In League of Legends: Wild Rift, Graves is a ranged-marksman champion that is unique due to the reason that he is not played in the dragon lane, but usually in the jungle role, and occasionally in the mid lane and baron lane. His kit revolves around his special passive with AoE basic attacks those knockback minions and especially monsters, more AoE damaging abilities, an ability that completely removes vision on whoever is in the area of the ability (which only he has in the game, at the moment), and a short dash with a cooldown that is reduced by auto-attacks. Moreover, he has one of the most flexible builds, rune selection, and playstyle in the game, next to Gragas. There is more to his abilities than it seems and we will be talking more about them in-depth in this Wild Rift Graves guide, so with further ado, let’s get into it!
Before we get into this guide, it is worth noting that the guide has been written by a Challenger player who is ranked in the top 4 Graves on the SEA server.
We also have previously discussed how to master playing with LoL Wild Rift heroes like Ammu, Master Yi, Jinx, Braum, Dr. Mundo, Akali, Yasuo, Singed, Jax, Darius, Ashe, Lulu, Miss Fortune, Blitzcrank, Teemo, Xayah, Rakan, Corki, Shyvana, Janna, Katarina, Leona, Pantheon, Diana, Galio, Fiora, Rammus, Sona, Kai’Sa, Rengar, Kha’Zix, Nasus, Renekton, Irelia, Riven, Nami, and Soraka. So make sure to check these hero guides as well. For now, let’s focus on Graves the Outlaw.
Ability Analysis
Graves is a champion with the common five skill sets of one passive and four actives. In this Graves guide, we are going to see how his abilities in League of Legends: Wild Rift work and how to use them in the most effective way possible. Moreover, we will give a few tips as well that you may not know about.
Passive – New Destiny
Graves’ shotgun has some unique properties:
Double Barrel: Graves must reload when he runs out of ammo. Attack speed reduces reload time slightly but reduces the time between attacks dramatically. 12 Gauge: Attacks fire 4 bullets. Units hit take 72% physical damage (increased by level) + 24% for additional bullets. Critical strikes fire 6 bullets and increase each bullet’s damage by 40%. Structures only take 75% damage. Buckshot Bullets cannot pass through units. Non-champions struck by multiple bullets are knocked back slightly.
- Double Barrel – getting used to his reload time is extremely important to be able to kite effectively.
- 12 Gauge – to be able to deal as much damage, make sure to hit all bullets whilst staying from a stay distance. If desperate, shoot face-to-face since it is sure to hit all bullets similar to a shotgun in real life. Also, in attacking turrets make sure to shoot as close as possible. Finally, critical hits fire more bullets meaning the cooldown reduction on Quickdraw will be higher.
- Buckshot – be careful since his auto-attacks can be blocked by minions, other champions, monsters, and structures. Since this passive knocks back monsters, utilize this effectively when clearing jungle camps to have an extremely healthy clear.
Ability 1 – End of the Line
Fires a powder round that deals 45 physical damage (45 + 40% bonus Attack Damage) and then detonates after 1.5 seconds to deal an additional 85 physical damage (85 + 100% bonus Attack Damage). Detonates in 0.25 seconds if the round hits terrain.
- End of the line is one of his main damaging tools besides his auto-attacks, and of course, his ult.
- Hitting this ability is very important to be able to put as much damage as possible, especially since it has a decent AD ratio with a total of 140% bonus AD, that is if you both the portions of the ability. While missing it will make you lose a significant amount of DPS especially when you’re using a Lethality build and not a crit build.
- It is possible to use End of the Line + Flash – for more information, check the Gameplay Tips section of the guide.
Ability 2 – Smokescreen
Throws a canister that creates a cloud of smoke for 4 seconds. Enemies within the smoke cannot see outside of it. Enemies caught in the initial impact take 60 magic damage (60+ 60% Ability Power) and are slowed by 50% for 0.5 seconds.
- Smoke Screen is one of the most unique abilities in the game.
- Graves is the only champion who is capable of blocking out people’s vision and as simple as it may seem, it can be used to blind enemy junglers on smite fights and escape the enemy by not letting them know where you are headed for instance.
- Similar to End of the Line, Smoke Screen + Flash backward is also possible though it is not as important as the first mechanic mentioned.
Ability 3 – Quickdraw
Dashes in a direction, reloading one shell and granting True Grit for 4 seconds. True Grit grants 4 Armor (stacks 8 times) and refreshes when damaging non-minions. Dashing towards an enemy grants 2 stacks of True Grit. Each bullet hit reduces Quickdraw’s cooldown by 0.5 seconds.
- Quickdraw is one of Graves’ best abilities not only because it’s a dash and an auto-attack cancel, but also because it gives True Grit which is one of his main strengths.
- True Grit gives Graves armor that can stack up to 8 times and can be extremely powerful on early skirmishes and scuttle fights.
- Not dropping True Grit between jungle clears is vital on playing Graves effectively since the stacked armor is as mentioned before, extremely powerful on early skirmishes, especially on the first scuttle fight. In maintaining True Grit in clearing your camps, we have put up a brief video about his jungle pathing so make sure to check that under the Gameplay Tips section.
- When Graves has no bullet, casting Quickdraw and immediately using End of the Line or Smoke Screen will cancel the animation and you will be able to use either of the said abilities and auto-attack at the same time.
Ability 4 – Collateral Damage
Fires an explosive shell that deals 250 physical damage (250 + 150% bonus Attack Damage) and knocks Graves back from the recoil. The shell explodes upon hitting an enemy champion or reaching the end of its range, dealing 200 physical damage (200 + 120% bonus Attack Damage) in a cone. Enemies damaged by the shell’s initial impact do not take damage from the explosive cone.
- For the ultimate, Collateral Damage is not the strongest in the game. However, the ability scales extremely well with a whopping 120% and 150% bonus AD ratio, which is significantly high especially when you’re playing to scale or to snowball.
- This ability can be devastating for the enemy team in the hands of fed Graves, especially when building Lethality.
- Just like the End of the Line + Flash mechanic, it can also work with Collateral Damage. Collateral Damage + Flash is also done to extend the range, make it less dodgeable, more accurate, and of course, more flashy.
- This ability can be used to go through walls, though doing it in the heat of the moment can be difficult. So, to be able to do it consistently requires practice.
Skill Up Methods for Graves
If you are going to start on the buffs (Red/Blue), you would generally want to start with Ability 3 in order to kite them easily and put up stacks on your Ability 3 faster. However, if you decide to spice up your pathing a little bit and start on Raptors or Wolves, you can start with Ability 1 first to clear them faster. In maxing abilities, you would want to max out Ability 1 as fast as possible since other abilities have mediocre scaling. Next, max Ability 3 then finally Ability 2. Take his Ability 4 when available.
Best Runes Setup and Spells for Graves in Wild Rift
Runes Setup
Keystones
- Fleet Footwork – this rune is Graves’ most standard keystone since it can work effectively in any given situation. Fleet Footwork will provide heals between auto-attacks and movement speed which will be vital when kiting and on teamfights/ skirmishes. Moreover, this rune can be extremely helpful when building Lethality since he won’t be able to build any Physical Vamp item besides boots.
- Phase Rush – a new rune that is extremely good with Graves. This rune will provide Graves more sticking power to his targets and an option for an in-and-out, however using this requires discipline since it can possibly put you into dangerous spots. It can also be good in any given situation and can be procced from any of his combos.
- Electrocute – this rune will give Graves more burst potential, which is specifically viable for Lethality Graves.
- Conqueror – this was meta before since Conqueror used to be overtuned; however, it’s not as strong anymore and the other runes mentioned are a lot stronger. It is still viable, especially against stacked tanky enemy comps.
Domination
- Brutal – is Graves’ standard Domination rune, it will give him Attack Damage and Armor Penetration which is good in any given situation. Moreover, this rune is an extremely strong early game rune, so if you plan on bullying the enemy jungle then make sure to use it.
- Hunter – Vampirism – this rune is more tailored towards scaling and Bruiser/Crit Graves. It will give Graves free physical vamp and attack damage if he is able to kill enemy champions.
- Gathering Storm – a rune designed for scaling. If you are against a full-early game enemy team composition, take this rune and give up objectives to trade for turrets in the early game, and fight back on the mid-game.
- Triumph – an okay rune, but it is underwhelming compared to the other runes.
- Champion – take this if you’re an alpha.
Resolve
- Adaptive Carapace – it is Graves’ standard Resolve rune; it is effective against any matchup and is very strong on skirmishes as well. It is a strong early game, and it will give you more fighting edge on skirmishes and scuttle fights.
- Conditioning – a scaling defensive rune, it is picked similarly to Gathering Storm’s explanation.
- Hunter – Titan – a snowballing rune, which is highly efficient when you are against stacked CC enemy comps.
- Bone Plating – when taking it on the jungle, it is not as efficient when used in lane since you won’t be fighting that much when jungling anyway. However, if you plan to bully the enemy jungle or fight all the time, then make use of this rune.
Inspiration
- Mastermind – since Graves’ does not have any ability to secure objectives similarly to Camille Ability 2 or Lee Sin Ability 1 execute damage, Mastermind will be vital when bursting objectives instead of going to a full-blown smite fight. A good Ability 1 + Auto-attack + Smite will be enough to secure objectives. Moreover, it will give you bonus gold when taking objectives, and additional damage to turrets.
- Hunter – Genius – a snowballing rune which will give you Ability Haste. It is not the best choice, but it is viable.
- Pathfinder – a viable rune if you like roaming the map.
- Packhunter – a good rune if you are looking into participating as much fights as possible.
Best Summoner Spells
- Smite – it is a standard rune when jungling.
- Flash – this spell will let you make more advanced and flashy plays. Moreover, it can save you from mistakes and mispositions, but if you have good awareness and is confident with your positioning, then you can take different summoner spells.
- Ignite – a replacement for Flash which can be effective against Assassins and Hyper-carry Marksman champions like Jinx or Kai’Sa. Moreover, it can make your 1 v 1 significantly stronger. It can be used both offensively and defensively.
- Exhaust – a replacement for Flash though compared to Ignite, is designed for snowballing, dealing damage, and countering healing.
Best Builds for Graves in Wild Rift
In Wild Rift, Graves has one of the most flexible and transitional builds in the Game. He can have 3 different builds which are Crit, Lethality/Armor Pen, and Bruiser – or maybe a combination of the three. In this section of our Wild Rift Graves Guide, we will explain when the builds are most effective. This will not be mentioned below, but in case the enemy team has many different sources of healing, make sure to buy Executioner’s Calling as fast as possible, but it’s alright to just sit on the item, build your core item and upgrade it later on.
Crit Graves Build
This build is effective against squishy targets or health-stacking targets without Armor. However, it can work against tanky enemy champions building Armor, with the right itemization. The build mainly consists of Black Cleaver, Phantom Dancer and Infinity Edge, while the other items are completely situational. Other items can vary from Lethality items, Armor pen items like Mortal Reminder, Physical Vamp or defensive items like Guardian Angel and Maw of Malmortius.
Lethality & Armor Penetration Graves Build
This build is specifically and superiorly effective against squishy enemy champions. It consists of Duskblade of Draktharr and Black Cleaver as main core items, as well as other Lethality and Armor Penetration items. This build is designed to burst out enemy champions as fast as possible, but your auto-attacks won’t be able to deal as much damage compared to Crit Graves.
Bruiser Graves Build
Compared to the other builds, this build is designed to soak and sustain as much damage as possible whilst dealing decent amount of damage. The build consists of Black Cleaver, Death’s Dance and Bloodthirster as core items, while the other items can be situational. Moreover, this build is effective when your team lacks of a proper frontline or a tank.
Boots
- Gluttonous Greaves – since Graves deals a lot of physical damage, he can make great use of this item. This works the best with Crit and Bruiser Graves.
- Plated Steelcaps – a defensive option which counters physical damage, and reduces the damage of basic attacks.
- Mercury Treads – another defensive option which is designed to counter magic damage, and CC.
- Boots of Swiftness – also a defensive option which gives more movement speed compared to the other boots, while also giving resistance to movement speed slows like Nasus Ability 2.
Enchantments
- Protobelt Enchant – it is good since it can be used both offensively and defensively similarly to Flash. Moreover, it deals decent damage and can let Graves close extremely far distances with Ability 3.
- Quicksilver Enchant – use it against important CC abilities like Twisted Fate gold card, and Ashe Ability 4.
- Statis Enchant – it is arguably the best defensive enchantment in the game, which lets you dodge abilities, buy time for your teammates to respond, buy time for your ability’s cooldowns, and waste roots like Rengar Ability 3 and Lux Ability 1.
- Teleport Enchant – it is not used that much on Jungle unless you’re required to join the team as soon as possible. Some scenarios include: dying before a teamfight and you respawn in the midst of the fight, desperate backdoors, cheesy flanks after recalling in the midst of the teamfight. Remember, you can sell enchanted items to swap for Teleport then buy them again once Teleport is on cooldown, but only when it’s important.
- Locket Enchant – a viable option for team shield and self-peel.
- Redemption Enchant – another viable option similar to Locket. Moreover, it gives vision which can be valuable when stealing objectives or checking areas without vision.
- Shadows Enchant – a rare option but can be good on Lethality Graves when looking forward to finding as much target as possible.
League of Legends: Wild Rift Graves Gameplay Tips
Below are many different gameplay tips for Graves including playstyles, combos, jungle pathing, and common mistakes done by several Graves players.
Playstyles
Graves can have different playstyles depending on the enemy composition. The runes and the build setup will be charged accordingly to the playstyle of Graves, however little information about itemization and runes is in this section so do check the other parts of this Wild Rift guide. Our League of Legends: Wild Rift Graves guide includes the perfect game plan to play according to your suitable playstyle, and utilizing Pantheon’s gameplay at the same time.
Crit Graves
With Crit Graves, positioning is the most important aspect when playing him. Since you’ll be relying mostly on auto-attacks, and you have a significantly shorter range compared to other marksman champions, you’ll have to be more careful when putting up damage on teamfights. Most of the time, you’ll rely on your team for protection and peel, while you attack the enemy when they are CCed.
Since your range is shorter, then there must be something that you are better at compared to other marksman champions, and that is your damage. Graves’ critical strikes deal much more damage compared to other marksmans, especially when he is able to hit all of the bullets. It is achieved by attacking as close as possible, while staying at a safe distance. Finally, Crit Graves has barely any source of Ability Haste on his build, but this is compensated by the larger decrease on cooldown upon hitting critical strikes.
Lethality/Armor Pen Graves
Compared to Crit Graves, Lethality Graves rely more on his abilities than auto-attacks. Lethality Graves can be thought of as an Assassin when playing him, since he relies on punishing mispositioned enemy champions, flanking and going through unexpected angles with his dashes, and a good grasp on his combos to be able to burst enemy champions.
Bruiser Graves
Finally, Bruiser Graves is as mentioned before, designed to soak damage whilst dealing a decent amount of damage, thus the damage and physical vamp builds. In playing Bruiser Graves, your main goal is to serve as the frontline for your team whilst maintaining good positioning. This may sound weird but at the end of the day, Graves is still a ranged champion and they are squishy even if you build defensive items.
Graves Combos
Graves, as a simple champion, actually has several combos and animation cancels in his kit. We will enlist all of the possible Graves combos as well as animation cancels and such. Try them out on the Practice Tool to understand them better.
- End of the Line + Flash: this combo is much faster, harder to dodge/react, and less predictable compared to a simple Flash + End of the Line. However, this requires quick hands, coordination and practice to be able to do consistently. Additionally, this combo can be used to change the ability’s direction on the final second or extend it to be able to hit a terrain.
- Quickdraw Animation Cancel: When Graves has no bullet, casting Quickdraw and immediately using End of the Line or Smoke Screen will cancel the animation and you will be able to use either of the said abilities and auto-attack at the same time.
- Collateral Damage + Flash: this combo has the similar purpose with End of the Line + Flash.
- If the target is near a wall/you’re on a bush directed towards a wall: End of the Line + Auto-atack + Quickdraw towards enemy + Auto-attack + Collateral Damage (you will still be in range for an auto-attack if you quickdraw towards an enemy) + Auto-attack.
- If the target can be burst: End of the Line + Flash + Auto-attack (if needed) + Collateral Damage to finish them off (make sure to hit the initial shell).
- Auto-attack + Quickdraw +Auto-attack: a standard auto-attack animation cancel, and a reload as well.
- If the target can be finished with ult and auto-attack but not in range: Quickdraw towards target + Collateral Damage + Flash (you’ll still be in range for an auto-attack) + Auto-attack.
- Early game combo: Auto-attack + End of the Line + Auto-attack + Quickdraw + Auto-attack.
- You can involve Protobelt enchant on the combos as well.
Wild Rift Graves Jungle Pathing
Here is a video of all the different pathings that you can do with Graves in Wild Rift. The main purpose of going through a specific order is to preassume what lane you are gonna end up on your first clear, and on your following clears. However, there are other reasons like evading the opposing jungle if you wish to play as passive as possible, staying onto a certain side of a map (baron side/dragon side) to make sure they don’t lose lane, etc.
Moreover, the jungle clear features an extremely efficient and healthy clear as well as maintaining his True Grit throughout his first clear and onto the scuttle, which is one of the main objectives in the first minutes of the game.
Common Mistakes done by common Graves players
1. Ganking When Jungle Camps Are Up Or Ganking Too Much
As Graves in Solo Queue, you will want to play as selfishly as possible to ensure you can become the team’s carry. Whenever you decide to gank when it is not 100% guaranteed to work, you are helping your team, but hurting yourself. The best way to play for yourself is to clear all of your camps before making a play. When you do this, regardless of the outcome of the play, you will be ahead because you have already captured the available exp on the map. If you go for a play while your camps are up, and the play doesn’t work out, you will have lost on two fronts which will cascade your failure to become the 1v9 carry.
Conversely, if you clear all your camps and make a play that succeeds, you will have an overwhelming amount of tempo that most jungler’s won’t be able to keep up with and often find yourself in a 2 or 3 level advantage over the enemy jungler if they aren’t playing in a similar way. There are exceptions to this when a gank has a high chance of success (known as a high percentage gank). This can happen when the enemy laner is pushed deep into your side of the map and the enemy jungler isn’t available to counter gank or is too weak to fight you. Plays like these should be prioritized over jungle camps.
2. Dropping Grit Stacks During First Clear
Proper maintenance of grit stacks during the first clear is essential since it not only gives you a healthier clear due to the increased armor but also allows you to have a massive advantage during the first scuttle since you will have way more armor than everyone else. Many games can be won at this first scuttle if the opposing jungler mistakenly tries to fight versus a full grit stack Graves resulting in one or multiple kills as well as a double crab start which will allow you to snowball over the enemy jungler for the rest of the game.
3. Using Quickdraw Before First Auto Attack
Quickdraw acts as an auto-attack reset as well as a way for Graves to reload a bullet in order to fire 3 auto attacks total before a reload. If you use Quickdraw at the start of the fight, you will waste both mechanics and suffer a massive DPS loss. The significance of this is not to be underestimated because you will often see experienced players flash in order to get that first auto rather than dash before it. This is mechanically the biggest mistake I see from Graves players at Gold rank or below.
4. Starting Ganks With End of the Line
During a gank situation when enemy laners will start running from you, it is best to hold your End of the Line until the enemies walk near a wall or their own turret which happens often. Use the terrain to get a bounce and hit both procs of your End of the Line. Because of the long CD on End of the Line during the early game, you will only get to fire it once so firing it at the start of a gank will often end with you missing both procs of damage.
Matchups for Graves in Wild Rift
This section of our Wild Rift Graves Guide will be divided into 3 parts depending on their threat. Easy translate to match-ups where you will have the utmost advantage all throughout the game, Fair is a skill matchup and will generally depend on who’s better while Hard matchups are champions that beat you for some reason like countering your kit and out scaling you. To add, we will provide brief information on how to handle the Hard matchups, below the columns.
| HARD | FAIR | EASY |
|---|---|---|
| Evelyn | Xin Zhao | Lee Sin |
| Rammus | Shyvana | Jax |
| Kha’Zix | Master Yi | Camille |
| Wukong | Amumu | Rengar |
| Pantheon | Olaf | |
| Vi | ||
| Jarvan IV |
How do you handle Hard Matchups
Evelyn
This matchup is Eve favored. The best thing you can do is to try to contest camps in the early game and try to avoid her later into the game. We recommend buying Merc Treads and Hexdrinker > Maw of Malmortious quite early in the mid-game. Help your team by putting up deep wards on her jungle since is the only way to consistently spot her due to her passive, besides the scryer’s bloom. An aggressive setup like Ignite+Phase Rush+Lethality is recommended to snowball this matchup before she can scale.
Rammus
He can rush armor items and become very hard to kill. Rammus isn’t particularly strong early, but if he doesn’t fall behind by the time he starts hitting the 1 and 2 item armor spikes, you will have trouble dealing with him. Play efficiently and play to scale through farming, counter jungling, and counter ganking.
Kha’Zix
You can dominate this matchup early and establish jungle and lane lead before the first evolve at 6. Lethality build is useful for snowballing here. Grit stacking is very important to win the early scuttle contest and establish dominance. However, try not to fight Kha’Zix in the scuttle alone and path towards a lane expected to have lane priority, since his isolation is strong on 1 v 1s.
Wukong
Wukong has a higher burst damage than you which makes it hard to win 1v1 against him as Graves. I recommend starting on the opposite side of the map and only try to 1v1 Wukong when ever you have a lead over him. I also recommend goin for deaths dance since that will remove a bit of his high burst damage. Also, be careful since his clone can block your attacks.
Pantheon
We recommend starting on the opposite side of the map and not fight Pantheon by yourself, since his passive can block your auto attacks and he has point and click stun which makes Pantheon hard to kite as Graves.
Pros and Cons of Graves
As a summary of our guide, here are some of major pros and cons of using Graves in Wild Rift. These will give you a little insight on whether you want to play him or not in ranked matches.
Pros
- Fits in any type of team composition
- Low skill floor/ High skill ceiling
- Has the healthiest jungle clear in the game if you kite properly
- Decent jungle clear speed
- Strong, especially in Solo Queue
- Fun champion – Fun kit
- Good at 1 v 1s
- Insanely good at kiting
- Best champion at taking scuttle crabs – since he can push them
- Above average scaling
- Can be a bully in the jungle
Cons
- B tier jungler
- Has no crowd-control
- Weak vs Peel enemy compositions
- Extremely vulnerable when CCed
- Doesn’t have the best ganks
- Struggles against armor stacking enemy team compositions
- Requires lane priority to exert pressure on enemy jungle
- Gets out scaled hard by AP junglers like Evelyn
Final Thoughts
In playing Graves, remember to utilize all aspects of his kit to the highest level possible in order to use him effectively. He may be one of the most underrated jungler in the game at the moment, but he’s definitely a very strong jungler in the hands of a good and experienced player, so if you are looking into maintaining Graves, remember to always check this Wild Rift guide. To be a pro in Graves in Wild Rift, one needs to practice more and more with good knowledge of skills and their effects, so that the skill can be used with precision, and if stuck don’t hesitate to fall back to this guide for tips.
That’s all for today’s League of Legends: Wild Rift Graves Guide. Do you prefer to use Graves in any other way? Let us know in the comment section below!
For more Mobile Gaming news and updates, join our WhatsApp group, Telegram Group, or Discord server. Also, follow us on Google News, Instagram, and Twitter for quick updates.
