The Ultimate League of Legends Gragas Guide

Bars fear his arrival while the drunken townsfolk celebrate the flavor of his ale. The brewmaster has his eyes set on Summoner’s Rift to discover if something inside this chaotic arena can be used as an ingredient to perfect the flavor of his alcohol. In this Gragas guide, we’ll be learning how to use this champion in the Jungler so that players will be able to maximize the use of this champion and have a better idea of what strategies need to be executed when using him.

The Rabble Rousers Drunken Rage

Gragas is a massive man whose origins are unknown. All we know is that he just one day appeared at the Freljord in search of rare ingredients that can be used to add to his brew. He is an excellent brewmaster whose ale is famous for having such a delicious flavor and an effect that surpasses the common drunkness. Whenever Gragas would visit a town, everyone knows that a drunken party will ensue which follows the usual bar-wide brawl that would leave everyone battered and bruised.

Gragas is best known as a Jungle champion but has historically seen play in both Mid Lane, Top Lane, and the Support role. He is an incredibly flexible champion but for the sake of our Gragas guide, we’ll be sticking to his jungle capabilities. Professional players like to use Gragas because of his mix as a great engage tank champion with a ridiculous amount of sustain. He deals high damage and has one of the most game-breaking displacement abilities in League of Legends.

Gragas Gameplay

In this Gragas guide, we’ll be focusing on his ability as a Jungle. In the Jungle, Gragas has excellent mobility and a really fast wave clear kit that means he can immediately clear his side of the jungle and gank before the enemy can. In fights, Gragas utilizes his long-range engage abilities to catch out enemies that are standing too close. He usually builds a mix of Ability Power and Tankiness since he’s a battlemage, so he deals a considerable amount of damage and lives a long time.

Gragas Guide – Skills and Abilities

First up on our Gragas guide, we’ll be talking about the skills and abilities of this champion and how the player can best utilize them while in-game. This champion has a very wide range of long-range abilities and self-sustain that make him one of the best engage champions in the game. With a huge amount of AP scaling alongside his tankiness, he can one-shot a lot of champions while standing face-to-face with the enemy team if the player uses his kit properly.

Passive: Happy Hour

Innate – Gragas heals for 8% of his HP every time he uses an ability.

Gragas has an incredible amount of sustain thanks to Happy Hour. This passive ability allows him to be able to stay in the jungle longer compared to other champions that need to recall after attempting to clear a few camps. This also allows him to stay longer in teamfights by weaving in and out of the fight by either throwing abilities to sustain and put himself in a comfortable amount of HP before diving into the middle again. Remember to use your abilities when low on health instead of recalling prematurely.

Q: Barrel Roll

Active – Gragas throws a cask at the target area which ferments the longer it charges, up to 4 seconds, revealing the area where it’s placed. After 2 seconds after the initial cast, the cask becomes fully charged and increases the damage done by this ability by up to 150%, and increased slow. Gragas can recast the ability any time after it lands and automatically does so after the duration.

Recast – The cask explodes in a target area, dealing magic damage and slowing enemies depending on how long it charged. Damage is reduced by 30% against minions.

Barrell Roll is Gragas’ main damaging ability that works well to clear camps. Try to predict where the enemies will go so that you can charge it up longer or cut off their path. Remember that it’s not necessary that you charge your Barrel for 2 seconds especially if you’re up against a really mobile enemy. It’s better to land a CC first or place it under your feet if you’re fighting an enemy so that it can charge longer and hit. You can also use this ability to apply vision to an area temporarily.

W: Drunken Rage

Active – Gragas cracks open a cold one and starts chugging at a cask nulling his senses and reducing damage taken for 2.5 seconds.

Upon completing the channel of Drunken Rage, Gragas’ next basic attack within 5 seconds gains 50 range and deals bonus magic damage to the target and nearby enemies which is capped at 300 against monsters.

Drunk Rage is an ability that combines tankiness and damage. Don’t just use this ability as a defensive skill because it can also deal a lot of damage to the enemy if used. A good way to use this ability is to cast it before a fight and immediately use Body Slam while the ability is casting. This combo allows Drunken Rage to fully cast after hitting the enemy. Be careful because you can’t use auto-attacks or cast any other ability aside from Body Slow while drinking from the cask.

E: Body Slam

Active – Gragas charges forward, belly first, until he hits an enemy unit and dealing magic damage to all nearby targets, knocking them back and stunning them for 1 second. If Gragas hits an enemy, the cooldown for this ability is reduced by 3 seconds.

A good CC ability that can disrupt channeling abilities and close the distance between you and the enemy. You can also use this ability to escape enemies when they’re trying to pursue you by using it on the opposite direction. When jungling, use this ability over walls so that you can get to the next camp faster or set up a gank where the enemy will least expect you to arrive from. Finally, you can use your flash while Gragas is dashing forward so that you can extend the range of your Body Slam.

R: Explosive Cask

Active – Gragas throws a highly explosive cask at a target location over 0.55 seconds and detonates on impact on the ground, dealing magic damage to enemies in the area and knocking everyone back by 900 units from the epicenter, though not through terrain.

Explosive Cask is a really strong displacement ability that you can use to pull multiple enemies towards your team to initiate an engage if aimed well. When using this ability, keep in mind the 0.55 seconds that the cask needs before it arrives so you can predict how the enemy will move during that time and make sure that you don’t end up helping them by pushing them further into a safe zone. This ability also does a ton of magic damage so you can use it to last hit enemies.

Gragas Guide – Items and Builds

Next up on our Gragas guide, we need to understand which items are worth building on this champion. No matter which lane Gragas plays in, he likes to build a combination of AP and health items, not necessarily leaning to pure tank items because his damage suffers as a result. Gragas is really bulky despite not building pure tank, combining that with his self-sustain makes it redundant for him to build anything that doesn’t at least include some ability power in it.

Starting Item

Hailblade – Chilling Smite is the best summoner for Gragas since he likes to abuse being able to move around the map freely. This also helps when ganking champions since he’ll be able to catch up to them and instantly lock them down with a combination of CCs.

Core Items

Night Harvester (Mythic) – Night Harvester has a good combination of HP and AP damage. The mythic passive of ability haste also gives Gragas more sustain since he’s able to throw out his abilities more often, procing Happy Hour faster. A good alternative to this when you’re playing Solo Lanes is Everfrost to increase your layer of CC.

Zhonya’s Hourglass – A good item to prevent you from being one-shot once you dive into the middle of the enemy team using Body Slam. Gragas may be tanky but he isn’t built like the other tanks that can survive for a longer duration so having this item helps you last for a few more seconds.

Morellonomicon – Another good HP + AP option that also gives one of the most important passives in League of Legends lately – Grievous Wounds. Try to build this as soon as possible if you’re having a problem with the enemy team’s healing.

Recommended Items

Void Staff – This item significantly increases the potency of Gragas’ abilities by both increasing the raw Ability Power damage that the champion does and increasing Ability Penetration so that the enemy’s magic resistance will be less effective at defending against your abilities.

Rabadon’s Deathcap – Rabadon’s Deathcap is an item that upgrades the total amount of Ability Power that you gain from all sources. This is a good item to have as your 3rd or later item so that you can build up enough raw AP first before benefitting from the 35% bonus that you’ll get from this item.

Cosmic Drive – More HP and Ability Power in addition to the bonus passive that allows Gragas to gain bonus movement speed and ability haste which will really help him in the later stages of the game when he needs to poke out enemies using his Barrel Roll.

Lich Bane – A really optional item that you can build only if you can survive long in fights enough that your auto-attacks become such a big damage threat. This item can also make you a very dangerous split-pusher because your attacks will deal a huge amount of damage to enemy structures.

Gragas Guide – Runes

Primary: Domination

Keystone: Predator – The sudden burst of movement speed can ensure that Gragas always gets at least 1 kill when ganking because enemies won’t be able to react to his arrive and instantly CC lock them or displace them towards the enemy team if you’re level 6 or higher.

Sudden Impact – This rune will help Gragas deal more damage by adding some Magic Penetration to his Body Slam which is often the first ability to hit when doing a full combo. Very helpful to have no matter what the situation is.

Eyeball Collection – Gragas is a Jungler so being able to sweep wards will be really easy to build up this rune’s passive. Ganking often will also give Gragas more eyeballs which will quickly increase the amount of Ability Power that this rune gives when fully stacked.

Relentless Hunter – Movement speed is a very important stat to have if you’re a jungler. Try to gank often so that you’ll be able to fully stack this rune during the early stages of the game.

Secondary: Sorcery

Transcendence – Being able to spam your abilities will have Gragas become harder to kill because of the amount of HP he is able to recover in such a short amount of time.

Waterwalking – This rune not only helps Gragas gank more efficiently when traveling through the river but it also helps him contest objectives such as Dragons, Baron, Heralds, and even the Rift Scuttler a lot more efficiently because of the increased amount of Ability Power.

Gragas General Overview

Now that we’ve had a look at how to use this champion and the strategies involved in making him a deadly jungler, we can see that he is a very combo-based champion that works well at the hands of a player that is willing to take the time to learn how to execute a series of abilities in quick succession. Playing this champion will take a while to master so be patient when playing him because his abilities may look strong but they’re dependent on the player doing it right as mentioned multiple times in this Gragas guide.