-dps -huge burst damage -huge aoe damage -"skillshots" that are very easy to hit -smokescreen (AOE Quinn blind not stopped by minions) -waveclear -mobility (because his ult needed a dash) -bonus damage to melee targets (shouldnt melees be rewarded for being in melee range?) -low cds -low mana costs -huge sustain (healing for 500 per hit by midgame) -tankiness (up to 120 free armor and mr wtf)
???
Im trying to find his weaknesses but...???
Fauxfire52 votesBecause he's not allowed to have his cigar. All of this is just compensation.
Jari12 votesBut he vapes now.
PiVoRx10 votesThis is getting so booring.. like everytime theres something about Graves, someone has to come with this "joke".
It Hertz When IP4 votesBecause it's funny.
PiVoRx12 votesIt was, year ago.
Juggernaut62829 votesHis weakness is getting 5-man ulted by the enemy team of course! It's so simple! I'm shocked more people don't no that you just have to blow all your cooldowns and he dies. It's so easy.
Kappa.
CeexSett1 votesDude, it's quite obvious the counterplay is killing him... If he's dead he can't do anything right? Just kill him and... wait
Juggernaut6282 votesUnlike tanks (since Graves isn't a tank of course!) Graves doesn't have high defenses so you can blow him up and he doesn't life steal that much due to his slow auto attacking...
E gives armor and magic resist. Autos heal for insane damage and he reloads so fast that the reload is nonexistent.
Facepalm
#FeelsBadMan.
Blåbæret19 votesGraves needs a rework. He's literally unkillable while running around oneshotting.
Rozzeta5 votesThis version of Graves IS a rework.
UnwardiI17 votesThe biggest problem is that he is an adc who wants to fight IN MELEE. The usual way to beat an adc is to close with them and beat them to death, the opposite is true of graves, but he also is no slouch at very great distances with his fucking ult. That's why he has no weakness.
chipndip13 votesThe biggest problem is that he is an adc who wants to fight IN MELEE. The usual way to beat an adc is to close with them and beat them to death, the opposite is true of graves, but he also is no slouch at very great distances with his fucking ult. That's why he has no weakness.
Walk out of the way of his Q if you're not near a wall
Kite his 450 range
CC him before he closes in 450 range
He himself has no cc to pin you with when fighting him
Dude has some of the weaknesses of a marksman and some of the weaknesses of a fighter, and the same goes for his strengths. He's not strong enough to say he has no weaknesses. His weaknesses are just not as clean-cut as other marksmen since he's relatable to fighters.
Unpaladin14 votesGraves is indeed still ridiculous. His E passive should've been gutted or straight up removed in the past few patches, and Riot should've noticed he's not being played in his intended playstyle (flashy damage-oriented close range ADC) and fixed it. I'm not sure what compels them to beat around the bush with huge gameplay balance offenders.
I'm only playing him right now because he's fun as fuck, however because of his absurdities I just play him botlane while NEVER thinking of buying Maw/Steraks EVER. Also limited to one lifesteal item. I'm no typical Graves player douchebag, r-right?
Caítlyn5 votesYah you wouldn't dare buy both BT and deaths dance right? And I bet you take Fervor! What a nice guy
Unpaladin2 votesY-Yeah, Fervor. Gotta get that keystone that doesn't synergize well with a low AS burster just to make it fair on my opponents :^)
InsanitysTheName5 votesEvery individual bullet from his shotgun applies fervor.
HeartPalpitation3 votessimple solution, revert his changes, the old graves was fine the way he was, it's like they changed him for the sake of change.
YumaS2Astral9 votessimple solution, revert his changes, the old graves was fine the way he was, it's like they changed him for the sake of change.
Actually they reworked him because Graves and Lucian used to have extremely similar kits, to the point that they shared the same niche as early game burst ADCs, and thus were hard to differentiate; one would always outclass the other.
Unpaladin1 votesThen why didn't they just resolve that issue? Graves had a fantastic Q and Passive and wasn't a gimmicky ADC outlier. Riot did their whole "he's a bruiser now" thing like they did with Mordekaiser and now he's been a strong offender to game balance ever since.
Outside of when his Q was strong enough to dictate meta dominance he was a genuinely honest champion back then and worked well enough without some kind of incredibly overloaded special autoattack and Nearsight on his W.
Atanchan6 votesHis W literally had nearsight since he was first released. He's literally the second champion ever released to have the nearsight mechanic.
Also ... they did resolve the issue? Lucian and Graves are nothing alike now, aside from being AD champions with guns, high-damage abilities, a skillshot ult, a utility-based W that deals minor AoE magic damage that scales with AP, and a dash on E, which are all very general things considering all of those abilities do and act differently despite being generally similar. Hell, they both have short range, but they go about having short range very differently - Lucian doesn't actually want to get close, he just can't shoot from that far away, whereas Graves actually does the most damage at melee range.
I mean, they could've put Grave's entire focus on his Q and passive by shifting the rest of his kit's power into them, making him a unique ADC that could get massively tanky over the course of a fight and whose main source of damage was strongest at melee range due to it being a spread shot and having a cooldown that isn't really impacted by attack speed ... like, y'know, they did, they just focused it through an electron microscope and shifted parts of his entire kit altogether, meaning he actually has to spend mana and actively use his abilities to get his tank stats up.
Khada Jhin GD2 votesActually they reworked him because Graves and Lucian used to have extremely similar kits, to the point that they shared the same niche as early game burst ADCs, and thus were hard to differentiate; one would always outclass the other.
only thing they shared was a dash literally nothing else was the same like at all.
MetalGearTeemu14 votesCertainlyreworkeT.
Dominick Destine10 voteshealing for 500 per hit by midgame
[slayer-jinx-unamused]
ZeeWolfZ5 votesBecause Riot has NO Fuckin clue how to balance their game.
Instead, they release MORE champions for us to play.
Let's make their job even harder.
Let's NOT concentrate on IMPROVING the game but only worry about the SALES.
Let's NOT work on the champions we HAVE to balance and increase champion pool instead.
Because RITO.
Unpaladin7 votesActually? Riot have different teams for different things. Their skin and champion development teams don't really have anything to do with what the balance team is doing. It's mostly the balance team's fault.
ƒoes5 votesRiot's reasoning is most likely his reload, but the reload is so fast that it hardly impacts his gameplay. Graves players don't have to worry about which shot to be on to do a combo correctly (like Rengar's ferocity, where he has to have a particular amount to do a particular combo) - the only thing close of a combo is using his E to give him another bullet so he has three shots instead of two.
Illâoi Evê Siôn4 votesHe doesn't have any CC, though.
Ace Access 1 votesso AoE blind isn't considered a CC ?
Juggernaut6282 votesand it slows too
ModCaptainMårvelous4 votesLong time no see.
Graves weakness is that he's basically melee. Most ADCs will outrange him and even his skillshots are super telegraphed. Yeah he's got a lot of damage but that don't mean shit against a Caitlyn or Ashe. The ammo mechanic also means he's all burst and zero sustain. Which is what you usually what in a psuedo-ADC.
JosephAngelo4 votesAgreed. don't like this champion. really overloaded. basically if you don't kill him in the first five seconds he is invincible because he has so much armor and mr that he can lifesteal all the damage everyone is doing to him back as they are doing it. you cant run from him or catch up to him because his true grit is on such a short cooldown. you cant burst him because he is building half tank items. you cant lock him down because he has merc treads, a dash ability to dodge your cc AND a long ranged AOE ability that BOTH slows and deny's vision only to those champions inside it. And you cant out damage him even though he is building bruiser items and you are building full damage.
Great Fox3 votesGraves and Kindred basically fill the same role, an ADC Jungler that excels at dueling.
Riot removed Kindred's heal and reduced her base armour by 7, and reduced her Slow and damage because muh OP Meanwhile, Graves has ridiculous sustain with Warlords/Death's, has ~40 bonus armour/MR thanks to his passive, and can deal absurd amounts of damage and even true damage at melee range.
Thaurron2 votesAdmittedly Graves hasn't had the same dueling power that made Kindred ridiculous early game since the nerfs, though his mid-game is pretty absurd.
chipndip11 votes[{quoted}](name=Tha Furry,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=P7A5btMq,comment-id=000c,timestamp=2016-07-08T00:08:11.479+0000)
Graves and Kindred basically fill the same role, an ADC Jungler that excels at dueling.
Riot removed Kindred's heal and reduced her base armour by 7, and reduced her Slow and damage because muh OP Meanwhile, Graves has ridiculous sustain with Warlords/Death's, has ~40 bonus armour/MR thanks to his passive, and can deal absurd amounts of damage and even true damage at melee range.
Except one is a complaint about a champ's built in sustain and one is a complaint about a champ's optimal build path...two different things...
Great Fox1 votesWarlord's Bloodlust is basically built-in sustain, but what's your justification then for Graves having up to 46-50 Armour at Level 1 thanks to his passive?
chipndip11 votes[{quoted}](name=Tha Furry,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=P7A5btMq,comment-id=000c00010000,timestamp=2016-07-08T23:45:20.685+0000)
Warlord's Bloodlust is basically built-in sustain, but what's your justification then for Graves having up to 46-50 Armour at Level 1 thanks to his passive?
Warlord's is a mastery. ANYONE can have it. It's different from Kindred, where it was strong sustain built into their kit alone.
As for Graves and his passive giving him armor, it's because he's ranged, but not very ranged. It's like how Urgot gets that shield. If you aren't that ranged, you get survival tools for up-close combat, especially since Graves is gonna be kinda squishy without it.
Great Fox1 votesFirst of all, Kindred's wasn't strong, it was a 40-80 hit point heal every 100 stacks, and it took a while to bring up the stacks.
Graves and Kindred have the exact same range, 500, so I don't really see that as an excuse for him to have such high armour/mr at all stages of the game, while Kindred gets her base armour reduced from 27 to 20.
chipndip11 votes[{quoted}](name=Tha Furry,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=P7A5btMq,comment-id=000c0001000000000000,timestamp=2016-07-09T00:58:41.307+0000)
First of all, Kindred's wasn't strong, it was a 40-80 hit point heal every 100 stacks, and it took a while to bring up the stacks.
Graves and Kindred have the exact same range, 500, so I don't really see that as an excuse for him to have such high armour/mr at all stages of the game, while Kindred gets her base armour reduced from 27 to 20.
His range is actually 425, so we were both wrong...
DeathBurst3 votesHe has pretty average DPS for his class. Jinx/Kog/Cait/Vayne all have higher DPS, for instance. He also has a mediocre range, which means a lot of ranged champ can kite him/kill him from afar. "Skillshots very easy to hit", that's not exactly an objective argument. And the sustain isn't exactly free, to heal for 500 per hit, you need a large amount of lifesteal.
HaloDragonX1 votesNot really, his DPS is really high. 800-1000 per auto is insane.
DeathBurst3 votes800-1000 per auto means high burst, not high DPS, if you don't have the Attack Speed to output a steady flow of attacks. And precisely, Graves doesn't have this Attack Speed, 'cause the reload mechanism slows him down.
Emerald Fang3 votesHe doesn't have a cigar. That's his weakness.
The Yetii Rider3 votesGraves is essentially THE anti-fighter marksman. Just like Ashe/Kalista are the anti-juggernaut marksman and Kindred are the anti-assassin marksman.
It's very difficult to burst Graves down and when you're within range of his fire he will take a while to kill you but you're going to have a bad time.
Graves is more vulnerable to traditional mages than other carries, because of his incredibly short range and his dependence on attacking in order to gain his MR bonus. The main problem is that no one is playing Ziggs, Lux, Xerath or Brand right now.
JJI7441 votesTo be fair, Maw is pretty common on Graves, and at least two of those champs have effectively zero chance of killing a target with Maw. (Unless so far ahead its sad.)
The Yetii Rider2 votesTo be fair, Maw is pretty common on Graves, and at least two of those champs have effectively zero chance of killing a target with Maw. (Unless so far ahead its sad.)
That's not a problem with Graves or his kit though. It's just assassin itemization being good on marksman.
HaloDragonX3 votesGraves is LITERALLY everything but an enhancer. He hasn't seen the meta since the tank meta but jesus he's still bad design. He's a hyper-mobile ranged assassin marksmen caster sustain-tank.
He's got: burst (Q, autos), mobility (e, r), hard cc (w, r), range, dps (passive, just buy LDR and crit), assassinate (mobility + burst), caster (scales with CDR), tank (E's free 120 MR and ARMOR), sustain (passive + death's dance), and escape (E, R).
He's SUPPOSE to fall off late game, but how do you fall off late game if you 2 shot carries with 120 armor that disables them from lifestealing? And even with lifesteal he just 3 shots you.
Xeruon2 votesWell, he is weak to long-ranged poke, has actually quite high mana costs considering his pool and that non-ADC builds don't buy 
, and only shining in extended trades.
You have a few points, but please try to be less Q_Q-y.
Athenes Lulu2 votesAnyone who's ranged can easily outrange him.
You're a defenseless ranged squishy with no CC? Graves isn't a problem for those guys because #outranged.
This doesn't mean Graves isn't OP or anything, but that's pretty much Riot's justification.
