Hello everyone! I am a german Graves otp. So far I haven't hit any crazy accomplishment worth mentioning. I saw a lot of people not knowing how to build Graves as a bruiser as of patch 25.21 as this patch significantly made Bruiser Graves a playable playstyle. I have been playing Bruiser Graves for a while now. I saw a lot of different build out there so I decided to make this guide to explain all of them and when to build which build. I fell in love with Graves due to his unusual kit and cool appearance.

Ganking: average- Graves has some mobility in his E allowing him to gap close and has a short slow on smokescreen(w). Graves does lack hard cc though.
Dueling: Strong- Grit(e passive) allows for a pretty solid tankiness, Graves can kite since he is a ranged champ, graves has good dps, smokescreen allows for some fancy plays to outplay in a 1v1.
Farming: Strong- First clear is not the greatest but still easily clears at crab spawn with 8 Grit stacks. After you reach your items your clear gets a whole lot faster.

New Destiny(passive) Graves' shotgun has some unique properties. He must reload when he runs out of ammo. Attacks fire 4 bullets, which cannot pass through units. Non-champions struck by multiple bullets are knocked back. A crit Deals increased damage and adds 2 extra pallets.

End of the Line(Q) Graves fires an explosive shell that detonates after 1 second, or after colliding with terrain. The first explosion deals less damage than the second and has a smaller hitbox. It explodes in kind of a "T" shape. This is your secondary damage source, his primary damage source are auto attacks.

Smokescreen(W) Graves fires a smoke canister at the target area creating a cloud of smoke that reduces sight range. Enemies caught in the initial impact are dealt magic damage and have their Move Speed reduced briefly. Anyone inside the smokescreen can only see what is inside the smokescreen.

Quickdraw(E) Quickdraw is probably the most essential part of the Graves kit. You can abuse Quickdraw during your first jungle clear since Graves can stack True Grit up to maximum armor before the first scuttle fight and maintain it during any skirmish. The buff from True Grit is what made Graves such a problem in S10 for many junglers when there are a lot of neutral objectives to contest and Graves always come to these with an advantage. Graves can also acquire 2 stacks of True Grit when he dashes towards enemy champions. The cooldown of Quickdraw is lowered for every bullet hit (4/6 per AA, crit/noncrit) so critical strikes rapidly reduce the cooldown which is why Crit Graves doesn't build too much Haste. Since Graves has limited auto attacks due to his passive New Destiny, it is important to fully utilize both the auto attack reset and bullet reload properties of Quickdraw. If you E at the start of a fight, you will have to reload after just 2 auto attacks, and you would have lost an entire bullet worth of damage in that short time span. Since you only have 2 bullets, losing that extra bullet from E can at most be considered a 50% dps loss which is insanely significant (especially in the early game where a majority of your damage will come from auto attacks). Mechanically, this ability is what I catch most Gold and below players using wrong because they miss so many auto attacks in fights as a result of misusing Quickdraw. As a short range champion, it is also important to keep in mind that your Quickdraw is a repositioning tool as well as a dps increase. Rather than dashing directly in or directly out, practice dashing in diagonals which are a middleground between fight commitment and giving up easy kills by accidently giving your enemy too much space from you and letting them get away.

Collateral Damage Collateral Damage functions as both a dash and a long range form of damage. This is useful for landing that final blow on champions that escape your auto attack and ability ranges due to high mobility and have a sliver of health remaining. This ability can also be used in close range to add to a close range burst combo along with End of the Line and an auto attack. When kiting melee champions you can use this as an extra dash in between Quickdraw cooldowns. Collateral Damage can also be used to dash you over certain size walls which can be a convenient form of escape. The most common mistake I have seen people make when using this ability would be to Collateral Damage a target before they are in kill range which would allow the target to get away since Collateral Damage will give your target distance from you which will most likely allow them to escape.

Pros:
+ Good early game
+ Good late game
+ Pretty alright mid game
+ Duels
+ Can snowball very hard
+ Can powerfarm

Cons:
- Falls off very hard if you ever fall behind
- Needs gank setup
- Struggles Against Armor Stacking Teams
- Struggles into Health stackers
- Short range
- Can struggle in teamfights without proper engage

Flash: Flash is a great summoner spell. Flash can be used both defensive by flashing away from death and as an offensive tool to get into the backline, land a q, get off an aa.

Ignite: Ignite is an alternative to Flash which amplifies early game power by giving you exceptionally strong dueling and skirmishing potential with an extra combat summoner spell. Nimbus Cloak and a 2 minute reduced cooldown as compared to Flash means you can take a lot more skirmishes early in the game and come out ahead thanks to the summoner spell advantage. Can be very useful to gain extra kill pressure on weak junglers like Zac and Evelynn or to deny healing from junglers like Fiddlesticks and Warwick. Thanks to Nimbus Cloak, it is possible for Graves to play without flash. Graves already has two dashes in his kit so he can make up for not having Flash by taking Phase Rush and running down the enemy champs.

Smite: Obviously you should go smite every game as smite is required for all junglers.

Most of this is explained in the notes.

In most of your games you want to go either Fleet Footwork or Dark Harvest.
Fleet gives you short movement boosts, great for catching people or not letting them run away.
Dark Harvest is really good for snowballing as it stacks as you kill people. It is great lategame to make End of the Line useful as it helps you deal that last tiny bit of damage. This should be your go-to runepage if you play crit.

For crit you could also go Phaserush.

There are two major builds.

Bruiser: Bruiser is great into comps with CC, if your team lacks tankiness, if your team already has enough damage.
When should you go what items?
For the first item choice it is either Ghostblade or Hubris.
Hubris should be the go to in most games as it allows you to deal a whole lot of damage after a few kills. It is great to build in a normal game.
Ghostblade is better in games where there are only a few kills happening, in those boring games as you won't be able to stack your hubris in those games.

Second item: Should mostly be Black Cleaver.
In some games where you are able to get off a lot of auto attacks you can also consider building Ravenous Hydra as a second item. In that case you replace the third item with your black cleaver.
You can also go Sundered Sky second as it allows you to get that guaranteed crit. Same as the Ravenous case you then build your black cleaver third.

If you go Black Cleaver second you should go either Maw or Shojin as a third item.
Maw into ap heavy comps or if the enemy team has a really fed Ap champ.
Shojin otherwise
Could maybe go sundered here aswell if you build black cleaver second.

4th item is usually gonna be Jak sho.

5th and final item should in most games be Bloodthirster as the lifesteal is really useful to get off more auto attacks and stay on the map longer.

Crit:
When should you go what items?
For the first item choice it is either Ghostblade or Hubris.
Hubris should be the go to in most games as it allows you to deal a whole lot of damage after a few kills. It is great to build in a normal game.
Ghostblade is better in games where there are only a few kills happening, in those boring games as you won't be able to stack your hubris in those games.

Second item should ALWAYS be Collector as the execute is really useful. It also allows your R to be useful again, especially when combined with Dark harvest your R can be a force by itself.

Third item: Black cleaver if your team is heavy ad or if you need HP.
Lord Dominiks regard if you want more damage and crit.
Mortal reminder if you need anti heal.

Fourth item:
Maw if the enemy team is heavy Ap.
Shieldbow if you already have a ton of damage and want more survivability.
Infinity edge if you need more damage.

Last item:
Infinity edge if you want more crit and a whole lot of damage. Keep in mind you will be more squishy if you decide to go Infinity edge.
Blood thirster in most games. Build it when you have the damage you need and want more survivability.

Optional items:
Blade of the Ruined King if the enemy team has multiple health stackers like chogath and mundo.
Chempunk sword: Good if you need anti heal. Only build if your team doesnt have 2 anti heal items already as the item is pretty bad stat-gold wise.
Mercurial/Qss: If the enemy team has annoying point and click cc.
Overlords: Good if you want more health and ad.
Serpents: Good if the enemy team has a lot of shields like Ivern E, Lulu E, Mordekaiser W etc.
Steraks: Good if you need to survive bursts for example a rengar combo.
Stridebreaker: good as first item but is expensive and doesnt have the greatest buildpath. Good into champs with high Ms that will always get away from you.
Trinity Force: Also good as a first item, it has the same weakness as Stridbreaker as it is expensive and doesnt have a good build path. Allows for a really strong dueling power.

In 90% of your games you usually want to Full Clear.

Full Clear: Red - Krugs - Raptors - Wolfes - Gromp - Blue
Blue - Gromp - Wolfes - Raptors - Red - Krugs
Which of those you chose is dependent on your lanes. You should always path towards your lanes with gank setup, example: nautilus support, Jax top, Renekton top.

Another fullclear version is: Raptors - Krugs - Red - Wolfes - Gromp - Blue
This allows you to then gank mid after scuttle, then clear Raptors - Krugs again into a big recall. After recall you most of the time want to run towards your wolfes as the camp should be respawning.

Common invades are (make sure to get a sweeper for invades): Red - E over the Pit wall and invade his blue
Raptors into an invade, since you clear raptors really fast you will be able to walk to his camps. You check to see if his blue is up, if it has been taken you wait until about 2:03 to then go to his gromp. You will have smite up, they should be low hp, gromp should be low hp. You will be able to steal gromp and kill them or burn their flash.
Wolfes - Gromp - Blue - E over Wall out of the pit, sit at his red.

First of all I want to thank the Graves subreddit r/GravesMains.
And thanks for reading. I apologise for any Grammar or Spelling mistakes.

Have a good one and enjoy the Graves games!

Reminder: Skins will not make you play any better. Spend money wisely.