Pros:
High damage bursty type.
Very easy to sustain with
Very mobile.
Rather tanky
very good at peeling people off of teammates.
Cons:
His only form of mobility is how he initiates.
One trick pony.
Very easy to take kills.

Well, for Marks I like to take Greater Mark of Magic Penetration. Pretty straight forward, magic pen for casters is a must. makes it easier to get through that magic resist.

For seals, I like to take greater seal of vitality. In my opinion getting health for middle lane is the best. You could also get magic resist if you feel like that would help. but i think getting health is the best. makes me play much better when i have a little more HP behind my aggressive play.

For Glyphs, I like to take Greater Glyph of Magic Resist. Flat MR in this case will help you scale very well early against some early damage mages. Since you are melee range and can only last hit with your auto attacks when Barrel Roll is down this helps. If you are going against mages like Karthus, Orianna, Ryze, LeBlanc you are going to take a lot of early game damage. Getting this extra little bit from magic resists will help you sustain better. :)

For Quints, Its plain and simple. I take Greater Quintessence of Ability Power. For flat ap that adds to my ap per level glyphs. This is a standard build on most mages to get this. Some might get Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration But i feel like that much Magic Pen is insane. One because you get Sorcerer's Shoes and Void Staff. Which is already enough magic pen to last you for the match.

In the mastery tree. I go for a 21/9/0 approach like most casters do to maximize damage output and all of the fixings.

Offensive Tree:
4 points in Mental Force allow you to get free points in ability power. You can't go wrong with free ability power :). 4 points in Sorcery for that easy 4% Cooldown reduction. 1 point in Arcane Knowledge for 10% magic pen. Pretty self explanitory for that decision. then 3 points in Havoc . increases damage output by 1.5% if you take all three points. 4 points in Blast for the 1 ability power per level extra. On top of your runes. 4 points in Archmage for an increase of ability power by 5%. Might not seem like a lot, but is pretty useful. finally we take 1 point in Executioner for damage increase on lower healthed targets.

Defensive Tree:
3 points in Resistance for the magic resist. If you are playing gragas you will be mid against a mage more than likely. The extra magic resistance comes in handy. Next we take 1 point in Hardiness for the extra armor and to move down the tree. 4 points go into Durability . I take this because like I said I like extra hp for my aggressive play. Last point I put in is Veteran's Scars for the extra 30 health you get.

Alright as we get into the guide a little bit I will discuss my item choices here and why I chose the items I did.

Beginning Items:
I start off with Boots and 3 Health Potion. As any lane really I start with boots and 3 pots. Its just a safe bet keeps you mobile early and lets you sustain yourself till you get items. Then once I'm about at 1000 gold mid or a bit higher 1200 or whatever the case may be. I recall and go back and buy 2 Doran's Ring and even a couple sight ward. This allows you to have enough ability power, health, and mana regen to keep yourself together for most of early game. Then you go back to lane and farm like a crazy man or woman. Get a couple kills even and earn yourself all of the gold :D.

Mid Game Items:
After you are mid lane and work yourself up about 1600-2000 gold. You can go back and buy a Needlessly Large Rod and work towards your Rabadon's Deathcap. Mid game you should look at having a Rabadon's Deathcap and even Sorcerer's Shoes, working your way to Void Staff. At the end of mid game once you get into that heavy team fighting stage you should have Rabadon's Deathcap, Sorcerer's Shoes and an Void Staff. Which will lead you into your last few late game items.

Late Game Items:
Once late game hits you have a few options of items you can get. I suggest you get Zhonya's Hourglass, Lich Bane, and Will of the Ancients. Void Staff is to tear through there magic resist items they might build such as: Force of Nature, Banshee's Veil, even their Abyssal Mask. Lich Bane Makes you a mobile nuke. You use Barrel Roll then dash in with Body Slam use an auto attack with the Lich Bane proc. Then use Explosive Cask if they aren't dead yet. Grab a Will of the Ancients for more sustain on gragas. His burst damage will sustain your health easily. Plus it will help your other team mates. If you have an ap top such as Rumble, Vladimir, or Kennen it will mesh really well with them. because it gives them spell vamp and more ap which in turn will drop the enemy team faster. Now the reasoning behind Zhonya's Hourglass is easily explained. A super good item for casters. Helps you if you get focused you can just pop that active and become invunerable for a few seconds. Other reasons it will help is it gives armor. Which could help you against their top tanky ad carry. Might help you a little against their ad carry but not to much. Because if you are up against any ad carry they more than likely will pick up a Last Whisper that means your little armor you just picked up is gone.

When I play gragas I do what most people do when they play gragas. I max Barrel Roll by level 9 for maximum output in damage. Since Barrel Roll is gragas' main source of damage and ability to farm you want it maxed as soon as you can. After this is the where the real decision making comes. Some people max his W Drunken Rage next which is a viable option. Others max Body Slam which is also a very viable option. Lets break down why right now.

If you max out Drunken Rage first you get the effects of it. 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 his attack damage by 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70, and reducing damage taken by 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 / 18 % for 20 seconds. To shorten that down. He takes a drink from his keg giving him mana regen, attack damage, and damage reduction for a period of time. In other words it helps you sustain a lot better in lane. Makes it easier to keep yourself alive because you always have mana. Then gives you attack damage which scales well with your Body Slam. Scarra from dignitas actually maxes this out first and his reasoning. He maxes it out because he feels that it gives him mana and enough attack damage to help him farm and get the damage that Body Slam needs to do to be effective.

If you max out Body Slam Second. You are getting the effects of the slow and high burst damage of your combo way earlier. The only downside is you won't be getting all of the mana you should be because your W will only be like level 1 or 2. You will however have the longer slow duration and be more mobile. It will also help your combo a lot doing it. WildTurtle from CLG.Black levels this up on gragas first because, he feels that as gragas hed like to get out as much burst as he possibly can on the mid. He feels like Drunken Rage at level 2 should suffice for awhile.

Alright well basically you should only pick two spells as gragas when you mid. But depending on some circumstances you may need to pick others. The two summoner spells you should run is Flash and Ignite. Flash helps you get mobile, lets you pick up kills that are far away or even get out of fights that you know you can't win. Ignite is just a kill securer, it basically helps you secure kill much faster and can be useful on some mids. Like say your enemy team has some trolls and someone plays AP Master Yi. We all know that he is an annoying champ to lane against for many reasons. The biggest reason is Meditate, when he does this you can ignite wait for cooldowns to get up and then BURST his sorry butt down. Then type "/laugh" as you stroll away all giddy and such.

Other Viable Choices:
You could grab Exhaust I have no idea why you would need it but maybe your team has too many Ignite and wont change at all. Teleport is a viable choice to help gank lanes or even get back into mid lane faster. Other than that I see no other spells that would work. or at least nothing you should take as an ap middle.

When you play gragas a big part of playing him is sustain. His biggest way to sustain is his passive Happy Hour. Gragas takes a drink from his cask every time he uses an ability, restoring 2% of his maximum health over 4 seconds.. So basically once you hit level 14 and above and have good regen on mana you need to spam that passive. So if you are half health make sure wherever you are going to Body Slam a couple times on the way. To get the full effect of Happy Hour to work. Nothing wrong with having a little extra health than you normally would going into a fight or an engage on the dragon. Managing his passive is how you get the full potential out of gragas. Makes him much harder to deal with if you abuse that passive. Because hes always high health. Basically makes him Insane to deal with.


Another thing gragas is really good at doing is Zoning. If you get far ahead of your lane dont be afraid to be a bully. Once you get enough ability power you can farm creep waves easy, so just sit out front of the minions throw some barrels at your enemy and dont miss the last hits. The best thing about his Zoning ability mean he cant be zoned very well. Since Barrel Roll has such a large range its hard to zone you because you can just throw one barrel and take out creeps easy. Makes it super hard to Zone a gragas if you play him right. If you can't play him right then your enemy will take the advantage and walk all over you and your teammates.

8/25/12-Guide Published
8/26/12-Made some changes based on criticism