Hello and welcome to my guide!

In this guide we will focus on different strategies and builds that you can use on Gangplank, The Saltwater Scourge. I have been playing gangplank alot over the last year and i have seen how he has evolved and changed into something way different from the crit-machine he once was. In fact, i actually enjoy him much more now and i think you all would. If you just knew how to build him ;)
I am not going to make so many basic strategies etc. in this guide. Just use your common sence or go check out another guide that does :P

1. Introduction
2. Pros / Cons
3. Gangplank´s basic stats
4. Different ways of building GP
5. What runes to get
6. Facts you just need to know!
7. Strategies
8. My own thoughts..

Pros.

1. He´s a Pirate
2. Awesome Cleanse built-in.
3. Great movement speed.
4. He´s a beast mid game.
5. If you play him right he won´t be able to stop.

Cons.

1. He tends to be squishy.
2. He has no gap-closing spell. (except for his slow)
3. Hard to play if you screw up early game.
4. No escape skill AT ALL.
5. Mana issues if you don´t have blue for some reason early game.

Everyone talks about how GP is a squishy killing-machine, and sure that is fine. But the goal is to don´t build him squishy but still do that much damage.
Remember that there is no build set in stone and there is alot of item that you may prefer and that´s fine. This is just my thoughts on what you should get to be able to YARRR the jungle!

First of all. One of the most important things to succeed is to get an early kill. You will need this early kill so that you can get both Boots of Speed and Madred´s Razor when you go back the first time. I know it sounds like a really long time before you go back home but you will do fine without going home earlier because of the MR and Armor you get from your runes. (and cloth armor)

When you got your Wriggles Lantern and your Berzerker´s Greaves you just start getting your other items. Which ones you get first and how fast you get them often depends on how the game turns out, but most of the times Trinity Force is the way to go. I usually start of with Phage. A lot of people prefer to go Sheen first to get the proc. But at this phase of the game you are really squishy and getting that extra hp can be a life-saver.

When you got your Trinity Forceyou get ALOT of possibilites. I if u go against a heavy AP team. You should not go Warmog´s Armor. Warmog´s is only effective if you go Atma´s Impaler. Items that are really to consider is Frozen Mallet and Maw of Malmortius.
If the opponent team is really Physical dmg heavy, you could always consider items as Sunfire cape instead of warmog´s and a Thornmailinstead of the atmas. i won´t that you shouldgo these items. They are just a good alternative.
Items as Phantom Dancer, The Black Cleaver etc. You should not even consider. YOU are not a AD carry. This items will give you damage, but you will be squishy as f*ck and will spend the most of your time dead.
Bloodthirster can be useful those times when you get so fed that you got the full build. Then just sell that Wriggle´s and get the Bloodthirster instead.
With this build there is one major problem. Late game you won´t do sh*t against tanks with alot armor. So late game you could always consider to get a Last Whisper or any other item that gives armor pen. The thing is that you should only do this if you really need to or if they have a lot of squishy champions.

I don´t think i really need to explain the runes that i use.
Armor Penetration
Flat Armor
Flat Magic Resist
Armor Penetration

The armor and MR is really great to have early game. GP tends to loose alot of hp when jungling early on. With the Cloth Armor and armor sealsmakes him come out with alot more hp to his first gank.
The MR is always good to have when you doesn´t build that many items with MR, but if you see that the enemy team is really AD heavy just go CD reductionor what ever you feel like.
It´s the same thing with Seals. If you see they the opponent team is AP heavy, switch out your Armor to attack speed, movement speed or something like that.

GP´s W is probably one of his best abilities, if you use it right. You should never pop it before a fight just to get some extra hp. Just keep it as long as you can before you heal. Because if you play GP as i say, You WILL get focused. So when a major stun or slow hits you just cleanse and go all YARRR on them.

The thing that many people do is that they build GP way to squishy. They focus alot on the damage and forget that he needs the defensive stats to be able to do any damage at all. With these items you will be able to do damage AND survive. Your attack speed and damage won´t be as high as other builds but it is high enough and if your team isn´t ******ed you should be able to do ALOT of damage. This will make GP an unstoppable train that just run over all enemies.

Early on when you jungle you will loose pretty much HP. So when you have a blue buff and ISN´T going into a gank or fighting the other jungler you should spam your W. So if the enemy jungler comes out of nowhere, or if you are just going for a gank, you will have almost full hp every time.

1. When you are going to gank. You should always try to come in far behind your opponent. This is really important when you dont have a "gap closing" ability.
Some people say that you should use your Q as soon as you can and that it´s better to wait until your opponent has run past you or away from you, but i dont agree. If you pop your Q as soon as you can in the fight. He will be slowed immediately and it gives you some extra damage output, especially early on when your Q is your main source of damage. Because of the low CD you will hopefully be able to Q once more and maybe get some extra gold for last hitting ;)

2. If you are on the blue team, try to get your phage as fast as possible. As soon as you get your phage you can start give your own red buff to the AD carry bot lane. This will make your ganks bot even more effective with 2 slows without using any spells, perhaps helping you get a 2x kill.

3. Use your ulti wisely. GP´s ulti have been nerfed many times and is not the killing machine it once was. So what you want to do is that you want to use it to confuse the enemy and make then do bad choices. You can use it to cut off escape routes for your opponent and lure them into your team etc etc.
One thing that almost never works anymore is to pick up kills with your ulti. If an enemy get´s away with low hp, the change that you can kill him with your ulti is under 20%. So in my opinion you should save it to a better opportunity.
In a team fight you should always pop it because of the damage and the slow, i don´t need to explain why.

Overall i think Gangplank is a strong champion. Not as strong as he once was, but still really fun to play. There is many ways to build him due to what you want to achieve, but of all the builds i've tried, this tanky non-crit build is the one that works the best. I find that one of the best things about this build is that you can do so much with it. It´s easy to play with and it makes you really helpful to your team and if you get problems with the team you can just go hold any lane for a while.
The most frustrating thing about it is that it´s hard to take out tanks later on. It would be easier if i just got some armor penetration but i really dont want to give up any of the tanky items in the build. So go much arm pen on the runes! :D

That is all i have for the moment! I will update this guide more later on when i have more time. I have some chapters to this guide that isn´t finished yet and will come up soon.
If you don´t agree with me dont hate. Just leave it and let people who actually think this guide is good read it.
Since this is my first guide i would really like some feedback on it so i know what to do better etc etc.

Thank you for reading my guide!

Cottons
EUW