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Riot, you are going way too ham on these Gangplank nerfs

Edgehy··36 votes·6,992 views

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2016/02/29-pbe-update.html?m=1

The gold plundered nerfs are probably justified and needed. The amount of gold Gangplank can stack up with this and the mastery bandit (which everyone runs on him) is absurd. In fact, every nerf so far to him has been justified given his power in competitive play. But these powder keg changes... This is a gutting. If you go through with these changes, you are practically deleting him from the game.

The thing you have to understand is gangplank often uses triple barrel combos to get off a reliable chain in teamfights, this change allows him to do this once every 14 seconds or so late game with max CDR since the current supply cap is 3 and it would take about 13 seconds to generate two barrels (22 for 3). Given the length of teamfights and the storage supply cap, this is basically an ultimate cooldown overall, which is completely absurd. Even if gangplank went with a 2 barrel combo instead of a 3 barrel combo, he'd still be unable to reliably chain and would have long down times in between combos.

You know what this change does? It basically turns him back into old gangplank with a fancy aoe combo he can use once in a teamfight. Yes his ult is more powerful but still, only being able to do this basically once in a fight is making him a walking cleanse with a targeted AA that gives him a Trinity proc aka old gangplank. And we know how bad that was.

I realize powder keg is an absurd powerful spell and currently it's arguable that it is completely broken. But the design is good and I feel this change is basically you conceding that you don't like this design. Instead of completely butchering it, why not change the way they work with armor? Or why not remove its power to crit and give it an AD ratio? There are several changes that you could make that are better than this. Even changing his max supply to 4 instead of 5 could be a reasonable change. But don't do this, the gangplank rework was a success and it's arguable he's just in need of a few changes, maybe even numbers alone. But butchering him this way is the wrong answer. It's way off base.

40 Comments

Zorasama7 votes

I wouldn't be surprised if this nerf go live, since they don't listen to feedback lol (See : Xin, Duskblade)

Sahn Uzal5 votes

Meanwhile, Fiora get's a small nerf to some cooldowns Riot really has to watch out here, Fiora players might actually notice a difference....

summoner 31

Silents4296 votes

Why did everyone ignore how they cut the cost for ult upgrades by HALF

The Rewritten2 votes

That increases the number of Silver Serpent upgrades he can get, but he loses out on Q gold gain by nearly half.

Silents4298 votes

Which in itself is pretty absurd anyway, he is still going to get a significant gold lead over his lane opponent after nerfs, but not to such an extreme degree as it is now.

LordGeovanni3 votes

since the silver serpents were cut along with the gold to half it should be nearly the same amount of time except it will be longer for any one who knew how to effectively use barrels cause you store less barrels now. meaning say you used e barrels on a minion wave and got 5/6 or 6/7 minions that would take you 2-3 barrels unless your minions are fuked up and hits almost every enemy minion at the same time. which isnt likely. late game you have to choose between trying to finish up farming for the next ult upgrade and holding those kegs for a team fight, while having to fight teammates for said farm. which would be a healthy thing if the didnt make sure so many other champs get exactly what they want with out haveing to make sacrifices

Calabok4 votes

Nah, rather it's bacon

Edgehy1 votes

I prefer turkey bacon myself :D

TheOvermind4 votes

This is against what they said in a recent patch, they said that their approach with gangplank was a slow and methodical one, nailing one thing at a time. This is all of his kit gutted at once, not only is that counterproductive but also against their announced approach.

Dominick Destine1 votes

According to Riot; Gangplank was consistently topping several metrics of power they take into consideration.... he was basically what Graves is right now.

Pentarina Only3 votes

He still needs more nerfs.

Edgehy6 votes

I agree he needs nerfs still but this is too far. The gold nerf is fine. But the reduction of max barrels held to 3 is destroying him.

The Yetii Rider3 votes

If you remove the way he ignores armor, he becomes just as screwed by current armor pen items as Riven and Renekton, except that unlike them he can't quickly build stacks of Black Cleaver.

If GP is going to be an AD burst champion without range or attack speed, he needs armor pen. And that just makes him OP.

Tryn, Yi, Kayle, Yasuo, every other melee carry has attack speed and uses auto attacks and gap closers to stick (or range for Kayle). GP's design in general is just flawed.

Edgehy2 votes

{quoted}

If you remove the way he ignores armor, he becomes just as screwed by current armor pen items as Riven and Renekton, except that unlike them he can't quickly build stacks of Black Cleaver.

If GP is going to be an AD burst champion without range or attack speed, he needs armor pen. And that just makes him OP.

Tryn, Yi, Kayle, Yasuo, every other melee carry has attack speed and uses auto attacks and gap closers to stick (or range for Kayle). GP's design in general is just flawed.

They crit tho so this makes them good at killing squishies already and if wants to buy armor pen vs tanks, it'd be just as good. Not to mention, there's tons of flat AD pen items out there too, granted flat pen isn't GREAT against tanks. But regardless, that isn't true. The design is fine, I just think they need to be tuned differently.

The Yetii Rider1 votes

{quoted}

They crit tho so this makes them good at killing squishies already and if wants to buy armor pen vs tanks, it'd be just as good. Not to mention, there's tons of flat AD pen items out there too, granted flat pen isn't GREAT against tanks. But regardless, that isn't true. The design is fine, I just think they need to be tuned differently.

If he builds flat armor pen he's NOT getting crit.

MunchCrunchLunch3 votes

his armor pen is just way more potent than champs like renekton or wukong. because these champions use an ability to have a window of armor reduction and it only applies to damage after the ability. gp has built in armor penetration.

HotChilly3 votes

I think it is a good change to be honest, it is strong but in a way I can appreciate. This nerf accomplishes two things, first it encourages the GP player to think ahead, set up a starter barrel or two at neutral objectives 30 seconds before the fight starts, or in the bushes in the jungle next to a tower someone is rotating towards, this makes it possible to make those 3 barrels go a lot farther, and I think when they were making GP they invisioned a champ where you were thinking ahead and laying retreat paths of barrels to outplay people with, instead of just machinegunning out barrels, which nailing double and triple cahins at max speed is very skillful and apm / mouse accuracy intensive, is not all GP should be about.

Which leads me into my next point, he can still drop out a triple or double combo on command right from the start, and if he was not able to set things up, yes, that will be all he has for barrels in that fight, make them count. GP is supposed to be unforgiving high skill cap champ, I know that I have ended a number of team fights by nailing a barrel combo into a squishy or two. Ive also lost some fights have the barrels miss. Now when barrels miss, and you werent prepared ahead of time with started barrels, it will be VERY punishing, and it should be, GP is meant to be a hard champion. Currently he is certainly tough mechanically to play to his fullest, however from a macro sense (thinking ahead, where should u be / position) he isnt too challenging, just show up and throw ur ammo at them. GP will need to be meticulous and calculating to succeed, and as a GP main im excited about that.

Mostly split pushing with a side of grouping when a big neutral objective comes up looks like what gp should be doing with these changes. Araming up and down mid lane will not be a good way to go when u only have 1 shot at doing damage per minute.

I think this change WILL 'separate the good gps from the great gps', and Im looking forward to making it work

bvcderrttyyhjjjk3 votes

They need to not make the nerf live. They are basically doing the Kha'Zix treatment all over again, and we all know how well that worked... GP CAN be very strong if he gets fed, but if you play well against him he is honestly not that strong, and his barrels are easily countered. I feel like GP should instead be the example of a well made champion with very defined strength and weakness, counterplay and a high skill - high reward design.

If Riot deletes yet another champion due to their incompetence and incapacity of finding a better solution, I may as well take a good long break from this game. I am tired of the way they approach champion balance. They ignore champions with toxic kits for YEARS, and then when there is a champion that is strong but healthy that is popular in competitive, they can't figure out a decent way to handle the situation and just flat out nuke them.

I demand and expect more from the biggest game company in the world. If I am going to keep giving them my time and money I expect them to be competent in their game balance, and respectful to all the champions in the game.

Chase Me Daddy3 votes

Parrrley (Q) Silver Serpents plundered on Q kill reverted to 4/5/6/7/8 from 4 at all ranks. [NOTE: Gold plundered on Q kill still 4 at all ranks] Cannon Barrage (R) [Upgrade cost reverted to 500 silver serpents from 250]

Well and here we are at just nerfing his main benefits. More gold than anybody else (which is fair seeing his itembuild is one of the most expansive in the game) and his ability to store 5 barrels and making good plays. This really hurts as a Gangplank main. The things that made him good just vanishing. He has a lot of counterplay and a Kassadin like early, just basicly weak and needs to farm and snowball super hard, otherwise he is "completely" useless. Gangplank has used his W, CC him again he is dead. Gangplank has no escapes and can't avoid knockups? Dead. His barrels are super fragile and can be destroyed and what happens if he has no barrels anymore? In teamfights - dead.

This is so sad. Champions like LeBlanc, Rengar and Veigar still have their oneshots with no real counterplay to them (i know these champions are really hard to balance). And Gangplanks Barrels have really high counterplay actually. In late GP's Barrels have a 12 second cooldown now and your main combo is a 2/3 barrel chain. Without cooldown reduction you have to wait 38 seconds to get a combo in now. That is nearly a ultimate cooldown. This is just what kinda guts him, you take away his benefits - his high damage zoning potential if played well (here again - GP has a very high skillcap, not everyone is able to play him). He still has his damage... but is just able to use it every 38 seconds. Nerf his barrel damage or just the armor penetration itself. But please don't remove what makes him strong if played well.

Edit: But i still can say that i will still main him even if he now got these nerfs (nothing can part me with my Pirate <3). It's still is kinda sad though.

Sahn Uzal1 votes

Exactly how I feel, I'd rather play a low damage version of GP than a version of GP with barrel chains on a cooldown longer than Talons ultimate summoner 31

weeaboomer2 votes

Good nerfs, keep em coming.

Derfel2 votes

Apparently barrels aren't LCSbigplays and no one in the live audience gives a fuck about popping barrels rip GP.

Sahn Uzal2 votes

The gold plundered nerfs are probably justified and needed. The amount of gold Gangplank can stack up with this and the mastery bandit (which everyone runs on him) is absurd. In fact, every nerf so far to him has been justified given his power in competitive play. But these powder keg changes... This is a gutting. If you go through with these changes, you are practically deleting him from the game.

THANK YOU

The thing you have to understand is gangplank often uses triple barrel combos to get off a reliable chain in teamfights, this change allows him to do this once every 14 seconds or so late game with max CDR since the current supply cap is 3 and it would take about 13 seconds to generate two barrels (22 for 3). Given the length of teamfights and the storage supply cap, this is basically an ultimate cooldown overall, which is completely absurd. Even if gangplank went with a 2 barrel combo instead of a 3 barrel combo, he'd still be unable to reliably chain and would have long down times in between combos.

HOLY SHIT THANK YOU

You know what this change does? It basically turns him back into old gangplank with a fancy aoe combo he can use once in a teamfight. Yes his ult is more powerful but still, only being able to do this basically once in a fight is making him a walking cleanse with a targeted AA that gives him a Trinity proc aka old gangplank. And we know how bad that was.

ok just marry me already.

I realize powder keg is an absurd powerful spell and currently it's arguable that it is completely broken. But the design is good and I feel this change is basically you conceding that you don't like this design. Instead of completely butchering it, why not change the way they work with armor? Or why not remove its power to crit and give it an AD ratio? There are several changes that you could make that are better than this. Even changing his max supply to 4 instead of 5 could be a reasonable change. But don't do this, the gangplank rework was a success and it's arguable he's just in need of a few changes, maybe even numbers alone. But butchering him this way is the wrong answer. It's way off base.

Having it scale off AD instead of crit might result in Juggernaut GP builds, I don't think that's a good idea. It would be a lot less powerful if people actually learn to destroy the barrels before GP detonates them -.- But yeah GP's broken. Yeah he needs nerfs. But this is bs. I'd rather see a maximum range and damage nerf on cannon barrage than this. His ultimate is what makes him so dominant in LCS anyway.

Back when they wanted to change his armor pen to %bonus armor pen, I made a QQ post. I actually wish they just push that nerf through right now instead of killing his entire kit. summoner 31

Deus Imperator2 votes

Riot E1:Hey, Gangplank barrels are getting destroyed in LCS, thats not flashy plays!

Riot E2:Oh...Gut him so we dont see his mistakes again in LCS

item 3070 Gangplank item 3070

Orangesilk1 votes

Much like any other thing regarding competitive balance, NAs vision is kinda skewed (since NA LCS is the Bronze V of the competitive scene), GP is ridiculous in the EU and KR meta, probably gamebreaking even, and these nerfs won't be enough to contain him.

Edgehy2 votes

He is very strong in all regions. I'm not disputing this and I think each nerf including the gold nerf on pbe is fine. But reducing the cap to 3 barrels is a HUGE nerf that will kill him.

Those Beyond1 votes

{quoted}

He is very strong in all regions. I'm not disputing this and I think each nerf including the gold nerf on pbe is fine. But reducing the cap to 3 barrels is a HUGE nerf that will kill him.

That's good, I hate seeing that man run around tossing barrels and shooting them for half my health even though I am full tank.

Remlap12231 votes

I forsee the return of jungle Gangplank.

WadeWilson13371 votes

Gangplank needs to be nerfed into the ground. He just does everything way too well. He farms too good, he has ranged poke/sustain in lane with grasp, he has sustain with his w that just removes any cc. He has a global ultimate that isnt limited in range like TF, so he can ult the otherside of the map. Hes surprisingly tanky, and has some of the highest damage output late game out of anyone. He is one of the most overloaded champions at the moment and honestly, id be happy to see him nerfed to the ground. With how difficult he is, if he has anything more than a 48% winrate, i think hes overpowered. Fiora is the most comparable to gp in terms of flawed and broken, and that should tell you something.

Tahngarthor1 votes

{quoted}

Gangplank needs to be nerfed into the ground. He just does everything way too well. He farms too good, he has ranged poke/sustain in lane with grasp, he has sustain with his w that just removes any cc. He has a global ultimate that isnt limited in range like TF, so he can ult the otherside of the map. Hes surprisingly tanky, and has some of the highest damage output late game out of anyone. He is one of the most overloaded champions at the moment and honestly, id be happy to see him nerfed to the ground. With how difficult he is, if he has anything more than a 48% winrate, i think hes overpowered. Fiora is the most comparable to gp in terms of flawed and broken, and that should tell you something.

The thing is, GP is strong because of the design of his kit more than anything. Changing numbers around will either do nothing, or render him useless.

Either extreme is bad. If he's banned 80% of the time among high end players, then he's not having much impact on the game. If he's "nerfed into the ground", he will again not have much impact on the game, just for different reasons.

CppL1 votes

Well what did you expect? last time i looked he had about 80% ban ratio ,thats almost pre rework kassadin lvl.

Sahn Uzal1 votes

When was that? I've never seen his banrate that high o.0 summoner 31

RiotRiot Sotere6 votes

It spiked in the last couple of weeks. At high MMR it's far and away the highest. Last I looked it was around 78%, so 80 doesn't seem farfetched.

Sahn Uzal1 votes

I don't have a PBE account, so I don't actually get to test how bad it is. But isn't one barrel chain per 12 seconds ... atleast a weird way to nerf him? He was designed around the ''High counterplay high reward'' concept. This nerf will force him to be a Q spam bot for 12 seconds.

Wouldn't a nerf to his E's damage, E's armor pen, R's damage, R's range even be better? I'm fine with playing a weaker version of GP, but please, let us actually use the barrels as our main source of damage..

Not even meant as a QQ post, I'm kinda just trying to share the way I view the changes. And I'm hoping to get a little discussion here. Because I do enjoy doing those :p

EDIT: Incase I wasn't clear at some point, GP deserves nerfs. But the way he is getting nerfs just feels really weird. As it doesn't allow GP players to 'play the same champion'. It's actually a large change to his playstyle, Or I feel like it will be. summoner 31

Sahn Uzal1 votes

Oh I need to know dis one, do you play GP because you like the champion or because he is broken? (I won't judge, I'm spamming Malphite ;P) summoner 31

WarlordTim1 votes

http://imgur.com/uOajtZJ

Totalwanabe1 votes

keep nerfing him and he will become a sleeper pick

MetalGearTeemu1 votes

I would happily take the original rework plank back.

Get rid of true damage, give us back melee kiting. Make raise morale castable while moving.

Managing grog stacks and kiting to engineer winning trades in lane was far more enjoyable and engaging then barrel chains ever were. And instead of being pirate nasus, where I ignore teamfighting until I have my required minutes of farming, I actually had some team utility. [zombie-brand-clap] [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Sahn Uzal1 votes

remember the little buff he got by getting the max amount of SS per minion at rank one of q? They jus took it from him. summoner 31

Zorasama1 votes

Parrrley (Q) Silver Serpents plundered on Q kill reverted to 4/5/6/7/8 from 4 at all ranks. [NOTE: Gold plundered on Q kill still 4 at all ranks] Cannon Barrage (R) [Upgrade cost reverted to 500 silver serpents from 250]

lol and they just nerfed him even more

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