Gangplank the Saltwater Scourge

Hello everyone, this is my first guide and I hope you consider it while playing Gangplank the Saltwater Scourge. This build works best for me, I hope you like it.

Since a full focus on crit and damage items doesn't leave much space for survivability, getting yourself killed is pretty easy and punishing for your team if you are not careful.

So why not play him on life and crit instead? This way he deals enough damage, but is pretty beefy as well!

Pros
+ Early high dmg because of crit on Q
+ Good farm with his Q (5 - 8 extra gold for a minion kill)
+ Early effective healing with W
+ Can handle a solo lane/jungle
+ Nice support for other lanes with his ulti, good in teamfights

Cons
- Mana problems at start (buying philosopher's stone at the beginning will do the trick)

Crit and CD is the way to win with Gangplank, if the crit is high enough you can burst the enemies away and with that nice CD you can spam your Q in late game.
Dmg goes all the way

The passive gives a little dmg over time with his basic attacks and with his parrrly skill. It's 3 times stackable. .
This skill can crit and is a single target shot. If you kill a minion or a champion with it you earn extra gold.With Crowd control aka slow.
Restores a small amount of life and nullifies all crowd controls.
Increases the damage and movment speed of Gangplank and his nearby teammates
AoE damage which slows the enemy. Nice for teamfights and also if you want to save a tower since it has no range limit.

Prefered Spells

Exhaust This is a must-have for Gangplank. It's great for escape or chasing an enemy for a free kill.

Flash Another spell which is good for escaping and chasing. Since you can flash through walls with it you will be able to increase or decrease the distance to your enemy drastically.

Optional Spells

Ignite It's a nice spell to damage your enemies or counter lifesteal. Most suitable if you don't go on a solo lane.

Smite Must-have for junglers.

Teleport Great mobility if you go solo top.

Don't Ever Use

Revive With it's high CD it is not the best choice to make... choosing revive is like wasting a summoner spell slot.

Promote Not the best spell for Dominion in my opinion. At least not for Gangplank. There are way better spells to choose from.

Rally Needless to say why this spell sucks...

Heal You. Don't. Need. This. With his W skill there is plenty of healing. You don't need this one for Gangplank, never.

Cleanse Same like heal. W will help you out of any pitch by negating all status alignments plus giving you life, unlike Cleanse.

Fortify You want to crit harrass your enemies with your beefy life, not hug your tower.

Clairvoyance Since Gangplank is no support you won't need this.

Clarity Mana replenishment is nice, but with a philosopher's stone at the beginning, you will have enough mana throughout the game.

Early to mid game equip!!

Okay guys, now it's time for some item suggestions.Here i will explain why each item is nice for gp.
At the start just take the Regrowth Pendant and 1 mana potion.
Why? because Gangplank has not that much life and life reg, which are needed for hard lane prescence, which results into gold and exp farming. Also don't forget to farm with your Q skill a lot, this way you get your build complete even faster.

Next time you call back is when you have enough gold for philosopher's stone Boots.
Philosopher stone gives you nice Life reg and mana reg, including a good passive: every 10 seconds 5 gold.

The next time you leave your base, make sure that you finish your boots to Ionian Boots of Lucidity
It gives you more speed and a nice cooldown.

Next two items depends on the situation. If you want more crit and run speed take Zeal or more mana and a quite bit of dmg by taking Sheen.
So either : Zeal or Sheen


Mid game

In mid game you should buy a Giant's Belt for more life. At this point Gangplank can go in any fight because he doesn't die so easily.
Buying Warmog's Armor with your next lane farming is a must. So don't forget to last-Q minions. Massive life and life reg awaits you.
Again, farm minions because for every minion you get a little stack for the armor.
You remember the introduction, guys? This is crit and health Gangplank, so since we are pretty beefy by now, we will focus on crit again.
Buy a Cloak of Agility for more crit and after that finish it to Atma's Impaler. It gives you dmg based on max life, crit and a bit armor so that you can take more dmg.


Late game

Go for b f sword for more damage, just farm enough money to create the Infinity Edge
which gives you dmg, crit chance and nice crit dmg.

After this build Zeal and Sheen out to Trinity Force. At this point the game is pretty much over, if not sell philosopher's stone to get yourself a nice Bloodthirster for damage and life steal.

If you play ranked with him, go on the solo lane with this runes, spells, skill order and item build and nobody will like you. You absolutelty must focus on getting those last hits as the creeps will be about 75% of your gold income.

Teamwork, is a nice thing was well of course! This is a common strategy that I use if I am with a partner or in teamfights.
First thing to say is that he has 2 skills which work here: Raise Morale which increases the damage and the movement speed of your team. When everyone goes in, you activate it to give everyone a little bonus which can decide the outcome of the clash! It is also nice to activate when pushing a tower as the bonus damage not only works against minions and opponent champions.

His next ability is Cannon Barrage. Use this when the teamfight is already going on, to slow and damage enemies in it's AoE. Nobody will be able to escape so fast which makes it easy to kill them off.

If some questions come that i can answerd you, it will appears here for all.

If something changed on Gangplank because a patch i will let you know it here.
If something changed on his build i will let it know you here.

I hope you have enjoyed this guid and i can help you a little to bring it near too you all.
For Ideas and other things i am hear, so let me know and i will try with nice news after it.