Riot did you know there is no starting Magic resist item.

BIFF·3/4/2015, 5:18:24 PM·82 votes·6,356 views

So Rito I like to play Mid Galio (Galio is a champ that you guys created in 2010; ya'll probably forgot all about him). Well Galio has this passive which converts a portion of his MR to AP it is pretty cool for a cardboard tier champ. The problem is... there is no starting item with MR. So I really can't take advantage of this until my first recall or death.

While we're on the subject of Galio how about that ult... it has to be one of the weakest in the game. he can be interrupted from a hard cc or silence. He can be knocked up out of it. Or his targets can flash, dash, or walk right out of it. only for Galio to take a good bit of damage with no pay off and a long cooldown.

anyways back on the main topic is there a reason for the lack of MR starting options?

110 Comments

Drunk Rummate3/4/2015, 5:25:09 PM39 votes

there's a couple reasons for this:

Champions don't have base AP
Outside of the minimal damage from passives (like Orianna), AP damage requires spells to be cast which also generally consume mana

Armor needs to be more accessible early on because the majority of a champion's early game damage comes from auto attacks, regardless of who they are. If you want strong early defensive itemization against an AP champion, I recommend a ruby crystal start.

Lumus Avatar3/4/2015, 5:21:57 PM16 votes

intended, though perhaps disagreeable.

AP at the beginning of the game is generally low so natural MR is "enough" to mitigate early magic damage

None of the jungle camps deal magic damage so the jungler doesn't need it either.

Kitten of Evil3/4/2015, 6:00:57 PM11 votes

They did this on purpose. It used to cost 400g for item 1033 ... but this allowed you to start lane with 50 MR, which is hard for any low-level mage to make a scratch on.

qetzel3/4/2015, 9:54:43 PM5 votes

Galio's ultimate is awesome. If he had a dash o/e it would be one of the strongest in the game. If you use your ultimate on the person with CC (excluding Udyr or Braum - hard counters suck, huh?) You can't be interrupted.

They also fixed the ultimate so that tenacity wouldn't work against it, didn't they? No more walking out of range!

I think the reason for not having magic resist at level one is that it would effectively negate mages. It wouldn't be fair.

Pyro3/4/2015, 9:54:46 PM5 votes

Every champions starts with 30 MR, some even have +1.25 MR per level. Base armor is way lower.

fun fact: Doran's Shield reduces damage taken from single-target spells as well as basic attacks.

Sozan53/4/2015, 6:54:19 PM4 votes

Just wanted to clarify - stacking MR on Galio is generally a very bad idea - and starting with Null Magic Mantle (or whatever it's called) was always a bad idea.

Anyway, I don't want to get into specifics, but basically Galio passive just makes Abyssal and Athene a very good buy on him - that's it. Otherwise just build like a regular or tanky mage (That is Zhonya, Void and Raba for example).

In some cases you might want Spirit Visage too, but that's rare and usually it replaces one of the other MR items. Ah, if you're against AD laner just go for Tear or RoA (Galio is quite effective against AD teams too).

Hawkefire3/4/2015, 7:37:36 PM3 votes

{quoted}

So Rito I like to play Mid Galio (Galio is a champ that you guys created in 2010; ya'll probably forgot all about him). Well Galio has this passive which converts a portion of his MR to AP it is pretty cool for a cardboard tier champ. The problem is... there is no starting item with MR. So I really can't take advantage of this until my first recall or death.

While we're on the subject of Galio how about that ult... it has to be one of the weakest in the game. he can be interrupted from a hard cc or silence. He can be knocked up out of it. Or his targets can flash, dash, or walk right out of it. only for Galio to take a good bit of damage with no pay off and a long cooldown.

anyways back on the main topic is there a reason for the lack of MR starting options?

As much as I would like to have the capability to start with an item that grants MR, I understand why this isn't available.

The reasons that Riot has given (and frankly I do agree with them, up to a point), is that magic damage isn't strong enough to warrant the want to be able to start with an MR item, because when you are capable of starting with an MR item, you pretty much take what is already a fairly low-moderate damage output and basically make it very low - low damage output. There are outliers to this of course, such as Fizz (good god his early damage is insane), and leblanc for example, but those are generally the exception and not the rule.

LoLKiru3/4/2015, 7:15:26 PM3 votes

I wasn't aware you could walk out of galio's ult (or even do anything if he actually catches you in the taunt) didn't they just recently make it so Tenacity no longer reduces the duration of his taunt?

mjack333/5/2015, 12:44:24 AM2 votes

Champions start with 475 Gold.

Null Magic Mantle costs 500 Gold.

If you put 13 points into utility, you could have an extra 40 starting gold and hit that.

+3 points in Meditation -> an extra 3 mana regen per 5 seconds; good on Galio +1 point in Phasewalker -> Recall time reduced by 1 second. Always useful +1 point in Strength of spirit gives you 1 health regen per 5 seconds per 300 mana +3 points in fleet of foot -> + 1.5% movement speed; always at least semi useful +3 points in vampirism -> 3% liesteal and spellvamp +1 of your choice? -> I take runic affinity

And then you can get +40 starting gold

After all that, you have 17 points left over

+2 Recovery +2 Enchanted Armor +4 sorcery +3 expanded mind +3 mental force +1 arcane mastery +1 expose weakness +1 spell weaving

And there you have a Galio rune page? Not the best thing ever, but it's very workable and would let you start with a Null Magic Mantle.

OJ1913/5/2015, 5:03:27 AM2 votes

{quoted}

So Rito I like to play Mid Galio (Galio is a champ that you guys created in 2010; ya'll probably forgot all about him). Well Galio has this passive which converts a portion of his MR to AP it is pretty cool for a cardboard tier champ. The problem is... there is no starting item with MR. So I really can't take advantage of this until my first recall or death.

While we're on the subject of Galio how about that ult... it has to be one of the weakest in the game. he can be interrupted from a hard cc or silence. He can be knocked up out of it. Or his targets can flash, dash, or walk right out of it. only for Galio to take a good bit of damage with no pay off and a long cooldown.

anyways back on the main topic is there a reason for the lack of MR starting options?

No offense to Galio mains, because galio deserves it, but I'd rather manaless assassins NOT be able to start with MR.

Omnem Occido3/5/2015, 5:39:06 AM2 votes

Wait, what? You do realize that his ult is a guaranteed 2 second taunt, regardless of tenacity, that reduces 50% of all physical and magic damage? Nobody leaves when inside of it, unless there were some very well timed Sivir E's or Morgana W's. It's not like Nunu's ult, where it's just a slow and people can flash or walk out. Technically speaking, Galio's ult is better than Amumu's in terms of CC because he stops channels. Also, Taric and Urgot have by far much worse ults in comparison. Galio's biggest problem is that he needs a better gap closer than his E. If it was a dash, or something like that, he'd be a great choice for countering a magic damage heavy team.