Yay!!! A pirate!!! Pirates have always been one of my favorite roles in comics, movies and games. So Gangplank, a strong champion but a not so strong pick, in Season 3. I think that can be changed since GP is actually on of the most versatile champions in the game. He can top lane for sure, jungling GP is viable, even support GP is possible even though kind of trollish. GP is much like Shen. Their kit offers some serious versatility but the real thing is that you can build them in many ways.Critplank, famous for melting the hell out of everyone with 1500+ crits, the infamous Tankplank a build that offers some great utility to the team, Bruiserplank built like typical Trinity Force bruisers, of course the Bankplank abusing his Parrrley passive and GP10 items to load huge amounts of gold and the NEWCOMER, INFECTED WITH THE BLUE MADNESS BLUEPLANK inspired by that blond fella Ezreal. You see how many builds you can do, to perfectly adapt your *** to the game!!!

And what is more, uncle plasma has found a new GP thing, inspired by high level korean streams and GP plays. I am calling it Splitplank!!! Tanky as heck, Splitplank relies on his Remove Scurvy during his laning phase to outsustain the enemy, while building much attack speed which help you abuse your passive and shove your lane really hard! Also with your heal, extra on hit magic damage by items and your innate, AD and movespeed buffs, plus the extreme attack speed and tanky items you will be building, you are a hella duelist. As far as pushing is concerned you can apply the same tactics on other lanes too using Cannon Barrage and Teleport. Pushing all lanes is what is called split-pushing and it is one of the main ways to win games in Solo Q.

I do realize that the playstyle I propose is kinda weird, most of you prefer typical society approved builds on GP but I just wanted to share something quite unorthodox with you that works for me.

Ok so typical chapter just the strengths and weaknesses of this champion so that you, my fellow summoners, can understand him better.

Pros

+ Parrrley applies on hit effects, has really low CD so it is a good harassing tool all game long.
+ Can be built in many different ways making him very versatile.
+ Remove Scurvy is a really game-breaking sustain and escape tool.
+ Has a free slow from Grog Soaked Blade.
+ Really good AD and Movement Speed steroids for your team.
+ Relatively high base stats.
+ Cannon Barrage can turn the tables in teamfights, assist your team even though you're away, farm huge waves of minions...(more on tips later).
+ Even though melee he can farm safely in any match-up.
+ Strong duelist with my build
+ OP passive abuse


Cons

- The channeling on Raise Morale is stupid, RIOT needs to fix that.
- Not a very good pusher (fixed)
- Early armor is a very hard counter to GP.
- Takes time to master the positioning of Cannon Barrage
_ People will hate you for playing GP this way

Ok let's get unorthodox :P

I run a very weird 0-21-9 set-up and let the damn haters hate me! This set-up maximizes my laning potential with mana/hp regen, flat defenses, plus the pots on steroids and offers some really serious stuff for late game such as CC reduction, % hp/defenses increase and ofc movespeed which is essential as a GP that moves between lanes and chase people to AA them.

For Marks I use 2x Greater Mark of Critical Chance and 7x Greater Mark of Attack Damage. Reasoning? Prepare for maths!!! 1x Greater Mark of Critical Chance is better than 1x Greater Mark of Attack Damage because you take away 1 AD point for a ~1% chance to hit for double. 2x Greater Mark of Critical Chance provide you double the chance of hitting for double and take away from you 2 points of AD. Supposing you do infinite Parrrleys with 2& chance, the number of crits you will do will appear with a consistency of 2 per 100 Parrrleys. Supposing you have 70 AD plus 20 from Parrrley=90.

Without any CrC runes: 90x100=9000 total damage

With 1 CrC rune: 89x99=8811 normal Parrrleys and 89x2=178 from crit. 8811+178=8989 total damage. WHAT? LOWER? Yeah but 178 burst of dmg early on is way much for any champion to stand.

With 2 CrC runes: 88X98=8624 normal damage and 88x4= 352 from crits. 8624+352=8976. WHAT EVEN LOWER? But remember the huge early burst we talked about earlier, will actually happen more often.

Still not persuaded. How about the fact that CrC scales way better than flat AD, plus the fact that you have bonus AD from Raise Morale ?

---

Ok enough with the marks. For seals I use flat 9x Greater Seal of Armor which is ridiculous because no one uses them. Seriously these are laning essentials since they help you counter the enemy laner who is most of the times AD and also help you stand this stupid minion aggro. Even AP laners rely early on on their basic attacks so these always come in handy.

---

For glyphs it depends on the enemy laner. If he is AP I would prefer to take 9x Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist because it is a great late game investment.

---

So what about quints? I take flat AD for better farm and DPS, these are typical on AD top laners.

Flash is the best spell in the game. Well there are some few champs where Ghost> Flash but these are exceptions. With flash you can get over walls, escape, juke people, get in range for Parrrley and so much more.

What else you can use?

Ignite makes your laning presence even stronger and adds to your burst. It also cuts enemy healing meaning you'll be an even more powerful laner.

Teleport is what I usually use on GP. I can get back to lane quicklier so that I don't miss any xp or money and give a hard time to my lane opponent. I can go at other lanes and use ulti and Enchantment: Homeguard to just smash the lane and establish serious advantage. It also provides better dragon/baron control.

Exhaust is pretty damn good against heavy AD teams, with stuff like double adc, ad mid, melee carry jungle and that kind of stuff. Really good in teamfights to slow down enemy carry and melt them.

Passive: Grog Soaked Blade

The key ability of this build. A very annoying source of dmg for the enemy to calculate. This is the reason you build so much attack speed, in order to apply this to your enemies constantly. Also it is a free soft CC (slow) which allows an AA spamming potential.


Q: Parrrley

The key ability of blueplank and critplank. One of the best farming abilities in the game. Don't spam it, the mana cost is not attractive at all. Use it to CS, in order to leak gold. When you're dueling, I suggest you AA-Q-AA which makes applying all three stacks of passive easily since Q resets the AA timer. It is funny to see a critting Q every now and then thanks to Statikk Shiv and the 2 CrC runes because it is just unexpected dmg. You can use this to finish off dudes, catch up with them, flee from a single opponent or even peel since it does some considerable dmg especially if it crits.


W: Remove Scurvy

OP lane sustain and CC removal. This can save your *** many times, by level 9 the heal is simply huge so you can even bait someone to burst you under tower, then pop this, AA-Q-AA him and ignite plus tower shots and he is possibly dead. No one expects you to level up this first, so make them go nuts. With this you can completely outsustain your lane opponent and force them to go to base while you push, get gold and xp plus the fact that you have your minions killed by enemy tower so that the enemy loses as much xp and gold as possible.


E: Raise Morale

A very nice steroid ability, passive and active. If you duel pop this for more AD which also enhances your Parrrley, if you can buff all your team with this in teamfights, then you have possibly won the fight.


R: Cannon Barrage

This ulti is an AoE source of great damage. Use this to farm from, finish off enemy dudes, save a teammate, and turn around fights. With this and Teleport, you can really save a lane or get advantage on it. However the cannon balls fall randomly so don't rely on this to deal damage. This ulti is also really ****ing OP in dominion.

R>W>E>Q

W is the star here. Maxing this out, gives you extreme power during laning phase since you can remove CC and bait opponents. This also let's you buy nothing but damage early on but still survive, which means that you will probably win the lane

E is better to max second. As an on hit dude, you appreciate the movespeed and AD steroids more than simple burst which is what Q offers. Also E has tremendous impact in mid game teamfights, which is something that you shouldn't ignore at all.

R whenever possible as with all ultimates.

... is really simple for on-hitplank. Start with either of these depending on your situation:

vs really hard AD (ex. Riven, Renekton) take
vs farming laner (ex. Tryndamere, Nasus) take
vs weak early game champion (ex. Vladimir) take
if you want to farm forever take Crystalline Flash

Always combine your spawn item with consumables

---

By mid game you should have + + and possibly boots or some doran's items. This is what is called the core, with these you have a nice amount of durability and you deal hella dmg. What I find to be hilarious when I play GP this way and get Statikk Shiv first, is that the enemy freaks out as he thinks that I am doing a typical critplank build. As a result he starts stacking tons of armor. What he doesn't know is that I am planning to abuse the magic damage from my passive. As far as you've completed the core, you can get your boots to tier 2. Possible options? Mercury's Treads, Ninja Tabi. Now decided what you will do, if you're ahead or if your team needs another dmg resource, build damage ex. Blade of the Ruined King, Infinity Edge, Trinity Force. If your teams dmg is just fine and you feel that you're gonna get focused build defense. Hard AD team? Randuin's Omen, Frozen Heart. Hard AP team? Warmog's Armor, Spirit Visage. Really hard engage team? Banshee's Veil]. Wanna build perma-slow?[[Frozen Mallet. Everything is flexible concerning building GP and that's his true power.

Pls do not always build the cookie cutter build of the cheat sheet. Every situation is different and you need different build in order to adapt.

First of all you need to look at the enemy laner and jungler so that you start with the best item for the situation. GP is a very good level 1 champion. If you get the chance, try to pull off a AA-Q-AA combo which along with Ignite will do a significant amount of damage. To pull of such a combo you could trap your opponent by waiting in the tri-bush or in the other one across the river regarding your side, if your enemy laner has been kind enough to leash for his jungler. I suggest you force a level 1 exchange but don't get baited by Barrier or Elixir of Fortitude. Other than the level 1 actions, you should just farm farm and what did I forget? oh yes FARM! Don't spam your Q in order to poke, use it for better CS and get more G. You're not a Darius you don't simply pwn laners so play safe. When you get your first few points on W, remember! DO NOT SPAM IT! It has a pretty high mana cost and CD so you want that in long exchanges to bait your opponent, or escape tricky situations and of course sustain your self if you are low on HP.

• Since you have very limited AoE damage, you might feel uncomfortable about pushing. Well once you get Shiv, you have the zap cannon to clear teh waves quicklier and mmuch more attack speed. As a result, you will be often able to push your enemy till his back touches the tower.
  
• After every single recall you must buy wards. Dude I 'm no ****tin ya teh damn wards can save yo life. Always buy a ward over an item, you can't risk it. Also not having gold is pretty much impossible since, farming with Parrrley grants some really impressive gold early on. Even if you don't have enough gold, you can ult a huge minion wave somewhere in the map and get gold.
  
• As I also said at the start of the previous chapter, GP is very strong at level 1 so against a very weak champion of level 1 (ex. Vladimir) you should force an engage and do the AA-Q-AA combo plus ignite. Even if he flashes, he is slowed so that you can reach him too or flash and slow him again for the kill.
  
• You have a good laning phase; true. But you can't risk an engage if the enemy jungler is not in sight. If he is in bot it is ok to engage. If he is mid I would be careful.
  
• If you see the enemy trying to engage on you: there are some possibilities you've got to consider before you decide what to do. 1) The enemy jungler is ready to gank your lane: 1a) You don't have a ward so he is here possibly: You're stupid. 1b) You have a ward and you've seen him: GJ you saw him, you backed a bit but he came anyways to gank, the enemy laner will back too. The enemy jungler is stupid. 1c) Same as 1b though the jungler backed too just to avoid the ward and gank you or leave. Be careful he backed and you don't know what he wants to do.
  2) The enemy jungler is somewhere far from your lane and the enemy laner thinks he can beat you. Show him his mistake, without dying ofc.

Mid Game in opinion is when people start leaving their lane to complete other objectives. This is really easy for you since you can globally help your team with your ultimate. Also your Raise Morale has some really strong impact in Mid Game mini and regular fights. You should kill at least once the drake or try to steal it from enemy team. As you're a dude with an OP slow, I suggest that you gank mid lane, use your if you need to. Also convince your bot to force an engage (if possible) and do your ult for extra damage/slow. As far as your lane is concerned, with that much attackspeed, on-hit magic damage and slow, plus a heal to get you out of CC and AD steroid, your 1v1 potential is simply insane. Also with the thunder from Statikk Shiv you can clear waves very quickly, and with your insane attack speed you can bring towers down really quickly. If you have teleport you can push deceptively multiple lanes which (this is what is called split-pushing) which is great in YoloQ.

Late game is all about objectives. Important objectives right now are teamfights, barons and destroying inhibitors and ofc win the game. As I've said in the pros/cons section, GP isn't very strong late game by himself so you must end the game ASAP. If you kill baron be sure to make it worth, that is to say force a huge fight where you will possibly win thanks to the huge stat boost. You can lead your team with your E which combined with a shurelia's can give a huge movement speed boost. Ult their whole team and try to land the AA-Q-AA combo plus ignite on their carry which shouldn't be to hard since you can ignore CC thanks to your fruit salad. Also you should peel for your carries. That's easy to do too, since you're a perma slower, with auto attacks, Parrrley, and possibly Frozen Mallet and/or Randuin's Omen. I will give you an example. In one of my first games with this build, I was reaaaally cursed for the playstyle I did. But at the final teamfight I went through the whole ****ing enemy team, more manly than Xin Zhao and definitely more HAM than Udyr, and sticked to their Urgot who had about 200 armor. Anyways 3 other people were trying to send me away ( Lux, Master Yi, and Rengar) and ofc **** their CC thanks to my beloved oranges as always. I killed Urgot but they managed to make me bow down, and only that cause I had Guardian Angel. While I was occupying 4 people my team killed the 5th dude. When I was revived I went to peel for my Caitlyn cause that Rengar dude was very fed. I killed Rengar[[ too (but he ignited [[Caitlyn and she died) and I helped my team finish off the rest of their team. Anyways we won a fight 3 (ours) for their whole team. We pushed for win and we eventually won. With a team kill score of 35-45 (we had 35). 10 minutes earlier we were at 26-42 and everything seemed over. We managed to take some 5v2 kills or something like that and we did the fight I described above so we won. Plasma 1 - Community opinion about GP 0. I wish I had the match history so that you can see what people where saying. Enemies cursing for perma slow. Allies cursing for not being cirtplank. NP.

Thanks for reading my guide. I know that Splitplank is something new and not popular but blue Ez started this way too. If you think that my guide is good go ahead and push that +1 button, I would really appreciate it ^^ If not downvote it but be sure if you do so to leave constructive criticism. I haven't made a guide in a while so I might have some problems in my style of writing. Be sure to point out such mistakes. Anyways thanks again for reading my guide and go ahead and try GP that way, I am sure that you will be surprised. One last thing, this is my first guide around here so anyone who helps me improve these lines of knowledge that I have to offer, will get +Rep and a special thank you at the relative chapter, that will be created.