I am a GP one trick who managed to climb all the way from Silver 3 to Diamond 4. I did this by playing very consistently, and having decent mechanics. Gangplank is a champion you should be able to learn within 50-100 games, and once you fully understand his kit, he's freelo. I originally started playing GP during the end of season 6, as Dyrus claimed he was freelo in one of his videos. Since then, I haven't been able to stop playing this champion.

- http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=got

This guide is very much a work in progress, and I will commonly be coming back to it to check for suggestions.

Personally, I believe gangplank excels in the toplane as long as you understand how to play him, yes, some lane opponents are extremely annoying to play against, but in order to get better, you must learn how to play against them. For midlane, I don't believe GP is generally that strong, as you will just get out-roamed, and in turned, flamed by your whole team. You may also be missing out on having an AP mid laner if your top goes AD as well.

In order to properly farm early game, it's best to avoid using barrels until you have sheen, as you will generally mess up the wave, which could cause it to get frozen near enemy turret.

Early game - Autoattack or Q enemy minions
After trinity force - Autoattack all 3 melee minions to half health, and then use a barrel to kill both front and backline.

These are generally the best to do while trying to farm, if you can't autoattack the 3 melee minions in the front, just wait for them to get low from your minions and then combo. If you're trying to push your wave as quick as possible, just use a barrel to kill the backline and then autoattack the frontline, this will cause you to lose a bit of value, but it's generally fine.

During teamfights, your priority should be to either blow up the front line, or blow up the backline. If you're being carried by an ADC/Midlaner, focus on killing the people killing them. If you're the one carrying, then focus on killing who is trying to kill you. If a teamfight is about to happen, do your best to engage by landing a barrel onto the backline and immediately ulting them, if you crit, then they should be dead by this combo alone. You may have to weave in and out of teamfights to wait for barrel cooldowns, and that's 100% okay. I do not recommend just rushing into the enemies and autoattacking them, unless you're fed out of your mind.

Maxing Q is a must in every single matchup. Maxing E is only good if your plan is to troll your team, maxing W is better if you're going full AP GP, which isn't the strongest right now, but if you must, then you may. Skill sequence for most games should be R>Q>E>W, with trying to put as little of points into W as possible.

If you're toplane, always bring TP, never bring exhaust, especially with the new runes, as you'll just get punished super hard and will miss out on a ton of EXP/gold.

If you're midlane, bring exhaust, only bring ignite if you're smurfing or are confident that you will get first blood.

The most basic and practical combo is E-E-Q, this is the combo that you will be using in pretty much every game, and I recommend using it as much as possible. E-Q-E is good when you're trying to sneak an engage or trying to poke with barrels. E-E-Q-E is good if the enemy is very low under tower and you're trying to kill them, I've done it a few times, and it's very good during laning phase, but I do not recommend doing it during late-game teamfights, as you'll run out of barrels and be useless for the duration of the teamfight.