Gragas the Rabble Rouser, and the guy who always comes back for more!

The foothills of the Great Barrier are home to the hardiest people found anywhere on Valoran. Only those with great fortitude and endurance dwell in what is perhaps the most rugged and unforgiving environment anywhere on the face of Runeterra. It is here that the mighty Gragas keeps permanent residence, living south of Noxus. This behemoth of a man has long eschewed the rigors of civilization for what he calls his ''slice of paradise''; he has no neighbors to bother him and plenty of space to pursue his life's ambition - brewing. Grogs, ales, meads, and wine - nothing is beyond his skill to brew. What makes Gragas a truly special brewmaster, however, is his proximity to a large and powerful nexus. The magic of this nexus has seeped into his fermented creations, and Gragas has consumed enough of his own poison over the years to slake the thirst of an army. This arcane alcohol has caused Gragas to swell both in height and girth; he looms over the tallest of men and boasts nearly twice their width. To complement his immoderate size, Gragas has developed an ornery temper - one fueled by liquor and raw magic. His infrequent sojourns into Noxus for supplies always unfold the same way: Gragas enters a Noxian tavern, Gragas gets into several fights, Gragas lays out countless citizens, and finally Gragas flees for the foothills with Noxian constables in hot - though reluctant - pursuit. His misadventures have garnered him the attention of several summoners in the League of Legends, and he is now a willing champion in the arenas...doling out hard liquor and harder fists.

Things that this guide will cover are as follows:

1. Abilities, Summoner Spells, Skill Order, Runes, and reason for them.
2. Masteries, and possible alterations.
3. When you should farm, harass, gank, and jungle.
4. Items, Core, and situational builds.
5. Gragas tips for general gameplay.



Abilities, Summoner Spells, Skill Order, Runes, and reason for them.

Abilities

Barrel Roll - Gragas rolls his cask to a location, which can be activated to explode or will explode on its own after 5 seconds. Enemies struck by the blast have their attack speed lowered.
Gragas rolls his cask to a location, which can be activated again to explode or will explode on its own after 5 seconds, dealing 100/150/200/250/300 (+0.9) magic damage and applying a 20/25/30/35/40% attack speed debuff for 3 seconds.
Cost 80/90/100/110/120 Mana Range 1100

-- This will be your main farming ability and harassment. If you have blue buff this should be on CD at all times.


Drunken Rage - Gragas guzzles down brew from his cask for 1 second, restoring his mana. After finishing, he becomes drunkenly empowered, increasing his damage dealt and reducing damage received.
Gragas guzzles down brew from his cask, channeling for 1 second. He gains 40/55/70/85/100 mana while channeling, and becomes empowered after finishing, increasing physical attack damage by 30/40/50/60/70, and reducing damage taken by 10/12/14/16/18% for 20 seconds.


-- This should be on CD at all times unless you're getting ready for a team fight. This should be used right before a fight so that its active during the whole fight.


Body Slam - Gragas charges to a location and collides with the first enemy unit he comes across, dealing damage to all nearby enemy units and slowing their movement. Damage is split amongst units hit.
Gragas charges forward, colliding with the first enemy unit he hits, dealing 80/120/160/200/240 (0.5 + ) magic damage to enemies in the area. Damage is split amongst targets hit. Units hit by Body Slam are slowed by 35% for 2.5 seconds.
Cost 50/55/60/65/70 Mana Range 250

-- Try to only use this ability for chasing, running, or harassing. Do not use it to farm creeps as tempting as it may be, because many good gankers will wait till you use it to go in and hit you.


Explosive Cask - Gragas hurls his cask to a location, which explodes on impact, dealing damage and knocking back enemies caught in the blast radius.
Gragas throws his cask to an area. Upon landing, it deals 200/325/450 (+1) magic damage to all units struck, knocking them back.
Cost 100/125/150 Mana Range 1050

-- This ability does a great amount of damage and it is great for both ganking, chasing, and running away. Try to use it to innitiate a team fight by placing a teams squishies and tanks apart so that your team can focus down one or two of them. With 40% CDR this ability has around a 35 second CD so don't worry about tossing it a lot.


Happy Hour - On ability use, Gragas takes a drink restoring 2% of his max health over 4 seconds.

-- This is just like sex when you have Golem buff going for two specific reasons. First off you can spam your barrel to farm and harass and continuously have this regen going. This regen also gives you a good position to zone enemies with your barrel because it does a lot of damage early game, and the regen from golem and happy hour can keep you in lane for a long time.


Summoner Spells

I personally use Teleport, and Clarity. Teleport allows me to help top or bottom if a fight starts before level 6. Most players don't expect mid to just teleport in and make it a quick 3v2. Clarity allows for me to stay in lane and harass mid while I last hit creeps with basic attacks.

Teleport - Strong with gragas because of his ability to kill an entire wave of creeps in one to two spells. It also gives him the map control to teleport to a lane during a team fight to help or gank when the team needs him. Try to save Teleport until its needed for gank/tower saving purposes. If you back to buy, and nobody is pushing your turrets you should save it and just walk back. This allows for you to jump to any lane or ward at any time to support a lane/push/gank.

Clarity - Gragas' barrels cost a lot of mana per cast and have a VERY short CD. This being said you will run out of mana if you do not have Clarity or the golem buff. I personally like to use Clarity for a multitude of reasons. With Gragas' regen the only thing he needs is mana to stay in lane, and it allows for a HUGE amount of harassment levels 1-8, and you almost never have to leave lane for mana if you bring clarity and use it properly. It's also good to bait with for junglers ganking mid by making them think you're OOM. (Clarity also allows for someone else on your team to hold golem at all times, but Golem + Gragas is still great to have)

Flash - Flash is very strong on gragas, but should be used sparingly. He can use Body Slam to get to any place that flash can get you so save flash till you need it. It's also very strong to use by flashing closer to an enemy, ulting behind them, body slamming them when they land near you, and then barrel them. This combo works very well and against squishes almost always guarentee's a kill.

Ghost - Some people do use ghost on Gragas, but I personally never have. If you can land a body slam on someone they are not going to get away. If your team wards properly I would still consider Teleport to be a better gank assist than Ghost.

Exhaust - Don't bother getting it. Body Slam combo'd with a barrel slows their move speed, and their auto attack speed. You should NOT need exhaust.

Ignite - Just not worth it in my opinion. Teleport and clarity work together quite well, and ignite just isn't enough damage addition to matter. Gragas can dive turrets very early in the game, and his range with barrels is massive so the extra damage shouldn't be needed.

Skill Order

Cask > Barrel Roll > Body Slam > Drunken Rage

1. Barrel Roll
2. Drunken Rage (This will be the only point you put in till everything else is maxed)
3. Body Slam OR Barrel Roll
4. Opposite skill from level 3 (Should currently be 2/1/1/0 for skills)
5. Barrel Roll
6. Cask
7. Barrel Roll
8. Body Slam
9. Barrel Roll

I will not go any further because the rest should be self explanitory. You want 1 point in drunken rage at level 2 for a few reasons. First off it gives you 10% reduction to all damage taken making it by far the best scaling level 1 spell. It also gives you a little bit of mana back every time you cast it, and it will cause your passive to activate. This little bit of mana at level 2 should be quite a bit for early game also, and should keep you from using clarity till level 5 or so.

People have asked me why I don't max Drunken Rage before Body Slam on Gragas and that is specifically because of scaling. 1 point into drunken rage gives you 10% damage reduction, while each additional point only gives you 2% more. That 2% is NOT worth the point because the additional damage you do with body slam and CD reduction can help you gank which the gold from ganks will buy armor/MR that will exceed the 2% from your Drunken Rage.

Runes

9x Magic Penetration Marks
9x Dodge Seals
9x CDR Glyphs
3x Flat Health Quints


Masteries, and possible alterations.



There are a few alterations you can make to this tree. The first and foremost has to do with how often you will get to have golem buff. If you're the highest priority on your team for Golem Buff then you should drop 2 points in "Expanded Mind", and put them into "Utility Master". Obviously other alterations would be in regards to if you choose to have Ghost, or Flash summer spells which again you can just change one or two points around and have those masteries set.


When you should farm, harass, gank, and jungle.


Gragas - King of Farming

Early game your whole focus should be farming. You want to aim for last hitting creeps with your basic attacks and timing is a HUGE part of playing. This is something you should practice constantly, and it makes a big difference in how well you play on any champion. You should try to avoid using barrels to last hit creeps if you can, but if there are a creep or two that you just can't reach that you know a barrel will one hit go ahead and last hit them with it, but try to avoid this and use barrels for harassment.

Early/Mid game Gragas will have his first 'Core Item' which will be the RoA. At this point he should be around level 7 and barrels should be one hitting caster minions(As long as you were mid/solo this is accurate). Also make a note that the Wraiths on each corner of mid are now burstable by gragas by tossing a barrel in the middle of them and body slamming through the wall. Blow up the barrel as you're body slamming through and all 4 wraiths should die instantly. Do this on both sides of the map when possible. (This additional gold and exp will get you further ahead of their mid) Also please note that when your creeps are pushing the tower hard you can back and kill the wolves camp just under golem for additional exp and gold and walk back to mid and you should be there in time to continue the creep wave and not miss any exp.

Harassment - Who out ranges who?

Gragas has a MASSIVE range on his barrel. This allows for him to easily control ranged champions in mid while he sits next to the creep waves and last hits with basic attacks. This allows Gragas to not only out farm mid, but if you get good enough with last hitting with basic attacks while tossing barrels at the same time you can get mid low enough for a gank and still be farming which is something that most champions can't do. (Please note that while casting barrel roll you can still click on a creep and last hit it at the same second.)

People you should avoid trying to harass and just focus on farming would be Mordekaiser, and Vladimir. These two champions are normally just too easy to stay high on health and can sit back and regen. Your goal with these two champions is to just out farm them, and with your teleport leave lane quickly to gank and retur. Force them to either leave mid to help other lanes or let them sit in mid and still get out farmed. These are the only two champions I just ignore and don't bother trying to harass unless a gank is going to be done.

Ganking - Where did he come from?

Ganking at level 6 with gragas is great because of his ultimate. Most champions will be level 4 when you hit 6, and you can just teleport on a ward or turret or something in a bush to prepare a gank.(Hopefully your team places a anti-Jungle gank ward near their lane in the corner river brush so you can teleport to them quickly.) Your ultimate can easily stop people with flash or ghost from escaping, and after you kill one or two of the lanes you can return to mid and continue your farming.

Again please try to save your teleport to HELP lanes and not just get yourself back to mid quickly. You should have a large enough mana pool that body slamming every couple seconds will suffice to help your travel speed.

Jungling - When and where

At level 7 like I said before you can combo the wraiths from full to dead with 1 barrel and a body slam.

At level 5 you can go back and kill the wolves spawn for extra exp if you're creeps are pushing the opposing turret.

At level 7-9 you can begin taking golem by yourself if you need it, just be sure to have a health potion on hand for when you return to lane.

You can tank dragon at level 7-8 easily and you have an escape mechanism that most people don't have so you should be fine to get away after taking. Just be sure to have atleast one or two people helping you with dragon.

Late game just grab all the jungle you can when you're passing by. It normally takes very little to kill an entire camp. (One barrel and one body slam normally does the trick)

Just focus on always out farming the opposing team, but don't farm to the point where it hurts your team.


Items, Core, and situational builds.


Core items

Starting items - Sapphire Crystal, 2 Health Potions

First Core - Rod of Ages. Get this as soon as you can. Before 15 minutes is a must.

Second Core - Merc Treads. This is for the resistance, and the stun/slow duration reduction.

Situational Items

Situational builds - Gragas only has two REAL core items, because he is so versatile. From here you need to decide what your team needs. Who was the opposing teams solos, what type of damage are they getting, and how can you counter these builds.

List of items to consider and why:

Force of Nature - Massive magic resist, passive stacks with your passive for massive health regen.

Thorn Mail - I only suggest this item if the team has a lot of auto attack damage.

Sunfire cape - Good armor, lots of health, and a nice AoE for extra damage to farm with. (Note that the bonus health adds to your passives regen)

Banshee's Veil - This has Magic Resistiance, bonus Health and Mana, and blocks stuns/silences.

Once you get one or two tank items for survivability and to take some of the damage you want to again work torwards one more AP item. I only suggest Rylai's for a specific reason.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter - +500 Health +80 Ability Power UNIQUE Passive: Dealing spell damage slows the target's Movement Speed by 35% for 1.5 seconds (15% for multi-target and damage-over-time spells)

The health from Rylai's helps your passive regen and gives you additional survivability that gragas needs because he will be in the middle of a fight. The slow gives him a stronger ability to chase because not only does his body slam slow, but so does his barrels. This last bit of additional AP also makes gragas great for chasing down and killing the squishes because he is tanky enough to take hits from multiple champs, but strong enough to drop one or two people and get away.


Gragas tips for general gameplay.

Before team fights start try to throw as many barrels as you can to lower their health before you fight.

Don't be afraid to engage a team fight with your ultimate. Just try to get their DPS's torwards your team while the tanks are pushed away.

Gragas is the 'King of Farming', but don't neglect buying wards for your team. Not only is this important to help your team win, but they are great to teleport on and surprise that jungler who is trying to take golem!

Gragas normally out farms everybody, and out levels everybody so don't neglect helping your team push or gank.

If you're chasing someone who you know has flash try to save your body slam till they flash over a wall. Body slam moves very quickly and if they flash and you quickly body slam over the wall not only can you continue chasing, but you should be able to hit them with it and slow them also.

Thanks for reading and I hope I have helped some of those new Gragas players!

Thanks for reading my guide. I am sure I will edit this a few more times to make it easier to read and more appealing to the eyes, but this was a quick version. This guide will always be subject to change, and may not be complete as of right now. If I see something is wrong I will edit, change, or make a new thread with an updated guide.

Feel free to ask questions, and add comments. If you disagree with anything I have said feel free to state your opinion and why.

This post was edited by IuberForFun on Jan 19 2011 08:37pm

Where are the special thanks?

lot of stuff i disagree w/ >.>

running ap runes on tank grag gives really great laning advantage
and he definitely needs mana regen runes to keep ur barrel spamming

i'd go w/ something like
mpen red
ap per lvl blue
mana regen yellow
ap quint or hp quint

clarity is just fail summoner when ur a tank
grabbing ignite for early kill or exhaust for team fights to protect carry is must
and u'd always want ghost or flash on grag as 2nd summoner

and since ur tank, u shouldn't get roa unless ur going full ap, lil bit ap from roa won't affect any dmg late game
i find the core item for grag is something like
merc, banshee, randuin's omen

Ap gragas with survivabiltiy items isnt a tank

Cliff?

I have no idea where he got the idea that this was in any way shape or form a tank build.. Roflmao..

Oh and a special thanks to night_soulz_ksc for cropping my masteries.

If the guy even looked at my masteries how could he assume that this was a tank build?

Gragas is NOT a tank, and should NOT be played as one.

This post was edited by IuberForFun on Jan 19 2011 09:42pm

some stuff i disagree with, but gragas is awesome.

Like what?

I use mana regen seals and no clarity. The regen + drunken rage is usually enough to spam it early in game.

I think having an extra ignite or exhaust really helps the team.

Mana regen seals become useless late game, while dodge is something that helps throughout the whole game. Infact mid game mana regen runes of any kind are useless for Gragas.

Clarity is something that is useful all game. Please note it also SCALES throughout the whole game.. Regen runes do NOT. Making regen very useless when Clarity is a HUGE help.

Also in regards to using clarity it has such a short CD that normally you can sit in a lane indefinately, and it greatly helps with ganks if you teleport to a team mate and they need the mana. Clarity can be popped for a gank/mid gank.


I have played Gragas with almost every decent summoner spell combo, and it still comes down to the fact that he doesn't need exhaust because he shouldn't be worried about getting hit, and ignite should NOT be the deciding factor in getting a kill.

This post was edited by IuberForFun on Jan 19 2011 09:58pm