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Gragas Build Guide by

✔️[10.18] The Rabble Rouser|Diamond Guide|In-depth

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Runes:

Sorcery

Phase Rush

Nimbus Cloak

Transcendence

Waterwalking

Inspiration

Magical Footwear

Cosmic Insight

Bonus:

+10% Attack Speed
+9 Adaptive (5.4 AD or 9 AP)
+6 Armor

Spells:

Standard

Flash

Smite

Items

Starting Item

First Back ( ANY )

Core Build ( Vs Low Magic Resist )

Core Build ( Vs High Magic Resist )

Core Build ( Vs Heavy AP )

Core Build ( Vs Heavy AD )

LATE GAME FULL BUILD EXAMPLE

VS AP HEAVY

VS HIGH HP TANKS

VS AD HEAVY

ALTERNATIVE ITEMS

Ability Order

Gragas Passive Ability

Champion Build Guide

PROS

• Good Engage & CC
• High Burst Potential
• Strong Jungle Clear
• Good Early Damage
• Good Scaling

may seem like a very simple champion on the surface, but has many mechanics to its kit. A good can always influence the outcome of a teamfight, as even when his team is all dead, he still has the potential to one shot any of the opponent team's key carries to stop them from doing objectives or ending a game. And those who do not respect strong engage will suffer and be blown up at the start of each fight before they can even retaliate.

CONS

- Mana Hungry
- Easily Kited
- Long Cooldowns Early
- Ability Reliant

Whilst does have many engage tools and strong burst damage, a single good use of can completely nullify 's engage and even potentially straight up kill . This is mainly due to him being very heavily ability reliant, so if you miss your key abilities you become nothing but a sack of gold for the enemies to farm, as your engage tool is also your only way to escape, making sure you hit your engage is crucial, you may consider a + engage for a guaranteed hit.

Why Gragas ?

There is something about that just makes him so fun, maybe because of his fat belly that we all love, or the ability to blow up the enemy without any way for them to retaliate. I quite enjoyed my time playing even when he was not exactly meta, now I think he is in a much better spot than before since instead of building tank we are realising the potential of by going for the full damage build.

When to pick Gragas ?

is an excellent pick when your team lacks any AP damage or any way to get backline access, meaning that it is extremely difficult for your team to reach the enemy marksman or mage, so, with 's there are constant CC threat that the enemy backline has to respect, otherwise you can bring them towards your team for a very easy follow up and with your teams damage/CC. is actually also very good at dealing with enemies who has dashes, making him a great champion to protect the backline, his can interrupt many dashes like , , etc. Also his can completely nullify strong engages and saving your entire team from the enemy's attempt dive. A good combo comes to mind would be something like a , who can use his ultimate off of your or . Defensively, , is an also excellent combo that pretty much will make the enemy never be able to get to your backline, peeling and protecting everyone.

Phase Rush: This rune usually has great synergy with ability reliant champions such as Gragas, such that if you are able to hit your abilities you can gain a short burst of movement speed, either to immediately back off to continuing to chase the enemy down.

Nimbus Cloak: The extra movement speed whenever you use a summoners spell is massive, for example when you try to escape by flashing, sometimes the enemies can still catch up to you, but with nimbus cloak the extra movespeed you gain will ensure they do not catch up. Or when you are trying to flash forward to chase down enemies, it will ensure you secure the kill.

Transcendence: This is another great rune for an ability reliant champion such as Gragas, as in our build path, we may not always be able to go for full 40% CDR, in fact our build would usually let us go up to 30% and this rune is a great way to cap it out at the maximum CDR % at 40%.

Waterwalking: Excellent rune for a jungler, allowing us to move around quicker and also have higher damage in the river, which is often where we will be fighting.

Magical Footwear: An excellent choice to help snowballing, as Gragas has very good gank potentially early on, gaining the free Magical Footwear that also gives you slightly more move speed than the normal boots, a essentially an early free 300G if you win early, helping you snowball even more.

Cosmic Insight: For a ability reliant champion like Gragas this is particularly good, as it allow us to go over the maximum CDR %, to an extra 5%, allowing us to get our cooldowns back quicker, it can mean the difference between winning and losing a game.

ABILITY
SEQUENCE

1

W

2

Q

3

E

4

Q

5

Q

6

R

7

Q

8

E

9

Q

10

E

11

R

12

E

13

E

14

W

15

W

16

R

17

W

18

W

PASSIVE ABILITY

periodically heals for 6% of his maximum health upon using an ability.

| RANGE: 850 | COST: 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80 | MANACOOLDOWN: 11 / 10 / 9 / 8 / 7 |
rolls a cask to the target location, granting sight around it and fermenting over 2 seconds, increasing its damage and slow strength, up to a maximum of 150%. can be recast after the cask has fully travelled. After 4 seconds the cask detonates, dealing magic damage to all surrounding enemies, reduced by 30% against minions, and slowing them for 2 seconds.

| COST: 30 MANA | COOLDOWN: 6 |
channels for 0.75 seconds, drinking out of his brew, and reducing incoming damage for 2.5 seconds. Upon completing the channel, ' next basic attack within 5 seconds becomes unstoppable, gains 50 bonus range and deals bonus magic damage to the target and nearby enemies, capped at 300 against monsters.

| RANGE: 750 | COST: 50 MANA | COOLDOWN: 16 / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12 |
charges forward, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies upon colliding with one as well as knocking them back and stunning them for 1 second. 's cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds if hits an enemy. and can be cast during the charge.

| RANGE: 1000 | COST: 100 MANA | COOLDOWN: 120 / 100 / 80 |
hurls a cask that travels to the target location over 0.55 seconds and explodes on impact, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies and knocking them back 900 units (but not through terrain) from the epicenter of the explosion, while also briefly granting sight of the nearby surroundings.

Stalker's Blade - Runic Echoes is one of your core(first) item. This item will give you that extra burst to help you kill an enemy, along with the blue smite that slows down enemy to make it easy for you to land your engage/CC.

Oblivion Orb is another one of your core item against opponents without any magic resist. The item provides flat magic penetration which will grant you true damage combining it with the Sorcerer's Shoes against opponents with little to no magic resist. Do not build this if the targets you aim to kill have already built magic resist like Mercury's Treads or Hexdrinker etc. I do not recommend completing this item into Morellonomicon as it is extremely low value. Just sit on Oblivion Orb until it is your 6th item.

Sorcerer's Shoes is an item I would try to complete as soon as possible. As soon as you get your Magical Footwear I would try to complete Sorcerer's Shoes. This item gives a lot of value because it essentially gives you the same amount of flat magic penetration you would get from Oblivion Orb, extremely useful in the early game when most players still does not have magic resist.

Void Staff is an item that will be in your build 90% of the time, unless the enemies really does not want to build magic resist, then you can skip this item and go for the other options. Otherwise you want to purchase this if there are any enemies with magic resist.

Banshee's Veil is a great item to have against AP heavy or CC heavy engage that is hard to avoid, since the blackshield you gain from Banshee's Veil will protect you from the first CC spell that hits. Good against Evelynn, Katarina, Thresh etc. However, you want to make sure to not build this with Zhonya's Hourglass as they are both defensive items, they have very poor synergy with each other and will lower your burst by a lot.

Zhonya's Hourglass's an excellent item choice against heavy AD opponents, or where the enemy team has heavy CC that makes it difficult for you to engage. You can engage onto the enemy team, then immediately activate Zhonya's Hourglass, dodging their CC spells, allowing you to get your abilities back up again to try to make a play or escape. Do not build with Banshee's Veil

Morellonomicon is not that great of an item, only turn Oblivion Orb into this item when there are heavy healing champions on the enemy team, such as Soraka, Yuumi, Sona etc.

Liandry's Torment is an item that is great against high health stacking opponents regardless of how much magic resist they have, so you may consider this item when up against Dr. Mundo, Ornn, Nasus etc. It is also great at amplifying damage dealt over time, which is something Gragas do not really care about, as we intend to one shot our targets.

Mejai's Soulstealer is an extremely snowbally item. I do not recommend this item at all, unless you are super confident in your abilities to survive and to gain stacks by killing or earning assists. You want to have Dark Seal in your inventory already before going for Mejai's Soulstealer.

Mercury's Treads is a situational item. You usually do not want to build this even if the enemies have a lot of CC. This item is mainly to reduce the duration of CC on you, so consider this item if there are multiple unavoidable heavy CC that can get you. I would also build this if the whole enemy team is ability power based.

Ninja Tabi is a situational item. It reduces auto attack damage by 12%. You would ideally want to build this if there are multiple heavy autoattackers on the enemy team, such as Fiora, Yasuo, Yone, Ashe etc. You can also consider this item if the whole enemy team is attack damage.

Iceborn Gauntlet is a situational item for when you are up against full AD opponents. This item works very similarly as Lich Bane but with less damage, more defensive stats. Only build this against heavy AD team composition.

Rabadon's Deathcap is an excellent item to finish off your build, usually as a 5th or 6th item to amplify all the ability power you have built up already, it is a must have late game item for any AP damage dealer. You can even consider building this earlier if you are super fed and feel extremely confident.

Spirit Visage has decent synergy with our Happy Hour passive, this item works really well when you are up against a full AP team composition. Otherwise do not build this, it is better to have more damage in your kit.

Quicksilver Sash is an item you may want to consider if you are against someone like Mordekaiser or Malzahar where using this item can clear you out from their ultimate. However, since this item is mainly for AD champions you may not want to purchase this at all.

Flash Combo

This is your bread and butter engage tool. By casting then as it is going off cast . This is how you do the combo. It is especially useful in the early few levels when you are looking to gank. Our opponents will usually not expect this, so if you can come up behind them and then use this combo they will be guaranteed stunned. Since our can be blocked by minions, you can also use this as a way to deceive your opponents, make them think you will hit the minions but actually flash over the minions and land the on them. Only want to expend your if you know your laner also has a way to follow up on your combo.

Basic Damage Combo

This is your bread and butter damage combo. > > > Basic Attack. You want to start off with first then into a , as you are casting you cast to cancel the animation of the . Making it a much quicker way to deliver your damage. You can also incorporate our + combo in the exact same way. Making it impossible for our opponents to ever react.

Ultimate Damage Combo

This is your highest burst potential combo, by hitting every single one of your abilities within a second or less. > > > . The idea here is to fist place down a so that it can ferment to deal more damage than if you were to pop straight away. Then you want to use to make yourself tankier, and followed up by the . Whilst casting you can cast and cancel the animation of making it an instant cast. You want to aim your in behind the enemy, in a way to will push them into your . This is extremely difficult and will require some practise, I recommend you to try it out in practise tool first before attempting it in game.

Full Damage Combo

Similar to our Ultimate Damage Combo, this will not require you to place down a from the start, thus dealing slightly less damage, but so very potent regardless. > > > . You want to first beef yourself up with as always, then hit your with or without , then whilst casting you need to cast the then immediately the right on top of the enemy. will cancel out the animation of & allowing you to do this combo in a very short amount of time. This require less precision than the Ultimate Damge Combo but almost just as good. Make sure to practise in practise tool in-game before trying it out in actual ranked game.

Usually as I like starting a blue buff, especially since is extremely mana hungry and the extra cooldown reduction you get from it is great for 's early clear. We will start with a , this is great especially when you are doing AOE camps, like wolves, raptors and golems, as it will provide extra healing to us, giving us better sustain in the jungle.

The starting path usually goes like blue buff > wolves > raptors > red. At this point you will reach level 3, you can try to contest the scuttle crab or look for a gank on one of the lanes. You want to make sure you pan over your camera to see what is happening in lane. If both opponents are low hp then you should definitely look for a gank or counter-gank. If both opponents are high health and not really trading, you may still want to look for a play, to gain lane priority, so that they can come help you for the scuttle crab. If you have both losing lane in mid and top/bot then you may want to give up the scuttle crab completely, and do the golems then base and try for the other scuttle crab.

Another big thing to note is that you may want to play around a certain lane when you know they are going to be aggressive, something like , , , , lanes are particularly aggressive, so you may want plan ahead and look for a gank in these lanes before the match even start. Or if the enemy jungler is a very aggressive, high tempo jungler like , , it is best you look for a counter gank instead.

In the later stages of the game, your main objective is to look for the enemy backline whether is the enemy midlaner or adcarry, if they ever step up slightly too far forward, do not be afraid to punish, starting off the fight with your , pushing the marksman into your team and push the others away so they cannot help him, and then immediately follow up with your to lock the target down. If you are up against a heavy dive composition, you can look to peel for your teammates instead of engaging. So for example if a is jumping in, you can try to interrupt his engage with your , and then if he tries to use his ultimate you can use your to push him away from your teammates. Similar thing can be applied against champions such as , , , etc. People often underestimate the damage from , so make sure to show them what you are really made of ! Do not be afraid to look for a play, be the engage of the team if need be, or be the protector of the team if need be. You can make use of your red trinket to deny any vision and try to hide in a bush to cheese your enemies, knowing that they will have to come to the area, like the enemy red buff, or a lane bush and then surprise them with your full combo, there is literally nothing they can do but accept their death. has both very strong peel & engage potential, it is up to the player to decide how they should play it.