Gnar: Little Knit Picks equal Big Problems.
Gnar's a hell of a champ and I really like his concept. Quick lil yordle wapping you over the head to annoy you, distract you and KILL YOU, combined with the incredible hulk smashing through enemies, impossible strength and a raging beast.
But NOTHING about that second half describes Mega Gnar. I want to first make clear that Mini-Gnar is fun, fast and intuitive with his skillset, making for a great, squishy, keep away champ. Then, when he's poked you down, he's supposed to be able to dive in and finish you off as Mega Gnar. The issue here though is Mega Gnar feels, so, bad! So clunky!
Let's break this down.
Gnar's passive gives him Movespeed, attack range, and bonus attack speed. He can reliably hit enemies from afar, attack faster to proc his passive, and get get away if things turn sour. Great! Woops, your red-bar filled. Now you are a heavy tank that is A) Much slower, B) Barely a change in your AD from early to late-game, and C) a hitbox so large now you might as well sign on your tombstone "Minion Pathing"
Gnar throws boomerangs! They come back and reduce cooldown! You can even throw them in mid bounce for awesome looking tricks! It even pierces and deals damage on the way back for some very interesting round-about shots through proper Gnar positioning! Red Bar filled. Now you throw boulders, BOULDERS that have a hitbox so wide you better be 3 feet from the nearest minion. Also, WHY DOES A BOULDER GET STOPPED BY A MINION. It's a god damn boulder! It should knock those little shits aside like your little brother's lego-brick tower to a base ball! Too bad you can only swing that baseball bat every 20-10 seconds, with a throwing animation that you'll be stuck in and inevitably miss because of how obvious the windup is. But to be be fair, you can pick the boulder-ball back up for 60% of your cooldown. And that would be cool if you weren't. So. Slow.
Gnar gets Hyper! Say it with me, Percentage. Health. Damage. with no cooldown! The faster you hit the more you deal. At max rank it's ...holy crap FOURTEEN PERCENT MAX HEALTH. Every time you proc it you get a movement speed boost that makes _Rammus _ jealous, and skills apply it too! Also an... AP ratio? Huh. Aaaand your red bar filled. No more %MaxHealth Damage, instead you get an easily telegraphed stun that deals pitiful damage in comparison to your machine-gun procs just a few second ago that shredded a mundo. You slam your fist like a cranky child in a pitifully small area, and the stun doesn't even scale.
Gnar can jump around! And gain bonus attack speed, like, a lot. 60% max rank. Sweet! On top of that crazy passive attack speed! And the plays, allowing you to jump over your friends into the fray of battle to steal- I mean... Secure the kill. But you red-bar just filled, and this is the one I have to relent to. It's pretty damn awesome to jump as mini-gnar into Mega-Gnar. It feels fine. Though I still say Mega-Gnar's hop feels pitiful on it's own, like he's overweight and out of breath and can barely manage a few measly meters. Also, and this may just be a myth, if you land directly on TOP of something, it gets slowed. I don't have proper citation for this rumor, but I have a reliable source that wishes to stay anonymous.
Last and certainly not the least, in fact potentially the most. Gnar's Ultimate. Mini-Gnar gets FASTER. Faster boomerangs, faster hypers, just.. Faster. It's like Pre-nerf Tahm-Kench with his Health scaling, you are a demon now. And then your red-bar fills and you get an ultimate that is ... Holy hell.
Hey guys! I FOUND THE POWER BUDGET. Mega-Gnar's ultimate deals ridiculously huge amounts of damage as an wide AOE, a scaling stun, Knock-ups for the Yasuo shouting how you've fed all game, and if you mess up you at least slow them while STILL dealing your damage. Couple this with the aforementioned hop/crunch, you have a solid engage tool that sets up your entire team for yummy, AOE victory. The only downside is it has a bit of a windup, and can be flashed out of even if you flash ult.
Congrats for hearing me out to the end of this. If you can't tell Mega Gnar isn't all doom and gloom, but he needs love badly. He is nothing but an ultimate initiator, akin to pre-rework Amumu and Zac. Once he uses every button at his disposal, he's stuck Auto Attacking for whatever length of his rage meter is left, before he returns to Mini-Gnar and become an unstoppable god among champions. And here's why I'm so frustrated. Transforming into Mega Gnar should feel AMAZING like you've just become the incredible hulk, raging and smashing and ripping and tearing. But in-game you just feel slow, with long cooldowns, an easy target to hit, and easy to miss telegraphed skills, with honestly not that much power.
