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Hello! I am a Plat-Gold level player. I would consider GP to be my main. I started playing him a little after the beginning of the LCS playoffs just after the Juggernaut patch in 2015. Gangplank and Mordekaiser were always banned or played, and when they were played, they usually won. Because of this, I decided to dedicate a significant amount of time to practicing both. Both eventually did receive nurfs, but GP's weren't very significant to his game play. Since those days, GP has received a ton of nurfs. Yet, he is still one of the best champs in the game, and is still sought after in Professional play. When I started playing GP, I just copied what the pro's were doing, and I was climbing. At the time, I was Silver 3. I had been fluctuating between Silver and Gold, and wanted to make a run to get back to gold before seasons end. I picked up GP, and after a bit of practice, with in weeks I was able to get back to gold. I made it just in time to get the end of season rewards. In the fallowing weeks after the season ended, I was able to carry all the way up to Platinum. I was able to get as high as Platinum 3.

So if you have stayed with me this long, I Thank you. I want to start taking professional builds that are used in LCS/LCK, and create a guide for us common folk to use. This GP one will be my first. When I get a better computer, and am able to record, I will post videos that will show some things to better teach the ways of the King of the Pirates!

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Pros

+ Best late game Champion + Good vs most match-ups + Can 1v9 if mastered + He's the King of the Pirates!!

Gp has probably the best late game in League. It is very exciting to hit a barrel on a whole team, then ult right after, and watch all the health melt away.

Cons

- Weak early game - Has popular "Hard Counters" - Difficult to master - Hasn't found the One Piece D:

The biggest danger with GP is the lane phase. Gotta stay safe and watch for ganks. Farming up is the most important part. If your doing well, with the right attitude, any sort of comeback is possible.

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So with the runes, go Greater Mark of Attack Damage, Greater Seal of Armor, greater quintessence of armor penetration,and MR mix of blues. If your against an ap top, you can go Greater Seal of Scaling Health, and if your having mana issues, you can go Greater Glyph of Mana Regeneration. Those are both totally fine.

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Ive looked at quite a few Korean pages as well as NA pages from the pros, and ive found a mix. 12-18-0 is the most common among Koreans. If you are having trouble surviving laneing phase, you can go 0-18-12. The best masteries this route are Recovery , Tough Skin , Veteran's Scars , and for lower CD on TP and flash, Insight . This will be a bigger help going through the lane phase. And thats the thing with GP, if you can get through laneing phase, you can carry the rest of the game. Match ups like a Nasus or Shen that just wants to farm anyway, you definitely wanna go 12-18-0 page.

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Q Parrrley is always first, but don't put your point in till laning is about to begin. So if you get invaded on, and you get cc'd, you can W Remove Scurvy if needed. For the second ability, if there's no risk of CC you can take E Powder Keg and start zoning with barrels. I like to take W second most of the time, just to have the sustain from trades if needed. That really just depends on your play style tho.

Barrel Mechanics

The tick time is really slow at first, after level 6 it ticks a little faster, and after level 13, it ticks real quick. This is when you can just pull up a barrel, and another in rapid succession, and Q immediately to make a barrel chain. That is how you poke with GP pretty much. When using a barrel for only its movement speed buff, place the barrel farthest away from you as you run. If your still under 6, you will have to q the barrel after you pass it. If your after 6, it will tick to one just as you get to it. Then you can auto it and keep running.

The Triple Barrel Combo

The triple barrel combo is a very useful tool early on. This is because you can rapidly put out barrels with out waiting for the tick time. Here is a scenario. Your receiving a gank and you need to hit a barrel on the enemy laner to apply the slow and make the gank successful. You have one barrel set up. Its already at one tick. You set up a second one, Q the first one, and quickly place a third one connected to the second one. They are caught off guard, and you run up with your movement speed, auto them and gain more movement speed, and its a sure kill with the gankers help at this point. This is probably the hardest mechanic to pull off when it comes to GP. And even if your barrel doesn't hit, it feels awesome when ever you make the triple barrel combo go off. Later on, this is really helpful for team fights. If you have a barrel in the fog of war, you set up one connected to it, Q the first one, and place another. Its a sure way to get your barrel combo off with out there ranged champions interfering.

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So for lane phase, early on you will want to poke with your Q, and CS with your auto's. You want to poke with your Q to make use of the bandit mastery. At ranks 1-5, your Q only only gives 2,3,4,5,6 bonus gold for killing a creep with it. However, if you use your Q on the enemy early on, your getting 10 bonus gold instead. So its better. How ever, getting the cs is more important than the poke. So if you cant poke safely, just farm with q instead. Once you hit lvl 6, start looking around the map for counter ganks and just team support in general with Cannon Barrage. If there is risk of an early tower going down with a big wave, don't be afraid to use your ult to clear the tower of minions. The first blood gold for tower is worth your ult CD.

After your Sheen buy

After sheen buy Once you get your sheen, you can really hurt your enemy laner with Q poke. I like to keep a barrel behind myself to help if I'm getting ganked. The trade i usually do, is i set up a barrel combo, and auto the barrel to hit them, then q them, and auto and run away. You get movement speed from your passive, and from hitting the barrel. This will also proc Thunderlord's Decree , so its a good trade to use against most match-ups. Also I like to keep a barrel in a bush, just in case. Barrels are a really good tool for Zoning if your ahead. Once you have Trinity Force by around 12 mins, the caster minions will be taken out by one barrel.

Advanced CS'ing

If you have to last hit under tower, you let the tower hit each of the melee creeps twice, then one auto will kill them. For the caster minions, there is a strategy to get all 3. So what you do is you place a barrel, and auto one of the minions that the tower is not attacking, after the tower completes its attack on the first caster minion, you can Q your barrel. That will kill the first 2 creeps, then you can auto the last one, and you have secured all the creeps. If you have time between melee creeps, you can prep the range creeps with one auto each. Big thing to keep in mind is that your barrel will proc the passive Trial By Fire for the bonus gold on creeps. So if your pushing the wave, you can auto the melee creeps a few times each to try n take em down with one barrel. Usually you will always have to auto the melee's once each at least to have them die with the barrel.

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Every single game that GP is featured in LCS right now, these are the items he builds. It use to be the crit build, but with Trinity having crit taken away from it, the crit build is just too expensive and it takes longer to hit your power spike. If you go the crit build route, you have to get a zeal item, for the 30% crit, other wise your only at 40%.

With this armor pen build, you get more damage earlier, and for less gold. It also has alot of synergy with the new Trinity force better than the crit build does now. As far as powering up your ultimate goes, You want to first get Death's Daughter for the true damage. Next, Fire At Will for the faster barrage. And save Raise Morale for last in most cases.

Build path

So after you finish Trinity Force, next time you go B you want to start Youmuu's Ghostblade if you can. An easy way to know what to buy when only getting pieces of items, is Survivability<Damage<Armor pen<CDR. Pretty much if you B with 1100 gold, get Serrated Dirk over Caulfield's Warhammer, and if your against an AP, consider rushing Maw of Malmortius before ghostblade. If your going Maw, then you want to get Hexdrinker before the Dirk. If you don't need the shield right away, go Ghostblade.

If you don't need the shield from Sterak's Gage, and they don't have much AP, you can go Infinity Edge. That will offer a crit chance, and more damage. If your having trouble staying alive, keep your Sterak's or Maw, and get a Guardian Angel instead of the Duskblade of Draktharr.

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So for team fights, it is really cut and dry. Just stay with your team, and try to land a barrel combo on a squishy enemy champion. Because of the movement speed you get with your barrels, you can run up and back with out getting caught usually. Try to utilize the fog of war for barrels, like brush and behind walls.

Positioning

You pretty much want to play like an ADC or Mage. Stay in the back line, unless you can safely move closer. Your main objective is to hit a squishy target with your barrels. However, with this build, even the tanks will take significant damage from the barrels. Always remember, a Q Parrrley onto your barrel Powder Keg will do more damage than an auto to the barrel, or a Q directly to the enemy. Your Q does do a lot of damage. So if you don't have barrels, or you need to build some up to make a chain, go ahead and poke with the Q. Especially the squishes.

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GP is in my eyes, the best Champion for carrying in League of Legends at the current time. If mastered of course. If mastered, any champion can offer this, but GP especially. I will be trying to update the match-ups more, but hopefully this will help you start to carry some of your games. Let me know about any feedback on the guide, positive or negative. Both are welcome. This is my first real in depth one, and i will be trying to add stuff as often as i can. But let me know what you think, and Enjoy the grind. Cy@