Grakk — Patch 1.62 Verdict
[Liquipedia RPL: C] Pro play (RPL 2026): 1 picks, 100.0% WR, 0.3% pick/ban rate. Note: pro meta may differ from ranked.
Grakk — Tank Guide
Grakk is a roaming tank built around one thing: Devil's Chain. Hook a squishy into your team's teeth, and his kit does the rest. Blood Ritual makes the punishment reflexive, take a big chunk of damage, he detonates in your face; die, and he detonates again three seconds later, which genuinely confuses enemies who think the fight is already over. Earthquake layers on a point-blank slow that seals the fate of anyone Chain already hauled in.
He's B tier this patch, which means mechanically sound but outshone by roamers with longer engage range or stronger teamfight AOE. His 100% win rate on Thai server is a small-sample-size signal that the players picking him understand the niche perfectly. The 0.4% pick rate tells you the rest: a missed Chain is a wasted rotation, and a wasted rotation at high rank costs objectives. He is not a blind pick. He is a read-the-lobby pick.
Pick Grakk when your team has a hyper-carry who needs one reliable gank setup, and when the enemy has at least one squishy, immobile, high-value target you can hook and delete. High-Diamond and Challenger roam players will find his ceiling genuinely rewarding.
Strengths
- +Devil's Chain is one of the hardest single-target displacements in the roam pool, capable of pulling an enemy carry out of their backline positioning and directly into a waiting frontline.
- +The stacking max-HP passive on Devil's Chain means Grakk scales in durability throughout the game simply by participating in kills and assists, making him increasingly difficult to burst down without a tank-shred item.
- +Blood Ritual's dual-explosion mechanic creates genuine kill-threat even at low HP, punishing assassins and divers who miscalculate the trade.
- +World Devourer's personal shield gives Grakk a pocket of self-sustain during all-ins, allowing him to survive the retaliation long enough for his team to follow up.
Weaknesses
- −A missed Devil's Chain on a rotation is effectively a wasted cooldown window, unlike roamers with AOE engage, Grakk has no fallback CC if the hook whiffs.
- −Grakk has zero mobility outside of Flicker, making him easy to kite and zone by ranged poke mages or marksmen who respect his Chain range.
- −His magic-damage-only kit means enemies who build Gaia's Standard or Rhea's Blessing independently reduce his threat substantially, and he offers no physical pressure to force those items away.
- −World Devourer roots Grakk in place during its channel, meaning enemies with dashes or blinks can simply walk out of the rift zone, dramatically reducing its teamfight value against mobile compositions.
Abilities
PBlood Ritual
When taking damage exceeding 10% of current HP in a single hit, triggers an explosion (CD 2s) dealing magic damage. After Grakk dies, he explodes after 3s dealing magic damage.
1Earthquake
Grakk stomps the ground, summoning wandering spirits to cleanse enemies. Deals magic damage and reduces enemy movement speed by 30% for 2s. Enemies near him take double damage and double movement speed reduction.
2Devil's Chain
Grakk swings a chain hook at an enemy and pulls them in front of him. Deals magic damage. Passive: Each time Grakk kills or assists with this ability, his maximum HP increases by 125 (stacks up to 20 times).
RWorld Devourer
After casting a skill, Grakk creates a Void hole that damages all enemies in the area, dealing magic damage and granting him a shield during the skill.
How to Use Grakk's Kit
Blood Ritual is both a deterrent and a death-tax, if an assassin dumps their combo on you and you survive past the 10% threshold hit, the reactive explosion punishes them while they're still in melee range. The two-second cooldown means it can proc multiple times in a sustained brawl, so don't panic-retreat after the first explosion; stay in the pocket and let it cycle. The posthumous explosion three seconds after death is most valuable when you intentionally position deep: dying inside the enemy backline and detonating there is a real game plan, not an accident.
Earthquake has two distinct slow zones, a wider outer ring at 30% slow, and a doubled slow on enemies directly adjacent to Grakk, so after a successful Chain pull you must close the gap immediately to ensure the target sits in that inner zone. The common mistake is casting Earthquake before closing distance, which only applies the weaker outer slow and lets mobile targets dash free. Use it as a confirmation tool after Chain lands, not as a poke from range.
This is the axis around which every Grakk decision rotates. The passive stack, up to 2,500 bonus max HP from 20 kill/assist procs, means you should be counting your stacks and adjusting aggression accordingly; a 12-stack Grakk in mid-game has meaningfully more HP than a 3-stack, and that changes what fights you can afford to start. On the mechanical side, Chain follows the cursor at the moment of cast rather than locking on, so lead mobile targets slightly; the most common whiff happens when players aim directly at a dashing enemy rather than their landing spot.
World Devourer drops a Void rift that deals magic damage to all enemies in the area and gives Grakk a damage shield during the channel, making it a tool for two things: zone denial in a choke and personal survivability during a collapse. Because the shield only lasts while the skill is active, the best timing is to trigger it as enemy burst is incoming rather than pre-emptively. Crucially, you cannot cast Chain while World Devourer is channeling, so sequence matters, always Chain first, drop R on top of the hooked target, then Q to lock them in the rift zone.
Skill Order
Priority: R > Q > W| Skill | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Earthquake | 1 | · | 3 | · | 5 | · | 7 | · | 9 | · | · | · | 13 | · | · |
2Devil's Chain | · | 2 | · | 4 | · | · | · | 8 | · | 10 | · | 12 | · | 14 | · |
RWorld Devourer | · | · | · | · | · | 6 | · | · | · | · | 11 | · | · | · | 15 |
Loadout
Golden Body
Protect
ProwessStandard Build
1
2
3
4
5
6Core Combos
Standard Hook Combo
21RThe bread-and-butter execution: Chain pulls the target in, Earthquake applies the doubled inner slow before they can reposition, and World Devourer drops on top of them for damage and your shield, use this on any isolated backline target during a skirmish.
Flicker Hook
21RFlicker over a wall or into the backline first to close the angle, then immediately Chain so the pull direction brings them toward your team rather than away, essential for hooking enemies who are positioning behind their own frontline.
Passive Death Bomb
2R1PWhen you're low and about to die, Flicker or walk deep into the enemy cluster, Chain the highest-value target, drop R for the shield to delay death, Q for the inner slow, then let Blood Ritual's posthumous explosion land on as many enemies as possible, this is a deliberate sacrifice play, not a mistake.
Gameplan
Grakk's first meaningful spike is at level four, when all three active skills are online and a Chain-Earthquake-R combo becomes executable. Ring of Terror is the item breakpoint that makes his magic damage on passive procs and Earthquake actually threatening rather than tickle damage. His mid-game peak comes after completing The Aegis, stacked max HP from an active laning phase plus the Aegis shield means he eats dives for breakfast. Late game he fades slightly, because enemy tanks stack Gaia's and reduce his magic threat. Force teamfights in the 12 to 18 minute window before resistance items proliferate.
Early Game
Levels 1–6- →Prioritize getting Devil's Chain stacks early by participating in any level-two skirmish in the side lanes — even an assist counts, so follow your jungler's first clear path and be present for invades.
- →Respect your Chain cooldown: in the first three minutes, you only have one hook, so save it for a guaranteed setup on a pushed-up laner rather than burning it on a dodge-happy target.
- →Buy Gilded Greaves as your first item to offset Grakk's mobility deficit; the movement speed lets you close enough distance to use the inner Earthquake zone reliably on ganks.
Mid Game
Post Broken Spear- →Rotate to Dragon and Dark Slayer setups — your job is to Chain the enemy roamer or jungler away from the objective fight, not necessarily kill them, just displace them out of smite range.
- →Stack-watch constantly: at 10+ Chain stacks your HP pool is large enough to frontline aggressively; below 5 stacks, play angles rather than straight engages.
- →After completing Ring of Terror and The Aegis, look for picks on the enemy carry when they step too far forward in a lane push — a Chain from brush into your waiting mid laner is a free kill.
Late Game
Teamfight phase- →In 5v5 teamfights, your sole priority is Chaining the enemy carry or mage; do not waste the hook on a tank even if they're closer — displacement value scales with the target's squishy-ness.
- →Position at the edge of your team's formation so you have a clear hook angle without walking through the enemy frontline to reach the backline target.
- →If a teamfight is going south and you're about to die, Flicker into the enemy cluster and let Blood Ritual's posthumous explosion do its work — a well-timed death in the middle of three enemies can swing a close fight.
Matchups
Grakk should never be a first-pick. He's a response-pick: once you see a squishy, immobile carry on the other side, a Violet, a Tel'Annas, a Laville, he becomes significantly more attractive. The heroes to actively dodge in draft are Baldum and Riktor, both of whom beat him in the roam duel and steal objective setups. Against Arum specifically, take your aggression off her lane and focus Chain attempts on the enemy jungler instead of the protected carry. When you get a clean synergy draft alongside Nakroth or Lauriel, be visible and vocal about setting up ganks. These combos only work if your damage dealers are close enough to follow up within the one to two second window the Chain displacement creates.
Grakk gets countered by
BaldumBaldum's Tackle interrupts Grakk mid-Chain animation and his superior CC duration means he wins the engage war in virtually every 1v1 roam scenario.
RiktorRiktor's own hook out-ranges and out-damages Grakk's Chain, and his chain-stun means Grakk never gets the follow-up Earthquake off before he's already locked down.
ArumArum's passive armor buff and point-blank root flip the Grakk fantasy, she tanks his Earthquake inner zone without flinching and roots him in place so he can't reposition for a second combo.
GildurGildur's Golden Shield on allies negates the burst value of Grakk's successful Chain pull by giving the hooked carry an immediate buffer to survive the follow-up, completely nullifying the gank.
Grakk synergizes with
VioletViolet's Hypershot damage bursts down anything Grakk drags into melee range in under a second, making the Chain-into-Violet combo one of the cleanest pick setups in the roam pool.
LaurielLauriel's triple-Ult combo needs enemies clustered; Grakk's Chain forcibly creates that cluster, and World Devourer's zone keeps them there long enough for Lauriel to complete her rotation.
NakrothNakroth can instantly collapse on any target Grakk hooks with his dash combo, and his speed means the gap between Chain landing and Nakroth arriving is essentially zero, leaving the hooked target no time to react.
IlumiaIlumia's ultimate stuns everyone in a wide area; if Grakk Chains the enemy carry into the team just as Ilumia's ult lands, the resulting stun-plus-pull creates a complete lockdown with no escape window.
Pro Tips
- →Count your Devil's Chain stacks out loud or on a mental tally during the game, knowing you're at 14 stacks versus 6 changes which fights you should be initiating versus peeling in.
- →The posthumous Blood Ritual explosion has a delay of three seconds, so if you die during a teamfight, ping your team to keep fighting for those three seconds rather than retreating; the explosion often secures a kill that otherwise gets away.
- →When using the Flicker Hook combo, aim the Flicker slightly past the target rather than directly at them, landing behind them means your Chain pull direction drags them toward your team instead of along the wall.
- →World Devourer's shield is most efficiently used as burst mitigation, not as an engage opener, cast it the moment you see an enemy's burst animation begin (e.g., Natalya's ult channel), not pre-emptively before the fight, so the shield absorbs actual incoming damage rather than expiring on nothing.
Grakk is a specialist's roamer. You lock him in when the lobby gives you exactly what you need and you have the Chain mechanics to cash in on it. His ceiling is genuinely high: a perfectly timed hook into a Nakroth or Lauriel follow-up is as clean a pick setup as any roamer in the game. The single most important thing to master is hook leading, aiming not at the target but at where the target will be, because every other element of his kit only matters after the Chain lands. If you're a Diamond-plus roam player tired of fighting for priority on Baldum or Arum, Grakk is a high-value, low-pick-rate answer that opponents will not respect until it's too late.
Grakk — Frequently Asked Questions
Is Grakk good in the current ROV patch?+
B tier this patch, viable but not dominant. The 100% win rate on Thai server sounds impressive until you see the 0.4% pick rate, only specialists are playing him, and that inflates the number. In the right hands and the right draft he absolutely delivers. As a blind pick, he's a liability.
What is the best build for Grakk?+
Core path is Gilded Greaves into Ring of Terror into The Aegis, covering mobility, magic-damage threat, and frontline durability in that order. Gaia's Standard and Mail of Pain round out the physical and magic resistance. Blade of Eternity is the insurance policy, and it synergizes nastily with Blood Ritual's posthumous explosion. Dying, reviving, then exploding again is a real outcome.
How do you counter Grakk?+
Pick a roamer with their own hook or grab. Riktor and Baldum both out-duel him in a direct roam match-up and deny him the Chain stack farm that makes him scale. At the item level, Gaia's Standard is the single best individual counter purchase, it cleanses his magic-damage burst and gives carries enough time to escape or fight back after the pull combo.
Is Grakk hard to play / good for beginners?+
Rated Medium difficulty, and that's honest. The hook mechanic requires real aim practice, specifically learning to lead mobile targets, and the Chain-Earthquake-R sequence is tight enough that panic-casting the wrong order produces almost no impact. Beginners will get the broad strokes quickly but will plateau until they internalize hook leads and passive positioning. That takes actual reps.