This is a pretty basic build I ended up testing a long time ago and enjoyed it enough and found enough success with it that I thought it would be worth sharing.

The basic idea behind this build came about when I thought about how much kiting power you could give Graves without focusing on CDR and E. The idea being that we abuse the synergy available in his rune and item options.

It's likely not perfect, and definitely can have mana problems depending on playstyle, but I've reached a point where I feel the build is adequate enough to lay the groundworks for other player's builds.

So we have a ton of things that synergize with each other to further the goal of unlimited kiting.

Core:

Secondary:

The obvious now, just like to get it down in writing so that everyone can understand it more clearly.


Fleet Footwork is buffed by Celerity and Alacrity (Although Alacrity of a less noticeable buff) as the MS buff is increased by Celerity and Alacrity allows you to attack more and lower your E cooldown more (Both the attacks and dashes will charge Energised).

Fleet Footwork is buff further by Stormrazor which increases the MS buff and the healing from the rune, while giving you a decent chunk of on-hit damage. This is useful for last hitting a caster behind melee minions as the on-hit will always damage the target of your auto even if your pellets don't hit them, it also applies its slow this way meaning that your pellets don't necessarily need to hit your target to slow them. This is extremely useful for catching out people that can dash away from your autos as you still gain the MS buffs and apply the slow.


This is all wrapped up in a neat little package by the addition of Rapid Firecannon. The range buff it gives is increase by Stormrazor as well as the damage it deals, which overrides the Stormrazor on-hit as it deals 60-140 damage rather than a flat 50. This is a decent power-spike as it lets you poke more reliably and chase people down easier.



The other items listed are situational but all add to your ability to kite in one way or another:

Black Cleaver on dealing physical damage, increased on kills.

Phantom Dancer on damaging enemy champs, as well as ghosting you (Useful on Graves to catch out someone trying to abuse your autos with a minion wave)

Blade of the Ruined King with a point and click active that steals MS, very useful into Kayle/Gnar and similar champs.

Mercurial Scimitar through an active that cleanses all crowd control debuffs from you while giving a short burst of MS.

Those are the basics of it.

Obviously as a laner, Graves leaves a bit to be desired. But with the right supports and into the right match-ups he can be a surprisingly powerful flex pick.

I recommend buying a corrupting pot if you personally have trouble sustaining mana on Graves, though I prefer to start either of the Doran's items.

Not much to be said about the nuances of laning. Baiting them in with low health minions and denying them minions entirely with your W is fun, but it is mana heavy. Only do it for cannons, or if you're really ahead. Or just to piss them off I guess.

You want to play safe for the most part, only play aggressively if you have a support that complements it. Otherwise, just farm safely until you hit your items and begin to hard scale. Crit Graves is disgusting at 45-100% crit chance so if you have to choice between a pickaxe and a crit cloak after Rapid Firecannon, buy the crit cloak.

If you want to know why it's so important then lemme run you down. When Graves crits, he fires an extra pair of pellets and increases the fan in which he shoots. Graves' E happens to have its cooldown lowered by 0.5 seconds for each pellet that hits an enemy, ergo it lets us use E more and that lets us stack Energised more which gives us more Fleet procs and Stormrazor slows and Rapid Firecannon autos. Which all adds together to give us a perfect storm of kiting. Simple concept with a lot of nuance and fun to it.

Cheers for taking the time to check the build out. Played closing in on a hundred games with this one alone, and I play a lot of other Graves builds too. Drain Tank being my current favourite. This build will always have a special place in my heart though. Farewell.