Yeah, Trinity Force really gives him a little bit of everything he needs. A little HP for tanking some damage, movement speed for kiting, crit, and sometimes you even get a slow attached to your gunshot.

Bump. Updated my original post with links to a complete Gangplank guide with more in-depth strategy discussion.

Guide has made gangplank go from frustrating to friggin phenomanal and fun. I am doing incredibily well and having lots of fun laughing at his voice overs etc as well as NOT dying and helping my team win engagement after engagement.

Great job.

Thanks for this. Really appreciate the time you spent on it.

For some reason the only on-hit effect I can't get Parrrley to apply is Gangplank's passive poison. I know it says Grogsoaked Blade but it's still technically an on hit. =[

I don't agree that Magic Pen and focusing on increasing Parley's damage is an effective build. I prefer to build Gangplank as a hybrid nuker/carry. By focusing only on Parley, you're greatly reducing the usefulness of Remove Scurvy, Raise Morale, his auto attack, and his passive, while increasing Parley's effectiveness and Cannon Barrage's damage. I don't not think this is an even trade off. All of my following points should address your reasons that you think Pirate shouldn't be a melee dps.

Remove Scurvy: Why do you reduce the effectiveness by playing pure ParleyPlank? (thats what I call your build) Well since you're mostly in the back lines, you won't get focused too much and you typically won't need the CC remover in a team fight 5v5. A Gangplank usually doesn't get focused, epecially if he is in the back lines. However, if you do a DPS Gangplank build, (focusing on crit of course) you can take the risk of going in melee range and do significant damage. So Remove Scurvy does give survivability, even if you only go into melee range when Remove Scurvy is up.

Raise Morale: If you're not meleeing in a team fight then you're completely wasting Raise Morale's 36% attack speed (it is 36% right?) increase and reducing the need for the move speed buff. Casters don't need move speed as much as melee and they certainly don't need attack speed. Without going into melee range often, you're only using this ability to benefit you're team, but ignoring the fact that it can double up on yourself and it is always active on yourself. 36% may not be much, but when you use it, your passive stays on yourself while the buff is on you. This creates a 72% attack speed buff for 10 seconds. If you're playing a caster-style pirate, you're wasting this huge potiental.

Auto Attack and Passive: If I recall correctly, Pirate's passive doesn't apply with Parley. Well if it doesn't, then you're wasting his free Executioner's Calling and you're simply not auto attacking for damage. Caster Pirate is gimp in my opinion because you only have one nuke and a random ultimate. Instead, you could be doing consistent damage ALONG with your nuke. You might not be completely maximizing the nuke, but a Parley crit still hits pretty **** hard without Sorc Boots, Haunting Guise, Void Staff, ect. If you invest in these items, you buff Parley, but gimp the auto attack and passive. With DPS Gangplank, you're damage will still be burst (possibly off by 100 or 200 damage?) but you can close in melee range and do ~600 crits more than once per second. I think that would equal to more damage overall.

Parley and Cannon Barrage: With you're build, the damage on these skills are increased. Well Parley will do more damage...great! But you lose the ability of consistant ~600 crits and you're reducing the effectiveness of Raise Morale and Remove Scurvey as stated above. This is simply not an even tradeoff for me.

Also, about the early game Parley damage: I play my Gangplank as farmer and late game semi-carry/nuker. If you can time last hits with Parley, gold will come in easy! So I just take last hits and I don't expect kills early game unless it is from Cannon Barrage (if you don't like this idea, but still are interested in DPS Gangplank, invest in Crit CHANCE runes; without crit damage, Parley crits still hit like a ***** early game and can land some kills) or lucky crits from Crit Chance runes. However after I farmed up a few Avarice Blades, and team fights start to appear every now and then, I'm not useless either because Parley will still crit and I still apply a healing debuff. (and heals are most effective early game)

Increasing the damage on Cannon Barrage has no importance to me. It might be useful to get early level 6 kills when people run back to the tower and recall back, but when you use it in those situations, they're normally one hit from dead anyway, you still have to count on the cannons to hit, and the magic pen will RARELY make a difference. In late game team battles? Well I don't use Cannon Barrage for damage. I use it for mind games, mental barriers, and slows. People sometimes overestimate Cannon Barrage, and if it appears in a team battle, they usually haul ass to get out, even if it does low damage. The great thing is, is that they're slow so they're even more scared. If they don't overestimate, they still get slowed, and become a little anxious. A giant red circle with cannons that have killed teammates early game will make anyone a little nervous if standing in it.

Those reasons above are why I don't think you're build is effective and why DPS Gangplank is the way to go.

That is quite a mouthful there, WholeGrn. No one is curious what your Gangplank build is because it's no different from any other Gangplank build people have seen. My full guide goes into much greater detail about why he shouldn't be played as a carry. I'll sum it up for you here:

Take a stopwatch and time how long it takes a late game Master Yi or Twitch to completely decimate the other team. Then see how long it takes Gangplank to do this with melee attacks. The message is, if you want a carry, there are much better carries. Keep in mind I'm writing to an audience that plays organized games, not people who pick whatever champ they feel like. If you want to play pub games and carry Gangplank, go for it. Try putting a team together where your Gangplank is the carry, and you'll be eliminated in the first round of any serious tournament you play in. If AoN starts running a carry Gangplank in tournaments, I'll shut up, but otherwise my point remains valid. In the current metagame, he is not a carry. Many people, yourself included, have the logic that when you stack DPS items on someone, they magically become a carry. With that same logic, I could build Soraka with greaves, infinity edge, last whisper and a phantom dancer and say that I will carry. I CAN carry with those items, but that doesn't mean I SHOULD.

Regarding Grog-Soaked Blade, at no point did I imply I don't melee. There is a time and a place for it. If you step in to heavy AOE fire, you're going to get dropped before you can do any damage at all.

Regarding Remove Scurvy, I get cc-ed all the time. Regardless of where I am or how I play. I'm also still taking damage, so at some point I will need a heal. My build gives it 19% CD reduction (34% after Soul Shroud). How am I making this skill worthless?

Regarding Raise Morale... I can't tell you the number of team fights I've had where there are no minions around because the battle ISNT TAKING PLACE IN A LANE! So often I'm in river, or in woods, or hiding in bushes with my team. It's basically a tower pushing ability, with a nice speed boost for kiting.

Regarding Cannon Barrage...

lol, seriously? Now your noobness is showing... If you aren't using Cannon Barrage for damage, then you aren't using it right. It requires an extensive amount of experience to time and position correctly (I'm just beginning to get it right). You have to wait until the enemy commits to the fight. Initiation in team fights is the key to winning anything. If you use Cannon Barrage to initiate, yes they will just run out of it. Wait until they commit to the fight. Let your initiators (Malphite, Rammus, Amumu, etc.) initiate. Once the enemy is committed, they won't be able to leave the fight without sustaining heavy casualties, and are thus forced to deal with the damage. I've won games with this ability numerous times using these simple steps:
1. Let our tank initiate and get the enemy to commit.
2. Cannon Barrage.
3. Parrrley crit their DPS for 800+ damage.
4. Remove scurvy + ghost to get out of heavy AOE fire, kite enemy DPS
5. Let our Yi/Twitch clean house.
6. Melee debuff their tank (such as Dr. Mundo)
7. Parrrley for another 800+ damage.
8. Ace their team, push down an inhibitor, grab Nashor.
9. Repeat.

Final thoughts: I'm betting you didn't even try this build and here you are bashing it and saying your way is better. Many people have used this build and claimed it to greatly improve their game after failing with DPS builds. I doubt they are going back to the old way. I have tried the DPS builds and personally think they are fail. Read my full guide and try it before you bash it.

So glad it helped you! Gangplank is so much fun to play, and that is the reason I continue to play him. Riot has done a great job making champs with abilities like Parrrley that are used actively and often. His taunts and voice overs are fun to spam while laning.

You're quite welcome!


So far as I know, this is working as intended. When the tooltip says "Gangplank's attacks apply a poison", they mean melee attacks. It seems that Parrrley does not consider it an "on-hit" effect.

A question after playing a few games with Gangplank- After I get Guise, boots, and Sheen and start towards my IE with a cloak of agility, I find it is early mid game and my crit chance is merely at about 30%. Does it make sense to grab another cloak and build into Atma's after finishing the IE instead of IE->Trinity Force?