Why NO ONE Plays: Olaf | League of Legends 

i find it funny that the fandom wiki lists olaf as a diver despite having zero engage tools apart from that minor speed boost for 1 second after pressing ult

Olaf is one of the few ''statcheck'' champions that actually falls off really hard and is very unforgiving to play. Plus if you can't space your Q's correctly in a fight you'll lose out on so much damage. He's actually deceptively hard to play sometimes.

Why would i play a champion that can't jump through walls in 2024?

One of my favorite memory of playing with an olaf. He was fighting the entire enemy team mid and was super low on hp, i was kayle and arrived just in time to ult him, since he get stronger at low health he proceeded to decimate the crap out of them. I mean it's similar to trynd but also so much worse... i didn't envy those guys.

I kind of feel like Vars starts stretching the definition of "no-one plays".

"A second rate juggernog forced to play like a diver." You summed up him perfectly at the end. One of your best champion review.

A thing that also screws Olaf a lot is that Riot and the player base can't decide if he should be a top laner or a jungler. As a top laner, he's an insane lane bully that can 0 counterplay chase you all lane if he hits 1 q and can almost never be ganked due to how easy it is for him to 1v2. As a jungler, he's a powerfarming machine that can full clear at Karthus speed and invade you to murder you on your camps. But he's been swapping between both roles since forever, and never had a clear "this is my role" like other champs that dipped into different roles

i actually think the "try and run through everything at your target" style would have fit him better as a character

Never thought I'd see olaf in a "Why no one plays" because I still see him and play him myself fairly often

Olaf is basically a statcheck if he gets to and stays in melee, which he has very few tools to achieve. A fed olaf will devour an entire team while laughing at attempts to CC him to death that would doom any other champ, but he's also VERY easy to just poke to death

If frozen mallet comes back into the game, he'll be more playable.

IME I had the most success playing Olaf as a target swapping pressure threat. You start a fight poking and shredding the frontliners daring the damage to answer you and once they step out of position you beeline and break their formation over your knees. The key is in knowing the right timing because you ideally want to be low at worst when you reach your target, not dead. I play a lot of Singed and it's funny how similar they feel when playing this way despite having radically different kits. In both cases you're trying to instill and exploit chaos and panic by running fast.

I love champs like Olaf. Drain tanks are so fun for the adrenaline. I’m also a fan of mass summoners but that’s got no bearing here

I don't think Olaf is good or bad, he just doesn't fit the mindset of the people you will play with in soloQ. A lot of games, you will see the toplaner being mostly independant from the team as far as most bruiser/melee toplaners go or use their mobility to take advantage of whatever the team is up to. Olaf however, works best when he can use allies as a force multiplicator. His ultimate negates the enemies ability to cc him, but that's just half of what you need as a melee champ. If a Team plays around Olaf (and he doesnt run it down), he can delete their squishies quite easily. The issue is, that Olaf is somewhat vulnerable in lane, especially against agressive ganks (he used to be primarily a Jungler iirc, but got pushed out for lacking CC/Gapcloser) and soloQ teams won't play around a 1-4 toplaner. Also.... a lot of newer champs are just not fun to play against with a "fair" champion. Prime example being things like Yone.

The way I’ve learned to play Olaf is to avoid teamfighting entirely unless you’re extremely far ahead. Instead, you use him as a split pusher. The way Undertow interacts with Tiamat items gives him absurd wave-clear very early on, there’s very few champions who can beat him in a 1v1, his passive lifesteal means he can out sustain most enemies, and it’s very difficult for the enemy team to collapse on him because of his high 1v2 potential and how easy it is for him to run away with Ragnarok and Ghost. It’s ironic that the two champions who are supposed to be THE all-in divers of League, Olaf and Tryndamere, are at their best when they’re using hit and run tactics. I just don’t think charging headlong into the entire enemy team when you’re not a tank will ever be a balanced and viable playstyle. It’s like they’re trying to do the work of both tanks and assassins but without the necessary tools that make either of those classes work.

I find the whole aiming the axe in order to pick it back up a little counter intuitive. Additionally, enemies can force you away from the axe so now you either get kited infinitely and die or pick up the axe but die. Maybe make it so that if you hit the axe it stay inside the enemy, then Olaf hits the enemy with his other weapon and takes the axe out of the enemy reducing his CD on Q.

Good video, but as many ppl stated you should calm down on clickbait titles. Game has like 150 champs, less than 3% pickrate is not really dead character anymore.

I've always said that one change I'd like to see is: If he casts his ult and his q is out, he leaps to it.

Olaf is more like a counter pick right now, people use him to punish scalling/heavy cc/low mobility/non burst team comp, not really a good champ to main

the xin a-posing at 9:05

As an Olaf main I agree, It's easy to win the lane if the enemy doesn't copunterpick you, and unless you stomped the enemy toplaner, you relay a lot in your team to win the game

I would say the problem is that Olaf has abilities that make him more of an early game champ but whose playstyle revolves around mid-late game

I play olaf a lot. And I completely agree with your assessment. He is extremely feast or famine and even if you get ahead, it's sometimes extremely difficult to move that lead to other parts of the game state. I've had many games where I shut down my lane but since they are an engage tank or something akin, they still can do their job while I struggle to deal with them or the back Line. Ironically if I build in a way that would focus down backline (critlaf or life steal olaf) I am sometimes unable to handle my lane appropriately.

The worst part of playing Olaf is getting the kill on the adc or mid but getting obliterated when your team just leaves. Then they flame you. “Olaf is so dumb he just runs in”

OLAF!!! RAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! ⚒️

Olaf and Tryndamere are kinda the tank/assasin version of each other, I enjoy playing them both a lot, but yes they don´t fit into league, especially trynda, he only works in top lane and there he barely is functional because he needs to attack to sustain, but if you´re in a bad matchup you´re screwed and you basically don´t play the game, and as for Olaf he has the opposite problem where tryna can get CCed easily but instead he just dies easily if he runs into an entire team which is the point of him, plus he is very immobile.

Olaf feels great in Aram where you have access to snowball 🙃

I’m not sure on how to fix Olaf. Your point is that he had to stay weak since his Ult is too good at invalidating squishy targets and because of that and his lack of trades against Tanks, he is stuck playing as a diver even through he’s a juggernaut. If he was designed to be a berserker like Kled, Briar, Warwick, and Tryndamere, then I would say he needs to have a get-in tool. Or maybe when he activates his ult, his Q can apply a mark that can be consumed by hitting his E on the marked target for more damage. This works because most tanks would be at the frontline anyways. Champion design is not my strong suit and I’m more interested in the visual design but it’s an interesting topic.

Next: Why noone plays Yone.

Full crit. Lifesteal, attack speed, and full crit. Crit items give you move speed for the most part, you out damage everyone with your autos, and the built-in lifesteal plus the lifesteal you get from items makes him outheal everyone. Especially in low elo, where people don't space properly, you can run from person to person, and the enemy team isn't coordinated enough to full dump everything into you. If they do, your team cleans up after because they enemy team does use everything, leaving nothing up after to deal with your team.

Give OLAF E a rework. Make it do more damage based on # of autos done during its cooldown to champions. Then have him mega nuke an adc, or the tank. Congrats. 1k base after 10 autos 2X ad true damage nuke.

the thing with olaf is just that people in my opinion don't understand that champions can be very simple and can be played on a good level by most players in no time while also having a very high skill ceiling. Best examples of champions that are easy to execute on a basic level are Master Yi, Sion and (even though he is mechanically more intensive) Olaf while there are champs like Nasus and Mordekaiser who literally are just statcheckers with little to no extreme skill ceiling mastery I mean everyone can be useful on Sion but that doesn't mean you can't turn into a literal demon if you practice him 4 years and mastered his Q mechanics perfectly Master Yi is the king of timing and Olaf can be ApM'ed to insanity, there are so many things to potentially consider like how to place your Qs and perfect autocancelling between spells and attacks on top of his low cooldowns and high attack speed. A random Olaf player with bad mechanics can 1v2 at level 6 -- an Olaf on the skill level of Adam can 1v4 at level 6

Olaf is a victim of the scope creep from new champs. He came from an era where having one mobility move was powerful a la Jax or Katarina. He's old, hasn't had a kit refresh but if his numbers are strong enough to make him meta, he's op as fk. The champions down the line started getting mobility, cc, aoe built into every kit. He's not bad, he's just an older idea of a balanced champion. Old Sion, Udyr, Kayle, Poppy, Morde, Jax and Nidalee were all champs with kits that were either OP with good stats or nerfed out of the mainstream. He needs a gameplay rework and a more clear idea to stay with the modern league champs, his concept is solid, he just lacks purpose.

Vid aged like milk, he's picked in the LCS and in every 3rd ranked game.

As a Lillia player he terrifies me, especially given how he can just say "No," to my ult. But I respect him.

I believe, that if all the champions were redesigned to suit the current one we would have a dota2 balance experience, where nothing is broken, because everything is broken

I was searching for this video a week ago and was so bummed it didn’t exist, hell yes!!

Feel like Dashes are not the problem or hard CC. It's like Volibear right now. Change the ult so it removes CC but makes soft removal not as good. Then, push more into his other abilities. Kind of like Volibear's R, which impacts the rest of his kit. Mainly, the speed on his Q. I feel like Dashs don't need to be all reworked or new champs. Just a good workaround that helps them. For example, make it like poppy, where it makes it harder for champs to dash away from him or a speed increase.

This is super fair. It'd be cool if they gave him a tool that brought out his scariness as a berserker more. Because his abilities are just stat buffs or extra damage, swapping one of those out for a flavorful shoulder bash or other sort of gap closer to dash/stun would add a lot of depth to his character. I can see how the extra mobility would be terrifying during Ragnarok though, so it's definitely tough to give somebody like Olaf more tools and depth while keeping the unstoppable sort of identity.

Because he's bad. He's a melee champion that has to run at your face which has been bad since "League of mobility" started over a decade ago. Damn I'm old.

Watching this after a devastating defeat to an Olaf top whom killed my top laner 11 times, and my jungler 8 times by 15 minutes (as well as taking two towers). There was nothing the other three of us could do (all squishies) to kill him after that. Our mid (lux) was going even with the enemy veigar. My ADC (Jhin) and I (Morgana) were ahead of the enemy bot lane, but not by a lot. We just hadn't died at all, while we'd killed them a half dozen times or so.

Goredrinker being removed was also a big nerf to Olaf, sadly

how would you fix him? Q 2 charges (2 axes), what if make W pure def, remove bonus atk speed, will take the damage at end of cast but if would be fatal dmg takes it over time. E add the atk speed, can act multiple times before strike to increase range and amount of atk speed bonus, R if aa target receives heal/shield not from the target, or olaf can no longer atk them increase duration

I remember a time. A few years ago there was a match between G2 and some other team. The meta back then allowed for stuff like Karma top and Lulu mid or switched. So they picked like 2-3 enchanters and then Olaf. I dont remember what happened anymore, but it was so funny to me, that Olaf needed 2-3 enchanters to be viable. If I remember correctly, that season Olaf was picked relatively often compared to nowadays. It was often critisized by the casters, if there were no enchanters on the team.

he died along with the healing nerfs some time ago

Last season i reached D3 playing olaf jungle only. Now i can't win a game in emerald. Olaf's core items were nerfed hard: - Steraks gives tenacity now which is a useless stat. - Shojin no longer gives movespeed based on missing health Stridebreaker no longer gives ability haste, and the active no longer damages or has its cd reduced by haste. Ever since his ult got reworked, any mage and kaisa can just press zhonyas and wait out the 2.5 seconds where i cant reset the durstion. His clear speed is garbage compared to what it used to be, especially with the moster health update and not having any %health damage. I love the champion so much, reached over 1m mastery across accounts, but i am really struggling to have fun. I hope riot will do something about him, such as make his R 3 seconds or allow him to walk through player-made walls (yes I'm talking to you j4 players)

as an olaf one trick, you either 1v5 or die instantly. no middle ground.

The thing is, you can never pull those crazy plays on the razor's edge with Olaf anymore because there are too damn many executes in the game right now.

I reallly like Olaf lore - mann to angry to Die. Literally - as long as he fights he is immortal

I have an olaf top in the enemy team every game 😭

Im so glad no one knows how strong olaf is till they play against me, at least he wont get nerfed that way

I used to main Olaf in the jungle and top lane. He is now nothing more than a stat check champion that falls off harder than lee sin. So you have a bad late game and no mobility, against a pool of champions with tons of dashes, wall hops, etc. Brolaf was awesome to play in the past but unless he finds himself with some kind of item synergy that only he can abuse, there are so many other options that off better viability if that game doesnt end in 20-30min. They need to make him tankier and buff his base E damage, thats the only viable way of bringing him back with his current kit (crit olaf is nothing more than a cheese build).

Maybe Olaf is fine and RITO has bushes burst damage way too far to the point where team fights happen in an instant.

I dont play Olaf but based on this video I'm thinking Olaf mains should commit to building move speed as a focus in their build, such as Boots of Swiftness, Phantom Dancer, etc. Olaf gets a good amount of free stats just from his abilities, the thing he seems to lack is sticking power.

My take is that Olaf has maybe the worst combination of burst damage, survivability and sticking power in the entire cast of assassins+fighters+juggernauts. He makes up for it with top tier sustain, sustained damage and being CC immune, but that all relies on a champ with no dashes and his only sticking power being to slow you, pick up an axe and throw it again. If a single axe is dodged, he gets his ultimate kited out, then he gets CC’d and dies. It’s incredibly polarizing since all his strengths require him to constantly have somebody to auto, but he doesn’t have the tools to reliably do so unless he’s being pocketed by an enchanter, making him the most team reliant fighter in the game

Honestly, he has epic lore, epic gameplay, epic impact

Now that Stridebreaker has Tiamat built into it. There's no reason not to rush it. Gives Jungle Clear/Health/AS/MS/Slow.

I played the old Olaf a lot in the jungle and I really enjoyed it. But current Olaf just doesn't fulfill the same fantasy anymore for me and he feels a lot weaker too. They took away a lot of his early game power in both clear and damage, so his jungle pressure is definitely weaker. And ironically, even though he objectively scales better than he used to, he feels much worse late game because you can't get those ridiculous early game leads anymore. I also think his new ultimate is a lot worse for jungle Olaf since the champions that counter you already are now even stronger against you because you're so much more kitable. I think top lane Olaf still has a place in the game as a counterpick into specific matchups and teamcomps but jungle Olaf is absolutely boned. I can't imagine a scenario where Olaf would legitimately be the optimal pick. You need backline access? Go vi, wukong or nocturne. You need a juggernaut? Go volibear or udyr instead. You need somebody who can clear quickly and put pressure on the enemy jungler? Just pick graves or something. Sadly a dead champion in the jungle role imo. It's just shit having a kind of "balls to the wall all or nothing all in" ultimate button that is so unreliable.

Finaly, someone standing out and tell the truth, and yet, aatrox still not nerf in s14

I gotta say, one of the saddest things is playing support and seeing Olaf run at your fed carry knowing there is nothing you can do about it

If you play Olaf as a tank he has all the time in the world to deal damage.

Olaf is super-strong unstoppable monster for single squishy target like ap carry, adc and support, and all non-fighter non-tanky build type champ, he could chase you under tower and finish you and escape, at this point he is very strong. But if you choose to group and not giving chances on soloing lane in mid-game / late-game, he is completely useless in front of group fire. He is too not tanky to finish off anyone before group fire kills him, and that made him useless. So he either solo kill god, or 0 dmg minions. Even the player good at mechanism of Olaf, quick dmg combo, consistent landing q, still a big variable from what the opponent team playstyle, do they group, do they coordinate well that make sure group fire on you when you try to crush them, that depends on them, hugely depends on your enemy team playstyle, you only have mid late game impact if they giving this window for you to skrimish down any weak target, otherwise, Olaf still very much useless after laning phase passed. It incredible that a champ depends so much on an outside factor of their playstyle, which made him kind of coin-flipping to play champ, it doesnt really matter on the player own skills and strategy, the other 50% or even 75 80% 90% of if Olaf shine out depends on how the emeny team awareness is, insane!

Olaf, a champ that makes everyone forget the word bruiser

As olaf main (humble E4 EUW) I kind of disagree with your conclusion. Olaf isn't a "stat checker" because their are a tons of counter play to him : mainly facing him with a phase rush champ, a dash champ, a champ with more sustain (WW) or even some more burst than him (renek botrk .. .guh). The reason he is'nt good in low elo is because Olaf's require knowledge of matchups, as well as skill to play (his Q IS tricky to play in the heat of the battle : not too far, not too close, and on the proper way... can often be a mess), plus transitionning to mid/late game without a sizeable lead is pretty difficult, but still doable. He's just a melee fighter. Even out of lane Olaf is way more vulnerable to CC one might think : slow are his bane because olaf can't afford to fight without ult (not far from malphite) but also can't take that many poke. He is a jack of many trades, good but not allmighty in all-ins, good but not overwhelming neutral game (decent sustain, decent poke, decent wave clear, nothing fancy here). Burstable, kiteable. But he team fight better than a splitpusher, and splitpush better than a full tank. He's not exceptionnal at either, but he can always find something to do almost no matter the game (provided not being stomped on every lane). He even have the R to grant him ONE clutch teamfight where he can clutch 3 to 4 kills and bring him back in the game with a slow start (around the 18 min mark).

Old world champ: no infinite dashes, no percentage health dmg (botrk i guess?), no 90% dmg reduction on a basic ability, no cc on a sub 10 sec cooldown... Why would anyone play him?

"Malphite is the ultimate counter to any auto attack physical damage based champion" Rammus: Ok.

Its funny to me how universally hated trynd is despite almost always being weak. Almost every champ trynd faces is a skill matchup. Its the same as ppl saying Yi is cheap because he just runs at you at autos. Its always shit players. So many champs counter trynd. he is immune to death in his ult for 5 seconds but can still be CC'd and so many champs have dashes and more MS thanj trynd they can just run away... Champs now have so much MS that a YI with ult and ghost cant catch them... but people still complain. You may think its cheap, you just havent learned to play around it yet.

Olaf is basically manual Briar

Olaf is just huskar and troll warlord

I have olaf in every 5 games played once, in emerald

Olaf neither has the Mobility of a Diver nor the Heavy Offensive stats of a Juggernaut . So If you build him tanky he deals literally zero damage & if build him AD he gets half lifed before even reaching the enemy.

man your videos are too high quality for the views you get, you are one of my favoruite league creators keep up the good work

I love to play him in the jungle when the enemy carrys lack mobility and the enemy has too much cc.

Im calling bull on that “no one plays”

He’s really a niche pick. You can only play him against certain team comps like a morde top, zac jungle, Gallup mid and some tank support. You really just have to play him against heavy cc not too mobile comps

I don't play him because i feel like his kit is lame and unfair in a boring way. I don't even care if he's meta or not

9:04 that xin zhao tpose tho

I think that Olaf is a "personality" pick. People play him because they want to view themselves as a Viking. Mechanically, kit wise, ability wise . . . . he's a dinosaur.

my only problem when i play olaf is every ADC builds collector lmao

One thing that bothers my mind, that in this video Vars mentions Zhonya a lot of time, but Guardian none. In my opinion its because the later is useless for time stalling. I'm just wondering why cant' ADCs get a zhonya passive instead of GA? I get that GA passive is better than Zhonya's in paper, but it has 2x5 times the CD, and is not on demand. Why would I want to revive, when I can just not die instead?

my issue with olaf is if he wins, its the most uncounterable garbage in existance. think about this from the perspective of the guy who is losing to him. he lands ONE AXE, and pops his ult running at you while breaking the sound barrier with his massive quads, and then procedes to perma slow you to death on an axe, he can no longer miss. AND IF you happen to have that 5 minute cooldown flash up, all he does it match it with ghost, which has a 2 minute shorter cooldown. the issue is the matchups olaf wins quite litteraly only have 1 form of counterplay, being "never go near him and dodge every single axe or you die without counterplay". you cant even just hang out under turret and farm because if, and its a REALLY big if, he doesn't proceded to perma freeze on you there, he just ignores turrets and runs you down. XD

"You're a second-rate Juggernaut with a third rate dive"

he was king of twisted treeline :) but 5 people is 2 too many.

olaf should get a rework. he needs to have a skill that pounds enemies into the ground, giving the game a whole new status effect. enough of knock-ups. olaf should introduce the "buried" status.

It would just get worse in 2024 with the buff of Tenacity and prevalence of movement speed, bruiser with tank and Tenacity items does the same by reducing CC, while also living longer, and is more consistent, There might be outliers for olaf like the ADC just got perma slowed but that's very few and far in between.

Finally, a champ i play comes on this series. Id be really curious what you have to say about xin zhao as well

Recently I just watched your 5 most overloaded vid, or something similar, and in it I learned Olaf is in your pool. Just an observation. I guess now I’m wondering how Olaf can be “balanced”, or made more consistent without him bulldozing the enemy team or himself getting bulldozed

Do this video again with the rune changes in mind.

TY man i knew it felt awful to play olaf, you just cant fight any of the new age hyper carries it feels soooooooooo bad!

I think they should add some kind of extra effect if you hit two axes on someone for a short within a short time like when you are running after an Ezreal. AND depending of that effect like a better slow or increase dmg, faster casting in should only proc if the axe make it to a certain distance (similar to Yuumi's Q) so it doesn't affect close range combat only if a range kite you. Actually maybe just some ms bonus if you hit twice at 500/600. It's also sad that you cannot build botrk effectively since you are a chips if you do so but the item fit so well on him. We will see what s14 is for him. I believe Olaf needs some comfort buff like 150 auto range, bonus ms somewhere other than R (maybe kick out R ms it isn't so reliable), faster cast, better shield idk something to get him more pleasant to play but not stats.

just a point, olaf cana be debuffed during his ultimate I'm not talking slows or anything, i'm talking anti-healing, damage reduction (sona W, exhaust), AD reduction (Tryndamere W, Trundle Q), Armor or MR (Black cleaver and a shit ton of abilities, abyssal mask)

Because hes an old champ and doesnt get 800 gap closers and a 2 shot combo while building tank. Hes old school, not 200 years.

Its all fun and games when you fp morde, THEN BAM OLAF

Good, let no one play him so I can abuse him top and stat check

Haven’t watched this yet but interested to see what you have to say about my main

for me its just that his q feels so clunky

that's my main and every match is a suffering to no end

What I Have To Say Is That I Will Not Play Olaf After Watching This Video Sir

Nobody plays olaf because nobody remembers that he exists. thats all there is to it.

what if olaf gets a kayle and taric that focuses on ulting him, if olaf builds dmg and when taric ults he charges in, and hopefully taric ult can catch the low hp olaf with full damage that is unstoppable