I'm not usually one to complain about patches before they're out....

T RexHasTinyArms··2 votes·551 views

But watching some jungle Graves play on the PBE is a bit concerning.

TLDR; He's really safe and a lot of the "weaknesses" of his kit that justify some of the power he gets only apply in lane, so he just wrecks in the jungle. He may actually be better in the jungle, and an ADC that can safe farm and not be shut down might be a balance issue (definitely will be complained about).

His kit is designed to give him lots of raw power, but in exchange he has some pretty big weaknesses that enemies can exploit. The delay in his q explosion allows some of it to be dodged even if the first part hits I believe, the reload on his auto gives trade back time even for melee champs if you get in close enough to hit the extra bullets for damage (especially on crits w/ their wide spray), and I think the knock back instead of penetration means minions can stop the bullets if you position right (not sure because I've been watching jungle mostly). He has some tanky stats to mitigate it, but he has to open him self to a lot of potential trade damage in order to get close and use a lot of his damage.

In the jungle though he is looking like one of the faster clears, one of the safer clears w/ high HP if you play him right, and one of the best early game duelists. His knock back and quick draw let him kite camps w/out breaking their patience really easy now so his HP stays high, and even if he does have to take some hits he has massive armor if his quick draw bonus is up. His clear is really fast because he can do 150-250% AD autos pretty consistently, and potentially could do a 300% AD on raptors but that's unrealistic (close range isn't an issue bc you can chose positioning w/ jg camps unlike lane opponent so 4 pellets on 1 monster is 150% AD, and 2 on the big monster with 1 on the side small monsters is 250% damage to he camp because it's 100%+75%+75%, which is a really really fast clear). Oh and whether he's clearing camps or dueling when he invades or is invaded, his q is much easier to proc the instant explode because of all the jungle walls. If you have a laner w/ CC his burst damage is pretty good too btw, so he can get kills and jungle farm so he can probably get as much gold as he would in lane most of the time (assuming the jungler is good and uses his kit right).

I love the rework, but Graves looks like he may be the new jungle Nidalee , but with more burst and resistances, and less poke and mobility. Oh and given that he's an ADC he probably out scales her late game too. Maybe it's just me, but that sounds like it may be a problem to balance.

6 Comments

Hayaishi22 votes

And will have shitty ganks with shitty map presence.

Clearing the jungle isn't everything.

ZephyrDrake1 votes

{quoted}

And will have shitty ganks with shitty map presence.

Clearing the jungle isn't everything.

the same can be said about Shyvana and she was a beastly jungler. Graves will just laugh at the face of anyone who tries to kill him in the jungle and if any of his lanes has good cc then he can just go there and force a flash at the bare minimum or just annihilate the laner

Asayake 5150glow1 votes

{quoted}

the same can be said about Shyvana and she was a beastly jungler. Graves will just laugh at the face of anyone who tries to kill him in the jungle and if any of his lanes has good cc then he can just go there and force a flash at the bare minimum or just annihilate the laner

(Shyv - Ult)

T RexHasTinyArms1 votes

How much do you jungle? Maybe I'm wrong and at higher MMR he won't do well, but I promise you in my scrub elo and below you can destroy w/ him. People in low elo don't have good map awareness and if lanes bring any cc (ie bot lane has a support w/ hard cc and takes exhaust) then you should be able to get a kill close to 100% of the time if you play it right.

Also I'm curious why you think he won't have good map presence. It's not like he needs to farm scuttles and literally every camp he can for sated, and if he is clearing at high HP he can gank early (and frequently if he's clearing fast) so his burst should chunk the enemy lane down and he doesn't need an early kill to just give the lane enough of an HP lead that they have a big lane advantage (this is what map presence is so should be doable w/ graves). Plus I think when people learn him he will be used more like Nidalee, Nunu, or Shaco in terms of applying a lot of map pressure through invades. If he is killing the enemy jungle in their jungle then he shuts down their ganks and his team is fine. If he is invading and living when the enemy laners collapse (dash, defensive steroid, slow/vision distortion, flash) then his laners get an exp advantage and should have an easy lane, which again is indirect map pressure.

CreationFlaw1 votes

Graves in general is pretty broken on the pbe, he's able to stomp any lane right now. The raw damage is a little insane, and then with the new items, it's just bleh

Axxlon1 votes

Soooo... that's, what, 5+ champions Certainlyt has designed now that are either fucking broken or just feel oppressive as shit? :^)

Hmm, sounds like a senior designer needs to have a talk with him or something lol

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