League of Legends -- how many [H] regulars?

Hrm, looks like I won't get to use Garen this week as it seems when he's free someone grabs him every game. Guess we'll see.

Alistar
Caitlyn
Corki
Galio
Gangplank
Garen
Heimerdinger
Janna
Nocturne
Veigar

Fail said:

With Garen, I buy Doran's Shield first, because his passive with the regen helps him a lot with the regen from Doran's Shield, it's like getting 2 regens for one, and your health meter refills quickly.

What I buy next is Boots of Swiftness, then I get Sunfire Cape, and Atma's Impaler, then I buy the Frozen Mallet, then I get Warmogs to finish it off.

I'm pretty much invinicible when I play Garen once I get Atma's Impaler and the Frozen Mallet. Warmogs is really nothing more than win-more.

If the game is STILL going, I'd prolly invest in an Infinity Edge and a Guardian Angel.

Best I've had with Garen was 4.7k health, in one game.

I think I went 15-3 with Garen last night after talking to Kabob, who was going to go sleep after we finished talking.

I also have the Death Knight Garen skin, doubly sweet.

Garen is a really good character, you just have to focus less on what his damage output is, and focus more on his core strengths, which is he gets everywhere on the map really easily and has little problems chasing down others.

I think my summoner spells were Ghost and Exhaust.

Garen is incredibly hard to kill and with all that armor, mallet, and Atmas, you can take people down pretty easily, and of course, his ult is the ultimate finisher.

I've gotten triple kills with him.

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Frozen Mallet? OK, I'm curious, why exactly? With such a low attack speed (and little desire to use auto-attacks) I'm kinda surprised.

Lately I've been going Dorans Shield → Boots of Swiftness → Brutalizer → Force of Nature → Guardian Angel or Sunfire Cape → Infinity Edge → Yommu's Ghostblade (or sell Brutalizer for Last Whisper if they have tons of armor) → Warmogs

I'll swap when I buy FoN vs. GA/Sunfire depending on their team composition. In the game I played the other day where they were almost all AP magic damage I grabbed FoN right after my boots.

I've got the Dreadknight skin for Garen as well, pretty slick (my only custom skin ATM).

Stiler said:

With that build though you'll not have much late game against a fed carry with lifesteal items.

That build has 0 mr also which is important if you are tanking. A FON on garen is a very nice MR item because of both it's health regen + move speed bonus. Sunfire is good as you have, always one of the best first items on Garen. Then if the AD carry gets fed on their team, a Thornmail is a must.

If you have to choose between Warmogs over a good MR/Armor item, go them, the MR/Armor is much more important for a tank then straight up HP. Though yeah, If I am doing good with Garen and have my Sunfire/FON, I'll stack warmogs/Atma's for the hp and dmg.

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I need to try your build sometime since you have so much success. Was it Boots → Sunfire → FoN → Warmogs → Atmas → Warmogs?

BTW, joined 4 other guys (who are all lvl 30) and played a game and the enemy Orianna absolutely wrecked us. Granted, the other teams had between 500-850 wins each (highest on our team was around 320) but there was just no explaining it other than we couldn't handle her burst. Guy bought Mejai's early and was pretty much 1 shotting our squishies. It was awful.

Yeah, I'm trying out Galio, I never have played him, but my friend ChestyMcRockhard plays him all the time.

Well I've run into the wall, how exactly do you counter endgame tryn? I was playing amumu last night and everything I tried he just ran right through me. He wasn't that fed but the game was long.

I Went Philosopher's stone, Magic resist boots, Sunfire, FoN, Banshee's, Thornmail. Later I sold Philosopher's stone for another FoN due to their magic damage, but Tryn was still destroying. So I sold banshee's for several other items. Eventually got a warmogs and even grinded it up some but he still destroyed me in no time.

Ideas?

you have to destroy the rest of their team while still getting tryn's health down, you have to cc him best as you can, best thing for you do is to focus fire, kill his teammates then leave him all by himself, where he's more easily killed.

Superfly3176 said:

Well I've run into the wall, how exactly do you counter endgame tryn? I was playing amumu last night and everything I tried he just ran right through me. He wasn't that fed but the game was long.

I Went Philosopher's stone, Magic resist boots, Sunfire, FoN, Banshee's, Thornmail. Later I sold Philosopher's stone for another FoN due to their magic damage, but Tryn was still destroying. So I sold banshee's for several other items. Eventually got a warmogs and even grinded it up some but he still destroyed me in no time.

Ideas?

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Simple, don't let it get to end game

You really have to nuke him instantly, that's the only way. CC is magical, blinds and exhaust really help. Thornmail really hurts him as well.

Superfly3176 said:

Well I've run into the wall, how exactly do you counter endgame tryn?

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Team comp should have Ignite and Exhaust, the former of which should be placed in the middle of his ult and the latter placed right when he's at 1HP.

I tried playing Galio, he's kind of unwieldy to play, i've seen my friend Chesty play him really well, but he doesn't really suit my style.

I also got to play with Kabob for the first time in a while today

We totally dominated the only game I was able to play.

Jungle Yi ftw, totally crushed the enemy.

I just got beat so bad as malz against a team with poppy - orianna - vayne - alistar - gangplank


So bad I feel like less of a man now and need to be comforted. That or yelled at to man the hell up.

orianna was good, alistar is always good with his game changing abilities like amumu except on normal ability cooldowns, vayne was mediocre, but that means still over the top deadly, and gangplank fired shots that seemed to take 50% chunks of health away, if not more.

the match was ridiculous. I did not feed any more than the rest, but they had double our kills, it was a slaughter. I think that was the first time I felt completely powerless as malz.


champs that stun/knock you up are almost certain death for malz, which is why I despise alistar, I hate him more than any other, he is my white whale.

Playing Jungle Amumu in solo queue can be really frustrating or rewarding.

if we win my team is all happy with me. If we lose I am the scape goat.

Usually a lose starts with a gank at blue, then I end up being underleveled. And then I have trouble ganking, and the other team can gank more easily. And every team fight is me tossing in ulting, and my team not engaging then yelling at me for tanking poorly.

^^ lol hate that shit. Maybe they were assisting poorly?

Shakezilla said:

Playing Jungle Amumu in solo queue can be really frustrating or rewarding.

if we win my team is all happy with me. If we lose I am the scape goat.

Usually a lose starts with a gank at blue, then I end up being underleveled. And then I have trouble ganking, and the other team can gank more easily. And every team fight is me tossing in ulting, and my team not engaging then yelling at me for tanking poorly.

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None of that is your fault though.

The key with Amumu is to make sure your team is committed to followinng through when you go in, in fact, you should say, WHEN YOU FUCKERS SEE ME GOING IN, YOU GO IN TOO OR WE LOSE.

that'll shape them up

works for me when I go Amumu.

Check it out, this just happened

Epic.

the other team looks like they sucked big time.

At least Orianna farmed well

I haven't played with you ++++++++s in forever. When does it pick up these days?

I will be on when I get off work in about 3 hours, prolly have something to eat, I'll be on and playing around 1 a.m. Central Standard Time.

Hey Kabob, you see that above screenie I posted? Notice the Garen in it has pretty much the same build I outlined in my post a while back on how I build Garen? He has everything I buy, except the Frozen Mallet.

Omg, I had the most retarded teammate today, a Master Yi with Exhaust and Clarity as his summoner spells, exhaust is fine, but clarity?? WTF, not just only that, his first item was . . . . Phantom Dancer

his 2nd item??? Phantom Dancer . . . . .

what a total tool.

Fail said:

Omg, I had the most retarded teammate today, a Master Yi with Exhaust and Clarity as his summoner spells, exhaust is fine, but clarity?? WTF, not just only that, his first item was . . . . Phantom Dancer

his 2nd item??? Phantom Dancer . . . . .

what a total tool.

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He's so pro he doesn't even need boots now. Wait, whut?

If you guys are going to be on tonight, shoot me an invite. I have a new monitor to setup (excited) but afterwards I'm expecting to do some hardcore marathoning of LoL. It'll prolly be late (like 11pm-12midnight).

I'm using my old 37" 1080p HDTV for a monitor right now. Works great, but it was an early, non-energy star model that literally pours out heat. I've dealt with it for years, but now that I can afford something better I'm swapping it for an LED-LCD with like 1/3-1/4 the power usage. Nothing like a marathon gaming session where my computer room heats up to about 90F... and that's with ceiling fan and central A/C in my house... it's so miserable.

Fail said:

I tried playing Galio, he's kind of unwieldy to play, i've seen my friend Chesty play him really well, but he doesn't really suit my style.

I also got to play with Kabob for the first time in a while today

We totally dominated the only game I was able to play.

Jungle Yi ftw, totally crushed the enemy.

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Sorry for the multiple posts but I'm bored at work today...

Just wanted to comment that Chesty is the best Galio player I've seen.

I keep itching to try Galio while he's free-to-play.

Galio is great, he's just misused and not regarded as a support.

Rofl-Mic-Lofl said:

Galio is great, he's just misused and not regarded as a support.

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He's pretty hard to play, ChestyMcRockhard mains him though, if you see him in the [H]ard channel, ask him to come look at this thread and post about Galio, he uses him pretty well from what I've seen.

I'd be curious to hear what he has to say about Galio's ult, and the many many many many ways it's fucked over.

There's gotta be something I'm missing, because it seems to me that 80% of the characters in the game have a way out of it, while it's supposed to be a taunt

Well thanks guys Since there have been several posts about people wanting to try him I suppose I can put together a bit of a guide as to how I use him. I prefer to play him as an off-tank, but primary tank works, too, since I end up building them essentially the same way. You have to start out a little defensive, but mid to late game just plow ahead; there's no reason to be scurred... aside from the impending wall of text.

Runes: Magic pen marks (+8.5), scaling armor seals (+24 at 18), and scaling magic resist glyphs and quints (+44 at 18). Flat ones probably work, but I prefer the returns on the scaling ones a lot better; I'll trade the lower stats early for the 22 free AP later from the glyphs and quints.

Masteries/Summoner Spells: I'm weird, so I go 10-17-3. I hit archaic knowledge in the offensive tree, and also spec exhaust and ignite. As far as I'm concerned the improved versions of these far outclass any other summoner spells, and they work for an offensive-minded AP tank better than flash and ghost. Both of these spells can be used without breaking the channel on your ult, so use them on the target you want to die the most. In defense hit veteran's scars to compensate for the lack of health quints. I put 3 into perseverance, but those are just extras so you can stick them in ardor if you're feeling saucy. The range of your ult is big enough that anyone saying Galio needs Flash to initiate has never seriously played him. Build GA, then simply walk in to Mordor; if they're all in a lane you should have no problem grabbing 3 or 4.

Skill Order: I always start with Q. Most of the time I'll then go E-Q-W-R. I'll grab the shield earlier if I'm babysitting a carrying against a lot of harass, but normally leveling Q up as fast as possible allows you to counter-harass enough to scare back all but the most suicidal opponents. If your team builds some defense on their own you can neglect W and level Q + E all the way and leave it at level 1, but usually that isn't the case; still, Q as fast as possible, and then let your team dictate the priority on the others. Farm like crazy with Q (making sure you hit wolves, wraiths, and small golems when traversing the jungle), as you'll need the money to finish the build.

Items: I've found that my itemizations really does not vary that much because my "core" build seems sufficient for almost any team I face, though the order can change dramatically. Most games my items will be Merc's treads, Chalice of Harmony, Warmog's, Guardian Angel, Abyssal Scepter, and one variable slot.

I always start with 2 health pots and a meki pendant. Ideally on the first trip back I will already be able to build the pendant into a Chalice of Harmony and buy Merc's treads outright (1700 gold). If I'm short I get Chalice, tier one boots, then a mantle or cloth armor depending on who is in lane. Once the Chalice and boots are done I get ingredients for Warmog's/GA/Abyssal as they fit depending on who is on the other team. Often I'll have something along the lines of Merc's, Chalice, Negatron, Giant's Belt, Chain Vest, Mantle. Generally I aim to finish Warmog's before GA, though if I'm not being harassed rushing Abyssal can end games in a hurry. Most of the time, however, I will finish all 3 by the 35-40 minute mark; most of my games seem to last this long. At this point you'll have around 250 MR, 200ish Armor, and in the neighborhood of 210 AP.

In the final slot I usually end up building an armor item. Frozen Heart works well despite the debuff messing with your ult, though Thornmail is strong against a Xin/Tryn/Yi/GP. Normally I will build one of these two, though if the enemy is lacking AD I prefer Hourglass for the active. A lot of people use Lichbane which makes it easier to push towers, but I prefer Atma's at that point because I'm usually around 3400 hp. If you really want to roflstomp squishies Rabaddon's is a lot of fun.

Notes: As far as the ult is concerned, there is a discussion in this thread about some of that already (pp 43-4), but the biggest concerns are Udyr and Blitzcrank. An Udyr in Bear Stance will stop your ult immediately, I have a hard time spotting Powerfist on Blitz which will also break it. Fortunately neither of these is particularly popular at the moment, so for this week you should be ok. Garen and Xin can also break it if they activate their skills in advance, but their animation is easier to spot. Most of the time I actually don't have as many problems with it as you would expect based on all the whining on the forums. Merc's will break the taunt early, but rarely will they be able to escape the damage radius in the time it saves (barring flash). If people are building banshees launch your Q and E ahead of you... space them right and you can cover a ton of area with just those two, and you should have plenty of mana with Chalice to be spamming these on recharge if necessary.

The biggest "problem" I have with the ult is the long cooldown, but even then I don't see it as anything more than a slight annoyance (as you'll notice, the on CD I have outside of masteries comes from the occasional Frozen Heart). When built like this you are fully capable of two-shotting squishy carries like Ashe and MF, and the AoE has the added bonus of letting you seriously damage several at once. Additionally the slow from Q and the buffs from W (more mr than FoN, almost as much armor as Thornmail/FH when maxed) greatly protect your own squishies. Essentially building like this forces the other team to focus you even without the taunt; if they do not focus you in a team fight toss a W on your carry, throw exhaust on their carry while your team focuses them, and obliterate their support with ignite/Q/W. If they do focus you first you have the survivability to eat a ton of damage while maintaining the ability to dish enough damage to take a couple down with you. I think the mistake most people make when playing/analyzing Galio is that they place too much emphasis on his R. Sure, it is his ultimate after all, but I'd say it's at best the 3rd most important skill in his kit.

Hmm, warmogs on Galio, not sure I see the point in that one (with his passive and tank role).

Would think a banshee's would be better then Warmogs for some hp gain + shield (which is one of the main things you need on galio or such, so you wont' get insta-cc'd out of your ult). So you get HP, you get MR (which is more important for tanks then HP) which also stacks into your passive, and the shield which blocks a spell every 30 seconds and lets you initate/ult without getting insta'broken from any team with a few cc's.

It gives HP regen, but in a tank role the MR (or an armor item) is far far more important).

Also as far as flash goes, yes your ult has a longer range, but Flash is one of the main staples I use with Galio (and vlad) for one reason, surprise. When you can hid over a wall, let the team bait them to attacking then flash into all of it and ult, it work skwonders.

On top of thise it's good for escapes, those times when you might get ganked or caught, with Galio you have your speed boost, but with a cc that isn't always gonna work.

chockomonkey said:

I'd be curious to hear what he has to say about Galio's ult, and the many many many many ways it's fucked over.

There's gotta be something I'm missing, because it seems to me that 80% of the characters in the game have a way out of it, while it's supposed to be a taunt

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This is why I always get a banshee's, because as soon as you ult, if you don't get all 5 people there can be just that one guy out with some cc (stun, knockup, or silence) that can take you right out of your ult. Then on top of this, if someone has a banshee's and you ult while it's up, they can get out. I've seen so many Galio players not get a banshee's then whine during game when they ult and almost in a split second it's cancelled because of some small cc.

It's one of the reasons if I EVER see a galio on the enemy team, I roll Garen. Because as soon as you see them make a dash for your team, or flash in, I just have to quickly hit q, then when I'm taunted nto his ult with my team, it's broken in .2 seconds.

Stiler said:

Hmm, warmogs on Galio, not sure I see the point in that one (with his passive and tank role).

Would think a banshee's would be better then Warmogs for some hp gain + shield (which is one of the main things you need on galio or such, so you wont' get insta-cc'd out of your ult). So you get HP, you get MR (which is more important for tanks then HP) which also stacks into your passive, and the shield which blocks a spell every 30 seconds and lets you initate/ult without getting insta'broken from any team with a few cc's.

It gives HP regen, but in a tank role the MR (or an armor item) is far far more important)..

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Well, I guess our disagreement here on Warmog's is more philosophical. Galio's base HP is lower than other tanks, and really I think that is his only weakness so I address it with authority. With the rest of the build I have enough armor and resist that it often feels like overkill as is, and when comparing the numbers I posted in my item section to what I see on other tanks I more than have those bases covered. The way I see it, the total health gain from Warmog's is far better than the health + resist from Banshees. Sure, there's the spell shield, but that's not what I'm after because:

Stiler said:

Also as far as flash goes, yes your ult has a longer range, but Flash is one of the main staples I use with Galio (and vlad) for one reason, surprise. When you can hid over a wall, let the team bait them to attacking then flash into all of it and ult, it work skwonders.

On top of thise it's good for escapes, those times when you might get ganked or caught, with Galio you have your speed boost, but with a cc that isn't always gonna work.

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Part of this was addressed in the edit to my original post that wasn't done until after yours, but not fully so I'll articulate it better now. To me, using flash to jump in there tells me that the guy playing Galio really wanted to play an assassin but got stuck tanking. Yes, you may manage to taunt the whole team if none of them have banshees up, but it isn't going to end as well as it could. If you're flashing in to initiate, either the rest of your team was pushed up too far before and is likely not at full strength, or you have now overextended and will waste at least half of your taunt duration waiting for them to close the gap. I know you said to have your team bait them, but any team worth a crap isn't going to push forward with an MIA Galio packing Flash. Pubstompnig? By all means do this, but decent competition will make this much less effective. Plus, because you took them by surprise anyone who survives the duration of their ult will now be able to unload their entire stockpile on you and your teammates; since you have most likely overextended your teammates likely have not succeeded in killing more than 1. You may win a battle of attrition that follows, but why leave it up to that chance?

When I'm tanking as Galio I want the other team to know where I am at all times. Warmog's + GA lets me shrug off quite a bit of damage and eat more than my share of cc as is. I don't go for surprise, I get right up in there and say "Come at me bros." From my experience a team will react to a charging Galio by unloading everything they have on him as soon as he gets in to range. Players can't unload stuns when they're taunted, so squishies are going to launch their stuns first and ask questions later. A team only needs to be worried about Galio until he uses his ult, so make sure that period lasts as long as possible. They cannot break your ult if you eat the majority (or all) of their cc before using it; Warmogs lets me do just that, especially with GA. I don't initiate with the ult, I initiate with my presence and finish with my ult. Just run around in their team, drop Q and E, use your W on yourself if you team is unharassed. The longer you go without using your ult, the more nervous they will become, especially if your team is doing damage. If the opposing team reacts and starts going after the rest of your team by all means ult, but (if GA is up) and they're still worried about you let them kill you before using it. Hold R down while invulnerable and then ult on rez (or after taking two steps if they reposition). If someone still has a stun, let them break it if they can; the damage it will still deal will return dividends. If you team has been doing their job this whole time you'll get 4 if not an ace.

You know what Chesty, I never thought of it that way, that's how I should try playing Amumu, not just rush in and ult like a madman, but go in with a bandage toss and do some damage before ulting once my team gets there, sounds like it would work a lot better.

Warmog's is one of the most cost-inefficient items in the game. Atmog's aside, I'd only buy it if I'm doing well in the first place -- there are much better choices for the gold amount.

friend'scatdied said:

Warmog's is one of the most cost-inefficient items in the game. Atmog's aside, I'd only buy it if I'm doing well in the first place -- there are much better choices for the gold amount.

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I buy Atmas Impaler as my main item after Sunfire Cloak on Garen, THEN i get WArmogs, it's over at that point

friend'scatdied said:

Warmog's is one of the most cost-inefficient items in the game. Atmog's aside, I'd only buy it if I'm doing well in the first place -- there are much better choices for the gold amount.

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I won't entirely disagree with this, but like I said his health is the only weakness I feel he has so I have no qualms about dropping that much on it. Galio farms well enough that money is no object at all, and it takes all of like 5 minutes to max out the bonuses on it. No other single item even comes close to this in terms of filling the need I require, and I can have the rest of my bases more than covered with the rest of the build. If there's a better alternative that fits the champ, the role it plays in the build, and suits my playstyle throw it out there. Like the other guys said, I main him and have tried all sorts of builds. There certainly are other viable builds out there, and even though I've tried a lot of I've seen in guides, this one consistently produces my best results.

ChestyMcRockhard said:

I won't entirely disagree with this, but like I said his health is the only weakness I feel he has so I have no qualms about dropping that much on it. Galio farms well enough that money is no object at all, and it takes all of like 5 minutes to max out the bonuses on it. No other single item even comes close to this in terms of filling the need I require, and I can have the rest of my bases more than covered with the rest of the build. If there's a better alternative that fits the champ, the role it plays in the build, and suits my playstyle throw it out there. Like the other guys said, I main him and have tried all sorts of builds. There certainly are other viable builds out there, and even though I've tried a lot of I've seen in guides, this one consistently produces my best results.

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I think Shurelya's Reverie would be a better route.

You're missing 1040 HP from a fully-farmed Warmog's, but you're getting a nice chunk of CDR for all of your skills (Galio suffers from notoriously long cooldowns, especially on his game-changing ultimate). The active on Shurelya's is immensely useful for positioning (especially without Flash), and helps out the entire team, especially when combined with Galio's E.

With 200+ in Armor and MR the 1040HP shouldn't be much of a problem unless the other team is too aggressively farmed/fed for the Warmog's to have made a difference anyway (e.g. your team's DPS is insufficient relative to the other's). With defensive health-bearing items like Randuin's and Banshee's you should already have great survivability, and the added utility of Shurelya's to Galio's already useful arsenal just can't be ignored. If you use a Guardian Angel as a staple item in your build there is no good reason to build Warmog's over Shurelya's IMHO, since the return to GA doesn't scale and the GA provides the huge psychological effect of yelling at any decent enemies to not attack (especially since Galio is a tank). Why would health be a problem and anyone be focusing you (outside of your ultimate) with your GA dissuading them, and your W restoring health, and your crazy tankiness making you a pain to take down?

Additionally Shurelya's recipe makes use of Philosopher's Stone, providing great early lane sustainability (nice HP5 and MP5) and allows you to defer some farm to your carries from the Gold/10 (the Heart of Gold you'll invariably have from the Randuin's recipe makes this choice even stronger). 2-3 Gold/10 items is the name of the game for supports, roamers and tanks.

Of course I mean no offense to your playstyle or item choices, this is just the way I rationalize what I would do. I rarely see Galio (or any tank for that matter) build Warmog's in ranked matches unless their team is quite fed and the game looks sealed.

No offense taken. I have not actually tried Reverie so I'll give that a shot and post my results. Just looking at it right now I'm not sure it'll suit me entirely for a couple of reasons.

First, that 1040 HP drop puts me at ~2300... seems a little low, but with the resists that might still be ok. If my math is right that would put me around 8300 effective health with Reverie, whereas I'm sitting at about 12000 with Warmog's (Leaguecraft builder puts the figures close to this, too). Because I intend to absorb a ton of damage this concerns me a bit.

Second, I think for cooldown Frozen Heart fits the bill better, as it provides more reduction, more armor, and to me it seems the constant AS debuff is slightly better for the team on Galio as his E and Q can be used in a pinch for the same purposes as the Reverie active on shorter cooldown. When my allies are close enough together to get the active boost, chances are the enemies are close enough to hit several with Q. E definitely is harder to use effectively for escaping though. It does shave 23 seconds off the ult which is nice, but considering the return on the other spells is all less than 3 seconds I don't really feel obligated to itemize for it. If you rely heavily on his ult then it makes more sense, but for me the threat of his ult is better than the ult itself. If I ran Raduin's or Banshees then it might work better I guess.

And I know you aren't really pushing the regen aspects of it, but those don't help me much either. I know Stones are a staple tank item, but Galio's farm is so strong the gold per 5 is not needed, Chalice covers the mana just fine and can be sold for AA if things go really long, and health regen is only necessary when taking damage, making W superior anyway.

I'll give it a shot and see what happens

Oops, double post, my bad.

ChestyMcRockhard said:

No offense taken. I have not actually tried Reverie so I'll give that a shot and post my results. Just looking at it right now I'm not sure it'll suit me entirely for a couple of reasons.

First, that 1040 HP drop puts me at ~2300... seems a little low, but with the resists that might still be ok. If my math is right that would put me around 8300 effective health with Reverie, whereas I'm sitting at about 12000 with Warmog's (Leaguecraft builder puts the figures close to this, too). Because I intend to absorb a ton of damage this concerns me a bit.

Second, I think for cooldown Frozen Heart fits the bill better, as it provides more reduction, more armor, and to me it seems the constant AS debuff is slightly better for the team on Galio as his E and Q can be used in a pinch for the same purposes as the Reverie active on shorter cooldown. When my allies are close enough together to get the active boost, chances are the enemies are close enough to hit several with Q. E definitely is harder to use effectively for escaping though. It does shave 23 seconds off the ult which is nice, but considering the return on the other spells is all less than 3 seconds I don't really feel obligated to itemize for it. If you rely heavily on his ult then it makes more sense, but for me the threat of his ult is better than the ult itself. If I ran Raduin's or Banshees then it might work better I guess.

I'll give it a shot and see what happens

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Why not Glacial Shroud + Shurelya's midgame? The AS reduction on Frozen Heart seems counterintuitive to Galio's ult mechanics, and the combined CDR of 30% (more factoring in masteries) should be very noticeable. Once their DPS starts ramping up and you upgrade to the Frozen Heart you should be very near maxed CDR which will noticeably affect all of Galio's abilities.

I think 3 seconds is a very significant amount of time in this game, especially given the long cooldowns on Galio's very basic abilities (only his Q is somewhat reasonable).

Fail said:

Hey Kabob, you see that above screenie I posted? Notice the Garen in it has pretty much the same build I outlined in my post a while back on how I build Garen? He has everything I buy, except the Frozen Mallet.

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Interesting, is that why he lost so badly?

I lost my job the other day (nothing I did, over 25% of our workforce was cut) so until I find something new I'll probably be on more often, we'll see.

Thanks for the Galio post, Chesty. I was really interested in how you built Galio and why... As much as we can all appreciate Stiler's "feedback" on how everyone plays, I know there's different ways to build and play Galio, but I wanted to know how you do it because you play him really well. It reminds me of the people that come into MOBAfire and downvote guides because there's one item in the build missing that they think has to be there, when all they have to do is simply substitute their "essential" item and all would be good.

So, thanks Chesty. I've made notes of your items, runes, and masteries, and appreciate the time it took to write that.

Astral Abyss said:

Thanks for the Galio post, Chesty. I was really interested in how you built Galio and why... As much as we can all appreciate Stiler's "feedback" on how everyone plays, I know there's different ways to build and play Galio, but I wanted to know how you do it because you play him really well. It reminds me of the people that come into MOBAfire and downvote guides because there's one item in the build missing that they think has to be there, when all they have to do is simply substitute their "essential" item and all would be good.

So, thanks Chesty. I've made notes of your items, runes, and masteries, and appreciate the time it took to write that.

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I wasn't saying Chesty is bad at Galio at all, I'm well aware there are valid builds, and if that build works good for Chesty more power to him.

I play Vlad with builds that aren't the norm cause how I p;lay him it works better for me, if that works for him that great.

I wasn't ragging on him personally or his build, just stating my opinion on why I'd go Banshee's over Warmogs for Galio.

It's fine, I know there are several guys here with more experience than I have so I know it is entirely possible that I'm missing things here and there. I've always like the theorycrafting elements of stuff like this, so the more feedback the better.

As far as Reverie goes, I've been toying with it on my other account today. The feeling I'm getting is that it's more suited to an AP carry playstyle than tank/off-tank. Building that much cooldown to me makes damage output his primary focus because of the sacrificed survivability... this makes me feel like you would require another full-dedicated tank plus Banshees now becomes a necessity. To fit that I would have to drop either GA or Chalice (dropping Abyssal in a damage-focused build would make no sense at all). Ulting without the resists from GA becomes risky with the lower health pool; still doable, but requires more competent teammates. Reverie alone cannot provide the mana regen necessary to fully exploit the CD reduction (maybe could with regen runes, but then you're giving up more survivability), so dropping Chalice means I'd want another regen item anyway. At that point I think I'd be better off building DFG or Evil Tome instead of Frozen Heart... so I end up with something like Merc's, Abyssal, DFG/Tome, Banshee's, Reverie, GA. It's a more offensive-minded build I guess, but each step makes synergy make progressively less sense to me. Furthermore, my AP hasn't actually gone up all that much, as with this it is sitting around 275 (as opposed to the 215 the original build has). The nuke from DFG helps compensate some I guess, but I think if you want to build him as a nuker you'd be better off dropping GA in favor of Deathcap and hope to blow up their AD carry before he autoattacks you to death.

If you're looking to build him tanky but don't want Warmog's I'd say go Omen instead, and team it with Frozen Heart in the flexible slot. The CD reduction is less, but the active is more or less the same plus it has the passive debuff chance. Furthermore, getting Reverie early requires a Stone, which as I said before doesn't provide any vital stats to Galio and would eat up a slot better used for a defensive ingredient or wards. HoG would provide some actually useful health, at least, and the GP/10 so while not ideal at least I can justify it.

Had a pretty great weekend playing this game, kind of cut my time short Sunday so I could watch a few episodes of a TV show I've been meaning to watch.

I gotta say that there's probably no ultimate I find more satisfying than using Garen's. It's probably the neatest one to use, even if it's kind of simplistic in nature, there's just something inherently satisifying about a move you use to execute someone.