I'm going to ignore the changes on champs and just get straight to the big point:
The item changes incoming.

WIth all these item changes incoming toplane is going to be in a VERY rough spot in general, but the tank meta will most likely be coming to an end. With multiple item changes, new builds are needed and being experimented on, but there is a silver lining to these item changes:
-Rageblade

Rageblade will be getting turned into a Mythic. It will be getting AD AND AP scaling, but also insanely increase attack speed for every hit and start boosting on-hit after a certain amount. This item will be insanely good on Gwen builds that require more skirmishing over bursting, and I can see this becoming a main mythic

EXLPANATIONS ARE DONE AFTER SEVERAL GAMES TESTED IN PBE

Toplane:
So overall, Gwen still feels pretty decent at least in PBE. I know the main meta builds aren't going to be the same when full release comes around, but it still feels overall nice in terms of usefulness. Tank Gwen feels stronger thanks to Jak'Sho, making her more and more tanky the longer the fight goes.
As for Rod of Ages on AP Gwen, I still feel riftmaker is stronger and better for her, but Rod is a good secondary Mythic if you plan to focus more on having more Health/Mana/AP than true damage. I didn't notice the healing/mana restore effect too much however despite the enemy teams not using grievous so gotta look into that more often than I am now.

Jungle:
Still an Off-Meta pick, but hasn't really moved in placement. Jungling is a bit easier thanks to changes but just doesn't compete with some of the other junglers you'll run into.
The pet that best suits Gwen can actually be all 3 depending on your build. Normal AP benefits best off of taking Scorchclaw first. If you're going Tank, take Mosstomper. If you're going the movement speed build then Gustwalker. Overall though you're probably going to end up taking Scorchclaw or Mosstomper the most since you plan on doing damage or tanking over all else.

Overall:
Gwen feels like her place in the toplane is a bit better despite the tank changes shockingly. Granted tanks like Ornn, Malph, Sion, etc are going to go up in threat due to the new items, but I wont post that till S-13 fully starts.
As for Jungle her placements about the same truthfully, maybe a bit lower but still viable with the right team comp.

Ever since her release, I've had a shakey relationship with Gwen. Over time however, I've come to love playing this champion. She is a hard scaling champ with alot more versatility than she is given credit for.

Over the course of some months I've been experimenting with her to figure out builds that can work with her. After testing, AP obviously is her best build, however, she actually works as heavy AP/Tank Hybrid that can dominate opponents while also tanking the enemy team at the same time.

I'll be going over exactly what Gwen can do and how exactly you can use her to effectively provide her with better overall usefulness in your games in the coming times you're struggling to use her, or possibly even like using her in different ways you normally wouldn't consider when using her in your games.

Gwen is a very versatile champ from what I've experimented in, rather her being a full AP Bruiser who melts your team down in the late game, or being a frontline tank who's tanking the entire team yet still somehow outdamaging the ADC.

She can have a presence that isn't fully capable of doing EVERYTHING, but can heavily influence the game if done right and choosing the right build path. She can easily be the AP bruiser doing full damage to the enemy, or frontlining the enemy team for her team doing damage and also somehow outliving everyone because she's too beefy.

Alot of this may make you say "Really? She's a decent tank?" but trust me it's not weird for a tank to have damage and even if she's meant to be full AP bruiser it doesn't mean she can't off-meta tank as needed and I've tested it to find it useful in situations

-Anti-Tank Scaling: Gwen has amazing scale into the mid-late game, especially if you're building up alot of health. Once she has her first 1-2 items, her damage makes it hard to 1v1 her. Even fighting her with others can be difficult if she's given a chance to get far enough ahead.

-Overall Strong Scaling: Even against a team with little to no tanks, if you're capable of building up the damage Gwens a force. Great frontline and a W to make sure you choose the ranged fights or they come into your zone. Even if you get behind on her, given enough time you can easily start to overtake enemies.

-Adaptable To Situations: Gwen can work in multiple positions. She can be heavily team oriented due to her healing and true damage she gains from her Q and the burst her ult gives along with scaling well even if her last 2-3 items are altered. If you need a splitpusher, guess what? She's the one on your team to do it. Her buff to her E gives you decent cooldown back on your E from hitting something after dashing, so when her E hits level 2-3, you can easily just infinitely loop your E to shred towers and make the enemy realize it was a mistake to think you wouldn't be able to destroy it in time

-Impressively Easy Build Path: Gwens build path for her first 3-4 items is straightfoward, which actually makes her build easy to remember. Not only that, your only super expensive item is Riftmaker, and even then after you get that you get your full build insanely faster than some champs, hence why you scale so well

-Good Frontliner: Gwen overall, rather she's tank or full AP, is a really good frontline capable of making fights go in her favor of 1v1s due to her W making ADCs/Ranged have to get into her zone to fight her properly. Rather it's due to that or using the W for more buffs to her Armor/MR she's a force all around.

-Weak Early Game: Level 1, Gwen can actually outrade some champions, but for the most part from level 2-5 she doesn't have the best lane phase. If you play super smart you're able to make it seem like your damage is impressive enough not to fully mess with, but don't fully rely on her E level 1 as due to previous nerfs it isn't its full potential anymore. Play safe, get some pokes in and when your jungler comes or you get them low enough at level 4, then you can try for a kill if you have a good matchup

-Squishy Champion: Honestly even around late game until you're full build, Gwen is super squishy. I have found a build with Sunfire that works well to make her more frontline powerful in terms of tank if NEEDED, but only if your team lacks any frontline period excluding you. Still, she's squishy all around but is a glass cannon to make up for it.

-Bad Blind Pick: With how many champs could counter Gwen if the enemy gets the chance to do it, picking Gwen blind is a heavy risk option. If the enemy doesn't know how Gwen works or her style and picks a tank, it's good for you depending on the tank. Still in the end, she's not the best to pick blind into so choose her first pick at your own risk

Gwen can have several different jobs depending on:

-Your Teams Comp
-What is currently needed
-The Circumstances Of Win Cons

Along with several other options and events, but here's what you'll mainly run into as a Gwen:

Team Fighting Tank Killer
-Obviously because of Gwens kit, you'll always be the Tank Killer in the frontlines trying to help remove the tank from the picture so that it's harder to have them take everything from your team so that they die faster. You kep all the tanks in check as best as possible
Granted, there are times where you can get melted if you're not careful, but this is a situational scenario, however most games if they have any kind of frontline, tanks specifically, it'll be your job to handle them to the best of your ability

Splitpushing Distraction
-Mid-Late game you're not only hard to 1v1 but you're also a decent tower shredding champion that's capable of defending herself as needed. Gwen in the late game especially has little issue fighting on her own unless the enemy team has so much CC even your tenacity has zero effect on the outcome
However, when playing Gwen, you have the best chances of being the splitpusher [Emphasising IF IT DOESN'T SCREW YOUR TEAM in this sentence] in order to give your team a chance to get objectives, cause the enemy to split to choose between you and others, or even the best outcome: Getting a tower while doing the distraction.
The best time to splitpush is when Objectives are down or not possible without a risky team fight that cant be afforded and you know a team fight [though at this point should be unnecessary if no objectives are up or low] is about to break out. Even sometimes your team will tell you to keep pushing while they distract if they can peel for themselves. Overall you just have one of the better splitpushing potentials as you can easily do so AND take down an enemy if they are alone or aren't careful enough.

Frontline Tank
Now this part confuses people, obviously, but here's what I'm going to tell you now:
Tank Gwen is not a troll decision
Granted, it is if you're first timing it in a ranked game as it takes a while to adjust to and get down to an extent that you can make it useful in a team. However, when you take the time to learn it, learn when to use it and how effeciently it can be for your team, you'll realize how amazing it can actually end up being
Gwens damage scales heavily and it's meant to do that, actually to the point you can go with just Nashors and Cosmic as your two AP items and you'd still do the most damage.
Now do take note: The tank build should mostly be used if you have no frontlines to tank for your team, no other bruisers, or your only frontline is a support who can't do much once their abilities are down and out.
In the end though this is easily one of the underestimated off-meta choices that can greatly influence a fight if you do it well enough.

Conqueror is Gwens best main keystone without question. The adaptive force this gives from early to late game provides you with nothing but amazing damage scaling and mid-late game healing

Overall, Gwen does use alot of Mana. Having this ensures you can stay in lane longer without having to leave due to mana loss, and late game combined with your healing it will make it hard for you to run out of health or mana easily. Overall, this is to me better than triumph in the long run


Tenacity is good throughout the entire game, providing you stun resistance against CC. If you can't dodge with your W or because the enemy needs to be in your face to use CC, this will make sure it's hard to keep you interrupted so that you can continue to fight longer without the risk of being forever stunned unless focused down by everything

This is overall preference. Last Stand can help you in situations where you're heavily in need of more damage at the last second in case you wanna give a good fight and can't get the enemy lower than you first and in team fights you're bound to get low if you don't have peel to keep you healed or to tank for you. Overall as well, Gwen excells in prolonged fights which this benefits heavily from

Second Wind Overall helps with sustaining your health during the laning phase. Good against both melee and ranged matchups, second wind makes you able to stay in lane longer after trades so you don't risk losing as much CS after trades

Pairs heavily well with tenacity, Unflinching will make you harder to keep CC'ed. Combining Unflinchings low health response to Tenacity plus Last Stands extra low health damage, you'll be harder to keep pinned down in a fight and be able to fight back with more force once the CC barely sticks around

ALTERNATIVE CHOICES
Lethal Tempos changes were godsent for champions like Gwen as extended fights are a gwen mains dream as it ramps up over time with each hit fitting her on-hit playstyle.

If you'd prefer a bit more gold gain and health restore over mana restore in-lane you can choose triumph over presence. Keeping your health topped off if you're almost low even with your healing is a good way to make you a harder target to kill off

A good choice and competetor for Last Stand. It will scale off your opponent if they're missing 40% health instead of scaling off your missing health like Last Stand. It's just a definitely good way to execute enemies

I don't use this too often seeing as how one attack can just remove it early, however if you're against heavy combo champions like Yasuo and Akali or get ganked by Talon/Zed, this could be your lifesaver

Revitalize is good for extra healing or if you took tempo over conqueror. Once you get rift, this will help you heal insanely well and will also be useful if you happen to have champions on your team who can heal you like Soraka or Sona

Yes, I know, the first thought is probably "Rageblade on Gwen? Why exactly?" well there's a couple reasons honestly:

-Firstly, it's great to help her attack speed boost on her E, and provide her a bit of On-Hit power physically plus that attack speed is undeniably good for when your Q is down for its very short time

-Second, It feels good to use on her when you don't wanna go full AP, but you don't know what to replace it with

-Finally, Gwens E autos are considered On-Hit, so not only will it boost her E damage, but it actually also counts a single auto as 2 autos on the third hit. So every third hit, 2 autos will go off despite only using one. Not only that, this effect on her gives her 2 Q charges instead of just 1, so you can auto 3 times, and have 4 stacks already up on her Q good to go and even after finishing the Qs, your autos are insanely faster with Nashors+Rageblade

The main reason your healing works so well. Snip Snip! and Needlework do extra bonus magic damage. Your Thousand Cuts Passive also heals for 70% of post-mitigation damage on champions and deals bonus damage to minions below 40% health
Gwen Snips her scissors into a cone between 2-6 times depending on her stacks. In order to gain stacks, she has to auto attack enemies and/or objectives only capable of holding 4 stacks at a time. The edge of the cone for Snip-Snip Deals magic damage, however the center of her ability deals true damage to enemies and applies Thousand Cuts. This will be your main damage source all game excluding your autos due to true damage and how fast you can build it up just by autoing.
Gwen creates a circle of defense around her called "The Hallowed Mist" that will last 5 seconds. You can move the circle by going towards the edge or recast the W once to bring the circle to center around you. Inside the circle, Gwen is untargetable and immune to almost all abilities and attacks outside the circle if the enemy is not inside the circle with her. It also grants armor and magic resist while she remains in the circle. Use this ability to get ranged champion poke off of you in fights, or get a bit of resistance against enemies if need be.

Gwen will dash and gain bonus on-hit magic damage +8% AP scaled. She also gains bonus attack speed and 50 bonus attack range for 4 seconds. If she attacks anything in those 4 seconds, her E dash cooldown will be reduced by 60%. Her E is also an auto reset and can be cast during all her abilities. This will be what causes your autos to do a **** ton of damage due to on-hit. As long as you hit something after using the dash, your E will always be up the entire fight.

Needlework has 3 active ult charges. The first fires only 1 needle, the second fires 3 and the third fires 5 needles. In order to activate the next two charges after the first, you must auto attack or use snip-snip on an enemy champion or minion. Every needle hit applies thousand cuts and slows enemies. Make sure you use this to burst enemy champions down fast. You can use it to slow running enemies too, and thanks to some buffs, you don't have to hit anything to charge it anymore.

[WILL ADD GIFS EVENTUALLY OF COMBOS]
Gwen has a few good combos for in-lane and after leaving the lane as well, though sometimes tricky to pull off, but i'll list a few off-hand that you might be able to find online, discovered, or already have noticed but can't fully figure out

E->Q->Auto Animation Cancel
Pretty good standard poke combo for in-lane as Gwen. It gives a bit more DPS than just the normal E-Q and helps stack Conqueror.
To do it, simply E towards the enemy, Q and while the Q is going off, click the enemy champ. You wont notice the auto go off, but your E will still reset to the CD it's suppose to, because you weaved in an auto that had its animation cancelled out due to the Q animation finishing

Auto->E-Auto-Q-Auto
Pretty basic, not alot of chances to use this against certain champions but a good way to get off a bit of burst and stack Conq up fast. Probably the most simple combo to explain and pull off. Her E acts like an auto reset so you can get an easy auto in, and depending on when you used this, your Q can have 2-4 stacks already filled up for good damage

1st Ult+E->Q->2nd Ult->Auto->3rd Ult
This is a more "Show To Know" combo, but i'll explain it as best as I can till I add the GIF example.
This is probably her most fast paced burst combo. You'll use your first Ult and dash at the same time to get into Q range, Q the enemy [Preferably have 3-4 stacks up before going in for the best damage result], throw out your ults 2nd charge, auto and then finally your ults third charge. The damage is insane on this combo and you may need to practice it, but when you get the speed down, it is INSANE how hard she bursts enemies down

Gwen is a heavily versatile and underestimated champion in league. Everything I've described and shown I've tested myself and given my honest opinion over based off of usefulness of situation, power to her kit and overall how well it can help her scale in the entire game.
If you're looking for a champion that can melt tanks and squishies alike who will always be on the frontline, who also ends up being an AP champion when your team goes full AD while she also uses melee, then Gwen is definitely a good choice.
She is hard to learn properly and harder to master, but hopefully with this guide you can learn like I did on the best ways to use her and how to make sure you get the most out of her kit than before.