The Best Gangplank Tips and Tricks For Beginners

Gangplank is one of the hardest champions to play in League of Legends. His skill kit is designed to reward players who invest time to mastering this champion and many one-tricks have found success due to the strong utility that this champion brings to the table. Today, we’ll be giving out some Gangplank tips and tricks to help players who are new to playing this champion learn more about the best way to pilot him on the Rift.

Gangplank Tips & Tricks

Gangplank is a very aggressive laner and likes to play from a safe distance despite being a melee champion. He is a crit-based, attack damage carry that uses his abilities to poke down enemies or deal devastating amounts of damage using his abilities. While he does sometimes like to fight enemies face-to-face, he is extremely vulnerable as a melee champion so he tries to kite them back using his ridiculous movement speed.

There is a unique way to play Gangplank and one-tricks of this champion have various ways to utilize his abilities in a way that makes him an extremely powerful champion. Do not be under the impression that this champion can be mastered after only 10 games or less because there’s so many different skill sequence combinations that make him perfect for every situation. Here are some of the best Gangplank tips and tricks for you.

1. Barrel Placements

Barrel placements is the most important thing to learn when you’re going to play Gangplank. Keep in mind that Gangplank’s barrel can chain explode when you place two or more together inside each other’s radius. This means that you can extend the range of your barrel by placing them in a line. The best way to place barrels is to set up one barrel near you or inside a bush, so that the enemy can’t deny it by auto-attacking it when the fuse goes down.

A good way to use your barrel is to keep one on you so that the enemy doesn’t walk up to harass you if they’re a melee champion. Also, make sure that your barrels always hit the minion wave, especially the caster minions so that you can keep earning Silver Serpents even if your intent is to harass the enemy laner. Keep in mind that damage from barrels don’t stack, so you can’t overlap two or more barrels to deal extra damage.

2. Auto the Barrel

A common tactic that Gangplank players do is hitting the barrel once they place it by auto-ing so that it will go down to one-tick right away. This allows for a quick barrel combo that the enemy can’t dodge because they won’t always be able to walk away from the barrel extender since it comes out under a second, compared to the usual 1.5 seconds that players will have to wait for since the amount of time is cut by almost half by just one auto.

The basic combo is that you place the initial barrel > hit it with an auto > place the extender barrel > hit the initial barrel with Q in quick sequence. The time for the initial barrel to go down to one-tick is exactly the amount of time spent doing the combo, so it should work flawlessly with a bit of practice. Do it in the Practice Tool until you can perform the combo subconsciously so that you can adapt to the placing when following enemies.

3. Q-Timing

Q-timing is the most difficult part about Gangplank and is the reason why it’s one of the most difficult champions for beginners. When you play against a good Gangplank player, you should never be able to steal a barrel from them consistently because they always land the Q at the moment the timer hits the final tick. The trick to learning proper Q-timing is by getting used to the time it takes for a barrel to go down to the final tick.

Gangplank players need to know, by intuition, when the next tick will go down and how long it takes for the Q to travel from the distance they are in towards the barrel. By combining all of these pieces of information, players will be able to execute combos flawlessly and bait opponents into trying to steal a barrel, only to be surprised that they are a few milliseconds to late. :Learn more Gangplank tips about Q-timing from other Gangplank mains.

4. Silver Serpent Stacking

We’ve already mentioned a Gangplank tips that involve stacking Silver Serpents, but non-Gangplank mains think that farming SS is the same as farming CS. In a way, both provide important resources when killing minions but Silver Serpents is literally the engine that gives Gangplank the power to carry so players should do EVERYTHING in their power to continuously earn this resource, even if it means staying in the side lanes for a long time.

Gangplank usually stays in the side line for the majority of the game, because he is dedicated to earning gold and silver serpents for items. Split pushing is a core mechanic of playing this champion because he has heavy influence over the map with his global abilities. Once he’s built 3 or 4 items and has fully upgraded his ultimate, he’s ready to start playing for the kills because that’s when his barrels start one-shotting enemies with crits.

5. Watching the Map

Gangplank has a powerful global presence over the map so it’s important that he’s constantly aware of fights happening. His ultimate ability is a game-breaker when assisting allies because it deals a decent amount of damage and slows the enemies, so it’s harder to follow your allies who are in danger. It can also be used to cut off an enemies escape route because the slow duration isn’t worth passing through if they’re being chased.

Another reason why watching the map is important is because Gangplank likes to play in the side lane. Split pushing is a very dangerous tasks, so you need to watch out for movement on the map on whether or not the enemy team is trying to take you by surprise or not. Luckily, Gangplank has high mobility so it’s easy to run away from enemies when they’re trying to collapse on your while pushing the lane.