Parrrley Mechanics Guide
 

INTRODUCTION

I wanted to demystify the multitude of game mechanics that go into figuring out the damage that is dealt by parrrley and how it interacts with target champions. This is based on release v1.0.0.98. My complete Gangplank guide is linked below, if you want to see build details. This thread is purely for parrrley mechanics.

Additional thanks to: leaguecraft.com, Akanei, Wildstorm.

EDIT: 1/29/2010
My full Gangplank guide has won 2nd place in the leaguecraft.com guide contest! Thanks to all who voted!

EDIT: 2/10/2010
I have updated this to reflect the recent patch, but I have not really tested it. I am assuming the same mechanics apply. If anyone finds anything different, post here and I will modify the guide accordingly.

EDIT: 3/29/2010
My Gangplank guide has hit the 30,000 views mark! Hooray!

EDIT: 6/30/2010
Few updates to reflect patches that I forgot to apply to the equations and mathcrafting...

EDIT: 8/21/2010
Added additional mechanics info...

The red numbers that appear above a target's head when you parrrley them can be calculated as follows, rounding to the nearest whole number:
Variables:
For positive values of armor:
For negative values of armor:
A word on armor reduction and armor penetration...
Armor reduction and armor penetration are applied in this order:
1. % reduction (Bushwack)
2. Flat reduction (Black Cleaver debuff, Puncturing Taunt, etc)
3. Flat penetration (The Brutalizer, Sunder Mastery, Runes of Desolation)
4. % penetration (Last Whisper)
(note: not sure of the order of 1 & 2 since the patch notes only mention a change to the order in which penetration is applied, not reduction).

Apply 1 & 2 to get the enemy target's new armor value, which you and your teammates will see. Apply 3 & 4 to that new value based on what armor penetration you possess.



What if I don't see red damage numbers when I parrrley? What if I see "dodge" or "miss"?
As of patch v1.0.0.94, Gangplank's parrrley is "no longer dodgable and is unaffected by blinds." The patch doesn't specify if it means all chance-to-hit debuffs or just blinds (the ones that make you miss 100% of the time). I'm guessing you can no longer miss with parrrley, regardless of debuffs on your champion, but for now I will leave these little factoids here...

Misses are caused by having debuffs on your character that reduce your chance to hit:

• Corki's phosphorus bomb reduces your chance to hit by 35%
• Teemo's blinding dart reduces your chance to hit by 100%
• Heimerdinger's CH-1 concussion grenade reduces your chance to hit by 100%
• Exhaust summoner ability reduces your chance to hit by 100%

After playing a few games, I believe Banshee's Veil still blocks Parrrley, which is horribly stupid in my opinion, since the damage is now physical.



Putting it altogether in a real battle situation:
You're a level 10 Gangplank with 82 base damage, 162 total damage and 40 armor penetration. You have a Sheen and an Infinity Edge. Let's assume your total chance to crit is 40%. While under the effect of Corki's phosphorus bomb, you cast level 5 parrrley on a level 10 Jax with 59 armor who has a 27% chance to dodge.

If my assumptions are correct that parrrley cannot be dodged and that it can no longer miss (again, it may only be immune to blinds and not other chance-to-hit debuffs), then:
The expectation of the damage is about 474.6

Other mechanics:
1. It was brought to my attention that Guinsoo said Last Whisper doesn't work with abilities (such as Parrrley): https://www.leagueoflegends.com/boar...76#post1831576
I have tested this in a practice game and Guinsoo is just flat out wrong (unless he was in fact correct at the time it was posted and it had since been patched without mention in the change log). Last Whisper will penetrate armor and affect Parrrley damage accordingly. And no, I didn't do the math wrong. As you can see, I have the equations down pat.

2. Parrrley will not trigger spell vamp, only lifesteal. Raise Moral and Cannon Barrage will trigger spell vamp, however.

What does this all mean in terms of strategy?
There is no real strategy anymore. Just get armor pen. Prior to the patch, there was an art to playing this champion. There was strategy that could greatly optimize how useful you could be on a team. It's why I loved playing him. Whatever. Thanks to everyone who supported my guides over the past few months. As a courtesy to you, I will keep these guides up to date based on the strategies that I follow most often.

WOW THANK YOU

/anti-caps-kill

No problem. Hopefully this will make a case to start a separate mechanics subforum, since there are a lot of things in this game that people are not sure about. The dota-allstars forum mods were great about making game mechanics abundantly clear on their forums, and I hope at some point people pick up the tradition here.

Woohoo! This is exactly what I'd been hoping someone would do. Good to know exactly how the damage works. One thing I would add though, is that if you're going to go with your build I would recommend throwing in the crit cloak for your infinity edge before getting sheen. Sheen may work out to more AVERAGE damage, but every crit you get at that point in the game can drop squishies or lower levelled champs to half health. It's a quick 880 gold that WILL net you extra kills.

Glad you liked it.

I have done that before, and your reasoning is sound, but ultimately its a matter of personal preference b/c if you are relying on crit, you are still relying on a chance.

Thank you Heat for this excellent write up. The game is very vague when it comes to using the tooltips to figure out the mechanics of an ability.

I have a question for you, when an ability says "Attacks on enemy champ (do this.....)", what constitutes an "Attack"? Would Gangplanks Parrrley be an "Attack" that would fall under that category? So, if we take Executioners Calling for instance (+18% Lifesteal +15% Critical Strike Chance UNIQUE Passive: Attacks on enemy champions apply a debuff on them for 12 seconds that reduces incoming healing by 65% and dealing 4 damage per second.) Would Parrrley apply the debuff or is it only on physical attacks?

Also, does lifesteal proc off of Parrrley? or is that only limited again to physical attacks (ie. auto attacks) ?

Thanks in advance.

The tooltip says it applies on hit effects. It will apply slow from phage, frozen mallet, triforce, lizard rune buff and I believe Rylai's scepter.

Just tested it and executioner's calling does proc lifesteal. With 18% lifesteal, if you parrrley something for 221 damage, you will heal for 40.

EDIT: Executioner's calling will apply the debuff upon casting parrrley on enemy champions.

Hey great guide, this cleared up a lot of things. I have tried out going ability power and not crit on pirate a few times and it isn't bad but I was wondering what is your full item build if you don't mind sharing.

Thanks. Usually I don't upgrade the sheen to triforce, but it is an option. At some point I usually need survivability, either with frozen mallet + atma's impaler, or banshee's veil + atma's impaler. If I am ahead of schedule in my item build, I may gamble and try getting a sword of the occult to press my advantage and increase my crit damage. The latter half of my build is highly situational, but generally my goals are to increase my damage, chance to crit, and survivability. Someday I may try a bloodthirster just to see if the lifeleech can help me stay alive in battle, but I remain skeptical toward how useful it is.

I just played a game and i started off with haunting guise, sorc boots, sheen and then went on to build blood thirster and phage...aiming for triforce before the game ended. First off I noticed my ult was a lot more affective with the magic penetration and netted me a few kills and assists. The damage on this build was not as high as the crit route but the survivability was better since I focused less on loading up on crit percentage and had high lifesteal with bloodthirst and more hp from phage. Overall it seems like a more balanced way to play pirate. I don't have rune page set for pirate yet but I believe if I had a full page of crit percent runes this would be a solid way to build pirate. Aiming for haunting guise, sorc boots, sheen, bloodthirst and then situational items.