Galio idea

So, I’ve sat on this for a while, and I think I have at least an idea on what can be done to Galio to at the very least improve his health. Currently, Galio is laughably weak, he’ll even before his nerfs this patch (unless you play him top tank) he was pretty sub-par, but riot can never really buff him because he does too much too well; with tankyness , damage, CC, AOE, and map pressure all in one. But I have some balance ideas to help alleviate some of his problems, and hopefully get him in a better spot.

Passive: Colossal Smash

• cooldown reverted to 8 seconds
• [new] cooldown now scales with CDR
• AP ratio increased from 50% to 70%

Q: Winds of War

• cooldown changed from 14 / 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 seconds to 10 seconds at all ranks

W: Shield of Durand (A lot of changes)

• [Moved] passive magic shield has been moved to Galio’s ultimate passive
• Mana cost increased from 50 at all ranks to 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70
• Damage reduction changed from 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (+5% AP) (+8% bonus MR) to 15 / 17.5 / 20 / 22.5 / 25% (+3.5% AP)(+15% Bonus MR)
• Removed: no longer halved for physical damage
• Minimum damage increased from 10 /20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+30% AP) to 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+40% AP)
• Maximum damage changed from 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+90% AP) to 100 / 150 / 200 / 250 / 300 (+80% AP)
• Self slow changed from 15% to 30%

E: Justice punch

• Mana cost changed from 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 to 50 at all ranks

R: Heroes entrance

• [Moved/new passive] Galio gains his W’s magic shield as an Ult passive; max health shield changed changed from 8 / 11 / 14 / 17 / 20% to 10 / 17.5 / 25% of his max health
• Shield recharge rate changed from 12 seconds to 16 / 12 / 8 seconds
• Magic damage changed from 150 / 250 / 350 (+70% AP) to 150 / 250 / 350 (+70% AP)(+60% Bonus MR)

Now for the reasoning behind the changes. Mana changes

• I find it ridiculous that Galio’s Q costs SO much mana, yet his E and W (which are powerful spells in their own right) only cost 50 by max rank. Recently riot did buff Galio’s base mana pool and reduce the mana consumption of his Q, but I still think he should be nerfed in his E and W costs too.

MR scaling, AP scaling, and base scaling changes

• to put this simply I’d like to better reward Galio for building tank with more tank stats and damage with better damage stats. I nerfed the passive MR ratio but buffed it’s AP so AP Galio deals more damage, but I also nerfed AP galio’s Damage reduction while buffing MR Galio’s DR. Basically AP gives less resistance but more damage while MR gives more resistances but less damage

W changes

• alright, time for an actual unpopular opinion; I believe removing flash’s interaction with his W and making it interruptible where great changes to Galio’s W. Those interactions lacked counterplay, made him awkward to balance, and gave him the ability to engage fights for free, again another strength he didn’t need
• Additionally, I still think his W is too defensively stacked. Giving 40% damage reduction on a basic ability that also grants a shield, a taunt, and threatens enemies with damage is just too much all at once, so I re-equalized the DR, nerfed the AP ratio, nerfed the base DR, and moved the shield over to the ultimate.
• finally lets talk damage, this ability doesn’t do much of it, and for good reason, it offers so much that the damage HAS to be low. However, since so much was stripped from it I believed it needed a compensation buff. Since avoiding Galio W was much easier, (no flash combo, interruptible, reverted self slow, etc...) I decided to make hitting it more rewarding by giving it better amping damage akin to someone like Sion.

Now I’m not claiming this will 100% fix Galio. To be honest the strength of his base kit is REALLY hard to balance, but I do believe some of these changes are at least worth considering. So please @Riot, don’t be afraid to ask your community for their balance ideas on difficult champions. I know a lot of us can seem like pretentious jerks, but we really do want what’s best for our champions in this game, and I hope you turn to us more often when considering massive balance changes.