Since the recent buff to Galio’s Ultimate, he became a viable pick in the support position.
Galio is a tank that brings a lot of aoe crowd control and peeling as well as a follow up engage for his team. He is excellent against teams with a lot of AP damage.
His Ultimate allows him to roam and help out teammates in need or save the adc from being collapsed by the enemy frontliners.

video: https://youtu.be/la0VjhrniS0

First, let’s get to the runes.
For the Keystone, pick Aftershock. Thanks to Galio’s CC heavy kit, you can easily proc aftershock and become very tanky for it’s duration. The extra tankiness will allow you to win trades and survive engages.
Then you can either take Shield Bash which will give you extra damage in trades as long as your shield is active.
An alternative would be Demolish take it if you are confident that you will win and snowball the botlane.
For the next rune, take Second Wind if you play against a poke botlane and Bone Plating against engage supports
Lastly, you can take Overgrowth or alternatively Unflinching if you play against a CC heavy team.

For the secondary runes I like to take Biscuit Delivery which grants you extra sustain and Cosmic Insight to have a shorter Cooldown on my Summoner Spells since you will have an easier time engaging with Flash available and for my Ulti which has a very high base cooldown.

With the Runes out of the Way, let us talk about the Botlane Matchups. Galio is not the best engage champion in the botlane, his E has a wind up animation which makes it easy to dodge with jumping abilities. Thus he struggles against mobile champions or champions with Disengage. As a result, he is weak against Janna, Nami, Vayne and Ezreal.
But Galios is really strong against immobile mages or ADCs like Zyra, Brand, Vel Koz, Miss Fortune or Aphelios since they have a harder time dodging Galios engage and can be killed within one fight. His E also mitigates a lot of the AP damage which makes him an even better pick against them.

Engage supports like Leona or Nautilus are on a 50-50 matchup where the fights can go either way depending on the execution and adc matchups.

Passive: Galio’s passive gives him an empowered basic attack which deals AOE damage and cannot be interrupted.

Q: The Q ability is a good way of poking the enemy during the laning phase. Use it after you land your CC abilities for extra damage. The storm deals % maximum HP damage to enemies.

W: The W ability gives you a passive shield that blocks magic damage based on your maximum health. The active part of the ability makes you channel an AOE taunt, the range and taunt duration get bigger the longer you channel it. Additionally, it grants you damage reduction while the physical damage reduction is only half of the amount of the magical damage reduction.

E: The E Ability is a dash forward after making a step backwards. The first enemy hit is being knocked up.

R: The ultimate ability is a long range Jump to an allie’s position which grants allies in the area a magic damage shield and knocks up enemies.

For the skill order: max W, then E then Q. Your W shield and damage reduction scale with skill points so max it out first to become more tanky and harder to kill. Your E cooldown is important for fights, thus maxing it second to get a shorter cooldown.

Galio’s level 1 is weak since you cannot do much to threaten the oponent. You usually start with W and go E on level 2 which gives you all-in potential. Galio is the strongest at level 3 so try to not get poked down too hard and reach it before your opponent does it.

Use body language to your advantage and don’t be too obvious when you want to engage on the enemy. Walk back and forth and if the enemy ADC tries to go for that big juicy canon minion it’s your time to smash him. Once you hit an enemy with your E charge up your W and put in a Q and AA afterwards. Remember, the longer you charge your W the longer the taunt duration.

You can use your empowered auto attacks and your Q to help your ADC push the wave and get to your level spike earlier than the opponent.

Thanks to his AOE taunt and high early damage, Galio is a very strong 2vs2 or 3vs3 champion. This allows you to bring a lot of scuttle and dragon control into the game (after lvl 3).

The high amount of CC also enables Galio to successfully setup ganks. Especially with your Flash available you have a great engage onto the enemy team, you can Flash -> E -> W.

Pro tip: Using E backwards gives the enemy player less time to react, but only use it if the enemy player has no flash available. If they have flash, E towards their escape route.

Once you reach lvl 6 you can easily roam and try to help out your jungler/midlaner. Make sure to only roam if your adc can farm safely.

When it comes to teamfights you have two choices, you can stay behind and protect your adc against enemies with your Taunt and R or you can use it to follow up an engage of one of your teammates. This really depends on the individual situation. If your ADC is ahead and strong try to protect him and use your ultimate as a disengage tool while making sure to not get interrupted by CC while channeling it.

Super Pro Tip: When you need to escape make sure to not be blocked by an enemy when using E. A good way of avoiding it is to place yourself in front of terrain while using E.

Lastly let’s quickly go through the items.

Take Relic Shield as the starting item

For your first item, you can either go for Knights Vow, which is especially good against heavy physical damage teams, you can also go for Zeke’s or Gargoyle Stoneplate if the enemy team mostly has magic damage.

Against high CC comps you can pick Merc Treads to get extra tenacity, Against a high amount of basic attack champions you can take Ninja Tabis. Against soft cc and slows you can take Boots of Swiftness. Usually Merc Treads are my go to boots.

Galio’s Core build consists of Knights Vow, Stoneplate and Zeke’s Convergence. Optional items are Locket of the Iron Solari which is great against AP burst comps, Redemption and Protobelt.

Galio is a viable support who can keep up with the top tier supports right now. Be aware of your composition, you cannot be the main engage. Galio is great at following up and protecting the adc thanks to his AOE taunt and Ult so remember to protect your ADC if needed.

Thank you for reading this guide