User blog:Willbachbakal/(Champion Rework) Graves, the Outlaw

This is a tentative rework for Graves, the Outlaw. For over a year, Graves had fallen under 's shadow, being the mobile bursty marksman with less safety and more mana issues. Now that Lucian's been turned into the hyper-mobile hit-and-run marksman he is now, and thus become more niche, Graves has risen to the top of the roster as the next most versatile marksman in the game ( used to be that too, but her nerfs and subsequent rework gave her a niche of her own). Right now, he has a bit of everything: he's got burst, DPS, mobility, poke, and even a bit of tankiness. His weakness was originally meant to be his low-ish range, but his passive and Q allow him to poke for decent damage at long ranges. Because of this, he actually has a pretty safe laning phase, and gets to output pretty safe burst from a comfortable distance all game, despite his kit being built to make him fight from up close. Right now, the only thing preventing him from becoming oppressive is his terrible mana usage, which is one of the reasons why can't be made viable (Graves would be able to get rid of his only real weakness).

Overall, Graves is eventually going to need a Lucian-level set of tweaks: while his playstyle is often compared to pre-rework Lucian's, he actually has a fundamentally different core set of incentives: Lucian wants to dash across the edge of fights, keeping enemies at bay while sniping them with precise shots; Graves, on the other hand, wants to barge into his opponents, blow them up at close range, and clean up whomever's left. Playing up his in-your-face, bursty playstyle would allow him to have much clearer strengths (he could be the burstiest marksman in the game), along with equally clear weaknesses (he'd also be the shortest-ranged marksman out there, bar ).

Abilities
What do you think of these proposed changes? It's not really the most extensive rework out there, but Graves is a champion with a pretty good set of abilities already; he just needs to be nudged into a more specific niche, I feel. Is this what you imagined Graves would be like? What do you think are meant to be Graves's strengths and weaknesses? Considering that I'm suggesting to slash his autoattack range, do his other changes compensate for this well enough?