Why NO ONE Plays: Olaf | League of Legends

Olaf has had a very rocky history throughout League, occasionally being very popular but most of the time rendered a niche pick enjoyed by few players, which is strange if you think about it, considering his universally applicable ultimate. So for today's episode of Why NO ONE Plays, we'll be discussing Olaf: The Berserker, and find out why that's the case.

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#Olaf #LoL #leagueoflegends

[ideiasmarginais]

Why would i play a champion that can't jump through walls in 2024?

[lillyie]

i find it funny that the fandom wiki lists olaf as a diver despite having zero engage tools apart from that minor speed boost for 1 second after pressing ult

[Insanityltself]

Olaf is one of the few ''statcheck'' champions that actually falls off really hard and is very unforgiving to play. Plus if you can't space your Q's correctly in a fight you'll lose out on so much damage. He's actually deceptively hard to play sometimes.

[tbone]

I kind of feel like Vars starts stretching the definition of "no-one plays".

[Nartanek]

One of my favorite memory of playing with an olaf. He was fighting the entire enemy team mid and was super low on hp, i was kayle and arrived just in time to ult him, since he get stronger at low health he proceeded to decimate the crap out of them.

I mean it's similar to trynd but also so much worse... i didn't envy those guys.

[Pyrrha_Nikos]

A thing that also screws Olaf a lot is that Riot and the player base can't decide if he should be a top laner or a jungler. As a top laner, he's an insane lane bully that can 0 counterplay chase you all lane if he hits 1 q and can almost never be ganked due to how easy it is for him to 1v2. As a jungler, he's a powerfarming machine that can full clear at Karthus speed and invade you to murder you on your camps. But he's been swapping between both roles since forever, and never had a clear "this is my role" like other champs that dipped into different roles

[CarloCarlitobanitoUguccioni]

"A second rate juggernog forced to play like a diver."
You summed up him perfectly at the end.
One of your best champion review.

[danilakalinin]

Good video, but as many ppl stated you should calm down on clickbait titles. Game has like 150 champs, less than 3% pickrate is not really dead character anymore.

[grimmreaper]

i actually think the "try and run through everything at your target" style would have fit him better as a character

[TherealNiqqa]

Olaf is more like a counter pick right now, people use him to punish scalling/heavy cc/low mobility/non burst team comp, not really a good champ to main

[MadIIMike]

I don't think Olaf is good or bad, he just doesn't fit the mindset of the people you will play with in soloQ.

A lot of games, you will see the toplaner being mostly independant from the team as far as most bruiser/melee toplaners go or use their mobility to take advantage of whatever the team is up to.

Olaf however, works best when he can use allies as a force multiplicator. His ultimate negates the enemies ability to cc him, but that's just half of what you need as a melee champ. If a Team plays around Olaf (and he doesnt run it down), he can delete their squishies quite easily.

The issue is, that Olaf is somewhat vulnerable in lane, especially against agressive ganks (he used to be primarily a Jungler iirc, but got pushed out for lacking CC/Gapcloser) and soloQ teams won't play around a 1-4 toplaner.

Also.... a lot of newer champs are just not fun to play against with a "fair" champion. Prime example being things like Yone.

[AYSplayer]

If frozen mallet comes back into the game, he'll be more playable.

[sephirothslayer]

I love champs like Olaf. Drain tanks are so fun for the adrenaline. I’m also a fan of mass summoners but that’s got no bearing here

[alekanzus]

I don't play him because i feel like his kit is lame and unfair in a boring way. I don't even care if he's meta or not

[thorveim]

Olaf is basically a statcheck if he gets to and stays in melee, which he has very few tools to achieve.

A fed olaf will devour an entire team while laughing at attempts to CC him to death that would doom any other champ, but he's also VERY easy to just poke to death

[StrangeTheEditor]

I think that the only way we could really define Olaf is as an Anti-Anti-Carry. His best matchups as far as I've seen are vs champs like Vi, Poppy, Shaco, Malzahar, Teemo and Fiddlesticks.
These are champions who want to use CC to outplay the enemy and then escape, but take away their CC and Olaf can stat check them easily. Still, he's super unreliable as he's basically great a counter-pick for counter-picks.

[biggdogg]

Why Olaf is bad in low elo is 2 reason.
1 - low elo is dominate by super ultimate. Amumu for example.
2 - attack moving is not used in low elo.

[borrit]

Last season i reached D3 playing olaf jungle only. Now i can't win a game in emerald.

Olaf's core items were nerfed hard:

- Steraks gives tenacity now which is a useless stat.

- Shojin no longer gives movespeed based on missing health

Stridebreaker no longer gives ability haste, and the active no longer damages or has its cd reduced by haste.

Ever since his ult got reworked, any mage and kaisa can just press zhonyas and wait out the 2.5 seconds where i cant reset the durstion.

His clear speed is garbage compared to what it used to be, especially with the moster health update and not having any %health damage.

I love the champion so much, reached over 1m mastery across accounts, but i am really struggling to have fun.
I hope riot will do something about him, such as make his R 3 seconds or allow him to walk through player-made walls (yes I'm talking to you j4 players)

[Delimon]

Because he's bad. He's a melee champion that has to run at your face which has been bad since "League of mobility" started over a decade ago. Damn I'm old.

[Armorion]

Never thought I'd see olaf in a "Why no one plays" because I still see him and play him myself fairly often