League-of-legends – How to improve Yorick’s damage without making him too squishy

I've found with most games, if you want to keep the nice-looking effects but increase your FPS, that running at a lower resolution tends to help. Everything will be slightly bigger on the screen, but you'll be able to leave your video settings up higher and still get a decent FPS.

If you do want to keep a higher resolution, you'll have to lower your video effects. In general, effects that are active much of the time (like anti-aliasing, vsync, particle effects, or high quality shadows) tend to be the ones you'll want to turn down. Some things like 'Bloom' are usually alright to leave on though, because there isn't a whole lot of constant processing involved.

Note: Some games don't like being run at anything other than the native resolution, especially on LCD displays. Most games won't give you any trouble, but if things start looking strange, you'll have to modify your video effects instead and leave the game at full resolution.

It really depends on how you determine 'quality' though. A high resolution with lower graphics settings and effects can probably get you the same framerate as a lower resolution with higher effects. However, in my experience, lowering the resolution seems to make the most noticeable difference to the framerate.

Let's look at each item, and how it affects Gangplank:

• Philosopher's Stone - this is a strong item on many champions. It gives him the mana regen he needs to use Parrrley, HP regen, and GP/5.

• Wriggle's Lantern - provides armor, AD, life steal, a unique passive and a free ward. This is another strong pick, especially if jungling Gangplank.

• Mercury Treads - these boots are considered the default tank boots, due to MR and tenacity.

• Spirit Visage - provides health, magic resist, CDR, and a boost to healing. I don't recommend this item because it doesn't synergize well with any of his abilities.

• Frozen Heart - provides armor, mana, CDR, and an aura debuff. This item is best vs an auto-attack heavy team, otherwise I would skip it.

• Thornmail - provides armor, and deals magic damage when auto-attacked. I don't recommend this item on Gangplank, because a clever opponent will stop focusing Gangplank when they see you've purchased it. Since your goal is to be a tank, this is counter-productive.

• Warmogs Armor - provides the most health in any item, and good health regen. Helpful for staying alive.

• Atma's Impaler - provides 15 AD for every 1k HP, armor, and crit chance. A solid pick if you have extra health from runes/items.

The first build you've listed is very defensive. You end with 229 armor and 55 MR. This build would be most effective against a team that relies on auto-attacks (Master Yi, Ashe, etc). It's going to be weaker vs a team doing primarily magic damage. Warmog's and Atma's provides more health (good if you have armor/MR), and some damage, which helps

If you're jungling Gangplank, it's common to rush a Wriggle's first. If you're top lane, you're going to focus on spamming Parrrley instead, so I'd recommend rushing a Philosopher's stone. Sheen is a common pick, because Parrrley trigger's Sheen's bonus damage. It also builds into a Triforce, an item that boosts all of Gangplank's abilities.

Every game is different, and you have to build vs your enemy team. Of all the items listed, Mercury Treads and a Philosopher's stone are always viable. Wriggle's is very common to see on him, and most of the time will be a good pick. From there, build a sheen if you're using Parrrley a lot, or health, armor, and/or magic resist depending on what's doing the most damage to you.

tl;dr: Mercury Treads, Philosopher's Stone, and Wriggle's Lantern are almost always good picks. Everything else is situational.