What Happened To Galio? - Why NO ONE Plays Him Anymore | League of Legends 

I can't math... How the heck did I think 6 x 5 was 40... ._.

As a galio main, I think that the main problem is the lack of range. In midlane you either need:range to be able to farm properly or a good all in combo so at least you can be a thread in close range. Galio lacks both of this due to being a tank. And in support, removing the W+flash combo makes his engage range really short. That's a resume of my thoughts, but I could be wrong.

He is more of a utility pick rather than a pure damage pick and people usually prefer to play carry champions

I just wish he had more MR, it's his supposed identity. If Malphite can have 300-400 armor with passive up, I hope Galio was like that too

I think Galio works *really* well as the only anti-magic tank in the game (Kassadin is an assassin and does not count). Lower the cc duration on his abilities, maybe the AP scaling of his Q (keep the base damage, though, he needs the waveclear), and exchange it for lower cooldowns on his taunt and knockup. give him consistent disruption.

Galio can be used quite proactively with hero's entrance, he just needs a teammate to enable him. Something like a rammus engage, camille ult engage, j4, alistar and so on. If a carry, or realistically any teammate is locked down enemies often try to help, however due to galios nature you make that play suicide

In a season where MMR is scuffed and you can't trust your teammates, you always prefer playing carry instead of utility because they feel more rewarding. Nothing is wrong with Galio imo just this factor

I think the main problem (or the main unique point, whatever) of Galio is that he is supposed to frontline but cannot frontline - he has no defensive spells, and burning is W is detrimental to his CC, with its long cooldown. His engage, while strong, is only effective with flash e or e from brush because it can be blocked by tanks or be dodged/dislocated by hard cc. Furthermore, his Q deals a lot of damage, but 1 is only effective in mid-late if he build some ap and 2 if he build ap he becomes a suito melee zone control mage, less a tank. Despite his simple kit, Galio is deceptively hard to play, similar to TF. To master Galio mid, you need good wave management, roam timings, vision control, target selection... all the fundamentals which are so much harder to learn than, say, a qiyana combo, and is not something you "see" improve TLDR: Galio is WNOP because of the same reasons as TF. He requires a tactical brain (which is why doinb and xiaohu are both so good at him) and a good team coordination to execute - Galio mid, at least. However, he suffers from having too much damage early game vs not being able to land that damage at all in the late game, and cannot really frontline for your team the way an Alistar can but need to go in and look for picks all the same

I kinda like that he can be either a tank or a burst mage. This allows creative builds. You can rush an item which gives ap (ap mythic or zhonya's) for waveclear and then just build full tank. Or if your team lacks (magic)damage, you can build more ap.

I just love Galio as either a support and midnlaner due to the utility he provides. he may be outclssed by literally anything but I adore his Playstyle, since it's somewhat similar to what Shen is supposed to do, which I absolutely adore.

I feel like they reworked him giving him a proper identity as a mid-line (not front or backline) champion with either damage / engage or good peel capabilities, being able to tank a hit. I used to go ROA on him (top lane) with semi ap semi tank (can't find my old build anymore). He felt great and was a very unique champion with the role he played in fights. In teamfights he had enough damage to go in if needed and enough tankiness and peel to play as a warden. Though after some changes to waveclear, tankiness and damage he was turned into yet another burst mage with some peel capabilities, but mainly just damage. Kinda almost has an identity crisis imo. Stat wise you either have to engage and play him as a melee burst mage and AP or a tanky warden without any damage. Only half of his kit is used in both instances. He lost the middleground which made him so fun to play and unique IMO.

So much attention to balance , love and care for the fair meta when Galio's released, then Riot smashed 10 pound of methamphetamine and snorted it all up then allowed Yone to exist.

Working on the 1 Million Mastery Points on Galio. I love the fact that no one is playing or banning Galio. 98% of the Matches I can play Galio, when I want to.

The old Galio had more identity. He was a true MR-tank, with some damage thanks to his passive, with utility for the team and with cc. He just needed to polish his kit a bit. It was fun to use your shield and see how the enemy healed you. Or being able to run away or catch your enemies with the speed boost it offered. I wish I could play it now with the current changes...

Galio is one of those champions where you run into an extremely good main once in a blue moon, they completely stomps you, you go "wow I've gotta try that champ", and then you just never do

i miss the original Galio, both the look and the kit. he was in my top-3 fave champs when they remade him

My friend is a Galio main, she now plays him exclusively support. She used to be playing him mid but said she changed due to the meta shift making most mages not viable on mid and midlane being populated by Yasuo/Yone/Irelia types and assassins

i think he needs to be what riot wanted him to be, which is a tank against magic damage. if they made him a full on engage tank that could make mages useless he could be a monster of a support.

Galio doesn't feel like a tank despite how he looks including his playstyle of engaging the frontlines which is akward

He went from teamfight turning ults to failed Shen wannabe

Few ideas for changing him around: 1 reduce scaleings and cooldowns, make him something likey a pokey battle mage 2. Reduce scaling but lean into his lore, let his next punch do more damage after reducing damage with w or R based on total damage reduced. Another idea in the same sort of theme, reduce his scalings but make it so taking magic damage reduces his cook downs. Make this his passive and move his current passive to his e, when he lands e he gets the empowered auto.

In wild rift, he's actually still popular cause of his good durability and CC and I've been using him in the baron lane a few times against different opponents and he can trade and win lane

My man Galio. Thank you: he's finally gotten the Vars treatment. Pre-rework Galio will always hold a place in my heart (awaiting Retrospective). The items this season don't feel great on Galio. Last season I would go Rocketbelt, Horizon Focus, Abyssal Mask and get a 25% bonus damage combo after leading with belt into W. They changed Mask and he just feels awkward not being able to do the big damage. Playing him support doesn't allow for this kind of play with Evenshroud for the bonus. His ult is awkward and requires teammates to set him up, so unless they are in comms with you and are an engage champ themselves, you just lack consistently decent ult times. Compare this to Yone whose ult is 1/3 the cooldown time and can be used whenever with the same impact and it's clear to see why he's not in favour.

I’m a relatively new player who started playing after watching arcane and I tried out a lot of champs but for some reason Galio really stuck for me. I think his kit is really fun and I just feel comfortable playing him

I like galio, but i dont think hes a particularly good antimage. He especially loses value the later the game goes. Tahm kench and mundo are tankier and do more damage, imo

I play galio and he is so much fun if your teammates know to play around him. The E flash into W is so strong and any gank is a sure kill. The problem is that people expect galio to initiate and that is not possible. If you try, you just die without even using the ultimate.

Almost Every “why nobody plays” comes down to “they are tanks” or “they are made for neutral game” or “they aren’t appealing to play/aren’t worth the effort to learn” or “they got nerfed into the ground over time” As a tank main. It makes me sad because it’s true

1:01 > really dislike magic > _Lux just rises into the air in front of the soldiers_

I really miss the E+ Flash combo to surprise people, now his abilities feel... too fair in a unfair game.

"Can he hit the like and subscribe button?" I laughed so hard at this, props to you for this inclusion Vars, had to immediately like afterwards :D

Long story short, he is outclassed as a mage and as a tank. As a mage, he deals a lot of damage but can't tank anything and vise versa. Also his spells are really predicable so he can't engage reliably. Overall he is decent as a wannabe control mage and in some matchups he can be good, but there are far better options.

Galio was my second champion i bought, after Twisted Fate and i love him dearly

I love your music choice the dialga theme from pokemon mustery dungeon is so good

It's weird because I remember really really enjoying old Gallio, but once they reworked him I haven't touched him

Think his Q needs some more utility and lower cd. He just feels a bit bad when behind or getting shoved in due to Q being low damage per cd compared to say TF who has many advantages in the comparison.

Galio should definitely be turned into a pure tank. Reduce his AP scaling, increase his MR scaling.

I was so hyped for the galio rework when it shown, I'm a tank player so he seemed like such a good addition, then riot took away his tank protentional and made him a mage, I'm still bummin

Oof, kinda shocks me to see him in this series. :( When I play mid, Malz is my pick to go but when banned - Galio it is. Build as Tank sometimes with Everfrost for its effect. I find it relativly easy to go at least neutral during the laningphase and then play for the one in my team who is fed and it is great. I like him. His kit, model, voice lines. Last: PMD music. Awesome. Edit: In the end, it is shown the Why no one plays: Viktor vid. Guess that is kinda outdatet.

I really want them to make galio a jungler. It’d be easy, just make his passive have reduced CD id you hit a jungle monster.

Last season I mained galio supp full tank. It was very usefull and the cc chain made the enemy adc completely useless, but the problem is the cooldowns. Most of the time I engage in and then just ran around bodyblocking abilities for like 7 seconds waiting for my E to come up again. Galio is a super fun champion to play and mastering him is not thaaat hard but you have to play him perfectly in high elo or you become, as vars said, a litteraly punch bag for the enemy team

Taunt flash removed

I still think Galio is really good. I pick him as a safe mid pick incase I am unsure of the match up with my main and almost always win lane. I build him either tank hybrid, or full ap depending on team comp. His cool downs are def a pain to work around but 9 times out of 10 you will out sustain your laner and get a lead. His main weakness however is he is not really a carry, if your team is lacking bad there is little a galio can do to turn it around on his own.

Excellent choice of background music! You brought me back memories

i play galio a ton and i genuinely cant get enough of him, hes so fun to me but his problem comes from his severe lack of range

I love Galio after his rework, he looks cool, he feels heavy and strong, and can be a huge impactful presence in a teamfight. I like that. But as you showed in the video, after his rework, the massive amount of balance changes and adjustments were overwhelming, and off-putting. I remember on the few days that Galio became the best burst-assassin in the game, that Riot explained with the old item set they "thought" players would build Rod of Ages, like 1 AP item, then go full tank. I don't know about you, but rarely if ever do I see people half-and-half on builds. Its either full damage, full dps, full tank, full support, full crit, etc. Any champion that needs pieces for either or, is hard to balance and feels clumsy, requiring the player to use some items to fix the champions problems and some to empower them. Remember in your Varus video, the same reason he is unplayed, he has a confusing problem between being attack-speed, poke, or AP burst. I'd say the same with Galio. His abilities, his kit, by itself is fantastically design as a tank. He looks like a tank. He moves and feels like a tank. His lore is all about tanking. The Balance team is simply kidding themselves by trying to find this halfway point between tank and mage. They could very easily balance Galio to be a tank, scale off of HP or resistances, and that's all she wrote. Right now, because of this half-and-half balancing they left him in, he is neither a mage, damage, burst, or tank. Last note about kit design; I would change his ultimate to NOT be ally reliant. Ally-reliant abilities in League were always less desired than normal, due to the Player's efficiency with that champion being reliant on an ally. Think of old Tahm Kench, Braum, Taric, Kalista, now even Rell, and *maybe* Shen. I am certain if they made his ult something like..........Rammus's new ult, where he does a big free-targeted jump and lands and makes a knock up, but make it less range so it's not semi-global. Giving that option for Galio to engage would really help his self-reliance. So in short, he's the result of poor balancing choices despite having a great simple tank kit, leaving him neither tank or mage, and finds it hard to function in lane due to high mana and cooldowns, and last....maybe...adjust the ultimate a little bit. That's a bonus. Personally, I wish he was a jungler! :( Why can't they make some random laners junglers, like they did with Gnar, Garen, Zed, and Talon.

i would say galio is a jack of all trades master of none. You can built burst mage, tank, engage support (even after the W + flash nerf) or just classic anti carry.

I'm a Galio one trick. The issue i find with galio is if you run him support, you have to build armor which doesn't stack with either of his scaling sets. For mid, you have to take rocket belt to close the gap. I've been having a good time building galio on hit with his ap ratios paired with demolish to properly split push in the mid game due to his ultimate allowing quick pivots between lanes on allies that are pushing in while the enemy laner is backed.

Remove the dmg reduction AP scaling, put more utility focused mr scaling like lower E or R knockup duration and make it scale with MR or smth so that he can EITHER be played full AP burst mage OR full MR tank not half of both.

I used to main Galio in 2020 when he was in a really good state. Changes that hurt him since then: - TP changes: He used to be one of the best champions in the game for early TP plays. - Mythic items: Galio used to rush Hextech Protobelt that cost 2600 and had a better active. The old protobelt made it possible to shove waves really really fast -> more changes to roam + earlier clear powerspike. - Direct nerfs to Galio. They have nerfed damage from his q and stats+cd from his w. - You can't first pick him. Back in the days you may have got away with first picking Galio and banning Yasuo. Nowadays most midlaners have atleast one decent ad-champion in their pool. Especially after release of Yone.

Full ap and stone plate is what I did 2 or 3 seasons or so ago and it worked well you get bonus heal from your ap items so in the end you get 60 armor and mr and a shirld

Very nice analysis of Galio situation. I think that the main problem with Galio is that he has all abilities with big CDs, as you mentioned. The Q must be weakened, but more spammable and his passive should do less damage, but with another effect. Having a champion with all abilities with more or less 10sec CD without AH is disgusting. I play Galio since 2013 and before his full rework I really loved how I could trade against enemy champions using Q and W, even with a very weak passive.

I love this song!! Pokemon MD Team Sky is still the best off-series Pokemon game!

God I miss old Galio. Silly flying Gargoyle with silly spells that were clunky but fun to use nonetheless.

One rework that I vaguely remember that boggled my mind is when they shifted a lot of his tankiness to AP scaling, like... why? He's an anti mage burst champion, so why MAKE him an AP burst champion?

TLDR : basically his rework was a FAIL, flashy and cool at first but such a balance issue and now barely seen. His old taunt was the best wombo

He got nerfed to the ground, that what happened. He has no scaling, and was only useful early with his base dmg. Then they nerfed his early damage, and now even if you do well early you're just gonna fall off hard and be just a health bar stick.

Very nice analysis of Galio situation. I think that the main problem with Galio is that he has all abilities with big CDs, as you mentioned.

oh man temporal tower OST playing in the background this video is already a 10/10

If they dropped the gimmick of his ult they might be able to make him both a tank and a mage. Galio's bigger problem is that, because his ultimate is so powerful, they basically have to make him suck on purpouse because if he is good on lane then he can roam like crazy and snowball other lanes, even now that galio is sort of a halfass tank halfass mage he is still picked in proplay because of his teamfight potential.

I feel like they should just give him back his flash W combo and the dmg reduction on ult and make him a full tank

As a non-Galio main, it seems like it's because he's basically a glorified tank support, he just doesn't do enough damage to feel impactful to late game as a midlaner, even when you build him AP, you feel strong at the start, but later on that Q power just diminishes and diminishes, and then when you build tank and you don't have teammates around you, you're basically useless. He's like Shen but without that auto-attack power that makes it so you can 1v1

In my opinion, Galio suffers from a similar issue as Maokai. They’re both branded as Anti-Caster “mage tanks” but both have burst rotations and can’t be a consistent threat in fights. Maokai does have his passive to allow him to stick in fights well, but Galio really doesn’t have much. I’d love to see them move Galio in a bit more of a Mordekaiser direction so that AP tank builds could be realized, but as is thats difficult. I could see potentially giving Q some MR shred to give him more juggernaut qualities and potentially giving his passive or W more damage uptime with quakes or a Leona-esque anti magic burst or two after casting. Higher damage uptime allows him to reasonably build the few “AP bruiser” items we have.

My main since season 10, my sweet summer child

hes the champ you like having on your team but no one really wants to play him

Galio to me seems like suffering Azir syndrome, the simple kit it had can cover so much situation alot of things must get changed n' removed, until it reach a real mess that only can do everything decently

They should just make him a full tank, too much offense in every ability, lower e damage so it can go over walls, completely change the q and passive, and make the ult focus more on its team magic defense and aoe knock up

I like to play him Support, as Warden, for that i'd be fine to scrap his AP ratios in favor of protection and the taunt

Willing it had a fair bit to with him not being able to flash his taunt anymore,other than that I don't really know

It's a trauma thing, any time I managed to pick him I got an adc mid to lane against

PMD: Temporal Tower OST. In case you all were wondering about the music used. That game was my childhood~

Galio has the same problem that a lot of champs in League have: Riot overcorrected in the wrong direction and left him without a solid identity. He's a bit like Aatrox in that he's something of a failure - a hint of a taste of an identity that doesn't really mesh with his lore or playstyle. You typically only see him played as a burst mage in the past, and almost all the defensive keystones have been reduced to support runes - a role that Riot actively pushed Galio out of. In some ways, he's like an idiot version of Rammus. Rammus pushes back against auto-attackers and forces single-target DPS to ruin themselves on him and does so consistently. Galio has an AoE taunt which....... forces foes to auto-attack him... which is good if he's against mages... which are already (and have been) in a bad spot given how easy it is to neutralize magic damage. (Especially in season 12 with Death's Dance, Maw, Force of Nature.) So part ot the reason no one plays him is that a lot of Fighters do his job better, he doesn't really incentivize purchasing MR *against* him, and his peel option is a W that might very well get him killed. He's just a mage that goes to the gym, and at that point, just play Sylas.

I don't play Galio all the time, but he's often my go-to for fighting ap assassins mid. It's very satisfying to counter engage on them when they go in and watch them flounder after their burst fails to do kill him

As a galio main i use it as a support using a tank build, it does work very well tbh, if you want to use it midlane, is a little bit more hard, but is fun to use

His old on damage heal would solve a lot of his problems. It would force him to be a solo laner to get levels. Force him to either be a burst mage or a tank by having him need spirit visage for maximum tankiness and also prevent him form being a super tank support because of needing the levels and more expensive items to function at the best of his ability in terms on tankiness.

6:08 Actually you can also E + Flash and engage from any direction and from nearly a fullscreen away or even through wall, you have to wait for him to dash forward and then flash. It's actually possible, try it yourself

I´d say ARAM does a great job showing why galio filed as a tank, he does not have the movility to make good use of his kit, his current E is simply not good enough. For context Galio is one of the best tanks for ARAM (he is also great as full ap but thats missing the point)

Hey Vars! Because of the really good choice in BGM for your videos, it inspired me to play one of my favorite games again, PMD: Explorers of Sky. Your content has a lot of work put into it and I’m always happy to be catching a new Vars video :D

When I played Galio, back when I was trying to get into the game, his problem to me was that his ultimate is quite useless in 1 on 1, and unless you're playing with a team, it's useless for help because many folks abuse you for interfering in their lanes. It put in the same odd category as Ekko for me, where Ekko's problem is that his W and passive don't fit his attack speed (it feels like his W should be a time manipulation ability that either universally speeds him up or at least speeds up his attack speed). For Galio, his ultimate achieves the same effect. It feels like his ultimate should be either a Hulk clap, a stronger version of his passive ground smash, or an enhanced state that makes his basic attack become his passive (maybe with a slow effect, or either put the slow effect on his steps so that when he moves, he creates craters that slow anyone in range). He was by far my favorite char in the game, but too often in 1v1 ultimate was useless.

Vars should start a "why an average amount of people play" series

I think galio should have 2 playstyles separatwd by the build. What i mean by that is if he builds ap he would be a bursty ap bruiser with his q and passive but if he build tank his e and w would have much shorter cooldown, making him cc tank

I remember Petricite weren't just stone, it were actually from a very large Tree resistant to Magic & Durant who sculpted him were also a very interesting character left in vague mystery,

I think they should mostly revert him, old ult q and e and give his dash to his w. Here he would he a huge threat with his dash ult, he could more consistently shield allies, and disrupt enemies while still being telegraphed and having counter play options

I play a lot of galio bot. I switched to him when the full tank support meta was gone, when the Brands, Xeraths and Zyras took over bot lane, Galio felt like a good inbetween a tank with cc and a mage, with the ability to do decent damage (at least in early game) but with enough survability and utility at the same time. Problem is he falls short on both tanking and dealing damage by late game. I think they should remove the MR scaling and change it with reduced magic damage from some other source, and reduce the AP ratios on his damaging abilities but adding HP scaling ratios, so he can scale into the lategame and still be useful.

They should let galio choose in an area around a team mate to ult, its still anchored to an ally but galio gets to choose where around an ally he lands, giving him an extra tool.

I've started to play him, for me the issue is that he's supposed to be an anti AP tank, due to his kit and his identity, but all his abilities scales with AP except his shield which is HP scaling, so you're an anti mage but that can build as a mage and even almost forced to build mage items, cause he's better in a hybrid mage/tanky build than a full tank build

What a wild premiere chat lmaoooo Great video as always Bars

I was a huge fan of old Galio, before his rework. I like the new VGU, but he used to have some ability to help his team engage, as well as a more reliable taunt. I think they need to reward Galio sufficiently for building magic resist to preserve his identity, without making him overpowered in other ways. A higher MR ratio with his W for physical damage only might seem like it would make him too well rounded, but if his ap scaling was brought down a little, then it would encourage players to build him as an MR tank, which would make the burst resistance he has in AP builds only apply to physical damage. Maybe give him 10% MR scaling with his E, ult and maybe his passive (not sure if it would make his passive OP) since it would make it so he would have a little more damage to compensate for his MR specialization, like building armor on malphite. 50% MR scaling on his passive once every five seconds is not enough to make his MR build competitive with Malphite's or Rammus armor build, especially since he's supposed to be burst damage when they're sustained. It would probably be broken and illogical from a lore perspective to have Q to have MR scaling, since it has decent range and area damage. Tl;Dr Give him a little more MR damage and physical resist scaling in his kit, and reduce the AP scaling.

OMG it’s Vars! I was like I recognize this guy from somewhere and then I realized you’re from Rotmg. Happy to see that it worked out for you. (Rotmg doesn’t allow for growth like this)

The problem with galio is that he has nothing but slaps after he blows his load. If he doesnt manage to catch more than 1 person with his W or R he’s just a single target burst/lockdown champ. He either plays mid to oneshot someone with a combo or play support for max CDR so he could reliably use his cc more while sacrificing all damage. He just ends up entering fights really strong but then lumbers around trying to auto as many people as he can for 7 seconds until his Q and E come back up

As new player to league ( started 4 months ago) he has become my main because of the ability to do damage while not getting one shot like a adc

Galio is a character I enjoy playing, I almost always play with other people and setting up ult combos with characters like Diana is really rewarding

I loved Galio rework on release but you nailed it when you said they reworked him three different times. They were such build and playstyle shifts there was no way to get attached. Tbh I feel like this is the same thing they did to Sylas

If you compare galio to poppy, since both champions can build tank or their respective damage types and work well either way, the problem galio runs into is as you said, uptime. He has nothing that passively encourages him to build tank, nor does he have abilities that he can use more than once a fight if he manages to buy time by building tank. Poppy can use her q up to five times vs one person in a late game fight, but galio can only do it twice, if that. Poppy's w passively gives her stats that increase on low health and her passive gives her a shield every few seconds, while galio only has his w which gives a magic damage shield out of combat and damage reduction on press.

Dude, you should make a video abou Pantheon's don't having a defined role, that man is literally in every lane, from top to bottom

About his r, it makes him quite a good jungler if you have good vision control

I only play Wild Rift, and I was a main Galio for a good time, but I only played him as a tank, so in my build he would be a 2/5 in Damage and a 4/5 Tank, but with a decent engage rather than a great one, and I would be on cooldwon for almost the whole fight after it's start, so to fix him i would do the following: 1- He would be a tank that scale with Armor and MR (he is made out of a magic draining stone, so he sure is tough enough to scale with Armor) 2- Reduce his cooldown's to a reasonable level. 8 to 10 seconds of vulnerability is too much for abilitys that can't make the enemy vulnerable for half of it's cooldown time. If he time it perfectly, with his basic kit he can stop the enemy for 3 to 4 seconds and then just awkwardly be there until his abilitys are on again. 3- Reduce his AP scaling for him to be a tank and only a tank, not a anti burst with a burst for himself. It might be my bias as a main tank support, but he has so much utility that him being a mage is kinda strange to begin with, so i'd just turn him into a tank and say goodbye to the patch notes for some time for him to have a faithfull player base again :v

I was thinking and only solution for him would be allowing him to be hybrid 1-decrease his ap ratios 2-give him second passive that allows him to get AP while building MR and HP like around 60 AP from (300 hp and 50 MR) but he could not get AP from building only one of them

Galio should be made full tank, massively reduce his E cd, and position him in jungle as an antiganker. His job is to respond to the enemy jungler and turn those fights into two kills, mainly in mid lane, but viable enough in others. His ult is perfect for this and honestly really helps the whole "swoop in to save the day" idea behind it.

I love Galio as a support. Gap close can be solved by shurelya’s, you can play off engages eithernon you or your adc, and the scrappy fights he prefers work really well in bot lane

Because he was balanced around pro play (where he still gets played btw)