Graves doesn't have a trick. He beats you in a straight fight from level three onward, and there's nothing more annoying than that.
Most junglers you lose to have a gimmick you can learn. Graves just walks up and wins, clears faster than you, and takes your camps while you're deciding what to do about it. That's a legitimately hard problem, and the solution isn't outplaying him at close range. It's refusing to be there.
Check out our top Graves counters below for more information on how to beat him!
Counter Guide
How to Beat Graves
Graves doesn't have a trick. He beats you in a straight fight from level three onward, and there's nothing more annoying than that.
Most junglers you lose to have a gimmick you can learn to respect. Graves walks up and wins, clears faster than you, and takes your camps while you're still deciding what to do about it. He rarely leaves the top end of the jungle section on our solo queue tier list, and the games back it up. That's a genuinely hard problem, and the solution isn't outplaying him at close range. It's refusing to be there.
Nocturne- Sustain that outlasts a burst window, since his damage is front-loaded into a reload cycle
- A body between you and him, because his bullets don't pass through units
- Hard crowd control, which is the one thing his kit has none of
Graves Overview
Strengths: What Makes Him Dangerous
- He hits far harder up close than a marksman should. His attack is a shotgun spread of four bullets, and at point blank range every one of them lands on the same target.
- Quickdraw [E] pays him for walking at you. The dash grants armor and magic resist, refreshes on basic attacks, and stacks twice as fast when it goes toward you rather than away.
- End of the Line [Q] detonates on terrain. He uses jungle walls to double the damage on a skillshot you thought you'd already dodged.
- He can take your aim away. Smoke Screen [W] cuts sight range inside it, which is a serious problem for anything that has to line up a shot.
- His ultimate hits whoever is standing behind you, in a cone, after the first champion eats the heavy part.
Weaknesses: Where You Get In
- Reload. When his ammo runs out he's a melee champion with no basic attack for the duration.
- His bullets can't pass through units. A single minion or monster between you removes most of his damage output.
- Everything except the ultimate is a skillshot with travel time. None of his damage is guaranteed.
- He wants short fights up close. A long fight against real sustain goes badly for him, because his best window is the first three seconds.
- He has no hard crowd control at all. Nothing in his kit stops you from leaving, and nothing stops you from arriving either.
Countering Graves
Based on the strengths and weaknesses above, beating Graves comes down to champions who can accomplish at least one of the following:
- Fight through a wall of bodies. His shotgun spread is the entire damage profile, and it needs an unobstructed line at short range.
- Punish the reload. It's a real window and it happens every few attacks. The all-in goes in during it, not before it.
- Bring the crowd control he doesn't have. He can dash out of a lot, but he can't dash out of a root, a suppression, or a knockup that's already landed.
- Make the fight last. Sustain beats burst here, because Quickdraw [E]'s resistances are on a timer and his damage isn't.
If you're already locked into the matchup without any of those tools, these strategies still work:
Playing a Bad Graves Matchup
Don't invade him at level 2 or 3. That's the exact stretch where his clear speed and his duel power are both at their peak, and it's the most common way this matchup ends early.
Path away from him instead of mirroring him. Graves wants proximity, and a jungler on the opposite side of the map is a jungler he can't stat-check.
Take your fights next to a wall on your side of it. End of the Line [Q] detonating on terrain works for him, but standing on the far side of that terrain means the explosion happens without you.
Buy early armor rather than early damage if the invades keep working. Plated Steelcaps changes the level 4 duel more than any 800 gold damage component does.
Best Graves Counters
Three counters, three completely different plans: eat the big shot, out-heal the burst, or simply refuse to lose the long fight.
Nocturne Eats the Big Shot
Shroud of Darkness [W] blocks the next enemy ability, and against Graves the ability he wants to throw is Collateral Damage [R]. Blocking it removes the largest single number in his kit and doubles Nocturne's attack speed at the same time, which flips the duel in one button.
Duskbringer [Q] then handles the spacing. The trail lets Nocturne move through units and adds move speed and attack damage, so the distance Graves needs to keep for his shotgun spread stops existing. Unspeakable Horror [E] finishes it, because Quickdraw [E] is a dash and a fear isn't something a dash gets you out of.
Warwick Out-heals the Burst
Graves is a front-loaded burst duelist and Warwick is the wrong champion to front-load damage into. Eternal Hunger [Passive] heals him on every attack below half health and triples that healing below a quarter, which is exactly the health range Graves is aiming for.
Jaws of the Beast [Q] heals off a percentage of Graves' maximum health, and Blood Hunt [W] gives Warwick move speed toward anyone already low, which is the reload window. Infinite Duress [R] is the finish: it's a suppression, and Quickdraw [E] doesn't break a suppression no matter how many charges of it he has.
Wukong Wins the Long Fight
Stone Skin [Passive] stacks armor and health regeneration while Wukong is fighting champions and monsters, which means he gets tankier over exactly the seconds Graves needs to be dealing damage. Crushing Blow [Q] then shreds Graves' armor in the other direction.
Warrior Trickster [W] is the specific answer to a shotgun. Wukong goes invisible and dashes away leaving a clone behind, and Graves spends his burst and his ammo on a decoy. Cyclone [R] then knocks him up for a long duration, and there's no dash out of a knockup.
Itemizing Against Graves
Graves is pure physical damage delivered in one close-range burst, and he holds no healing reduction and no crowd control of his own:
Plated Steelcaps is the cheapest way to make his shotgun spread stop killing you at level 4, and Frozen Heart attacks the attack speed the whole pattern runs on. Randuin's Omen cuts the critical strike damage his later build is built around, and Guardian Angel means a successful Collateral Damage [R] on your carry stops being a fight-ending result.
Where Graves Actually Sits Right Now
Counter picks age with the patch, so check the current numbers before you trust a matchup:
- League of Legends Solo Queue Tier List, updated every patch
- Tier List Changelog, for what moved and why
- Formerly OP #7: Release Graves, for the version that played nothing like this
- Weird Picks #133: Graves Marksman Bot, for the other side of the matchup
- How to Beat or Counter Series, for every other matchup guide
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