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A quick melee vs Gnar guide

MrSc0tty··17 votes·1,875 views

I know people who enjoy taking champs who don't have range top are understandably quite worried about riots new Manaless ranged harass based perma slowing hyper mobile wave clearing machine, for good reason. But tree is a bright side. Ask yourself, melee toplaner, would I rather lane against Teemo, or Quinn/Lissandra/Lulu? Because Gnar's more on the scale of the former than the latter, he's obnoxious but he has exploitable weaknesses. And what are those you ask? Well, I've been maining Toplane Not Gnar for several weeks on the PBE, so I'll see if I can help.

  1. Gnar lacks sustain. Which is actually a bigger deal than you think because he has trouble staying out of reach in mini form, at least for decent trades. His base stats are microscopic, and any damage you put on him stays there.

  2. Mega Gnar is about as good at escaping ganks as Chogath. Wallop basically doesn't get him anywhere because it roots him for as long as it stuns you, crunch has a tiny range, and he's generally slow as balls. If your jungler comes when he's mega, and he's anywhere but under tower (DO NOT tower dive big Gnar) he's dead every time.

  3. his range is pretty minuscule. For reference, until level 7, mini Gnar is out ranged by Darius's apprehend, and a single hop puts him perfectly in range of Darius' spin. Like, real small. Anyone with serious mobility like Fizz, Renekton of Irelia can make mincemeat out of him, and he's got no on demand hard cc of any kind. If Tryndamere whirlybirds to a Gnar, he'll travel straight past him, smack him once or twice as Gnar tries to get Hyper up, then slow him and cancel out hyper as he tries to run away. There's no trade-winning Teemo blind or lulu whimsy. Just engage on him when there's none of your minions to hop off of and you're golden.

  4. unless someone comes up with a better build, Gnar will usually build a trinity force into tanky build to avoid being a useless Teemo late game. If you can weather the storm of his harass early, you can hold your own late. Legitimately the only champion I wasn't able to do ANYTHING with was Garen, everyone else including Singed, Chogath and Nasus was just able to sustain up, build a Dorans shield, and fight him late game.

To conclude, he's rather like Kennen in his current state. Annoying, but not on the scale of most ranged tops right now. Unless Gnar gets some serious early game mini form buffs I can't see him being the top of the heap.

20 Comments

Eapenator3 votes

Another good comparison of how badly gnar is out ranged against other popular top laners.

Ryze - Unless mini gnar uses his only gap closer to get with range, Ryze's W out ranges Gnar's auto attacks (600 range). So you can literally, walk up to him, Q, cage, and Q again, while weaving autos in between, and all he would be able to is throw the boomerang and cry. Also since TP is the standard top lane summoner spell for Ryze, once you go back and grab a catalyze/tear, you have no more mana issues. The only issue with ryze is that he is squishy early, so he does not do well against early all in. But Gnar doesn't have that, so not only will you out scale, you will have an easy transition to the monstrous late game ryze extra note - While mini gnar will be a piece of cake, monster gnar can deal some serious damage. However, you should know that like in the champion spotlight, if you cc gnar before his second hop, he won't double hop. As ryze, when you see mini gnar at full rage, he will probably try to abuse his double hop to close the gap while becoming mega gnar. When you see this, don't be afraid, and run back, just wait for him to hop and cage him so he won't double hop. His only gap closer will be on cool down for 16 seconds (not counting flash of course) so you just kite him endlessly till he dies.

Shrikesnest2 votes

This is good to hear. I think most of the people who are freaking out about Gnar haven't played him (disclaimer: neither have I.) Based on what I've seen and heard, he's got some good if complicated mechanics, but his overall damage isn't terribly frightening and he's got such clear windows of weakness that he might as well occasionally spawn a glowing weak point. His pure CC is going to be nasty when he's team fighting late game, but he seems like a pretty weak laner.

Polaritie4 votes

Yeah. I expect some tiny buffs to mini-gnar's early game to help him not get run over.

As is, definitely not OP.

Omnipherious2 votes

I honestly doubt Gnar will be a problem. Everything you've listed is valid, Gnar does have weaknesses. He might give people some trouble for a week or two, but people will figure out how to deal with him.

The only concern I think is Mega-Gnar Q; it works exactly like Olaf's Q used to but Olaf wasn't allowed to throw axes point-blank and pick them up; why this doesn't apply to our furry friend, I don't know but it is straight up unfair. If this mechanic was deemed abusive before, there is absolutely no justification for it to exist now just because it happens to be on a new champion.

Elemon2 votes

He can do this because his boulder stops as soon as it hits an enemy, so if you're standing in melee range, of COURSE it's gonna land right next to him... On a related note, his cooldown is reduced by a percent (60%) instead of a flat time (4.5 seconds), so it's impossible to have it back up instantly.

Omnipherious1 votes

You seem to have missed the point so let me clarify. When Olaf throws an axe, shouldn't it stop as soon as it hits an enemy, especially if they are in melee? It used to do this and as I said, it was deemed mechanically abusive. Right, so can't have that kind of stuff cause it's bad, got it. So why is Gnar allowed to have it?

You said to me, "Yo, the boulder stops when it hits something in melee, of course it'll be next to him", well no shit sherlock it's almost like that was the whole point I was making. A heavy boulder miraculously stops at the first thing it hits even if it's a tiny Teemo as opposed to a smaller and lighter, thrown axe which pierces for a minimum travel distance, no exceptions? Really?

I don't know about you, but it makes more sense to me that an axe would stop dead in it's tracks and land near the first thing it hits instead of a boulder which shouldn't give a monkeys about the first thing it hits because of the difference of force + mass but I digress.

Unlike Olaf - Gnar can cast the ability for free; Gnar's Q scales off total AD unlike Olaf's bonus AD and will deal more natural damage from ranks + levels; so what if it is reduced by a % instead of flat? Is the basis of your argument really just that it has a guaranteed CD? Guess what, even though it's only a % reduction Mega-Gnar's 3 other abilities all have CC attached, the weakest being an AoE slow that is also a jump. Seems to me like he has plenty of tools to keep people around long enough for that Q to come back, especially with the way it works. How does that justify why Gnar can toss point-blank for instant CDR when Olaf can't?

Elemon2 votes

No, but my point is that Olaf (not counting his mana) could theoretically put out an infinite amount of damage in an instant if his ax was blocked. Gnar (who doesn't have a mana barrier) would still have a cooldown (even if it was tiny). Also, Olaf mechanically would be less powerful because he relies on that slow to keep a target in the back lines of the enemy team slowed while he berserks them. It also doubles as poke/waveclear. Gnar already has poke/waveclear from his mini Q. He also directly dives the entire enemy team, so he doesn't need his boulder to continue through them. Also, Olaf has his ult and (theoretically) some other great movement speed items, so he doesn't really NEED much CC. He just ignores everyone else's CC and goes ham on the ADC. Gnar, however, is a full tank in mega form. Tanks need significant amounts of AoE CC so people don't just ignore them. Also, because he's tanking more than Olaf (usually), he has significantly less damage (especially since you also have to itemize for Mini Gnar). Additionally, Olaf gets 80 AD for free, which is sorta overpowered (and that's not even counting the attack speed (because it has nothing to do with these ratios)). That means that Olaf is dealing significantly more damage with his axes almost all of the time.

It doesn't matter what would happen in real life. If this game was trying to be entirely realistic whenever possible, it would be a really stupid game (no more mandrops, no more magic, no more cataclysm... Guns one-shot people, so everyone else would be useless...). All that matters is what fits mechanically best with that champion. With Olaf, it's more useful to continue through units; with Gnar, it isn't.

Earl Eulrich4 votes

old Olaf with 40%cdr and smartcast could cast 3axe/second...i´ve done that, I´ve won 1v3towerdives (i dove the turret, not them)...it had been stupidly OP. With Gnar it´s a %amount reduction, so that abuse can never happen...also his cast-animation is very slow and easy to dodge around. And getting into melee with Mega-Gnarr is in most circumstances a missplay by his opponents. He´s really easy to kite around.

Sunfield2 votes

Bonus tip; dont play Gnar in the first week after release in ranked.

Seriously, dont.

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

good description but you could use simpler words just kill him cause all he has is "almoust range" despite range being realy tiny he plays for it like any ranged champ with squishyness

Shrikesnest12 votes

Mechanical discussions require a mechanical vocabulary. It's nobody's responsibility to dumb down their content. Think of it as a learning opportunity.

Sunfield3 votes

Those are English Boards mate :p

steelblacksky1 votes

so what you are really telling us is to counterpick him with teemo or maokai right?

MrSc0tty1 votes

While that'd work, I had great success with the following champs and strats:

Out poke then engage when he's low:

-Maokai -Gragas -Jayce -Zed -Khazix -Diana

Chunk n' Dunk

-Darius -Fizz -Renekton -Jax

Outsustain and Outscale

-Nasus -Chogath (actually a solid counter in my eyes because if you walk up to him with no stacks, and dodge a boomerang, you can silence at his autoattack range, then Q and walk away and he's got no response to it)

Solumindra1 votes

I really like that you bring up Darius, I had great luck yesterday against Gnars as Darius with just being able to out last him in lane. That being said I think the first nurf on Gnar will be the boomerang Cooldown time. For a no mana champ, it is ridiculously low.

MrSc0tty1 votes

Actually it ramps up to like 20 seconds if he misses it.

I had a great time yoinking him away from it as Darius.

AhhShucks1 votes

Other than his ult, his Mega form is worthless. Right now he is new and it looks visually intimidating, so people are backing off when they see him switching to Mega form, that won't last long though. When he goes Mega is the best time to just kill him, as long as you have enough health that he can't just straight burst you.

Playing against little gnar goes - kick the **** out of him, because he is squishy with no range. You probably won't kill him, because he is fast and good at escapeing, but as long as you keep him defensive he won't get to do much damage.

Playing against Mega Gnar goes - As long as I have enough health that he can't burst me, go wreck that fool, he does nothing. His burst isn't even all that high.

I would almost say he counters mostly immobile top laners pretty well, except that every 20 seconds he turns into an even more immobile and less damaging top laner and has to go hide from them unless he's gotten them down to like 10% hp.

MrSc0tty1 votes

He has the highest base AD in the game. This means Megaboy scales very well with Trinity force, and his Trinity combo is incredibly punishing.

Crunch-auto-Ult-auto while stunned-Whallop-auto while stunned-house and back off for mini form is one heck of a chunky combo with plenty of utility. Built like a tanky bruiser, mega Gnar can be one potent dude.

AhhShucks1 votes

So I played a few games with him yesterday, and trinity never felt like it was doing much damage. The extra "base" AD comes as a bonus from his passive, and probably doesn't add to the trinity proc. It doesn't feel like it does when you use it anyway. Alistar and Blitz feel meaningful with Trinity Procs, Mega Gnar does not.

MrSc0tty1 votes

it does actually. It's also great for mini's skirmish power because weaving autos in while chasing and kiting is what he does.

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