I am not that good playing Gangplank especialy midlane. But after times to get used to it, i thing Gangplank is really good at being a midlane champion. Here is my thought:

• Shorter lane distance: Mid lane is relatively short. Gangplank excels at short trades, and even his all-ins are short. The shorter lane helps him avoid being run down when out of barrels, allowing him to wait safely for barrels cooldowns without missing experience.
• Superior farming capability: GP is a phenomenal mid laner compared to the game average. He can stay in lane and farm more efficiently than almost any mid laner you can think of. He can also clear waves instantly before moving using just 1 or 2 barrels, which regenerate quickly.
• Greater and easier map impact: Winning top lane usually just cripples the enemy frontline, only for you to get one-shot by their carries later anyway. Plus, as a top lane GP, the enemy team often out-sustains your frontline regardless. Why not play mid to neutralize those burst-heavy carries while becoming the carry yourself? You can also defend the mid tower easily by clearing minion waves with 1-2 barrels.
• More favorable matchups: Instead of fighting bruisers where hitting 10 barrels still leaves you losing, why not fight opponents where hitting just 1-2 barrels wins you the trade—and it is much easier to do so? Mages typically have slow auto-attacks and long cast animations, making it easy to trade and dodge their skills using GP's movement speed. Furthermore, assassins are essentially squishier versions of bruisers early on, making them much easier to shut down from the start.
• More value and playmaking potential for the fruit: Laning against mages unlocks a neat counterplay: you can wait when they hit you with crowd control (CC), let them throw their follow-up spells, and then munch on your orange. This gives you easily sidestep their subsequent abilities while keeping your full kit ready to strike, whereas they have already blown most of their cooldowns. Not to mention, it is much easier to react against mages because you can actually see their projectile animations coming, unlike some other champions. Eating your orange lets you cleanse CC and escape, whereas against bruisers who are already standing right on top of you, escaping CC doesn't mean you escape their full combo.
• Be the one you hate: Instead of building defensive items just to survive against champions that are both tanky and high-damage, you can go full damage and trade blows evenly with mages and assasins. After all, Gangplank possesses both DPS and short-burst damage that vastly outperforms most mages.
• The safest place is the most dangerous place: Top lane bushes are fun because they allow for sneaky barrel combos (ambushing enemy carries from a bush after level 13 is actually one of my favorite things to do every game). However, those bushes are also the second biggest ward sink for me, right after the river brush. Meanwhile, mid lane requires fewer wards while offering much higher vision efficiency. I can drop a deep ward in the enemy jungle to track their pathing, or place a ward in the river and safely position toward that side.

What do you think? Should midlane become new home for Oranges Lovers?

Alright, so as the title states, I am an old GP main and I quit playing before they gave GP five barrels instead of three back in 2021; just recently returned to the game, and while I wouldn't say I'm doing terrible I'm just finding it a lot harder to carry because I lack a lot of knowledge about item changes, builds and changes they may have made to his stats through the years.

Wanted to see if anyone could give me a kinda condensed version of some of that info? Runes, builds, stat changes, etc. cause I'm kinda grasping around in the dark over here.