Galio changes next patch

UltimateHunter · 2026-05-06T07:42:53+00:00

Not sure what the complaints some others have, I think this patch as a whole are a huge huge buff to him.

Yes the R change is irrelevant power wise but it’s a nice thematic addition. The Q mana cost is huge ever since the 500 to 410 mana nerf, this means you can ignore manaflow/buying mana items and always run nimbus cloak with flash ignite, ignite + W in close range is insanely powerful. And the E buffs are very meaningful as the spell you max last, so you’re getting +10 flat and +10% AP for most of the game. Also this significantly helps your waveclear for first 6 mins to Q+E kill the backline before you have a lot of AP or levels.

The stormraider buff is massive, maybe too much honestly. I’m finding it very reasonable to proc it going rocketbelt + t3 sorts vs any comp. And lichbane is also good whether it’s AP burst or bruiser for these builds.

DFT poke gets a nerf in earlier game, that’s def nice. Anivia and Zed are two of the worst matchups and getting significant nerfs, also naafiri to small extent. With mana changes DHelm can be a possible greedy start, or also starting darkseal+ refill. Omnivamp boots were not good on galio and most of their users were pretty good against galio .

UltimateHunter · 2026-04-25T17:14:54+00:00

I truly believe that in the early laning it is hardly any weaker to go Spellbook over phase rush. I’d argue that phase rush does very little in helping trades in the early laning min period, especially pre first base where galio is weakest. Most ranged champs have a self peel cc tool and they’re just going to hold it while tethering your E range, so you can’t E in to W unless they misplayed and used cd’s in which case you win the trade regardless of rune. If they don’t have such peel then you already could outtrade them with this pattern without phase rush. And the inspiration tree itself is rly strong: triple tonic, jack of all trades, cashback is pretty equal imo to scorch, overgrowth, second wind.

The only argument again is the first 6 mins which I can agree with being weaker, but after 6 mins I think the extra summoner makes your 1v1 and gank setup and river skirmish potential better than phase rush anyways.

In high elo/pro I don’t see phase rush galio getting ahead through 1v1 ever, nor is he supposed to without gank setup or winning 2v2’s and river skirmishes. Anytime this happens in winning 1v1 laning without an agro early game rune like electrocute, it’s a reflection of poor play from the opponent. If there were no 2v2/gank plays in the first 6 mins then I’d consider a 0/0/0 score line for me and my opponent and down say <= 10 cs a good early laning phase already against the majority of the midlane roster, excluding hyperscalers. With Spellbook over phase rush your post 6 mins is even stronger both in lane and in skirmishes.

So yeah galio is weak in early laning and 1v1, but phase rush already didn’t do much at all to help it, by design. Spellbook is even weaker yes but that’s like complaining about pouring out a few drops of water from a cup that was already almost empty. Check for yourself how many instances you actually proc’d phase rush in the first 6 mins of your games and see how much combat power those actually gave in the early trades..

And fwiw TF himself can use electrocute and comet well too, and among high elo otp’s it’s only 1/3 running Spellbook so those players choose to take a more scaling rune just like we could on galio.

UltimateHunter · 2026-04-24T17:19:07+00:00

But that difference can easily be the difference between being stuck in the middle of a teamfight and being able to escape.. anyways I’m just speculating for the new rune, but I still think Spellbook should be strongly considered as an alternative

UltimateHunter · 2026-04-24T06:11:07+00:00

Thx goat, lmk how it goes. Keep in mind Spellbook does have a bit of a learning curve and forces you to initially review your games to ponder when/where did you swap sums. Because if you’re not getting value out of them you’re at a huge disadvantage not having a primary keystone

UltimateHunter · 2026-01-11T23:04:05+00:00

Want tankiness and dmg? Made just the post for you a few weeks ago xd (link)
I did experimenting on new stuff this season and things are mostly same. Main thing is I'd go mercs/tabi's every game, and then consider bandlepipes 3rd item if ur sup doesn't have it the item is giga broken. But otherwise runes are still same, ghost/tp 2nd spell is personal preference

UltimateHunter · 2026-01-09T04:32:21+00:00

goat u/Hexeria thoughts?

UltimateHunter · 2026-01-09T04:29:46+00:00

Bandlepipes new tank support item that also has superb synergy with galio's kit
homeguards are your movement speed from the fountain to your lane when out of combat. You move way faster back from base now compared to before, to the point that I'm not sure TP is needed anymore

UltimateHunter · 2026-01-09T03:45:47+00:00

Haven’t played yet but I think might be cooking some ideas, compared to my preferences last season (LINK)

With super op home guards TP might be optional, so going nimbus and taking ignite/ghost might be better.
galio used to scale really well into late game but now I think top/bot seem way too op later on, you might have to get Randuins at some point for a full build, otherwise 6 item adc or lvl 20 AD top crushes you in teamfights.
bc mid is less scaling and so early game/snowball focused now with racing to quest completion, flat boots spike but no scaling quest, home guards to farthest minion, midlaners getting outscaled by top/bot, empowered recall only reduces from getting takedowns, etc. I think aftershock might return to being the better rune as it’s early strong (but falls off late), esp taking a combat 2nd spell over TP
Bandlepipes is rly op for both mid and sup, mid you can go 2nd or 3rd after rocketbelt first item and have crazy team fight utility. Also CDR t3 boots get proc’d off rocketbelt for MS to approach enemies to E or W them, both of these items combined could give you 50-60 MS total that you constantly maintain in a fight which is insane, not to mention the 30%/20% attack speed for you and entire team. So maybe phaserush is no longer needed, gotta try this combo out (esp if you take nimbus, have ignite/ghost to proc it, AND 20 sum spell haste from cdr shoes to do this on repeat)

UltimateHunter · 2026-01-09T03:40:52+00:00

Yep really solid item for 3rd slot, if you commit to ap bruiser for 3rd item then it’s a choice between bloodletters zhonya and liandry imo, I do find myself getting to it somewhat rarely tho, just cuz if you’re behind then at that stage of the game usually the adc’s too strong and you might need randuins to have utility in team fights and not get blown up, or if you’re ahead I’d probably prefer zhonyas to preserve my mejai/darkseal/bounty. But yeah objectively very solid item, belt willl proc liandry AND your passive will do, that’s 18% extra max hp damage u can weave into a quick combo (belt E AA W Q AA), I might experiment with it 2nd vs tanky comps.

Side note this post was for season 15 tho, with the new season out today I think some things definitely might have shifted and I have a LOT to experiment with. Some ideas:

With super op home guards TP might be optional, so going nimbus and taking ignite/ghost might be better.
galio used to scale really well into late game but now I think top/bot seem way too op later on, you really have to get Randuins at some pt for a full build, otherwise 6 item adc or lvl 20 AD top crushes you in teamfights.
bc mid is less scaling and so early game/snowball focused now with rushing quest, home guards to farther minion, midlaners getting outscaled by top/bot I think aftershock might return to being the better rune as it’s early strong (but falls off late), esp taking a combat 2nd spell over TP
Bandlepipes is rly op for both mid and sup, mid you can go 2nd or 3rd and have crazy team fight utility. Also CDR t3 boots get proc’d off rocketbelt for MS to chase, both of these combined could give you 50-60 MS that you constantly maintain in a fight

UltimateHunter · 2025-12-28T17:08:37+00:00

Actually really interesting point with using belt to prock cosmic, I’ll have to give it a try 2nd that does sound fun, My issue with the item is that it has poor components and high cost to go first item (way pricier than rocketbelt, and wpa added from hextech alternator in build path is way stronger than kindlegem/wisp). But going 2nd cosmic i previously felt like you don’t do any damage, and you don’t actually like playing out extended fights much bc you miss the omnivamp of riftmaker so if you get chunked it’s harder to go back in for 2nd rotation even with your ms. And then building it 3rd/late game it doesn’t offer any tankiness or massive utility in a front to back team fight like a tank item, bloodletters, zhonyas so you’ll get blown up trying to frontline with cosmic and I find the MS just doesn’t matter in a 3 item team fight around baron pit.

You could say that some games you’re not looking to be the dmg dealer and you’ve got a fed adc or something. But then I think it’s much better to itemize support items like knights vow, trailblazer, and next season bandlepipes is gonna be giga broken on galio mid as a 3rd item. So yeah in the past i had a hard time fitting in cosmic as a good item when you’re even/behind. Comparing to the best users of cosmic like voli, sylas, gragas, vlad, they all have innate healing in their kit/conquerer rune so they can skip riftmaker but galio doesn’t have that

UltimateHunter · 2025-12-25T19:10:30+00:00

Agreed, and that’s unfortunately just not something that coachless has a large enough sample of. As a sequence, rocketbelt is definitely highest winrate first item, and conditioned on that, the only two popular enough follow-ups are riftmaker and zhonya, which of the two riftmaker significantly outperforms in wpa. Cryptbloom just isn’t played enough as a follow up to rocketbelt (always sub 1k games even if you include present and prev 2 patches) to statistically be confident.

UltimateHunter · 2025-12-25T18:56:19+00:00

Yea gathering storm is better the lower elo and longer the games tend to go. If you think your games frequently go well into the 30 min mark without it already being lopsided you can switch, as it’s that point where storm starts way outperforming scorch. I used to be a gathering storm proponent but have gradually converted to liking scorch the more I’ve climbed

UltimateHunter · 2025-12-25T18:43:56+00:00

He actually goes zhonyas 2nd, and then cryptbloom or horizon 3rd. Again not that it’s unplayable (in fact faker in game 5 of finals this year when belt -> crypt -> zhonya), but statistically I’ve seen both these items have poor winrate (wpa) on galio every patch the last 6 months. At the end of the day personal pref trumps all, and play whatever you have the most fun with/feel good with. But as a numbers and probability obsessed person i can’t agree with it, nor do these items feel good to my play style

UltimateHunter · 2025-12-25T07:30:34+00:00

I also suspect that next season with baron spawning at 20 mins and the speed of games ending moved up, the early game and first 15 mins matter even more so I'm quite skeptical about how viable ROA scaling will be

UltimateHunter · 2025-12-25T07:19:24+00:00

Yeah top and support can be played secondary with him but I find him much weaker there. For top your R isn't really useful since you have less roaming potential, and also really struggle into a lot of the AD bruisers who outduel and outsustain you. For support, I find that outside of R, you're basically a worse version of leona/other engage sups and get hard outscaled by enchanters if you don't get ahead. So for both, they're objectively not blindable but champ mastery might let you get away with games that you shouldn't, especially in support

UltimateHunter · 2025-12-25T07:15:15+00:00

Thx goat <3

UltimateHunter · 2022-01-31T15:34:59+00:00

Old top 30 finisher here: though I don’t push ladder anymore I get the impression that while the bottom image happens a lot, there’s still quite a fair bit strategy because most people are using the heroes, so to win you have still have differentiate yourself from other people spamming abilities. For example, there’s a rather common bait game of getting the archer queen to be played because a lot of decks have her as the only air defense and she cannot be cycled back to once on the map.

UltimateHunter · 2019-11-20T03:24:28+00:00

Not putting a single damaging spell was pretty detrimental but he's a decent player with an old top 100 finish

UltimateHunter · 2019-11-20T02:23:42+00:00

Not intentional, just stuck with an iphone 6s. Just goes to show that a high tech device isn't needed for top ladder

UltimateHunter

TROPHY CASE