Hey there! I've returned with the update to this guide after like 20 years and just like GP I'm stronger now more than ever. If you have any questions about the builds and runes feel free to leave a comment and I'll try to answer as quickly as possible. Make sure you read the notes around runes and items as i explain a lot of stuff there that i might not mention down here. Right now this guide contains guides for the Early, Mid and Late game and guides to which runes you should take as well as a summary that should get you going without reading everything in-depth (the list will get bigger as I add more stuff!).

PROS:
•Incredible teamfighter
•Great splitpusher
•Can do insane amounts of AoE damage
•Doesn't lose duels lategame
•Works with almost any comp
•All the wenches will want your *******

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CONS:
•If you mess up the laning phase you're useless
•Goes OOM in laning phase very quickly
•You're either squishy or deal no damage
•Hard to learn
•The ocean made him very salty

Important note most of the matchups tab are outdated, all you have to know is that tanks are very strong and annoying and you have to be very good to win against them, vs bruisers if you're good take ignite and farm them, most cant kill you, permaban either Jax or Malphite and pray you don't get the other one.

In lane you have two options, if you're against a hard matchup then sit back, farm with q occasionally and poke to try and get them low so that either your jungler can come and you two kill them or they recall and you can farm freely. If youre against someone you can kill a little bit easier then taking Ignite and going balls to the wall at lvl 2 is your best bet, hit Q, hit a Powder Keg combo, hit Q again and all in them, you probably out damage them if you reset your passive. With a lead like that getting kills and farming later on in the laning phase should be EZ. If you're stuck with a harder matchup that can kill you easily, well first of all i feel bad for you, but here's what you have to do: ALWAYS keep a barrel around your backline minions so that you can always disengage. It might be so bad that you can only farm with Q, that's fine, farm under tower and be patient, wait for your jungler to come. Taking exhaust is also an option aganist hard matchups if you want to avoid death, which you should.

ALSO make sure you keep an eye on the minimap in search of skirmishes as your Cannon Barrage can turn the tide for your team more than you think and also get you a sweet assist or even kill if you're lucky (and some free money from First Strike).

Consider starting lvl1 with your E, placing it in the middle bush and connecting a combo on the first minion wave once the frontline minions drop low, this will almost always hit the enemy laner as well, since they will also go for the minions, your barrel + passive at lvl1 deal insane damage with First Strike and will often leave the enemy laner at half health with just those 2 hits. After this you can look for an all in around lvl 2 if youve zoned the enemy properly and taken ignite, its almost a guaranteed first blood.

Starting items:
•I'm gonna be honest, im a greedy SoB and i like starting Long Sword and Refillable Potion almost every game, this allows you to get Essence Reaver a whole 350 gold faster! Thats more than 3 minion waves! A whole minute and a half! Other than that I go Doran's Blade if i know it can guarantee a first blood, (400g is more than 350g) Doran's Shield and Corrupting Potion are kinda wasteful, as they offer nothing after you get your item, but delay it by a lot, take them only if the enemy picked something that you can't play into, or if you're a beginner.

Core items:
• Essence Reaver, Navori Quickblades and The Collector. Every time, without fail. The stats those items give you are simply too useful on GP, don't think about it too much, just buy them.

Other crit items
• Last Whisper items are also core, but both of them are kinda mediocre without context, Lord Dominik's Regards has been nerfed but the stats are still hella useful and everyone is spamming tanks nowadays so this will be your 4th item most of the time. Take Mortal Reminder as an alternative if the enemy doesnt really have tanks as it just gives more stats than LDR (note: antiheal is kinda useless so unless the enemy has a soraka you wont get a lot of value out of it).
• Stormrazor is currently my favourite 5th crit item, it just gives the best stats and isnt too expensive (note: the on-hit effect is NOT applied on your barrels)

Various other options
•Now that your Mythic is always a crit item, you get a neat array of items to choose as your 6th. Prowler's Claw is a really good stat stick although you can't utilize its passive (you can if you flash but you didn't hear that from me). Serpent's Fang is a good, cheaper alternative, especially if the enemy has shields (Mortal+Serpents is sure to disable all of the enemy supports). And Guardian Angel if they have pesky assassins or you need it for a big Baron or Elder fight.

Defensive options:
•Don't, just don't...

Some farming tips for the laning phase:

Seeing as GP is basically a farming simulator the first 20 minutes of the game, you should know how to properly farm.

Under tower farming
When up against a hard matchup and in the first few minutes of the game (as in pre 5-minute mark) you wont be able to pick up the casters under tower with just one autoattack and tower shot (trust me) so what you do is place a barrel under all the casters and blow it up with a regular aa. now when the tower shoots them you can pick them up easily!

Sheen farming
I know, you just went back the first time and got sheen and now all you want to do is poke the enemy laner, but its still a long while until you get lvl 13 and you're gonna need to farm in the meantime. So go into the casters, basic attack them all ONCE each and blow them up with a Barrel+Q (NOTE: the barrel might not be lethal if youre extremely low lvl and have no AD items...)

Also on the topic of barrels being lethal, one-shotting caster minions with a barrel requires you to either have an entire Essence Reaver OR have sheen and be lvl 9 (when your Q is rank 5).

Barrels start one shotting FRONTLINE minions when you have ER + Navori AND it crits (with Q obviously).

When mid game rolls its head around that's when you start dealing damage as GP, more precisely, when you have Essence Reaver maybe Navori Quickblades and some lethality items/components. This is the part of the game that decides whether you're a good GP or a really good GP. A good GP will roam and start to make plays with his team, a really good GP (this is the one you want to be) will stay in a side lane and farm with Q, killing anyone stupid enough to try and interrupt his farming session. (in all seriousness you want to do a little bit of both) Switching with your botlane is always a good choice as it gives you:

•Dragon control
•(Hopefully) A fresh lane with all its towers alive
•Two dumb botlaners that will not expect the damage from your barrels

While it is true that pre 13 your teamfight potential is not the best, you don't actually want to afk farm, since you have a big Sheen item it's best to push lane as hard as possible and roam towards objectives (especially if you're mid), if you're top: ward/take herald, contest the enemy buff, skirmish, all the while your laner is farming under tower, hell, you can even TP bot -> take dragon that's how powerful lane prio is, and GP is the best at it.

Late game officially begins for GP when you're level 13 and your Powder Keg is maxed out. But in reality you will still be farming up in a side lane and setting turrets on fire. Once you have all three outer turrets downed and a minimum of 4 items you can start lighting people up like Christmas trees.
THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR:

•Strong Enemies
Enemies who are fed can one shot you in the blink of an eye, and even faster than that if you don't have Remove Scurvy up. These are your targets. Be patient and wait for them to position badly, catch them with a barrel combo or two and wipe them out, if you have crit in your build then flashing onto them for a few regular autos is also an option.

•Ganks
As soon as the enemy sees you splitpushing they're going to try to group up on you and take you out. Always keep an eye on the minimap and make sure you can see at least 4 people on there. If you slip up and see 3 people show up to get your head, do not fear, since you're level 13 you can set up a quick barrel combo and slow all of them down while gaining a ridiculous amount of movement speed yourself. Unless you just snorted a line of cocaine, are actually Fakers son or extremely fed I highly suggest not going in for a 1v3, instead just run for it and try to make your team go for a Baron or Dragon while half the enemy team is chasing you.

•Baron and Dragon
If the enemy tries to be sneaky and take Baron or Dragon while you're not looking be sure you have both warded and as soon as you see them doing this ult them and try to disrupt them by any means possible. GP has the most insane AoE damage late game so you can one shot a whole team at Baron with a single barrel combo.

An important thing to note is that by repeatedly resetting your passive on Epic monsters you can deal THOUSANDS of true damage with just your passive in a matter of seconds, GP is the new king of sneaking Barons as with just a jungler you can clear a Baron at minute 25 in less than 30 seconds.

Other runes you can use:

Perfect Timing vs Magical Footwear i'd say this is about 50/50 realistically you go Stopwatch when you're against something that you NEED to buy Plated Steelcaps in lane or the enemy has a jungler that will try to dive you early, (kayn, lee, yi ,j4), ptherwise go boots as it allows for better economy.

Transcendence + Gathering Storm allows for some crazy scaling but makes you super squishy in lane, not reccomended for newbies or in lanes where the enemy can pick a fight and out trade you easily.

This section is for anyone who is too lazy to read every chapter or for anyone who just wants to revise everything they read in the whole guide.
With GP your main focus in lane is farming throwing barrels at your enemy until they're low enough to all in. Parrrley isn't actually that good for poking if you don't have sheen (Believe it or not) so use it to get CS you would otherwise miss. Try not to push your lane and never go in for 1v1's that you aren't sure if you are going to win (especially if you dont have Ignite). Do not go for fights with your team before level 13 and before you have multiple crit items unless it's absolutely necessary. The three most important things to know on GP are:

1) Know how to farm
Knowing how to get as many minions as possible is imperative to learning GP, although killing your opponent in lane and roaming is a semi-reliable source of income; nothing can replace a good ol' CS lead, know when to go in for farm and take poke, know when to go afk farm, know how to freeze the lane and you're on your way to mastering GP!

2) Know your combos
This ones obvious but very much worth mentioning, to be a good Gangplank you need to know how to do, and WHEN to do barrel combos.(the one-part, two-part, three-part etc.)

3) Know your numbers
Like Gangplank says: "Trust nothing to chance" , you can never go in for a fight and just wing it, you need to know how much damage you do and how much damage you can take, if you can kill the enemy in a few combos that you're able to make, great, go for it, if not: just back off from the fight, if your team dies, too bad, just farm under tower and wait for them to come back to life (GP is great at anti sieging so try to disrupt the enemy team at this time). If your team listens to you and backs up, congrats, you've just made a successful shotcall.

Know all this and you can call yourself a good GP player, blast some Alestorm and carry yourself out of Iron 4.

I will be adding more stuff to the guide such as barrel combos, farming guides,other matchups and more!
If there is something you would like to be added to the guide be sure to leave a comment and I'll try to reply as soon as possible!