Why is GP Barrel doing 1200 damage to tanks?

crit? his barrels can crit you know

For the simple reason that they effectively have no cooldown and area damage they shouldn't ever be allowed to crit. That's just poor design

Try playing him. In my 3 years, I would easily say he is the hardest champ in the game to feel comfortable on. There's a reason they hit so hard. To say they have no cooldown is absurd, you pretty much get one 3 barrel chain a fight.

Sounds like a malphite got 2 shotted by a gp when he ulted in and lost his team the game

I 100% agree that they do absolutely insane damage. They apply barrel damage plus parlay damage(so typically crit is in there) and they ignore huge percentages of armor, up to 70% if I remember correctly. Riot says it's balanced because it does take some skill to use them reliably and they're not that useful against comps with 2-3 ranged aaers which is common but trust me when I say it really doesn't take that much practice to get it down. I play in gold 2-3 elo consistently and I picked him up randomly for like a week and it only took me about 2 games to start doing the most damage on my team by about 3 times anyone else. Landing just one barrel has such a huge impact on the late game it honestly doesn't feel balanced at all. Eventually someone is going to get hit if fighting is happening and the fact that it could a) one hit a squishy or b) half health your full armor/hp tank is just ridiculous when gp is about as slippery as a fighter can be.