League devs tease new Gangplank changes after settling on “direction” for top laner

After months of promises, Riot has finally revealed long-awaited Gangplank changes are finally on the League of Legends developer’s agenda. They have settled on a “direction” for the top laner, but are waiting until later in 2022 to perfect the changes.

Gangplank has been on Riot’s radar for changes in League of Legends for some time. The Saltwater Scourge is a fan-favorite top laner, but he has strayed a bit far from expectations into a murky middle ground in the meta.

He is currently stuck between a squishy build that only has one big combo ⁠— landing a barrel chain ⁠— or a bruiser build that does alright in practice but doesn’t fulfill his fantasy.

The barrel combo especially makes good Gangplank players stand out, but casuals have struggled to pick him up in recent times. This is noted by a sub-45% win rate in lower elo, compared to high elo players who have mastered the combos and his overall playstyle to get that up towards 50%.

Planned changes for LoL patch 12.13 aim to breathe some life into the Saltwater Scourge, Riot have promised.

“Gangplank is intending to ship [in LoL patch] 12.13,” developer Matt ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison said. “We think we have a direction but want to take some additional time to validate.”

It comes after Leung-Harrison told players earlier in June the team was tackling “larger frustration changes” in an attempt to give him “incentives to build crit that aren’t damage”.

What this exactly entails remains to be seen, but Gangplank mains have theorized Riot might remove the bonus crit damage from his barrels in an attempt to shift power around the rest of his kit.

Riot did change Gangplank late in Season 11 to try and curb some of his issues, but it failed to make a big enough impact.

– High GW creates a bunch of champion design debt & requires making healing tools really strong to compete
– GP is intending to ship 12.13. We think we have a direction, but want to take some additional time to validate
– We're testing Yi changes, but they're not ready for 12.12

— Matt Leung-Harrison (@RiotPhroxzon) June 14, 2022

League of Legends patch 12.13 is set to go live in early July 2022, with changes hitting PBE two weeks prior to the update being shipped. We will keep you updated with what’s to come right here.

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