What's better between Critplank and On-hitplank?

Darth Valer·Mar 3, 2015·1 votes·700 views

I guess the core-items for Critplank are and, additionally, boots (often these ) and , , or the likes.

The core-items of On-hitplank should be and, additionally, boots (often these ) and , , or the likes (perhaps additional tankiness)

My personal build right now is , which is a tanky variation of Critplank. I dislike boots on him.

Now, I mostly find the first build on newbies of GP, it's extremely squishy and too rng reliant in the first phases of the game. Some friends of mine which I consider quite stronger than me, though, play him On-hitplank and claim to be quite succesful with him. I'm too conservative to try that build, so I'd like some feedback from seasoned Gangplank players. In my opinion it deals too little damage and, considering GP's utility is not item-reliant for the most part (Passive, E, R), damage is the way to go with itemization to fully exploit his Q.

10 Comments

vIbvdOwbkoMar 3, 20151 votes

Gangplank is a bad champion. I don't know why anyone would ever play that champion. I think he's possibly the worst champion in the game.

On the other hand, I've seen people go Shiv and then tank on GP occasionally, but most of the time I see people in my elo go full crit gangplank. Reasoning? Because the only people that play Gangplank are the people that have played him numerous times, and they're probably familiar with going a high risk playstyle with him.

And your Hydra, IBG, and Shiv on-hit build is a little questionable. I've never understood why people stack on-hit effects. Just go for a DPS build if you're going to stack on-hits. "ahhaha im lulu ad top i bought nashors, wits, bork, and runaans hahaha." what.

I feel that Gangplank is most effective with the aforementioned full crit or shiv + one or no damage item then tank builds. As a tank, you can have a little function in teamfights. As crit, you can get things done if you're good.

Hasztalan2Mar 3, 20151 votes

Gankplank and good in the same sentence won't cut it . There is a reason why he is considered one of the weakest overall pick in the game atm.

Adrian BlackbearMar 3, 20151 votes

That's a lot of attack speed in the Critplank build compared to how I build him, but I prefer playing Critplank to any other version of his build only because it's more fun to play.

I tend not to play him though, because of the way that top lane is this season, and because Critplank is a niche build when you feel safe enough to get ahead. Your personal build looks pretty good, but I think that you should try to switch out the Frozen Heart for an Iceborn Gauntlet (depending on who you are up against).

Gangplank

Darth ValerMar 3, 20151 votes

So much hatred for GP item 3070 Gangplank . I asked which build was "better". As far as I know "better" is different from "good", whereas the former is relative, comparative, and the latter is absolute, in-itself. I'm not claiming GP to be meta, op, or anything, just wanted to know how to exploit him as much as possible for what he can offer.

As for ICB and Frozen Heart, I tend to avoid building item 3025 because it conflicts with item 3078 and Trinity is essential to my build since it provides 8% passive movement speed (which, together with 8% E boost and 6 % Shiv boost, allow me to skip boots). Plus, with the 20 % CDR from Frozen Heart, 10 % from Spirit Visage and 10 % from Runes and Masteries, I get to 40 % CDR and can spam Qs more freely.

P.S. I've read that GP is not as much bad in itself as he is, instead, in an overnerfed state. His kit is considered toxic since, with the right numbers, it can be too oppressive (in particular, his passive could stack to up to 5 times, making his trades absolutely hellish in lane). Thus it's been shut down over the years waiting for the right time for a rework.

Adrian BlackbearMar 3, 20151 votes

item 3025 item 3078

These two items shouldn't conflict with one another. The Triforce Sheen damage should be single target while the AoE Gauntlet damage and slow should still be applied to the area around it. I think, more or less, that people don't want to build both because of the cost efficiency of building two sheens.

I tried to give my opinion on how I like to play Gangplank, rather than to tell you what is "better," because it's all relative to how you play your champions. What is good for you may not be good for me because our play styles could be vastly different. If you want to do "tons of damage" (Phreak, 2012) then you could definitely go Critplank and do it, but recognize that the downside to doing that means you won't have as much survivability. That's where the on-hit Gangplank build comes in; you essentially sacrifice damage output of critical strike (and the like) for tank statistics.

Darth ValerMar 3, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Adrian Blackbear,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xlqEnV1n,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2015-03-03T07:47:32.924+0000)

I tried to give my opinion on how I like to play Gangplank, rather than to tell you what is "better," because it's all relative to how you play your champions. What is good for you may not be good for me because our play styles could be vastly different.

I was speaking about the first two comments which were quite inclement towards the mighty pirate u.u Anyhow, I think that if the concept of "meta" means something, there's also a "best" way to use a champ, to fully benefit from its kit strenghts given the instruments we have to customize them (masteries, runes, skill order and, primarily, items).

Adrian BlackbearMar 3, 20151 votes

I figured as much.

It's sad, because Gangplank has a lot of potential with his kit, but it's not quite there in terms of execution. If you want to have a really good time, play Gangplank as a support. I've done that a few times because his W and E lean towards the support side of kits. Otherwise, you're bound to have a pretty rough time with top lane Gangplank unless you are certain to get ahead early game.