Thoughts on Gangplank PBE

Please note, this post is about the current state of the Gangplank nerf on the PBE. This post is not regarding the overall power of Gangplank as a champion, but instead focuses on Gangplank's identity and what this change means for his identity.

The change in question: Gangplank's barrels now ignore %BONUS armor, not %armor. Gangplank's barrels Bonus Armor ignored up to 50% from 40%.

What this change does: this change makes Gangplank less effective at killing of squishier champions with his barrel detonations, and theoretically more effective at poking down tanks.

I did an awful lot of math that looks pretty sloppy and I don't want to include it here, I am sure Riot has done their own math that is probably more accurate than mine and is aware of the exact damage implications of this change. I am here to talk about the playstyle changes and the feel changes.

Gangplank's role right now is very well known. He has a fairly weak laning phase with a monstrous gold income and late game scaling. In lane, his role is mainly to farm and to use his ultimate to aid his friends around the map. After laning phase is over, he becomes a teamfight powerhouse, with literally everything revolving around his barrel usage. You drop them behind walls, in brush, or behind your minion wave; anywhere where the enemy can't reach is fair game for barrel placement. Then, once someone engages, GP wants to chain up his barrels to hit as many high priority targets as possible with an explosion. This is important. Gangplank aims for high priority targets such as ADCs and APCs. Gangplank has monumental burst at a range, but only has effective dps in close quarters where he can consistently proc his passive after barrel usage (which are not often going to actually hit in close quarters).

This change heavily reduces GP's damage output against squishy high priority targets, while leaving it mostly unharmed against tanky targets, but tanks are not GP's main target. This change moves Gangplank out of the realm of attempting to burst squishies and into the realm of a poke champion. Someone looking to get damage off regularly to chunk squishies and to whittle down tanks. That's not why I play Gangplank, that's why I play Jayce, or Varus mid, or Vel'koz.

The crucial difference between GP and these champions is that their poke is easy. Just aim and fire. Gangplank's barrels take a good deal of setup in order to successfully hit a team without the adc or someone similar simply sniping them. Gangplank requires work to get his damage off, and when you do it is supposed to be highly rewarding. Gangplank is a champion who plays the entire game waiting to scale up to the point where he matters in teamfights outside of his ultimate, and that kind of work deserves payoff. Without the ability to burst squishies, Gangplank becomes a lesser version of a poke champion, or a lesser version of an ADC.

It is the ADC's job to whittle down tanks, which is why the Last Whisper changes were made in the first place. It moved %armor pen out of the realm of assassins and solidified the role of ADCs as the go-to tank busters. The problem is that Gangplank is bad at this. The barrels do impressive burst damage to tanks, yes, but they do not do enough to just outright take tanks out of the fight. That would be absurd. This leaves an issue, because Gangplank doesn't get to just lay another barrel and do it again. Barrels have recharge times, they operate around his q cooldown, and they are not easy to get off on someone in a teamfight without a teammate prepping for you. It's not exactly simple to have a teammate prep a person to be hit by a barrel twice in one fight and even if it was the dps would still be lackluster. Tanks are brought down by DPS, not burst, and GP is certainly burst.

In his current state, this change would mean that landing a barrel combo would have to be followed up by diving into melee range on a front line that is still at best at 60% health. I do not fancy the idea of Gangplank trying to charge headfirst into Renekton, Mundo, Malphite, Trundle, or any of the other regular front line monsters we see in the game lately. Gangplank is no assassin, he has no ability to dive in and out of a teamfight. He is equipped with a cleanse to keep the front line OFF of him for goodness sake! He is clearly designed to be a backline champion, and he should be treated that way by having appropriate burst or DPS to represent that line of attack. Burst mages, whom Gangplank shares the most in common with, are designed to kill squishies, not tanks with their damage output. Void Staff grants total magic pen in part because of this. ADCs receive bonus armor pen because they, as backliners, are designed to kill tanks with DPS rather than burst.

IF Gangplank is to be made less effective against squishies while maintaining his damage against tanks, he needs to be treated more like a DPS champion. Anti tank burst champions simply do not work, they are either so high damage that they are effective against everyone or they are not high enough damage to matter.

Suggestions:

1. Use a different form of nerf. If Gangplank is killing squishy targets too easily, take the power from something else. Either let him keep bursting as he is and make him easier to kill by nerfing tank stats, or adjust the life-timers on his barrels to make them less immediately usable in the late game. Keep his identity of a high difficulty high payoff teamfighter.

2. If this nerf is going to go through, change Gangplank to be able to use DPS from a range. Make his passive apply on the barrels. It would obviously have to scale up much slower than currently to keep his laning phase in check, but that's already appropriate for his style of play as someone who farms safely rather than trying to fight in lane.

3. Increase the barrel count/lower the cooldowns. If nothing else, give him at least the slightest semblance of DPS. Give GP something he cna do outside of landing that one shot and then charging into melee range.

I hope you can see that a change like this would compromise Gangplank's identity as a backline AD burster. If you're intent on making these changes, please at least ensure that you make the appropriate adjustments so that Gangplank, a champion with one of the most unique kits in the game, is not left feeling like he has no role to play.