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Gangplank Rework Ideas

treeking013·3/31/2015, 11:31:34 PM·5 votes·2,150 views

These are my ideas for the eventual Gangplank rework. There's nothing really "wrong" with Gangplank, he just feels slightly un-interactive to play. People who like him often like him because of his versatility, not necessarily any raw power. I'll stress that I'm not an expert, and these are simply some ideas I had for him.

THE PASSIVE Gangplank's current passive can be handy early on, but is only somewhat useful later for its slow. Thematically it makes almost no sense at all; he is sticking rum on his sword and... it helps? Looking around, you won't find much love for Gangplank's passive. Here is my idea for a new one:

  • New Passive: Hatred of Scurvy Whilst in combat, Gangplank eats oranges obsessively. He heals for 0.5% of his missing health each second and has 10/15/20% Tenacity while eating them. This does not inhibit his fighting capabilities in any way. He is so awesome that he continues eating oranges while thrown into the air, smashed against walls, mauled by werewolves, etc. (Another passive idea would be to keep the oranges in his base kit and add a new passive - 'Scurvy' which gives Gangplank stacks of Scurvy whenever he attacks, healing him when he W's.)

This new passive means Gangplank can have a new active ability without tampering with his oranges. (:D) It rewards him for staying in combat, shows off both his skill in eating while fighting and his appreciation for oranges, and stands out in your head. It also retains some of the anti-cc nature of his old w by giving him free tenacity based on level.

THE Q By contrast, Gangplank's Q makes perfect sense thematically. What self-respecting pirate doesn't have a pistol? However, a lot of players would expect the point-and-click nature of it to be changed to a skillshot with any update. I can kind of see why; it offers more interactivity as a skillshot, but it obviously needs a bigger benefit if you still manage to hit with it.

  • Q: "Parrley" Due to the nature of Gangplank's negotiation habits, he shoots a bullet from his pistol in a line after .25 seconds. If it hits a target, it deals 20/50/80/110/140 (+100% Attack Damage) physical damage, slows by 20% for 2.5 seconds, applies on-hit effects and can critically strike. Killing an enemy with "Parrley" grants 4/5/6/7/8 bonus gold and refunds half the mana cost.

This change makes the Q a skillshot, deals more damage if it hits, and has a stronger slow than his old passive gave it. Still applies on-hit effects, still gives bonus gold and mana if it kills the target. This change may prove troublesome when trying to poke, due to the availability of minions and its newfound dodgability. Extended range would be included with this, simply because it is no longer point-and-click.

THE W Gangplank's current E would make sense as a W, since the W slot can and does include steroids. E is more about secondary damage sources, cc and mobility. These changes to his old E/new W mean he now has to lead the charge in order to give allies a movement speed boost. Conversely, he has to be the first coward running for his life to lead a successful retreat.

  • New W: Rallying Shot Passive - Gangplank's base Movement Speed is increased by 10/20/30/40/50. Active - Gangplank fires a rallying shot into the air with his pistol, increasing his Movement Speed by 13/16/19/22/25% for 5 seconds. Nearby allies receive this bonus when moving toward Gangplank. (Another option is to move the team buff effect to E, making the W active still give MS but also remove crowd control.)

The ability is now more interesting than a simple steroid, though it now offers only mobility and does not include attack damage. As a side note, since the cast delay on the skill has been a nuisance for a while, making it so that it does not prevent Gangplank from moving during the delay would be both practical and realistic.

THE E So, now that we have one of those precious ability slots open, what should we do with it? Hmm... Well, I thought about it for a while, and couldn't help but remember pirates swinging from ship to ship on a rope from Pirates of the Caribbean. Well, Gangplank being League's only pirate, why shouldn't he do that? It's cool, it's memorable, it's flavorful, and it works. (From Fizz, we have seen what two mobility skills in a base kit can do, but a delayed dash and a haste doesn't seem as bad one short dash/invulnerability and one long dash.)

  • New E: Boarding Rope A rope conveniently swings down from the sky after .4 seconds, during which time Gangplank stares blankly at the sight. He grabs it just as it swings by him, moving 700 units before he lets go. Any enemies along his path are struck by his scimitar, taking 10/15/20/25/30(+60% Attack Damage) physical damage. If he is hard cc'd before he can grab the rope, or after he grabs it, he cannot grab it/keep holding on. (Suggested change: add either a knock-aside effect and/or increase movement of allies moving along your path for a few seconds.)

Some of more thematic-minded of you might be going "Huh? A rope from the sky? That's weird." and some of the more critical of you might be thinking "Wow. A delayed dash. That's worthless." Well, visually he needs time for the rope to show up, so a delay is necessary. Also visually, Elise's Rappel shoots a web into the sky that she uses to grapple upwards. It is inclined that there's a branch up there somewhere, so why can't I incline that there's a mast up there somewhere? The delay can be shortened, the damage can be changed/removed, the cooldown can be long, a.k.a. nothing's set in stone. But I like the idea, and I think it can make Gangplank more fun to play.

THE R And then we reach the topper on the cake: Gangplank's ultimate. It's a very cool ability, and one of the only remaining global abilities in the game. The damage is lackluster unless GP buys AP, but it's necessary for the damage to be somewhat weak the way it is. It's a global damage/slow; without any numbers, it sounds strong already. This is just an idea to make it feel more like a cannon barrage should, but it's not necessary for the rework as a whole.

  • R: Cannonade Gangplank screams "FIRE!" to his ship, causing it to hammer any area on the map with cannonballs after 1 second. After that second, a wave of cannonballs deals 175/220/260 (+75% Ability Power) magic damage to enemies in the area. For 7 seconds thereafter, enemies in the area take 75/120/160 (+25% Ability Power) magic damage each second and are slowed by 25%. Gangplank can be heard laughing in the distance as cannonballs stop raining.

With this change, your enemies start to realize what cannonballs feel like, the ship's crew has much-needed time to fire the cannons, and its feels better as an ability. Well, if you hit with it anyway. There's a chance enemies in the area can dash/flash out with no penalty at all now, which is worth considering. This isn't integral to the update, it's just something I thought up.

So, those are my rework suggestions. I'm by no means a seasoned video-game balance expert, these are just some ideas I thought were neat. Leave your comments below, upvote if you liked the post. Thanks for reading.

Edit: Added the Q range buff suggested by Arrevax.

Edit: Added some ideas from Darth Valer.

Edit: Moved D.V.'s suggestions from the end of this thread to their respective places in the thread itself.

"Enjoy yer visit to the depths of the sea, land-lubber!"

7 Comments

Maximum Zilean3/31/2015, 11:49:53 PM2 votes

This sounds like a completely new champion to be honest. And not Gangplank...

You kinda removed the most iconic thing about Gangplank... THE ORANGES!

Darth Valer4/1/2015, 9:55:21 AM2 votes

I really like your ideas and that comes from a heavy gangplank player. I'd point out a few things, though:

  • Eating oranges while fighting is not reproducible beautifully in terms design and graphics imho;
  • 0.5 missing hp regen per second is... non-existent. 20 % tenacity is also weak if you build carry-like and feels redundant with Irelia's passive;
  • W's passive and active feel too similar, you are fast and then get a "temporary faster" buff... doesn't sound very good.

The Q and R sound good, the flat W passive movement speed is nice (instead of the %mov. speed of current E) and the E is extraordinary :Q___

I would design a new passive, return the cleanse to his W (instead of its active and keeping the passive)

W: 50 mana; 22/21/20/19/18 Passive: GP gets 10/20/30/40/50 flat mov. speed Active: Double the movement passive mov. speed buff for the next 5 seconds. If you're affected by CC at the time of cast, remove it and have 3x the mov. speed buff instead.

His passive might be something like: GP gains X scurvy charges each time he suffers or performs certain actions (receiving or dealing damage, moving, using skills and things like these). The next time he eats oranges, he heals for X * [LEVEL SCALING MULTIPLIER] (+100% AP)

This should have a cap for charges (perhaps limited by levels and maximum health) so that you can't amass them and heal from 10% to 100% health in the blink of an eye unless you troll build specifically for it.

As for your E, I love it (except for the fact it can be interrupted :S) and would add a hard CC to it + the team buff you put in W. Like, take the rope, dash, cut the field with your sword, deal minor damage and knock-aside (Draven's E) foes, leave a trail behind you that speeds up allies. Of course this should have huge mana costs and CD for all the things it does.

A huge problem that would emerge from all this (even without the changes I propose) would be that by comboing your E+Q you could deal damage to as far as 1.400 range (700 range + at least 700 from the upgraded skillshot range on Q), something that would be unique for a melee carry. As such, I think his E dash range should be a little shorter and his Q might be reverted to a cone-like skill like Graves Buckshot or Panth's Heartseeker Strike where you shoot the pistol, have loads of smoke gettin' out of it and hitting with the above mentioned damage + on-hit effect + crit. strike possibility the nearest enemy in range, prioritizing champions.

Something like this would hardly ever see the light of day, though, since hard CC, crazy mobility, high damage, sustain and an absurd defensive W all in one kit would be too much. Yasuo

Zarxis3/31/2015, 11:51:07 PM1 votes

Personally, I'd like to just leave Gangplank as he is, but I understand that Riot can't leave well enough alone. My ideas: Q could stand to be a skillshot, but it needs to retain its compatibility with all on-hit effects. That's what truly makes it unique, and the fact that it works with nearly all items is what would differentiate it from Ezreal's Q (apart from its range... which could be increased to make up for it being made unreliable/a skillshot). If Grog-Soaked Blade to go, then Gangplank should have another way to slow enemies within his kit. OP, I like the idea of Gangplank slowly eating oranges for sustained healing and tenacity, but Garen and Mundo already have %max health regen passives and Irelia already has passive Tenacity. Gangplank's built-in Cleanse and healing are what makes his oranges strong; the current pattern of forcing Gangplank to save his W for cleansing or forcing him to burn it for sustain is perfectly fine. Giving him Tenacity+max health regen would harm his current versatility (Gangplank can be anything— AP, AD, tank, glass cannon, bruiser, jungler, even a support) by encouraging him to build tanky. Tenacity and health regen don't save carries; cleanses and burst healing can.

If I had to choose one ability to completely replace, it would be Gangplank's E. It's extremely powerful... In the form of free (semi-temporary) stats for Gangplank and his nearby allies. I love the strength it adds to Gangplank and his entire team, but despite fitting thematically and not being a major balance issue, it seems out of place in his kit. I'd prefer to replace it with a dash, and not a delayed rope-swing that's extremely vulnerable to CC during the windup and actual dash... If we can't give Gangplank a good dash, he should at least receive scaling movement speed as part of his new passive (or on one of his abilities). Gangplank can thrive in any role partially because he's so fast— I rarely build boots on him because I can just stack Trinity Force and Statikk Shiv with his E's passive movement speed... That, and his natural bonus AD on his current E makes building crit on him less painful while you stack up the %crit.

Gangplank's kit, as it currently is, makes him the premier jack-of-all-trades in League, and he just might be the master of melee crit carries. Each ability synergizes with the others to make him viable as a melee ADC (though, as I have already mentioned, he's decent at tanking/bruisering/etc.), a class that is practically nonexistent at this time in League of Legends (Yi was reworked into a more assassin-type character, Fiora's being reworked, Jax has always been a bruiser, etc.). If anything in GP's kit is removed or changes, he'll need a lot of work and attention to re-tune him until he's back to being balanced and fun. I don't think reworking him is really worth Riot's time and effort, considering how slowly and painfully they retune champions after major changes. (Veigar, Kassadin)

Jenubis4/7/2015, 12:49:31 PM1 votes

As far as Gangplank goes with his kit I like his E and W. His E fits well, not sure what you guys mean when you say it doesn't. Firing his gun into the air to buff him and his teammates in the form of AD and Speed is the iconic heritage of all pirates just about. I agree his Q could be made into a skillshot.

I like the idea of tinkering with his resources though. Maybe not necessarily replacing his passive with "Scurvy" but replace his mana with Scurvy. Someone mentioned at some point that it might be worth looking into utilizing two resources like the Hunter does in Diablo, well here is our chance. Have Gangplank utilize Scurvy as one resource acting like Aatrox's Bloodwell, the higher up it goes the more damage he gets but loses speed, and then his second resource could be Fruit or simply the Oranges in his kit. and when he uses the Oranges to heal the scurvy will also go down based on the amount of Oranges stacked up in his kit. This makes Gangplank stick true to his roots as a Supportive Pokey Champion but allows counterplay in the form of all-in fighting, which is usually the only way to deal with GP in lane right now anyways, this would just amplify that.

Don't touch his ult please please please. :(

On the idea of Q becoming a cone, not a big fan of that really. It's interesting enough but I feel as if it polarizes Gangplank again and removes the entire point of replacing the point and click to a skillshot by removing meaningful counterplay.

If we change his passive I would still enjoy some form of Dot somewhere in it. Maybe after he reaches a certain amount of scurvy he can apply a slow, some grievous wounds, and cause his opponents to be poisoned. I like the poison, it fits thematically in the sense that Pirates did at some point utilize poison tips on their blades, it just so happens that at the moment it seems funny because most Gangplank players will not utilize auto attacks too often, relying mostly on the Q.

The E becoming a dash-ish ability is nice, but not sure I would want that on him.

TL;DR - Gangplank is perfect in the sense that he is able to passively lane and farm and merge into a utility tank in the late game. Please don't remove this aspect of him, but rather work towards a little bit more meaningful counterplay in lane because a good Gangplank will never die but will occasionally pick up kills on overzealous opponents. Utilizing two resources, Scurvy and Fruits ( Or Oranges) would offer a way to balance this out, where Scurvy increases offense but reduces safety, and the Oranges will increase safety but at the expense of offense.