I've been looking at this champ for a while now considering the purchase. Normally in Dominion I prefer to play champs that can hold down a point solo 1v2 for a bit while my team goes to town elsewhere or comes to back me up, while at the same time providing utility in that initial rush to top.

Galio seems to fit the bill for this type of play, Resolute Smite has a good range on it with AoE damage, Bulwark provides a shield and a little bit of sustain for me, Righteous Gust appears on paper to be awesome for Dominion as a gap closer/escape tool with a nice 1000 range that also benefits my allies movement speed and finally Idol of Durand just looks like it would be fun as heck to use in conjunction with Garrison.

Anyway, I just wanted to get some community opinions on him from people that have played with/against him in Dominion and possibly some item suggestions, thanks in advance.

He is pretty good at bot, but insanely easy to counter so he'll end up switching and going top where he is still good, but not bot good.

he's terrible against any team with cc. so basically, he's terrible.

He could certainly clear minions well enough after a bit of AP, and get some moderate health sustain from his shield (though I'm not sure how much you could call it sustain considering you have to take some damage in order to get the heal), but I'm not sure what his mana situation is like.

Personally I would think he's a little better in a team setting, given he can cast that shield on anyone, his abilities are AoE. The only couple times I've really seen him he was always roaming with the team and only came bot once to push me back to my turret 5v1. :P

Well I've seen plenty of other champs that struggle with CC effects preform decent in Dominion.

It seems to be in my experience that a large part of the match comes down not to killing the opponents when defending, but holding out an extra 5-15secs and chipping away at their health while waiting for an assassin to come in and mop up.

I don't really see Galio being played to go toe-toe with people on a point, but using his range and some CDR to keep them from taking it as long as possible.

I've played three Galio Dom games on his last free week, took him bot every time, and won all three. So I'm basically saving up to buy him myself. His strengths are that he's a strong lane pusher, he naturally tends to counter common AP bots, he's hard to gank (AoE slow, move speed boost), and if things go to pot he can take a decent amount of punishment because he only ever needs to buy tank items. CC can be a problem but he does get extra benefit from Quicksilver Sash, and I usually take Cleanse besides.

Galio was my tank of choice in SR, but I haven't used him in Dom yet. I'll try him later on and come back with my impression.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

So an item build would start out:

Mercury's Treads
Spirit Visage

.. then go for more tank or AP depending on what you face? There are several items that look solid but not knowing first hand what he struggles with level 3-8 it's tricky to decide what direction to go in with those critical 3rd and 4th items.

I'm a HUGE Galio user in Dominion and basically, I build him pure tank with Merc treads, FoN, Ramudans Omen (or w/e), Spirit Visage, Chalice of Harmony, and my last slot is situational.

With these items, I held windmill solo against 3 people and won. My core items that I always have are treads, FoN and the Omen. I find with Chalice combined with Dominion's free chalice, you'll always have mana to help your teammates and yourself! For runes, I got Magic pen marks, flat armor seals, MR per level and flat MR Quins. Good for giving you early game MR to boost your AP and the magic pen marks to make your Q hurt quite a bit at the higher levels

I just put a few games of Galio in, and my impression is that he is not a Tier 1 pick. I will say, though, that he's a potent node defender. In a 25 minute game, a Singed could not push me off of my node at any point of the match. Following that, I faced a Heimer on bot who likewise could not unglue me...couldn't even neutralize the node. On the flipside of that, no matter how much pushing power I developed, I did not have champ killing power to go with it. As a result, bot was deadlocked, period. That's a victory I suppose...but there are other champs who can kill an enemy and take their bot node.

Going bot, I would start with Catalyst, then rush Mercs and Chalice asap. Following that, I would grab a Glacial Shroud, finish Odin's Veil, then do Rabadon's. If the enemy has a lot of AD, I would finish Frozen Heart. For the last slot I'd go with Abyssal Scepter, as it is one of the single biggest boosts of Galio's damage(AP + MRes). Spirit Visage should also be looked at, but I wouldn't build it due to time constraints.

TL;DR - Galio is uber good vs AP and can defend the poop out of bot node, but he can't kill the enemy bot so it'll just be a stalemate all game.