Gangplank's Rework: A CRIMINALLY Underrated VGU | League of Legends

Gangplank's rework, despite producing arguably one of the most annoying top laners in the game, is one of the less spoken about VGU's in the game. I wanted to dedicate this episode of the Rework Retrospective series to bring his design to light.
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#LoL #Gangplank #leagueoflegends

[@iero1234]

True damage, reset, armor penetration, cc remouve, global ult, ms buff, gold generation, slow, aoe damage, healing... I love gp. I hate playing against gp. While you feel is generally a skill match up, at the same time you cant stop thinking "why can he do that?"

[@EruCoolGuy]

Cause no one can make him do that efficiently enough. At least no one but Solarbacca, that dude is cracked. Also, dominating noobs does not count as being OP. That comes from me, a complete noobass bronze 4 player.

[@soulsemblance3163]

​@EruCoolGuy try mundo and mindlessly smash your skull against towers. Also counters quite a few meta champions (but fuck camile fiora irelia riven) all my homies hate the 4 swordladies of top lane

[@che1r]

@@soulsemblance3163 based. FUCK THE FOUR HORSEWOMEN OF TOPLANE

[@phongdinh199]

@@EruCoolGuy if you're telling me ''no one can make him do that efficiently enough except Solar'', i'd say that you haven't faced that many high elo GP otp. Solar is on another level yes but the point is you don't need to be THAT good at GP to dominate the match. The amount of damages and fight control he have is insane.

[@cherno8336]

​@@EruCoolGuyhe's not that hard I'm sorry but he ain't that hard

[@insheepsclothing5574]

I don't play Gangplank, I don't even like Gangplank, but his rework gave us one of the most memorable oments in league history: "Gangplank is dead and has been disabled"

[@EruCoolGuy]

Whereas year 2022.

[@jilonitiko1004]

yeah the bildgewater event was proabaly the best event in lol history

[@owo4470]

A note about gangplanks old ult: It used to be able to MISS. If you were completely unlucky and no cannonballs hit the enemy. You practically had 0 impact, which is the dumbest thing about old gp

[@GamingEelektross]

Im surprised this wasnt brought up. Like, yes, old GP could have cross map impact with his R, but the sheer randomness of the cannons made it unreliable wherever it was used.

[@Utsuhoagie]

To be fair, before the rework he did have his ult fixed to work similarly to current ult, where cannonballs hit in waves that hit the entire area

[@Utsuhoagie]

@@countsaintgermain393 Personal bias, but I preferred his ult being random because it just *felt* more fun to me. I started playing after it was already changed, and when I watched older GP videos with the random ult it just felt way more fun and cool-looking to me. It's definitely worse for gameplay since you can never guarantee any hitting, but it just looked better and a little less "scripted"/fake to me (why do these separate cannons shoot and aim at the exact same time, and the cannonballs land at precisely these spots?)

[@Utsuhoagie]

@@countsaintgermain393 Dude what are you on? "Personal bias" here is MY personal bias liking the old random ult more than the wave ult because of my preferences, even though I know it's bad game design. I didn't attack anyone and you're losing your shit already

[@BoinkadelicJones]

​@Utsuhoagie Sure I guess, but you never played WITH the ultimate. Wasting a buncha mana for nothing is never fun.

[@marcbrune7995]

I'm a GP-Main with about 1.8 million mastery points. Even after probably thousands of hours on this champ it feels like I can improve my barrel usage to maximise my damage and pressure every single game. The high skill ceiling makes coming back to GP always intriguing and fun. Apart from his gameplay, the Bilgewater event in S5 was in my opinion the coolest event Riot ever did. All that makes GP something really special, I'm glad you put the spotlight on him. :)

[@rainydaygaming5507]

I am not good at gangplank but that event remains the coolest thing riot has done

[@tenshi.948]

Average gpa player has 1m points

[@TimZoet]

Everyone who had the pleasure of witnessing the Bilgewater event know what Riot is capable of. Hence the constant disappointment of recent seasons P.S. odyssey event was fun too

[@julsegs]

​@@TimZoetOdyssey skill augments 🥲🥺

[@pauliussipavicius4658]

@@TimZoet Thats the season i hit master tier, but besides gp being disabled for some time, i dont really remember anything about that event, like at all, what was so good about it?

[@Nikolai0169]

Something id like to mention about old Gankplank's Q is that the mana refund was per unit killed, so hed gain more mana than he used if he killed multiple units with one Q through effects like tiamat, statick shiv, or iceborne gauntlet which applied its damage in an aoe back then.

[@Diaboragon]

I know everyone agrees raise morale was the worst part of old GP's kit, but it was conceptually my favorite ability. I loved the feeling of leading a charge into the enemy team through the sheer charisma of shooting his gun into the air, really felt like a being a captain of a rag-tag crew. I wish they had leaned more into this aspect when they reworked him.

[@dekjhfgehjdkhvgicyouseiodv3975]

That's what I love about kled's ultimate it's so funny to just run it down with ur whole team for no apparent reason

[@Dahxelb]

I would have Maybe tried baking it into his Ultimate.. like at first is the Raise morale effect happens, with him fireing a flare or something, and upon 2nd activation he'd summon his cannon barrage on a target location. If you want to use your Ultimate purely for the global AoE dmg, then you miss the AoE buff aspect of it, so mastering the use of his Ultimate would need enough awareness to know both when to charge it and where to place your barrage at the same time.

[@skrttt_dffoo]

I haven't played nor kept up with league since S6 and only play Wild Rift nowadays but hearing (if I'm not wrong) that they removed that same aspect of Sivir's ult rubbed me the wrong way. That was honestly one of the best feelings for engaging. That feeling of rallying your team towards the enemy. Always made pro play so hyped when she ults. Same goes with RM except GP wasn't as relevant in the meta back then.

[@shingon666]

@@skrttt_dffoo I played Sivir just yesterday and I could still rally my team at full speed into the biggest int of the game with her ult.

[@nicholasokeefe3632]

​@aqilmardini455 way back in the day when I played and GP/5 was in the game their were 3 ways to play Gangplank: Bankplank (insane gold) Tankplank (Big man) or Critplank (100-0 Qs). GP was easily my favorite character until the rework. You could low elo GP jungle and one shot with qs from fog of war

[@AImpatientMan]

There's a very good article that the designers of the rework did on gangplank where they explained how they reworked him/what needed to be keep/thrown. The main reason why gameplay wise it worked so well is because they specifically set out to keep big crits, oranges, gold generation, and a global ultimate because thats apart of the champions identity and they can't remove it. If you look at all the good reworks like fiddle, nunu, etc they all follow the same concept and the reworks that fail almost always deviate from the champion themes/playstyle/identity

[@EruCoolGuy]

Then why did ASol's CGU work ? They could have kept at least the zone. Cycling stars were unfun and wanky, but they could have made anything but this generic braindead piece of shit he now is.

[@pauliussipavicius4658]

What are you talking about? Reworks that failed like lb, which got literally reverted back?

[@stephenkrahling1634]

@@pauliussipavicius4658 I think by "failed" he means reworks that alienate their old player bases, like Aatrox... But that's definitely subjective because Aatrox also got an entirely new playerbase. There's also Yorick as a close contender as he's very different from his old version yet still frustrating to play against, only slightly less toxic, and failed to really get people to play him

[@kiwwat4139]

GP is voiced by Matt Mercer. That alone IMMEDIATELY elevates the champ.

[@heyitsmeobama4335]

NO WAY

[@VarsVerum]

WAIT HE HAS THE SAME VOICE ACTOR AS CHROM/YAMATO/JOTARO/YUSUKE/LEVI/MAJIMA/IRA/COR- Huh... now that I think about it he has a pretty good range of voices lol

[@zavhyatta9795]

He's wolf from kindred too.@@VarsVerum

[@kiwwat4139]

​@@VarsVerum Matthew Mercer and his range are extremely amazing. Another fun fact: In Germany, he has the same voice actor as the German Mr. Krabs from Spongebob. Sadly, that VA died a few days ago.

[@yourlocalwaifu8601]

Whaaaatt

[@yagonagos]

The true purpose of old gangplank's E was to kill your allied annie's tibbers

[@subject1754]

Babe, wake up, new Vars just dropped!

[@gihinterberbger9896]

Holy hell?

[@notasadvertised617]

GP is one of the most underrated project L picks, imagine all the set play

[@EruCoolGuy]

A informatic pirate, but not one that locks down your PC for money. One that burns down an internet access furnisher to make every other furnisher pay him a gargantuan bill.

[@PlanADidntWorkOut]

Barrel! Another! Scum! More powder! COMBO!

[@Theheadgiver]

My favorite old GP build was getting all the passive gold over time items and do nothing but farm with q, Id get late game items so much quicker than anyone

[@MrDavezd]

Heart of Gold and philosopher stone good times

[@EruCoolGuy]

Now it's called mosstomper or any other jungle pet. Can we talk about how strong jungle monsters have become to not even counterbalance how dumb the jg items are ?

[@frankc9250]

I remember locking in GP as a troll pick because i was tilted. Now here i am 800k mastery points later.

[@onararai8106]

Bruh, exactly the same shit, i remember i wanted to play yasuo top one day and 1 of my mates in the 5 stack wanted to play him mid, but his pick order was before mine. So to troll him after he locked in my pick i instalocked gp. I started playing him afterwards and i too have more than 800 points now 😂

[@Xephyranth]

as a top main, Gangplank's rework is one of the worst one riot has ever did just because I hate playing against him my Mord's brazil ticket is always denied by him

[@ViktorLoR_Mainu]

So current gp is bad for the game because your braindead juggernaught gets countered by him?

[@Achilleus-e1t]

Morde vs gp is morde favourited. Yes he can remove R but can't do anything after Rilay e+passive, just die slowly .

[@Elektr0hazard]

@@Achilleus-e1tIt’s not. You’re talking about Mordekaiser having a completed item against a zoning, gold generating champion. It’s GP favoured, Gangplank only needs not to get hit by Morde’s abilities from levels 1 to 4 and the lane is over. Gangplank has a full Essence Reaver when Morde has a Blasting Wand and a Ruby Crystal

[@foxwithscarf3689]

​@@ViktorLoR_Mainudefending the champ with -cleanse -point and click true damage -global ult that you cannot miss -free gold generation -aoe armor shred -point and click poke that procs onhit

[@АлексейПруцев-ф4р]

Q-Prowlers-auto After dying to this same "combo" more than I'd like to nothing will make me like this champion

[@bigsmoke4592]

prowlers does bonus damage after dashing? you probably remember old prowlers but it luckily doesn't exist anymore

[@anthonylulham3473]

the month event where he died was great. great stories and then he was locked 'dead' for 2 weeks, then the VGU. it felt less like a replacement and more like he evolved due to his life events.

[@miguelsanchez825]

You forgot to mention one really important thing about his old ultimate, it was random, you had the guaranteed slow in the area but the places where the barrages landed was random thus it was possible to only be hit by one or even none, or somehow be hit like by 16. It was awful to use for dmg due to inconsistency.

[@LordKeram]

Gangplank's rework took him from a pretty niche champion mostly used for some trolly strategies. To one of the all time top lane staples and one of the most skill expressive champions in the game. It really is hard to top that without the champion feeling overpowered and unfun to play against. One part that you didn't mention in the video is how the gold stacking passive on his Q was already there pre rework. Only without barrels it would give you so little gold over the game it was kind of pointless to try and last hit minions with it. Still people attempted to abuse this mechanic with things like Tiamat and most prominently Static shiv. Which was on one hand hella fun, but on the other hand very funky and mostly for fun strat. Which also made GP extremely snowbally as if you were ahead you would oneshot everything and get even more ahead, but if you were behind the whole point of the build would evaporate as you wouldn't have enough dmg to oneshot waves. Feel like the designers got the idea for barrels from this at the time pretty wide spread GP strategy and made it something you don't need to bend over backwards to utilize. Which gave GP another of his now staple characteristics. Of him being the scaling king, who prints money out of nowhere.

[@justanasian5747]

Also, he had the most interesting lore integration ever, the fact that he got disabled when he died then came back reworked was so beyond cool

[@NoclafPain]

pre rework gangplank was my favorite champion of all time, post rework is fun but it's not the same.

[@Sunkizer]

It will never be the same :*(

[@countsaintgermain393]

i'm late to the enter party but i've mained old GP before the rework, as an intended ad fighter. Not the "I crit you and explode myself" kind of deal. While I apprechiate the effort you bring to the table and enjoyed many previous of your works, here are a few things i take grievance with. Take no offense, it's just my autistic brain and love for this misrepresented character speaking through: A) 0:48 mins. The idea of how the barrels work and interact is unique, but it was obvious that GP required to have some sort of aoe damage, be it iceborn gauntlet, hydra or a few shiv crits to have any form of waveclear. aoe damage greatly synergyzed with the bonus gold from Parrrley and it's mana refund as well. While I agree to the practicallity, he is too attatched to the barrel mechanics (be it the usual phantom barrel or a double barrel). The fact that they added high bonus damage based on the crit chance forces him too far to be a zoning or spamming specialist, running circles in the backline till he has his barrels back up. Makes you feel like a proper artillery waiting to reload; which further streamlines the build path for CDR and Critdamage. Penplank is discouraged with the stats on E and since the grasp change, tankplank is even more dead than before. B) 1:13 mins: "Gangplank takes up an entirely different approach to combat in contrast to most people in top lane who opt for very attack heavy cqc." Given how his kit incorperated both aspects from the first gangplank (old healing reducing groak soaked blade) and the second (movespeed steroid and magic damage dots a 7 dmg stacking up to 3 times), i argue he was designed to punish poor positioning, use the slow and own increased movespeed (and reignited passive) to close the gap, set the tank / fighter ablaze with a true dmg dot, and use the movespeed buff from his passive to return to a neutral game stand, having won a short trade. In practice, players fear for their K/D like their virginity and will only spam q and 2 barrel combos from the second half of the screen in terms of distance. C)1:40 min "(...) his older version was even more hard to wrap your head around (...) Threat range and windows are quite apparent" - his "threat" range was his q range. which is as telegraphed as garens ult range - not at all hence the point of "being conspicuously shown to the player" (1:46 min) is either poorly expressed or flat out misinformation. If he went full crit, then q range is the threat. the global ultimate was not much of a threat, and duh it was global. Furthermore, I find it ironic you pick fiora as an example for this, glassing over the fact that old fiora broke this rule herself, greatly extending her threat range much like a Lee Sin would with a ward jump, since her old Q could be recast after hitting an enemy or minion. Making for unexpected zig zag engages and getaways with her, completely undermining your previous point herself. D) 2:20 mins "Personality"; also the section about underpowerdness at 7:50 mins: stats- and gameplaywise there was hardly incentive to pick him. there was little incentive since he was flat out underpowered. In gameplay terms, old GP was an AD fighter, but specializing in movementspeed and mainly ADdamage output with build in magic damage instances as free (low) hybrid damage, similar to old Miss Fortune. GP was an annoyance, poking you down with qs AND autos, cause he was a FIGHTER not an malee adc. giving himself or allies loads of movement and attack speed at will, slowing a single target down while giving continuus chase for either himself to finish you off or have a teammate do it. Or he could be a constant annoyance in lane, keeping himself healthy with the actual noticable heal of the old W, (even with no AP,) and the mana refund on qs; not too disimilar from old swain who could stay in lane indefinetly with little resource management. Funnily enough, i still remember stomping out a sweaty kassadin as an deliberate ap gangplank on a 3v3 ranked back in the day. Ironically worded, I argue he had one of the few actual fun and comedic personality in terms of quotes, which greatly improved the ammound of enjoyment in the champion. While cartoony and cheesy in many regards, I very much miss his over the top, laughing at danger-esque drunk pirate personality, since he was happy and made me happier; as opposed to the thousandth "tragic backstory depressed edgelord" we got due to the rework. Need I quote the new Gp? I think my point is made, and there's an abundance of tragic and sad lore in a game that takes itself a bit too seriously. E) 5:23 min "no trade combos, all ins, no real mechanical or even positional execution to speak of. He was all neutral" you said yourself earlier at around 2:29 mins how the abilities of the time were very cookie cutter. Why is that point an issue at this segment of the video? Given the abilities and their limited interactions, as you said yourself, there could be no different trade combos than e-q-move-AA-AA-q-move-w or slight variations. The only all in he could muster is stacking the 21 magic dmg / sec and slow on you, ulting and trying to kill you in his "zone" with the limited slow at his disposal and knowledge of his damage output / tankiness. Again, looking at someone like Trundle who you could critique in a similar manner, seeing his AA focus, buff and debuff with Q / R and movespeed + attackspeed steroid on W. Yet he works fine, how strange, huh? and no. troll's E is too mana heavy to be used in every trade, its reserved for all ins as is his ult. F) 6:14 mins: "(...) Aatrox, Jax, Tryndamere; Xin Zao, old Fiora had better dueling power" Not at levels 1 and 2. You are glassing over how hard his old Q hurt given a generous base damage and high ad scaling, and with the steadily refreshed slows, and not neccecarily ignite, he was an underestimated threat levels 1 and 2. Also he had very high health by default, helping in his raw, statt checker-esque (or well, piratey brutal) approach to laning. Tho given how much utility items he needed to get into mid and late game (-> for example going bankplank) and due to poor scaling unless helped with Spellblade or Shiv, mid and late game qs and autos were more annoying than lethal, even with is passive E bonus. today's q always feels like i just spitballed my enemy, even if it is empowered. G) 9:41 mins: "decide if you want to use Q to damage enemies or farm for a stronger ultimate" - you forgot the gold generation and that old gp did that decision every 3 sec. Old GP got a lot more passive gold from q farming, so you DID the decision to poke with underwhelming damage, maybe following up to stack the passive so that the magic dot eats away at your enemy OR to stay back and farm up with the partial mana refund and bonus gold, helping you transition into mid and late game. H) 10:39 mins "elevating the skill cieling of this champ almost to infinity" sounds like the fanboy glasses are speaking. No, it does not elevate skill expression. You are rewarded for positioning and ambushing, or for punishing unaware opponents as you set up a barrel chain outside their influence zone, which is as simple as a max range 2 barrel combo. The flashiest is the useless 3 barrel combo, burning your flash in the process. The only skill present is munching crit chance, waiting in the backine for the moment to punish an enemy misposition, like a bursty artillery mage (ziggs; xerath) while dependend on Crit rng and waiting for your recharge rate. Mr Foo (former most played OCE gp main pre and post rework) quit due to the dependence on crit chance, a point oddly unaddressed in your entire essay, Vars. I) 10:45 mins "the only thing that hasn't changed is 'remove scurvy'" again, flat out wrong. Base heal is abysmally low, so its useless as sustain. Animation untill the heal or cleanse happen is way longer than with old GP. -10% ap scaling compared to old gp. Post rework "remove scurvy" has a build in missing health % scaling which is hardly noticable in most circumstances in my experience, and in the moments you have a high missing health and want to escape death's clutches, the animation time kills you before the intended bigger heal. A poor implimentation of "risk vs reward" in terms of timing, as opposed to exploding phantom barrels with non critical qs. J) 10:54 mins "one thing i love about champion reworks (...) is how they take remnants of their previous iterations and modernizes them" while i agree, i find it severely depressing how due to old crit plank being popular, seeing how it can be funny to onehit squishies (as every lethality addict will confirm), the overbearing focus on crit limits his gameplan and itemization too severely for skill expression in anything but clean barrel combos. which are inherently easy to hit given the tiny delay between chained barrels and the fundamental fact that they cover an area larger than a tiamat proc. Imagine we all lost our shit when Jinx hits multiple enemies with a crit rocket from Fishbones, it's stupid. I'd rather have the barrels do bonus dmg against minions and heavily slow enemy champions, as opposed to flat out nuking them, to tie into both old and new movespeed steroid aspects of GP with the more area of denial / misposition punisher he has become. K) 12:32 "his q spam is as obnoxious as ever" - how so? without loads of base ad the damage is pityful, the grasp interaction is removed at the point of you making this video, its too expensive to spam early levels - you can't even q farm early, 4 - 5 times and you're oom with spitball damage to boost. he can only spam once he gets his hands on an essence reaver or goes ye olde man-ahoy build for the lols.

[@VancoldGH]

i remember the old gp, where he ran up to you, q's and it would deal 1k+ dmg. Good old times

[@Sunkizer]

Man I hate reworked GP so much, it killed my goofy pirate and replaced with a plan ahead evil genius GP. AND I HATE IT! I had to stop playing him after 20 loses with 0 idea on how to use the barrel.

[@MangaGamified]

Being simple is not all bad, if so how do you expect people with epilepsy and/or micro-seizures to play? It's like taking all PWD parking, lifts and stairs away.

[@JohnyJJUrb]

Today GP is to easy to stomp by sett etc. Anyway his e is trash skill if you face Lucian or Ashkan. In my opinion e should have little rework like Q can explode barrel with 2 hp

[@violentgravy01]

How is it underrated?? It had an event, changed maps. It was literally the biggest change in any game! And the biggest deal made about it!

[@leWolpis]

The only thing I disliked about the rework was that they removed the silenced pistol sounds on Special Forces Gangplank skin.

[@awdsgrgde6979]

Has way too much true damage, turns the game into a one-shot fest, makes Mordekaiser even worse than he already is - yeah, a good rework, sure.

[@Re3p4rr]

Technically the rework was fine but that barrel playstyle is so boring and makes no sense for the character.

[@SpiderSnackShack]

you forgot about hwo old gp ult was random shots in the circle. You could ult al itterl 1 hp target and rng could save them

[@kiwwat4139]

GP’s rework is underrated because his old kit was so bland and forgettable.

[@Sdfkiller]

And yet critplank is goated. Also his old bleed was great also.

[@dracotoy]

Critplank was legendary

[@JustinSeizure]

I think this idea that old GP was bland and forgettable is completely false. it honestly seems like something newer players who didn't even play old GP came up with. I will never forget avarice blade critplank.

[@Lazycandle]

Fun fact gp’s old ult could crit I think it’s still the only magic damage source that could crit

[@Warden_Ingo]

i think galio on his passive also can crit

[@averonisgaming9023]

​@@Warden_Ingobecause its technically an auto attack

[@The_White]

@@averonisgaming9023 Is it a magic damage source that can crit? Yes. Does it count? Yes.

[@skywalkerjohn8965]

3:20 should've put Jack Sparrow edit in. That would be hilarious

[@harveyohare]

the remake took away his soul, you could build so many ways now its just full crit

[@mattmorgan162]

who else loves the fire emblem OST in the background `?

[@oinkleberry]

I used to play a minigame with old GP where I'd ask a random team member to name a color. I would then proceed to buy items that only had the icon color of the chosen color. For obscure colors I'd pick stuff that could add up into that color (so if someone called purple I'd pick one blue + one red item). It was shocking how often it worked, but that's mostly because, as pointed out in this vid, old GP was just a weird stat checker with little gameplay identity so buying random items on him just worked.

[@voltrix3821]

Kata has grevious wounds on r and varus has it on e

[@Rabbit-o-witz]

I was an pre rework GP main, and I gotta say, I still miss doing crit plank... seriously, I remember that at times I could do 70% of an adc health with just one Q, then use my E to get close and finally execute them with that GLORIOUS crit animation he used to have. When the rework was announced I was nervous af, but also happy he would get some love. Then we got the AMAZING event that came with his rework (seriously remember the song that played during that event?) And after finally getting my hands on the new GP I was instantly in love all over again. I havent played in years, but GP will forever be my favorite champion

[@karsonkammerzell6955]

Something underrated in these videos, Vars, is realizing just how crazy the timeline of League ACTUALLY is. I could SWEAR GP was reworked before Yasuo, but there he is, old school GP, fighting Yasuo. It's just crazy to me, lol.

[@rafalekkB]

As much as i love gp i think one thing to mention is his ability to abuse runes such as grasp and first strike in the early game with q to such a degree that some matchups become literally unplayable for the opponent if one missteps at least once (which in of itself is a reoccuring pattern in top lane). I think riot's intention with it was to gatekeep the constant poke by high mana costs, but nowadays it feels like whenever he's about to run out of mana he has built up either enough hp from grasp to not be instakilled or enough gold from first strike to back and buy essence reaver at which point the mana never runs out since the kegs are literally free. I feel like that should've been addressed a long time ago, but they never did since looking at his winrate across all ranks (which is the only thing riot does nowadays, his winrate top is 49.13%) you wouldn't be able to tell how obnoxious it is to play against, but I guess same goes for k'sante.

[@tranducquang5912]

one misstep and you are dead and have an unplayable is nothing new on top lane. Try playing vs a fed Irelia and you can see that she can kill you so much as you sneeze in her direction and you can't really runaway from her 1 million dashes and stuns. A normal vayne doesn't let you farm at all, forcing you under tower for almost the rest of the game and you can only kill her if she gets ganked or she misplay

[@SturmxHawke]

I liked that he had a denial. I can see why they removed it, because you could just actively deny your enemy laner minions, but I still liked it, as it was unique to him.

[@andreroberts2472]

He use to be Gol D. Roger with his previous rework. If he ate the honey honey fruit he gained the power of supreme healing and becomes unstoppable as he instantly becomes king of the pirates...Not even Monkey D. Wukong can stop him

[@Dr_Disconnect]

The overall rework of GP I feel isn't appreciated as much as it should be. For his rework to come out, they remove him for a week because he died in lore. Just for a whole new skin to come out as his default was pretty cool. Even though his new skin sucks compared to captain GP. I think the only thing I miss is a top laner having a stat ability that he can buff his team and jgler for ganks. They don't do anything like that anymore except for supports. I think stuff like that is what made this game stale. They removed things that were impactful, but not over the top because they look at it as boring. Yet, there use to be a good bit of GP mains that just enjoy his casual gameplay.

[@starter2639]

4:12 my lonely toplane ass wants that kind of ability

[@danielxian7632]

12:08 tf is that dmg on ez

[@ggwp638BC]

5:33 - This point got a bit confusing because it misses one key piece of informatio: GP's old E. The original ability required GP to consume an allied minion in order to activate the buff, effectively denying CS. So his entire kit was built for the neutral game as a sort of denier/zoner that makes sure the other laner will be low on gold while he gets those fat stacks, leaning on the whole "pirates gotta plunder" theme. The Passive meant that each poke or trade with the opponent would curb their sustain options by nerfing the healing - back in a time when healing was even more scarce - so if you trade with him and pop a red pot, now it's worth only 60%, but if you wait for the 7 second debuff to be over, he will be ready to hit you again. The Q is a poke and farming tool. GP had to choose between poking the enemy or farming. If he pokes, he misses out on potential gold but can harass the opponent, if he farms, he gets gold but creates a window of opportunity for the other guy to farm or maybe even engage. W obviously is the get out of jail card. Since he would be expected to often shove the wave (keep in mind this is beta stuff, so freezing wasn't that much of a widespread concept yet), he needed a form of escape from a engage or possible gank. The E was the other deny tool. It had a buff so he could use it when engaging, but more importantly it killed one of your own minions, even canons. So not only the opponent had to time their windows to farm, and you were making more gold per CS than them, but their waves had 1 less minion and even no catapults. Today this would be even crazier considering wave management, rotations and how precise the economy is. The ult was a way for him to have some pressure in the map. GP was meant to keep up that neutral game in other to keep the other guy locked in his tower. The ult was quite shitty BUT it was a point and click global slow that could help on any skirmish and get him extra gold from potential assists and even a kill. Again forcing the enemy to either TP, missing more gold, maybe even lose a tower, while GP can have pressure without moving his ass. Basically, despite being a pirate he was more of a old uncle protecting his toplane yard. Either the other laner could duel him and steamroll the guy, or he wouldn't have an early game at all. GP was quite bad in teamfights, so the extra gold should help with that and the lack of another player also compensated a bit. Still, that style was degenerate. His E was an unique ability that gave him too much power over the economy even for BETA standards. Today it would make GP a 100% pick or ban champion. So they removed that from the E, which broke the whole economy thing. So he HAD clear theme and win condition, it's just that it didn't fit what League should be.

[@MangaGamified]

You're probably over analyzing it, to compensate one good ability others are not so good, it's called power budget.

[@ggwp638BC]

@@MangaGamified I'm talking about the themes and win condition of the champion, not necessarily whether he was powerful or not. The original design had a very clear intent, it just got gutted very early on due to how toxic it was.

[@MangaGamified]

@@ggwp638BC True the original design was nice, not saying the current design is the best rework option when Riot never showed us other possible futures. It feels like one or two decision-maker decided this is what 1 billion collective player wants. Also it feels so "argument cheap" when they make a champ harder and just say "git gud" whenever someone doesn't worship it and they know it. It's like using the R card whenever no one agrees with you.

[@jeromepickles2498]

Issue with gp denying minions wasn't the mechanic itself, just that riot back then wanted to do their own brand of dotw but for some reason only one character had a denying mechanic

[@sirki2885]

also it had the same issue as old nunu q, if there are no minons around he was down an ability

[@jonathanmccusker]

I’m a gangplank otp, and no other champion even comes close to how fun he is. After 1 million mastery points, I still have so much to improve mechanically, I’ll always love him

[@lantami1199]

Ooooooooooooh, who lives in top brushes in low elo queue? CRIT RUNES GANGPLANG, CRIT RUNES GANGPLANK, CRIT RUUUUNES. GAAAANGPLAAAANK!

[@szurony4841]

Maybe just I think that, but I like the old GP and miss him. I always feelt him as a more skill full Trindamere. (I like most of the auto attacker character to day as well. And Over all I becam an ADC main). I would just make Parrrley is a skill shot, and kinda that's all. I unpeakably hate the new GP. He is creative, I can't denies that. But I think he's E is not that hard. It draw the line bettene a good and the bad GP. But his kit has a lot of bs... In my opinion. Like esealy aplayable "ignite" by auto attack. Point and Click Q E is bs from ever angel. And I love he's W And the ulti is good. But my experience is that you "can't" play agains GP. Because you can't beat him, get 1-3 items and blow up even tanks and the E don't have the best indicator, but even if I focus the barrel-s GP him self delete you by AA, P, Q if you are a papper caracter. Old GP can do interesting thing with full crit, but the problem was that Q was still a point and clicl thing. From any other aspec I feelt him at least kite able. My "rework" would be something like this.: He's passive could be slow and grievous wound (Maybe some kind of anti-shield). and the passive name could be "Fair fight" I'm sure that Q should be a skill shot. W is good. E Rais Moral is maybe too OP, if you slow and has Approach Velocity, so the passive should be lowerd or deleted. Maybe it should have something extra, but I like the fact that it give buff to every ally. It feelt what a captain would do. And the R could be the same with the upgrades. But I think it's like the old Aatrox, we will never get back and never get anything like him. (May Briar has some kind of similarity with the old Aatrox). So I don't know. My main wish some kind of team buff ability on a not support champion.

[@Azarian]

The Bilgewater event is bar none my fav they've ever done. I know you didn't mention it here but the genius that was when his rework first landed he had the "Captain GP" skin and such and as the event went on he actually got REMOVED FROM THE GAME, only to be brought back with his new default skin with new voice lines and everything. Man the memories.

[@indigofenix00]

My only complaint about Gangplank is his oranges. They don't make any thematic sense besides pirate=scurvy and they don't synergize mechanically with the rest of his kit. But they're so iconic at this point that they can't be removed. Why does eating an orange let you escape from anything from entangling vines to a parallel death-realm. I guess clearing CC can be thought of like "the pirate who always gets away", cheating death sort of thing. But still. Oranges.

[@lupuscairo3654]

Every time someone says new champs are overloaded while old champions aren't, I point out GP. Yes, he isn't as old as other champs but his rework was in 2015, I'd say he counts as old and honestly he might be the most overloaded champ in the game. Every one of his ability is absolutely broken just looking at it alone and every ability does way too much. I'm honestly surprised GP got to keep all of his stuff while champs like Akali, Irelia and Aatrox lost half their kit (which was probably for the better but they should've done that to GP as well, lol).

[@TheBloodGamePL]

The main reason why people are so positive toward reworks is because those Champions always look like they fit the setting, unlike new ones who now most of the time look like artists design them with one hand. Kasanta feels like a character from rip off off-MOBA Zari and Seraphine are two dead horses to beat. Seraphine is just a KDA character, she was designed because Riot saw how much KDA skins were selling. Her default look is just skin. The same goes for Zari, she is a valorant character who is lazily shoved into the league. She is just a girl in the streetwear. Compare it to Ekko who actually fit the Zaun Magitech punk aesthetic. And before someone says something dumb, cyberpunk/steampunk, etc. isn't about the literal punks-

[@JustinSeizure]

I'm sorry, but I really miss old GP. I think his personality was way funnier, and while his kit was simple, it was intuitive and functional. Now he is just edgy, overly complex and does way too much damage. Avarice blade full crit GP was hilarious, but also beatable. Not a smurf champ pub stomper that simply feels unfair to play against, like he is now. I understand that he was probably outdated, but in my view, reworking GP resulted in a net loss for the game.

[@nimrodfilms5104]

This has nothing to do with the video, but I had an interesting idea that would be..... probably a bit mentally taxing depending on how much you like doing it. The idea is that, considering your other channels cover other games, i had the idea that maybe you could try to imagine what league champions would be like in, say, smash or genshin impact or whatever, or vice versa. You would have to take their abilities in game, and translate, of course with a good amount of creative liberty, their kit into a different game, and try to think about how they would fit in the game and perhaps what niche they could fulfill. Now, this might sound boring, i really don't know. I PERSONALLY really really like making up both entirely new champions in league and giving other champions rework ideas, such as an Orianna one that made her more "customizable" in the sense that you can switch from damage/cc to support/cc by pressing a button over her ultimate icon. BUT.... that might just be me. Maybe it's not as interesting as I m thinking, but I think a series like that, as taxing as it would be, is a cool idea.

[@matapros69]

Forget about the older gp's e, which have to EXECUTE AN OWN Minion yo work, playing against him was playing 1 to 2 level behind, and half an item behind cause no cannon minion allowed

[@serverinvihatuin2654]

gp is so god damn annying to face in lane. Constant Q spam for 300 damage after sheen. Then he zones you off wave with barrels. You engage (he misses his barrel ofc) and just true damage autos you to death. Flashing away is useless cause his q is on like 4 second cooldown so he will just kill you with that. Oh and don't forget he passively has huge gold generation in kit to always have first item (which costs like 2000gold btw) before you. Add to that the global ultimate, which can be teamfight winning while gp is sitting sidelane truedamage autoing your turrets to shit. Oh and we must not forget about his heal+cleanse summoner spells on w so he cant get caught ever. Also just the constant ghost movespeed from exploding his barrel (doesn't even have to damage an opponent with it) makes it super easy to kite as gp. Other than that he is a perfect champion.

[@nathanc939]

Naaaah I absolutely despise the whole barrel thing on GP. It is either way to easy to contest or impossible too. When I play Kayle, Quinn and surprisingly Kled and Gwen, he can't get off a single barrel, while when I play Anivia and most melee champs, it is damn right impossible to contests, if he is not terrible. Combine this with True Damages and his barrels doing the damages his W used to, but in AoE and the champ is just nit right. I absolutely despise him, even though I almost always shit stomp him.

[@Falkeshy]

I hate fiddle rework because i loved his old simple design (also biased since fiddle was the first champ i ever played and mained). Now i know his old design, or rather his pre rework design with the bouncing crows that prioritice the enemy you suck, was stack checky. His new design finally gave him identity. But i miss his old trashy simple design of flash e w and seeing a crow bounce 4 times off the same target and dealing 500 dmg lvl 2

[@AlryFireBlade]

I really dislike him, because he forces you to buy defensive stats. When he reaches 3 to 4 items 1 e just 1 hits you, yes really 1 hits you. He dont ned to be feed for 1 hiting people, and this is just unfair, because it uses armor pen, which makes buying something against it so annoying

[@csharpcoffee]

"Nunu was a degen invader" Bro that's hilariously true 😂 People always think back to his inting "playstyle" but we forget than even his normal playstyle felt like you were trolling xD

[@talisredstar1543]

I think you were too hard on old GP, yes it is nothing compared to rework, but he was the Q procing wheeling and dealing, ulting all over the map son of gun. WOOOOOOO!!!. But in all seriousness, GP was niche, but to those that mained him, he was just as devastating as he is now. on proc builds made his Q obliterate you, AP builds allowed him to sustain like an sob lmao, and made his ult hit like a truck I believe. If you cheesed and build him as a tank he was basically New mundo almost without the regen ult, but he could absorb alot of damage because of the tank items, and if he ran cleanse you couldn't lock him down because he could cleanse the first and Orange the next and be on top of someone autoing them, getting that slow off, when in teamfights lead to an easier follow up cc. but I do remember when his barrels ingored armor it was that or they came with inate armor pen, so if you build him with lethality, then he could one tap with barrels, but this is one of the best reworks they ever did once they got him into a balanced state. I think the problem is most people don't want to take the time to learn how to play him. In top lane, they want to fight all the time, and GP isn't about that, he wants to scale, and when he hits break points he can fight back, but usually early on you just want to poke to keep them off of you and farm. use your ult to help around the rift, but you mainly want to sit back farm, punish if your laner leaves lane and split push. And if you do teamfight I find he is better as anti-engage champ punishing all ins with his ult and barrels.

[@MrReaperHand]

Yes, his barrels have questionable damage for sure. I was full tank Leona with well into 400 armor and he still two shot me with barrels alone. This comes down to how much damage they do ON TOP of having increased armor pen in addition to any armor pen he has. That is insane, really I would be fine if the armor pen it gives is changed to lethality because only true damage should melt tanks like that not normal damage making armor irrelevant. I also tried to stun him near max range on my ult so I can chain cc him, but stupid oranges denying that with his move speed stuff. I do think it was a good change overall, but his barrels need a slight adjustment in power they are not easy to get rid of because he can chain blow them up before you can even target them. Yes this means more skill expression, but also no counter play if you can't even see the original barrel.

[@davidleone6509]

I hate gangplank, it feels so unfair that he gets 10x more gold than every other champ, can take first strike and futures market, buys one of the cheapest items in the game as his first item, as one of the strongest item scaling champs in the game. It just feels so unfair to play against, even an 0/6 gp will just randomly start one shot 1v9ing every fight it’s so cancer. That’s it I j needed to vent my anger

[@pheonix5524]

"imagine having a rylai's crystal scepter from lvl 1" .... did we forget about the most annoying adc to chase? ASHE?

[@serx4994]

GP rework is the most elegant rework: Riot only changed completely one (1) ability and with just that we went from a bland champion with no skill expression to one of the most difficult and interesting characters Riot will ever release

[@ExTAzY101]

LB had the best rework and they reverted it , Karmas rework was a crime against league , she went from most unique champ to most generic in 1 boring ass rework. Also you are wrong about old gp Q , it actually dealt magic damage at first changing it from magic to physical was the biggest change GP received and raise morale used to execute a minion of yours to get the boost.

[@Mattsawesomeness]

I do enjoy the new gankplank but my biggest frustration with him is that I enjoy playing many interesting builds with him but anything thats not a full crit build is only about half as good as his crit build so there's almost no point trying it, yes I tried AP gankplank with a lich bane because he has 2 AP scaling abilities but it's crap in comparison to crit plank

[@BloodDrenched-y6i]

I have 290k plus mastery on gangplank, I enjoyed him for a long time. I hate laning against one, mainly his true dmg passive is the most frustrating thing. You can all in but lose since he will out trade you. You have to contest his barrels to even get close and if you do he wins the trade.... its the passive i hate it so much.

[@KsanUwU]

criminally underrated? yes. walking next to the wrong bush only to get oneshot by a barrel is exactly what league needed. id be much happier if they just reverted to old gp and made him a statcheck champ lol.

[@marlowencna]

Does VARS have top 10 most balance champions? Can league have 10 balance champions?

[@Strawberry_Soda.]

i think one of the main reasons people are not very fond of new champion releases is because they are always busted on release, and riot does this intentionally to capitalise on the hype train around brand new champions to sell skins. The porblem with reworks is that they inherit this same sin. Realistically speaking, riot wont spend months working on pre established champions if that doesnt make them any money, arguably riot doesnt do anything at all if it doesnt mean making money. I think this is a huge problem about modern gp, as good as its design is, its always overshadowed by an obnoxious power budget that everyone can see was only added to the game for financial benefit. Gp simply does too much, and he does so for free: he deals true damage by hitting autos, he generates gold by hitting a point and click ability, he has armor pen has passive, he presses a button to delete all cc you can throw at him, the list goes on and on and on. He is peak low risk high reward. In the end, its very hard to look past all this unbalance and overloaded features in order to admire his design and all the passionate work someone surely put into him.

[@alciozc3591]

GP is like Riven or Fiora or Irelia. If you are good enough the only counterplay for the enemy is that you the one playing GP fucks up

[@jonassorensen347]

actually i didint like the rework i loved the hype around gp's death at the time but, his E feels a bit too clunky to play gives you more of a skill ceiling and a higher skill floor which prop is healthy for the game but the thing is i suck at gp but his vibe is so cool :((((

[@iOnlySay]

sometimes i miss the old versions of reworked characters like: Akali, Karma, Galio, Ryze, Aatrox

[@momijiinubawooshiri1261]

I understand that this video is focusing on the mechanical aspect of GP's rework, but man some of the best part of his rework was the entire event and lore surrounding it. he was disabled because he died.

[@aaronmcconkey1062]

Why does everyone not include 12.10 in talking about this game? Like it was a big deal and still effecting stuff today.

[@Charlie_Probably]

tbh Poppy and Warwick reworks were the best, we all know how fucking stupid original champions were

[@lolsnowball_]

warwick, nunu and fiddle are top 3 reworks imo

[@skipper4126]

So he has a barrel ability that is the easiest thing in the world to counter and doesn't deal enough dmg to make it viable in lane against mobs, yeah great rework.

[@chance5270]

As a bronzie way back in the day I miss getting GP on aram and building full crit with static and just constantly harassing. Good times man

[@arcubi487]

The only thing that makes me think that Gangplank is a bad rework is his orange. Everything is fine for me but his orange. If they change his W so it doesn't act like 3 summoner spell and QSS on a 10 sec CD, it's fine, but otherwise I find extremelly broken and unfair, no matter how much they nerf the damage, the W will never be fun to fight agaisnt and this is why I think it's a bad rework.

[@choika5027]

true he base kit is all about nutral game and placement to really skill he should have some defensiv shit

[@vicokonkwo7776]

The orange is not the problem, the problem is this mfker generates too much gold. I can shit on him in lane and make him go 0/3 yet he comes back to lane with his item before me and just proceeds to one shot me. They need to remove that aspect of him

[@abdomination]

Don't be a whiny bitch when somebody characters have three abilities in one fucking ability with leaps stuns and knock-ups. If anything he should be able to cast his w back to back if he gets stunned in like a one second window.

[@artemiscrock7901]

i was a gp one trick playing for the sole reason of limit testing barrel combos but lately i havent played him for he has been so strong and even though he’s enjoyable its not the same as before idk what changed or maybe i just dont wanna gain lp by using a relatively stronger champ than others 😂

[@cupie2255]

The fact that I'm familiar with the bgm used here mostly because of that legendary base conversation.

[@ilzuab8467]

12:08 what is that item in GPs inventory? It has the deathblade tft icon but i just cannot find if any item with that icon was actually ever in league.

[@romeocopiedme]

Idk man. Old go there was a setup where you could be full build by 13 minutes. That's how he stood out

[@ghqebvful]

(On the opening part) They ruined nunu bot though. Nunu as a champ is way better hut that specific skin is way worse

[@CloutFPS]

hi dont roast me but I am new to league. in that T1 clip, how did he die? does Q bounce off keg and hit closest enemy?

[@thehallmonitor4515]

GP is one of my least favorite champions to play vs. Lane bully that hyper scales. Terrible combo lol

[@kalfkeith5646]

I guess it's Underrated cause it's been so long since the best Gankplank's rework right?

[@Agent_Alpha]

12:08 wtf since when did Riot add Deathblade to League? when was this and can i get a link to Solar's video on this

[@main7256]

anyone knows what item are those 2 at 12:10 in the 2nd and 4th slot? (they look like the same icon from TFT deathblade) ?

[@nastaselalexandru7947]

What do I think it should be nerfed is his barrel dmg. with 2 times is not ok to delete the mage, enchanter, adc, and the assassin in the team and to leave me alone with half of hp as a damn tank

[@jaspervermeer659]

Great rework... then they made him oneshot with barrels, and I fucking hate him

[@lesna_pechalba]

Old GP could deny minions with his E. When they mini-reworked the ability made him shit.

[@adriancopilas3911]

I used to play old gp as a supp and poke with his q and max my e 1st. Not the best but the funniest way to play gp I found

[@jannieschluter9670]

GP rework just killed the champion. The new GP is just plain bad.

[@mateodelossantos3397]

The only rework i liked mote than GP was Fids. Otherwise GP was by far the best.

[@abdomination]

I like fucking gangplank better on release I miss my goddamn AP gangplank