Gangplank changes hit League of Legends' PBE: Early game gets nerfed, late-game durabilty enhanced

Gangplank is one of the champions in League of Legends who had a major adjustments due for quite a while now. While he was quite strong, he had major balancing issues which the developers did not know how to fix.

So, in the 12.14 PBE cycle, the developers introduced long-awaited changes to Gangplank. As it stands, his early game seems to have been nerfed quite extensively. However, after he hits level 7 or 8, he becomes much better and starts getting stronger.

Obviously, it is important to remember that these changes also take into account the healing item nerfs and rune changes that will be introduced to the game along with patch 12.14. With those two combined, it is safe to say Gangplank will now have a much higher skill-cap compared to before.

---

Gangplank's changes in League of Legends will reduce his early game wave clearing potential

Before moving any further, it is first important to provide a list of all the changes that are being brought to Gangplank in League of Legends.

Gangplank changes

Base stats

• Base Health: 640 >>> 600
• Health per level: 104 > 114
• Base Armor: 35 >>> 31

Passive

• Damage: 55-310 (+100% Bonus AD) >>> 55-310 (+100% Bonus AD) (+250% Critical Strike Chance)

Q

• Base Damage: 20/45/70/95/120 >>> 10/40/70/100/130

E

• Slow Amount: 40%-80% >>> 30%-60% (+.25% per 1% Crit Chance) at all ranks
• Bonus Physical Damage: 80/105/130/155/180 >>> 75/105/135/165/195
• E Bonus Crit Damage: 25% >>> 10%

These are quite a lot of changes that are being implemented. It is clearly understandable considering how strong Gangplank was in the game. However, the way in which these will affect his gameplay has been explained below in brief.

---

Gangplank is now a lot more squishy in League of Legends than what he was previously. His early game waveclear has been nerfed quite heavily, which makes him weaker than champions like Darius, Aatrox, Irelia, Camille, Jax, Gwen, and Kled.

The way his changes have been brought forth will make him lose the lane to the champions mentioned above. This is something that was needed, as previously, he could just destroy a wave of minions while also harassing his lane opponents a bit too much.

This allowed Gangplank to always be in control of the lane, regardless of the matchup he faced. As a result, it made life hard for players to find a proper counter.

In any case, this early game weakness will not extend much, as he starts getting a lot stronger towards the mid-game. Players can expect Gangplank to start scaling somewhere around level 5, which will feel quite good against matchups that would love to dive in.

Gangplank may have had a lot of damage, but he was also quite squishy. Once champions like Gwen and Camille hit level 6, they would just dive on Gangplank and kill him. The current changes will ensure that his durability is enhanced which will allow him to trade hits effectively and survive the dives.

Apart from that, Teleport is getting nerfed, which means Gangplank will be running Ignite in the lane. Thus, if it is good enough in League of Legends, players will be able to manage the nerfs pretty well.