Previous Lore
Graves, the OutlawMalcolm Graves was born in the back of a Bilgewater tavern and left there with a bottle of spiked milk. He survived a childhood in the pirate-run slums using every dirty trick in the book. Intent on building a new life for himself, he stowed away on the first ship to the mainland he could sneak aboard.
However, the grim realities of the world forced him to eke out an unsavory living in the underground of various city-states, jumping the border whenever things got too hot. At a particularly high-stakes game of cards, he found himself seated opposite 
Twisted Fate. They both flipped four aces on the final hand.
It was the first time either conman had met his equal. The two formed an alliance, swindling marks at the tables and scrapping back-to-back in the alleys afterward. Together, they ran the streets - stacking chips, decks, and rap sheets.
Unfortunately, Graves made the mistake of hustling a hefty sum from Dr. Aregor Priggs, a high-ranking Zaunite official and businessman. When Priggs discovered how he'd been played, he became obsessed with revenge. He learned about Twisted Fate's all-consuming desire to control magic and he promptly offered him a trade: serve Graves up in exchange for enrollment in a procedure which would grant his wish.
Twisted Fate took the deal - both he and Graves knew the stakes of their arrangement, but the offer was too good. Once acquired, Priggs had Graves taken to a special location built to hold men whose crimes - or more precisely their punishments - were meant to stay off the books.
Graves endured years of captivity at the hands of Zaun's wardens before he managed to escape. One of his fellow detainees introduced him to an eccentric gunsmith who modified a shotgun exactly to his specifications. He named it '
Destiny'.
After he paid a visit to Priggs, Graves joined the League of Legends with two targets in his sights: Twisted Fate and payback.
- Candidate
- Date
- 14 October, 21 CLE
- Observation
Malcolm Graves is the picture of resilience. His body, a checkerboard of scars and cracked calluses, remains fit despite his age. His expression is grim, determined. He carries an oversized shotgun in one hand. Its weight is irrational for its function, but it complements him well.
However, the real story lies in his eyes. They seem stubbornly fixed on something beyond his vision, something unachievable, some goal that has always remained slightly out of reach. Nothing will steer him from his course. It's as though he has pursued the carrot-on-a-stick for so long that, even though he learned the trick, it's all he knows how to do anymore.
- Reflection
Same old song and dance, Graves thought. Couple of big wigs trying to put on a show.
Graves wasn't one for theatrics. He preferred to keep most of his social interactions 12-gauge and below. Things hadn't always been this way. Once upon a time, he genuinely delighted in the game, fleecing marks and skipping town before the chips could fall. Back then he had a partner with a like-minded philosophy: the longer the con, the better.
Good times.
Then Twisted Fate turned on him faster than a foal in a firepit.
Graves was no stranger to the double cross, but somehow Fate managed to blindside him. Never again. He paid a fair chunk of his life for that oversight. It was a hard lesson, but then again the most important ones tended to be.
Now all that was left was to even the score.
The clank of crashing steel broke his thoughts. It was a tone of bitter finality, the chime of swindled life. He knew it well. He spun to find a familiar set of bars lined mockingly between him and the freedom he so recently won. Behind them, the oily face of the man who incarcerated him, Dr. Aregor Priggs, sneered in victory. He raised his arm, happy to put a slug between Priggs' beady eyes, but his hand was empty.
He was trapped, again, in Priggs' privately-funded detention facility.
Well, this is a setback.
Priggs grinned broadly, gathering a froth of reeking spittle in the corners of his mouth. He was a bulbous, slimy man whose only redeeming quality, as far as Graves was concerned, was that he had the stones to look his captives in the eye while he kept them holed up like dogs. Graves had worked out that Priggs used this little sanctuary primarily as a place to make high-profile competitors disappear, but he had earned a special cell for taking two of Priggs' more fetching mistresses for a week-long excursion on the sleaze's dime. By the time Priggs' retinue of head-bobbing corporate flunkies tracked all the funds Graves funneled, he and Fate were already in Demacia hustling vacationers on Conqueror Beach.
"I bet you thought you saw the last of me", Priggs wheezed. He always wheezed when he talked.
"The last I cared to", Graves said. "You looked a might improved with that pig face of yours spread across a wall." Every word carried a consequence, so Graves chose to savor them.
"Aren't you curious how I did it?" Priggs was pleased with himself.
"I don't wonder why critters come crawling back, I just stomp harder next time."
"I hope you still have that spirit when I'm through with you", Priggs spat. Graves didn't flinch. He may as well have been a tick for how long he'd held on in that place, with few friends and fewer decencies, tended by whatever trash Priggs found to run the outfit. Pain had long ago become a chore more than any kind of punishment.
"I hope you eat something lighter the next time I make you soil yourself", he returned.
"Why do you want to join the League, Graves?" The question was unusually direct for the wheezing oaf, but when the subject was the most powerful organization in Valoran, perhaps even his chaps got a little chafed.
"Don't know why you'd stop to wonder, he said. "You know my history as well as anyone."
"Miss me that much?" The new voice, a relic from the past, made Graves' blood boil. He grabbed the bars, knuckles white, as Twisted Fate strolled into view behind Priggs.
"Fate! I know you're crooked as a quarryman's spine, but you got a real set of tires throwing in with this sack of stool again!" This wasn't the reunion Graves had planned all these years.
"Why you--- " the fat man sputtered.
"Why do you want to join the League, Graves?" Twisted Fate's face was calm, unreadable.
"You let me out of this cage and I'll show you-- " Graves roared.
"Why do you want--- " Fate started again.
"I'm going to ruin your con, Fate! The world may buy that you're some kind of 'champion', but I'm gonna show them what you really are. I will take everything you have, and when I'm done, you'll be lucky to scam the heat off a campfire." Graves took a deep breath. He didn't realize how much Twisted Fate had gotten to him. He silently vowed never to give Fate the satisfaction of seeing him this angry again.
"How does it feel, exposing your mind?" Fate smirked, a simple gesture that was acid in Graves' veins. He swallowed, determined not to lose his cool again.
"Feels like I just squatted with spurs on", he muttered.
Fate chuckled. "It's good to see you again, Malcolm."
With that, he strode out of sight, Priggs close on his heels. Graves sat in his cell, smoldering, until the bars suddenly opened. Cautiously, he exited the cell...
...and found himself standing in the Institute of War, weapon in hand.
Always putting on a show.
Graves clenched his teeth and cocked his gun. He wasn't one for theatrics, but if it was a show they wanted...
Previous Champion Spotlight
Previous Abilities
Previous Splash Art
Patch History
Quickdraw
- Bug Fix: True Grit's duration is refreshed by Graves's basic attacks and spells against non-minions.
- Smoke Screen
- Bug Fix: Pool Party Graves's Smoke Screen now properly plays its sprinkler sound effects for enemies.
- Quickdraw
- Stack limit increased to 8 from 4.
- New Effect: Now grants 2 stacks if you dash toward an enemy champion.
- Resistances per stack reduced to 5 / 7.5 / 10 / 12.5 / 15 from 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30.
- General
- Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where an enemy hit with multiple shells from Graves's basic attacks only applied a single stack of The Black Cleaver.
- Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where an enemy hit with multiple shells from Graves's basic attacks only applied a single stack of
- General
- Bug Fix: Cancelling Graves's basic attack no longer fails to reset his basic attack timer.
- General
- Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where Elise's Spiderlings sometimes took no damage from Graves's basic attacks.
- Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where
- Smoke Screen
- Bug Fix: No longer fizzles if cast immediately before Graves fires his second basic attack charge.
- Collateral Damage
- Bug Fix: Graves is no longer briefly stunned if an enemy tries to displace him as he casts Collateral Damage.
- New Destiny
- First pellet damage reduced to 70-100% AD from 75-110% AD.
- Subsequent pellets damage reduced to 23-33% AD from 24-36% AD.
- Critical strike pellets reduced to 6 from 8.
- Critical strike pellets spread angle reduced to 15° from 18°.
- Removed: Bonus critical damage grants additional pellets.
- New Effect: Critical strike pellets deal 40% × (1 + bonus critical damage) AD bonus damage.
- First pellet damage reduced to 70-100% AD from 75-110% AD.
- New Destiny
- Removed: Buckshot Template:Cctip Template:Moi.
- Removed: Double Barrel's 0.25 seconds recoil after attacking being interrupted by End of the Line and Collateral Damage.
- End of the Line
- Detonation base damage reduced to 80 / 125 / 170 / 215 / 260 from 85 / 145 / 205 / 265 / 325.
- New Effect: There is now a 0.25 second delay for the detonation when it strikes terrain (changed from instant).
- Quickdraw
- Bug Fix: Quickdraw interrupted Graves' reload animation.
- New Effect: Graves will continue his last issued command before Quickdraw.
- Quickdraw
- Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where leveling up caused Quickdraw's armor and magic resistance bonus to become inconsistent until refreshed.
- Bug Fix: Fixed a bug where leveling up caused
- V5.22 November 17th Hotfix
- Stats
- Movement speed reduced to 340 from 345.
- End of the Line
- Initial damage reduced to 55 / 70 / 85 / 100 / 115 from 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 / 140.
- Detonation damage reduced to 85 / 145 / 205 / 265 / 325 from 90 / 155 / 220 / 285 / 350.
- Mana cost increased to 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 from 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 / 75.
- Stats
- Base attack damage increased to 60.83 from 54.21.
- Attack damage growth reduced to 2.41 from 3.1.
- Armor growth increased to 3.4 from 3.2.
- Base attack speed reduced to 0.481 from 0.625
- Attack delay increased to 0.3 from 0.
- Graves' delay between attacks scales with attack speed better than convention.
- Movement speed increased to 345 from 330.
- Attack range reduced to 425 from 525.
- New Destiny - New Innate. True Grit repurposed into Quickdraw.
- Passive - 12-Gauge: Graves stores up to 2 Shells. Each of Graves' basic attacks consumes 1 Shell and sprays four pellets in a cone, dealing damage to the first enemy they each collide with. Graves is not guaranteed to hit his target.
- Enemies hit take 75% - 110% AD damage plus 25% - 36.6% AD damage for every pellet to hit them beyond the first. Damage scales with level. Turrets take 25% reduced damage (multiplicative).
- Template:Cctip fire 4 additional pellets (+2 more with Infinity Edge).
- Targets that take modified damage from basic attacks will only be hit by one pellet - e.g. wards, Zyra's plants and Noxious Traps.
- Runaan's Hurricane fires its own lesser bolts at enemies near to Graves' target as if he used conventional autoattacks.
- Passive - Buckshot: Pellets cannot pass through units, each applies on-hit effects but enemies will only suffer on-hit effects once per attack. Non-champions hit by multiple pellets are Template:Cctip.
- One-use on-hit effects like Sheen are applied to the first enemy hit, as with Rat-Ta-Tat-Tat.
- One-use on-hit effects like
- Passive - Double Barrel: After using all of his Shells, Graves reloads Destiny, which takes ~2 seconds. Graves bonus attack speed slightly reduces the reload timer. If Graves sits on one Shell for 4 seconds without attacking, he automatically reloads, which takes half as long. Acquiring a Shell from Quickdraw will interrupt Graves' reloading.
- Passive - 12-Gauge: Graves stores up to 2 Shells. Each of Graves' basic attacks consumes 1 Shell and sprays four pellets in a cone, dealing damage to the first enemy they each collide with. Graves is not guaranteed to hit his target.
- End of the Line - New Q. Buckshot repurposed into New Destiny.
- Active: Graves fires a powder round forward in a line, dealing 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 (+ 75% bonus AD) physical damage to enemies it passes through and leaving a trail of powder on the ground. After a 2 second delay or if the round strikes a structure or wall, the trail ignites dealing 90 / 155 / 220 / 285 / 350 (+ 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 / 120% bonus AD) physical damage to enemies along the powder line toward the point of cast and in a rectangular area around the round's detonation.
- Smoke Screen
- Cooldown increased to 26 / 24 / 22 / 20 / 18 seconds from 20 / 19 / 18 / 17 / 16.
- Removed: Persistent Template:Cctip. Now only slows on impact.
- Sight reduction changes to "Enemies inside Smoke Screen cannot see outside, for any reason" from "Enemies inside Smoke Screen have their sight radius reduced". Allied vision is still removed.
- Quickdraw
- On-hit CDR reduced to 0.5 seconds from 1.
- Removed: Attack speed bonus.
- New Effect: On-hit CDR can be triggered by each pellet - i.e. up to 4 / 8 / 10 times per attack.
- New Effect: Instantly loads 1 Shell.
- New Effect: Resets Graves' attack timer.
- New Effect: Now grants Graves a stack of True Grit for 4 seconds, increasing Graves' Armor and Magic Resistance by 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 that stacks up to 4 times. Hits attacks against non-minions refresh the duration, but only subsequent casts will generate additional stacks.
- Collateral Damage
- New Effect: Graves is Template:Cctip 300 units on-cast.
- Buckshot
- Base damage reduced to 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 from 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200.
- Attack damage ratio reduced to (+ 75% bonus AD) from (+ 80% bonus AD).
- Damage from bullets beyond the first increased to 50% from 40%.
- Maximum damage increased to 120 / 180 / 240 / 300 / 360 (+ 150% bonus AD) from 108 / 171 / 234 / 297 / 360 (+ 144% bonus AD).
- General
- Removed Graves' cigar in the splash art.
- General
- Texture update to Hired Gun.
- General
- Texture update to Classic and Jailbreak Graves.
- Collateral Damage
- Tooltip fixed to state the actual explosion damage as 200 / 320 / 440 instead of 200 / 280 / 360.
- No functional change from V4.13.
- Tooltip fixed to state the actual explosion damage as 200 / 320 / 440 instead of 200 / 280 / 360.
- Buckshot
- Damage per extra bullet increased to 40% from 35%.
- Collateral Damage
- Single target damage increased to 250 / 400 / 550 from 250 / 350 / 450
- Stats
- Base armor increased to 19 from 15.
- Quickdraw
- Mana cost reduced to 40 from 50.
- Collateral Damage
- Collision bonus attack damage ratio increased to 150% bonus AD from 140% bonus AD
- Cone base damage increased to 200 / 280 / 360 from 140 / 250 / 360.
- Stats
- Base movement speed increased to 330 from 305.
- Template:Csi is now properly flagged as having sunglasses.
- General
- Base attack speed reduced to 0.625 from 0.638.
- Quickdraw
- Attack speed reduced to 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70% from 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 / 80%.
- Smoke Screen
- Sight reduction range reduced to 675 from 800.
- General
- Updated tooltips.
- Buckshot
- Base damage reduced to 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 from 60 / 105 / 150 / 195 / 240.
- Damage per extra bullet increased to 35% from 25%.
- Smoke Screen
- Duration reduced to 4 seconds from 5.
- Buckshot
- Fixed a bug where using a ward could break its sound.
- Collateral Damage
- Fixed a bug where it could cost no mana and go on cooldown without firing.
- Buckshot
- Mana cost increased to 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 from 60 / 65 / 70 / 75 / 80.
- Collateral Damage
- Initial damage reduced to 250 / 350 / 450 from 250 / 375 / 500.
- Explosion damage reduced to 140 / 250 / 360 from 140 / 275 / 400.
- Cooldown increased to 100 / 90 / 80 seconds from 80 / 70 / 60.
- Stats
- Attack range reduced to 525 from 550.
- Base mana lowered to 295 from 342.
- Buckshot
- damage per additional missile reduced to 25% from 30%.
- Fixed a few small tooltip errors.
- True Grit
- Buff duration reduced to 3 seconds from 4.
- Armor and magic resistance per stack reduced to 3 from 4 at max level. (?)
- Buckshot
- Extra damage per additional projectile reduced to 30% from 35%.
- V1.0.0.127 Added
- True Grit (Innate)
- Graves gains increasing armor and magic resistance the longer he remains in combat.
- Buckshot (Q)
- 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.
- Smoke Screen (W)
- 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 (E)
- 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.