Hi guys, this is my build for crit Graves, which is the best way of playing him since the 9.3 crit rework. I made this because since all the changes to the items and runes that Graves uses, a lot of old builds have become outdated. So I theorycrafted my own.

Have a good read!

I'm starting Hunter's Talisman over Hunter's Machete for two reasons. The first is that it allows you to do the best jungle route which is red buff -> raptors. Without talisman you can't clear raptors early without losing lots of HP. And the second is that Hunter's Machete is a very poor item on Graves : it gives on-hit damage, which is a terrible stat on the champion with the lowest attack speed in the game. Since I'm running Legend: Bloodline, I don't need machete for the lifesteal, but you can still get a machete if you run another rune.

I'm skipping the jungle item to rush an Infinity Edge just after talisman. IE gives far more damage than Warrior enchantment because it gives crits on top of more AD. This means a much faster early clear, as well as more damage in ganks too.

Phantom Dancer gives an amazing mix of defense, utility, and offense. It allows you to kite and chase like crazy. Graves also needs the ghosting since his autoattacks don't go through minions. A much better option than Statikk Shiv if you have the choice, however you should still go shiv instead of PD if you need Maw of Malmortius, since the maw and PD passives don't stack.

You get one stack of cleaver's armor reduction for each of your shotgun pellets that hit (4 on a normal shot and 6 on a crit). So the cleaver passive stacks instantly on one autoattack. Best synergy ever, this is your go-to armor reduction item.

Last Whisper items have a much weaker synergy with Graves than Black Cleaver since you lose out on the health and CDR, but Lord Dominik's Regards gives more armor penetration and Mortal Reminder counters healing, so sometimes you still want one of those instead of cleaver. Against a full armor stacking comp you can even get both.

Typical full Graves build is 3 crit items, one armor penetration item, and one defensive item among those three, depending on what you're facing.

Both elixirs can be good depending on whether you need tenacity or not.

Predator is the optimal keystone on Graves IMO. It solves his main weakness which is his mediocre ganks because of lack of target access. Other people run Fleet Footwork, which is a massively nerfed rune that hardly does anything anymore, Graves doesn't need sustain in the jungle, and 20% movement speed for 1 second? Please. It's less than a third of a Phase Rush. Electrocute is all right, but more adapted to a lethality build. Besides, Predator also gives bonus damage so I'd rather have damage *and* positioning over just damage.

More mobility for counterjungling and better target access for ganking, a big reason for running Domination.

Very strong rune, getting lifesteal from the rune page is important since by putting all your gold in crit items you don't naturally build lifesteal. The rune also stacks naturally while clearing the jungle, so amazing synergy.

With this + bloodline you get a free Bloodthirster without having to build one, leaving you room to go full crit.

Attack speed stat shard : This is a must to accelerate your early clear. The way Graves' passive works is that he scales extremely well with low amounts of attack speed but poorly with high attack speed values. So "a bit of attack speed but not too much" is the name of the game.

Graves is an aggressive farmer, counterjungler, and counterganker. He can be a bit confusing if you're picking him up because he's not the best ganker (if you're not used to him you could end up AFK farming for 15 minutes and not seeing any opportunity to make plays), however he is the best at contesting jungle camps, fighting the enemy jungler 1v1, punishing greedy ganks/overextending from the enemy jungler, and winning 2v2s.

Most efficient jungle route is always red buff -> raptors -> blue side -> crab (= full clear).

Ganking is fairly straightforward : dash in, autoattack, save Smoke Screen for AFTER your target uses Flash, and use the slow from your smoke to set up a perfect End of the Line.

Get an Oracle Lens on your first or second back. It allows you to gank better and most importantly clear vision on dragons. Graves is amazing at soloing dragons. He has huge sustained damage and should the enemy team notice, he can just dash out of the pit with Quickdraw or even Collateral Damage after smiting the dragon. Which makes it completely safe.

When your lanes are pushed, you have two options. Either counterjungle if you see the enemy jungler on the other side of the map or if you think you can beat him 1v1 (you can also ping your laners for help since you have priority). Or set up a lane gank, which Graves excels at. Walk to your lane bush unseen (turn on Oracle Lens if you're in the botlane since those bushes are often warded), wait for the lane to push back to you, and engage when the opponents come near.

Graves is also very good at tower diving. With his combo E -> smoke -> autoattack -> Q -> ult out, he can deal a ton of burst damage under tower and take only one towershot.