The more you play with him, the more you like him. Graves is an extremely high attack damage carry. His mission is simple, carry his team to victory. His first focus should be farming, he needs high farm, the farm will give him the gold necessary to build his items to carry, and the high farmer he has, the faster he carries the team.

If you're playing Graves in solo queue ranked, if the meta is followed you should have a support. For me, the best support when I play Graves is Taric. Always ask in select if the support can play taric. Taric has a good heal and has a one target stun merged survivability of a tank and aoe damage. If you get engaged taric can imediatly stun enemy ad carry and heal you, otherwise, he can engage with stun to make it easier for you to hit your skillshots. Otherwise, supports like Leona and Alistar are also good, and Soraka can also provide good amount of mana and heal to have good sustain in lane.

You should also focus only last hitting to don't push your lane and make easier for your jungle to gank. If you're messing with last hits just calm down because when you start building AD it will be easier.

I always use, no matter the build I'm gonna do, the same runes for graves.

Flat Armor Penetration Marks -- You maybe won't notice it soon, but as long as the time passes and your enemies buy armor, this runes will make a huge difference that flat AD wouldn't, besides, you may not buy Last Whisper with this runes because you already have some armor penetration, however, I discourage it.


Flat Armor Seals -- In my opinion, any ranked ad carry should use this seals, it's very important the early 13 flat armor bonus because it will provide survivability on your lane against enemy ad carry. Without this seals, you're done.


Magic Resist p/lvl Glyphs -- Well, I think there aren't really great glyphs for an ad carry, so I recommend, from all of them, magic resist p/lvl to give you some late game survivability.


Flat Attack Damage Quintessences -- This is where you can choose where you want to use, depending on enemy team/own build, I always use this ones and I fell comfortable with some early attack damage.

Q: Why the hell you use that masteries (21-5-4)?
A: Because I can :D

All of you may think that it's troll masteries, but I like them. The offensive page is normal, for all ADs, the +6 flat armor is almost half of the runes value, and the reducing of minions damage (in the defense page) helps your survivability. The utility page grants that after you die you'll be alive more quickly and gives less recall time.

Q: But I don't die, why should I have the "reduce time spent death" masteries?
A: Me neither, but is viable. If you know how to use graves you won't need that much more mana and you can spend one of the 3 points I used on the "Flash CD reduction". But in late games, when you are the one of your team that can melts everybody, you will like that if you die, quickly respawn to defend.

Essential

-- In any AD carry build this boots are the ones you should have in my opinion. Any other is useless.

-- The main damage provider. Essential to crush your enemies with epic critical strike. Combines perfectly with phantom dancer.

-- You can have 1000 AD, but without attack speed it won't have the same effect. Completely essential too.

-- Great item in my opinion. Unless you have lifesteal runes or another lifesteal item (this one is the best) you should buy bloodthrister to provide survivability.

Optional

-- Usefull when you want a bit of more attack speed and enemy team has armor.

-- Thornmail? No sweat! 40% Armor Penetration deals with it.

-- I use it very often. Provides good health and slows enemies when I'm chasing them.

-- I don't use it very often but if you want another chance in the teamfight, here you have it.

-- If you still can't beat enemy's armor/health you should try using madreds.

-- A second phantom dancer for max attack speed.


Less viable

-- If enemy team has much ap and you also need some health/mana
or
-- Too much ap focused on you

-- Enemy ad carry beating you late game

The skill sequence is all the same for any build; R>Q>E>W

Ultimate always comes first, you should add a point at level 6, 11 and 16.
Your Q is you primary ability damage, gives good burst.
With your E you can escape some skillshots, pass through walls and get extra attack speed.
Your W is for utility, you should blind enemy's ad carry or slow (it slows) enemy jungler when comes to gank (like lee, works exceptionally on lee, cause he gets no vision to Q)

In ranked, when solo queue (or not), you should ask your team to give you the max kills possible and don't take your farm. In the first minutes focus farming and ask your support to always have the river warded. Care with overextending and try just to give the last hit on the minions to don't push your lane. If you have a jungler like lee you will like that your enemy botlane have pushed hard, so that lee appears for behind and ultis. Try to harass enemy ad carry with some basic hits when you can't last hit. You should try to aim your Q to last hit minions and still hit enemys. Always focus ad carry, and when a team fight starts (2vs2 -- 5vs5) the first thing you should do is get in position where you can melt enemy ad carry and blind him with your W. Use your ulti as a finisher because it has good range and can hit enemys after they flashed away.

Pros:

- Great damage burst
- Great combo with abilities
- Blind ability
- Good mobility but can't be compared with tristana and corki
- A passive that increases armor and magic resist while in combat
- Good AOE ulti
- Good base AD
- Cool badass champion

Cons:

- Low range (one of the lowerest)(525)
- Low movement speed
- Low base attack speed
- Only W as crowd control
- Has so much cool skins that you don't know which one you should use