Buzz
With an explosive damage output through quick combos, Graves is a heavily utilized champion in ranked Speed Warfare matches. However, players also need to adopt appropriate equipment and rune setups for this champion to achieve maximum effectiveness.
1. Graves build guide: itemization, rune choices
- Divine Blade Mastery: Enhances critical hit rate and inflicts a slow effect with the innate ability Divine Paralysis.
- Echoes of Demise: In a meta leaning towards resilient champions with strong healing capabilities, this equipment suits Graves well, enabling him to penetrate the armor of tanky foes.
- Angelic Armor: Graves can be the primary damage dealer for the team, so preserving his life is crucial for victory. Angelic Armor serves as the perfect defensive gear for Graves to buy time for his teammates or escape using his skills.
Situational Items:
- Shadow Axe: With the ability to shoot 4 bullets at once, Graves can effortlessly trigger the Separation effect of this equipment with just two strikes, reducing the opponent's armor by 24%.
- Demon's Harmony Blade:
- Dance of the Phantom: With this gear, Graves won't fear being shocked in combat. Additionally, the impressive life steal from the Dance of the Phantom's innate ability enhances his survivability.
1.2. Rune Page for Graves in Haste Mode
1.3. Support Spells
- Punishment: An essential support spell for the jungle role. Upgrade to Blue Punishment when Graves has an early lead and is consistently ganking. Upgrade to Red Punishment when facing strong duelists in the jungle like Olaf or Master Yi.
- Swift Shift: Although Graves is quite mobile, Swift Shift can help him escape when under attack by the enemy team.
1.4. Skill Upgrade Order
Innate - Fate's Shift: Graves must reload after firing all bullets. Each shot fires 4 bullets that cannot pass through targets. Non-champion targets hit by multiple bullets are knocked back.
Ability 1 - Target-Piercing Shot
Graves fires a bullet that explodes after 2 seconds or 0.2 seconds upon hitting terrain. This skill should be maxed first to maximize burst damage.
Ability 2 - Smoke Bomb: Graves shoots a smoke canister to a designated area, creating a vision-reducing cloud. Enemies hit by the smoke canister suffer magic damage and have their Movement Speed reduced briefly. This skill should be maxed last due to the relatively long cooldown of Smoke Bomb.
Ability 3 - Quickdraw: Charges in a direction, reloads a bullet, and gains Grit for 4 seconds. Grit grants 4 armor (stacking 8 times) and refreshes when dealing damage to enemy champions. Charging towards enemy champions earns 2 stacked Grit points. Allocate one point in Ability 3 at level one and max it second to optimize early jungle clearing at level 1 and enhance Graves' resilience.
Ultimate - Explosive Shot: Graves fires a powerful shot dealing massive damage to the first target hit. After hitting a champion or reaching maximum range, the bullet explodes, dealing cone-shaped damage. The ultimate scales with Graves' level.
2. Playing Graves in Haste Mode
In the early game, Graves can clear jungle camps without much health loss thanks to his innate ability. With fast jungle clearing speed, Graves can organize invasions into the enemy jungle or early ganks to gain an advantage for the solo lanes.
Despite being a jungler with swift clearing, Graves struggles to control large targets. Therefore, rely on teammates to ward and carefully monitor objectives like Dragon, Herald, or Baron.
Additionally, maintain Grit during skirmishes by using Quickdraw as soon as stacked Grit points vanish to ensure a constant supply of armor and magic resistance.
Graves is at his strongest in the mid and late game. With a full set of equipment, Graves can easily 'oneshot' squishy enemy targets. However, players need to be cautious about positioning as Graves has relatively low health. Smoke Bomb is a crucial skill to thwart enemy assaults and counterattacks.
3. Champions Countering Haste Mode Graves
- Evelynn: Evelynn is the nightmare of squishy marksmen, and Graves is no exception. Control your jungle carefully by placing pink wards and avoid 1v1 encounters with Evelynn.
- Ahri: With versatile skills and single-target control effects, Ahri poses a challenging matchup for Graves. With short-range attacks, Graves struggles to reach Ahri, who boasts an extended reach.
Thus, Mytour has provided you with insights into building Graves, itemization, and optimal rune setups. We hope this information assists you in climbing the ranks with success using the champion Graves.
