Hey guys! Before the rework Gragas was my go to mid laner. So after he was changed to having more of a Tanky disruptor role as a champion, I really wanted to find a place he fits. I have tested him in Top Lane, The Jungle, and as a Support. I find him to be strong everywhere to be honest. So to help expand his play, I wrote up this guide to spread the fatty's fame.

SEASON 5 UPDATE:
Hey guys, it's been awhile since I've updated this guide, so I'm taking the time to make major updates where they are required.

PROS

-Build/Role is very versatile
-Can fit into many team compositions
-Brings tons of CC to his team
-Sets up kills for his team
-Tons of fun to play

CONS

-Needs other good damage sources on his team to thrive
-Slightly item-reliant
-3 skillshots

So without anymore delay, let's get into it.

The item builds (the icons of Gragas near the top of the page) are seperated into 5 sections:
-Tank Support
-Bruiser Jungle
-Tank Jungle
-Bruiser Top
-Tank Top

There are 3 written-up sections that go more in depth regarding laning with each of these positions under the "Laning" section of the guide.(Support/Jungle/Top)

Note: You may notice that there is no "Support Bruiser" build in this guide. This is because as much as I have tried to make it work, Support Bruiser is just not an effective role. You simply do not have enough gold to have the damage needed to be a major damage threat.

Passive: Happy Hour
Happy Hour is, in my opinion, one of the best laning passives in the game. If you time your harass and abilities correctly, you instantly receive 4% of your max HP every 8 seconds. This equates to (approximately, assuming you proc it as it comes) 32% of your health EVERY MINUTE. This is in addition to your natural health regen as well as items (Relic shield heal, Spirit Visage, etc.).

If you take a lot of damage in a trade, just play passive for a minute or two and heal it back up while tossing Q's to harass. This essentially means that you win almost every even trade, because you just heal it back up while your enemy can't regen quite as fast as the fatty. Make sure to abuse this in lane. By timing your abilities to coincide with Happy Hour, it becomes very powerful.


Q: Barrel Roll
Your main harass/zoning/siege/escape/kill securing ability. Although it doesn't do as much damage as before the rework, this thing is crazy in terms of utility. You place a barrel down and can charge it for it to do extra damage and slow. (One thing most people don't know: The barrel turns red after about half the duration. This is when it reaches its maximum damage. Any charging after that is just to keep it there longer)

In lane, you use it to zone and can also use them to CS if you're losing lane. Just be sure to not spam it too much or you'll go oom. In the jungle, use it in conjunction with your E on ganks to slow enemies. It also makes a nice camp-clearing tool because you can charge it. In fights, use the slow on it to help jungler ganks and chase down fleeing enemies. While running away from enemies and peeling for your team, pop a quick barrel on the enemy for a good slow to get away. Finally, you can also use the barrels to scout out fog of war, because it provides vision for its duration.



W: Drunken Rage
Gragas' only ability that doesn't have any form of CC. The thing you have to realize is the reduced damage duration is pretty short. So to take full advantage of it, you really have to get the timing down and proc it right as you go into fights. However, the real kick to this ability is the empowered auto-attack. On your next auto-attack after casting this ability, you deal buttloads of damage that scales with AP and the targets Maximum Health.

Don't underestimate the power of your W. It increases your 1-v-1 potential by A LOT. You can use it to do massive damage to both enemy squishys and tanks. This ability is also very effective when going up against health stacking tanks ( Braum, Dr. Mundo, Zac etc.)



E: Body Slam
In my opinion, the change to this ability is the thing that made Gragas Support actually GOOD, rather than just viable. The damage alone is quite nice even with no AP, but the thing that really makes it good is its an easy to land stun. Unless you get counter-CC'd, this literally cannot be missed by a decent player. A 1-second stun in combination with his other abilities makes Gragas have so much potential to set up kills.

Additionally, use this ability to hop over walls while in the jungle to both get around faster and escape from enemies (think spots like dragon wall, baron wall, base wall, regular jungle walls etc.)



R: Explosive Cask
Being good with your ultimate separates a decent from a good gragas player. THis is especially true when playing jungle Gragas. You want to use this ability to knock an out of position squishy into your team or to set up picks. You can use this ability to separate the enemy back line from their tanks and bruisers so that you can pick them off easily. Use Explosive Cask to create space between and disrupt the enemy team. Be creative with it. You can get some crazy initiations off by knocking enemy champions away from their tower.

Be careful though: you can mess up another ally team member's initiates (if you ult when your friendly Wukong does, you'll completely ruin his engage by knocking everyone away). So use proper judgement and look who can/is engaging fights on your team.

TL;DR
Use this ability to set up picks, peel for your team, and catch high-priority targets out of position.

Primary Spell:

You take this ability pretty much every game. It is standard on almost every champion. No questions asked. The versatility of this spell is just so good. Offensively to pursue fleeing champions, defensively to hop over a wall to get away. Especially if your playing jungle, as, in combination with your E, you are very hard to catch. Imagine Body Slam over a wall and then flashing over another. Fun right?

Secondary Spell:

Now, your 2nd spell options are a little more flexible.

I usually take this on Support Gragas, just to have better anti-carry tools and better teamfighting. Place it on ADC's or assassins take them out of the fight for a few seconds. What more do you want?


Necessary when taking jungle Gragas. Helps with clear times, objective control, and a good R + Smite combo can out-smite next to everything else.


If someone on your team is already taking Exhaust, take this instead. It allows you to secure kills and contribute with more damage for your team.


You can take this if your ADC doesn't take it. (When Gragas Supporting) However, the meta right now usually calls for ADC's to take it. You can also take it if you need that extra insurance of escapability (ie. they have a very gank-heavy jungler)


I like this a lot in top lane for 3 reasons:
1. It lets stay in lane longer
2. You can splitpush and tele for fights
3. Many top laners already take it, and you may need it to counter their splitpush
Take it 99% of the time when you take Gragas top.

Support

Gragas isn't the strongest laner. That's not to say he is a weak laner by any means, but you don't choose Gragas Support for his laning particularly. Gragas thrives in the mid-game skirmishes. The 3 v 3's over Dragon or blue buff, that is where YOU want to be as Gragas Support. Your item build is built around this idea of giving you the most strength in these kinds of fights as possible.

However, this doesn't mean you shouldn't still win lane with Gragas! Level 1 you aren't particularly strong, so avoid level 1 fights. Your level 2 all-in is very nice though. W + E combo into the enemy ADC will take a good chunk of their health. You will (almost) always win all-ins at level 2 against supports that don't like going all in (Zyra, Velkoz, Blitzcrank etc). And you may very well win all-ins even against champions that have the "best" all-in like Leona.

In terms of lane-type, Gragas is most efficiently played as a counter-engage support. Wait for the enemy to make a positioning mistake or a risky engagement, and then punish them with your dominant CC and damage. Your basic harass ability (if you can do it safely) is Drunken Rage --> Body Slam --> Auto Attack

As stated earlier, Gragas excels at mid-game teamfights. So your goal is laning phase is to keep the enemy bot lane off of your ADC. If your ADC is constantly being pressured, you are doing your job wrong. The best situation to have is to be zoning the enemy ADC and let yours free farm. OF course, if you see an opportunity to fight, so be it.

I partiularly like to wait until level 6, because your ultimate flat out gets you kills. If you Explosive Cask the enemy ADC into you, away from his support, stun him with Body Slam, hit him with Drunken Rage and slow him with Exhaust + Barrel Roll, you will get a kill. I guarantee you 99% if you land this combo correctly at level 6 and your ADC is competent, you will get a kill. There is little counter play to this, except maybe a particularly ******* fish ( Nami), but we'll get to that later.

Jungle

With the introduction of the Quill Coat changes to Spirit of the Ancient Golem, many tank junglers became very good in solo-que. A majority of people focused on the long-missed picks ( Maokai, Zac), but jungle Gragas became VERY good as well. If you think back to Gragas's abilities, he has a stun, a slow and a knock back. All of which function as GREAT Crowd Control for ganks. Additionally, Gragas's good base damage and Drunken Rage provide tons of damage. Many junglers provide either CC ( Maokai) or damage ( Shyvana) on ganks but Gragas has a healthy balance of both. Your ability to camp the **** out of a lane is insane.

Early Game Jungling Route:
1. Blue Buff
2. Wraiths
3. Red Buff
4. Gank respective lanes (see picture)
5. If there are no good ganks, take wolves and farm a little bit

Ganking:
Your basic Gank combo is pretty simple. Pre-6, you want to Drunken Rage --> Body Slam --> Auto Attack --> Barrel Roll for the slow. Post 6, you can use Explosive Cask either in the beginning of the gank or after you stun them with Body Slam to knock them to your teammate.

Top

(Work in Progress)
Play passive until you reach level 2 or 3. After that, you want to keep your cs up and go for QUICK trades. I repeat. DO NOT get into extended trades with most top laners. Your CD's are long compared to many AD bruisers ( Jax, Irelia, Darius) and you will lose the trade if you stay. Your goal is to Drunken Rage --> Body Slam then back off unless you can kill them. You should be able to bully many people this way. One of the reasons Gragas top lane came into popularity was because this trade combo does good damage AND that he has good sustain from his passive, Happy Hour. Finally, remember to use your ult to set up some very nice plays in 1 v 1's and for jungle ganks. If you start to win lane and want to snowball with some extra damage, you can buy a Sheen and build it into a Lich Bane so that your empowered auto attack does even more damage.

Thank you for using my Gragas build! Make sure to win with Gragas every game, and help me make Gragas a more popular pick! If you have any suggestions on how I can improve this build, please leave them in the comments below! If you found this guide successful, please upvote it.

Changelog

October 10, 2014:
-Updated Top Lane laning section
June 17, 2014:
-Initially published finished basic information for all 4 builds.
July 27, 2014:
-Updated build to patch 4.12
-Added Top Lane Build
-Removed Support Bruiser Build (I found it simply wasn't an effective build)
August 19, 2014:
-Added "Laning" Section
-Temporarily Removed Teamfighting Section (Will be added after being re-written)

ToDo List

-Teamfight Section
-Finish Matchups Section