Talk:Gangplank/@comment-189.1.80.252-20121207141705/@comment-109.121.21.37-20121207203854

Here is what happened. Some time ago meta game never exeisted since everybody was plaing the game for fun only. Gangplank was then a huge pain in the ass since he would go in a lane with partner. Then he would shoot at anybody who would even get close to him. Thanks to critical strike masteries and runes you could do immense amount of damage from level 1. So Gangplank would farm and poke all day long. His critical and skills overall were very powerful.

Thanks to numerous QQs about how GP can shoot off around 1000 health on level 5 and to some Riot's logic they kept nerfing him over and over slowly degrading his overall damage output. So he was not as shiny as before. Also crit masteries got completely removed and I think crit runes got nerfed I am not certain about it.

Then came the meta. It crystalized in one champion on top, one on mid, one in jungle and two on bottom lane. He was not good for mid, not good for bot since he was melee, not good for a support since he has nothing in his kit to support so he ended up as a casual jungler or a solid solo top.

After that came Riven, Yorick and other super strong solo top champions. So Gangplank fell in other plan. He is still good and fun to play but you really need a lot of critical strike chance, armor, magic resist and health to be viable.

He can only play solo top now. He can jungle pretty well but his ganking is horrible, even worse than Shyvana.

All in all, if you want to play GP play solo top. If you don't favor meta game and want to play just for fun play with a good stunner in lane.