Hello there! Welcome to my very first guide here on Mobafire! Im iYoshii, and this guide will be on Gangplank, the Saltwater Scourge. I will gladly take advice from veteran players, and I will respond to some of the comments you have. Well, lets get started!

Gangplank was born the son of the dread pirate captain Vincent the Shadow - one of the most wealthy and feared pirates in all of Blue Flame Island. One might think this would have spoiled the boy with a cushioned life of privilege, but the truth is quite the opposite. Growing up in the city of Bilgewater isn't easy; pirates are not known for their compassion, and that most certainly extends to their families. Vincent wanted his son to grow up tough and strong, so he was extremely hard on the young Gangplank. Even as a child, Gangplank was as mean as a snake and is said to have slept with his eyes open. As he grew, the young man rapidly became the most ruthless and feared pirate in all of Bilgewater, and his daddy was never more proud than on the day of his son's eighteenth birthday - when Gangplank stabbed his old man in the back and claimed the famed pirate ship, the Dead Pool, for his own.

The continent of Valoran, however, is a dangerous place for pirates; Gangplank could read the writing on the wall. The den of pirates known as Bilgewater would soon be pulled down by the undertow of Valoranian politics and the Institute of War. It was time for Bilgewater to have their own champion to represent them in the League of Legends, and who better than the fiercest pirate of them all? It is said that Gangplank has enough power and favor to claim the title of the Pirate King back home, but that he is simply biding his time and building his reputation as a champion before he returns to a life of piracy.


"Yo ho, blow the man down. Or at least shoot him when his back is turned and steal all his booty."

Abbreviated Terms of the Game


Ace: When the entire enemy team is dead.
AoE: Area of Effect
AP: Ability Power
AD: Attack Damage
AFK: Away From Keyboard
ArP: Armor Penetration
AS: Attack Speed
Atmog's: Atma's Impaler and Warmog's Armor Combo
B: Back or Recalling
Baron: The strongest neural monster in Summoner's Rift. Red Skull on the map. Gives a powerful buff to the whole team when killed.
BD / Backdoor: Pushing up without creeps.
BG: Bad Game
Bush: Large grassy areas which keeps you hidden.
Buff: Temporary increase to stats. (Golem, Lizard and Baron)
Care: To be careful of your surroundings.
Carry: A player who wins late game fights and leads the team to victory.
CC: Crowd Control (Stun, fear, slow, snare, etc)
CD: Cooldown
CDR: Cooldown Reduction
Creeps: Minions
CS: Creep Score
DC: Disconnected
DOT: Damage Over Time
DPS: Damage Per Second
Drag / Dragon: The second most powerful neural monster. Does not give a buff but it rewards the team with hefty XP and Gold.
Farm / Farming: To kill a lot of creeps.
Feed / Feeding: When one player continuously gets killed by enemy champions.
Focus: To concentrate on one enemy champion during team fights.
Fratma's: Frozen Mallet and Atma's Impaler Combo
Gank: To flank a lane and discretely kill an enemy.
GG: Good Game
GJ: Good Job
GLHF: Good Luck, Have Fun
Harass: To burst the enemy with non-lethal damage forcing them to heal.
Jungle: The mass of trees and paths that exist between the lanes.
Jungling: To attack neutral creeps, allowing for 2 solo lanes and better ganking.
Kite: To draw a hero away from a comfort zone and set up an ambush.
KS: Kill Steal
Lane: The road that contains towers and leads to and from the bases.
Last Hit: To get the killing blow.
MIA: Missing In Action
MPen: Magic Penetration
MR: Magic Resist
MS: Movement Speed
NJ: Nice Job
OOM: Out of Mana
OP: Overpowered
River / Riv: The river which cuts across the playing field
Snowball / Snowballing: Using an item that can potentially feed you.
Stun: A debuff which prevents any action by a champion.
Top / Mid / Bot: Top, Middle and Bottom. Lanes in LoL.
Ult: In reference to your Ultimate ability, your 'R' key.

These are what make Gangplank good and what doesn't.

Very Pros

Insane damage output with auto-attacks and Parrrley

Incredible Harass with Parrrley

Good Farmer

From Mid Game onward can destroy any squishy

A free stackable slow and DoT that can slow up to 21%

Can help his team no matter where he is due to Cannon Barrage.

Good speed

Global AOE ult

Useful in teamfights even when not present

Cons

Pretty Squishy

No Natural Escape Skill

Mana hungry early

Grog Soaked Blade (Passive)


This is SO awesome! Do you also know how saddening it is when someone gets away with 5 hp? This is what takes care of it, this skill is SO awesome! Awesome DOT which helps ganking, jungling, and damaging overall, and it has SLOW on it
aswell! SO AWESOME FOR GANKING, Especially because [Parrley] also applies this.


Parrrley

This is the "WTF? LOL" spell, mid and late-game this spell is sooo much fun, awesome to harass with, especially because this crits 1000 dmg, SO awesome, You use this to harass with when people are gathering for a team fight, and an opponent comes a bit close, run and do a quick Parrrley and remove 50% of their HP, just awesome.


Remove Scurvy

OMG This is SO awesome! It's like a free Cleanse! It removes STUNS, SLOWS, SNARES! Do you know how annoying Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow is? This is ASHE COUNTERSPELL! Lol. When I see her arrow on its way to use of my teammates, I usually take it and remove the stun immediately, because this spell also heals, she wasted an ult, you "wasted" 80 mana, who wins?


Raise Morale

OMG! ANOTHER AWESOME SPELL! (Gangplank is so awesome) This spell gives Gangplank movement speed and attack damage! FASTER JUNGLE, BETTER GANKS, BETTER GAME OVERALL OMG! And it has an USE effect! As if it wasn't good enough already? Lol. On use it doubles the AD and MS that it gives you, and gives half of that amount to nearby allies, this can really change team fights and secure escapes.


Cannon Barrage (Ultimate)

Oh man, this spell.. This spell.. AHHAHA! I love this spell! It has an AoE slow, it deals AoE damage, and an global range! AMAGAD! *scream* I can't explain how good this spell is, but I will try to. As soon as you ding level 6, you need to scout the map once in a while, when talking with your friends on Skype or vent or w/e, you need to be quick to fire it off if they need it. I get SO many kills/assist with this spell early-mid game, and ofcourse also some in late-game. This is the spell I initiate with, ofc not my first spell, because then they'd walk out of it, wait for your tank to go in, watch where your enemies stack and fire it off. Slow them all, damage them all, while you pick them off one by one. I've used this spell to help my friends escape so many times, and also myself, because of the AoE slow, you can use this behind yourself and slow down your enemies so easy, AWESOME spell!!!!!!

Flash


Still the best (read most versatile) summoner spell in the game. Gives you a blink forward to hit that low target with your Q, can be used as a free juke, etc. etc. If you really need to have the benefits of Flash explained to you at this point, you're doing something wrong. You'll probably see 6-10 people with it in any given game.


Ignite

I generally take this along with Flash, as it stacks very nicely with red buff and your passive, gives you yet another early game advantage. It can be used specifically against strong healers, shutting down an ulting Dr. Mundo, Swain, Sion etc. There are a good number of times when your target escapes with 120 health because he was just out of range when Parrrley was on CD, and this will get you that kill easily.



Exhaust

Situational: Look at your team, and generally if you need CC, or if nobody else has chosen it, you should probably take it instead of Ignite. Exhaust makes you an even better duelist, locks down someone commited to towerdiving you while you scamper around your tower after cleansing out of their otherwise deadly trap. Even if three people towerdive you, you should kill at least one of them.

Starting Items


This will give you early crit with your Parrrley and the health potions will allow you to sustain your lane. You could switch Brawler's Gloves for Boots of Speed if you prefer the early mobility.

Later Into The Game


1.)Avarice Blade


I quickly turn it into an Avarice Blade: 12% Crit Chance and 5 Gold per 10.


2.)Berserker's Greaves

Your best option is Berserker's Greaves, but too you have a few options:
Ionian Boots of Lucidity
Mercury's Treads
Berserker's Greaves
Ninja Tabi


However, there are some teams that make it suicidal to go up against without Mercury's Treads, and by extension, Ninja Tabi will help with some AD heavy teams. Attack speed is viable on most AD carries, but you will do much more damage if you can use Parrrley, Raise Morale, and Cannon Barrage that much quicker; only switch if the other team is unbalanced or your lane is problematic.

3.) Phantom Dancer

The best friend of Infinity Edge

Now i build the Zeal portion of a Phantom Dancer, which makes me much faster and now i have a LARGE amount of Critical Strike Chance. I just build that into a Phantom Dancer now. By now, you are probably single-handedly tearing apart their team.

4.)Infinity Edge


This will bump your crit damage to a godly +260% (thanks to Lethality) and you certainly don't have to worry about not doing enough damage anymore. If you have followed the build so far, your crit chance prior to Infinity Edge will be 33%, so start with Cloak of Agility even before B. F. Sword.



5.)The Bloodthirster


The Bloodthirster It took a smallish nerf recently, but you no longer lose all your stacks when you die. If you just want straight damage and they don't have excessive armor, this is the perfect item. At full stacks, it adds +100 AD which will do noticeably more damage.


6.)Atma's Impaler


Because you have been building almost exclusively crit damage, Atma's Impaler will give you some extra damage. Do not finish Atma's right away though, just get Cloak of Agility. Thanks to Parrrley you will still be doing excellent damage every time you crit.


7.) Warmog's Armor


Atmog's ( Warmog's + Atma's Impaler ) will officially remove any squishy tag you might have, and push your damage up into the 200s as soon as you finish Atma's. Always start with a Giant's Belt if you can afford it.


8.)Frozen Mallet

Like Warmog's, this will de-label you as a squishy. Instead of flat health and health regeneration, it gives you 700 Health and 20 Attack Damage. As if that wasn't enough you even get a built in slow. U can make a great combo with (Warmog's + Atma's Impaler + Frozen Mallet = A lot of HP and great AD bonus from Atma's Impaler).

Offense

- Summoner's Wrath beefs up your Exhaust and reduces the target's MR and Armor by 10.
- Brute Force gives you an additional 3 Attack Damage.
- Alacrity boosts your Attack speed by 4%.
- Deadliness increases your Attack Damage per level by .05.
- Weapon Expertise adds 10% Armor Penetration.
- Lethality adds 10% Critical damage.
- Vampirism gives 3% Life Steal
- Sunder gives you an extra +6 Armor Penetration
- Executioner increases the damage you deal by 6% to targets below 40% Health.

Defense

- Resolve helps with ur smite if u jungle.
- Hardiness gives you 6 extra Armor.
- Durability gives you 6 extra Health per level. (+108 Health at level 18)
- Veteran's Scars gives you an additional 30 Health.

MARKS

I getGreater Mark of Desolation because it gives you some great early armor penetration. 15 Armor Penetration is a lot. If you are laning against Ashe, your Parrrley will practically do True Damage in the first few levels. Ashe has a base armor of 13 (Without runes or Masteries) and you penetrate 15. Meaning until that gets a lot higher...you do true damage.


SEAL AND GLYPH

Next I getGreater Seal of Alacrity and Greater Glyph of Alacrity, because early game it lets you get your poison and DoT on a lot faster, so you can stay near them and finish them off.

QUINTESSENCE

Finally, I useGreater Quintessence of Furor Because, it makes your crits do a nice bit more damage, and it can help through out the game. These could be switched with Greater Quintessence of Desolation or Greater Quintessence of Strength

I use a 21/9/0 Mastery Set Up. It gets me a lot of damage and I get improved exhaust. The 9 in defense stops the squishiness of Gangplank early game.

I know how much people like to see builds actually being used, so here are a few games I played with this build. Ranked matches coming soon.

Tanks for reading! I hope you will enjoy learning how to play Gangplank. He is a very good champion. The learning curve is good for Gangplank. If you struggle a little in the beginning it is ok. I am positive that you will learn to play Gangplank well. Remember to Vote, Comment, and Favorite!