GP needs to stop being a lane bully

Gangplank right now is winning too many matchups he should be losing. Matchups like Riven, Pantheon, Renekton, etc who would normally shit on him could probably be in GP's favor thanks to the new rune changes. However, Kleptomancy is not the only problem here.

#Some of GP's problems

• Resolve + Inspiration make GP too tanky. The extra 100 hp that this combination gives combined with runes like iron skin and second wind actually make GP really tanky and hard to punish. Combine that tankiness with the amount of safety he gets in his kit and his constant poke, and he becomes an annoying lane bully
• He has too much free sustain. While a lot of people think of Kleptomancy as a scaling rune, the rune is actually extremely good in lane, especially for GP who can proc it super easily. It gives you so many potions including mana pots to help you spam Qs for more klepto procs or oranges to give you a really big heal in lane. If he decides not to take klepto, he can take grasp to sustain in lane, or aery to just abuse his laner
• Bruisers just can't punish him. GP has been historically a champion that is very strong into tanks who can't touch him but weak against bruisers and lane bullies which are supposed to dive him in lane and completely fuck him over. In the past, if I was vs a champion like Riven, Renekton, Pantheon, or Jayce, I would fear for my life because if I got too cocky and let them get close to me, I would lose a massive chunk of my health and give up all my lane control. Now, even Jayce, GP's biggest counter, feels like it could be a skill matchup.
• GP can poke too hard. With all this extra safety, GP not only gets the opportunity to be completely safe in lane. He can actually abuse his opponent. First of all, there's the obvious kleptomancy which gives GP endless lane sustain to allow him to spam more Qs on his opponent as well as damage buffs to increase his poke and all in damage. But if klepto get's nerfed, GP will just switch to Aery and Grasp and his unhealthy lane-bully playstyle will only be emphasized because this runes rely on winning lane, whereas even if you go even or lose lane on klepto the extra gold it gives acts as a safety net and allows GP to get his items faster.
• GP get's too much gold fast. Part of this is klepto but GP's gold looting was buffed during preseason in order to make up for the loss of bandit (which ended up not mattering anyways).

Note that this list isn't all-encompassing. I haven't even mentioned perfect timing and the amount of safety and gold efficiency that this rune gives you.

#Fixing GP First of all, revert the buffs to his Parrley giving him extra gold. They just aren't needed thanks to klepto and other income items like stopwatch.

Second of all, GP needs to be punished for using his Q to constantly harass his opponent in lane, and in turn rewarded when using his Q to farm minions. One suggestion I've seen is to semi-revert his Q, increasing the mana cost to say 55, and refunding some of his mana when he uses it to kill a minion (I think that this should apply to barrels as well, even if he uses them to poke in lane they naturally push the wave, have a high cd, are his main safety net against all ins and ganks are they are his only cc, and have more counterplay than point and click Q spam.). Personally, I would be a bit reluctant to implement these changes as I feel like this is pushing him towards the old shitty GP which wasn't healthy but it may be necessary in order to keep him balanced and fair. If more nerfs are needed (I don't think they would be), thinking about nerfing his base HP could be required, but I would be extremely reluctant to implement these changes as they may force GP into taking resolve in order to keep his base health up to par with the rest of toplane.

Now let's talk about that reward. Although GP's kit is a bit strong right now, almost all GP players will tell you that his ult feels weak. It was nerfed justifiably because of its strong synergy with TLD. Now that the synergy was removed, GP ultimate feels like complete dogshit. How dogshit? Well it takes 3 waves of his ultimate to do the same damage as one auto-attack. Now, I feel as though there is a better way to buff the ultimate other than just giving it back damage. That's where the Q comes in. Right now, Silver Serpents feel almost useless. You'd rather use your Q to poke the enemy because you aren't losing much gold and the ultimate upgrades are underwhelming. 2 of the 3 upgrades do primarily damage, and even then they feel very underwhelming compared to what they used to be. The last one is just generally bad regardless of GP's state. IMO this would be a perfect time to revitalize this mechanic by putting back more power into his ultimate upgrades to making GP feel better about having to use his Q to poke opponents as opposed to farm minions. My suggested changes are:

General: GP ult prices overall now scale differently. The first upgrade will cost 300 silver serpents, the second will cost 400 silver serpents, and the last will cost 500. You can no longer level GP's ultimate when hitting 6 and instead gain and upgrade the ultimate by buying the silver serpents upgrades. The base damage on his ult will be buffed as a result. (this part might be a bit much, can choose to revert.)

: Same (This is the best choice for single target burst and sniping people, and it does the job well) : The damage bonus that this gives you per waves is lower overall, however all the waves now have extra cc. The later waves have an even larger slow (numbers not ready, this upgrade was supposed to be the the max DPS upgrade but that niche feels pretty weak and is too similar to Death's Daughter. Now the DPS portion of the upgrade is much weaker but it now has a niche of being the best upgrade for CC, making it good for initiating fights or catching people out. This should be the best option for teamfighting) : Reworked: When Gangplank is underneath the ultimate, he gains bonus movespeed and attackspeed (Where do I even begin with this one. Raise Morale was always seen as like the shitty upgrade for GP. The team wide movespeed isn't terrible but more damage is just going to be better for a carry champ. That said, when I was trying to come up with buffs for this ultimate I just kept coming up short. The idea of GP giving his teamwide attackspeed, damage, or lifesteal, or anything just felt wrong. Then I came up with the idea of making this more of a selfish spell. While the idea seems dumb at first, hear me out. Very often as a GP I have games where I feel like I have to use my ultimate to help myself. When I'm in a lane where I am constantly being dived, fighting the other laner, or having skirmishes with the jungler, the ultimate becomes more of a tool to help me win these fights. Giving GP a tool to support this playstyle would be a interesting option and allow for GP to make more interesting decision of which ultimate choice to pick. The decision to give GP attack speed as opposed to just raw AD or lethality seems like an odd decision, but I feel like I have sound thinking on this. When GP uses his ultimate on himself, its usually because he's engaged in a skirmish where sustained damage is more useful. Attackspeed helps GP get barrels off quicker and attack isn't really a wasted stat on him either, seeing as how his passive is an auto-attack buff and he often ends up building items like PD, Shiv, and Trinity which gives him attack speed anyways.)

All in all, these ult changes could be a bit overkill and unnecessary. If that's the case, then just disregard them and simply implement the first two changes. But I feel like these changes would make GP be a much healthier champion. Moving his power away from his Q poke lanephase and in turn putting more strength in what is supposed to feel like his highest moment while also giving him more interesting choices to make seems like a good trade-off.

#TL;DR: GP is too tanky in lanephase and can poke people out too hard while being too hard to punish. Nerfing Klepto is not going to fix his problems, his lane phase is too good for a lanephase champion. His ability to poke people out of lane with Q is simply too good and is what should be targetted about him. He should be punished more for using Q to brainlessly poke in lane and in turn should be rewarded for playing more safely and using his Q to farm and scale.

Edit: If you need more proof that gangplank is too good, watch this video. It tells you pratically everything you need to know about why GP is so strong right now and is pretty informative. https://youtu.be/HRmwEd_Owmw Basically GP is so good right now that you don't even need to be good on him to succeed. Most LCS players don't even land combos on people, they just Q them.