Riot locks in Gangplank changes to buff his League of Legends late game

Gangplank is one of League’s premier lane bullies, but his early game power doesn’t translate entirely to late game dominance. Riot are planning changes to fix that in an attempt to salvage the Saltwater Scourge’s player base.

Gangplank can deal out plenty of damage late-game already in League of Legends. His chains of barrels can carve through entire teams if left unchecked, but it’s also quite easy to counter.

It often leads to players having to split push, only throwing down their ultimate for zone control in fights. With teamfighting being such a key component of League right now too, this usually leads to the Saltwater Scourge’s team getting trounced in a 4v5.

This reflects in his win rates too. While Gangplank has a win rate of around 49% for games that finish before 25 minutes, this plummets to around 45% once games tick over the 30 minute mark, according to stats site LoLalytics.

Given 25-35 minutes is the average game time nowadays, this sharp fall off has pushed many people away from picking the Saltwater Scourge.

Riot are exploring changes in LoL patch 11.17 to push Gangplank’s power later into the game.

Developer ‘Phlox’ released a poll on Twitter asking Gangplank players would prefer a powerful laning phase ⁠— something he already has with his Parlay harass ⁠— or a buffed late game.

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The response was overwhelmingly towards the latter, with Phlox himself hypothesizing a buff that’d reduce the effectiveness of Grasp on his Q in lane, and replace it with more late game scaling.

Riot are now following through with that change in the upcoming patch.

His Q is getting the ranged nerf, and he’s losing a bit of movement speed off his passive early.

To compensate for the early game changes, Gangplank is now getting his infamous five-barrel chain back, as well as bonus damage on his E. It should make him a late-game menace, and one of the strongest champions at Level 16.

Here’s all the planned Gangplank changes coming in League of Legends patch 11.17, courtesy of Surrender@20.

Upcoming Gangplank LoL changes

Passive ⁠— Trial by Fire

• Move speed 30% ⇒ 15-30% per level.

Q ⁠— Parley

• [New]: Counts as a ranged basic attack.

E ⁠— Powder Keg

• [New]: Benefits from critical strike at 125% effectiveness.
• Max barrels: 3 at all ranks ⇒ 3/3/4/4/5.
• Recharge time 18-10 ⇒ 18-14.