Season after season, as new champions rotate into the meta, I am reminded of something I discovered way back in season 2 but forget every year; I am not very good at making complex decisions. This is why I went from playing something like Irelia to playing Malphite, from playing Lucian to playing Ashe, and this season it is Gragas.

Gragas has most recently transitioned from the jungle to the top lane in competitive play due to the nature of the top lane meta transitioning to tankier laners after their counters had been nerfed. The competitive jungle meta contains many high damage junglers such as Graves, Nidalee, and Kindred. While Gragas has lost some favor in the professional jungle meta he remains a solid pick in the jungle for anyone looking to expand their champion pool or if you are looking to expand into a new role, Gragas is a great champion to start with.

Abilities

Gragas’ passive does not provide a huge amount of healing like that of Volibear or Dr. Mundo but is pretty significant during the early part of the game as it helps you stay healthy throughout your jungle clear.

Barrel Roll is the ability you will maxing out first, as its values are the best per level as well as providing the most damage for jungle clears. When using this ability try to let it ferment for as long as possible as the damage and slow increases with time. When the barrel ferments the base damage and ratio go up thus it is best to allow the barrel to sit whether it is for fights or jungle camps.

Drunken Rage should often be cast before you engage onto someone with Body Slam so that you can stun them and quickly follow up with an empowered auto attack. It is worth noting that this ability cannot be used defensively like Alistar’s Unbreakable Will as Gragas only receives the benefits of this ability once he completes the channel. This ability scales very well with its % max HP damage along with the increased % damage reduction allowing Gragas to be very tanky during teamfights.

Gragas players live and die based on how they land their Body Slam. Miss the mark and you end up with a three second longer cooldown than if you had hit a target, leaving you vulnerable. That is why when using this ability you need to take great care regarding whether or your target is in range. This is also your primary method of ganking as you want to open with Body Slam, land your Drunken Rage auto attack, and throw a barrel underneath your target. Body Slam’s base damage is quite high at later levels in addition to having a fair ratio but due to the fact that the cooldown does not decrease with level you will need to max this ability last.

Using flash in conjunction with Body Slam is the most important combo you can learn on Gragas. Similar to other ability+flash combos Gragas’ Body Slam+flash has very little counter play as you flash during the abilities animation directly into the enemy to stun then instantly. This is usually followed up by an Explosive Cask that throws the enemy toward you or into your team.

It is fairly accurate to say Explosive Cask is the AOE version of Lee Sin’s Dragon’s Rage both in the way that is used and what the abilities do. Quite possibly one of the best forms of CC, Explosive Cask displaces those hit by it based on where they are when the ability connects with the target area. Explosive Cask has a fairly forgiving damage radius as well as having quite a large cast range.

How well you aim your ultimate is crucial as well. Here Explosive Cask lands between Caitlyn and Twisted Fate and will knock the two of them away from blue team which allows them to escape.

Item build

When it comes to which jungle item to use almost everyone item has its own justification and it is really up to you and how you want to play the game. I personally prefer to use Tracker’s Knife as junglers move around the map the most and therefore have the most opportunities to create meaningful vision. Warding near enemy camps, such as Raptors, provides vision for your mid-laner but also assures that they won’t miss any EXP when warding.

The next question is whether to build Runic Echoes or Cinderhulk. Cinderhulk is believed by many to be a less efficient item when compared to Sunfire Cape and stat wise Cinderhulk is weaker as it deals less damage to champions and provides less defensive stats upon purchase. Runic Echoes provides additional damage in the form of its passive as well as movement speed and mana. Gragas tends to spam his abilities as they all have relatively low cooldowns and mana costs. Runic Echoes allows Gragas to be quite liberal with when he uses his abilities in the jungle in addition to providing movement speed to close in for a Body Slam.

Recently Sunfire Cape has once again become a staple for tanky builds. I personally do not prefer to build this item over others as I tend to make Iceborn Gauntlet my third item and unless I am against a high AD composition I prefer to buy MR for my second item. Sunfire is also key on champions that need to push waves of minions such as Maokai, Poppy, Ekko, or Shen. Being a jungler you won’t be pushing lanes often and Barrel Roll provides enough pushing power.

Iceborn Gauntlet is another key item on Gragas as it provides sticking power with its slow, CDR to supplement Gragas’ high base damage, and extra damage to help Gragas stay relevant throughout the stages of the game. I prefer to buy IBG as a third item after completing Runic Echoes as I want MR to prevent deaths at the hands of mages during the mid game.

Locket of the Iron Solari is probably my most purchased item between the jungle and support role. Locket adds MR to teammates in range of its aura as well as shield. This is particularly useful against champions with a great deal of AOE magic damage such as Lux, Gangplank (Cannon Barrage), and Malphite. If you are going to build this item it is paramount that you stay grouped with your team to make use of both the passive and active.

Abyssal Scepter is your substitute for IBG when you are facing a high magic damage composition. Abyssal Scepter gives Gragas the stats he wants to remain a threat while still being tanky.

Spirit Visage and Banshee’s Veil are both good choices for MR but also some of the only choice you have to choose from for MR. Gragas has no AD ratios which does not provide a large amount of incentive to build a Hexdrinker or Maw of Malmortius. I tend to lean more towards Spirit Visage as it provides CDR and increased healing.

Runes

Each professional player’s rune set up for Gragas is a bit different but a few things remain constant in all of them; they have cooldown reduction (both scaling and flat CDR), flat armor, health per level, attack speed marks, and ability power quints. The simplest iteration of a Gragas rune page would be 9x attack speed marks, 9x HP/lvl seals or 9x flat armor seals, and 9x scaling CDR or flat CDR glyphs. More complex versions of this set up have mixtures of flat armor + HP/lvl and flat CDR + CDR/lvl.

Attack speed is a good stat for early jungle clears and due to the fact that jungle monsters do not have magic resist one would forego magic penetration marks.

Most players use a few armor seals in order to have a healthy first clear in the jungle and due to the damage reduction in Gragas’ W HP remains a valuable stat as the longer you live, the more you can cast W, and the longer you will be tanking.

Gragas’ kit comes with a lot of CC as well as good base damages which makes CDR a high priority for him over MR. In addition Gragas also naturally gains MR/lvl making CDR the prefered glyph.

Masteries

When considering masteries the two most obvious choices for your keystone is either Strength of Ages or Thunderlord’s Decree. What keystone you select is largely reliant on what role you intend to fill for your team. If you aim to deal more damage in a low threat team composition then TLD is more your speed. From my own experience Strength of Ages is more in line with what is common in solo queue as many of your teammates will tend to opt for picks that offer more damage than what might be best for the team. In short the team needs someone who can be the front line and tank and more often than not it will have to be you.

Making Choices as Gragas

Gragas’ high damage almost eludes to the fact that he is the team’s frontline tank and while Gragas can deal meaningful damage to tanks and squishies he needs to be able to survive fights long enough to get multiple rotations of his abilities. Hence it is important that Gragas players get their carries rolling and frequently visit their lane to assure their success. This appears to be a common concept among many junglers as it is often their job to help their lanes succeed by punishing the enemy, however the meta has recently shifted to junglers being a significant portion of their team’s damage as well. Graves and Kindred are the foremost examples of this as both arguably fulfil their role as a carry quite well from the jungle, something that was more difficult to do in previous seasons. This means that you will need to prioritize your bottom lane to assure that they will be able to deal a great deal of damage as you will naturally deal less damage than Kindred and Graves.

Simply being the frontline for your team and having fed carries does a lot as Gragas can potentially kite someone indefinitely with his Barrel Roll, Body Slam, and Explosive Cask. Take Nasus for example, unless you are very good about abusing Nasus’ weaker early game he will eventually grow to be a threat that you, as Gragas, cannot deal with. When that time comes you will be thankful that you were able to tank and CC Nasus long enough for your carries to bring him down.

Jungle pathing

Gragas can quite comfortably do a full jungle clear on his first run which allows him to hit level 4 and with enough gold to buy his first jungle item and a pink ward. For your first clear you will need to purchase a Hunter’s Talisman and a Refillable Potion. Hunter’s Talisman deals 25 magic damage over 5 seconds while also healing you for the same amount. Because of Gragas’ AOE abilities Hunter’s Talisman restores 25 health for each target struck by Gragas’ abilities. Hunter’s Talisman also provides mana regen which give the player something to fall back in the event that Gragas does not get his first blue buff.

Gragas’ early dueling is not as strong as many other popular junglers thus players will have to be mindful about an invade as a full clear often leaves you low on health. If you choose to do a full clear and the enemy jungler decides to strictly clear their buffs they will start ganking lanes sooner which can put your team at a disadvantage as you won’t be there to counter gank. Challenger jungler Pants are Dragon provides a guide and tips on Gragas explaining much of what I've covered in a concise video format.

VIDEO: C9 Meteos displays a jungle pathing that nearly does a full clear as well as how well Gragas’ kit can overwhelm the enemy and start a large snowball.

Playing the teamfight

Needless to say it is crucial to understand what your role is in a teamfight. Each game is going to be situational and all your enemies are going to react differently but to generalize teamfights your main objective is to identify whether you need to peel or initiate. This generally boils down to whether or not your team is ahead of the enemy team. If you are ahead then you can most likely roll over them if you initiate but if it is a closer game you may want to resort to peeling.

Summary and Future for Gragas

While jungle Gragas has seen less play in the competitive seen he remains a strong pick for solo queue in addition to being an easy champion to pick up if you are looking to expand into the jungle. Gragas' high base damages means that building defensive items and CDR are important as it allows Gragas to get off more rotations of his abilities. Champion.gg shows that Gragas' winrate is about as close to 50% as possible which may point to signs that he won't be receiving any nerfs anytime soon in addition he is not as overbearing as other top laners. I believe it is safe to say Gragas will remain in his current state for at least a few more patches which gives us all plenty of time to master him and climb the ladder.