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.

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.