Graves is one of those champions who aren't shown to be very powerful, but why? He has huge early game damage, and if farmed right, he can put so much pressure in the bottom lane, despite his short basic attack range. He may not be the one with the most attack range, or the one with the biggest poke, but damn son, he's a powerhouse!

Runes consist of:
Attack damage marks
Armor seals
Magic resist glyphs
Attack damage quints

A very basic rune page meant to still deal damage but still be sustainy, even with your passive.

Take all ad Masteries in the offensive section, while taking health per level, magic resist, armor, and health in defense.

Start off with doran's blade ALWAYS. unless if you want to stay in lane, that pots, which unless you are high, is a good start.
After farming well and without trouble, first recall you should have a B.F. Sword and bezerker's greaves, or as I like to call them, bezerker's GRAVES.
anyway mid game should look like is:
Greaves
Blood thirster
Infinity edge
Phantom dancer
Late game you should end with Last whisper and Guardians Angel

Max your q always. That should be instinct. Then max your e, it may sound weird, but the extra attack speed is a necessity on Graves, for having one of the lowest base attack speed in his class. Lastly you should max your w. It's kind of a useless skill, it doesn't blind, even though it shows the blind icon. It only slows and reduces vision on everyone inside the smoke bomb. Use it for mainly escaping or if you want to scare the enemy adc to think that you are going to try and attack. It's also great for stopping ganks. If you see the enemy jungles come in, just lay down your w and dash out of there. They won't know whether your im a bush or if you juked around him.

Flash and barrier. Nuff said

Pros:
Huge damage output early and mid game
Can adapt to most situations
Great poke for having a small attack range
Can destroy anyone with low health
Great farming
Excellent duelist
Cons:
Small attack radius
Slow attack speed
Relatively squishy early game
Mana hungry

Last hit, get ****. Motto of graves. His q late game can help very well with clearing waves, since it doesn't reduce damage the more people it goes through.

Make sure you have a support that can heal you and help you sustain in lane. A great support give would be soraka, sona, Taric, nami, or anyone with a heal. Soraka would be best pic since she can poke really well and give mana, sines your going as a mana thirsty champ. but you aren't gonna have a lot of cc. If you want someone with good cc and sustain, nami is the best pic. She is even great with initiation if you combine her ult with yours. This can even apply with team fights. Nami ult, your ult, then your teammates can go in.

Graves is one of those champs who isn't really special. He has a q that does damage in a cone, a dash that gives attack speed, and a w that slows. But people don't realize what kind of power he brings. His q has a low base damage, but it gives 100% of the attack damage you have currently and grants it that. His e grants a cool down of 1 second every basic attack, so if your trying to take down an enemy, or a major eject I've like dragon or baron, it's literally GIVING YOU ATTACK SPEED. and it doesn't cost a lot of mana, so you can use it with risk of using too much mana. People think his ult is just an advanced version of his q. I say ********. His ultimate has so much range it's nearly global. The tip of its range isn't the end of the ability, it's where his ability breaks off into 3 parts. So you can safely assassinate a target from farther than they're expecting. And when the base part of the ultimate breaks when it hits an enemy champion, the three shells still break apart behind and deal damage. Even once it breaks apart when a champion his it, the same champion can be hit again if they are walking backwards straight into it!

In the end, graves is an awesome champion who needs more recognition in the bottom lane. No more of these stupid pulsefire ezreal ****. Get some mafia in the bottom lane, even some police brutality. Graves is a solo queue, elo friendly champion that had gotten me 9 wins out of 10 games in ranked. I may be bronze 4, but I was bronze 1, so trust me when I say this