Talk:Gnar/@comment-7460908-20140908180827/@comment-6281696-20140910125956

Late game being (nearly) full tank works, sorta at least (though I still find his damage to be lacking compared to pretty much everything else if he's facing something semi-sturdy when he's mega.. the loss of W's proc and general lack of offensive stats really hurts his damage there). But this leaves his god-awefull early game. Early on in mini his base stats are just too weak, it doesn't help that it takes a while before his passive starts to kick in to make up for the stats that are lacking. He can't trade very well because he needs W to proc, but noone in their right mind is going to let you hit them 3 times if one attack of theirs is enough to already hurt you significantly if they simply want to trade. And outside of his W his damage is nigh on nonexistant without a couple of decent items and/or levels. Compare it to Vayne who has a very similar way of trading (in fact Vayne is quite similar to mini as a whole for that matter.. if mini was his only form the two'd be competing for the exact same niche), Vayne has offensive stats, so her individual AA's actual hurt, Gnar does not, Vayne has Tumble to use for trading burst, which has a lower CD, easier aiming, and better damage than boomerang (damage only until rank 3 or so by the looks of it unless she gets absurd amounts of AD). Vayne has better range on her AA's allowing her to actually respond to people coming to poke her. Vayne's more mobile until later in the game when Gnar's CD's are no longer awefull and all his abilities are maxed. O and her W is considerably better damagewise. In conclusion everything about Vayne's trading is better than Mini's, and Vayne is already considered fairly bad at it. Mini Gnar is basicly a shorter ranged, weaker hitting, and, at least initially, less mobile version of her with marginally better defenses (yay you got 5 or so more armor, that's totally going to make you survive 's combo). And she isn't exactly a popular top-pick, just on occasional counter, and even at that Gnar wouldn't work because then you transform and you're no longer a counter.

Anyways, in essence I agree with what you're saying, a focus on defense is what he needs. However, I just think he's horribly horribly undertuned, especially his early game, and that his itemization is screwed up because of what both forms value is difficult to combine in a build in LoL, though his itemization is a symptom of a more general problem with the items in LoL simply lacking certain combinations of stats.

Also, for competitive play, he's currently way too transparent due to mini not being an especially large threat to most opponents unless he gets in a load of free hits. Which reduces counterplay to "don't fight him in mega" for the most part. Unless mini becomes better at staying alive, and favorably also gets an easier time proccing W (e.g. have his range scale quicker, or his boomerang have less of such an insane CD) I don't see him becoming used outside of very specific compositions or counterpicks.