Galio Build Guide by Nusaik
| Health | 2865 |
| Health Regen | 20.95 |
| Mana | 1585 |
| Mana Regen | 34.6 |
| Armor | 137.69 |
| Magic Resist | 152.06 |
| Dodge | 0 |
| Tenacity | 35 |
| Movement Speed | 405 |
| Gold Bonus | 0 |
| Attack Damage | 117.05 |
| Attack Speed | 0.768 |
| Crit Chance | 0%S |
| Crit Damage | 0% |
| Ability Power | 324.85 |
| Life Steal | 0% |
| Spell Vamp | 0 |
| Armor Penetration | 0 |
| Magic Penetration | 7.83 |
| Cooldown Reduction | 20% |
Recommended Runes + Notes
Start 2 + Notes
Start 3 + Notes
Ability Sequence + Notes





Masteries + Notes
Introduction
Hello everybody and welcome to my Galio guide. Galio is a very versatile champion that can be played viably in any lane. Mid is his best lane though, as an anti-mage mage with his passive
In this guide I will discuss three different Galio builds, one AP mid, one tank and one support. I will go over Galio's abilities, runes, masteries, summoner spells playing style and more. If necessary, I will discuss these topic separately for each role.
I hope you guys find my guide useful. Please give me feedback and rate this guide, so I can improve it. Also, feel free to ask questions.
Since this guide is my most popular one (nr. 1 Galio guide on MOBAFIRE), I will go ahead and prommote my other guides a bit. Please check them out too, they are just as good as this one :)
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My Zyra guide - Support and mage guide. -
My ARAM guide - Everything you need to know for The Proving Grounds. -
My Anivia guide - Including 3 different builds, gameplay and matchups. -
My Hecarim guide - Jungle and solotop. Also with jungle route and jungling/ganking tips. -
My Jayce guide - Solotop, jungle or AD carry. With all his awesome combos explained. -
My Leona guide - Number 1 Leona guide on MOBAFIRE. -
My Graves guide - Including support and opponent matchups.

Note - read before voting please!
If you're going to vote, please comment and make sure you've read the relevant parts of the guide first. Please don't downvote just because you don't like X item, or X rune. I explain every choice in my guide and give many alternatives. If you don't like something, comment and I will reply and consider changing it.
Change Log
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13-03-12 Completely redesigned the guide and updated the build. |
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12-01-13 1 million views! |
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08-12-12 This guide is now updated for the preseason 3 patch. |
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15-09-12 Made more changes to the layout and the ability sequences. |
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11-09-12 Made some major changes to the guide layout. Also changed the build a little bit. |
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09-09-12 Added a chapter about warding. |
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29-08-12 Added other good items to the Items chapter. Added ability images. |
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17-08-12 Changed the quints for the mage build to flat AP. |
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04-08-12 Made some changes to the rune choices and layout. |
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28-07-12 Made some major changes to the item builds (mainly for the tank build). These changes are mainly based on feedback I got. |
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25-07-12 Just came back from my vacation in Portugal (and immediately turned on my laptop ofcourse) and saw that my Galio guide is now NUMBER ONE ON MOBAFIRE!!! Thanks everybody! |
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08-07-12 Changed some item builds and explanations slightly. |
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08-06-12 Added one more build to the guide. |
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07-06-12 My guide just made it into the top 5 Galio guides!!! Can it get even higher? Please tell me how I can improve it further! |
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28-05-12 Updated the entire guide layout. |
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27-05-12 Added |
Pros and Cons
If you want to know if Galio fits your style, this list might help you out.
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Pros Very versatile. Counter to most AP champions. Can carry. Tanky, even if played AP, thanks to his passive. Strong even without damage, thanks to his CC. |
Different Builds
Galio can cover many roles and build in many different ways. It's possible to play him either top, mid or support in my opinion. He can fill the role of a mage, bruiser, tank or support tank, depending on how much gold he gets and what his team needs. In this guide I've included builds for solo-lane Galio and support Galio.
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Solo-lane GalioIn mid- or top-lane, you will be able to farm and get big items. Your build should focus on AP and tankiness (mainly MR). In mid-lane, Galio can win 1v1 against other mages, simply because of his passive, |
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Support GalioA less obvious role for Galio, but he is actually a pretty good support. In lane, you have a lot of poke and a shield to protect your carry. You can also sustain yourself, just not your carry. Late-game you will transition into a very strong support tank with a large amount of utility and aura's. You will be able to help your team in many ways. |
Runes (solo-lane)
I will now discuss my rune choices as a solo-laner. I will also give some other rune choices that might be good in certain situations.
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Pretty much the only choice you have as a mage. They increase your early-game damage significantly by making you ignore some of your enemy's MR. Other options: not much. |
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Galio has some mana problems early on, but when he gets his Other options: |
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Galio scales well with MR thanks to his passive, Other options: |
Runes (support)
These are my rune choices as a support. They are similar to the solo-lane runes, but there are some differences. Alternative choices are also included.
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Even as a support, extra damage is very useful. Use it to poke as much as possible (as long as you have the mana). Other options: not much. |
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In bottom lane, the main source of damage will be the enemy AD carry in most situations. To counteract that damage, you need as much early armor as possible. Other options: not much. |
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Supports need the extra gold income to compensate no kills or farm. These runes will basically give one free Other options: |
Masteries (solo-lane)
Solo-lane Galio has a lot of options for his masteries. I generally like to take a combination of offense, defense and utility, as Galio benefits greatly from all 3 trees. The page I use most of the time is 9-12-9, which is explained in detail below. Other options are 9-14-7, 21-9-0, 9-21-0, 0-21-9 and more. In toplane I like to take more points in defense and get
Unyielding
and
Block
, which are really good in trades.
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Some helpful CDR. |
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Assuming your ignite is on cooldown in most all-in fights (it should be), this will give you 5 extra AP when you need it most. |
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Pretty decent. 18 AP is non-trivial. Combined with a |
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Great mastery. Ignoring 8% of the enemy's MR is a big deal late-game. |
| 4 |
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A nice amount of extra health. |
| 3 |
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5 armor is pretty good against harass from auto-attacks and othe physical damage. |
| 3 |
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Obvious choice, more MR and more AP. |
| 1 |
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Decent amount of extra health. |
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Pretty much a free point. This will help you initiate a bit more easily. |
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| 3 |
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Helps you out in the early laning-phase. |
| 3 |
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To get your |
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A little bit of extra mana. |
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For a longer blue buff. |
Masteries (support)
As a support you also have a lot of different options. You generally want to take most points in utility, for useful support masteries. But you still benefit a lot from offense and defence. Possibilties are, among others, 9-9-12, 1-17-12, 0-9-21 and 0-13-17. I will explain my standard 9-9-12 build below.
| 3 |
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Some helpful CDR. |
| 1 |
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For improved |
| 4 |
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Pretty decent. 18 AP is non-trivial. Combined with a |
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Great mastery. Ignoring 8% of the enemy's MR is a big deal late-game. |
| 2 |
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Some extra health. |
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Great against the large amount of minion damage you will be taking in exchanges in top-lane. |
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Pretty good against harass from auto-attacks and othe physical damage. |
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Strong on Galio, and helps against the enemy support. |
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Offers pretty good damage reduction against turrets. Helpful when diving. |
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| 3 |
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Helps you out in the early laning-phase. |
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A little bit of extra mana. |
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Extremely important mastery on support Galio. You will buy many important activated items, so this will greatly increase their potential. |
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Good amount of extra gold. You'll need it as a support. |
Items
Outdated! Will be updated soon.
Mage
This build focusses on high damage, while also making you very tanky. You will need the survivability if you want to get into the enemy team to ult. With the amount of AP, your poke damage will be great.
Start 1: |
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Start 2: |
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Start 3: |
Laning:
This will give you plenty of sustain in lane. The items also give you a lot of MR to counter mages with.
Full build:
This build focusses on AP, MR and general tankiness. With these items you will do great damage while also being very tanky, especially against magic damage. Make sure to change your build depending on the situation. If you're dying before you can do anything, build more tanky. Build more damage as long as you can get away with it.
Tank
This build is aimed at becoming very tanky so you can soak up damage for your team. You will also deal pretty high damage and create a lot of disruption, forcing enemies to focus you while your carries can take them down.
Start 1: |
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Start 2: |
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Start 3: |
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Start 4: |
Laning:
The same items as for mage Galio. You might want to get armor items instead of
Full build:
This build makes you really tanky with a lot of health and resistances. With the shield from bullwark, you will be even tankier. It will also give you pretty high damage because of the AP and MR items. Of course you should buy different items for different enemy teams (more armor against AD comps and more MR against AP comps). If you feel you are tanky enough to survive, you can buy more AP. Like most tank builds, there are many situational items.
Support
This build focusses on getting important aura items to help out your team. It will make you pretty tanky and it will also give you a bit of damage.
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Start 1: |
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Start 2: |
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Start 3: |
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Start 4: |
Laning:
Plenty of GP10 and 'free' wards. These items will give you sustain, tankiness and damage in lane.
Full build:
This build will make you pretty tanky and it helps you support your team. If the game isn't anywhere near done once you have 5 items, you can choose between keeping your
Item explanations
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This is the perfect lane item for Galio, whichever role you play. It gives enough mana regen to sustain you for a long time and nice MR (and AP). It's especially good against mages. With this item you can use your abilities a lot to harass or to farm. |
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An obvious item for Galio, even as a mage. Gives good MR and some AP. The tenacity is also very important for Galio so he can initiate better and still escape. |
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A great item on Galio. It's even named after his abilities ( |
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Required item for mages. Gives tons of AP. |
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If you really want a lot more damage and are tanky enough. Since you usually won't buy |
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This will make you more tanky while also granting AP and sustain. The tankiness is necessary to survive in teamfights while you're in the middle of everything. |
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The late-game upgrade for |
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Great support or tank item. Works well in teamfights after you've used your ult. This way enemies will be slowed and easier targets. Especially strong against auto-attack-reliant teams. |
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Free wards and some health. This is a great item for supports. You will be able to keep your lane warded all the time, so you can save gold for other items. |
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Very strong support item. It upgrades from |
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Very strong support item. Gives cooldown reduction and regen so you can spam more and have more sustain. The active is also great in teamfights. |
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The upgrade for |
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Strong in teamfights when you initiate. This will make it easier for your teammates to catch up and join the fight. |
Other good items
Good early-game item. It's usually good to buy 1-2 early.
Good GP10 items. Get them early to get the greatest benefit. If you sell them after having them for 14+ minutes, they have paid for themselves. Alternatively, you can build them into greater items.
A great Galio item. It gives you MR, health and mana as stats, which are all very useful obviously. The spellshield works great on Galio too, it will make it harder for people to interrupt your ultimate.
This item is good on Galio. It gives Galio a ton of AP and nice MR. The aura is also great, especially when your team is magic-heavy. Since the range nerf, this item isn't that good on Galio anymore, but it still works.
Greatly increases your damage, especially if bought early. You will slow and taunt people, so the passive will be double-applied very often.
Good item for Galio in every role. Gives you the ability to suicide-initiate with your ult and still survive while your team cleans up the kills.
Cool new tank item. It is great to have one on the team, especially if you're the designated diver. If you're ahead, this helps you counter turtle strategies.
For a lot of survivability. Pretty good if your team needs a tank.
A great armor item. Buy it only if noone else on your team has it (the aura doesn't stack). Works well against all champions that rely on auto-attacks. I personally think there should be 1
Also good against physical damage. Though you can't ult and use the active at the same time, it's still a great active to have on any AP. It also has a lot of AP.
It works pretty well on Galio and is a good alternative to
Can be good if you get ahead. It's best against melee teams because you will get the chance to auto-attack against them.
Any tank/AP/support items
Galio benefits from almost all items (except for AD items of course). Buy what you think is best for the situation. If I've missed a certain item that's particularly good on Galio, tell me in the comments and I will add it.
Abilities
Without abilities, all Galio can do is punch some enemies in the face (in other words, he is useless). Galio's abilities are pretty easy to use but they do require some practice. You have to know when and how to use them.

Ability explanations
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Galio's passive. This is what makes Galio unique and insanely strong against casters. Pretty easy to understand: half your MR is turned into extra AP. You should consider this when buying items, but only up to a certain point. Don't buy MR against a full AD team for example. |
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Image: Spoiler: Click to viewA skillshot AoE damage and slow ability. It does very good damage with enough AP. Good for chasing down enemies. You can also use it to farm in combination with |
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Image: Spoiler: Click to viewA very strong shield targeted that heals you if the shield's target takes damage. Learn to select your target and time it well, or it will be useless. In lane you can use it to heal by shielding yourself and taking minion aggro or other low-damage attacks. The shield even gives 15-45 AP because of your passive. As a caster, I max it last to increase the damage on my other abilities, but as a support it is very useful early. It's always good to self-cast |
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Image: Spoiler: Click to viewAlso does good damage, but less than |
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Image: Spoiler: Click to viewGalio's ultimate. This is one of the strongest ultimates in the game. If you can get in the center of the enemy team and use this, you can easily win a teamfight. The strongest part of this ability is the fact that it locks up enemies for 2 seconds, but it also deals huge AoE damage when played AP. |

Ability sequence
Solo-lane
When playing in a solo-lane, I go for the maximum damage output. My ability priority is R-Q-E-W. I take a point in
Support
As support, max

Combos
Galio isn't really combo based but here are some things you can do:
- Q-E. This is your standard burst. It can take a squishy down to 50% HP. Use this to poke in lane and before teamfights. You can use W to give yourself some extra AP and do more damage.
- Q-E-W-R. This is your initiation or killing move. Close the gap by slowing enemies and speeding yourself up. Use W to protect yourself and R to lock up your enemies. Additionally, you can use
Flash to close the gap and
Heal to stay alive. This can easily turn a fight around.
Summoner Spells

My choice
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Great spell for escaping or chasing, but even more useful for initiating. An unexpected |
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Take it as caster Galio to use as a finisher. This is pretty much it's only use. It's also great against enemies with tons of lifesteal/spell vamp/health regen. It's a pretty standard choice for casters and Galio is no exception. |
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Pretty much a must-have as a support. Exhaust the enemy AD carry to win fights. You can also take this when you're going solotop. |

Other viable choices
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Serves the same purpose as |
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A good spell for tank Galio. Use it to bait enemies and let them get close to you. Then use |
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Can be a great spell if you have a well-coördinated team. You can use it to gank other lanes or get back to your lane quickly. Late-game, you can split-push easily with it. |
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A good spell for any support. It is really helpful for preventing invasions and securing map objectives. |
Gameplay
How to lane with Galio, of course depends on your role and the lane you're playing in. Here are some tips on how to lane with Galio.

Solo-lane
You will play in midlane or toplane (most likely midlane). Your main goal should be to outlane your opponent and help out other lanes by ganking if you can. If your opponent is winning, play defensive and request ganks. As long as you don't feed, it's fine. If you're playing against a mage, it should be pretty easy, just buy MR and AP and do twice as much damage as him. Against AD-based champions it's more difficult. In a 1v1 fight they will most likely beat you. Try to stay at range and poke them down with your abilities. Stay in lane as long as possible. At the very least, try to stay until you have 500 gold, enough for your

Support
As a support you should play in botlane with your AD carry. Your goals are different here. You should always try to protect your carry (die to save his life if you have to), ward and don't feed too much. As a support, it's not a big deal if you die, as long as it helped the team. Try to keep it limited though, a KD of 0/10 won't help your team because you can't do anything when you're dead. Help your carry beat the other carry by protecting him, poking your opponents and netting kills for him. With your ult, you can get kills very well, especially if your jungler also comes to gank. Since Galio doesn't have a good healing ability (besides his shield, which you can use to heal by putting it on yourself and tanking some minions), try not to get poked too much. Always keep your lane warded to watch for incoming ganks. Counter the enemy support by buying
Warding
Green - Lane-safety wards.
Aqua - General map vision wards.
Yellow - Dragon/Baron control wards.
Red - Counter-jungle wards.
Blue - Buff-defense wards.
Purple - Late-game wards.
Warding is a very crucial part of being a support. Above is a map with the most important ward locations. This map assumes you're on the blue side. If you're on the purple side, you should swap the red and blue dots. There are a lot of other places you can ward, but they are more situational. So when and where should you ward?
At the start of the game, you might want to place a ward somewhere in the enemy jungle to catch their jungler. Do this if you have a jungler and mid with good map-awareness and cooperation. It will maybe allow you to kill the enemy jungler for first blood (and hurt his jungle really bad). At the very least it will give you information about his location, which might allow for counter-jungling or agression in lanes.
In the laning phase, you should keep your lane warded against ganks constantly, no matter how many wards in takes. The new
Later on, or if needed sooner, you can roam a little, warding places in the jungle or near other lanes. Use the blue dots on the map if your jungler is getting countered a lot. These are more important if one or more of your turrets is down. Use the red dots if you want to invade and counter-jungle. Use the aqua dots for general map vision. The yellow dots should be pink-warded as much as possible, because Baron and Dragon are very important objectives to control.
Mid-game you can pretty much go anywhere. Try to roam with your entire team, taking out enemy wards and placing your wards everywhere. This will give your team a lot of map control and will enable safer pushing and jungling. It can also set you up for a Baron or Dragon attempt or a good teamfight.
The purple dots on the map are helpful when you're pushing hard or the enemy is pushing hard. They will tell you in advance where your enemies are going, so you can react.
There isn't much more I can tell you about warding. You really have to play many games as support to learn everything about it. Just try to follow these instructions and see how far you can get. Other things you will learn by playing.
Matchups
Galio counters most others in midlane. There are some champions he is very good against and some he is not that good against. In this section I will give some examples of matchups with Galio with explanations. Generally, Galio counters mages with high burst or damage over time.

Galio is good against
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Cassiopeia has a lot of damage over time with her poison. The poison stays on you for a pretty long time but it doesn't do much damage each tick. This is where your |
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A burst and DoT mage. Brand can hit his entire combo on you and still only take away 25% of your health (where it would take 75%-100% health from a champion with less MR). After this, Brand will have everything on cooldown and a lot less mana. Also, you will take damage over time from his passive |
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The definition of a burst mage. Veigar can use all his spells on someone in half a second and instantly kill them. But not on Galio. You can walk away alive and counter-attack. A Veigar with everything on cooldown will be extremely vulnerable. Try to prevent him from farming so he can't get his bonus AP from |
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Another extreme burst mage. Similar to Veigar, she is expected to one-shot people, but she can't one-shot Galio. Resist her burst and she's left defenceless. |
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Most mages Of course, Galio counters pretty much any mage because of his passive. Some are easier to play against, some are more difficult. |

Galio is bad against
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You might play against him in mid or top. Obviously your passive is useless against him, because he is AD-based. On top of that, he has a nasty silence and burst. The fact that you're melee doesn't make things easier. It means that you'll have to come close to him to farm sometimes. Try to stay at range when playing against him. Your ranged spells are your advantage. Poke him when possible, preferably when his |
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A toplane counter. He deals part physical damage so your passive is less useful. The worst part is though, he can use You can buy some MR against him because he also has a lot of magic damage, just not as much as you'd like. Try to cast your ultimate only quickly after he's stunned you (he won't be able to stun you again so soon) or when he's in a different stance. If he's not in |
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One of the few mages that can be strong against Galio. She is tanky and can sustain well in lane. Even though she won't do that much damage, her CC can make you susceptible to ganks. Her In lane, you can heal a little with your shield by standing on |
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Very difficult to play against since she can interrupt your ultimate easily from a distance. She can do this with either You have to either catch her in your ultimate so she can't do anything, or wait until she has everything on cooldown. This will still make you weaker in teamfights but at least you can use your ultimate. |
Conclusion
Galio is a very strong and awesome champion. He can do well in any lane. He's pretty easy to play, but hard to master, so he's a good champion to improve your skills with. He's definitely one of the stronger champions in the game so he's a very good pick in high level games. Galio is fun to play and is definitely worth trying out. He's also very good in solo queue because you can carry really well with him.
So thanks for reading my guide (or at least for looking at the build). I hope you liked it. Please leave a comment and a rating so I can get more attention and so I will know what to improve. Thanks!
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Build Guide
Discussion (98)



Very versatile.
Is melee, which can be a problem early on.
Spoiler: Click to view



