Is Graves really strong on this new patch?

YumaS2Astral·Nov 12, 2015·10 votes·44,825 views

I've just used Graves top with a tanky build against a Renekton. Early game Renekton couldn't do anything to me, I would just harass him constantly and he couldn't deal damage to me due to my E.

Of course I can't judge the overall viability of a champion or build just with one battle. But now Graves can deal amazing damage with just a few offensive items. He has really good base damage and has a resistances steroid on his E. I wouldn't be surprised if Graves started to be used as a tanky top laner, given how his range is still too short to be an ADC.

Overall Graves seems to be really strong on this new patch. I want to test this build more times and see if it is viable for ranked use.

113 Comments

RiotMeddlerNov 12, 201520 votes

Yeah, it's looking like Graves is definitely too strong. We'll probably do a balance hotfix early next week to get some quick changes in halfway between 5.22 and 5.23. Odds are very high there'll be some Graves nerfs and some Kog'maw buffs in that.

The Bearded BardNov 12, 20159 votes

Good to hear, but if you don't mind me asking, why exactly did this make it to live? You guys are listening to feedback for pbe right? I know for a fact there was quite a bit of forewarning to this issue.

LuciferNov 12, 20158 votes

Anything to hotfix in regard to Yasuo?

Sythriel DrakenNov 12, 20155 votes

I second and third this.. Fix yasuo now!

RiotMeddlerNov 12, 20157 votes

Not certain yet, though he's certainly looking to strong. Solution might be to hit Warlord's Bloodlust first, still talking about that.

HellioningNov 12, 20151 votes

How's it looking in regards to ap vs. ad?

RiotMeddlerNov 12, 20155 votes

Lemme get back to you with some initial thoughts in a couple of days on that one, too early to make bigger picture assessments like that (individual pieces of content can be clearer outliers than more overarching trends, especially when everyone's trying out the new stuff whether or not they've got a good team for it).

RebonackNov 12, 20155 votes

{quoted}

Lemme get back to you with some initial thoughts in a couple of days on that one, too early to make bigger picture assessments like that (individual pieces of content can be clearer outliers than more overarching trends, especially when everyone's trying out the new stuff whether or not they've got a good team for it).

Wait wait wait.

Kog'Maw buffs?

I'm a Koggy main, so I'm pretty happy with my favorite Void Puppy getting attention. I'll admit that I'm a Dominion player so my insight is a bit different from the standard map, but are you crazy? Short of instantly bursting him, Koggy can already hold his own against... basically anything. Now, Dominion tends toward smaller skirmishes and that can be nice for Kog, but still...

What exactly are you guys thinking is too weak?

RiotMeddlerNov 12, 20156 votes

Base attack speed and base AD are what we're currently thinking (we'll be testing AS going from 0.625 to 0.665 and AD from 54 to 57 tomorrow). Might also try a slightly higher AD ratio on the W.

pripustasNov 12, 20153 votes

Are you going to buff champions who struggle? Trundle Aatrox both hit by the nerfs very hard, and are yet to receive any compensation. Even before the patch Trundle had 47-48% win rate top/jung

ChaosThiefNov 13, 20151 votes

Trundle is an anti tank, not an anti squishy. He is also a form of juggernaut, whom should be easily kitable.

Aatrox is, from what I hear, just an incredibly high skill cap. A good aatrox can bully a lot of opponents out of lane, and are incredibly fond of warding everything around them to make sure this isn't stopped.

pripustasNov 13, 20151 votes

Trundle is a juggernaut. He is also a duelist, like Tryndamere.

Aatrox takes experience, sure. It also takes luck, and if enemy knows how to shut him down, then he's useless. Short trades won't do against Aatrox, you need to go all in, and you will usually win with most champions, since Aatrox sux.

MoonBlade92Nov 13, 20151 votes

Question: Have you concidered buffing his AP ratio on W a instead? With the 55% of his Physical AD being applied, buffing his AD rations seems like a bot of a waste (and it'd help with AP Kog, who is having an extremely hard time with all of these changes, and is overall in a worse state than pre-rework).

LaughingStaplerNov 13, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Base attack speed and base AD are what we're currently thinking (we'll be testing AS going from 0.625 to 0.665 and AD from 54 to 57 tomorrow). Might also try a slightly higher AD ratio on the W.

That still leaves AP Kog in an unviable state. I have hundreds of AP Kog games and playing my favorite champion now means sabotaging my team. He doesn't work as a poke champion or on-hit anymore (without W base damage). We went from having two interesting and distinct styles for Kog'Maw AP Mid/ADC to one mundane AD variant. Kog was such a cool champion before these changes and very different from anything else out there. He also had way more ways to express skillful play than pressing W and praying.

The Kog rework was unnecessary and actually killed diversity in both builds and playstyles. Even my Nashor's build for AP Mid Kog is actually WEAKER than before and it wasn't that amazing to begin with. There is no upside to him anymore. I've talked to other Kog players and most of them would prefer the whole thing be reverted but I doubt Riot is willing to admit a mistake and do something like that. Seriously though, tell me how he's now a more interesting and fun champion. How are his builds and playstyles more diverse? I don't get what improvement is supposed to have come out of this at all.

BônesNov 12, 20151 votes

Kogmaw has the lowest win rate this patch with 42%. He definitely needs some buffs. http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/kogmaw

ProfDrDeathNov 12, 20152 votes

Because first day winrates when things have been shaken up majorly do mean so much, right?

That being said, the change Meddler mentioned look reasonable enough - as an AS AN based champion, he should have above average base AS.

RebonackNov 12, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Because first day winrates when things have been shaken up majorly do mean so much, right?

That being said, the change Meddler mentioned look reasonable enough - as an AS AN based champion, he should have above average base AS.

The base attack speed buff would help him, yeah. All things being equal, he lost about 20ish percent of his attack speed. Builds that used to reach 2.0 now hit about 1.6ish.

It's mostly the changes to the W functionality that have got me curious. A lot of the problems Koggy is facing right now could be addressed if it go some base damage (3% max HP OnHit or there about) and the total AD ration gets the axe. A smallish bonus AD ratio could potentially work, but I still suspect that it could make things too snowbally.

LuciferNov 12, 20152 votes

Can you comment on the bug reports as well? It would be helpful if someone could make a post there I think, since the forum is pretty much flooded.

The AD vs AP argument is going to be even more skewed with thunderlord not procing on certain champions.

Krys StarNov 12, 201514 votes

You could instead give the 50% bonus critical strike chance on his passive a scaling instead... Warlords isn't the problem. It's Yasuo's and Tryndamere's passive allowing them to abuse it. Hitting Warlords will just feel bad for all other champions that want to use crit, while hitting Yasuo and Tryndamere softly, especially Yasuo who gains loads of crit now with the massive increase to his favored core first buy, Statik Shiv.

Gives his ult a 20 / 35 / 50% increased scaling at levels 1 / 6 / 11 or something. Please. Yasuo is getting crazy out of hand now, since his powerspike is extremely immense thanks to the Shiv buff. :x

YumaS2AstralNov 12, 20153 votes

[{quoted}](name=Frozen Beauty,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QGFEnnvV,comment-id=0001000100010002,timestamp=2015-11-12T06:48:07.716+0000)

You could instead give the 50% bonus critical strike chance on his passive a scaling instead... Warlords isn't the problem. It's Yasuo's and Tryndamere's passive allowing them to abuse it. Hitting Warlords will just feel bad for all other champions that want to use crit, while hitting Yasuo and Tryndamere softly, especially Yasuo who gains loads of crit now with the massive increase to his favored core first buy, Statik Shiv.

Gives his ult a 20 / 35 / 50% increased scaling at levels 1 / 6 / 11 or something. Please. Yasuo is getting crazy out of hand now, since his powerspike is extremely immense thanks to the Shiv buff. :x

Also, his ult needs to be on an increased cooldown just like they recently increased Riven's ult cooldown

MCBiggah99Nov 12, 20154 votes

Let's be realistic here. Is Warlord's really not an obnoxious mastery when we do not consider Tryndamere and Yasuo? Do crit champs really need even more life steal on top of their bloodthirsters, borks, etc.?

Krys StarNov 12, 20152 votes

With the abundance of Grievous Wounds that has become available now, can we really say life steal is a huge problem now?

CrazedPorcupineNov 12, 20154 votes

it's not warlords bloodlust, it's the fact that Yasuo get's 100% crit with 2 items, and is guaranteed crit to trigger the passive.

Tryndamere is bad because he get's a ton of free crit too.

pripustasNov 12, 20152 votes

Could you comment on possible jungle hotfix? Non-meta junglers are in a very very bad spot. The gold gained from camps is way less, and jungle items are more expensive, while minion gold is buffed. I can't viably jungle my main Wukong anymore.

AZKONov 12, 20151 votes

Like a friend of mine said, a good way to fix that without directly nerfing Yasuo or items, would be to put an internal cooldown on the mastery for example, making hit procs every X seconds. It seems like a simple, and good idea. What do you think about it ?

MoonBlade92Nov 12, 20151 votes

There is one, and it's 2 seconds. Still far too abuseable, especially when compared to it's closest counterpart, Grip of the Undying.

PartholonianNov 12, 20151 votes

Maybe they should increase it then? People who only crit once in a while won't be nerfed much (if at all) but people who crit constantly will get less sustain.

Although the fact that it practically doesn't exist in lane even for Yasuo may balance it out more than people think on paper. There's only a few ultimate masteries that don't affect laning and I suspect that having one when your opponent has a mastery that does affect laning could prove painful.

WraeithNov 13, 20151 votes

Bear in mind that Yasuo is a champion that thrives against what everyone is currently playtesting -- a bunch of squishy ranged characters that fare poorly against windwall and highly mobile damage -- so his numbers are quite skewed. He isn't much stronger than he was previously strictly in terms of numbers (apart from the obviously too strong Warlord's Bloodlust keystone) as while Shiv provides him with a bit more crit he also loses some attack speed, movement speed, and a bit of the magical burst that Shiv offered earlier. Further more, he loses 15 attack damage from Infinity Edge; so I feel a lot of his success is derived from the meta-game circumstances more so than other factors. He's also a lot more popular than most champions, so other characters that are significantly stronger, if not even more powerful, aren't gaining as much attention as they deserve -- Miss Fortune for example.

Thanks for the communication!

StellafreyjaNov 12, 201527 votes

Hot fix buffs are bad. Did you not learn with Fiora? Kog'Maw is fine and a hot fix is going to break him. DO NOT BUFF KOG'MAW.

IcyPepperNov 12, 201511 votes

All it takes is people to realize "If I stop ignoring my Kog'Maw... and start protecting him" and start forming team comps around Kog'Maw instead of him just being there for shit to get real.

Yeah, I tried Juggermaw in PBE. It's insane when done right.

ShpeckNov 12, 20152 votes

I don't think you people get that there is barely a late game now - where Kog'Maw excels. He will never make it to his 'power spike'.

FoxMikeLimaNov 12, 20151 votes

Doesn't take late game for Kogmaw to get powerful anymore, the fact that his Q passive gives so much more AsP and he doubles his AsP from all sources means that he effectively needs half the items to be as effective, and with the same amount of items as a season 5 Kogmaw is doubly effective.

Gareth TankinNov 12, 20152 votes

You deal 55% dmg to non-minions. To boot you can't orb walk with it up, you lose tons of dps by moving (since his attack speed is so high) as opposed to every other adc that has the whole 1/2~s window to get distance in between auto attack.

This is the one changes i don't like. I like the idea of worse orb walking on a champ, they coulda done it by locking you in the attack animation longer... but giving a champ a massive attack steroid but also a massive dmg nerf when its up... not a fan.

LadyRenlyNov 12, 20153 votes

{quoted}

All it takes is people to realize "If I stop ignoring my Kog'Maw... and start protecting him" and start forming team comps around Kog'Maw instead of him just being there for shit to get real.

Yeah, I tried Juggermaw in PBE. It's insane when done right.

THat requires too much teamwork.

IcyPepperNov 12, 20152 votes

Whelp, sometimes you have to earn things.

Want Kog'Maw to destroy? Got to stop ignoring him with a yolo queue mentality and protect him otherwise.

I don't see how protecting him is too much teamwork. Protecting the ADC is one of the most basic teamwork things in this game, just as easy as the frontline being in front of their carries to soak up damage, and the support and utility mages keeping them alive. It's not that hard.

Meep ManNov 12, 20152 votes

This I can confirm. I play with a premade group a lot of friends. We talk over Skype and protect our Kog'maw ADC a lot. He kills things.

NorakNov 12, 20151 votes

You're not playing Juggermaw right if you're playing it with new Kogmaw most likely.

Old Juggermaw was Kog + Lulu + Ori or something similar, Kog frontlines and, with the movement speed buff from Lulu, gets free autos on enemy team by running up to them, then running away. Meanwhile Ori and Lulu are shielding Kog to stop any poke from getting through. This also lets him siege towers for free.

Without being able to use the W + R + Trinity force and movement speed from lulu in between those to quickly reposition for more safety, you're an easy target for skillshots.

Current Kog'maw seems best with On-hit AS items and as a stationary, over-the-wall artillery, not Juggermaw. Current Jinx is just a better version of Juggermaw than Kogmaw is.

MoonBlade92Nov 12, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ace of Eden,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QGFEnnvV,comment-id=00010003,timestamp=2015-11-12T06:24:08.412+0000)

Hot fix buffs are bad. Did you not learn with Fiora? Kog'Maw is fine and a hot fix is going to break him. DO NOT BUFF KOG'MAW.

Everyone agrees he is in a REALLY bad state atm. as his build has him with a bad early, mediocre mid and a late in which he is STILL outclassed.

StellafreyjaNov 12, 20151 votes

Everyone agreed that Fiora was in a really bad state too.

I'm not saying don't buff Kog'Maw, I'm saying do not hot fix buff Kog'Maw. Some small changes can easily send him over the edge.

MoonBlade92Nov 14, 20151 votes

"Small buffs" being key here. Fiora got so many stats it was nuts, and her kit scaled well with all of it. Buffing Kog's AS won't fix his non-existant mobility, his GARBAGE new early game, nor his mana problems. I guess that's OK (I don't like it one bit, and AP Kog is pretty dead to boot). Fiora has been garbage after rework, then too good, and now she isn't nececarily pick or ban anymore because she has her counters. That sounds like a pretty good way for thing to develop with Kog.

AgnosticTwitchNov 13, 20151 votes

Are you kidding? He's in every blind pick game I've played. And he's dominated to a ridiculous level in all of them.

MoonBlade92Nov 14, 20151 votes

His Win Rate is 2nd worst in the game at this moment. Bard and Urgot have more sucsesfull games. His MS is completely abysmal, his early game is trash, his ult costs way too much to be ever used more than MAYBE two times, his W costs more mana, etc. Most people who played him before this will tell you he is most certainly worse off. He was the only one of the marksmen in this patch that has recieved early game nerfs, and it shows incredibly hard. There is no reason why you would pick Koggers over any other ADC at this point,, as he can't kill tanks without items, he is still immobile, he is STILL squishy, yet, his "steroid" will only provide him with 10% DPS increase in AD based DMG (and with 400 AD, he would still deal only 5% of your max HP per attack), while making him completely unable to kite. So yes, sorry if you are gettign dominated by him, but he sorely needs a buff.

RestTarRrNov 12, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ace of Eden,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QGFEnnvV,comment-id=00010003,timestamp=2015-11-12T06:24:08.412+0000)

Hot fix buffs are bad. Did you not learn with Fiora? Kog'Maw is fine and a hot fix is going to break him. DO NOT BUFF KOG'MAW.

Have you even played kog? He is trash level.

ofartNov 13, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, it's looking like Graves is definitely too strong. We'll probably do a balance hotfix early next week to get some quick changes in halfway between 5.22 and 5.23. Odds are very high there'll be some Graves nerfs and some Kog'maw buffs in that.

What are you doing to help all the AP Kog fans? It's not jus that he has a different style (one which is imo less rewarding and interesting), he is completely unviable vs competent mids. With no base damage on W, worse AP scaling and a mana cost, you have no trade options and even more difficulty farming than before.

Moreover, if you survive laning phase, you are no longer rewarded with a good late game (and games rarely get there anyway). He has a lot less burst than before, less poke and just less damage in general. Even the Nashor's builds feel like they do very little full build. The AS boost doesn't matter in most practical scenarios because your enemies won't be standing still for you and you would also have to be very close to use it (often exposing yourself to dive/bust spells). However, unlike an ADC, you don't have lifesteal or crit. etc. It just doesn't work mid AP atm and we were promised it would be as strong as before. Instead, my favorite champion was essentially deleted.

Kog already had a unique identity and an interesting kit with very different playstyles for mid compared to ADC. This is actually what was so cool about him. Now, he is stuck in only one lane and with only one playstyle. Worst of all, this playstyle is incredibly boring and unrewarding. Oh... I press W and now attack really fast hitting like a wet noodle but I can't kite or do anything skillful. How are any of these changes an improvement? I simply don't get it. My favorite champion was just drastically changed for no reason and with no community discussion. Not only can I no longer play my favorite style with him, I can't even go mid (AD mid wasn't viable either).

GunpointNov 13, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, it's looking like Graves is definitely too strong. We'll probably do a balance hotfix early next week to get some quick changes in halfway between 5.22 and 5.23. Odds are very high there'll be some Graves nerfs and some Kog'maw buffs in that.

Thanks for the insight

StephenizgodNov 13, 20151 votes

I've played a few games that had a Kog'Maw and it seems to me that he is strong as an AP champion, pretty much destroys his lane opponent. I am not sure if this is helpful but just thought i should mention that for any upcoming buffs to keep in mind his AP build path, you might end up with another Skarner issue :)

AgnosticTwitchNov 13, 20151 votes

Did you just say Kog'maw BUFFS?!?!?!

The new Kog'maw is the most over-powered change Riot has ever done to this game. I know multiple people who have expressed that they're considering quitting the game after seeing the new Kog in action. One friend said "if this is they're idea of balanced, I'm just done with this game".

After spending years of getting things to a point where they're much more balanced, and sacrificing some champion build diversity to make it happen, are you now pushing back to the point where a champion and snowball to complete dominance? All the changes combined it really feels like that's the direction things are going in. Most of my gamer friends quit the game in early season 2 because because of how much certain champions could snowball to the point it wasn't remotely fun to play against.

From what I've seen from this update, and they way it was discussed on your Youtube videos, it seriously feels like you're actually trying to re-add the elements to the game that you previously balanced out of the game because they are just not fun to play against.

kLimaDzUNov 13, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, it's looking like Graves is definitely too strong. We'll probably do a balance hotfix early next week to get some quick changes in halfway between 5.22 and 5.23. Odds are very high there'll be some Graves nerfs and some Kog'maw buffs in that.

And how about an hotfix in Darius he is so weak!!! I cannot even do damage to Vayne when she's top !!! pretty sad actually

alfavhunterNov 13, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, it's looking like Graves is definitely too strong. We'll probably do a balance hotfix early next week to get some quick changes in halfway between 5.22 and 5.23. Odds are very high there'll be some Graves nerfs and some Kog'maw buffs in that.

The nerds I would give graves is this

Q CD increased by 50%

Goes to live values of his second effect Q hits a monster or champion

This keeps his jungle power and gives counter play of dodging his Q

His auto attack bonus per projectile would be lowered to 25% of its current value to champions and minions, leveling his ult increases the value to 50/75/100% of live value, reducing his abseen early game burst, but evening it out for late game

These changes nerf his vs champion power and wave clear power but keeps his jungle and late game power the same

GigglingAngelNov 18, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, it's looking like Graves is definitely too strong. We'll probably do a balance hotfix early next week to get some quick changes in halfway between 5.22 and 5.23. Odds are very high there'll be some Graves nerfs and some Kog'maw buffs in that.

You do realize people have been screaming that he's OP back when the change first came out in PBE, right? Did you even care to listen or to look back?
What the heck is the point of PBE if you don't listen to the feedback?