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Gangplank has no efficient counter play. Here are my ideas for counter play

Inigo Montoya··3 votes·3,455 views

I thought it was just me being a shitty player but watching GP in the LCS is after being banned 100% of the time, don't you think its time for a fix?

Lets talk about why my scrub ass thinks he's broken:

  1. Free ignore %armor massive 1000 damage AOE crits that also slow and apply on hit effects.
  2. everything applies on hit effects
  3. silly amount of sustain with a cleanse+heal on a 14 second cooldown
  4. bonus free gold from last hitting minions plus reseting your ranged ability that applies on hit effects
  5. a 2000 base damage global AOE ult with 2/3 upgrades
  6. True damage auto attacks and a reset on its cooldown that also ignores %armor

I feel like there are a few relatively easy tweaks you can make to relieve his unfair game play.

  1. When you shoot barrels its a flat damage burst. It doesn't crit and it doesn't apply on hit effects. You can make it basic attack damage, ignore the armor still and slow still. Lets just take away 1000 damage crits that ignore %armor and CC AOE targets out of the game from anyone. There isn't really counterplay to the barrels late game when he gets one every few seconds and can chain them.

  2. Lets relax the W a little bit. 40% CDR means that he has a QSS that heals every 8 seconds at max rank. That kind of sucks to deal with if you're not playing a superbursty champ that constantly has to outplay him to win trades. How does removing the recover missing health aspect and increasing the cooldown to 30/28/26/24/22 sound?

  3. Take away the free gold. The doubloons make his parrrlay and pirate theme click already. Free gold on a champ is just mean. Its why Frost Queens is really popular now, why does he get thousands of gold worth of free stuff in his kit AND then more free gold on top of that? He gets a better version of a 1300g item when he gets his W. He gets another better version of a 1300 gold item in last whisper with his barrels that he can protect instantly chain Q them to hit you if you aren't a ranged champ. Plus his bonus gold from last hitting with his AOE barrels if he chains a barrel in a minion wave he gets 2 minions worth of free gold? Come on. Thats not fair to play against.

  4. He can chain barrels still, but they all have to be at 1 health otherwise the exploding barrel takes the other barrel(s) to 1 health. This means you have counterplay to the instant barrel chain Q nonsense.

There are certainly better players and designers out there than me who can address this better. It just seems like it defies the first rules of Zileas's list of anti patterns you guys work so hard to incorporate into all champions (for those who are curious: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=293417). The 2k damage ult breaks the conflicted purpose rule, his barrels break fun fails to exceed anti-fun, his EQ barrel chain breaks quite a few but we'll call it power without game play, (what should you do? dive the barrel he's going to explode next to him hope you have better timing than him and eat true damage from his auto or back off and get zoned from CSing? Neither of those are good options) and his w is just... sigh, lock him down blow your CC just to have everything be k and watch him kill you. What's the point of even playing against him?

As you can see by this post, I'm tired of it, frustrated and annoyed by the seemingly lack of attempt to bring him to a counterplayable state. This has caused me started play ARAMs only to not have a GP in every game someone forgets to ban him. Its just not fun to play against, and leaves you a ban short when you're red side. No matter how hard you beat him in the early game, he outscales you and gets more gold than you do, does more damage than you and doesn't die as much as you because he can get away. He was broken at worlds, and he's broken again now. Again, maybe I just suck, (I do) but I see this in pro play too, what does it take for this to get addressed? Usually Riot is on top of this instantaneously like the AP Tryn nerfs or Runeglaive Ezreal.

14 Comments

Troiann4 votes

You remove the critting barrels and he becomes pathetically weak.

Inigo Montoya2 votes

But why should any champ have 1000 damage AOE slows on such a short CD? I'm all for bursty damage abilities lets keep burst damage in the game, but there aren't many abilities that deal as much damage as GP's E in the game that aren't ults. His barrels just have too many multipurpose uses: gold generation, armor pen, ranged crit from a melee, AOE damage, and CC. What other abilities can claim half of those abilities much less all of them? Vayne's silver bolts require 3 hits so you can get away and doesn't slow without a frozen mallet. and I can't think of any other abilities that do that kind of damage (ultimate abilities excluded)

Troiann1 votes

Well that's why the rework is shit.

He's going to be broken OP or he's going to be flat out garbage.

Hayaishi22 votes

Barrels need to hit hard because they aren't exactly the easiest thing to hit.

Z Statistic2 votes

How is a melee supposed to kill the damn thing without getting hit?

Ralanr1 votes

Either hit it fast or move away from them.

Inigo Montoya1 votes

You can Renekton dash in there and surprise him and dash out but you'll probably take either his passive proced auto and a Q or an Auto and a Q in trade which is what I don't think is effective, needing to give up an auto to take an auto doesn't seem fair.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I think what you're getting at is if a something like a Mundo cleaver could kill/damage it, that would be counter play. After all a mundo cleaver can kill/damage zyra plants, malz minions, annie's minions, dinger turrets, but not GP's "minion".

HotChilly2 votes

Those changes you suggest are all incredibly extreme, and while GP WAS extremely op when he was first reworked he is much more inline than he was back then. He is very close to not being banned, he has already started to slip through the ban phase, and when he does he doesnt win 100% at all, infact I'm pretty sure he has a losing winrate this season across all regions. I know he is 1 -1 in NA lcs, and I know FAKER lost on him, lol xp

Anyways, with him already not getting banned here and there, I expact small/medium sized nerfs like the ult CD nerf coming in 6.2 to have a strong impact on his ban rate. He will be seen in more games in 6.2, he may or may not see 1 or 2 minor nerfs similar to the 6.2 nerfs and I bet he will drop off completely in ban rates. There are just too many other game changing champs out there, it takes very little (sometimes nothing) for a champ to drop out of pro competitve play popularity

Inigo Montoya1 votes

I'm not saying you need all of them, I'm making suggestions to attempt to get a conversation going in the hopes of tuning him down so there is some counter play. You are obviously a much better player than me, and I value your input. GP has definitely been tuned down since his rework no question, but have his opponents been given the opportunity to actually counterplay or are people just realizing pick changes to go against him? I'm going to argue he is being picked against now.

If I'm playing against someone who is better than me like yourself, then I'm probably going to lose, but when you kill me as GP 4 times and I get assists while AFK farming side lanes by pressing R and 2 minions of free gold each wave, I catch up really quickly. Once every 3 minutes GP gets an extra 875 gold on his lane opponent if both players farm to maximum effectiveness. That means his lane opponent has to out CS him by about 30% to go even with him. That is unfair, especially since he just wants to stay away from you and spam Qs to last hit early game. If GP gets picked, you have to play a super high damage sustain champ against him or lose your lane. THAT is what I mean by efficient counter play. If I want to play Garen, Mundo, Malphite or some tank against him because my team is janna, lucian, viktor, kindred, I can't. You can have a trundle who is good against tanks, and you can go even in lane with trundle or even beat him in lane with those champs because he has efficient counter play (build armor, run away when he ults you, don't fight on his W). Conversely, Gankplank, even if you follow the rules of playing against him, he gets gold back way too fast.

As for your point about him having a losing win rate, that is just not true (with the exception of bronze ranked play according to LolKing). He currently has a 51.5% winrate on gangplank according to champion.gg (ranks platinum games and higher) and 51.7% on Lolking (all levels) ( http://champion.gg/champion/Gangplank/Top ) ( http://www.lolking.net/champions/gangplank?region=all&map=sr&queue=1x1#statistics ) which suggests its pretty close to a stable winrate across all levels of play. AND in GP's loss with CLG he still dealt crazy amounts of damage, gave up Graves (who we will all agree is at least a little OP right now), dealt way more damage to champions than his ADC (about 1.5 times as much) and was the highest damage in the game besides a Viktor who had (effectively) no MR to cut through. ( http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/TRLH1/1001510234?gameHash=8108b30126177b06&tab=stats ) the numbers don't look like other numbers in losses,especially not losses that are that one sided. Win rate and efficient counter play are two different things, and I don't believe GP has the latter of the two. The changes I have suggested (again you don't need all of them) provide a way of playing against this champ. Does GP guarantee a win? No he doesn't because he doesn't take towers super effectively, and even if he gets a 1v5 ace, he still relies on other people to help him take towers and the nexus. Is it fun to play against GP? Not for me at least, because no matter how hard I win, he can catch up/go ahead much faster than any other champ has the ability to.

He has a get out of jail free card, a you can't catch me button that is also global and deals a shitload of damage, mini you can't catch me buttons that ignore armor and AOE slows with massive damages and free bonus gold. The slow removal was eliminated from Lucian's kit for the same reason; it just wasn't any fun to play against. I also think that Teemo's blind is not fun to play against and he shouldn't have that, but the rest of the kit makes up for it by not letting him just get out of the sticky situation he got himself into just by pressing W.

All these things have efficient counter play and are strong abilities, but have made up for it with the rest of their kit. GP just has it all. Its like Thresh in my opinion. He came out with everything you need to keep your ADC safe and will always be relevant because of it; they tried nerfing his attack range, his CDs, his passive, but just because of the structural design of his kit he will always be a solid pick. Let's bring GP to Thresh levels.

Sasogwa2 votes

Gangplank is overpowered because he has a Q, a W, a E, a R and a passive.

I'm not sure you grasp or even define why his strengths are so good atm. It seems he's really proficient in proplay but not quite as much in normal games/ soloQ except in high elo.

I think the main problem is the barrels. Let's think one second about old GP. He had slightly more AD thanks to his E, but overall his Q,W and R were pretty much the same. What about the barrels then? Well it's really complicated. It's his new design and how his new kit functions. You take away too much reliability from it, and he instantly becomes garbage. Barrels are also kinda unhealthy in the way that they are insanely good against melee champions (can't get in range without getting hit by the Q on barrel) and average-mediocre against champions with good range. (once again a design that's supposed to shit on melee--') If you require the barrels to all have 1 hp for those to chain, I'm afraid it's gonna be real garbage. He'll never be able to hit a ranged champion ever. He will lose any reactive play potential in fights and will become worse than pre-buffs rework Veigar (#neverforget)

I'll admit GP is currently quite a nightmare to balance. You could always take some base stats, but they already did it (quite a lot actually) and it didn't really solve the problem. I might be mistaken and maybe he won't be such a good competitive pick in some months, time will tell.

Inigo Montoya2 votes

Hello from across the ocean!

I believe the majority of my post centered around his barrels, most of that was about ignore % armor and AOE crits. I don't believe that any one individual part of his kit is overpowered but rather the combination of having everything in his kit is the problem. If that wasn't clear enough, I apologize. What I believe I offered were ways of negating this problem through facets of his kit other than the just saying "barrels OP". If I did I poor job of that, I apologize, I'm not great at putting my thoughts in writing.

If we make Gankplank have one direction (into a fight) and remove his kiting prowess, he can still be really really effective, but he can be like Fiora, where if he gets into the fight, he can do well but has no means of getting out without taking at least some damage back. If that's the direction to go, changes to the barrels aren't necessary as we can change the W and R to accomplish this. The closest thing I can think of was Lucian when his E removed slows. This was removed because he could kite too efficiently (combined with the CD reduction for utilizing his passive). I'm fine with the remove CC and heal button, I'm not fine with the combination of things he has.

If, however, we want to keep the kiting ability of Gangplank, he shouldn't be able to deal as much damage as he does. I don't think its fair he has both ways in and out of a fight considering the effectiveness of his barrels. I don't have a good, fair solution to this, but there are plenty of options. You can make the 1 health chained barrels thing I talked about above, and have the health deteriorate at a quicker speed than it currently does. This allows outplays on both sides and ranged champs to be able to protect their tanks/melees from his ignore %armor ability. You can remove the slow on the barrels so he can't endlessly run away, you can remove his speed burst from blowing up a barrel when running toward an enemy (although this doesn't really fit his theme, who's heard of a scaredy cat pirate?)

For this reason, I've been leaning toward removing his kiting ability. Give him a speed burst while running toward explosions, and slow him down while running away from them. Maybe take away the slow on his R, or add it in as a purchase with the doubloons. Or just make him be able to buy all the parts of his kit with the doubloons, like viktor and khazix upgrade their abilities throughout the game. I'm fine with late game gankplank. I'm not fine with how quick he gets there.

You said it yourself, you seem to be forced to play a ranged champion against him (or high damage gap closing sustain/revive like Tryn/Aatrox). Does that really seem like counter play? Especially considering how the ranged champions of top lane right now rely on CC (lulu, lissandra, ryze). He can just ignore that and eat your face off for blowing your CC to fight him instead of escape. Having the only option to pick a specific style against a champion doesn't seem like counter play to me.

Sasogwa1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Inigo Montoya,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZxjO5a44,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2016-01-27T01:22:05.244+0000)

Hello from across the ocean!

I believe the majority of my post centered around his barrels, most of that was about ignore % armor and AOE crits. I don't believe that any one individual part of his kit is overpowered but rather the combination of having everything in his kit is the problem. If that wasn't clear enough, I apologize. What I believe I offered were ways of negating this problem through facets of his kit other than the just saying "barrels OP". If I did I poor job of that, I apologize, I'm not great at putting my thoughts in writing.

If we make Gankplank have one direction (into a fight) and remove his kiting prowess, he can still be really really effective, but he can be like Fiora, where if he gets into the fight, he can do well but has no means of getting out without taking at least some damage back. If that's the direction to go, changes to the barrels aren't necessary as we can change the W and R to accomplish this. The closest thing I can think of was Lucian when his E removed slows. This was removed because he could kite too efficiently (combined with the CD reduction for utilizing his passive). I'm fine with the remove CC and heal button, I'm not fine with the combination of things he has.

If, however, we want to keep the kiting ability of Gangplank, he shouldn't be able to deal as much damage as he does. I don't think its fair he has both ways in and out of a fight considering the effectiveness of his barrels. I don't have a good, fair solution to this, but there are plenty of options. You can make the 1 health chained barrels thing I talked about above, and have the health deteriorate at a quicker speed than it currently does. This allows outplays on both sides and ranged champs to be able to protect their tanks/melees from his ignore %armor ability. You can remove the slow on the barrels so he can't endlessly run away, you can remove his speed burst from blowing up a barrel when running toward an enemy (although this doesn't really fit his theme, who's heard of a scaredy cat pirate?)

For this reason, I've been leaning toward removing his kiting ability. Give him a speed burst while running toward explosions, and slow him down while running away from them. Maybe take away the slow on his R, or add it in as a purchase with the doubloons. Or just make him be able to buy all the parts of his kit with the doubloons, like viktor and khazix upgrade their abilities throughout the game. I'm fine with late game gankplank. I'm not fine with how quick he gets there.

You said it yourself, you seem to be forced to play a ranged champion against him (or high damage gap closing sustain/revive like Tryn/Aatrox). Does that really seem like counter play? Especially considering how the ranged champions of top lane right now rely on CC (lulu, lissandra, ryze). He can just ignore that and eat your face off for blowing your CC to fight him instead of escape. Having the only option to pick a specific style against a champion doesn't seem like counter play to me.

Sorry if I seemed aggressive. What I wanted to point out is that if we touch Gangplank's reliability, maybe he'd be more balanced and prone to counterplay against melee champions in lane, but he'd be extremely inconsistant and borderline garbage against ranged champions and in teamfights (even with his ult). That's what happens if you hurt too much a champion's reliability. If it's too easy to not get hit, the champion wanting to hit is relying on his opponents to be dumb. Requiring his ennemies to make mistakes to do one's job is not good at all (that's why I took pre-buffs Veigar as an example, because he was garbage until his reliability was buffed - projectile speed and range of Q increased , delay of E and W shortened - he simply relied on his opponents to be bad. Who cared he dealt a lot of damage when it was utterly unhittable)

(the reliability thing corresponds here to barrels needing to have 1 hp to chain, or the chaining be even slower than before kind of suggestions)

Overall I don't think Gangplank lacks that much of counterplay. His barrels can be destroyed, are slower to chain than before. He has a cleanse and a conditional slow with barrels hitting. That's hardly comparable to kite monsters such as Ahri Vayne Kalista. He's also rather squishy or lacks damage, due to the nature of his kit where you want pure carry (crit) itemization he can't be a bruisery monster-duellist.

About your suggestions, removing crit from barrels would be basically cutting his damage by half, that's pretty insane. Gangplank is a lot about big AOE combo. What happens when you take a burst champion and divide his damage by 2 ? Well he's as good as dead.

The % armor thing might be something we could take in account though. He'd be more reliant on item 3035 to deal with tanky champions. That would hurt his splitpushing against bruisers and nerf his teamfighting against tanks. Note : it has actually already been nerfed on that.

It's actually pretty insane how he got nerfed a lot and is still viable. 5.17 : 60%->50% arpen 5.18 : 50%->40%arpen (there are also a set of changes that overall are a nerf such as nerf to base HP lvl 1, but same HP lvl 18, delay between barrels)

About removing the gold generation, it's a bit sad. It's been in his kit for a really long time and a part of him a lot of people enjoy. There's all the 'bankplank' thing, which is something which would be sad to go. Also that'd make him more aggressive in lane, so not necessarily more fun to play against.

Cenobite Azaziel1 votes

{quoted}

Sorry if I seemed aggressive. What I wanted to point out is that if we touch Gangplank's reliability, maybe he'd be more balanced and prone to counterplay against melee champions in lane, but he'd be extremely inconsistant and borderline garbage against ranged champions and in teamfights (even with his ult). That's what happens if you hurt too much a champion's reliability. If it's too easy to not get hit, the champion wanting to hit is relying on his opponents to be dumb. Requiring his ennemies to make mistakes to do one's job is not good at all (that's why I took pre-buffs Veigar as an example, because he was garbage until his reliability was buffed - projectile speed and range of Q increased , delay of E and W shortened - he simply relied on his opponents to be bad. Who cared he dealt a lot of damage when it was utterly unhittable)

Still this is the base of Sion . No reliability at all and requires the enemy to be really dumb. It is the identity of Darius . "Made a mistake? Gonna carve you boy". He used to be really punishable. Now he has sustain(????) and will be a juggernaut late game.

(the reliability thing corresponds here to barrels needing to have 1 hp to chain, or the chaining be even slower than before kind of suggestions)

That probably is the best option. If you play a immobile champion vs gangplank you will EAT his barrels everytime in lane. Or make the barrel, if there is a champion in the radius, to hit only the champion so it means a choice. Wave clearing with insane gold AND insane damage to the laner? No choice in that.

Making skills hit the barrel (heimer turrets, shaco boxes...) would be nice. Makes no sense why shen can't disarm it with his Q.

Overall I don't think Gangplank lacks that much of counterplay. His barrels can be destroyed, are slower to chain than before. He has a cleanse and a conditional slow with barrels hitting. That's hardly comparable to kite monsters such as Ahri Vayne Kalista. He's also rather squishy or lacks damage, due to the nature of his kit where you want pure carry (crit) itemization he can't be a bruisery monster-duellist.

Biggest problem is he slows you. AND gets a move speed burst. Imagine ahri Q slowing you down. IT is a even bigger problem when GP builds triforce that gives more move speed.

About your suggestions, removing crit from barrels would be basically cutting his damage by half, that's pretty insane. Gangplank is a lot about big AOE combo. What happens when you take a burst champion and divide his damage by 2 ? Well he's as good as dead.

You could remove on hit effects. removes a bit of triforce damage and he can still have his crit. Or make his barrels cost mana. So jayce can be "Yeah, pay up for that wave clear like I do". Wanna spam all day all night? Build a tear and lose early game insane pressure you have.

The % armor thing might be something we could take in account though. He'd be more reliant on item 3035 to deal with tanky champions. That would hurt his splitpushing against bruisers and nerf his teamfighting against tanks. Note : it has actually already been nerfed on that.

It's actually pretty insane how he got nerfed a lot and is still viable. 5.17 : 60%->50% arpen 5.18 : 50%->40%arpen (there are also a set of changes that overall are a nerf such as nerf to base HP lvl 1, but same HP lvl 18, delay between barrels)

There is no reason for the barrels to have armor pen. He already has a cleanse that makes CC tank useless against him. He can clear way better than any top lane tank. He already has a good lane phase vs tanks. Why f*** up tanks during mid/late game?

About removing the gold generation, it's a bit sad. It's been in his kit for a really long time and a part of him a lot of people enjoy. There's all the 'bankplank' thing, which is something which would be sad to go. Also that'd make him more aggressive in lane, so not necessarily more fun to play against.

And there was avarice blade. Got removed. GP kit is overloaded. All new champions riot sh*ts out are overloaded. Q gave some gold and could crit. Now? Can deal AOE damage ( while criting), and you still get that sweet money that COULD get before if you rushed statik or gaunlet.

Scurvy? Turned into true damage and is basically a crit. And move speed. That resets with a keg. Would make more sense if it just refreshed the passive instead of giving him the move speed AND a refresh. Udyr E lvl 5 gives LESS move speed and if you count that GP can get 2 proc with one barrel and AA you get 4 seconds of move speed.

Remove scruvy? Still has no counterplay like before. There is no "bad time" to use it. More interaction with it such as "It heals 20% if used to clear CC" would make a less wet noodle top fight.

KEg? Bonus damage. Armor shred, slows, can crit and will give free move speed. It will deal more damage and will slow more than teemo ult. Teemo, satan.

GP is doing well because his numbers are way to high.

Cenobite Azaziel1 votes

Gp hits a barrel "Well, I guess it is a 4x5 fight now". Feels like nidalee old spear. Jayce hit a E/Q (having so muhc power because he has no ultimate), "And thats a scratch for the tanks."

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