I think Graves is OP right now. But like many assassin characters, his stat situation must be tuned very finely or else Graves would be left in the dust. 1) Graves damage is insane.
2) Graves is pretty squishy, like all range ADs, but his passive makes him a little bit less squishy.
3) Graves is ranged.
4) Graves has an great escape spell (W).
5) Graves has an good burst dmg.
6) Graves is funny to play.
7) Graves W spell is very nice (AND NEW!).
8) Graves can easily last hit.
9) Graves is graves. :)

Awesome passive. You will never notice it, but you will be thankful it is there. With enough health regen and harassment you will be able to survive in the lane for a very long time. Great passive for a ranged carry that likes to get up close and personal.


Very good harass/farming spell. Optimally, you want all 3 shots to your target so just E and Q to quickly harass someone. This skill can either do massive damage or a little bit of damage depending on how far away you are. It is your strongest nuke and should be maxed first regardless of what build you go with.


Mini Noc ult. It has a weird cast time so cast it like how you would cast Brand's Pillar.
You can also use it to zone people when you want last hits, want to take a tower, etc. This is a skill you NEVER want to get caught it. An AoE slow is incredibly useful in a teamfight so always keep it handy. I max it second and take a point at level 2. The reason being that it can burst champions down with your Q and you always want that slow and vision reduction for the rest of your team to exploit.


Its really good for DPS, Never forget to use it when in fights. To be fairly honest I treat this skill like Ezreal's Arcane Shift and get one point in it. Reason being that an AoE slow is already great for slowing my enemy's advance, this can be used to jump over some walls in the jungle and is useful in almost every escape/chase scenario in the game.


Really good burst skill. At lvl 6 you can W E Q Autoattack R and kill most carries from 2/3 hp to 0 Your mega-nuke. The range is actually much further than the line dictates since it spreads into a cone at the end of its intended path. Due to this fact alone I've obtained so many kills from very far away, and its also great for weakening enemies clumped together in a teamfight.

Greater Quintessence of Desolation
x3

Greater Mark of Desolation
x9

Armor pen is great for damaging squishy champions


x9


x9

We want the marks to deal more damage, the seals for the ability to take one or two tower shots or survive the ad carry's which you are going to kill.

Autoattack every Caster minion once then get close and Q them for gold showers.
Once you get a BF sword, autoattack every minion once, get close to the melee ones and Q them for gold.
Late game W and Q minions for very fast farming.

Early Game

Since the champion is very squishy, the best item choices with starting 475 gold is a , which costs all your starting gold. But mostly I buy and 3x because im faster and I think my damage is good enough in the early game. So, if you think your dmg is not high enough and you want some extra life, pick , else pick and 3x .

Note: Buying will give you faster your core, because you cant build anything out of .

Note: Buying a couple of in the early game is pretty much essential because you can stay longer in your lane to grab more EXP.




Normally Core:


Tanky Core:


Tanky enemys:





Helps you dominate the lane early game in the first few levels. A quickdraw followed up by a close range buckshot can be devastating at level 2, and can sometimes draw first blood. The doran's blade helps this a lot.


I grab these boots for an early increase in attack speed, which I feel is his main early weakness. Boots also obviously allow movement speed to make everything in lane easier to dodge/harrass.


rush a BT because Graves is extremely powerful as soon as he gets some attack damage. once you get the bf sword you will notice a massive increase in your damage output. It is not yet necessary to get more attack speed because of your E and bezerker greaves.


At this point, you will have a decent amount of lifesteal to stay in lane for longer and dominate your opponents whilst having a decent amount of AD. Next up is to buy the black cleaver to further add to your AD and also boost your attack speed. The fact that it also grants armor penetration as you enter Mid game is also useful as you see many champions building bits of armor which can heavily reduce your damage.


By now, your damage and burst will be extremely potent. The IE just further adds to this potency with +80 attack damage. Also, the 250% crit means that you will often crit for around 600-700 at this point, which is devastating in teamfights. By now, your buckshot/ultimate combo will allow you to knock around 1/3 health of an opponent.



This is the final item I go to build, but do not usually get to it as the game is usually over. It is pretty self explanatory as you will need to try to cap your attackspeed late game, you get movement speed to get around the map late game, and get crit chance which helps your proc the 250% crit damage from the infinity edge.


The game hardly ever goes on this long, but if it does, sell your dorans blade and built a frozen mallet, giving some HP and also the crucial slow effect so no one can escape you and it stops the need for you to grab red lizard buff.

I prefer using and .



Let you avoid getting killed in a teamfight if you positioniong is poor.
Just pick it if you love 1v1 or if you like playing offensive. Use it to so save yourself and your team by casting it on the most dangerous enemy like, for example tryndamere.
Very nice spell, this will make sure that they dont escape with 20hp.

Pros:
-Massive close combat burst
-High AoE damage output
-Can jump over some walls in the jungle
-Durable as all hell when he's in combat

Cons:
-Starts off slow (305 base movement)
-Other ranged champions will give you trouble
-Squishy if ganked while out of combat