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Gragas's W is the most awkward ability in the game

doubleguac·1/14/2015, 5:51:23 PM·5 votes·1,343 views

Riot, please fix this ability. The rest of Gragas's bruiser rework is fine. He's otherwise an engaging and fun champion to play. But his W is a nightmare to try to make the most of.

The bruiser rework loaded a huge portion of Gragas's power into his W. It's his main source of sustained damage and tankiness.

Gragas channels for 1 second, and gains 2.5 second of damage reduction. The incredibly short duration means any smart player can simply hold onto their big cooldowns for 2 seconds before dumping them on Grag. Gragas isn't even able to fight back for almost half the duration of the damage reduction.

No matter what you do, it feels like the ability is punishing you. If you use it once a fight/duel has already broken out, you are punished (it can be interrupted if they have any CC, and you are taking damage while unable to fight back). If you use it before you go in, you're broadcasting to your opponent: "hey I'm about to body slam you, it might be time to back up behind your minions." Drinking his beer can literally only mean one thing--that he is about to go in. Additionally, using it before you go in wastes a substantial portion of the already laughably short duration. By the time you've body slammed into your opponent, 2/3 of the duration is probably already gone.

At max level, the ability has a 4 second cooldown. With 0% cdr, you have to spend 25% of a fight channeling in order to use it whenever its up. With 40% cdr, you have to spend over 40% of a fight channeling. Of course, if you don't use it whenever it's up, you are sacrificing a huge portion of your sustained damage and your main source of innate tankiness. Again--no matter what you do, it feels like the ability is punishing you.

I don't know that Gragas is necessarily weak right now. This isn't a "buff Gragas" thread. All I'm saying is that it is fundamentally not fun to spend 25+% of every fight locked out of your abilities and auto attacks.

The point of the rework was to make him a tanky front line bruiser. It makes no sense to force a tanky front line bruiser to channel this often. It feels unbelievably awkward to spend so much time channeling while hanging out in melee range of the enemy team.

TL;DR: Gragas's W is incredibly strong, but incredibly awkward to use. If it didn't have a channel time, it would probably be overpowered. Making an ability incredibly awkward to use is a frustrating way to gate it's power

13 Comments

doubleguac1/14/2015, 6:13:47 PM3 votes

Suggestions:

  1. Remove the damage reduction from his W. Make it so that, if Gragas hits a champion with body slam, he gains the same damage reduction. Increase the cooldown and damage of his W proportionally.

Now Gragas has access to the damage reduction when he actually needs it, instead of when he is standing back channeling. Increasing the damage and cooldown of his W maintains his current power level while lessening the main frustration of the ability (channeling all the time).

  1. Remove the channel time entirely. Nerf the damage and damage reduction as needed.

The simplest solution. The stats on the ability would probably have to be nerfed considerably, as the awkward channel time is the only thing keeping it balanced

  1. Allow Gragas to body slam while drinking his beer. Gragas still can't auto attack or use his other abilities while channeling

Solves the broadcasting problem I mentioned. Also, helps give Gragas the damage reduction when he needs it, by allowing him to engage while channeling. Most importantly, it gives him something to do while channeling, so he doesn't feel like he's spending so much of the game locked out of his own kit

  1. Make CDR reduce the channel time

At the very least, the percentage of the time you spend channeling will never go over 25% in a fight. This would also make CDR less punishing to build on Gragas, which is a worthy goal, because CDR is otherwise a very attractive stat for him

Ulric Greatsword1/15/2015, 12:08:16 AM2 votes

Not going to lie, I thought about picking up Gragas a while ago to add to my roster, but this problem of a 1 SECOND CAST TIME is what really turned me off. I mained Gangplank for a while and hiw W has a .25 second cast that is still somehow incredibly awkward, and I could only imagine the horrors of a quadruply awkward cast time.

Levyathyn1/14/2015, 6:00:53 PM1 votes

I don't want to necessarily argue your whole point here, but after getting some mana or decent regen, spamming W a good amount is an easy way to recover health every eight seconds. This can make it impossible for an enemy to know when you're going in, and when you're just fishing for that 4% health. I agree, though, that the time limit on both the tankiness and bonus damage should be a bit longer.

Akeito1/14/2015, 6:24:09 PM1 votes

I had fun using Gragas jungle, his W is on 2.5s cd after hitting one people with it, Gauntlet - Visage - Ranger Magus - Zhonya - Deathcap and boot

CaptnJakSparrow1/15/2015, 12:17:33 AM1 votes

Gragas still hits like a truck.