I had the most devastating lane against Gnar the other day (sadly in a ranked game). I thought I could handle him, you know attack when his skills are down, avoid him when he's about to transform, etc.
However I quickly realized this doesn't work (at least in my case). I found myself I extremely poked down xin on the verge of being repeatedly tower dived by Gnar.
Tips I've been told:
- Avoid him at full rage
- Engage on him after he's used his jump.
- Play aggressive (early & low rage)
- Get your jungler to to gank.
All of these failed me in that game. I don't want this to happen again.
The Lane:
- I started by trying to farm, quickly realizing he was just going to poke me down fast so I backed off a bit and played conservatively.
- After that I watched for an opening, he jumped, he was low rage, no minions around, so (as Xin) I jumped onto him and started my combo. This did a bit less damage to him than he did to me, which his easy to catch Q and his W procs I was outmatched.
- I noticed his high rage so I backed up to my tower (minions middle of lane) with my half HP and waited. His rage did not fall and instead I found myself with a wave of minions approaching my turret and Gnar about to transform.
- Before I could react he had double-stunned me and I was dead (under tower).
- I returned to lane and found myself getting poked out of lane and dived even from full HP. It was over, I realized this and tried some damage control by strictly staying under tower, occasionally farming doubles when I could.
- At this time I tried kindly asking my Jungler "Hey I'm getting my butt kicked, could you help me out Udyr?" He walked up to tri-bush, stood there for 10s and left "it's warded what do you expect me to do?". In my head I was raging at this point, 'Gee idk USE YOUR TRINKET' but I stayed calm as it was ranked.
- Eventually it ended with me 0/3 Gnar roaming for kills as I pushed, (I attempted at one point to go to another lane and gank but it resulted in failure as I was under-leveled due to having to stay under tower all game.
- The team (and raged me hard as it was 'all my fault') surrendered the game was over.
I did okay at dodging but missing all of his Qs and Autos was near impossible, I built pure tank in hopes that he'd eventually do less damage and I could farm/catch-up. I honestly don't believe that a non-pure tank build would have made any difference as even if I could have damaged him he would have transformed at last second and killed me (as I've seen done many times).
TL;DR: I got my ass handed to me and we surrendered "all because of me".
Question:
How can I avoid getting poked completely out of the game by Gnar as a melee champ? I've been told what to do but not how to do it? Other than having a helpful jungler is there anything I could have done (as a melee champ or specifically Xin).
Best Answer
You need to dodge his boomerang as much as you can. It is slow moving and not hard to do. If you do get hit by one, immediately back off so that he can't get 2 autos off and proc his W on you.
One of your biggest problems, might be the fact that you were Xin top and Udyr jungle. Both are extremely linear champions and honestly cannot touch gnar. He can kite both to oblivion and and it's near impossible for them to get a successful stun off on him.
If you are Xin, you really sort of need to build tanky so that you can stay relevant throughout the whole game. There will never be a point that you are more useful than a good Gnar though. Gnar naturally does far more damage while building tanky and in mega form has a lot more CC.
Don't pick Xin into Gnar. Heck, don't even pick Xin without knowing who your lane opponent is because extremely linear champions are easily countered. If you want to beat Gnar as a melee, you need to play a champion who has really high damage and multiple gap closers. This means if you are really good with Irelia, you can double gap close her. Fiora works well since her double gap closer is easy. So does yasuo. The only other melee champion with a chance is Mao, but that's simply because he can easily sustain while using mana to farm.
TL;DR; Don't pick Xin into Gnar. Pick a melee that has a double gap closer and high damage.