@Meddler, if you have to nerf Galio, please don't hit his AP mid play style

Malicious Metal·May 24, 2017·84 votes·3,112 views

It's no lie that Galio has become a rather prominent force in both Pro and regular play, having an 8% pick rate as a top laner that builds pure tank item with no real ap.

Yet a lot of old Galio players, myself included, like him as an AP mid lane mage/bruiser, making great use of his low CD abilities and good ap ratios. He opens up top lane for a squishier carry pick while having good roaming from his central position on the map. Yet this play style isn't as prominent as old AP galio was, instead his tank build reigns supreme.

So, if you have to hit him with the nerf bat, please go the extra mile and make sure that AP Galio mid remains viable, maybe giving him some increased ap ratios if you decide to hit his base damages.

(Also, if anyone's interested in what build you should use, try this one; / )

Thanks.

47 Comments

Valor BotMay 24, 201733 votes

His strength against AP mid laners is precisely what makes Galio so unique amongst Wardens. If they take that from him, he will no longer have a distinct niche within the class, meaning his strength and/or viability will depend entirely upon his numbers and tuning.

This was exactly what I feared about Galio's update. Hopefully they'll choose to hit other areas that do not affect his mid lane viability.

Malicious MetalMay 24, 201718 votes

Precisely. He was intended to be a Battlemage/Warden Hybrid anyways, with his R not being global making him unable to just affect bot lane all the way from top.

He works exceptionally well as a counter pick to heavily burst reliant champions like Syndra and Leblanc too and provides that extra bit of bulk from mid lane when your team's lacking a strong frontline.

All in all, Mid lane Galio is a very fun and unique pick that should not be nerfed simply due to him building pure tank and being too effective doing so.

WinTheWarOnPantsMay 24, 20173 votes

Who isn't strong against AP mid laners now days? item 3139 item 3156 item 3814 / item 3001 item 3102

FaustavianMay 24, 20172 votes

All those items cost gold man, and how're they gonna get gold if they cant get near a minion without harassment? *ignoring the ranged AD mids, i know.

WinTheWarOnPantsMay 24, 20171 votes

[slayer-jinx-unamused] idk man how Akali do Katarina think Diana Ad Fizz mids Ekko can Kassadin lane without ranged autos?

FaustavianMay 26, 20171 votes

maybe. because. They. All. Have. some. form. of. ability. to negate damage. Akali = shroud. Kata = teleports. Diana = shield. Fizz = trollpole. Ekko = E. Kassadin, Q until level 6, then he has 1, and 2 against AP.

KONO RUBICK DAMay 24, 201711 votes

they're nerfing him due to 3 dorans rush

it's most likely going to be a nerf affecting him from lvl 1 to lvl 6 nearly

DeusVultMay 24, 20171 votes

So his early Q damage gets nerfed, making his laning not as safe

I'm fine with this

WyrmbladeMay 24, 20177 votes

I don't think that Galio is a problem. He's viable but he doesn't crowd out the competition for any other reason than every single other top lane tank in the game was nerfed into oblivion.

Neo MetalsonicMay 24, 20174 votes

And this is the entire problem. It's like Riot wants to remove tanks from toplane completely with their changes. Couple this with ADC and support buffs and fighters are unable to really compete with ADC / support as well. In current state of the game it's not worth playing toplane, you have very little influence on the outcome of the game. If you like playing tanks I'd suggest learning stuff like Braum and Thresh at the moment since you will actually have impact on the game.

Of course as top you can influence the game negatively or positively by having extreme scores (going 0/5 or 5/0) but anything inbetween such as being 2/0 is usually irrelevant because an enemy ADC that is 3/0/0 is insanely more powerful than a toplane fighter being 2/0. As fighter you need to go in which exposes you to damage from the enemy AP as well so you just blow up a fighter like Fiora and then proceed with the rest. The enemy ADC and support also become more or less irrelevant since in current patch they snowball negatively. Which means once they get behind they stay behind pretty much the entire game. Only in lower ELO you have comebacks because teams don't play their advantage well.

FaustavianMay 24, 20171 votes

Or a Sion Jungle, that can get mega tanky.

kile147May 24, 20171 votes

and then they pick Lee and you oneshot your own adc by getting your HP stacked ass kicked into them. :(

GayFluffyUnicornMay 24, 20171 votes

He definitely is a problem since he does what riot hates. Press Q to instaclear waves, has insane dmg to champs and he's tanky as fuck. Aand that's why he's crowding out the competition. Barely any tanks left if at all who can compete with his waveclear.

ShadowParkerMay 24, 20175 votes

My only gripe with Gallo isn't his damage, but how tanky he is. I definately feel like he is absurdly tanky for having %dmg reduction on his kit.

LankPantsMay 24, 20174 votes

I have an issue with his mana. He can clear safely and never feels like he's even using mana to do so. I think a big part of this is triple D-ring though and I don't see a good solution which isn't either a huge shift to D-ring or a fair hit to mid Galio.

My intuition says the best solution is just to remove Doran's stacking in general, it's meant to be a catch-up mechanism but it doesn't actually work that way. People just buy multiple Doran's to ignore an intended weakness. Your champ has no sustain? D-blade up. Your champ should be gated by mana? D-ring up. D-shield has this right even though it would be the one that actually would be used to catch up. I think that the catch-up mechanics are better served by items like Cull. Getting an AP item that looked a little like that would be a lot better for the game than stacking D-rings.

If you're not willing to do that with D-ring however your only options left to address his absurd spam are ones that hit midlane Galio as hard as top. You'd have to bump his mana costs and likely hit his mana regen. Him spam clearing waves with his Q and not even burning mana into it is just never going to be OK.

WyrmbladeMay 25, 20171 votes

Removing D-ring stacking would be a very bad change because it would even further limit diversity in top lane by making Singed and Nasus' best builds unviable in high elo.

LankPantsMay 25, 20171 votes

If the only way a champion can function is by trivialising an intended weakness then that champion clearly needs work. D-ring stacking is terrible because it lets champions who should have mana problems and who are balanced around having mana problems not have mana problems.

Nasus probably shouldn't be able to keep you permanently shoved in with his E and Singed should have to think about the mana he's using when his poison is toggled on.

ParoeMay 24, 20172 votes

Isnt galios strength and reliability in the fact his Q potentially does its base damage twice, and then %HP damage? Why cant we make it so you can only be damaged once? Its essentially a three part ability.

Neo MetalsonicMay 24, 20172 votes

The reason why Galio is at the moment considered 'strong' is because he's the only tank that isn't unplayable. Look at all the other tanks and how much they got screwed over by the tank item changes, as well as support changes (giving supports redemption / censer even earlier proxy buffing ADC). If they nerf Galio they need to at least buff the HP pool of items like sunfire, randuins.

From the PBE Riot doesn't want to change those items back, instead it opts to buff a number of tanks instead. Which in my opinion is much more bothersome. Worst of all is that Galio is not even overpowered, he's just about average for a toplaner. It's at the moment fighter meta on toplane, and the fighters / duelists are much, much worse than ADC's are. A single ADC just shits on a fighter post laning since the ADC is healing around 150-200 a hit on top of dealing more damage. Plus fighter have to go in deep so they also need to tank some damage from the AP which makes them just explode nearly instantly.

Supreme Senpai69May 24, 20171 votes

I mean Sej has 50% winrate in every single ELO. Zac has a 53% winrate in bronze and 55% in plat+. Amumu has a 52% winrate. Rammus sitting at a 50% winrate. I see nothing wrong with tanks. They seem balanced and some even on the strong side

Hello I am BirdMay 24, 20171 votes

I think Zac is fine Rammus top was cancer to fight, which means he's doing something right I think

Goodnight NunuMay 24, 20171 votes

Full AP Superhero Landing op.

SexualsaurusMay 24, 20171 votes

What makes 3 doran's rings so good is that he still remains really beef while outputting strong damage, especially with factors such as his damage reduction. So bada bing bada boom nerf his early game tankiness and presto galio toplane has to build tank items earlier therefore making the 3 doran ring rush less optimal.

Guyy FieriMay 24, 20171 votes

Galio a not a damage dealer anymore...get over it

The Yetii RiderMay 24, 20171 votes

New Banshee's Veil is hilarious on Galio.

Edit: Also your build has no boots. ...I admit I am intrigued.

Sahn UzalMay 24, 20174 votes

He mentioned IBG/Morello, not both. Which is 5 items, and you probably round it out with boots :P

The Yetii RiderMay 24, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Tidal Tyrant,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=XHpcoTOM,comment-id=00080000,timestamp=2017-05-24T09:10:44.350+0000)

He mentioned IBG/Morello, not both. Which is 5 items, and you probably round it out with boots :P

Oooooh, I see now. Thanks for clearing that up! [slayer-jinx-catface]

MeDicenWeraMay 24, 20171 votes

Ill be absolutely happy if he gets his bases nerfed and his ratios buffed. I think they mght only nerf the bases tho, as they probably consider him a top lane tank now and don't wanna see him around in other positions.

Asayake 5150glowMay 25, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Ill be absolutely happy if he gets his bases nerfed and his ratios buffed. I think they mght only nerf the bases tho, as they probably consider him a top lane tank now and don't wanna see him around in other positions.

You should be fine with just nerfs... his ratios are some of the best around.

Fondling GemsMay 24, 20171 votes

I would prefer to see nerfs to either his Ult Cd or the damage reduction buff he gives to allies during it. That would hurt his pro play more than solo Q.

woodvsmurphMay 24, 20171 votes

I'd mostly agree with your assessment - his base values are too high right now while also having great ap scaling. AP galio as an anti-mage similar to kassadin should be kept viable - just as they did when trying to stop tank ekko from being so toxic to play against last season. Dropping the base damage down would be the most logical place to start for all his abilities. I could see VERY MINOR buffs to his ap scaling to start - but definitely not major buffs to start with. Small changes and see where that leaves him; adjust accordingly from there based on performance.

TwitchInMyPantsMay 24, 20171 votes

IMO they should nerf his bases and maybe his W dmg reduction a bit. Full tank Galio is doing lots of dmg while being one of the hardest things in the game to kill. I think AP galio is pretty fair and there's a good window to get out of Q if you have mobility/range. Though its really the amount of impact tanky galio has.

Shadow HazardMay 24, 20171 votes

Hardly likely it will be kept since it is a part of the reason he is so capable, he is a repeat issue of having a champ that can completely outstat any competition in almost any way.

PokladnicaZlaMay 24, 20171 votes

They should kinda hit his damage somehow.

BlåbæretMay 24, 20171 votes

He's currently OP and is good vs. everything and anything.

Supreme Senpai69May 24, 20171 votes

I know winrate isn't everything but a 10% play rate and sub 50% winrate doesn't seem OP to me? It's a 1% ban rate too so it's not like the stats are skewed.

THE RlVER KlNGMay 24, 20171 votes

Lower the damage reduction on his W but increase the MR scaling seems fair, or increasing E CD

RalanrMay 24, 20171 votes

I can see increasing the MR scaling. His tanking steroid should be more effective the tankier he builds.

Big LincolnMay 24, 20171 votes

galio is a stat check champ when it comes to countering mages but im pretty sure he's getting played because Riot hasn't dicked on him with 'tank update' as hard as other tanks got

that being said i wasn't aware he was a problem?? have never seen a galio do remotely decently besides a few games i've done w/ him, i've hardly felt overwhelmed by him

ForeverLaxxMay 24, 20171 votes

I like that only now, after the change, is Galio getting noticed for his midlane strength. He always had this, in fact, it was much stronger before now as he could build almost entirely tanky and still have large amounts of burst damage due to his MR -> AP conversion. The one thing holding back old Galio was his reliance on Flash to initiate, which meant he was stronger as a follow-up initiator rather than your primary one.

DoozkuMay 24, 20171 votes

I've always felt that AP tank Galio with ROA should be how he's balanced. He's a tank but he should be a higher damaging one that has to sacrifice tank stats for more ap

Lintu PuckMay 24, 20171 votes

sadly he was designed to be a tank oh well

kasfasMay 24, 20171 votes

I'd hit his e base damage. It's pretty high actually. Plus his q doesn't do that much damage without ap, and his passive has already been nerfed.

FaustavianMay 24, 20171 votes

I absolutely pubstomped a Galio as Malzahar . So even though he technically counters AP mids, he can still be out~~cheesed~~played, So if they DO decide to hit him with the nerf bat, it shouldn't be AP ratio's or Resistances. maybe the donated %dmg reduc on ult.

NCBucketsMay 25, 20171 votes

it's probably because they (riot) dont want him to be an ap mid laner, they wanted a tanky/bruiser top laner.

MorgManBasherMay 27, 20171 votes

Yeahhhh, I pretty much only play mid and support galio.

My mid galio build is item 3030 item 3151 item 3285 item 3100 item 3047 item 3135 ...1 shot death build, super fun. I feel GLP is better than RoA simply because you can catch people out of range with it to force them into your E/Q