After seeing the skill list for Graves I wasn’t sure what to think of the champion. His skillset looked solid, though a little unoriginal. I was excited to see another ranged carry added to the League. I’ve played a few games with him, most of which I had to struggle not to rage at my team (I didn’t always succeed here, either), but I think I’ve had enough of a look for a few impressions.

A lot of people have been saying he’s OP and I can understand why. His Buckshot seems to randomly hit targets for double damage. The tooltip does state that this can happen, but I’ve seen it happen at nearly max range for the shot, which makes me think something is up – either a bug or just an unintentional power curve.

I’m also really curious why an 80% attack speed buff needed to be added into his dash skill. At max rank he can easily have 100% uptime on the buff provided he has a target. If the design intention behind Buckshot was to give him a reason to close the gap, his dash is the polar opposite. Once I had a decent farm it seemed to always be best practice to stand at the end of a fight, dashing back and forth and annihilating anyone I could right-click.

I’m not in love with his ultimate, or his smoke shroud really. There are too many variables to make the former truly deadly without someone like Amumu/Annie/Morgana. The latter is easy to run through and avoid. I’ve seen it save a life or two, but it hasn’t happened often. It is good burst when leveled with Buckshot, though.

That’s probably the biggest problem with Graves. Where is the weak part of his game? Buckshot and his smoke give him excellent burst early game while his dash provides the late game steroid he needs. So his drawback is what then? That he can be crowd controlled? Not good enough for my tastes.

I’d recommend playing Graves if you have the chance. You’ll probably enjoy yourself.