Gangplank: A burning problem in league

So, this isn't a hit piece on GP, it's just what I've observed and personally fight against on a level maybe some of you don't appreciate. If you don't like me pointing out flaws on the pirate dude, please feel free to give your synopsis of what contrasts against my distaste towards him.

TLDR FOR PEOPLE WHO DONT LIKE LOTS OF READING Gangplank is simply too strong and versatile for being so safe. Force him to stick to one style of play: aggressive kill/bully type laner who just wants killgold to earn his lead, or punish his early game immensely and have a more squishy burst oriented kit rather than his incredibly multi-use kit with its intense safety.

First, we'll start out with his positions, and his current rates. Mid, and Top, but we will primarily be observing toplane, as 85% of his games are played here. As of January 19th, 2017, Gangplank sits at a suprising 51~% winrate. Not gamebreaking, but certainly nothing to scoff at. He has a near 9~% pickrate (not too shabby either), and a surprising 1~% banrate. This means, that in total, in 1 out of 10 games, you'll see him, and maybe 1 out of 100 games, he might be banned.

Now, lets go on to his passive. His passive, trial by fire, deals true damage over time to a target upon melee autoattack, and grants him a burst of movement speed. Any barrel killed will IMMEADIATELY (no delay involved) will proc both the speed bonus, and refresh his passive cooldown.

His Q, Parrrley, is a ranged on-hit auto proc with an AD ratio that loses no traits from being ranged. In fact, it also grants him extra gold generation upon a kill using Parrrley, and can target his barrels. This however, cannot proc trial by fire. He also gains silver serpents, a unique currency, which is based upon the extra gold gained

His W is Remove Scurvy . Gangplank takes a small cast to eat an orange, instantly replenishing a bit of heal, extra health based on missing HP (first part of heal based withAP) , and if any CC is current in place on Gangplank, it will cleanse all CC on him.

Now, for Gangplank's E, Powder Keg, places a barrel with displayed health and explosion radius. The barrel loses health as time passes, and each hit or each time mark circling around it removes 1 health, and it has 3 initial health. When in radius of another, the barrels connect, meaning if one is set off, it will cause a chain reaction. If an opponent hits the barrel before gangplank or his team does, the barrel is removed and awards 10 gold to its executor. Once the barrel is set off, the explosion does AoE AD damage based on the attack that dealt the barrel's finishing blow, which can critically strike, and ignores 40% of the opponent's armor, and slow any champions hit by the blast. This can be proc'd with Q to also apply its extra gold passive, meaning any minions or targets killed with a Q'd barrel grant bonus gold. He can store 3 barrels at a time.

His ultimate is Cannon Barrage, where gangplank may call 12 waves of cannonfire at any position on the map from any location, besides death. This deals AP damage, but can also be upgraded in 3 forms. He can gain death's daughter, which fires a large true damage cannonshot at the center of the zone upon first cast, fire at will upgrades the ability for 6 more waves of cannonfire, and raise morale will grant allies bonus movement speed when moving upon cannon barrage's zone.

Each of gangplank's abilities are incredibly strong, but also ridiculously synergistic. Why is that? let's take a quick look into why Gangplanks' kit might be considered considered difficult: -His Q only rewards gold on kill, has low damage, meaning he can't gain ALL the gold(? addressed later) -His E has healthbar, and displays its time before its next tick, meaning ranged characters can deny his barrels. -His W is only one cleanse, meaning it can be baited with its large cooldown. -He lacks significant early damage and strong sustain. -Gangplank is easily weakened by similarly strong farm type champions -He is a more light carry, meaning he is more easily put down. -Requires lots of gold and time to get rolling, but has massive payoffs -Passive takes too long early on to be useful

Here is where things get tricky. Masteries are all over right now, but the most taken keystone is kleptomancy, which I won't go into since most of you know its effects, but just as a small "go over", it grants either extra gold bags, or other various consumables or trinkets for use upon hitting the target after using an ability.

Now we'll be a bit less objective, and here's something to respond with what makes gangplank difficult and why most of it is almost completely lies:

-Gangplank's Q, while having a bit longer of a cooldown and less damage, still is significant harass. Being on-hit means he also gains bonuses from items like tri-force, empowering its effectiveness nearly 2-fold, and sheen almost negates any negatives it would have. Thanks to its ability to chain with his E, gangplank can easily clear midgame waves effectively than most laners can, before they earn their second item. this means that gangplank, unless his opponent is a farming master, will easily be punished for moving forward to CS, and if gangplank must be safe, he can quickly set up barrels to mass clear waves while gaining enough passive gold to negate his opponent's lead. -His E can be ghosted. This means if the gangplank is good, he can detonate a barrel and summon another as the first explodes, chaining 2 barrels in quick succession. Not only is this hard to predict, but he can place them in bushes to gain vision and hide his initial summon so players cannot predict the zone of the barrel until it might be too late. -His W is a multi-use proc used for both lane sustain and free CC escape. The majority of failed ganks stem from a target being unable to punish his W unless both characters attacking are heavily CC oriented and managed to pull out the W early, which a good gangplank will store and play passively with, or consume during lane and force his opponent to play defensively or take on a healthier GP with ranged harass. -Early damage is weak, yes, if early damage is one item. Sheen quite seriously is possibly one of the best items on gangplank compared to any other champion with the exception of . when a target CCs gangplank, he can easily W, autoattack instantly, proc-ing his passive movement speed, as well as escaping CC, and giving himself a heal. He can now wait the cooldown as he runs, move back to Q, harassing his target, waiting until the target moves closer, and immeadiately barreling his target and kiting around it while setting up other barrels to threaten back his target. He also gains the sheen proc, which will give bonus damage to his E's explosion damage. -With an item such as phantom dancer, or even light defensive builds like deadman's or even visage, Gangplank also becomes incredibly durable while still capable of pumping out ranged AoE damage that can slow and ignore heavy tank armor. -His gold granting Q means gangplank will rarely fall behind his opponent, and surprisingly, it does work with kleptomancy. Note that his Q is also point and click. this means that once in range, this is a ranged harass auto that will not only grant passive speed if GP has built phage, but add additional valuable items to gangplank's arsenal, sustaining his lane and also granting mana, vision, or even damage boosts. Once he has appropriate items, his gold farming nearly triples thanks to its fast clear and his monsterous ultimate capable of gaining across-map assists, meaning he can teamfight without requiring the idea of being within the teamfight. -His passive might be the most powerful part of GP's kit. Gangplank not only threatens squishier targets with strong critical explosive strikes, but also damages the target for true damage. With the inclusion of his 40% armor ignore, a tank will take serious punishment when facing gangplank, and must be capable of keeping up with his increased movement speed.

I'd like to take a moment to make a small comparison, if you will. . Remember, it isn't fair to say both characters hold similar roles, if you will, but i'd like to take a moment to compare and contrast.

Rengar has been in a strange state over the past year. He has seen success since his rework release in the 2016-2017 assassin update (I apologize for triggering you all with those words alone), but it enforces my point. Rengar was seen as a single target assassin primarily played in the jungle and toplane, and gains damage over time to pair with his very gold efficient build. His early, while very strong, requires him to kill targets to keep pace, much the same as Gangplank's farming. However, where the path deviates is that while both build fairly similar items, items favoring a bit of passive durability with strong AD gain and bonus damage, Gangplank, throughout the course of season 7, was relatively untouched. Rengar was not. Being heavily nerfed due to his incredibly strong early game, rengar was attested to as a plague on the game for his high damage, low risk, high reward payoff. While his mechanics for burst are fairly simple, the problem of obtaining his target was hard. He received several damage nerfs, several ultimate nerfs, several ability nerfs, including his cleanse effect tied in to his empowered E. Rengar was completely neutered for having a fairly complicated kit of trying to jump onto a backline target at point blank while not being seen, effectively burst his target, and get out. So when his damage is too strong, nerf the damage. But riot refused, and nerfed rengar as a whole. When time came around, gangplank was untouched, but still VERY popular, and retained an almost consistent 10% directly AFTER rengar's heavy nerfs? Well, where did all those rengar players go?

Here's what I propose: Gangplank is simply too good of a champion. When something similar to him is meta, but preforms better than he does, he sees a significant loss in his prime playerbase, not just FotM, but even a couple more dedicated players. When that character is a swiss army knife like 2017 rework rengar gets nerfed, gangplank sees a playrate boost. This is all in tangent with how those champions perform. Gangplank is seen as the swiss army knife of all champions, capable of not only carrying, being a durable enough frontline, but packing range bonuses, melee bonuses, tank shred, cleansing CC, self-heal, light CC, burst, sustained poke, sustained damage over time, true damage, critical strike capability, and strong AoE and single target damage. There isn't a single champion so jam packed as Gangplank is with useful traits. While other characters would be nerfed for having such strong traits, Gangplank is gated from receiving such nerfs as he is deemed "incredibly hard" even though most of his core kit is extremely forgiving, and has many bonuses to reward both new and advanced players.

Am I saying this because is dislike fighting Gangplank toplane? A little. But its my concern that gangplank is similar to , who is now experiencing the same problem. They both favor heavy farm tactics, and while nasus might be more frightening to single target, he can be pounced upon by many member to hold him down, whereas gangplank both has the chase and distancing positions nasus might favor, while boasting even more powerful teamfighting potential.

Deep down in my mind, I don't think this character should have to be given the treatment of "another potential rework" because GP mains have gone through that crap nearly as many times as players have. But the stats are indisputable. Gangplank can easily be picked up by 1 person out of ten, and on an incredibly "difficult" champion, has about half a chance at winning. Will some matches be carried by other players? possibly. Can we factor in every possible stat, and then say "the math speaks" because, if we wanted that, we'd need hundred of players, and i'm no calculus expert, but I guarantee there would be seriously off factors. but by process of exposure, I really do think Gangplank needs to see some passive removals of his bonus effects. He simply has too many to not be incredibly annoying for some champions to deal with. I don't think the opponent should have to worry because he needs to be terrified that if gangplank earns enough space, he'll gold farm until he's miles ahead in terms of fake CS, as opposed to growing strong through damage on one ability. A player should be able to fall back a bit on one of their champion's mechanics primarily, as not to feel like nothing you do matters, but against GP, I guarantee that is how most players feel: like if they don't stop this champion now, they might lose the entire game once Gangplank enters teamfighting form with his 1.5 item advantage, whereas you've only built your first item and boots, while he already has a triforce, boots, youmuu's, and half of his infinity edge already prepared.

In synopsis, I think gangplank is simply too strong, and too versatile. He needs to have either his passive gold farm hijinks removed, tone down his ability to burst both squishy and tank targets, or reduce his ability to ignore opponent tanks and focus on important targets. That, or somehow bring every other character to a level capable of harassing GP no matter what you do, and no one in this game needs buffs desperately right now.

If you have a response, feel free to post it to tell me why i'm wrong, why you agree, what you see Gangplank for, or how you might change him yourself!

Good luck this season!

[vlad-salute]