When is Galio going to get some attention?

The core point of this post is simple: needs some attention from Riot if he's ever going to be more than a counter-pick. I have been playing Galio since a couple of weeks after I got League of Legends. When I first started playing as the champion, I loved him, I played him in every game, wrecked face in every game, mostly because nobody knows how to deal with Galio, due to him being so weak that you never see him. [slayer-pantheon-thumbs] So, skip a few dozen games down the road, I decide to try him in ranked, and, suddenly, (as soon as we hit the mid-game) my Ult is useless due to the over-abundance of CC, I'm only useful as an anti-mage tank, and I deal a negligible amount of damage. [slayer-jinx-unamused] In normals, none of this really matters, because I can time my Ult (the powerful, large-range taunt-splosion) such that the enemy team has already burned their hard CC abilities, plus, I can usually get fed enough off of summoners' idiocy to be able to tank AD as well. In Ranked, however, you cannot rely on your opponents being morons, because their usually paying more attention and trying much harder; hence that Leona saving her Ult in a teamfight until AFTER I've ulted, or that wily Cho'gath saving that knock-up of his until the exact moment I flash into the middle of the enemy team.

When I discovered this, after spending so much time playing this Champion, I was shocked; maybe i'm just not as good as I thought. Maybe Galio has some hidden plays that I simply haven't discovered yet. Maybe I just suck, and the people in normals are just that much worse. I asked several of my friends about Galio, and just about every single one agreed that he is an extremely noncompetitive (aka WEAK) champion. Well, no, maybe their wrong, I thought, they don't play this champion, anyway, what do they know? I turned to Google, then, I looked at Galio guides and forum posts about him, and all agreed: Galio is underpowered. I thought," well, maybe Galio was always meant to just be a fun Champion, not a powerful one," but this was disproved by the forum posts from several ago talking about how OVERpowered Galio was. But, not anymore (This actually explains why it's so easy to get an S with him, now that I think about it, since everybody sucks with him, if you don't, then it's basically an instant S grade on half your games).

Now, skip to the S6 Midseason update. Suddenly, is relevant again, since he's basically "the Rammus for Mages" (to quote a recent forum post on reignofgaming.net). Yay, Galio is OP, all my hopes and dreams are realized, right? Wrong! He's STILL only useful as a counterpick! The only reason to ever pick Galio is to counter a Mage mid, and it's infuriating to be unable to use him anytime I see a or a or a on the enemy lane. Wanna first-pick Galio? DON'T, because the enemy laner is just going to pick an AD Champion to counter. THAT is the issue with Galio right now: He is countered by half of the Champions in League of Legends [zombie-brand-facepalm]

"Now, bacon," I can hear you saying," what makes you think Rito didn't intend for Galio to just be a counter-pick?" To that I say: may have originally been meant to just be an anti-mage, but the days of niche picks like Galio are long-past. Just look at , once the perfect example of an anti-mage (ult scaling off of AP), reworked to be useful in almost any game. Everything I have read or heard about Riot's current design philosophy, from patch notes to youtube, says that they do not want Champions to only be useful as counterpicks.

Galio is seriously gimped in his current design, and he needs to be changed; it's as simple as that. His kit has little synergy to allow him to work around his reliance upon magic resist, and his AP ratios simply aren't strong enough to allow him to be useful in the late game. Maybe his e needs to be changed to work as a leap that allows units traveling behind him to move quicker (he is a winged Gargoyle after all), this would synergize well with his Ult, and is aesthetically fitting, what more could you ask for? Or, maybe his passive needs to be changed to be similar to Bond of Stone (let me restate it: He's a GARGOYLE, you literally cannot find a more aesthetically fitting ability in the entire game). I may be able to come up with ideas like that, but the truth is that I'm not really sure what needs to be done to fix Galio, as I'm no game designer, nor do I claim to have played him back in his hey-day. Regardless, it is clear that it is high-time for Galio to get some love from Riot!

Please, Riot, make Galio useful as something beyond a counter-pick!