Graves matchups/synergies help

[quote=Vapora Dark][quote=Out Of Pancakes]But with the matchups being so dependants on the supports, what would you think of explaining a bit of how to play against each support, what to expect from them or do you think it would be too long/boring/not interesting to write?[/quote] That might be an idea, not too sure what I'm going to do yet. [quote=Latest Legend]See if you can 1v1 the gold top laner mindset ^^ I'm also questioning your placement of the Blitz. It could be a very good lane depending on the matchup, he fits in Graves' bursty early/mid game. Let me put it this way: if not with Graves, what ADC is Blitz good with? I have a feeling you just don't like Blitz on its own (wonder why :^)). Not that I think that's a bad thing. And I now see you already said that so rip paragraph.[/quote] Yeah it basically is just a case of me not liking Blitz in general. When it works out he's great, when it doesn't he's terrible. I'd rather have a more consistent, easy support like [[janna]], even if theoretically, Graves-Blitz is meant to be stronger. [quote=Latest Legend]I think Janna (maybe also Nami) can work with Graves but I don't think it's optimal as she's not really able to join in on the all-in aspects. She's great if you can do the lane bully thing though, but I'd call that situational.[/quote] I like [[janna]] because of the trading power she brings to the table. There's not much kill potential, but it's easy to just walk into lane and bully the enemy ADC to half HP in 1 or 2 trades while barely losing any yourself, then just start freezing and making sure they get behind by not being able to farm. I find it's more consistently good than waiting 10 years for my [[leona]] to land a [[zenith blade]], or [[thresh]] to land a hook. She's extremely simple and therefore very consistent. I personally value consistency over potential when it comes to random solo Q supports. Annie's also another favourite post-6 because it's so hard to mess up forcing an all-in with her. [quote=Latest Legend]Regarding Kennen, I think you put Shen in the bad list because you can't really make use of the full E duration in lane and I'd say the same about Kennen's ult. Furthermore his stun takes quite a bit of setup so it's hard for him to join in on the short trades turning into burst battles. Even with his ult it may take a while.[/quote] Well I'm not too sure, like I said I've never played with [[kennen]] support before so I only placed him in the "good" list because he's got a pretty brainlessly easy engage post-6 which is generally a really good trait with [[graves]]. [quote=Luther3000]Not sure I completely agree with Ashe, like it's okay for similar reasons to Caitlyn but she gets really badly messed up if he closes the gap (e.g. he has a kill support) because she doesn't have an escape like Caitlyn does and is basically 100% going to get hit by all his shit.[/quote] Idk I guess it's really dependant on the supports. Like I know I could definitely beat an [[ashe]] 1v1, and I know I could easily kill her 2v2 if she gets engaged on by a [[leona]] or a [[thresh]], but a lot of the time it feels like it's not a possibility to just force an all-in, and then I just get destroyed by her range advantage because I can't reach her without using E. [quote=Luther3000] Sivir is pretty good against Graves if the Sivir player is skilled because she can spellshield Q and R literally every time, although she still has to deal with range disadvantage and less damage when spellshield is down.[/quote] I value consistency over potential. Consistently, if you E onto a [[sivir]] player she'll either immediately spell shield, or wait for you to auto-attack her 2-3 times then spell shield thinking "surely NOW he's about to cast his Q". If they're the exception to the rule, you just cast [[smoke screen]] and they'll mistake the animation for [[buckshot]] because they're so focused on activating E as soon as they see you casting a spell. Outside of all-ins, it doesn't feel too bad either. Rather than going for really telegraphed Q-auto or auto-Q's, I'll just cast Q at completely random times when she's in range and they won't usually react in time to spell shield. Even in the worst case scenario that she spell shields [[buckshot]] during a trade, it doesn't really feel like it's a huge issue. She can't out-trade you too hard if you dodge the rebound of every Q, which isn't hard at all from the range at which she'd be casting it after spell shielding a [[buckshot]], and then she can't do that again for another 20ish seconds, assuming she can consistently block every [[buckshot]] in the first place, and then she still has to deal with being 25 range lower against someone who just straight up out-trades her in a 1 for 1 auto-attack trade in the first place. Also she won't have E to protect her from any important spells from your support. Theoretically it does sound complicated but in practice I find Sivir to be one of the easiest carries to lane against. Like I said in the first paragraph, [[sivir]] spell shields are just extremely predictable and easy to bait out in normal all-ins, and the spell shield is the only annoying thing about her. Aside from that she's outclassed really hard, and if you know how to make her mess up her spell shield in trades/all-ins then it negates her only advantage. I know it sounds weird to basically say "it's good for [[graves]] because [[sivir]] will mess up", but it's very consistently what happens when I play the matchup. Pretty sure I've done it against you too. :^) ------------------------------------------------ I think I'm leaning towards just not doing a matchups chapter at all right now, it seems like again almost every ADC I'd basically be saying "good in the right circumstances, bad in the wrong circumstances". I can accomplish the same thing just by simplifying it to "[[graves]] is good against most AD carries, but winning a 2v2 lane will depend on support synergy between the two bottom lanes". If anything, I'll probably only write about support synergies seeing as that's more important than knowing which are the few ADC's that [[graves]] doesn't beat in lane.[/quote]

[quote=Luther3000]It sounds kinda like you're saying the Sivirs you were playing against were just garbage, and you should generally be assuming maximum/equal skill level when talking about matchups. Pretty sure my Sivir play is absolute garbage too. :^)[/quote]

[quote=Latest Legend]it sounds kinda like you can't play sivir[/quote]