I opened my Olaf Impressions post by stating that Olaf is strong, and potentially too strong and I think I’m willing to stand by that statement on one condition. When ghost is up, Olaf is strong. When ghost is down, he becomes a wet bag of meat for the other team to ingest.

When I first saw Olaf I thought he was kinda cool, sort of unique. I know it doesn’t take a genius to see the similarities between the viking and Mundo, but for whatever reason I overlooked their similar design (I think it was those pretty axes distracting me). Both toons have a skillshot slow. Both toons deal more damage as they lose health. Both toons have CC reduction (in Olaf’s case, immunity). The problem is, Olaf is only better than Mundo in one of those categories – the CC reduction – and it’s an ult versus a rank 1 regular skill. Mundo also has one thing that Olaf desperately needs – an active speed boost.

Olaf starts the game feeling extremely slow, and even by the time you get boots you probably aren’t going to catch anyone. His Undertow has a slow projectile speed and doesn’t slow nearly as much as Mundo’s cleaver. It also has a smaller hitbox. And while Olaf’s passive is admittedly awesome, it’s only awesome if someone is standing toe-to-toe with you, and generally the only people that will do that are the DPS that will rock you, regardless of your passive.

I realize this is why people recommend Frozen Mallet on Olaf – to force people to stay near you – but the prevalence of escape skills between just regular champion spells and summoner spells virtually guarantees that anyone who wants to get away from you will be able to do so.

Olaf’s ult can be nice, but without a means to close the gap, it’s still pretty worthless. I’ve had several games with him in which I would be running down an Ashe, my ghost would wear off and though I could ult, she was still ripping me apart until I got to her. By then you’re going to have some trouble against any truly farmed toon, even if you start at full HP. Mundo’s ult, on the other hand, gives you the speed and regen necessary to both close the gap and stay alive until you get there to pound some face.

Without a speed boost of some kind, Olaf feels horribly underpowered. If you see one at the loading screen without Ghost, get ready for an easy game.