Boards›Gameplay

Reworking the Saltwater Scourge

Ulric Greatsword·11/16/2014, 12:25:42 AM·2 votes·847 views

Gangplank This guy. This guy is cool, but doesn't get played as much as he could be. I want to see what all of your ideas are on how we could fit our favorite orange-eating buccaneer back into the modern game. Here's my thoughts:

Gangplank Gangplank is fairly unique among champs because he is able to fill almost any role. He has a very strong laning phase that allows him to bully weaker opponents or farm defensively against difficult matchups. His abilities are generally very useful and versatile throughout the game. So what are his weaknesses? I see that he fares very poorly against high mobility champs. His only form of CC is a stacking slow from his passive (21% max) and eventually an area slow from his R (25%). A lot of champs nowadays are relatively unaffected by slows because of dashes.

His early game sustained damage is incredible, but dies out as soon as the enemy hits level two. As much as I love that stacking dot on his passive, it is rendered almost totally obsolete by even miniscule amounts of MR (and yes, I have built full Magic Pen before and it isn't anything noteworthy).

As one of the few remaining global ults in the game, his cannon barrage doesn't have the impact it should. Most enemies will escape from the area before taking two hits from it, and a 25% slow doesn't do much to contribute to battles across the map or teamfights.

My proposed changes: (Note: when I say 'no change', that doesn't mean the AP/AD ratios or other numbers can't be tweaked. It just means the ability will remain basically the same)

New Passive: Drunken Sailor Gangplank's basic attacks and Parrrley apply a debuff that slows Movement Speed and reduces the distance of enemy dashes and leaps by 7%. Lasts 3 seconds and stacks up to 3 times. (The poison damage has been removed, but now the grog inebriates targets to the point that it interferes with all forms of their movement. This passive could also just keep the same name as the old one--I only changed it to avoid confusion.)

Q: Parrrley No change (This ability is in pretty good shape at the moment. The only potential change I could see happen is a toggle between melee and ranged modes (think Jayce or Jinx weapon switches).

W: Remove Scurvy The cast time (currently about .5 seconds) has been removed and the amount of the base heal reduced to balance it out. (Also an iconic Gangplank ability. It's in a great spot at the moment. I feel like the proposed changes will switch the focus from the healing done to the more unique Cleanse effect and help make its use more strategic).

New E: Captain's Orders Gangplank charges forward, dealing X physical damage to an enemy and inspiring allies in the immediate vicinity, increasing their Attack Speed and Movement Speed by Y. (This one might be a little more controversial, but I think GP needs a gapcloser that can't easily be used as a retreat to help him do better at initiation and chasing. The change from damage to attack speed will hopefully make the buff more relevant in team fights).

R: Cannon Barrage The first time a unit is damaged by Cannon Barrage, it is stunned for X seconds. Cannonballs now apply stacks of Drunken Sailor. (This is to make it harder to escape from the barrage. The ability's cooldown will probably have to be increased to allow for the additional power. Also the stun shouldn't last any longer than .5 seconds in my opinion).

Well? Let me know what you think. If anyone has different ideas or suggestions, please post them below. Thanks for reading!

3 Comments

Four of Ten11/16/2014, 4:10:35 AM2 votes

I don't think he needs to be changed that much. WIth a few buffs he could be viable. His ult should scale with ad and his passive should have more damage and stack more like it used to or scale with ad like darius passive.

Remlap122311/16/2014, 6:55:51 AM2 votes

Hello again good sir, I thought I'd check and see how the rework idea came along... I'd like to give my two cents.

New Passive: Drunken Sailor Gangplank's basic attacks and Parrrley apply a debuff that slows Movement Speed and reduces the distance of enemy dashes and leaps by 7%. Lasts 3 seconds and stacks up to 3 times.

It's a cool concept, but if anything, all slows need this effect. Also, Riot said that if they do go through with reworking GP, the permaslow is going. So we can cross this off the list.

Q: Parrrley No change

Parrrley is most likely going to get gutted. I agree with that choice too, it's just too ripe for abuse with the way it's currently set up. Build triforce and infinity edge and this ability crits for 1600 damage. Very few champions can survive a chunk like that. I'm coming up a rework with GP myself, and to remedy this I gutted the base damage and added an execute to it that scales for each stack of Grog Soaked Blade (Grog Soaked Blade got reworked as well.)

W: Remove Scurvy The cast time (currently about .5 seconds) has been removed and the amount of the base heal reduced to balance it out.

You already know the cool idea I gave to it, but for those who don't, instead of lowering the heal cost and the cast time, I instead upped the cooldown and the mana cost, but had the cooldown lower each time Gangplank took damage from large monsters and minions, and enemy champions. Your idea is fine too.

New E: Captain's Orders Gangplank charges forward, dealing X physical damage to an enemy and inspiring allies in the immediate vicinity, increasing their Attack Speed and Movement Speed by Y. (This one might be a little more controversial, but I think GP needs a gapcloser that can't easily be used as a retreat to help him do better at initiation and chasing. The change from damage to attack speed will hopefully make the buff more relevant in team fights).

Yeah, Gapcloser + Poke + Permaslow = Olafing. No gap closers on GP.

R: Cannon Barrage The first time a unit is damaged by Cannon Barrage, it is stunned for X seconds. Cannonballs now apply stacks of Drunken Sailor.

A 600 radius global stun is powerful as shit, even without the damage. This would never get past the drawing board. My alternative was to have the slow stack per stack of Grog Soaked blade (complicated to explain, I'll just link you my rework concept.)

All in all, you've got some cool ideas but the reason why Gangplank is in this crappy position in the first place sailed (no pun intended) over your head. Gangplank was the textbook definition of cheese. He had a Ryze safe early game with bullying potential stockpiled by passive gold stacking, a permaslow, and poke. Gangplank could feasibly just shoot you with Parrrley, catch up from the slow addition, and keep auto attacking (cuz you couldn't run away anymore) and then he'd either crit you to death, Grog Soaked Blade would kill you from grievous wounds (yes, it used to have grievous wounds) or magic damage, or you'd get bullied out of lane with little issue. If you played well, Gangplank would run out of mana, if you didn't he'd kill you before that happened.

And here's my rework idea.