Hey everyone, welcome to my post-Yorick jungling guide for the updated, buffed and all round awesome pirate that is Gangplank! I played quite a bit with Gangplank pre-buff and considered him a fairly underrated champion, with this buff I think it's fair to say he makes a great jungler as his ganks are strong and its a very easy way to get items fast and achieve carry status in the mid to late game.

With this build you will have a quick, fairly safe jungle (although Gangplank is always squishy), a great level 4 gank, awesome level 6 and onwards ganking and the ability to become a late game carry with a lot of utility. I have tried a number of routes and different skilling paths but i've found the one in this build to be not only fairly fast but also leaving you with the highest HP out of the different routes and letting you gank very early.

For runes I go with flat health quints, armour pen reds, a mix of armour and attack speed yellows and a mix of CDR and magic resist runes. The only desperately needed runes here are the armour/attack speed for jungling.

I like to use my rune pages to buff stats that my characters lack early game, so the extra magic resist and flat HP help Gangplank to survive a bit better in those early ganks.

Armour runes are obviously useful for any jungler, as well as attack speed helping to kill those minions quicker. The early attack speed buff also helps ganking as it allows you to stack your slow that little bit faster. CDR is just generally useful but could be changed out for any blues you'd prefer.

For masteries again I look to increase Gangplank's early surviability otherwise you'll end up feeding the lane you're trying to gank ;) Also with not a great deal of armour in my rune page i counter-act this with the damage reduction in the defensive masteries.

For the utility part obviously the extra buff duration is a must have, the mana regen is nice but not really necessary but it lets me take improved ghost or improved flash depending on what im using.

Smite is obvious, Flash over Ghost is often debated on a lot of characters.

Flash is an awesome escape tool and for juking pursuers and In this build you will have a lot of movement speed with your Raise Morale on top of Boots of Swiftness and Trinity Force so late game Ghost is not particularly necessary, however i find it helps a lot more with early ganks as your Ghost + Raise Morale at level 4 generally covers the distance better than a Flash out of the brush.

Furthermore Ghost helps you stay in melee range with those fleeing that might have early boots, their own movement speed boost or a slow. Also don't forget it lets you run through minions which really helps pursuing a lane gank.

Ultimately it's preference, but i think Ghost works better with this build.

BUILD ORDER

I start with the standard jungling set up with Cloth Armor and 5x Health Potion.


I then build Boots on the first back and as much of Sheen as possible. I'll also grab two more Health Potion if the gold allows for doing the jungle buffs a second time around.


Next i finish Sheen ( it considerably increases the damage on Parrrley) and either build Avarice Blade if I don't have a lot of gold or begin with B. F. Sword into Infinity Edge if I've had a few successful ganks.


After that just focus on finishing Infinity Edge and grab an Avarice Blade if you don't have one yet.


The next choice is The Brutalizer or Zeal. I go Zeal first if they have a lot of squishy champs and The Brutalizer against the tanky dpsers. Once you have both build into Trinity Force


Now you can either build up into Youmuu's Ghostblade if you are having no problems surviving or build your Cloth Armor into Guardian Angel to balance out resists and save your life every now and again.


Your 6th item is your choice depending on how the game is going and the enemy you're facing. Black Cleaver helps with a lot of tanky champions (remember Parrrley adds a stack), Bloodthirster helps with survivability and boosts your raw damage considerably when farmed and Phantom Dancer help you nuke those squishy carrys down, if you can catch them in melee range they will be perma-slowed with Grog-soaked Blade whilst you run alongside easily with all your movement speed buffs!

NOT RECOMMENDED

You already have plenty of slow, you don't need more, without the passive this item just isn't worth the gold.


I've seen some Gangplank's recently building Manamune, it's really not necessary, Sheen gives you enough of a mana pool to be able to use your abilities and early game you will have blue buff most of the time. Gangplank has a low mana pool so the bonus AD from the passive on Manamune is barely worth it.


Flat AD is nice of course, and i love movement speed! Getting a lot of kills/assists might tempt you to go for stacks however even with Remove Scurvy and Guardian Angel you are still fairly squishy and it doesn't take much focus on you to take you down. If the enemy realises you're stacking that only brings more focus on to you in team fights and that's just going to be bad news for our pirate friend.

Here's a video explaining my jungle route, items and skilling along the way. Play Video
The route is pretty standard and goes as follows;

Golem Buff

Wolves

Wraiths

Lizard Buff

Small Golems

Gank!

Pros

• A fast, fairly safe jungle
• In my opinion, one of the best level 4 ganks
• Free farm to carry the late game
• Great utility for an AD carry
• An awesome map-wide ulti with multiple uses
• A built in cleanse

Cons

• Vulnerable to jungle ganks from life-stealing junglers
• Doesn't have a lot of scope for counter-jungling other than smite stealing
• Less gold from jungling when compared to last hitting with a parrrley based jungling route
• Has trouble against very tanky champions early game

Below you can see some screenshots of some successful games I've had using this build. If you use this build feel free to add some screenshots and I'll add them in here :)



Thanks for reading everyone and good luck landlubbin!