Gragas Support?

[quote=DaRastaPasta]What are the communities' views on [[Gragas]] support? I've seen him played in a few LCS games now. What are favorable matchups for him and what matchups does he tend to lose to? Additionally which Marksmen synergize the best with him? Thanks.[/quote]

[quote=MyBloodisBlack]Personally I find it wierd that [[Gragas]] is considered a Support when champions I have mentioned before have been laughed at. from my stand point this seems something similar to [[Morgana]] where because of his skill shots its better to be in support where if you miss them it won't matter compared to mid lane where a single miss can be the difference between winning and losing the lane.[/quote]

[quote=OTGBionicArm]As a support main, I think [[Gragas]] support is really strong. His personal early trading abilities are bonkers and he eats harass like no one's business. His main issues as a support stem from his difficulty and his status as a "greedy" support. Much like [[Fiddlesticks]] or even siller things like support [[Pantheon]], [[Gragas]] often wants to take kills to snowball harder (as his early damage is retarded). His abilities can be hard to use at times, and poorly placed abilities (especially his ult) can actually turn the tides in the enemies favor. But a well played [[Gragas]] makes super good plays no matter what role he's playing.[/quote]

[quote=GrandmasterD][[Gragas]] support is just very cheesy. It works but it's nowhere near the consistency of top lane [[Gragas]]. If he doesn't get enough gold then he will quickly fall off, and it's fairly easy to counterplay him in bot land.[/quote]

[quote=luizdeh]I disagree with the cheesy part. Strong early, falls off late. His early game damage is insane and his level 2 engage is beast. You abuse his early game to zone out the ADC and you can protect your own fairly well from engages with E stun and Q slow. The amount of abuse and kill pressure you put on early should get you through mid-game. His damage does fall-off late game, that's why you go tank/CDR, become a peeler (or a ballsy engager) and need to hit your ultimate to be effective.[/quote]

[quote=Jovy]I've only seen it once but it was really good, tier 1 at least. [size=1]on a srs note it's okay very tanky late game which is nice since tbh all you rlly need him for later on is his ult, i dont think you need to build damage on him at all[/quote]

[quote=FantasySniper]He's a kill lane support, like [[Vel'Koz]]. You won't even notice them after mid-game starts because they rely too much on scaling with items. That said, I cringe whenever I see a support like [[Gragas]], because it means you'll advance little in lane unless one of them are worthless at this game.[/quote]

[quote=Jimmydoggga 2.0]He's a kill lane support that basically turns into an extra top laner if he gets enough gold. I don't think any other support has the sort of displacement and %health damage he does either, which is why hes useful mid to late game.[/quote]

[quote=Fat_fast]It's surprisingly similar to j4 support, the only exception is the ult IMO. So I don't see any reason to go with [[gragas]] if you guys don't like j4 support.[/quote]

[quote=Xiaowiriamu]Similar to poppy support, you need to know your limitations and be pretty good at the mechanical side of things to be efficient with Gragas support. I havn't lost to one yet, so it seems a bit etchy to me, but I can understand why it's being played. Firstly, Gragas has nice damage and sustain -- enough to harass, and replenish his mana and health in relation to harass from opponents. Secondly, Gragas is very versatile in his build approach, he's decent AD and AP, and even tank, and the support items can synchronize well in building tanky ap, or tanky ad. Thirdly, Gragas is a decent fighter, he has nice crowd controlling effects, and with his Ultimate (R) ganks are pretty hard to pull off for the opponents, and ganks for your team are similarily easier. There is the question that he may fall off, and not become useful since hes a support, and not particularily farming as he would be in mid/top. But, playing 'out of the box' champions like Poppy and Xin support -- it's actually not that difficult to get gold as a support. Generally as Poppy support I have even more gold than my jungler, or everyone. So don't see why it won't work for Gragas, who can burst a champ down seemingly fast if he was to build flat AP, or AD. To conclude, anyone can support -- its how you play them, Gragas is similar to Annie just with less efficient CC, and typically more risky, but not as risky as Poppy support which to me is proven success, and for others as well that I've coached (example -- Cigerxwin). Therefore, if you want to play him support, go for it. As for the synergy question and who he usually loses against -- that's difficult to answer, since there's too many variables to take into account such as player skill, and ganks. From my opinion, I believe anyone with burst, or decent crowd control effects (traps) work well with Gragas, so caitlyn, jinx and graves. You could find Twitch and Vayne to be useful as well. Ezreal i believe won't synergize well, and Draven. Gragas will struggle against long range adc such as Caitlyn and Jinx rockets (as the harass can be detrimental to Gragas since hes primarily melee, and secondary range -- barrels). Supports gragas can struggle against are Braum (for obvious reasons), Annie, Morgana (cancel his ulti?) and Thresh (harder to pull off gragas ultimate successfully with lantern) TL;DR Gragas is OK support, adequate. Struggles vs long range adc, and typically anti cc supports and burst supports like Annie. Good with Cait, Jinx, Graves, possibly twitch and vayne.[/quote]