Galio, the ult that could carry the team. A literal game changing ultimate. Thats all you need in this meta.

People will find themselves thoroughly surprised by your damage and the chunks you take out of them.


when the lead matters more than ever, galios ult can win you the early team fights to solidify the game in your favor, especially when you play well and threaten them often for objectives. and when you're just clearing the wave, it can be tough for them to get a grasp on mid lane.

x9 magic pen reds

x9 scaling health yellow

x9 flat magic res blues

x3 magic pen quints.

other options include AP blues, AP reds, armor/mana regen yellows, and AP/MS quints. up to your discretion, i find the above combination works extremely well for most scenarios. Hes got the base damages, its best to make use of the free penetration.

18/0/12

2% ability damage (right)
Feast (right)
Vampirism (left)
Oppressor (right)
Piercing Thoughts (right)
Deathfire Touch (right)


Recovery (left)
Tough Skin (right)
Runic Armor OR veterans scars, your choice, i prefer the flat health, i feel his base healing is enough.
Insight OR Preservence. 15% flash CDR is big, and 50% free health regen is also really good for lane, you'll find yourself full in no time at all. I prefer the health regen in lane and I instead decide to flash when it counts, not just more often or more available.

First buy. Dorans + 2 health pots

Mostly grail rush into more penetration
Consider second dorans + pots -> seekers against AD's
Sometimes abyssal for those heavy all inners who just want to fight, abyssal will get you through it and get you the kill.



Standard build is grail -> sorc boots -> abyssal OR ludens -> Zhonyas/Spirit Visage (Counter stat first)-> FILL choice item

grail is made for galio, to cover your mana costs and give great anti AP mid laner capabilities.

ludens is good against champs with a lot of poke. abyssal for those opposing melee mid laners or to deal with others who are rushing MR against you.
ludens also helps you get closer faster to ult range, and its good for longer range poke/just wanna stay back type moments.

i find myself buying sorc boots more often because i want to deal true damage against all these lackless MR builders, or those who only go for the easy 42 with runes and dont build any later. people are very lack on their MR these days and i find it very rewarding to grab the pen. I will go for merc treds if the enemy laner has an annoying CC ability or their team is full of CC. i will pick up ninja tabi if the enemy team is very heavy AD, ie riven, rengar, talon, ADC/sup. then ninja tabi is a good buy.

Zhonyas gives the necessary armor bulk to not die to ADCs when you ult. although you can manage with W on before hand, sometimes you dont have the time to do so.

spirit visage for CDR and health. the mr is a nice bonus. but overall not a necessary item, you can replace this one with whatever other tank item you deem necessary to survive long enough to ult.

your fill item can be a number of things. ive built rab cap for greed, void staff because i need to go through 2 or 3 tanks, RoA for bulk and anti assassins, liandry for insane pen/poke, rylias for kiting.

i also consider rushing seekers (after a second dorans ring for the mana) against those all in melees like yasuo/zed/talon, it doesn't always work and its not a true counter, but it definitely gets me enough time to W and then "you're on me, heres some point blank casting" "oh **** oh **** oh **** IM OUT" and they're on the losing end of their dive.

Q > E > W

Q the back line, should clear at rank 3. maybe an E is necessary as well. when you have 2 or 3 items behind you and rank 5 E, your E will 1hko the backline and Q the melees to get the full wave with just 2 abilities.

you can W yourself and take minion shots to heal quite a bit of hp if needed.

i get Q level 1, and W level 2. Q level 3. and then finally E level 4.
some will say different, but this i find works the best in case of ganks or winning early trades. E just kinda eats mana when you dont have items behind you.

is an absolute must on galio
for those play making ults.

your secondary options include

for general kill securing, you're close enough afterall. i take this most often.

barrier is meh, sometimes good to get you out of a tough situation.

exhaust is very good on galio, it makes it super easy to land your skill shots and makes it very easy for your jungler to gank your lane, if flash R wasnt enough already.

Pros

Ult
Innate Sustain
Poke/ E utility / Q Slow
Easy wave clear
hard counters dives, just press R for reduced damage, AND A FREE EASY R LAND.

Cons
Melee range
Easily Poked
Somewhat reliant on team for followup
Silences, blech...
Some mana troubles in the early lane (but i mean who can spam at these levels)
ult is easily interrupted by anyone who isn't caught by it.

Strong

AP champion here.
Zed, Talon,

Weak
Tank champion here
Xerath/Lux/Velkoz/Syndra/fiddlesticks

the reason is because they either have travel time CC, which can interrupt your ult and cancel it while its still in travel time. or because they never give you the chance to hit them, and you're stuck just dodging poke and farming the wave, which is fine because wave clearing is easy for galio too, but its just an annoyance.

people say galio is weak to zed/talon, but thats because they dont know how to utilize W, or how to out trade them. the secret is to bully them levels 1 and 2, they got to melee last hit, FREE Q, you're also in melee range, and you'll find your base damages are indeed higher than theirs. and when they choose to dive, its not even a consideration, you just press R and take 50% reduced damage, they guaranteed are in range of your R, great, they blow everything while you are either healing from W or taking half damage with R. and then you chunk them.

the biggest hard counter to galio right now is cho gath, and hardly anyone plays him.
things like garen, soraka, or silences in general will ruin galio as well. malphite, thresh, blitz, janna, lulu W or R cancels the ult.(yasuo if not caught by ult, will tornado you)

yasuo is a notable mention, the early level 1/2 harasser may give you trouble if you cant land your abilities, but if you're far enough back or hes not all in your face just trying to kill you, its actually quite manageable. The worst is if he knows he can just kill you at 1 and 2 and not just thunderlords and dart out. then its cancer and you should just stay back, tower farm or wait for ganks or level 6. come level 6 your combo/poke can kill him. but its still nasty to farm until you get your first item.
* but if you have the armor and general bulk against him, you can actually win it with constantly landing Q whenever available. otherwise its necessary to hit 6 first.

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Overall, galio excels when there aren't many tanks on the enemy team, 1 or less is preferred. in this situation, galio presses R, doesn't die because of the damage reduction, and chunks everyone he hits with R because they didnt buy MR or lots of health. your team will follow up and clean up easily.

its terrible when you find your ult is easily interrupted by the enemy team, like they pick champs who can break it from a distance.