Hello everyone and welcome to my Gangplank guide for season 10. I'm (formerly) Gangplank 1 on EUW and, as you can tell by my name, Gangplank is one of my favourite champions. I've played hundreds of games with him and I know him like the back of my hand. GP is most commonly played as a top laner and hasn't really seen play in the mid lane for a long time. Because of this, I've decided to fully focus this guide onGangplank as a top laner, but a lot of what I write about can be applied to mid lane as well. But before delving deeper, I'll talk a bit about why you should play Gangplank.

There are many things that make GP a good champion. For one, he has extremely high DPS, especially when ahead in the game. His Powder Keg + Parrrley can absolutely blow up squishy targets during mid game. Your barrels also make it easy for you to zone your opponent, who will have to play around them in order to not get engaged on. Another pro is his Remove Scurvy which is a free cleanse and heal. GP's ultimate Cannon Barrage is global, allowing you to assist your team even from the other side of the map, if needed. And of course, the most important reason to play Gangplank is because he's a pirate.

As for his negatives, I would say GP takes quite a lot of practice before he can be played optimally. Some of his combos can be hard to grasp for newer players or beginner GPs and even seasoned players such as myself can mess up sometimes. There's also the fact that his early game is pretty weak and he has a lot of tough match-ups, meaning it's easy to fall behind early on.

Grasp is great on GP as it allows you to sustain in tough match ups (aka every lane) and lets you become rather tanky with no real tank items. You can proc grasp easily with Q and because Parrrley applied on hit effects, you still gain the full benefit from the proc (gain 5 hp instead of 3).

Demolish has some synergy with Grasp due to it granting you bonus max health. Honestly, Demolish isn't all that good for you, but it's the best rune in this row that you can take. You can use it to get a plate or two if you manage to kill or force the enemy out of lane.

Bone plating allows you to become more tanky in short trades. It is especially good during laning phase where you are the weakest. It blocks a ton of damage early on, so you should come out ahead in any trades you get with bone plating active.

Overgrowth grants you bonus maximum health when minions die near you. This ends up granting you a lot of free health after laning phase and makes it quite a bit harder for your opponents to cut you down. This rune is deceptively strong especially on a champion like Gangplank who have built in sustain.

Biscuits will help you sustain in those extremely tough matchups. If you end up not needed the sustain from the biscuits, you can sell them for 30 gold each and still gain the 50 extra mana.

Time Warp Tonic comes in clutch in fights or when you need extra sustain instantly. You should pretty much always take this when you can if starting with a Corrupting Potion. The bonus movement speed can also help you escape or chase down kills.

I like +9 Adaptive force for both Offensive and Flex. You should change your Defensive option depending on the match up. CDR in the Offensive section can also be strong, allowing you to reach 40% CDR easier.

A large majority of the time you will take Flash, and Teleport or Exhaust. Flash isn't optional and it's pretty self-explanatory - you use it to chase or escape.

Your main secondary summoner will usually be Teleport. You will mostly be using this to get back to lane faster. Many toplaners, and even some midlaners, use Teleport to help other lanes get ahead or to get key items as soon as possible without giving up lane pressure or missing minions. However Gangplank usually needs time to set up for a fight, so this isn't the best way to use teleport on GP. Keep in mind that Gangplank can somewhat make up for the lack of teleport plays by influencing fights with his ultimate.

Exhaust is the other summoner spell of choice. Exhaust is usually taken when you are in a super tough matchup and will NEED it to ensure survival. Champions such as Pantheon and Jayce destroy GP in lane, but GP can capitalize on their mistakes if he has exhaust. One bad fight for the enemy and you can get yourself ahead.

Every several seconds, Gangplank's next melee attack ignites the target, dealing 55 (+10 per level) (+1.0 per bonus attack damage) bonus true damage over 2.5 seconds and granting 30% movement speed for 2 seconds. Destroying a Powder Keg instantly refreshes Trial by Fire.

Trial by fire adds a bit more oomf to your auto attacks. There are some cool combos you can do with Trial by fire. For example using your empowered auto attack, then shooting a barrel with your Q, which instantly resets Trial by fire, and then empowered auto attacking the enemy once again, for a HUGE burst of damage within seconds.

Gangplank shoots an enemy with his pistol, dealing 20 / 45 / 70 / 95 / 120 (+1.0 per attack damage) physical damage. Gangplank gains 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 extra gold and Silver Serpents (which can be spent to upgrade his ultimate) if Parrrley deals a killing blow. This ability can critically strike and applies on-hit effects, but doesn't apply Trial By Fire.

This is Gangplank's main poke and farming tool. This is also how we will proc Grasp of the Undying since this ability counts as a basic attack.

Gangplank consumes a large quantity of citrus fruit which removes any crowd control effects on him and heals him for 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+90% of ability power) (+15% of missing Health).

Remove scurvy is a great sustain tool, and it can cleanse any cc that is used on you. Get stunned by a Leona ult? Eat an orange and its K. It can also be used for simply sustaining in lane as it heals for a flat amount, plus 15% of your missing health instantly.

Passive: Gangplank stores a charge of Powder Keg every few seconds, up to a maximum of 3 stored at once. Active: Gangplank places a powder keg that can be attacked by himself or his enemies. If Gangplank destroys a keg, it explodes in an AoE blast that slows enemies by 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 % for 2 seconds and spreads the damage of the attack to all nearby enemies. Other casks within the zone will chain explode. Explosions ignore 40% of their targets' armor, and enemy champions take 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 bonus physical damage.

This is Gangplank's main teamfighting tool. you'll usually want to proc your barrels with your Q, but you can also proc them with your auto attack. hitting the barrel with a Q will make the barrel do more damage as it gives an AOE sheen proc, which is HUGE! an extra 200 or so damage in an aoe is nothing to scoff at. The normal combo you will be using in a teamfight is to place 2 barrels, Q the first barrel, and then place a third and final barrel just before the second one blows up. This will catch out a lot of players and you can literally one shot some champions if you are strong enough. The "tick down" rate of the barrels gets lowered at levels 7 and 13. These are very key levels to reach for gangplank as hitting these levels will instantly make you stronger, and your barrels harder to react to.

Active: Gangplank signals his ship to fire 12 waves of cannonballs upon the target area over 8 seconds in clusters of 3 every 2 seconds, revealing it for the duration. Each wave deals 35 / 60 / 85 (+10% of ability power) magic damage and slows enemies hit by 30% for 0.5 seconds.

A pretty straight forward ability. You'll usually want to use this ult to help out other lanes who are fighting as it can turn the tides of the fight rather quickly. Its an AOE slowing field, which may stop the enemy from retreating to safety and could end up getting them killed. It is rather low damage before getting Death's Daughter or Fire At Will, but its still great :) Getting the Raise Morale upgrade will give any ally leaving the AOE of cannon barrage a 30% movement speed increase for 2 seconds. This is a mini Ghost effect and can help your team greatly in chasing down low health targets.

Corrupting Potion allows you to sustain a lot harder than you would otherwise be able to allowing you to stay in lane until you can afford your Sheen. You can start with Sapphire Crystal if you don't think you'll be able to stay in lane for sheen, but you'll sacrifice the additional sustain from corrupting.

Great synergy with GP as your Q Parrrley procs sheen. Also if you Q a Powder Keg it will make sheen proc in an AOE.

If you happen to recall with 1050 gold, pick up a longsword alongside your sheen for some extra damage. It will build into your Phage which you will be picking up after Sheen usually.

You'll have your yellow trinket as well, but Control Wards are great for vision control as you can ensure that a certain area is unwarded, allowing for a gank.

Trinity force is the best item for gangplank as it give him everything he needs (apart from crit. RIP zeal triforce). But the biggest reason to get Triforce is because of the Spellblade passive. It procs on your Q, which also applies to barrels, allowing for absurd amounts of damage once Trinity is completed.

Adds some crit to your build as well as a ton of damage. The other main reason for picking up Essence Reaver is for the Cooldown Reduction.

Infinity edge is back to it's old self, which is amazing for critplank! This is your core mid/late game item to help your damage scale into the 1v5 territory.

Grants you even more Crit and dueling prowess in the form of a shield granted when taken to low health. The best zeal item for Gangplank. Remember that the passives from Maw of Malmortius or Sterak's Gage do not stack with Phantom Dancer.

If you need... _______________ get...

Armour

Magic Resist

Health

Damage

Laning phase is the hardest part of playing gangplank. He is a very weak champion in lane. Your biggest problem is that many of Gangplank's hardest matchups are rather popular in the current meta. Darius & Pantheon are a few that i run into quite often and they give Gangplank a hard time in lane. Gangplank needs to be in control of a fight for it to be favourable for him, but most champions simply do not allow you to be in control ever.

You ideally want to pick Gangplank into a champion who cannot outright 1v1 you. This allows you time and flexibility to set up barrels for good trades, or just simply allow you to farm and poke without dying.

You need time to scale as gangplank. Unless you can free farm, and maybe pick up a few kills or assists, you'll not really be relevant until around 2 or 3 items. Luckily, the extra gold and strong farming capability with Powder Keg can allow you to reach this item point before anyone else in the game.


Coming into mid game, you shouldn't worry too much about if your tower falls, or if you get the opponents tower, as you are never really in control of this. You need to focus on scaling and farming.

Once you have 2 or 3 items on Gangplank, you start to become relevant. Ideally you want to be level 13 around this time to have the fast tick-down on your barrels. This is where you can start to take control of the game. You can start pressuring opponents, and taking skirmishes with your team at this point, as you will likely be equal to, or ahead of the opposing Laner.


Your main role in a teamfight is to try and do massive damage to the enemy backline. Teamfights can be hectic. This can be used to our advantage. In the heat of the moment, people will forget about, or not see you setting up your barrels to destroy them. This is where GP shines. You can wipe an entire team with your barrels, auto's, and ultimate before they even know what hit them.

Generally you'll look to engage the fight by landing a nice barrel combo onto a priority target, OR try to flank as the fight breaks our. You are generally much more valuable than anyone else on your team beside the ADC, so you need to make sure that you dont just die for free.

And that concludes my guide! Hope it helps and if you liked it leave an upvote or a comment. If you have any questions feel free to PM me or leave a comment and I'll answer as soon as I can. Special thanks to my friend @ Jovy for doing the coding and banners!

30/11/18 Updated for Season 9

27/2/18 Changed Second Wind to Bone Plating and Perfect Timing to Magical Footwear

7/2/18 Changed T3 rune in inspiration due to the 8.3 changes.

3/2/18 Changed the Secondary rune tree to resolve

3/2/18 Changed item build