League of Legends has done right by many of the game’s older champions by updating them via mini-reworks. These reworks update champions who were released many moons ago by changing ratios on their spells and altering their passive abilities to try and help them have more of a role in the game’s ever-evolving meta. In the case of the colossus, Galio’s mini-rework in patch 14.6 was supposed to beef up his strength in the mid-lane, but now that the patch has been live for over a week, it’s clear those efforts have failed.
For League of Legends fans, or specifically players of the popular MOBA who are Galio mains, Galio stands as one of the more iconic champions in the game. The stone colossus has become beloved for his ability to dish out tons of damage and protect his teammates with his multiple movement-based abilities that crowd-control opponents and massively swing team fights in his favor.
Unfortunately for Galio, his talents on Summoner’s Rift have been severely lacking, for quite some time. Galio has been one of the least popular champions in solo queues for a few years now and was desperately in need of either massive buffs or a rework of his abilities. In patch 14.6, Riot Games finally granted Galio players their wish and updated his spells, pushing him more into the mid-lane, rather than the support role he had been popping up in. In the update, the developers shortened the cooldown on his empowered auto attack, encouraging him to weave in multiple auto-attacks throughout fights and during the landing phase, while altering (and shrinking) the damage of his spells.
These changes did not help Galio in solo queue, as he has remained one of the least effective and selected champions in mid-lane. On Wednesday, March 27, lead gameplay designer Matt ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison posted on Reddit his thoughts on the Galio changes.
Phroxzon said, “Galio is just weak right now.” However, he added, “I don’t think he lacks identity, he has a pretty clear one, he is meant to be as close to being a ‘defender/enabler from midlane’ with an ability to shrug off some AP damage as is reasonable supportable by gameplay.”
While Phroxzon admits that Galio’s rework hasn’t made him any more viable a pick, he does have a more obvious role in League as an “enabler” from the mid-lane who provides support to his teammates.
These changes have made his identity more clear in the developer’s eyes, but are yet to have an impact on his capabilities as a reliable pick in-game. We may see more changes to Galio in the future as Riot tries to breathe life back into Demacia’s defender.
If you’re looking for a new champion to play that isn’t Galio, go ahead and check out our LoL tier list. Alternatively, if you’re into cosmetics, we have a rundown of which League of Legends skins are currently on sale.
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