Talk:Gragas/@comment-26265137-20160211225554

Screw cinderhulk, AP Bruiser Gragas is much better after the buffs:

Runes: Magic Pen Reds/Armor Yellows/Scaling MR Glyphs/Movement Speed Quints

With Movement Speed Quints I suggest clearing the way Trick2g does on Udyr, where he kills Gromp + Wolves and wards his blue and then backs right away with 240g to buy Hunter's potion. From here if you think the enemy Jungler is headed towards your Red (like a Lee Sin) you can go straight there and possibly get a kill if he was dumb enough to try to steal it. Otherwise just go straight for your blue, and then clear Red Side and look for a Gank. If you find you don't like this style of clear then I think you're better off taking AP Quints instead.

Masteries: 0/12/18, You want the Strength of the Ages Keystone and the Tenacity mastery (Swiftness) since we will be stacking tenacity (Swiftness + Mercs + Elixir of Iron = 50% Tenacity). The reason everyone says Merc treads are garbage now is because they're looking at the 20% tenacity in a vacuum, and in a vacuum they are garbage. The thing to understand about the value of Tenacity is that it works a lot CDR by becoming more valuable as you stack more of it. In fact I think it's even more important to stack Tenacity if you're going to get any Tenacity at all, where as with CDR the increased value isn't quite as drastic as you buy more (depending on the champion). Riot nerfed merc treads because of the new tenacity mastery, Merc treads would have otherwise been too strong in tenacity stacking builds like this.

Items: Mercs, Runic Echoes, Frozen Heart, Rylai's. For the 5th & 6th items you should choose between Liandry's, Abyssal, Zhonyas, Banner of Command, Locket, and Void Staff. I usually only build Locket if I'm the only tank on the team, or if the enemy team is mostly AP and no one else wants to build Locket.

I personally don't think there's a lot of value in specifically aiming to go over 20% CDR on AP Bruiser Gragas, as you won't be tanky enough to stand around and spam rotations like you would on Cinderhulk Gragas. The upside of this build is that instead of just being a peel & CC bot, you will also be a massive threat to enemy carries on your own. With this build the enemy has to make much more nuanced & difficult decisions on whether to focus you down or try to dive your back line.

Also one small tip to get effecient use out of the Rylai's Passive, make sure you W after you E instead of before, since your E stuns for 1 second and your W takes 0.75 seconds to channel. If you do it right you will Stun them for 1 second, and then right as your stun wears off you will proc a 40% Rylais slow for 1 second with your W. If you Q just before your E you should be able to get the maximum damage from Q off or at least force a Flash.