User blog:KeithCornell/Champion Rework - Graves, the Outlaw

Since the nerfs and subsequent fall of as the main marksman,  has risen up as the best burst-oriented marksman, as the sole reason he wasn't picked was Lucian was just plain better than him.

This rework is inspired by the New Dawn cinematic, you'll see how much by reading further down this page (for starters, it includes giving him his cigar). I also intend to make Graves have a secondary role, namely fighter, by putting more emphasis on his passive, but the price to pay is being less of a marksman than he currently is.

First, I took his range down by 50. Graves is meant to go in your face, but his current range doesn't reflect this fact enough because he still out-ranges Lucian, Sivir and Kog'Maw. To compensate, his health is going up, especially late in the game (read: +5 health growth). I also increased his base armor (by 1.2), and brought his health regen to the level of bruisers/tanks such as Sejuani, Maokai, Gragas and Alistar (it's +2 base and +0.15 growth). This is to encourage Graves players to attempt trades in lane, and recover faster than their opponents if they don't take too much damage.

Abilities
I removed the free magic resist because ranged champions, especially carries, shouldn't gain it for free. Instead, I replaced it with tenacity. It may not be the best answer, but it gives a tool for Graves to not be kited to death with his short range.

I lowered the range by 100 and changed the increased damage condition along with the increased damage. Buckshot is the closest we get to a shotgun blast, and I wanted to emphasize this. To me it was either this or I made it an AD version of or. The ability also has become overall weaker (-5, -5 per skill level after the first, -20% bonus AD scaling), but the cooldown has been reduced by 2 seconds, and the mana cost scaling has been softened.

Yes, not only did I inspire myself from the New Dawn cinematic, I also drew from User:Willbachbakal's own Graves rework. A magic damage nuke just doesn't feel right in Graves's kit, and the flavor of this skill lies in its unappreciated utility. Not much more to say: being free of the magic damage allows me to keep the mana cost fixed and to lower the cooldown more without fear of his sustained damage output. I wanted to make it into a skillshot and raise its range, but I realized it may just bite Graves when the smoke only blows up at max range, so scratch this.

Graves is picked more for burst than for sustained damage, so I'm shifting the Quickdraw boost from attack speed to attack damage. Also, more armor makes Graves a better fighter and all-in champion. Since I didn't want to make the bonus armor too big, I made the ability easier to spam with lowered cooldown and mana cost as you level it up, in the vein of Lucian's E.

The most impactful of my changes aren't in the skill window: namely, the cone width increase to 45° and a missile speed increase to 2000 (read: at least). The damage has been lowered, but so has the cooldown, especially as you put points into it.

I guess that does it for tonight's rework. Before letting you all comment on this I'd like to thank User:Willbachbakal for basically hooking me onto Graves. This awesome champion deserves some more love, so to your keyboards, and let me feel what you think I did great or much less great!