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Graves Changes....what am I missing....

Illydth·10/29/2015, 8:28:36 AM·2 votes·1,813 views

So I've read the PBE thread based around the changes to Graves and I've got to say I'm more than a little disconcerted. I feel like I'm missing something so I thought I'd ask the community to correct me. This is NOT intended to be a "crap on the changes" or "whine more N00b!" thread...this truly is an attempt to get a better idea what "new graves" is supposed to be about.

The main part of my confusion is the disparity between what the "Marksman" role (ADC) in LoL IS and how this particular marksman has been laid out with regards to a disparity within his abilities.

First we have a major dichotomy between his ultimate and his base range. His re-design seems to turn him into a short range AOE Powerhouse, but ignores the fact that using his ultimate in a team fight removes his damage from that teamfight: His range is so short that if he uses the Ultimate, he removes himself from range of applying his damage, what a teamfight needs it's ADC for the most.

Then there's the stated role of Graves being an "all in buster" for melee champions. Excuse me, he's an ADC marksman, not a top lane bruiser....at what point do we feel ADC's get "all in'd" by melee damage champs? Are we truly so concerned with Graves being tower dived by Leona in lane? Is that honestly what the ADC's real problem is at this point? What am I missing?

Then there's the whole "shells" mechanic...the most basic concept of an ADC in League of Legends is that most of their damage comes from their Auto Attack...and here we have an ADC who CANNOT AUTOATTACK normally.

My impression of all this shows me a few significantly problematic observations:

  • Graves can only attack twice before having to wait AT MINIMUM just over 2 seconds before he can attack again. Or, he must attack once and do nothing for 4 seconds to NOT be on an imposed 2 second cooldown.
  • Graves' AutoAttacks (when he can do them) are AOE Damage - There is now no way to "last hit" a single minion. Graves either is forced to wave clear to CS (through use of his basic attacks hitting all minions) or lose CS to the enemy pushing the wave. Basically, there's no way for graves to "freeze" a lane or to properly last hit under tower.
  • Graves AutoAttacks now HIT THE FIRST ENCOUNTERED OBJECT. His BASIC autoattack is now a SKILL SHOT which does not target individual entities but hits whatever it first comes into contact with. Vayne can now stand in the middle of a minon wave and have COMPLETE impunity to shoot at graves (who she out-ranges...think about THAT a second) and she CANNOT be retaliated against in any way because the minions will block Grave's return damage.

Putting all of this together, Graves must use one of his two shells to last hit the first minion for his first CS. In doing so, he damages all other melee minions in the first wave, meaning if they get shoved to tower, he loses their CS (you can no longer last hit formulaicly). Now the second creep is getting close to dying and graves has a terrible choice to make: Does he blow his last shell (and get put on a 2 second timer for being able to do anything) or does he let that creep die without getting the CS in fear that the waiting enemy ADC and Support can, indeed, count to 2 and will immediately and unmercifully pound him into the dirt the MOMENT his second shell is shot and he's got 2 seconds being unable to respond to an all in. Assuming Graves holds off from taking the second CS for fear of the all in, he does not simply have to wait 2 seconds for his first shell to regen, he must wait an entire 4 seconds for his first shell to regen because only if his chamber is EMPTY does the gun reset in 2 seconds, otherwise it takes 4 seconds of being out of combat for his gun to "reset".

It would seem to me, a smart Non-Graves ADC player will plant themselves dead in the middle of their creep wave (thus removing any ability for Graves to hit them with his auto-attacks - see, how to counter blitz, thresh or naut) and snipe at Graves any time he gets close to a minion (because he has such a short range) and then immediately all in on graves the moment his second shell leaves the chamber. This gives the ADC and Support 2 seconds of free damage on Graves...BUT it gets worse: The tank support steps in FRONT of his ADC after about a second and a half blocking Grave's ability to retaliate against the enemy ADC in any way while the enemy ADC is SHOOTING THROUGH his own support player's sprite to continue damaging Graves. A smart ADC/Support player group, going up against a Graves will literally force graves to get a Double Kill (with a 2 second damage cooldown) in the timeframe it takes the enemy ADC to get a single kill on Graves with NO cool-down restrictions.

I would have to assume every Graves player will simply AFK the game any time they come up against a Braum support. The beauty here is Graves range is so short he MUST come into range of your ADC to attack either you or him, your ADC's attacks go through you to hit him, but his attacks can't reach the ADC in return so long as you're standing in front...and with your general tankyness and your "E" shield it really doesn't matter what Graves' attacks do, he can't kill you, he can't kill your ADC and unless your ADC really is a potato they should be able to win EVERY trade in lane with Graves.

And, as an added bonus simply shove the wave forward into the tower and you GUARANTEE graves loses CS because he has to AOE to last hit (screwing up damage) and cannot time his last hits under tower anyway because of his cool down.

The most disconcerting thing about all of this is that there has been NO ANSWER to the question of how Graves manages the most basic things like keeping up with CS or tower destroying...the questions seem to be being actively ignored.

And speaking of "shotgun", there's the whole "Shotgun fantasy" that keeps getting brought up...this is not an RPG, there is no "fantasy role play" in League of Legends. This is a PVP game who's whole basis is surrounding how a single champion holds up to other champions.

It very much feels like someone said "I'm not sure if Graves is broken or not, but he is using a shotgun...and what he's doing with it doesn't symbolize how a shotgun would be used...so we need to change him!"

News flash, unless you're turning this into LoL the RPG no one gives a flying leap at a rolling doughnut (2 shakes of a lambs tail, or whatever metaphor you'd like to throw in here) about whether or not Grave's shotgun shoots like a real shotgun...what we care about is whether Graves is a PLAYABLE CHAMPION and unfortunately every discussion I've read so far seems to UTTERLY IGNORE his play-ability (good, bad or indifferent) for "Graves is in a good place now because he uses a shotgun, and now the shotgun works as you'd expect a shotgun to work in real life, so that makes him a balanced champion!"

I've not been around long, but I will have to say if I'm not reading something wrong, this has got to be the single most devastating hit to the play-ability of any champion I've yet seen in LoL. Riot can't be this bad at their own game...they can't NOT see the shear non-playability of Graves. They can't have testers so bad at the game as to not see the tactic of standing a tanky support in front of the ADC and letting the ADC attack through them.

These changes simply CANNOT work as they've been described. I must believe I'm missing something regarding Graves' playability with these new changes.

Simply put, Graves CANNOT work as he's being described to work...I'd think the champion would be utterly unplayable.

4 Comments

Lafouboy10/29/2015, 8:41:28 AM1 votes

He's no longer a bottom lane champ. If you bring him bot, it better be with an aggressive champ that can cheese.

Top lane/Mid lane Graves is where it will be at.

Unlucky Number710/29/2015, 9:05:19 AM1 votes

This is what i'm getting from reading the pbe post.

his autos work like how his q used too. The closer he is the more damage he does, because the more shells hit his target.

He normally fires 4 bullets from one shell and based on my math he does 1.5 - 2.2 total attack damage (depending on level) to a target at point blank range if he didn't crit. If graves does crit he shoots 8 bullets (10 with infinity edge) from one shell. that's a ratio of 3.4 (4.1 with infinity edge) at point plank range at max level. Now since he has 2 shells that means at early levels he basically has one spell that has no base damage but has a ratio of 3 total ad, and at max level under optimal conditions he has one non ultimate spell that does 8.2 total ad. WIth just a infinity edge and a blood thirsther with two auto attacks he would do over 1312 physical damage, not counting the nerf to IE and his own base attack damage,

Turrets can get hit by multiple shells from his autos. so he's not good at seiging but he's great at taking unguarded turrets.

his w smokescreen now totally obscures the vision of any enemy that's inside of it. You can now auto attack without fear of retaliation by an opposing marksmen. If you manage to put this over the enemy marksmen you've turned the fight into a 2v1. if you put this over bot the enemy bot lane than it's shooting fish in a barrel.

His new q end of the line is basically Veigar's event horizen except instead of stunning someone you do massive amounts of ad damage and you ust it to either corall opponents either away from him or too him, and it instanly detonates if part of it hits a wall.

They are going to tune up his inherent durability.

His R is basically caitlyn's 90 caliber net with more damage, and ad scaling.

From what i can gather, yes he'll have some trouble against poke but you have a steller all in.

that's how i see it at least.

Sightless6610/29/2015, 8:55:51 PM1 votes

You're missing his Q. Seriously, you're missing his Q. I'm throwing this thing out when I'm level 5 and insta-clearing the caster minions. They want to stay in the minion wave? They can take all that damage then. People aren't going to avoid your damage just by sitting in minions. They'll have to be more proactive than that.

You're also missing his W. Throw it on someone, and they can't fight back. There's no "if you're hitting them they can hit back" stipulation. They're just blind, no matter what.

Assuming Graves holds off from taking the second CS for fear of the all in, he does not simply have to wait 2 seconds for his first shell to regen, he must wait an entire 4 seconds for his first shell to regen because only if his chamber is EMPTY does the gun reset in 2 seconds, otherwise it takes 4 seconds of being out of combat for his gun to "reset".

Actually no. It's actually much easier than that. The reload takes the same amount of time no matter whether you're reloading one or two shells, and it doesn't take long. I don't know if someone said it worked differently, but I've tried it out and I personally guaranteeing you that the reload time is exactly the same no matter how many shells you're reloading.

His range is so short that if he uses the Ultimate, he removes himself from range of applying his damage,

Not really. It doesn't knock you that far back. Maybe 300 units or so. It gets you out of range of a melee diving your face and gives you time to reposition and reload your shells. That works perfectly fine.

This shit works. He works well. It's almost funny how well he works.

Illydth10/31/2015, 5:23:48 AM1 votes

TY For the responses. My son was rather distraught over the changes to Graves (one of his favored ADC's) and while looking at trying to argue that Graves wasn't as bad as all that I realized I couldn't argue with him from what I was reading...that's what prompted my post.

Actually it sounds pretty good at this point.