriously chunks them, and a full abyssal does 1/3'd of their HP (typically).

2. Rushing spirit visage.

Lately I've been taking this item first, it's an impressive amount of tankiness. I can ignore the enemies entire burst, maybe even heal from it, and will solidly push back the enemy mid-laner into oblivion. Even over-extending is moderately safe, you can take a gank and EW your way out. At worst, ult! Boom you got the enemy mid-laner.

Building: Banshee's first, always. Afterwards, you might dip a little into a NLR or blasting wand for the AP, if you feel you're fine tank wise. Finish visage before boots either way, the passive is great with your W. If blast wand, just keep it until end and upgrade it/sell it into anything.

3. Mejai's snowball of doom.

I have tested this , and I see a lot of promise in this build path. It fulfils your early AP requirements, allowing you to be able to focus tank items and still do good damage. Should you be secure, you can start getting some more AP items and further increasing your damage. By far my most favourite build, not as counter-intuitive as it looks. Galio is naturally tanky and resilient with his W, and in the unlikely occurrence that you tried to 1 v 3+ and died, you're still a "tank/support" with good base damages. Just keep your stacks at ~5 and it's cost effective-ish, should be real easy on Galio unless you play stupid.

Building: Banshee's, then Mejia's. In case of AD, seeker's can replace Banshee's but you need to be a tad bit more careful, Banshee route is safer.

4. Versus AD, or an AP that you can out-tank/out-harass. (Since usually the majority of the enemy team is AD)

Zhoniya's is a more-or-less core item on Galio. Lets you live post-ult, tank some AD, etc. and decent vs bursts such as Fizz, Zed, etc.

Building: Seekers, yada-yada-yada, obviously into Zhoniya's for the active.

Part 2:

This is where the previous items come into play. Here, you should be approaching or at Mid-game, the pinnacle of anything you can do and where Galio is most viable.

If you built abyssal.....

Go and get Randuins, or Zhoniyas. Latter if you're ahead already and confident in your positioning/ jungler has weak or no closers. Former usually, to counter AD and give you HP.

If you built visage....

Same as with Abyssal, only you get randuins ONLY if you're behind or need to be the tank. Zhoniyas adds that AP you need for damage.

If you built Zhoniya's.... Get Randuins or any half-tank/AP item (Rylai's, Liandry's, etc.) if you're feeling that you're tanky enough already.

If you went with the Mejia's combo....

Get T1 boots. Then, A) Started Banshee's, finish Visage. B) Seeker's. Most likely to finish Zhoniya's, but if you need health get a giants belt first. C) Love roaming/getting ganked a lot. Get T2 boots (Tabi's or Merc's, obviously you know which)

After A/B/C finish half-built item to round things out (Visage, Zhoniyas, T2 boots). For above 3 other paths, just get your T2 boots between the first and second items.

Part 3:

By mid-game-ish , you should have one of the following builds:

1. Abyssal, Randuins/Zhoniyas, T2 Boots + half of Zhoniyas/Randuins
2. Visage, Zhoniya's/Randuin's, T2 Boots + half of Randuins/Zhoniyas
3. Zhoniya's, Randuin's/apItem, T2 boots + half of apItem/Randuins
4. Mejia's, Visage/Zhoniya's, T2 Boots (gonna build Randuins/Zhoniya's)

Syntax for above: moreLikely/lessLikely.

As you can see, you will have 1 MR item, either Abyssal or Visage, Zhoniya's, and Randuins.(Well, building 3'd item). If no need for an MR item then you're replacing it with Zhoniya's and then getting an AP+HP item 3'd.

You will always have Zhoniya's and Randuins in your end build. Both are just indispensable to Galio, the best anti-AD tank item and a great damage/active item.

After this you go full tank. Period. There is no other option, and quite frankly you're another support on your team. This is because no matter how much AP you build on him, his damage is crappy late game as compared to how squishy he becomes. Full AP means you do average damage and are squishy with no gapclosers or escapes....cue 0/10/0

Full tank means.....you're a meatshield with nearly no CC and the damage of a fly.

My build...damage on a 100% perfect ult is acceptable. It gets squishies low enough so your team can clean-up (lol like that happens often) and you don't die THAT fast.

Basically you can only have 2 AP items, any more cripples you tank-wise and falls off too much late game.

That was my general build guide, below are what happens in laning and more on why the !@#$ Galio needs buffs.

.... TO BE CONTINUED

I'm sorry for leaving a "cliffhanger", PLEASE PLEASE tell me if anything is wrong or you disagree. Too tired/bored to write some more, and I'll play a few more Galio games before finishing to freshen up my experience.

(Been doing Shen for past couple of days :3)