He is practically ranged with his Q poke. His build gives him infinite mana to spam q and barrels so you get bullied all lane. If you try to get near him you get slowed. If you actually CC him he has a cleanse that heals him. If you actually do get on top of him his melee attack ignites you. And then hes got a global damaging ult. Soooo whats the %%%%% in this guys armor? Seems like 100 % bs champ to me.
Quepha6 votesWay more than one.
Poor duelist. Easy to dive in the lane phase. Primary damage source is counter-able by anyone with a ranged auto-attack. Extremely poor roaming and ganking power.
His only real advantage is farming speed which gives him a powerspike in the mid game through late game, but then falls off as the late game extends.
KuraSei3 votesYea shitt champ ur right that's why he's best top laner across all elos
BeatzBoyFTW2 votesIt's mainly due to him being highly gold efficient with Q+Klepto., where he can reach his items a lot faster than average champions does.
But in laning phase, he's highly vulnerable being dived on as he depends on his dueling potential with his delayed ranged barrels, of which can be easily negated by killing it first before GP procs it.
Unreformed Shaco1 votesBut in laning phase, he's highly vulnerable being dived on as he depends on his dueling potential with his delayed ranged barrels, of which can be easily negated by killing it first before GP procs it.
Who is going to be better at timing it, the GP who shoots 1000 barrels a day or the odd Riven who sees him 1/10 games.
And the triple barrel combo has no time to kill the barrel, it explodes as its placed.
BeatzBoyFTW2 votesAnd is pretty easy to predict on where he's gonna place the 3rd barrel. Mainly I just juke his barrel by faking that I'm going for the cs, which may ended up him wasting his barrel combo.
Nonetheless, he's already receiving nerfs on PBE right now, which I can understand.
TheSandQrator1 votesI love fighting GP because you can tell when they get pissed off that they just can't hit the barrel before you do. Then they start using multiple barrels, or just Q'ing you directly, which tickles unless they've a Sheen. Barrel chains can be played around by keeping an eye on where he puts the first (and second, if he's going for a 3-chain).
His Q has both a wind-up and a (very short) travel time, and his autoattack really doesn't have the best animation or attack point.
If you're melee, especially with an autoattack reset, 
etc.; the world's your oyster.
I complained to high hell and back about his barrels because they did so goddamned much but eventually I just got good at last-hitting the barrels. It becomes a mindgame after the first few.
You can:
Of course this just really applies to laning phase since later on when he has items, the barrels tick down too quickly (to make easy chains), and he's got so many of them ready, that it's really silly to try to break the barrels. He gets rewarded so much for popping one then compared to your payoff, for that risk.
Quepha1 votesGP's Q has a wind-up and travel time causing the perfect timing to change with distance, Riven's auto animation is perfectly consistent every time and Rivens need to know their animations just as well as Gangplanks (honestly Rivens need to know their animations MORE)
Fun fact about the triple barrel: Even at 40% cdr it effectively has an 18 second cooldown which is longer than almost every basic ability in the game. If Gangplank tries for a triple barrel he absolutely HAS TO land it on a high value target or he's up Shit Creek for quite a while.
Alex Luu2 votesA bad player using him is his weakness
420 grams2 votesHe has no hard engage so he can't protect his team very well