How to make Gnar healthier
Basically, I was thinking of ways that Gnar could be made into a healthier champion without changing his overall balance level too much. Mini Gnar is by far the bigger of the balance problems, as a ranged manaless top laner with a double jump escape tends to be very noninteractive in lane. These are mostly minor tweaks, and they are organized in pairs. I'm going to put the list, and then explain the reasoning behind each of the groups of changes.
-Remove Frozen Mallet +HP: 540-1645 -> 540-1730 *Mega HP bonus: 70-801 -> 70-716 (total unchanged) +armor: 23-65.5 -> 23-74 +Mega armor: 26.5-103.5 -> 26.5-112 -AD: 51-102 -> 48-99 -Mega AD: 57-151 -> 54-148 -Mini AS (from passive): 5.5%-99% -> 5.5-82%
-Q AD ratio: 115% (120%) at all ranks -> 80/90/100/110/120% +Q slow: 2 s -> 2.5 s +New passive: Q and basic attacks execute minions below 15 health (after normal damage)
+E cooldown: 22/19.5/17/14.5/12 s -> 18/16.5/15/13.5/12 s +E AS: 20/30/40/50/60% -> 40/50/60/70/80% -Hop reworked: "If Gnar lands on any unit, he bounces off of them to jump the same distance again, and if they are an enemy, he also deals them physical damage and slows them by 80% for 0.5 seconds." --> "If Gnar lands on an enemy unit, he bounces off of them to jump the same distance again, deals them physical damage, and slows them by 80% for 0.5 seconds." -Hop and Crunch (the special version of E when at 100 Fury) keeps the nerfed version of Hop, not the current one.
-R: Throws enemies a fixed distance -> Throws enemies to a fixed distance from the diameter of the ult
Remove Frozen Mallet, Q slow duration increase: It's cancer, and no champions are dependent on it besides Gnar. Some other champions that can abuse it include Yasuo and Teemo. Let me repeat that. YASUO. Y'all circlejerkers can't disagree with me now. Anyways, Gnar is healthier when his kiting is reliant on hitting his Q skillshot, and Gnar has plenty of utility outside of FM. He will be much easier to balance without it, since it makes a lot of matchups even more polarizing (i.e. Gnar v Darius). That being said, without FM Gnar is going to have a harder time kiting. A slight buff to his Q slow duration should help him in that regards without being too oppressive.
Higher scaling HP, armor: Since Gnar's harass is getting nerfed, and his E will no longer serve as a double jump escape, Gnar will need some better defensive stats. Keep in mind that these are still substantially lower base defensive stats than Kennen or Teemo's.
Lower base AD, scaling Q ratio, new Q passive: The basic idea is to nerf Gnar's poke in lane. The less AD he has and the less damage he has in Q early on, the less oppressive he is early on. The new Q passive is to help him last hit with all the nerfs to his AD and Q for last hitting.
Lower base AS, E AS steroid increase, E cooldown: The entire reason there is an AS steroid on Gnar's E is to incentivize using it as an offensive trading tool. Right now, it's simply better to use it only as en escape or if you can guarantee a kill, both due to the long cooldown and the fact that you aren't dependent on the AS steroid. Increasing the AS steroid and nerfing base AS will force Gnar to use it more aggressively if he wants to kill and trade, as well as the lower E cooldown making it safer for him to do so.
Hop rework, lower E cooldown: In 6.18, E's cooldown was increased by 4 seconds at rank 1 with the following explanation: "Gnar’s a little too effective at shutting down almost all forms of aggression - not just the really durable kind. We’re hitting his baseline effectiveness with respects to trading and gank-avoidance to open up the kinds of aggressive picks and pressure that should be key in punishing Gnar’s temper tantrums". The big take-aways there are that he is good at avoiding trading and good at avoiding ganks. The reason Gnar in particular is so good at avoiding ganks is due to his Hop's double jump. However, it is an iconic part of his kit, and is much healthier when used as an engage tool than one that makes him ridiculously safe in the highest tiers of play. Removing the ability for Gnar to use double jump as an escape in lane makes him a more vulnerable pick to ganks. In some matchups, he absolutely relies on having his E cooldown to be able to farm safely, never mind trade. This includes matchups such as Irelia, Fiora, Renekton, Riven, Yasuo and many others. Losing the ability to double jump does hurt him in these matchups, especially versus Yasuo, Renekton, and Riven who have multiple dashes. I initially thought the cooldown should be lowered to 16 seconds rather than 18, but considering that Gnar would get more CDR early due to rushing The Black Cleaver instead of Frozen Mallet leads me to believe that 16 seconds would be too strong early.
R change: Basically, enemies that are further from the direction Gnar is throwing them in get thrown more than those who are closer to where he is throwing them. When Gnar is a certain distance from a wall, and he tosses an enemy, they will hit the wall. I don't have numbers for this change, but it would be a nerf in some cases and a slight buff in most cases. The idea behind this change is to make Gnar's ult more reliable and predictable. Gnar still needs a wall to stun, but now the stun depends only on his positioning so long as he grabs the enemy, not his position AND the enemy's. If this change was too much of a buff, increasing the cooldown would probably be the best path to take to bring it in line.
