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Gangplank Build Guide by PinkBlood

Top [14.8] CHALLENGER Gangplank Guide | Gangplank, the Saltwater Scourge 🏴‍☠️

Top [14.8] CHALLENGER Gangplank Guide | Gangplank, the Saltwater Scourge 🏴‍☠️

Updated on April 22, 2024
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League of Legends Build Guide Author PinkBlood Build Guide By PinkBlood 17 1 43,449 Views 0 Comments
17 1 43,449 Views 0 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author PinkBlood Gangplank Build Guide By PinkBlood Updated on April 22, 2024
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Runes:

1 2
Inspiration
First Strike
Magical Footwear
Biscuit Delivery
Cosmic Insight

Sorcery
Absolute Focus
Gathering Storm
Bonus:

+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+10-180 Bonus Health

Spells:

1 2
LoL Summoner Spell: Flash

Flash

LoL Summoner Spell: Teleport

Teleport

Threats & Synergies

Threats Synergies
Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny
Show All
None Low Ok Strong Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Synergies
Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Champion Build Guide

[14.8] CHALLENGER Gangplank Guide | Gangplank, the Saltwater Scourge 🏴‍☠️

By PinkBlood
WHO AM I ?
Hello I'm babybananapeel or bbp for short. I'm a gangplank streamer from the oceanic server peaking Challenger in s13. Be wary of the selfish plug incoming in the two chapters. Currently am Grandmaster in S14 and on my way to challenger.
TWITCH
I stream everyday at twitch.tv/babybananapeel1 come check me out! I'll answer any question you want league related or not.
YOUTUBE
I also have a youtube channel where I post shorts and plan to post videos with gameplay of master+ gameplay. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNtpcGXx741Ez1mQ6ysXJPQ
PROS & CONS
The reason I enjoy Gangplank is because he is very fun, has a super overpowered kit, been in out and out of the meta for a while & is super rewarding when you put in the games.

THE PROS


+ Can Easily Carry Games
+ High skill ceiling
+ Does alot of damage
+ Global presence (ULT)
+ Free money from passive
+ LATE GAME SCALER
+ Really useful spells & kit.
+ Long Range

Overall Gangplank is a super good toplaner, if you are willing to put in the time to learn him. He is extremely strong if you do pilot him correctly and can outright carry games single handly if you are good at him. Although he is mechanically intensive he is very rewarding if played correctly.

THE CONS


+ High skill floor (Hard to pickup)
+ Quite squishy aka. glasscannon
+ Takes a while to learn.
+ One of the hardest champions in the game.
+ Using barrels correctly is very difficult at first.
+ Can get beat up quite hard in certain lanes.

Although Gangplank does have his weaknesses to learn, his strengths do him justice. When Gangplank is mastered you can easily translate a stable laning phase into a dominant mid to late game carry.
Runes

I don't want to yap too much about runes because a lot of Gangplank players run different setups.


First strike is just the best gangplank rune, it generates gold does damage and scales extremely well even ramping up your true damage. Grasp is the other choice but doesn't translate too much anymore due to the gangplank lane nerfs and buffs to scalings + crit scalings.


The other choice is tonic, I personally like to go tonic into matchups where I would need boots or run ignite. Examples of this are darius, aatrox, olaf. The tonics and early boot purchase help alot in this matchup paired with ignite/ teleport.
A lot of gangplank players do opt into the futures market, I personally like the mana from biscuits so I can use Oranges (W) in lane, which is how you win lane in most cases but outsustaining and scaling with Q.
This rune is just the best in its tree, it allows your summoners to be up so much faster.

Secondary Tree runes have so many choices you can run every rune page with each individual rune. I personally like to go sorcery.


This rune scales so well and allows you to output so much damage in the later stages. You can also go transcendence instead if you want the haste cos you are noob at barrels.
Ontop of Absolute Focus this allows you to get a enormous amount of attack damage from your runes.

Overall this is my Gangplank rune page, I run this rune page most of the time. I do think it's the most optimal rune page, but if you do want to opt into safer rune pages go ahead. Examples of safer rune pages would be fleet or going resolve secondary

.
I've been running fleet recently and it has felt nice although, the sustain you get from fleet is nice and the movement speed is really nice to get out of sticky situations or to space champions. I personally been running it with great sucess..
Just the goto rune in this tree since you won't be able to get mana in runes with this setup. Triumph/ overheal dont really do that much for gangplank anyways.
Just really nice so you can auto attack barrels, Gangplank actually has a bug where if you don't have enough attack speed your auto attacks will reset mid- animation and make you lose DPS/ damage. Hence why you see people running attack speed in runes most games.
All of these are good but I would recommend Last Stand over coupe de grace. Cutdown into tanks/ tanky comps.


This is the fleet footwork runepage for Gangplank. I have been running fleet recently and it feels great. I do opt into the Sorcery Tree secondary aswell same runes. Check below for the Shards for Runes that I go.


Haste is really good for scaling, I've been running haste recently since you don't get much haste with Infinity Edge . Attack speed is nice if you want it. Adaptive force is just self explanatory. I wouldn't recommend going Haste with ignite setups.

Standard
I personally run flat health because I'm a noob and need it to survive the early levels. But if you are not getting pressured much just go health scaling.
Navori Quickblades Vs Infinity Edge
Infinity Edge increases crit damage by 0.50. Infinity edge is good if you want to spike early like you want to deal damage on 2 items.
After the changes which made caulfied into a BF sword for navori, navori is a insanely good item to build.

Overall you can go either crit item on Gangplank but I do prefer and think infinity edge is better. If you get to the point where you can use barrels correctly you can just deal more damage.
Gameplan + FAQ

If you are reading this I'm gonna assume you are keen to pickup gangplank and are digging deep into my guide to pickup all the trade secrets. If this is the case let me idulge you.



Approaching level 1.



Gangplank players tend to level Powder Keg and sit in the middle top bush. They then wait for the minions to crash and when they are about to die explode the Powder Keg as the minions are dying and when the enemy goes to last hit them.
But what if the enemy contests the top bush or the enemies invade your top bush? Dont worry! it happens all the time you don't have to start in the lane bushes as Gangplank But it does help you get a nice chunk onto the enemy as you get ur minions and applying Trial By Fire Which tends to be most of gangplanks damage early game.

Gangplanks Barrel Health Decay Tip


To keep in mind gangplanks barrels decay health at different speeds depending on level.
2 Seconds - Level 1
1 Seconds - Level 7
0.5 Seconds - Level 13
the BIG levels are level 7 and especially level 13 because with level 13 you might value movement speed a little bit more tend to you usually being able to combo Powder Keg much easier with the increased decay health time.

Early levels 1-6


Gangplank laning isn't the strongest compared to the likes of a Darius but Gangplanks goal in lane is to be able to base for a Sheen or for Long Sword s , or a Cull . So being able to farm near your tower is a massive deal. Ideally you don't want to shove up in the lane unless you are playing ignite and playing to be a lane dominant king 👑 . The way you should use Powder Keg in lane phase is around minions. You should view minions as objectives and how you can interact with these minions is the way you should place your barrels. The enemies will have to contest Powder Keg or play the Powder Keg minigame where you both try to kill the barrel or they will try to space it with some fancy footwork. This is where Gangplanks power comes in if you are good at this Powder Keg minigames you will succeed on Gangplank


Level 9


This is a big powerspike for Gangplank usually with Essence Reaver or components for Essence Reaver you will be able to oneshot the back wave which allows you to farm your Silver Serpents & Print your Gold . You usually are quite strong at this point and you start coming online.

ULT UPGRADES


After this point you might come farm up enough Silver Serpents to able to purchase a Cannon Barrage upgrade.

The default goto is Fire At Will which adds 6 mores waves to your ultimate increasing its damage per second, and allows the slow to proc more hence the more waves. This is more consisent gangplank upgrade and probably his best. It powers up the ultimate in every way imaginable.

Death's Daughter is a really good chunk of TRUE damage which can be really nice if you are trying to snipe kills early, pairing this with The Collector it could amount to crazy damage early, this is also really nice to finish off enemies at all stages and usually is the standard 2nd upgrade.

Raise Morale Is a Super strong option 2nd or 3rd. I do believe this is probably the most ideal 2nd upgrade unless you do want the Death's Daughter damage which we all do. In the early stages of the game you don't really value the movement speed unless you think you REALLY need it, i've never had a game where I would value the movement speed first, you can just purchase Fire At Will and it will slow the enemies which will allow you to kite/dive easier and deal more damage.

Level 13


This is the threshhold of 0.5 barrels which allows Gangplank to shine you can finally play the game. It's hard to say which barrels you should use in each scenario but if ideally you want to be able to slow enemies around objectives and use your range to your advantage. Gangplank barrels are the hardest part of his kit and usually tend to be a big part of damage combined with Trial By Fire and by now Trial By Fire does around 300-600 TRUE DAMAGE depending how strong you are, a cool fact about Trial By Fire is that it gets increased by 60 per crit cloak which is massive considering you do want to sit on crit cloaks as components while you complete crit items due to the increased damage chance that comes with crit chance.

Teamfighting


Teamfighting on Gangplank usually is you using your Powder Keg to deal damage from range, applying slows and using Cannon Barrage to create space and disrupt the enemy. Trial By Fire is also does insane amount of damage in the later stages of the game, you can even flash auto attack + Parrrley to deal a insane amount of damage sending them into The Collector execute range. A cool fact about The Collector is that your Cannon Barrage procs it so while teamfighting it will execute enemies below 5% hp. Usually while teamfighting with Gangplank you want to follow up on whatever your team mates want to do which might include diving, if this is the case make sure you use Cannon Barrage & Powder Keg to aid your team mates. Gangplank is especially strong when you are against short range compositions, because they have to run towards you and into Powder Keg & Cannon Barrage to try attack you and your team mates. Champions Gangplank dislikes is having no setup for Powder Keg or longe range and reposition like Ezreal . To battle champions like Ezreal you ideally want to fight in the river or want them to run foward into you. If you are running at a longe range champion like Ezreal as Gangplank you might find it difficult to hit them with a Powder Keg due to them being able to auto attack the barrel or dash away, while poking you with their Mystic Shot . I wouldn't say battling longe range champions as Gangplank is extremely difficult, but it might be a challenge. Against hyper mobile enemies like Zeri you be forced to just try to damage them with Parrrley because they are too mobile to get hit by Powder Keg .

When fighting around objectives if your team mates are first to the objective and have cleared vision you can setup Powder Keg around the entrances to the objective in Fog of War, this allows you to be able to damage the enemy who are forced to walk into you and towards the objective which makes it easier to use Powder Keg & Cannon Barrage well. This is a good way to deal poke & slow the enemy which makes it hard for them fight you head on.

Should I split push?


Good question, you shouldn't try to group on gangplank unless you are strong. You should farm jungle camps and waves in the mid to late stages of the game until you are strong. Unless you do think you could contribute to a early dragon fight I wouldn't recommend you dropping side waves and towers to help your team mates early. I would recommend using Cannon Barrage to assist your team mates throughout the game. Usually junglers want to fight the Void Grubs early so you might get blamed for not helping, in cases like these you should only move to the Void Grubs if your lane state is good (wave showed into the tower for eg.). This is a universal toplane macro thing, and isn't specific for Gangplank . Only fight when it's good too because Gangplank is a very vulnerable champion early due to his immobile nature and scaling with gold + levels.

How do I combo?


I would recommend watching a Gangplank barrel guide on youtube, I haven't made one myself and I don't plan on too. You should definitly hop into practice tool and get the simple barrel combos down before you hop into a League of legends game, especially ranked. I know it sounds boring but if you do spend like 10-30 minutes MINIMUM in a practice tool you might be able to hit something flashly in a game. Which produces so much dopamine. Also I believe watching Gangplank players helps a lot because it shows you how they use barrels and puts you on the right path to how to use your Powder Keg effectively. I still watch other Gangplank player s and learn crazy interactions to this day and I've put thousands of games into Gangplank .

Best skin?


Default . After thousands of games default Gangplank has the MOST DRIP.

If you are have any more questions you can ask me on my stream or ask me in my discord. You can also comment here and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Answered questions will probably be added to the FAQ if they are asked enough.
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League of Legends Build Guide Author PinkBlood
PinkBlood Gangplank Guide
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[14.8] CHALLENGER Gangplank Guide | Gangplank, the Saltwater Scourge 🏴‍☠️

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