@Meddler Is Gnar going to be looked at in the Vanguard update?

With the recent State of Champion Update post, it was announced that Vanguards would be the next class updated and some of the goals were discussed for the changes that would be made. There are several reasons that Gnar might be considered for a smaller update, seeing as Mega Gnar was classified pretty strongly as a Vanguard. Since this is a giant wall of text, I'm gonna put the summary in the beginning.

TL;DR Gnar has very legitimate reasons to be considered for not insignificant changes, primarily focused on the way he interacts with systems. He could use some changes to his Mini Gnar E - Hop as well to fix longstanding issues with shutting down aggression and changes to focus his strengths as opposed to being a strong generalist top laner. He does not have issues with being unique or having a flat skill curve, unlike other Vanguards. It would also be a perfect opportunity to finally remove Frozen Mallet. All of these factors considered, will he be at least considered for changes during the mid season update?

State of Champion Update, January 2017:

As for unique identities, our Vanguards in particular are currently very similar to each other. They all are basically different versions of Amumu—they go in, do some AOE CC, then stand around doing ambient damage to the enemy team.

Gnar definitely has a very unique identity as an uncontrollable transform champ that plays both as a Vanguard and as a bruiser Marksman. He has a niche to fill when both roles are needed, although he is sometimes too strong of a generalist pick in top lane and might need some tweaks to better focus his strengths.

We want to give tanks more mastery and skill expression, as well as unique identities.

Gnar definitely has a very high skill curve compared to any other tank, based around managing his rage and the more micro aspects of his kit such as orbwalking and an awesome animation cancel using his transform. This is definitely not his problem, so would this rule him out of getting updated?

We also want to take a real hard look at defensive items and how the entire roster (both tanks and non-tanks) engages with them. We want tanks to get a much greater benefit from tank items than other classes, so they can correctly play the role of being the tankiest champions in the game.

This would massively affect Gnar. He is forced to build both offense and defense when he plays as champs that are mostly one or the other. This forces him to be weaker in each form than he would be if he could itemize the way he truly wanted to for each form. If Mini Gnar can't get as much benefit out of tank items anymore, then he will simply be much weaker. Is this a good thing, and will he get buffs to damage to compensate? Are there other plans to improve Gnar's pain points when it comes to itemization? What is Riot's stance on how Gnar should itemize and should benefit from itemization?

For that matter, Gnar also doesn't work well with masteries for the same reason. Other transform champs synergise very well with one keystone (Thunderlord's Decree for Jayce, Nidalee, Elise, etc; Fervor of Battle for Kled; Rek'sai only really uses her unburrowed form for combat and unburrows for knockup). However, Gnar wants to take separate keystones for each form. Mini Gnar loves Fervor of Battle but Mega Gnar wants Courage of the Collosus. Sometimes, Grasp of the Undying is taken as a bit of a compromise between the two. Will these issues simply be passed over until the implementation of the five mastery tree system, or will there be a bit of a fix for Gnar in the meantime?

**Patch 6.18 Notes: **

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.

Is this still the case? Is there any chance that there would be more significant changes to Hop, such as limiting when the double jump is available rather than giving it an artificially long cooldown? Gnar is in a bit of a weak state right now, and it seems like it would be a better idea to fix the underlying issues than adjust his power levels.

Xypherous back in 2014:

The main problem with Frozen Mallet is basically the concept of an on-hit slow and the idea that it's somehow supposed to help fighters or ranged characters.

At its core, there's a lot of interesting design space we could put on fighters or ranged characters - but Frozen Mallet doesn't help any of those patterns when it's good. It simply flattens all the patterns down to 'land one basic attack.'

It's not the permaslow - or the stats really. There's a richness in how ranged vs. melee fight each other and how they position against each other but Frozen Mallet, whenever it's been good basically tells people that a single basic attack should be what defines that pattern.

Frozen Mallet has consistently created unhealthy gameplay patterns for Gnar that really need to be looked at. Nobody has fun in a situation with an on-hit perma slow. It destroys interesting gameplay patterns by removing any agency from the person who is slowed. There's no way to play around it, and it forces stat-check gameplay. Since Gnar is the primary user of Frozen Mallet, a smaller scope class rework to Gnar would be a perfect time to remove Frozen Mallet and balance him without it. Finally removing Frozen Mallet would also be a great reason to do a small rework on Gnar, since he would need changes to compensate for the loss of one of his core items.