Teamfight Tactics season 3, with many new champions, new Traits/Classes, and new team composition strategies, is bringing numerous challenges and a fresh breeze for all players. The main carries still seem very viable for their cost but there’s no longer that frustrating feeling of “Miss Fortune/Gangplank and the rest” like before.
Additionally, some logical adjustments to items have made it easier to switch team compositions, allowing for more variety and better synergy with new elements. Overall, aside from the quite frustrating Tiny Astronaut meta where high-cost champions dominate, Teamfight Tactics season 3 is doing quite well.
However, it is true that every season has its unique disruptors in various ways. After many days of experience, Gnar has been voted as the strongest team disruptor of season 3 due to his incredibly difficult-to-navigate skill set.
First, let’s take a look at Gnar’s skills:
– Gnar leaps towards the target and transforms into Mega Gnar, then knocks back nearby targets, dealing damage and stunning them for 2 seconds.
– In Mega form, Gnar gains additional health, damage, and will attack in melee.
– Damage: 200/300/1500
– Bonus health: 750/1250/2500
– Bonus damage: 100/175/400
At first glance, it seems very good; we have an additional unit to replace the “meat shield” Malphite with a crowd control skill that can break formations and a necessary level of tankiness for a Fighter. However, life isn’t a dream, and the reality shows that the ability to “knock back nearby targets” without any clear conditions or targeting has made Gnar the most “hit or miss” unit currently, frequently tossing the entire tank of the opposing team towards his backline carries. Especially now, tank units still deal a significant amount of damage, built from Vanguard, Guardian, and Cybernetic…
Despite trying various formations like Gnar on the left, Gnar on the right, Gnar in the middle, clustering units with Gnar, or separating the formation from Gnar… the ratio of “team disruption” caused by him remains very high, resulting in many frustrating and unfortunate losses.
To put it professionally, Gnar belongs to the category of “needs to be positioned correctly rather than needing items.” First, if positioned correctly, Gnar can knock enemy carries out of their safe spots, dealing damage while interrupting their abilities (if any). Second, against marksman compositions, being knocked out of a safe position significantly reduces their damage output (as the Marksman trait increases damage based on the distance from themselves to the target). Third, champions knocked back by Gnar often end up taking a lot of area damage, getting controlled, and losing health rapidly.
But the problem is that “what constitutes the correct positioning” is not something Riot has explained, and our players are still risking every match to find that answer.
Hopefully, in the near future, we will find the most effective way to position Gnar to minimize these unnecessary team disruptions, or Riot will consider adding some additional conditions to help him protect his team’s backline.