V1.0.0.113:
- Barrel Roll Barrel Roll damage reduced to 85/135/185/235/285 from 100/150/200/250/300.
- Drunken Rage Drunken Rage mana restored while channeling reduced to 30/45/60/75/90 from 40/55/70/85/100.

V1.0.0.110:
- Fixed a bug where Barrel Roll Barrel Roll was not properly drawing aggro from towers and monsters.

V1.0.0.107:
- Drunken Rage Drunken Rage:
o Damage reduction reduced to 10/12/14/16/18% from 10/14/18/22/26%.
o Mana restoration changed to 40/55/70/85/100 from 50/60/70/80/90.
- Explosive Cask Explosive Cask cooldown increased to 90/75/60 from 60.

Gragas is one of my favorite champions to play, this is because he shares many roles which are useful to any team, and within these roles you can go through many fun and interesting builds, which brings me onto my build: the truly special brewmaster.

Now with this build i've achieved great success, at the moment I have 100% win ratio in ranked with going this particular Tank Gragas (I lost many going AP Gragas). However, i've only ever gone this build in ranked 9 times, nevertheless I can still say i've got 100% win ratio with it. In normal i've also achieved roughly the same results. However, don't be fooled that this will mean you will win all your games going this build

Pros
- Tanky
- Good damage output late game
- Has a nice wide range of skills for escape, support and damage
- Awesome ultimate that can save a team-mate from dieing or give you a kill

Cons
- At the start hes not strong in damage output
- Bad farmer
- Madred's Bloodrazor could be an issue

Happy Hour
On ability use, Gragas takes a drink restoring 2% of his max health over 4 seconds. This skill is very useful for Gragas in many ways, one way which helps reflect this build is that late game it can give you around 260~400 health just by using 1 skill, so if you're using multiple skills you've already gained 1k health back in around 7~10seconds. Another great advantage of Happy Hour is that it gives you nice lane survival.

Barrel Roll
The barrel has reached its location. You can activate this ability again to detonate the barrel early. Enemies struck by the blast have their attack speed lowered. Gragas rolls his cask to a location, which can be activated again to explode or will explode on its own after 5 seconds, dealing 85/135/185/235/285 (+0.9) magic damage and applying a 20/25/30/35/40% attack speed debuff for 3 seconds. With this build the Barrel Roll isn't very useful, however it's still a nice skill to have for that extra damage and to clean up those running away with low health. Furthermore late game it can also give you a boost in your farming abilities. As i've been suggested (Thanks DiscoGrind) it is optional as to whether you get this to level 1 before level 4 as this could help your farming and laning in the earlier stages of the game which will help towards your items.

Drunken Rage
Gragas guzzles down brew from his cask for 1 second, restoring his mana. After finishing, he becomes drunkenly empowered, increasing his damage dealt and reducing damage received.Gragas guzzles down brew from his cask, channeling for 1 second. He gains 30/45/60/75/90 mana while channeling, and becomes empowered after finishing, increasing physical attack damage by 30/40/50/60/70, and reducing damage taken by 10/12/14/16/18% for 20 seconds. A great skill for this build, I recommended maxing this first as it gives great damage output and restoration in mana and also provides you with damage reduction so you're more tanky. However, remember to finish channeling the Drunken Rage otherwise you'll miss the increase in damage and reduction in receiving damage.

Body Slam
Gragas charges to a location and collides with the first enemy unit he comes across, dealing damage to all nearby enemy units and slowing their movement. Damage is split amongst units hit. Gragas charges forward, colliding with the first enemy unit he hits, dealing 80/120/160/200/240 (0.5 + ) magic damage to enemies in the area. Damage is split amongst targets hit. Units hit by Body Slam are slowed by 35% for 2.5 seconds. This skill is great for escaping and also slowing down enemies for your team-mates. I recommend maxing this out second as your barrel rolls are not much use without going AP.


Explosive Cask
Gragas hurls his cask to a location, which explodes on impact, dealing damage and knocking back enemies caught in the blast radius. This skill is just awesome, it can be used in so many ways, such as escaping or flinging enemies towards you. However it is tricky to use and in making sure the enemies go where you want them to go, not only this but with a lack of AP the damage isn't that great. Nevertheless in terms of supporting your team this is #1 as it can cancel many champions skills such as Warwick Infinite Duress, Karthus channeling his Requiem , ap Master Yi Meditate and fiddlestick Bountiful Harvest including Malzahar's ultimate

Core build:

Reasoning behind the core build
Warmog's Armor is a great tank item in that fact it gives great health and health regeneration which is one of the main key aspects of this build. Having warmogs also makes Gragas's passive worthwhile. Secondly Sunfire Aegis offers, again, great health and also a nice passive effect which is relatively great for Gragas as hes a close combat champion with this build and since hes also a tank, you'll lack that extra bit of damage so the passive is useful in this sense. Furthermore it also helps with your farming abilities as not going AP Gragas makes you a terrible farmer, so overall this is why it's a core item for Gragas: health, increases farming abilities, gives armor which is always great. Last core item is one that most people will think WTFBBQWHY?. Well the reason behind Atma's Impaler is that it gives Gragas that last increase in damage output and with the average health of using any of the recommended builds below being around 4.5k this grants Gragas a topping 90 AD! which when stacked onto his Drunken Rage it comes to around 220~300AD, to which extent late game you can achieve high to around 270~340, which for any tank is awesome!

Items that are great for this type of Gragas

[Guardian Angel] is a nice balanced item with one of the best unique passives. This is a nice last item for any champion that wants an extra bit of magic resistance and armor resistance.

Force of nature is a great anti AP item, I would definitely get this for Gragas if they have a heavy caster and mage team, and also it provides great health regeneration which is one of the key factors for this build

Mercury's treads is an alternative to Ninja Tabi, use these boots if they have high CC and AP

Randuin's Omen is great for when they have a high AD team and for this type of Gragas as it has nice health input and health regeneration. The active also can help devastate those who are trying to run or to help your team run. I would highly recommend this if they got a heavy AD team.

Banshee's Veil is a great AP item and offers a nice income of health and mana. the unique passive also is really good. Overall a reasonable and useful item for [[gragas]

Others that are good but not great:


My recommended builds for the truly special brewmaster

Gragas the Guardian:


Gragas is heavy on AP:


Gragas enjoys AD company:


Gragas and his fists! ( YES 2 WARMOG's! :) <-- my favourite )

Now this is tricky, as with the 30~50 games i've used this build i've also gone differently with my runes, often by mistake (I won one ranked game with smite and armor penetration runes :D).

Thus so the ones i've selected are not recommended, just one of the few rune setups I use. However other runes that are useful for this particular build are:

For my masteries I've chosen a set that makes me more tanky and fitting for my build and summoner spells, another mastery set you can go is 21/0/9 or 21/9/0 however the one i've got is my recommended, prior to the 1 point on exhaust as that's optional.

There is no real good or bad summoner spell for this build, however I wouldn't get:

Rally for obvious reasons
you're not jungling so pretty useless

and wouldn't recommend getting:

as you won't be using much mana anyway, especially with your Drunken Rage being maxed first.
you'll have your passive Happy Hour and also great health and health regeneration late game, so again it'll kind of be a waste of a slot.

Generally speaking Gragas works well as a support and also works well with a wide range of champions. If you have a chance to go solo-lane i would ask if you can go as Gragas has amazing lane survival which is another reason why he works so well with he majority of champions as he can, with this build, hold a fight.

Champions that Gragas works well with in duo-lane include:
Ashe
Taric
Trundle
Annie
Soraka
Blitzcrank
Malphite
Nidalee
Zilean
Sion
Sona
Ryze
Morgana
Janna
Miss Fortune
Shen
Pantheon
Fiddlesticks
Gangplank

Champions that Gragas doesn't work so well with in duo-lane include:
Karthus
Rammus
Udyr
Amumu
Garen

- great teamwork techniques include having your ally stun, hold, or immobilize the enemy so you can perfectly angle your Explosive Cask to bring him towards you, or to your turret.

- another great technique is constantly using Body Slam to slow the enemies so your team can catch up or hit them freely (if they're slowly running away)

When working in team-fights your main objective is too soak in as much damage as possible, if you're about to die and you havn't used your ultimate, Explosive Cask then use it and Body Slam to safety and return to the team fight, if necessary a few seconds later as late game you'll have a lot of health regeneration to get 500~1000HP back within 12 seconds with conjuction of your passive.

So to clarify this build mainly focuses on a different approach to a tank Gragasand also a change from AP. It's generally a really fun build to play and it's not a build to go really good stats on, the main aim and objective of this build is to have great survival whilst also doing reasonable damage. It's also a great harasser as with the huge health regeneration from both your items and passive you can stay on lanes longer and also in fights longer by fighting then running off for a few seconds and fighting again.

- Screenshots of games
- Ranked play
- More experiments and justification on what runes work best