User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Champion Rework) Graves, the Outlaw/@comment-973379-20150213214211/@comment-1330314-20150227182303

I still think 75 range is more valuable than the sum of those bonuses, particularly since I made his steroid not work on minions -- he'd only gain 15 bonus resistances 5 seconds after entering a proper fight. 450 range would make him a lot riskier, including in top lane, where it would be a lot easier for any bruiser to jump him, so when compared to more successful top lane marksmen, such as and the occasional, he's still the more vulnerable pick. I'm not discounting potential Graves builds, which I think would be healthy (though not particularly effective), so much as saying Graves would do far, far better by building damage, especially with the above kit: my version of Graves is extremely dependent on his burst, so building tanky would make him a lot less good at his main selling point. It's also this reliance on burst that would make him a better bot laner: most top laners are tanky, and burst doesn't work well on tanky champions. Even with his higher risk, he'd be much likelier to get kills and get ahead in bot lane than in top lane, so while he could definitely do okay as a top laner, he wouldn't be the best option.