User blog:Care Level/League of Reworks!

Foreword:
Hey, Wiki.

I've been doing champion rework concepts in my spare time because fuck it, why not? They all vary in scope, but, for the most part, they're re-imaginings of the best that a champion could feel, while keeping their theme intact. This is one of the first ones finished, but there are more in the pipeline.

For example, Graves keeps a lot of his identifying features: beefy, short-range, deals more damage from point blank, smoke screen, dash for combat stats, collateral damage. Eh, just chek it out and see. Let me know what you like, what you don't, and why.

Without further ado,

= Graves Rework = Points of interest:
 * Make Graves good at something unique and interesting.
 * Push the theme of blowing away stuff with a shotgun.

Known issues:
 * Ult is overtuned, maybe.

Contextual Changes:
Graves' identity gets polished up, big time. He's a cold, unflinching badass that has range as a luxury, not as a necessary advantage. He'll plow through tanks and blow away assassins, going toe-to-toe with them because he goddamn can. While he won't melt an entire team like Vayne or Kog'maw, he'll have the opposite of their disadvantage, too: he doesn't need a babysitter, and enemy comps will be "protect us from Graves" comps.

This starts with his Q, which is a toggle, somewhat like Jinx's. Graves takes a short while to change his ammo to either Buckshot or Solid Slugs, depending on the situation at hand. Buckshot has the capacity to deal tremendous damage, but that damage falls off when he's further away from his target. When shooting far-away things, Graves' attacks will have a big splash that does small damage; on things in his face, though, he can deliver Draven-esque chunkenings, but with minimal splash. Buckside's big downsides are that it won't leave a dent in armor, and so the bonus damage is hit twice as hard by enemy bonus armor, and that it doesn't fly far, so Graves takes a hit to his already-low base attack range.

Graves' answer to that is his other firing mode: Solid Slugs. Each hit with a Slug packs a punch, dealing percentage-health damage and shredding armor, with both effects ramping up with each Slug to the face. Slugs also fly a bit further, somewhat compensating for Graves' otherwise-abysmal attack range. Finally, while Buckshot pings off of armor, Slugs don't give a damn about it: Slugs' bonus damage ignores half of enemy bonus armor. While Solid Slugs are an awesome ammo, they come with a price, and each Slug fired off has a mana cost.

Both effects are amplified by Graves' passive, Double Barrels. While Graves isn't pulling the trigger, he'll ready a second shell in his weapon, and can fire both off in rapid succession. Graves always loads 2 shells in when switching ammo types, and readies up a second one when getting into enemy faces with Brawl.

Speaking of Brawl, that's Graves' bread-and-butter fighting skill, letting him close and open distances. If he dashes into an enemy, he'll deliver a faceful of gun, dealing damage to, bumping back, and briefly stunning foes he collides with. There's a reason he and Gragas get along so well. What's more, Graves gets a hefty boost to his resistances when Brawling, and each time he deals or takes physical damage, the bonuses stick around a little bit longer and the cooldown gets a little bit shorter. If it comes off of cooldown while he's still got the bonuses, Graves can Brawl even harder, tacking on a few extra resists with each cast. Long fights are his cup of tea -- or cask of beer, as the case may be.

Graves' big utility skill is Smoke Grenade. He'll fire a long-range smoke canister that detonates after a short delay, damaging, silencing, and blinding nearby foes. After the detonation, gas seeps out of the canister into a growing cloud, slowing foes that pass through it, cutting their vision range, and dealing damage over time. Graves gets a new Grenade every once in a while, and he can hold up to 2 at a time, but they take a bit to reload between uses.

Graves' ultimate ability is Collateral Damage. When used, he'll fire a huge explosive round, blasting back foes in front of him; the recoil pushes Graves back a bit in the opposite direction. When the shell hits an enemy champion or reaches the end of the line, it'll explode in a wide cone, dealing even more damage to the struck foe and foes behind it, and shredding their armor.

In lane, Graves should play with heavy-initiate supports that'll allow him to get into the enemy's faces and put a shotgun down their squishy throats, dealing huge Buckshot damage from close range. When against the same types of supports, the Leonas and Braums, Brawl and Solid Slugs allow him to punish them for trying to scrap him. A well-placed Smoke Grenade can even take the enemy marksman out of the fight for a moment while Graves and his support do work on the enemy engager.

In teamfights, Graves can use Brawl to charge into the enemy frontline for the CC and defensive buff, applying Slugs' shreds to soften up the enemy frontline until he can bully them out of his way, or destroy them with point-blank Buckshot and Collateral Damage if they don't get the message quick enough. Just like in lane, he can fire Smoke Grenades at the enemy backline to disrupt them while he focuses on getting up close and personal with the enemy's hard targets. In a harder fight, Graves can kite pretty well at short range -- using his dash, Smoke Grenade's zoning and slow, and Collateral Damage's knockback -- to buy time while Solid Slugs' shreds ramp up enough to let him turn the damage on with Buckshot from close range.

Against assassins, Graves' combination of CC, tankiness, and burst damage make him something the enemy assassins are going to want to think twice about diving into: he can disrupt their combos with Brawl or Collateral Damage, using the defensive stats to survive their burst while dishing out massive close-range Buckshot damage, himself. When they get second thoughts, Graves can pin them down between smoke clouds, hindering their escape while he cleans up with long-range Slugs or, if it's still up, a well-aimed Collateral Damage.

For build options, Graves'll likely build like an AD Caster, favoring raw AD, armor penetration, and cooldown reduction to attack speed and critical chance. Against stronger frontlines, he can opt into attack speed for rapid application of Slugs' shreds, but sacrifices potential on Buckshot's and Collateral Damage's absolutely disgusting AD ratios, and doesn't use the stats spectacularly due to his low base attack speed and passive's bonus attack speed.

Graves' full builds might resemble:
 * Bloodthirster, Black Cleaver, Last Whisper, CDR Boots, Randuin's Omen, Banshee's Veil.
 * Bloodthirster, Ghostblade, Last Whisper, CDR Boots, Infinity Edge, Frozen Mallet.
 * Blade of the Ruined King, Phantom Dancer, Last Whisper, Zerks, Infinity Edge, Guardian Angel.

Overall, Graves doesn't fit the role of the traditional ADC: he's not the damsel-in-distress protect-the-Vayne/Kog/Tristana that plays to stay safe.

He's a goddamn man and he'll fuck your shit up if you step to him.

Mechanical Changes:
No changes.

Passive: Double Barrels
After not attacking for 4 / 3 / 2 / 1 second[s], Graves' next basic attack will reset his attack timer and grant him 70 / 90 / 110 / 130% bonus attack speed on his next attack (the first shot does not benefit from the bonus attack speed). This passive is not consumed if Graves can kill his target with one attack, except when used against against enemy champions and structures.

Q: Buckshot / Solid Slugs
TOGGLE: Buckshot: Graves loads his shotgun with Buckshot, causing his attacks to splash around his target in a range based on his distance to them. Graves' attacks deal up to 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 (+ 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70% bonus AD) bonus physical damage, decreased (down to 30%) as Graves gets further from his target. Foes' bonus armor is doubled for the purposes of calculating bonus Buckshot damage.

TOGGLE: Solid Slugs: Graves loads his shotgun with Solid Slugs, causing his attacks to shred health and armor on hit for 3 seconds, stacking indefinitely. The first stack deals bonus physical damage equal to 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6% (+ 1% per 80 AD) current Health and shreds 10% armor, and each additional stack is half as effective as the last. Graves gains 100 / 125 / 150 / 175 / 200 bonus range while using Slugs. Foes' bonus armor is halved for the purposes of calculating bonus Slug damage.

Toggling ammo has a short loading time, during which Graves can move freely, and refreshes Double Barrels upon completion.

Cost: 20 mana per Slug. Cooldown: 2 seconds.

W: Smoke Grenade
ACTIVE: Graves fires a smoke canister at the target area; it explodes, after a short delay, dealing 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 (+ 60% AP) magic damage in a 350-radius area and blinding and silencing affected foes for 1 second. Over the next 6 seconds, the grenade emits a smoke cloud that expands from 250 to 400 units before dissipating; enemies passing through the smoke cloud receive a debuff for up to 3 seconds (depending on how old the cloud is) that slows them by 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45%, reduces their vision radius to 750 / 700 / 650 / 600 / 550, and deals 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 (+ 10% AP) magic damage per second; these effects decay over the debuff duration.

Graves can store up to 2 Smoke Grenades, and Smoke Grenade has a 2-second reload time between activations.

Range: 950. Cost: 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 mana and one Smoke Grenade. Charge time: 15 / 13 / 11 / 9 / 7 seconds.

E: Brawl
ACTIVE: Graves charges toward the cursor, colliding with the first enemy unit. He deals 80 / 130 / 180 / 230 / 280 (+ 100% AD) physical damage to and knocks back enemies in front of him, stunning them briefly. Brawl resets Graves' Double Barrels passive.

After hitting an enemy, Graves gains 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 bonus armor and magic resist, increased by 30% for each enemy champion within 500 range, for 4 seconds. Whenever Graves deals or takes physical damage, Brawl's duration is increased by one second and its cooldown is decreased by one second.

Reactivating Brawl while it's already in effect will grant another stack, which is half as effective as the previous stack.

Range: 525. Cost: 40 mana. Cooldown: 12 seconds.

R: Collateral Damage
ACTIVE: Graves fires a heavy explosive shell in a straight line, blasting away enemies in front of him up to 250 units backward and pushing him 125 units in the opposite direction. The shell deals 150 / 200 / 250 (+ 150% AD) physical damage to any non-champion enemy it passes through, as well as the first champion it collides with.

After hitting a champion, the shell pushes that foe back an additional 150 units and then explodes, dealing 200 / 325 / 450 (+ 120% AD) physical damage in an 800-range cone behind the target and reducing the bonus armor of all targets struck by 30% for 4 seconds. If the shell does not hit a champion, it detonates on reaching the end of its range, dealing the same damage in a 400-radius circle.

Range: 1000. Cost: 100 mana. Cooldown: 100 / 90 / 80 seconds.