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League of Legends players have voiced their concerns with the abysmal state of Galio, but Riot Games disagrees, saying the champion still serves his role as the “defender/enabler” from the mid-lane.
One player, Pe4enkas, voiced their opinion in a March 27 Reddit thread, stating how Galio feels like he is having an identity crisis in League of Legends. Being an anti-AP tanky champion, the player claims Galio does poorly against AD assassins like Zed and Naafiri, and also against traditional AP Mages like Aurelian Sol, Veigar, Malzahar, and Ahri. To make things worse, he only counters AP assassins in the mid-lane, which makes him a very niche pick.
According to U.GG statistics, Galio has a miserable 48.87 percent win rate across all ranks, and his pick rate currently is at 1.8 percent, which is very low for a traditional mid-lane pick.
Adding to that, the player questioned why anyone would even play Galio at this point. “Why do you even pick Galio when Gragas exists, a similar AP tanky champion that actually can build like an AP assassin to burst targets and also build ROA (Rod of Ages) if you need to be frontlining more,” they said, suggesting better alternatives that fill a similar role.
Matt Leung-Harrison, the lead gameplay designer of League, admitted on Reddit that the champion is “just weak right now.” However, he disagreed about Galio having an identity crisis, explaining how the champion prevents the players from getting run over on the entire map with the help of his global ultimate. He added that his “CC capabilities” and semi-global presence often trade his inability to “turbo stomp lane,” which makes him look weaker than other mid-lane champions.
Harrison also said players should feel more comfortable with a Galio in their team because they could potentially help teammates out of sticky situations. The Rioter mentioned how Faker used to use the champion when he was “unconditionally strong” and got priority in every lane, dominating matchups while having high pressure on the sides.
“This (strong) state wasn’t particularly sustainable, so we had to give him a laning weakness/reduce ability to ignore enemy laner and wave clear to compensate for the amount of impact he has on 1 Item spike in particular,” Harrison concluded, explaining the intention behind Galio’s weaknesses. Only time will tell if Galio will see any changes in response to his recent performance.
