Hey! My name is NeroZYN and this is my Graves Top Lane Guide. I started trying out Graves in Season 8 Gold Elo, and managed to get Diamond in Season 9+!

Main Account: https://euw.op.gg/summoner/userName=NeroZYN (Currently Playing)
Second Account: https://euw.op.gg/summoner/userName=Biue Ward

I Stream almost everyday at https://www.twitch.tv/nerozyn playing only Graves Toplane in the EUW Server. Feel free to stop by and follow the Twitch and subscribe to the Youtube Channel!

Join my Discord! https://discord.com/invite/GPtvUyz

Graves Toplane is great as you can easily dominate the enemy laner whilst sufficiently being able to either Splitpush or become very strong for Teamfights. He can be used as an extra backliner to peel the ADC, frontliner with enough HP and Damage Items, or an Assassin with mostly Lethality items! From here on forwards I will show you how I play Graves Toplane.

Pros:

- Can bully laners due to range advantage + Armor Increase from E making him tanky.
- Flexible in terms of what items you can buy.
- Can become a split pusher or a teamfighter.


- Can feel VERY out of place within the game. (Your role becomes very confusing in terms of your responsibility within a teamfight or in general)

Cons:

- If your BEHIND your practically useless unless you pick up some kills. Champions like Jax would literally farm you lol.
- Wave control is infinitely harder!
- Somewhat difficult to decide on what to build

Just want to say before I get into talking about builds; unless Riot Games changes Graves to the point where he's alot more tankier and deals less damage for whatever reason, he will almost ALWAYS be played better with the build that deals MORE DAMAGE. If you want to build Divine Sunderer, Stridebreaker, Goredrinker, Bruiser in general, they will most likely not perform as well as going full lethality or full crit. With that being said, some builds like the Bruiser build are recommended if your team already has the damage and could do with a frontline/utility champion! I will explain more later on.

Standard Crit Build

The Standard Crit Build is one of Graves's most comfortable and successful builds. When in doubt on what to build, you generally shouldn't be building anything else but either Crit or Lethality. Building Crit is alot easier due to the variety of items that come with it, with the downsides of it being really expensive.

I tend to go crit alot more than lethality, especially against bruisers and tanks because I will be utilising my auto-attacks alot more than my abilities; I cannot fully utilise Lethality with my abilities if they dont one-shot or do a lot of damage to the point where I can finish them off without any troubles. This is also why I use PTA rather than Electrocute when going full crit, as it supports burst damage with auto-attacks as well as long duration fights with its vulnerability. Now let's talk about the items.

The core three items i'm building at the moment have been:

Shieldbow: Altough this is getting nerfed from the start of Season 12, Immortal Shieldbow is such a great mythic as it provides Sustainability within its Lifesteal and Shields, Damage, Critical Strike and Attack Speed. It's also very easy to stack Long Swords to maximise your damage output early in the game. I was never a fan of Galeforce since it's CD Nerf, and you dont auto-attack enough for Kraken Slayer 's passive to be beneficial to you.

Collector / LDR: Despite imLS ****ting on The Collector, I find that it's still a really good stat stick, and I have been mainly using it for its Serrated Dirk. I build Serrated Dirk as my first item in the laning phase as it's quite literally the best offensive item at that price range in the game. It helps with your aggressiveness in the laning phase and can pick up kills quite quickly. I have made quite a view videos displaying this. If I find that I need Lord Dominik's Regards instead of The Collector, I hold Serrated Dirk and build LDR instead, or if I havent finished Dirk, just build Last Whisper.

Navori Quickblade: For some reason after using Infinity Edge alot, I'm not really a fan of it, and have been building Quickblade more often; Being able to E-Spam is so useful as its your ability to keep you mobile and also provides armor and an auto-attack reset. It provides a good amount of damage and crit chance (ofcourse lol).


Now that I have listed my core three items, I will then talk about other items that can fill up the remaining slots. before that, I would like to mention; almost every game is different. There will be times where YOU will have to build outside the norm in order to win the game. Maybe you build Last Whispers first item into Shieldbow, or buy Executioners early because of Mundo/Olaf. These decisions are for you and only you to figure out, and you will get used to it the more experience you gain !

When playing Crit Graves, I normally prefer to buy atleast one defensive Item at full build. These normally consist of either Wit's End or Death's Dance. However you can also build Randuin's Omen (Anti-Crit), Thornmail(Anti-Heal), Spirit Visage(Increased Healing).
At this point in the game, you most likely already have the damage and could do with getting Defensive Items to prevent being one-shotted. THIS IS NOT MANDATORY; DO WHAT YOU THINK WILL WIN THE GAME
Other Crit items that I normally build are;

Bloodthirster: Good Damage, Crit Chance and Lifesteal, as well as a Shield. Very good item, sucks that anti heal is very prevalent nowadays which can hurt this items usage a little bit but its very good if you really dont know what other crit item to buy.

Essence Reaver: Not properly tried this item yet, but similar reasons for the Bloodthirster build. Apart from the discussion about Lifesteal, this is also a good offensive item if you cant decide what to build.

Phantom Dancer: I used to love this item, however it's not something I'd buy often due to the fact that It feels way more rewarding prioritizing an Item that provides more damage. Although it's cheap and easy to buy, you dont want to be shooting pea's, you want to hit like a truck, hence why I feel PD isn't as great. It's amazing for its mobility though, and if you feel you can utilize that then go ahead!

Stormrazor: I strictly only buy Stormrazor against Tryndamere; the most infuriating champ to play against. I buy it second item and helps when kiting him when he attempts a turret dive or a trade etc. Other than that, it's not as good as it used to be (rip) as it doesnt provide much damage and its bonus damage is not great.

Rapid Fire Cannon: Amazing item, I preferably build it towards the end of the game. A multi-use item, as it can be used to Attack Ranged champions as well as kite from tanks/bruisers you name it! Severely underrated and you should consider this item if your deaths are ramping up towards the end of the game.

Sunderer/Shieldbow Bruiser Build

As you can see, this build is very strict and linear; there is barely any room for you to replace one item in the build for another. For the Bruiser Build my aim was to somewhat give Graves another role within the game that does not consist of solely providing damage. The problem with Graves is that sometimes teamfights are not solved by just dealing more Damage. Champions like Yone, Riven, Soraka, Malphite where they are really tanky, have alot of utility or contain alot of sustainability/healing within their kit or items can always win teamfights over the team with 'more offense'

As a result, this build was made to counter that. Personally I'm a big fan of the interaction between Titanic/Ravenous Hydra and Black Cleaver. One auto-attack from Graves can proc the Black Cleaver debuff on every single champion in a teamfight. This is INSANELY useful for teams that are mostly AD and dont want to build Black Cleaver/any armor pen item. Not only is this interaction with Black Cleaver, but also with Serpent's Fang and Anti Heal. So imagine being able to FULLY utilise debuffs such as the ones listed, on EVERY champion with only a couple auto-attacks within a teamfight. Even the champions hiding behind your bullets (Soraka for example) would be impacted by this debuff, insanely decreasing her healing in a fight.

Using Black Cleaver and Titanic Hydra's HP within their stats, as well as buying either Death's Dance, Wit's End or Hullbreaker WITH Conditioning/Overgrowth can make you a proficient Bruiser for your team! You finally don't have to rely on your damage and not dying to actually be useful haha!

The downsides of this build is the fact that you definitely dont deal as much damage as you used to, so beware of that when engaging on the enemy alone. Hope you guys enjoy this build as much as I do.

Stridebreaker-Lethality Build

Initially this build was for fun, however if your early game is played well It can creat a dangerous snowball effect.
The idea is to fully utilise the Ironspike Whip + Serrated Dirk combo. The spike (no pun intended) from this is insanely good, and I do recommend you guys try it out. Outside of laning phase, play like an assassin. Sit in brushes, engage on squishies and proc ur slow, set up your Q wallbangs for the one shot! I do recommend that towards the end of the game, you replace Stride with Eclipse as it becomes harder to utilise the active.

Utilising PTA

With laning, you want to be able to fully utilise your Quickdraw so you can selectively choose short or extended trades within the lane. Press the Attack allows you to do this, as you can proc one hit onto the enemy laner, and then Auto Quickdraw Auto onto them to proc the Bonus AD Damage onto them. This deals huge amounts of damage which can build up over time. I Have a video of demonstrating this on my Youtube Channel (The guide is very old, but the laning strategies remain the same!)
Here.

Here I explain how to handle 2v1 situations.

Combos with PTA.

Press the Attack

As shown in the videos above, Press the Attack can be utilised in a special way in which Graves can easily poke through minions to attack the enemy laner and gain 1 stack. This can be comboed with an Auto Quickdraw Auto to proc Press the Attack and gain Bonus AD Damage. This deals alot of damage, and can apply alot of pressure onto your laner which can setup for extended trades or to freeze the lane.

I choose this over Conqueror because it takes too long for it to take effect, and isn't utilised as well compared to other champions such as Jax Darius Sett. PTA only requires three Auto Attacks, makes the enemy laner vulnerable which leads to more damage output.

Fleet Footwork is great due to the sustain and movement speed it gives. It can be argued to take this over Press the Attack vs. Tanky matchups due to kiting capability. I prefer PTA over fleet personally due to my playstyle, and I feel fleet is very weak with little to no damage being done compared to PTA.

In my opinion these runes are standard, and are always required when picking Precision.

Triumph is very important so that you are always able to keep fighting within skirmishes as well as 2v1 situations. You can also go Presence of Mind to help with mana issues.

Legend: Alacrity compensates for the lack of attack speed you may have depending on the build you wish to go.

Last Stand can be swapped with Cut Down if you are going against a champion with alot of HP Cho'Gath

These runes are needed to prevent Graves from being a Glass Cannon (Does alot of damage, but is really weak and vulnerable to getting one shot). Boneplating makes it bareable to take poke from ranged champions Teemo Quinn, and to take short trades without taking severe damage.
Overgrowth will become more important further on into the game as it gives you alot of health to tank more damage, along with Death's Dance for sustain and resistance makes you really durable!



For the same reasoning as the previous runes, however this is also great if you are mainly looking to build the bruiser build. Conditioning allows you to get more armor/mr from your items as well as from your E.

Here I will display all of my guides which are inspired by LoL Dobby, be it matchups or simply how to teamfight / lane in general. (MORE COMING SOON)

Teamfighting Guide:
Play Video
Camille Guide: Play Video
Gwen Guide: Play Video
Irelia Guide: Play Video