Introduction Top
Introduction
Welcome to my Gwen WP guide and build! This guide will instruct you on how to almost one shot any Laner and become the most dangerous Laner on the planet! Well, that's an overstatement. Just the part about being the most dangerous laner, of course. Oh? You thought I was lying about being able to almost one shot any Laner? Well, think again! I'll start with what to do in lane.
Lane - What to do as Gwen
Welcome to the first chapter of this guide; the lane Poriton. In this chapter, I will be telling you how to play Gwen against almost any laner. (This guide excludes any new heroes. I.e. unreleased ones.)
Laning Phase (0 to 9 Minutes)
This phase is the most important phase. It basically determines whether you're to snowball* or to fail.
For the first 5 minutes of the game, you should be farming, and eventually (if you're good at last hitting) you should recall with around 2500 gold. Now that's enough to buy your first item,
Tension Bow. Why
Tension Bow? Simple. It's armor penetration is more effective than
Bonesaw for bursty heroes. Such as Gwen, Ringo, and/or Ozo. Plus it gives a nice bonus of 180 damage. Since every attack pierces 10% of their armor, your passive
Boomstick should provide some nice burst damage in cooperation with
Tension Bow. Next, at around 10 minutes in, you should be able to grab a
Tornado Trigger. Why grab this before
Sorrowblade or a Tyrant's Monocule? Well, your passive cooldowns faster with the more attack speed you have. And it's always nice to have attack speed, isn't it? The attack speed works like this; if you have 213% attack speed, you'll attack 2.13 times every second. Insane, isn't it? I found that out after months of playing and checking. Now, it might not be news to some, but it's helpful nonetheless. By 9 minutes in, you should be level 9, gaining a level every minute. That's just my personal experience though, some farm at a slower rate than others. But anyways, next is Mid Game.
Mid Game (9 to 15 Minutes)
Why is this phase important? Well, it's around the time where everyone hits level 9 so everyone has a second upgrade point in their Ultimates, hence reducing the cooldown and enhancing the damage. At this point, your build should have 1
Tension Bow, 1
Tornado Trigger, and the makings of 2 Tyrant's Monocules. Why 2? Well, once you get your Critical Chance to 100%, you have 100% chance of dealing your Weapon Power number in damage to enemies with no Armor. And since Tyrant's Monocule gives +40% Critical Damage, you would have 105% critical damage which means if you had 400 Weapon Power with 100% chance of Crit and 105% crit damage, you should do around 800 damage to enemies with no Armor. Why does it do that much? Well, it has something to do with the Critical Chance/Damage numbers. 100% Critical Damage means you do 2x Critical Damage, so add that to the 2x damage you do with your base critcal damage, it adds up. So 100% Crit Chance/Damage + 400 WP = 800 Damage then + 10% Armor Pen from
Tension Bow, it adds up even quicker! You can't forget your good ol' passive,
Boomstick. Boomstick deals extra damage based on around 15-20% of your weapon power (I don't know what her passive scales by since I personally don't main her, but I have a good enough grasp of how she's played and what she does from many games spanning 30+ minutes.) Now we move onto the 2nd most important phase.
Late Game (15+ minutes)
Why is this phase the 2nd most important? That answer is simple; if it's 40+ minutes into a game, any mistake you or your team makes can cost you the game. For example, you accidentally get ambushed in jungle by the entire enemy team. Now that your teams lane, also known as the AP/DC (Attack/Ability Damage Carry), is gone, the enemy team is free to gank your Roam and Jungler or take Kraken. By this time, though, everyone should be at full build while at the level cap of 12. It's just a battle of who can make the first mistake. Make sure it's the enemy team.
Summary
The summary of this chapter is to rush
Tension Bow in the first 5 minutes, then spend the next 4 minutes gaining 2600 gold for
Tornado Trigger. By that time, you should be level 9 and have at least 1 turret down. Next on the build is to grab 2 Tyrant's Monocule then finally build a
Tornado Trigger at the 20 to 23 minute mark. You can spend the last available slot on either boots, health, or defense. I reccomend Boots since it can go well with your B,
Skedaddle. Oh, if you're wondering why I didn't put the Jungle section in here is because Gwen can't jungle effectively. Gwen is more of a 1 Role pony. She can't jungle effectively due to her passive being a slow cooldown at the start. And by the time it's any good, she is already outfarmed by the enemy jungler and laner.
*Snowball means semi-weak early game, but can either be overpowered late game or extremely weak late game, depending on how they're played.
Ranked Play
So you wanna play Ranked with Gwen, huh? Well, going with the current meta as of March 16th, 2017, she can outfarm any meta laner as she can deal bonus damage with her Passive to the enemy laner or to secure a minion.
From what I've played of her,
Lance,
Catherine,
Grumpjaw,
Phinn, and
Glaive are good heroes to play to roam with her.
This color means CP
This color means WP
This color means Defense/Utility
Now why these roamers? The reasons are listed below.
Lance since he can root and stun/knockback enemy heroes with his A and B.
Catherine since she can stun with her A and Silence with her Ultimate/C.
Grumpjaw since he can slow them with his A and swallow them then stun them with his C.
Phinn since he can pull them with his C, pull them towards him with his B, and stun them with his overdrived A.
Ardan since he can stun them with his C, then deal some damage his B, then slow them and speed Gwen up with his A.
And finally,
Glaive since he can use his A to knock them back towards Gwen as she wears them down.
Junglers that pair with her are
Koshka,
Krul,
Glaive,
Ozo,
Joule,
Reim, and
Rona.
Here's why;
Koshka since she can deal MASSIVE damage when built right and stun with her C.
Krul since his passive slows them when he uses his A on them out of a bush, and his C can stun them for 50%, 100%, or 150%.
Glaive has the same reasons as listed above.
Ozo since he can uses his C to rush towards them and stun them while knocking them back.
Joule since she can deal massive damage with her C, B, and A while her A can stun them. She's viable for both Roam and Jungle, CP or WP.
Reim since he can root them with his B after using his A or basic attacking them while he can stun them with his C.
And finally,
Rona can slow them with her A while using attack speed and crit to damage them heavily.
I found that those heroes work well with Gwen's abilities. Speaking of which, it's time to move onto who counters Gwen and who Gwen Counters.
Countered By
Here's the part of the guide where I lie and say "OH! THIS GUIDE IS INVINCIBLE! ITS UNBEATABLE! REP ME!"
But I'm not. I know this guide has flaws and it is beatable. As unbeatable implies that no matter who plays her, she won't die and will be getting kills left and right. From what I've played, anyone who can stun frequently, such as
Catherine, will be a huge threat to her. I'll only list the heroes that counter her here and list the reasons why in the Hero Threat section.
This color means they're a 8 to 10 threat to Gwen
This color means they're a 5 to 8 threat to Gwen
This color means they're a 1 to 5 threat to Gwen
- Glaive, Threat Level 5; I place Glaive above Krul since he can knock you back into a turret or enemies which can cause you to do. When he builds Crit + Attack Speed, he's a beast that's nigh unstoppable. It's better to focus Glaive in Teamfights above a Lyra or someone squishy since he can do AoE damage with his Basic Attacks that Crit. It's better to stay at a distance and kite him into your attacks.
- Krul, Threat Level 2; Krul is the type of hero to need time on his side. Krul is normally really good in lower-leveled games, such as Level 10, Tier 1, since no one really knows how to counter him at that level. But as time and rank goes on, Krul becomes easy to counter. Especially as Gwen as she can slow, shake off his Ultimate, and stun him while getting hits off. It's almost unfair to Krul. Almost.
- Ringo, Threat Level 8; His slow can put you into a bad position against the enemy team as it'll garuntee a kill if he uses it right. If he's building Crystal, you can be deleted in almost one shot from his ult alone as it pierces all shield.
- Kestrel, Threat Level 8; Her A can do some heavy burst damage when built and played right, especially her stun. Her stun can dish out amazing damage, for example, watching your tank go into her mist to see a chunk of his/her health go missing due to Kestrel's A.
- Baron, Threat Level 9; His CP scaling for his A is insane! He can dish out 200 damage A's at level 2 with his energy barely being dented. His Ultimate is also like a Nuclear Bomb; available for placement almost anywhere on the map while doing stupid amounts of Damage. Almost as stupid as Blackfeathers CP Scaling for Movement Speed. Unlimited Movement Speed fer days.
- Skye, Threat Level 7; When played right, she's a 7, but when played bad by some newb, aka me, she is a 2 easily. She has high mobility which is a pain for Gwen to land her Ultimate on Skye. Other than that, her A is easily dodgeable while her Mobility is only boosted with her B.
- Phinn, Threat Level 8; His Stun/Slow can cause some serious damage even if he isn't building Crystal. I recommend kiting him since he can either pull you in with his Ultimate or his B.
- Lance, Threat Level 4; His Root can cause some serious damage and even more so if he stuns you into a wall. He is one you don't take lightly.
- Grumpjaw, Threat Level 2; He can slow her but if he doesn't get his Ultimate off, i.e. the knockup then swallow then stun, then she can easily kill him.
Counters
Who can Gwen counter? In a single sentence, she can counter anyone who needs to stop to fire a skillshot. I.e.
Skaarf,
Baron, or
Ringo. Those are a few examples.
This color means they're HEAVILY countered by Gwen.
This color means they're somewhat weak or weak to Gwen.
This color means they're barely or not even countered by Gwen.
This means they're a Lane hero.
This means they're a Jungler.
This means they're a Roam
- Alpha; Alpha can be easily countered by almost anyone. She definitely needs a buff.
- Celeste; Celeste is a squishy laner that exchanges Health and Survivability for Crystal Power. She has stats that are low enough, next to kestrel's in my opinion of Squishiness, but she can survive a hit or two unlike Kestrel. Her B stuns while her A is more spammy than a nigerian prince emailing you about needing money for a bank issue.
- Ringo; His ult makes him vulnerable to being attacked and potentially killed but he can also be very dangerous if played right.
- Baron; He may be slow, which you can use to your advantage, but he can deal massive damage with his A since it slows AND deals massive CP scaling. His C is basically a Global Nuke.
- Skye; Skye is here since she is squishy. Simple. Ignore the fact she has immense mobility, almost rivaling Koshka.
- Kestrel; Kestrel is the squishiest hero in Vainglory. What do I mean by that? Her base health at level 1 is around 400 with a shield and armor of 15. Man, that's bad. Plus her C is needs time to channel, so you can easily kill her when she does so.
- Joule or Joule; Joule is by no means Squishy. Her passive scales to 150 Armor + Shield on her sides and back. The only reason I put her here is cause of her C. Her C immobilizes her while she fires out a giant laser beam. Use that to your advantage.
- Idris; Idris cannot be easily countered by Gwen due to his insane mobility when building Weapon. His Weapon Path gives a 1 second cooldown per basic attack to his A and his C. Now that's insane! His A has a natural cooldown of 10, so with 5 basic attacks at around 150% attack speed means his A will be up.
- Phinn; Phinn is here since he's basically Godzilla. His A is Godzilla Smash which brings down his hands- I mean an anchor to stun or slow you, depending on their overdrive path. He can pull you with his low cooldown C and pull you AGAIN with his Temper Tantrum Jump. He is also one of the most tanky people in this game, so bringing him down won't be easy. He's on the edge between Gwen barely countering him and not even countering him. Especially with that trolly Passive where any stun or CC is converted to a slow. Kinda hypocritcal, to be honest. "Hey! I can't be CC'd! I'll just turn your slowing ability...INTO A SLOW!" Super Evil Megacorp didn't think that one through, huh?
- Taka; Taka can easily counter Gwen with his mobility. Sure he wouldn't be able to turn invisible, but he can just dodge your stun with his A or C, as well as deal buttloads of crystal damage to you if he's building Crystal or he can just 3 shot you with my Taka build. Maybe I'll make a guide for Taka, I don't know yet.
Those are all the heroes (worth mentioning, at least.) that Gwen can counter (or not so counter.) Some of these seem like they should belong in the Countered By chapter section, especially Taka, but they can't counter her without being played right. For example, Lance can counter Gwen with any Playstyle. Oh, I see you're going weapon power as lance, lemme just 2 shot Gwen with my A, root, stun, and CP amplifying C.
Afterword
Hey there! Thanks for reading my guide! Hopefully, it proved useful for you. I don't main Gwen lane, I personally love Ringo's Ultimate, the 100% Shield Pierce is too fun to pass up. It feels great to just do 1,207 damage with the impact alone. But Gwen is my 2nd laner, just in case Ringo is banned. Anyways, I put a lot of work and research into this, spending from Feburary 3rd, 2017 to March 21st, 2017 making it. Just for you guys! I'd love to hear back from you. Be it comments, flames, or ideas. I'm open to all!
See ya!
-Azhdaya
Update Log
[v1] April 4th, 2017; I added some new counter reasons and touched a few things up.
Quick Comment () View Comments
You need to log in before commenting.