Talk:Gragas/@comment-4878039-20131121144230/@comment-8506165-20131125221218

Well, if you're going on the tanky side of bruiser, which I personally favour, then my full build might go as follows:

Sorcs, Athene's or Morellonomicon, RoA, Liandry's, Iceborn Gauntlet (I mainly pick this up for moar slows, and spellblade after E is nice, swap out for another armor item if you want though), Spirit Visage.

I find myself tanky as all hell with this build, and the damage... well. It's not going to match full glass cannon Gragas, obviously, but with max CDR, decent MPen (esp. with Gragas' high spell bases), Liandry's burn, frequent Spellblades (Gragas' base AD is also pretty good) and actually being able to use your E offensively, I find it's still surprisingly effective there. The flipside of good AP ratios is that sure, you can build a ton of AP to exploit them, but they do well off only a little AP as well, especially against squishies. It kinda bugs me that I'm 10% over the CDR cap, but oh well. It does mean that if I want a Void Staff for MR stackers I can swap out Athene's, seeing as Spirit Visage is a really nice MR item by itself and I still have 30% afterwards, and can get blue or an elixir for the 40%.

Anyway, to use a recent example, I duelled my friend in a custom using this build recently to demonstrate the power of Bruiser Gragas, with him as a midlane bursty Annie, with DFG and all, and absolutely destroyed him in every bout we had, from 100-0. It wasn't instagib, sure, but it was a decisive victory for me each time. So can this build hold up against other strong mids? Hell yes it can. It helps that no-one seems to expect it at the moment either. They always think you'll be a squishy, and disabusing them of this notion is deliciously fun.

If you still feel that build lacks for damage though, then maybe something like this:

Sorcs (Ionian boots if you want max CDR), Athene's, RoA, Liandry's, Zhonya's, Hat (Void if they've stacked enough MR, it's just better for your damage if you look at the numbers).

950 bonus health, some Ar/MR from Zhonya/Athene, still a ton of AP, enough CDR to keep W on permanently. And Stasis from Zhonya's. Sure this wouldn't be all that tanky by itself as a midlane build but your W's a great steroid which effectively multiplies the value of the defenses you build, and if you're dilligent you should have it up most of the time. So yes, still pretty tanky whilst still packing lots of bursty AP stuff.

But yeah. Mix and match a bit, see what best fits your playstyle. I'd still advise a couple of Doran's Bling for early laning to help with your early mana needs and get you off to a decent start. Can still snowball the lane pretty well off those and your first few AP items (esp. Haunting Guise) and then transition into being a bit tankier for when the teamfights roll around so you're not just a barrel spambot.

Oh, and remember: Gragas packs a ton of utility. Damage isn't the be-all and end-all with him when he's more able to pump that utility out. A strong AS slow, decent MS slow and potential teamfight winner in the ult if you can scatter them just right? Those are things that are gonna keep Graggy strong whether building 700AP glass cannon on him is viable or not.