An small issue with Gnar that can easily fix the champion
http://images.gameskinny.com/gameskinny/3afe491ebc964d8414cfe41ce633e711.jpg
I love Gnar because of how his transformation works. He is pretty unique, which is a wonderful attribute to have in a champion. In the past there used to be two camps (and only two camps) regarding transformation:
-
A. Short-fuse camp...
These guys change forms almost as often as they auto attack. There is NOTHING special about them changing form since it can last less than 10 seconds. They don't fullfill the shape-shifter fantasy, instead they are a 6-skills champions with an "stance" limiter. Pretty much like the bastard children between Lee Sin and Sona/Udyr.
- * Your will, my hands. ;) *
- *Without hesitation.. :D *
- *... *
-
B. Long-cooldown camp...
 
Then you have the other side of the coin, these guys have their transformations on their ultimates, making them way TOO sporadic to help their themes. In a way, these don't feel any different than Alistar's, Mundo's, Singed's, Swain's, Nasus' or Renekton's ultimate, you just get dangerous for a couple of seconds in which the enemy should play differently.
- Remember kids, winner don't do drugs...
Unless it's an R steroid, you REALLY need those if you want to win, duh!
Gnar lives on a camp of his own, where his transformation happen sporadically but it plays a KEY ROLE on how to play him at all times. There is abysmal difference between these 3 camps, and I think our little Yordle is in the most interesting one. However, Gnar has been hated a lot by the LoL playerbase, and I think I know why...
From a game-play perspective, Gnar should be all about choices regarding his rage bar: knowing when to engage the enemy and when to retreat and planning ahead of time how much rage you will want in a couple of minutes to counter whatever the enemy throws at you or to play with your team...
Nowadays Gnar players are unable to do any planning at all.
You see, the main issue with Gnar is that his rage is charged by things you usually HAVE to do. Imagine there is a Dragon fight in 1:45 minutes, your rage bar is 1/2 full and the enemy is pushing hard, what can you do? Simply stopping the push forces you to waste your mega form. Not stopping the push makes you loose farm and possibly a tower. No matter the outcome, Gnar will end up loosing something.
And here is the thing: while Gnar players should have no direct control over Gnar's transformation, they should have some sort of indirect control that helps them accomplish multiple things at once IF they planned ahead of time. Some mechanic that allows them to meddle with the rage bar. In other words, some way to significantly reduce Gnar rage during his mini-state.
When Gnar stays out of combat for <x> seconds **WITHOUT MOVING ** his rage should start decaying at a quicker rate than usual. Not quick enough that you can deplete your whole bar by simply standing idle every few minutes, but fast enough that a good Gnar player can have the right amount of rage at the right time. In my previous example, Gnar could try to first slow the push by killing the cannion and caster minions, wait 30 seconds, and then (and just then) kill the melee minions. That way, he would have defended his turret to a certain degree while still being able to use teleport/mega-Gnar/R for a dragon fight.
This of course would require additional tunning. Since Mega-Gnar would be less likely to screw your lane maybe his jump would require a longer cooldown and the boost of move-speed from hyper could be lower. However, I think this could easily take the small yordle into the right direction.
Disclaimer: I have no idea how Lee Sin was able to wink.... I guess it will always be a mystery.
