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So after a few games with Gangplank, I have some thoughts

Jacknife·7/25/2015, 7:27:45 AM·1 votes·980 views

Basically as soon as Riot released the preview for GP, I knew I wanted to make him one of my go to champs, because pirate. I've only gotten a few games on him so far, but I think I've seen enough to give a basic analysis as to how his kit reacts to the ebbs and flows of the game, with some possible weak spots to fill.

  1. When he was released Riot advertised him as a splitpusher and/or teamfighter, both of which he does fairly well, although I feel he leans more on the late game teamfighter side, as his early game is actually pretty weak. His barrels are so easy to telegraph no matter where you put them because of the cast time that their impact is almost non-existent early aside from pushing waves.

  2. His ability to get Silver Serpent stacks is a bit troublesome, due to said early game. You either have to farm as slow as a Nasus to get stacks and potentially get bullied out, or try to win your lane ASAP in order to get your splitpush going and hard farm. I've only experienced the former, and I have yet to get my first upgrade before 30 minutes(call that bad if you want, honestly I have yet to get used to how effective Powder Keg is). I'm all for making it difficult to get stacks early, but as of right now it seems a bit too difficult. I would suggest halving the base damage on his E that goes to enemy champions to go to minions, so powder kegs that hit champions deal an extra 80-200 damage, and to minions 40-100. This should make efforts to use the barrels to hard push or clear waves early more of a thing and able to get stacks a little faster and smooth out the power curve of his ult without making his laning phase oppressive.

  3. Past the early game it's all about the Powder Kegs. Plant them right, build crit, and get a mix of Nidalee spears and Teemo shrooms that are multi-purpose. For those that want to play GP and don't know how to start, If it wasn't already obvious, the first step to figuring out the kegs is to always have the first keg right beside you, and build out from there (unless your planning something tricky). Also if there isn't a BroPlank skin already in the works I will be disappoint.

Altogether I think his new kit is amazing in both complexity and power. I have yet to see his passive not burn a hole in someone's health bar and his new W rewards him with a big heal when he needs it most. His new upgrades to his Ultimate overall I have no problems with, its pretty much the same deal as upgrading Viktor's Hex Core. It gives a lot of power to what was a stale ability and I applaud them. The only thing I would argue is maybe make the AOE on Death's Daughter (the true damage nuke) just a tad bigger for teamfight's sake, but it's honestly nbd. I love this guy and I can't wait to turn my games into the real Slaughter Docks >:) Gangplank Gangplank Gangplank

6 Comments

Hasztalan27/25/2015, 1:44:07 PM2 votes

His new kit is garbage nuff said. This "we won't let u parley the enemy directly cuz its "toxic" and instead we enforce u to play a chose-minigame of minesweeper" is just rofl. He is qsuishy, his dmg is easy to avoid , sux at 1v1 , sux at teamfightning apart from his ult.

sp4417/25/2015, 3:35:55 PM1 votes

Been playing with him quite a bit, and I agree with most of your thoughts.

Though I should say that his barrels are great for zoning opponents, lay one on top of your frontmost minion wave and most champions won't dare get to it. Ranged champions are a bit more difficult to zone, though.

Mastering his barrels is really fucking difficult, you need to pretty much build in an internal timer on yourself to get the rythim of using them right. And honestly, I like it, they're very powerful when used right, but it takes skill to use them well.

Not a big fan of stringing more than two barrels together, though, the third explosion takes a while to happen, and I've yet to land one.

Chilroy7/26/2015, 10:27:19 AM1 votes

On average, (depending on your ELO) it should take around 25-35 minutes for your one upgrade - Which is either Death's Daughter if you're split-pushing or Fire at Will if you're team fighting, if you have the ability your second upgrade should Raise Morale (2nd upgrade should be affordable by 35-50 minutes). Still, this is from my perspective, which usually team-oriented rather than individual power-oriented.

If you're carrying, you should probably take DD and FaW rather than Raise Morale.

GP is a good pick into Melee Top & Mid laners now, but rather lackluster against a mostly ranged team. #B3Lyfe

Lightningfst7/26/2015, 10:30:04 AM1 votes

I have a tip for you to farm your ult faster on GP - if you parrrley a keg, every minion killed by that explosion gives you bonus gold. So if you place a keg then auto the minions down into kill range from the parrrley'd keg, you can get bonus gold on potentially the entire wave.