Gnar Guide - Season 8

Gnar is a yordle that people find extremely cute. There are so many reasons why people should play this champion. The skins for this champion are really cool. They have some special effects. But even if you don't have skins, it's still worth playing this champion. It's just SO satisfying landing a gnar ultimate on more than one person. Not only will you get praised for landing a beautiful gnar ultimate, your team will most likely honor you. Also, Gnar's emotes are just very cute for many people.

Pros / Cons

PROS

* Good poke
* Game changing ultimate
* Has an escaping skill
* Can shred tanks (it has been tank meta for quite a while now and gnar is the counter)
* Low cool down on his boomerang if you catch it.
* Can be played very safe, so he's not feast or famine like Yasuo.

CONS

* Hard to manage gnar's rage bar
* His mini form is squishy early game
* Hard to play against gap closing champions.
* A bit diffuclt to catch his boomerang

Runes/Mastery

Sorcery is probably the best primary path right now for Gnar since Summon Aery is straight out broken for poke champions. Aery is the better choice in the long run instead of taking let's say Press the Attack or Fleet Footwork from the precision tree. Reason for this is because Summon Aery is safer in the long run and can help poke with just your Boomerang Throw The amount of damage this will put out is gargantuan as it builds up. It helps you poke against champions who can zone you out in the early phase, such as Irelia, Yasuo, and Gangplank.

After getting Sorcery, you want to run Domination as your secondary. Get Taste of Blood and Ravenous Hunter since they both provide sustain. You can also go Zombie Ward instead of Ravenous Hunter if you want to. It's all down to personal preference.

Items

The normal build is The Black Cleaver, Mercury's Treads, Frozen Mallet, Gargoyle Stoneplate and the rest is situational. You want black cleaver because it let's you kite more and the stats are just extremely good. Sometimes you can rush Maw instead of black cleaver if you're up against an AP champion for top lane. But normally, black cleaver is the item you should rush first

You want to start Doran's Blade because the stats are just great. It gives you damage and health plus life steal and Gnar tends to auto-attack a lot. In other words, it provides you with sustain. You then should rush a The Black Cleaver because it gives you 20% CDR, a good amount of AD and health, phage passive, and increasing armor penetration to up to 30% which is extremely useful with shredding down tanks and kiting them. You then go Mercury's Treads or Ninja Tabi because those give defensive stats. It really depends on the situation. If you're against a team with mostly cc go Mercury's Treads. If you're up against a team with a lot of AD champions go Ninja Tabi. After that, go Frozen Mallet because it provides a slow from passive and provides extra health. Gargoyle Stoneplate is an item you should go next since it provides Armor and Magic Resist and can help you while you're in the middle of a teamfight. Only problem is that you have to know when to use the active. You want to use the active only when you're extremely low health and you want to back off from the fight. Don't instantly use it right when you enter the fight since your abilities will do no damage and only provide cc. After this, this really depends on the situation. If your taking mostly damage from an AP champions, go Adaptive Helm. This item's stats and passive are beneficial to gnar as a whole since it provides base health regeneration and cooldown reduction.

Skill Sequence

For your skill sequence, you want to max your q Boomerang Throw first then your w Hyper , ult GNAR! and then e Hop. You want your q first because it provides poke and a slow. It allows you to kite easily. It also has a pretty short cd once you start maxing it.

Combo

You can ult when you're in mid-air. This is pretty good since u can ult instantly. However, you must jump right when your in mini form and that jump will transform you into mega gnar during that time. So around the mid 90-ish to high 90-ish rage bar. Normally after u ult someone and stun them to the wall try to get one auto attack off and then w them so you get extra damage. Ur combo should be this. GNAR ULT to the wall --> q them --> auto --> stun with ur w --> auto. Your mega gnar e form also does a pretty good amount of damage so u can use that to win a 1v1 duel. Your mini form gnar e also adds a stack and you can use it to get further distance when you jump on a champ/minion.

Ranked Play

Gnar is by far one of the best champion in the game that can carry in ranked as a top laner. The main reason why is because his w allows him to do percentage of the enemy's health so you will actually do damage compared to other tanks such as shen and maokai. These are pretty commonly picked champions since they are the basis of what you would call "Tanks". He can also carry a game with his ultimate. But it's wise to be careful in laning phase since people tend to dive gnar when he is in his mini form because gnar is a squishy champion. So it's important to ward since you can't 2v1 under turret unless ur almost mega form. Teleport is by far the best choice for this champion since you want to make tp plays and help your team out. Even with the nerf to tp it's still a good idea to bring that summoner spell. Sometimes you can build some extra AD items if you have a bunch of tanks in your team. You can build bork, and rapid fire canon if you are so far ahead.

Laning phase

In laning phase u want to get as much poke off to the enemy. You can use ur q to check if an enemy is in a brush or not since u will hear a sound. It's pretty easy to solo kill the enemy as gnar because gnar can chase and slow. Don't get too close to melee champions like irelia/darius since they can easily kill you. If you get the enemy to less than half health and ur gnar bar is yellowish and reddish you can try to go all in on the enemy and combo the enemy. Sometimes you can push the wave and use ur q to poke down the enemy. Against a nasus you can push the wave and auto attack the turret and keep on qing the nasus if u are out of turret range. That will force him to use his e and he will miss a few cs.

Overall, Gnar's laning phase is pretty good and scales well too and u should try to get off as much poke as possible and time your gnar bar to go all in and pick up a kill when the enemy is low from taking all of the harass from your q. You should always be looking at the map to find the best time to tp in a fight. Tell your bot lane to ward the brushes so you can join the fight if they are getting dove or are getting chased since they are low. If you can do that, and save your whole team and your jungler is nearby you can pick up a dragon if you kill the enemy's bot lane.

Farming

Sometimes in laning phase, if you get behind and if you are zoned out. Just use your boomerang to cs. Sometimes you can actually get cs and damage the enemy top laner too. If the enemy top keeps getting hit, you can try to fight them if they burn one of their skills as a mistake.

Handling Ganks

If you're a whole level higher than the enemy is and your gnar bar is pretty high you should bait them to a wall and them slam them to the wall with your ultimate and then throw your boulder at them, auto one person then w them. Q them if your boulder is up and E them if you feel like they're low enough.

If you aren't that ahead and a person is ganking from behind, and you're mini form use your jump on the enemy that is ganking from behind so you can travel further distance.

This is a beautiful play by a pro player that's challenger who plays league of legends professionally.

Team Fights

This is where gnar shines. He does so much in team fights. He can poke the enemy down before a fight starts and force the enemy off an objective. You can shred through tanks easily and try to keep your gnar bar medium ( yellowish) in a team fight so you can ult the enemy when they decide to go in. Your boomerang provides easy catch. So if the enemy gets caught you can chase them down along with ur team if u feel like the enemy's team isn't nearby. If you lose your lane, you can make it up by winning team fights since gnar's team fight is ridiculously good. Always try to bait the enemy to walls so you can ult multiple enemies to the wall and your team can easily just clean up.

Objective Taking

Gnar has one of the best objective taking in the game. His w passive allows him to take down objectives very quickly, for example, baron and dragon. You should advise your team to try to rush some sort of objective if the enemy is a bit out of position. If the objective is low and you feel like your team can kill it before the enemy gets too close to your team, just use your boomerang to slow them down so they don't get too close. Also, your mega form can be used to zone the enemy out of objectives. Which is huge since nobody would want to contest an objective against a mega gnar with ultimate.

The new rift herald released in the most recent patch, patch 7.9 is an extremely good objective. This guy helps gnar out so much. You can already split push well but with the new rift herald, it helps you buy a significant margin.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this champion has a pretty strong laning phase. Try to get as much poke off as possible when you're laning. By doing that, you could pick up a kill if they're low enough and force a duel and you can stun them to the wall. Try to look for tp plays since you can snowball off of those kills easily and gnar's team fighting is just extremely good. Don't get in melee range unless your rage bar is high. Try to kite the enemy and use your boomerang to check brushes to prevent yourself from dying. Try to ult a lot of enemy to the wall as best as you could and you can use your ultimate mid air when you use your e. I hope my guide helped and good luck gaining elo

For Gnar's runes and build check photos