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While Gangplank mains in League of Legends are all for balancing their champion and nerfing his obscene late-game damage, they seem to be really upset over some of the potential changes that Riot Games is planning for the champion. Out of all the nerfs, the Gangplank mains are upset about a significant visual update to the champion. League of Legends players have pointed out that in LoL Patch 13.5, Gangplank will have his Passive: Trial by Fire and his E: Powder Kegs nerfed. Additionally, it seems like all the players in the game will have visual cues on how many barrels or powder kegs Gangplank has currently.
According to a post on the Gangplank mains subreddit and to popular streamer and YouTuber Tobias Fate, the LoL Patch 13.5 update will reportedly show players how many barrel charges Gangplank has.
The original poster (OP) on Reddit wrote, “This will completely destroy GP. I'm all for nerfing his passive and Q (Parrrley), but actually showing people his barrel charges is a serious disruption of his kit.”
Here’s all you need to know about Gangplank, why he is a strong top-laner, and how his kit is getting nerfed.
Riot Games nerfs Gangplank in LoL Patch 13.5
Currently, on LoL Patch 13.4, Gangplank is one of the most banned champions with a 22.2% ban rate in Platinum and higher ranks in League of Legends solo queue. Notably, he is an S+ rated champion who has a 50.42% win rate and a pick rate of 9.9%, according to U.GG. As one of the strongest late-game champions, Gangplank thrives on one-shotting champions with his deadly barrel combos. Top-lane Gangplank mains usually use this trick where they place a barrel in one of the top lane bushes and chain it with another barrel in the lane, taking the enemy laner by surprise. This mechanic is often referred to as the ‘Phantom Barrel’ with the first barrel hidden from the enemy’s vision.
In the early game, Gangplank’s E has longer cooldowns and it becomes incredibly difficult to do two or three-barrel combos. But now, according to the toolkit on LoL Patch 13.5 on the Public Beta Environment, his late-game barrels are also getting nerfed, thanks to a flat 18-second cooldown on his E- Powder Kegs.
On top of that, Riot Games has reportedly decided to add ‘indicators’ below Gangplank’s health bar to indicate the number of barrels he has. This will not only alert the enemies but will make Gangplank a lot vulnerable in lane since his opponent can capitalize on Gangplank not having barrels to fight him quickly.
Gangplank one-trick Tobias Fate wrote on Twitter, “EVERYONE CAN NOW SEE HOW MANY BARRELS GP HAS (If real?) I'm all for nerfing Gangplank into being a bit more balanced, but this change is horrible. Such valuable information when the barrel can already be disarmed. Gut some of his other abilities/damage.”
Concurring another Gangplank main and streamer Solarbacca said, “+1 this change should not go through and just gut his passive + re-nerf Orange mana cost / nerf his barrels base damage or increase the cd from 18 to 20 at all ranks since CDs don’t exist after Navori and it’s the most broken item on GP.”
One Reddit user joked, “GP with 3 stacks goes into a bush, GP with 2 stacks comes out. Oh, I wonder what he might have done in that bush hmmm.”
Overall, Gangplank players are critical of the change but some of the players pointed out the fact that other champions like Jhin, Annie, and Irelia all have indicators for their abilities, and stated that this is not a bad change.
