Hi, this is my first guide and its for Graves, the newest champion to join the League :). For now I'm going to keep it brief and short, as I'm still learning all his tactics but wanted to share with you some tips and also the build of items, runes & masteries that I use.

I build him as a typical ranged AD carry, but focus on more attack damage at the beginning due to gaining a large amount of attack speed from his E, quickdraw. There will be more about the items in the relevant section :).

As for runes, I use:



MARKS

+1.66 Armor Penetration x9



SEALS

+0.76% Attack Speed x9




GLYPHS

+0.15 Magic Resist per level x9



QUINTESSENCES

+2.25 Attack Damage x3

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This allows me to gain a high amount of damage early game, due to my bonus AD and ArPen over others. The slight bonus in attack speed also makes up for Graves' relatively low base attack speed at the start of the game. Graves has a decent health pool for a carry, so I didnt get any Health runes, but instead some Magic Resist glyphs as I just find they help early game against AP champions.

Not much to say about masteries, I take a standard 21/0/9 build going for the most damage output as possible and taking 1 point in utility for neutral buff duration, namely for red lizard buff :).

Here I will explain Graves' build that I find to be the most successful:

DORANS BLADE

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.


BERSERKER'S GREAVES

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.


BLOODTHIRSTER

I 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.


BLACK CLEAVER

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.


INFINITY EDGE

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.


PHANTOM DANCER

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.


FROZEN MALLET

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.

PASSIVE: TRUE GRIT


Graves passive makes him gain armor and magic resist the longer he stays in combat.

This always happens when you go into fight and is something you should keep an eye on, as going into a fight with it already stacked to 10 can make you much less prone to damage. This stat-bonus passive means that I can also forfeit armor seals for attack speed seals due to his fairly low attack speed early game.

Q: BUCKSHOT


Graves fires three bullet in a cone, damaging all enemies in their path.

This is Graves' signature move. It has an extremely high base damage which is why it is skilled first, and has many uses. At point blank range, if all 3 bullets damage the same person they will take 70% bonus damage, and early-mid game this can literally take off 1/3 of an opponents HP. It also has uses in farming minions waves, of course.

W: SMOKE SCREEN


Graves fires a smoke canister at the target area creating a cloud of smoke. Enemies inside the smoke cloud have reduced sight range and movement speed.

His W is mainly used as a utility spell. It does a small amount of damage but nothing significant. Its mainly used for the sight reduction and slow; it can be used in many different situations - escaping, chasing enemies or in team fights to blind opponents. It is very helpful in teamfights as it can be used to counter AP nukes for example Brand/Malzahar as they lose sight of the enemy, often saving your teammate(s).

E: QUICKDRAW


Graves dashes forward gaining an attack speed boost for several seconds. Hitting enemies with basic attacks lowers the cooldown of this skill.

Can be used for the massive attack speed bonus and is the main reason why you do not need to build attack speed first on Graves. Can also be used to escape as it allows graves to jump through small walls. Very useful for offense and defence.

R: COLLATERAL DAMAGE


Graves fires an explosive shell dealing heavy damage to the first target it hits. After hitting a champion or reaching the end of its range, the shell explodes dealing damage in a cone.

Combined with his Q, buckshot, this spell can deal enormous burst damage. In teamfights, it can also be used to deal massive aoe damage due to the cone effect at the end. Generally useful as a nuke spell, not much more to say.

I hope you enjoyed this brief Graves guide, I mainly made it just to get a decent build onto mobafire, so people can have success with him. This was my first guide so excuse any mistakes - I also cannot figure out how to put his base health etc at the top, but oh well :)

In the future, I may add other sections such as skill sequence, summoner spells, pros/cons, farming etc. But for now, this outlines the basic details.

I hope you like the guide, please upvote it if you did it took me a while to type out! Also, post your scores and what you think of graves in the comments! :D

Changelog:

24 October 2011:
[*] Revamped the formatting of the whole guide, pictures/colours etc. :D!
[*] Guide created - working on colours, formatting and pictures to make the guide more appealing. More detail coming soon.