I titled this mid-week Olaf feature “Ragnarok” because it’s the skill that received his most significant buff in the last patch, but also because the change really didn’t do a whole lot for Olaf. I won’t lie, the Ragnarok change is nice, but realistically speaking, most Olaf players know when to ult and when to hold on to the skill. Now it basically serves as a way to soak a CC skill for teamfights or escapes.

Other than that, I really started to enjoy Olaf once I got out of the jungle. Olaf is a solid solo lane champion. He’s fairly durable, mostly because any respectable build involves some amount of health, he deals excellent damage with Reckless Swing, and 1v1 he is a pure terror, even for some ranged champions.

I will say this – Olaf does not get an exciting build. When I’ve taken him solo top this week, I’ve purchased two, sometimes three gold-per-5 items (Philo, HoG, Avarice). Those don’t make for massive damage increases, but they do allow for a huge late-game farm. During the early game I pretty much rely on Reckless Swing to carry me through.

I do wish Reckless Swing scaled into late game in some way. The true damage is amazing early on, but when I’m staring down a 3500 HP Jarvan, my 340 true damage looks pretty weak.

I’m an Olaf believer, provided he can get a solo lane. I’ve had a couple problematic matchups, but hopefully I can talk a little more about that in my final video. Check back this weekend for the wrapup!

I usually try to avoid champions that are overdue for remakes and tweaks, but Olaf just got a small buff so I thought it might be a good week for him. For the return of the Champ of the Week series I’ll be playing Olaf.

A long time ago I mused that Olaf might be an underwhelming version of Mundo. I don’t think that’s completely true, but I can still see the similarities and, consequently, Olaf’s shortcomings. Olaf is a champion I’ve never spent much time with, mostly because it takes so much farm for him to be enjoyable. Olaf’s basic kit is designed around having enough health to be missing 30-40% and still stay with a fight. That’s a lot of health, and it takes time to amass that kind of resilience, which is why I’m willing to state the following: Olaf shouldn’t jungle.

I know he can jungle. I know he’s an incredibly fast jungle. But he doesn’t make the kind of cash necessary to reach his potential if he jungles. His ganks aren’t strong enough to guarantee kill/assist gold, he doesn’t have the mobility, crowd control, or killing power to counter jungle effectively, and he requires too much farm to drop a lot of money on wards.

This isn’t just theorycraft, either. I played a couple games with Olaf today and, despite one successful match, I spent the rest of my game time wondering when I’d finally be farmed enough to keep up with my opponents. Answer: never. Without significant farm, Olaf doesn’t bring anything the table that another champion with similar qualities couldn’t do better.

I’ll be focusing on moving Olaf out of the jungle this week as much as possible. Where it seems to make sense I’ll also jungle with him to see if there’s anything worth saving, but for the most part I think my instincts are right on this one.

If you have suggestions drop them in the comments. Don’t forget to check back throughout the week for more Olaf impressions.

What do you know – the day I write a post about the general lack of LoL-related news we get a patch announcement and a preview Champion Spotlight. There is much to cover so I’ll be making several posts to try to wrap everything up.

Let’s start with the obvious: Olaf. The viking champion will be making his live debut some time tomorrow afternoon (for those of you on EST like me). He’s a tanky melee DPS champion, not entirely unlike…well, okay, he’s unlike most melee champions in the way his damage scales up with his health and the fact that his attack speed goes up as his health goes down. Overall, I think he will be a dangerous character to tangle with anywhere past level eight or so. For more on Olaf’s abilities check out my earlier post.

Aside from the new champion, the most notable change is a big fat nerf to support healing toons. Nidalee finally caught a heal nerf that should significantly reduce her ability to play like a crazy fool in the early game and heal through it all. Her heal is down nearly 30 percent at all ranks, though it did get an ability power bump from .8 to 1.25. That sounds big, but it will mean a weaker early game and about the same mid to late for her, which is just what she needed.

Ezreal caught a similar (and long overdue) nerf. The heal from his Essence Flux is now down to 50 percent of the damage dealt and has had the attack speed debuff reduced as well. Trueshot Barrage had its AP ratio down from 1.0 to 0.7, which should keep him more in line with other highly escapable champions.

The rest of the champion changes are fairly minor barring the Kayle remake, which I’ll cover in another post. TF caught a bit of a nerf and Shen’s shield was indeed reverted to work like a regular shield, which is sure to bring a lot of tears from Shen players (honestly, those guys are starting to sound like Jax players to me).

As for the rest of the game, there’s a new, ability power equivalent to the BF Sword called the Needlessly Large Rod. For 1600g you can get 80 AP. It’s a nice boost for those AP Kat players and frankly, it’s been a long time coming. Twisted Treeline got a few gold generation changes and some rework on the Lizard, but none of that stuff is really going to change the game too much.

I’ll be covering the rest of the patch throughout the next couple days. Keep an eye out for the new skins. They are oh-so-sweet.