Want to begin by stating that no build will work in every given situation. This build here is a great place to reference from, but don't follow it blindly. If there is a situation you are in that demands a particular item(s), buy them and remove the item(s) in this build you need the least.

Pros Great at countering ap mids. Runic Skin allows him to build magic resist while getting ap at the same time. Damage over time is free healing when Bulwark is active. High level of base health gives him some natural tankiness. Strong in 1v1 fights, skirmishes, and teamfights. Good mid range poke, wave clear, and siege potential. High base damages give him early game power and his teamfight utility and aoe damage make him a threat throughout the entire length of the game.

Cons Ad mid laners prevent him from stacking magic resist early and taking advantage of Runic Skin. They also make building magic resist early on, a key part of Galio's build for several reasons, sub-optimal. Incredibly mana hungry. Relies on blue buff throughout the game to sustain his mana. Very reliant on teamwork and coordination. He burns a lot to place a good teamfight ult and can easily be deleted if his team does not follow him up.

The rune setup is pretty well covered in the notes under the rune section, but for some reason the tab doesn't always show when I look at the guide. I'll post the information here as well to make sure it is available.

The runes listed here a pretty standard set for an ap mid, but there are other options you can consider using. You can get Greater Quintessence of Magic Resist for magic resist that gives both the extra tankiness and damage thanks to Runic Skin. This also applies to letting you pick Greater Glyph of Magic Resist. Another option is Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration to help with how incredibly mana hungry Galio is.

These are all viable options that you can pick from, so find the set of runes that you personally prefer.

The mastery set up for Galio can have a lot of variation. The set up I have here is the closest to what you would expect for an AP mage. I feel like I should note that while Thunderlord's Decree is currently the go to in the meta atm, Galio only has 2 damaging abilities outside of his ultimate and melee autos, making it hard to proc. Here are a few other masteries that are good very good on Galio, just bear in mind that you have to take points out of other masteries to get them.

• Wanderer - Increased movement speed helps position for Idol of Durand in teamfights. However, it only gives the increased movement speed out of combat, otherwise it would be a must have. Even so it is highly valuable, grab it over Savagery if you are confident in your ability to cs and last hit.
• Bounty Hunter - This gives you more damage later in the game, assuming you can get a kill on all every enemy champion, but Double Edged Sword gives you better trading power in lane and early game.
• Windspeaker's Blessing - The increased healing makes you Bulwark even stronger of an ability. The problem is that it only gives the bonus armor and magic resist to allies other than yourself that receive a heal or shield from you. Since Bulwark doesn't give an actual shield (it only increases resistances) and it only heals Galio and not allies, the increase to resistances is never used. If the bonus to MR and armor from this mastery did work on yourself, it would be an absolute must have.
• Unyielding - Taking this more obviously further increases the resistances gained and let you combo with Runic Skin for more ap.

There are a few other masteries further down the Resolve tree that can obviously work well on Galio, but ultimately those would take away too much from either damage oriented masteries, or masteries to help with your mana issues. You can grab them if going for a more tank oriented Galio build.

The order that I have given here is the order that I generally use and is the best in most situations. It gives you the most damage first and is generally the best way to go. The order in which you max the skills can vary based on the game flow. The next best way to go for the skill sequence would be to max Resolute Smite firstand Bulwark second. Go that way if you are taking a lot of damage and want to gain extra tankiness from your Bulwark.

General Info Now Galio's biggest weakness is that he is one of the most mana hungry champions in the game, if not the most mana hungry champ. He has a low mana pool and and is completely dependent on his abilities to trade well in lane and have an impact in a teamfight. This is why although you can grab a Null-Magic Mantle as your first item to combo off of his Runic Skin, it is not generally the best way to start. I generally take the Corrupting Potion start. Rushing your Catalyst of Aeons and then rush it into Rod of Ages is very important to be able to stay in lane, or any teamfights, for an extended period of time. It gives you some much needed mana, and a lot of sustain (especially when comboed with Bulwark) to let you stay in lane for a long time without having to fear dying. Additionally makes you even tankier by giving health to follow up all that magic resist. It is also a good idea to tell you jungle in advance that you will need all the blues after they take the first one, as he needs both blue buff and Rod of Ages to keep his mana up. Yes, he is that mana hungry. And this lastly means that you will need to have very good mana management in order to be able to stay inside your lane and farm up. Once again, for added emphasis, you will need good mana management to effectively play Galio. Mana Management Tips Mana Management is essentially knowing when to use your abilities, thereby spending mana, and when to not use them, thereby saving mana, based on your current mana needs. Now with Galio, you always need to have a small amount of mana available, otherwise your lane opponent can harass you while you have little to no way to respond to their damage. You should always make sure that you have enough mana on you to activate your Bulwark, to allow you to reduce the amount damage the enemy mid laner can try to put onto you. Any time you find yourself without enough mana to activate Bulwark, you should play very cautiously and try to avoid fighting with your lane opponent. Also, you want to limit the use of your other abilities; don't use your Resolute Smite or Righteous Gust unless you are absolutely certain they will hit, you cannot afford to waste your mana on missed skill shots. Laning While laning with Galio, you don't have much kill potential until you hit level six and get your Idol of Durand, as he has limited gap closing ability and most people will just run back to tower after you can harass them down. What you want to do is focus on winning in cs over the enemy mid lane. Galio has a pretty decent amount of damage on his aa early on and so last hitting isn't too much of a problem, unless he is being harassed while doing so as he is a melee champion. Focus on making sure you get as much farm as possible and try to limit the amount of cs your lane opponent can get (the easiest way to do this is to harass them as hey try to farm). This is the most efficient way to gain a lead on the enemy team during your laning phase. Trading A good way to counter enemy harass is activating Bulwark, by placing it on himself Galio gains increased armor and magic resist and he heals whenever he takes damage. This ability has a lot of uses that can each be huge. First, like I said, it can allow you to mitigate damage from enemies by placing it onto yourself. You can also place it on a teammate, giving them increased tankiness for fights and you will heal whenever they take damage. Also, since it gives magic resist, placing it on yourself will give you more ap through Galio's Runic Skin, this means whenever you have Bulwark on yourself you will be both tankier and deal more damage. Bulwark can also be placed on yourself and then you go tank a minion wave, this will heal you quite a bit as the minions have low damage attacks and hit you many times. The best way to harass your lane opponent, and deny them farm, is to use your Resolute Smite on them while they are moving in to last hit. Try to aim slightly behind them as their first instinct for dodging your skill shots will be to run backwards away from them. Most players will catch onto this trick however and begin to move in different directions other than back to dodge the skill shots. This means that after a while you should notice that they are no longer running backwards when you try to hit them with your Resolute Smite and you will have to adapt to continue to hit them. If you do manage to hit your opponent with Resolute Smite, the slow it puts onto the enemy champ will set you up for an easy combo to hit your Righteous Gust, this may not however be the best choice. Galio's Resolute Smite does a lot more damage than his Righteous Gust and you may want to simply save your mana instead of using your Righteous Gust as a follow up.

Using your Ultimate

Once Galio hits level six and gains his Idol of Durand, he gains a lot of kill potential and teamfight power. This ability is a massive aoe taunt that also bursts out a massive amount of aoe damage after the taunt ends. The ability can channel for a max of 2 seconds, but can be cut short by ordering Galio to move, attack, or cast an ability. Normally, the ideal channel time would be to let the whole 2 seconds go by, as the damage of Idol of Durand increases by the number of times Galio is attacked while channeling, but it can sometimes be beneficial to end it early for various reasons.

It is important to note that the damage from this ability is seperate from the taunt of the ability, even though they are both aoe and have the same range. For example, someone can walk into range the Idol of Durand after the taunt has already gone off, they will be taunted, and then take full damage from the ability after the channeling ends. This also means that someone with a Quicksilver Sash can get out of the taunt early and then Flash out of the range of the damage.

Idol of Durand also combos very well with Bulwark. By casting Bulwark on yourself just before you activate Idol of Durand or while it is channeling ( Bulwark can be cast without interrupting Idol of Durand's channeling), you will get a lot of healing through the aa the enemy will be forced to use on you through the taunt, assuming you hit the enemy team with the ult, and the Bulwark will increase the damage of the Idol of Durand because it will increase your ap through your Runic Skin.

Positioning for you Idol of Durand is absolutely essential. Just think "location, location, location." Good positioning can mean the difference from locking up the entire enemy team, and missing everyone completely. Seeing as his gap closing abilities are limited, most of the time flashing into a good position to activate Idol of Durand will be needed. Remember that a well placed Idol of Durand can instantly win your team a teamfight, as it can lock the entire enemy team up for 2 seconds while your team can focus down the enemy carries and then deal a massive amount of damage to the whole enemy team.

Build At this point, you should have built at least your Rod of Ages and your basic Mercury's Treads. From there you absolutely want to get an Abyssal Mask. This give you the magic penetration you missed by not buying the Sorcerer's Shoes and give you ap from both the ap on the item and the magic resist on it through your Runic Skin. After that there are certain items you want to get, but the order in which you buy them will vary based on how the game is going. Generally the next item you will want to get will be your Zhonya's Hourglass. This is mainly done to give your the armor you will need to help last in teamfights (not everyone is ap unfortunately). This item can however be delayed if the enemy team's ad is limited and not impacting you that much.

Wave Clear

While at this point in the game, Galio's Resolute Smite should be enough to one hit a wave of caster minions. A combo of his Resolute Smite and Righteous Gust should also be enough to kill a wave of melee minions. This means the will have great wave clear and can instantly kill large waves of enemy minions that are grouped up (this can be great when trying to siege enemy towers). Use this to quickly farm up and soak up gold and exp.

This damage and combo of abilities can also be used as a form of mid ranged poke onto the enemy teams. Successfully landing the combo onto an enemy carry can put them very low and give your team and advantage for going in to start a fight. This being said, continuously doing this will drain your mana, and without mana Galio becomes almost useless. If you want to consistently use this wave clear/poke, you will want to have blue buff.

Late game will simply come down to how well you can position for team fights, shove lanes, and poke enemy champs down before fights start. He doesn't have the poke power of Nidalee or Jayce or other such champions designed around long range poke, but his poke can still make a big impact when leading up to teamfights. Ultimately though, as Galio your main priority will be to land well placed Idol of Durands in teamfights that will lock up the enemy carries and as many other members of their team as possible.

You will notice that I gave four items in this build for choices of your last item. The Banshee's Veil is a good choice for if you are worried about the enemy team having a pull or cc that could prevent you from using your Idol of Durand in a good position or pick you off before the fight starts. The Spirit Visage can be used to greatly increase your overall tankiness. Its magic resist makes you tankier and gives more damage through Runic Skin. It also makes you tankier by increasing the heal on your Bulwark. Lastly, Liandry's Torment and Void Staff are good choices if you are just looking for more damage in general. Liandry's Torment has the advantage where its %damage burn is doubled from the slow on Resolute Smite, where as Void Staff gives you greater magic penetration.

Don't expect to start performing really well on Galio within a few games on him. I had to play nearly 20 straight games of pure hell and terrible playing on my part to really start to understand how to play him properly. Be ready to go through a lot of practice games to get the hang of playing Galio.

Hopefully my guide here will help out with that and you won't take the 20 games that I did to really figure it out. I hope it helps and wish you all luck in your future games with Galio.