Sup Mobafire, this is Kjori here with my first guide ever! Featuring none other than the dirty, whiskey drinkin' outlaw Graves! ... The err... Outlaw.

(Can we try that introduction again? No? Dang...)

Anywho! As the title of my guide suggests, this is a way to play Graves the way he's always meant to be, as a lone gun. No healing unicorn thing or outrageous gem-knight there to get in his way. This is a man's guide. For men. (I guess ladies are welcome too.)

You will be coming up against squishy, cloth-adorned whelps who want to throw sparkly balls of light at you. And you shall laugh as you send them back to the respawn fountain at level 2.

Now, on with the show!

Credits to foxy ladyjhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.

The best time to play this man among men is when you have a strong AP top. A manly one like Mordekaiser or Vladimir and a bruiser like Pantheon or Xin Zhao bot. Hell you can even swap the two around, having an offensive jungler like Shaco or Tryndamere whilst having say Ryze and Blitzcrank bot and a Shen or Volibear top. The CC at bot with stop the enemy ADC from escaping whilst you lock him down and take him out.

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Pros + -Early game burst will shred casters + -flexible build path + -Manliest man in League of Legends. Period. + -Is quite tanky for an ADC + -Attack speed buff/dash all in one Convenient(manly) ability. + -His skins are the coolest in game. Period. + -His passive is called "True Grit"

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Cons - -His range causes him to have to be close in team fights - -Is so manly he's often targeted - -His primary escape tool is also his primary damage buff - -Smoke Screen can be hard to get the hang of - -He cheats when he gambles. (Cause he's manly) - -A bit of a mana issue early game, like most heroes

Right then, down to the "True Grit" of the guide. Starting with the masteries. Manly masteries. You've got the basic ADC twenty-one points into the Offensive tree. Including all three points into Brute Force because it's manly. The rest, if you're manly enough, will be self explanatory.

As for the nine in the defensive tree we start with three points in the sparkle deflector([Resistance]) because even with Graves amount of manlyness, a small child with a flaming bear can still do some damage. You then grab a point in tough skin for role play purposes and to stop some creep damage when you're blasting those sparkle fairys in the face with your shotgun. Then you got Durability and Veteran Scars for that extra period of time where you can laugh at your enemies with they sprinkle fairy dust at you.

• greater quintessence of Desolation: This sexy amount of Armor Pen. is to help get past that small amount of armor the sparkle fairys posses.
  
• greater mark of Desolation: We grab five of these to help with the rest of that damned cloth that seems to be so impervious to bullets.
  
• Greater Mark of Attack Damage: These, along with three points in Brute Force will be plenty extra starting attack damage to help you show those minions whose boss!
  
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: In any other case my personal preference leans toward Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist but with those flower pickers violently selling you those potions of death from level 1, you'll need the starting MR.
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: These are for when that pesky (But overly manly) Rengar comes leaping in all YOLO like. I guess they help late game too.

• Flash : bad mama-jama of a summoner spell helps lessen the need to keep Quickdraw for defensive purposes. I'm not gunna preach that it's "The greatest summoner spell of all time!" cause that's not manly. It's offensive. It's defensive. It's a second dash.
• Ignite: Toast those knitting grandmas so they can't flee back to base and restock on yarn. This summoner spell is often the key to the level two first blood mid graves is deserving of. Also your team should have one if they have a Swain or Dr. Mundo or some clown with a healing thingo.
• Exhaust: You could replace ignite with this. Just like you could go jump in the enemies well. But hell if you want it so bad don't let me stop you.

• True Grit: This is possibly the manliest passive in all of league of legends. It makes you tankier the more you battle. And battling is manly. Therefore Graves is manly. Though this was already known.
  
  To put it simply, Stay in battle and your Armor and Magic Resist increase to a cap, the max stack being 10. Leave battle for three seconds and you lose the buff. "Staying in battle" involves both attacking and being attacked.
  
• Buckshot (Q): Is the most stark shotgun blast in the game. Let this ability fly and Graves will shot three bullets in a 45 degree cone, one on each side and one in the middle. If the target is hit by more than one of the projectiles, they take 25% damage from each, after the first. Get in close and show them your manliness!
  
• Smoke Screen (W): Is the least most manly ability of Graves' kit. It fires off a gas canister that envelops an area in the manliest smoke this side of Noxus. Blinding enemies with sheer manliness and slowing them. (This also has something to do with how manly he is.)
  
• Quickdraw (E): This ability is Graves' early game gank escape, his early game initiator, his late game damage buff. It makes him do the manliest pirouette you've ever seen, dashing over small walls and giving graves a an attack speed buff that scales with the abilities level. And what makes it simply outstanding is the cooldown is reduced by a whole second each time he shoots.
  
  Early game you want to keep at least 50 mana so you can use this to dash to safety in case of a gank.
  
• Collateral Damage (R): This ability sends off a bomb forged out of pure-manioite. The most manly substance in the world. Upon hitting an enemy champion, or reaching it's maximum range, it will explode sending forth a cone that will heavily damage any target not manly enough to resist it.(This is all the enemy champions. Even enemy Graves.)

• : You're an auto-attack ADC carry. You buy these boots.
  
• : Any ADC, now matter how unmanly they are, need this item to thrive. Attack Damage, Crit chance and a Passive that is sure to help you shred those sparkle fairys.
  
• : This item helps with both offensive and defensive measures, allowing you to stay at max manliness for longer. With a maximum of 100 damage and 20% life steal.
  
• : Attack speed, movement speed and Crit chance. All ADC type things.
  
• : A nice, sexy constant slow, a decent damage boost and a manly health boost.
  
• : Get through that annoying armor of those tanks. Exchangeable for Black Cleaver

From level one you'll have the advantage. They wont expect to lane against the manly attack damage carry that is Graves. Most AP mids don't run armor runes, making them start with 15 or so armor. This means you shot them for true damage! Use this to your advantage. harass them hard at level one, get them to half health and the moment you get level two, grab quickdraw, dash in, buckshot, ignite and shot'em. GG. First Blood goes to you.

Save atleast 50 mana at all times for a Quickdraw in case your ganked. Simply run to the other side of the river than where the ganker is coming from and dash over the wall to safety. Run through the jungle if you have too. If you've pushed close to their turret and caught yourself in a position where you're stuck near one of the undashable rocks near the river, the jungler running down into the river to flank you as their AP charges you. Decide whether you can take him down. Mana provided, you usually can. The jungler wont be able to get to you before you kill the AP and when the jungler is there you can simply flash the wall and away you go!~

With this chapter I want to cover how best to out-manly various people you might find in a mid lane. This list will grow the more I play this manly beast.

• Veigar: Possibly the easiest lane you could get. You don't stack AP so his ultimate, Primordial Burst is just another (partly) harmless sparkle fairy maneuver. The only two things you have to worry about are his stun (Stuns are in no way manly.) Event Horizon and what usually follows, Dark Matter The manly velocity of that spell could singe your jacket! (no seriously, it hurts, get out of the way of it.)
  
  His armor at the start is pitiful, fifth-teen. FIFTH-TEEN. This means you get to deal true damage for a bit. Also Veigar almost always grabs Baleful Strike at level one, just press to level two before him, harass to half health before then and dash in. Easy kill.
  
  tl;dr? He's squishy, he has an AoE stun. Dodge the stun and blast his sparkle fairy face back to base.
  
• Ahri: Step back from this foxy mama, her sparkles hurt. Your main enemy is Charm which most Ahri's take between level two and four. But hey, what's she got after that? A mystical shine ball and a couple of sparkle fairy fires that hit creeps. Okay okay her ultimate Spirit Rush helps prove how much of a tease this foxy-mana is. She can dash away three times whilst throwing seering orbs of lust at you, taunting you into wanting to dive her turret. This is a BAD IDEA.
  
  You want to focus on farming, harass her a bit, but don't go nuts on it. She has plenty of spell vamp so she can heal herself nicely. This is one of the enemies where you have to do something rather unmanly. Call in your jungler for a gank.
  
  tl;dr? (1. You lazy bastard.) Stay near your creeps to dodge Charm and Fox-Fire, move out of the way when she throws her mystical shine ball, Essence Theft and stay cool, calm and manly, don't rush.
  
• Katarina: Don't doubt her just cause she's melee. She's so femininely manly she CAN go melee. A good Katarina can cut up your jacket and get three creep kills in a single motion, leaving your manly eyes blinded by her awesomeness. But have no fear, Kjori is here to guide you young Celtic Guardian.
  
  Bouncing Blades makes Kat throw a dagger which is so skillfully chucked that it ricochets from enemy to enemy and also leaving a mystical dagger above their heads. This spell has a range of about your buckshot and the bounce distance is half that. She will throw it at creeps. Stay away from your creeps when she does, it bounces to the closest enemy but it wont hit an enemy twice.
  
  The thing you have to look for next is her to either Shunpo you, or walk up to you and Sinister Steel you to proc the mystical dagger floating over your head. If she's smart, the latter wont be used. If she is stupid enough to walk up to you, punish her. Buckshot her pretty face and dash away. Shunpo on the other hand is a little bit more of a hassle. It teleports her behind you, procs the mark and reduces damage she takes for a few seconds by a percentage. If she's over level six and you have half health or less. RUN! GO NOW! Because in most occasions, her ultimate Death Lotus is about to skewer your manly body with a whole bunch of daggers.
  
  I haven't tested whether Smoke Screen's vision disable stops her ultimate hitting you. Will test that soon.
  

That's all for now, I'm lazily manly.

In team fights you have but one goal. Look at their team, find the squishiest person they have then lay the smackdown on them. Make them rue the day they played against Mid Graves. Stay away from those pesky tanks, dash when it's up. Ult near the start when they're all bunched up.

And there you have it, my first, incredibly manly guide to the manliest man in League of Legends, Graves.



Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.