League of Legends' Graves Champion Spotlight has true grit

Riot Games has released a Champion Spotlight for the newest champion to enter the league: Graves, the Outlaw. The gunslinger has some moves in common with other ranged characters like Miss Fortune, but his focus on close-range fighting makes him look fairly unique among ranged champions.

As the video shows, Graves isn't about hiding and sniping from the back. His play style is more up-close and personal, relying on his Quickdraw ability, which lets him dash into (or out of) battles to gain increased attack speed. He's also a hero that benefits greatly from auto-attacking, which means he's best when surrounded by enemy minions to fight, as opposed to champions like Twitch who rely on the element of surprise in the middle of the jungle.

We're more excited to try out Graves than we have been for other recently released characters. His playstyle looks downright fun, and Collateral Damage looks like it might be one of the coolest Ultimate abilities in the game, despite not actually causing collateral damage (something we're not necessarily upset by). If you're interested in learning more you can check out the video above, his move list below, or you can just jump into the game and buy him now – the patch is currently live, ready to be downloaded and enjoyed.

Abilities:

  • Buckshot: Graves fires three bullets in a cone damaging all enemies in the projectiles path. Enemies at close range can be hit by multiple projectiles, but each one beyond the first will deal reduced damage.
  • Smokescreen: Graves fires a smoke canister at the target area that deals damage and creates a cloud of smoke. Enemies inside the smoke cloud have reduced sight range and movement speed.
  • Quickdraw: Graves dashes forward gaining an attack speed boost for several seconds. Attacking enemies lowers the cooldown of this skill.
  • Collateral Damage (Ultimate): Graves fires an explosive shell dealing heavy damage to the first target it hits. After hitting a champion or reaching the end of its range the shell explodes dealing damage in a cone behind the target.
  • True Grit (Passive): Graves gains increasing armor and magic resistance the longer he remains in combat.

Oct 19, 2011

Hollander Cooper

Hollander Cooper was the Lead Features Editor of GamesRadar+ between 2011 and 2014. After that lengthy stint managing GR's editorial calendar he moved behind the curtain and into the video game industry itself, working as social media manager for EA and as a communications lead at Riot Games. Hollander is currently stationed at Apple as an organic social lead for the App Store and Apple Arcade.