I missed today's Beta Window, and wasn't able to try out Gragas in the new map. I would assume with his low CD on his barrels that he would be a decent defender. I love the man in SR but I completely forgot to try him out while beta was open the past few days.

I played Gragas in Dominion and he is definitely stronger than most characters. He loses a bit of his power later as the match draws out (14m-20m) but he is strong overall.

Pros:
- Really strong at taking early windmill
- Disrupts captures from safety
- Can slow + escape
- His ultimate is great for removing node huggers like Heimerdinger and Ryze.
- Easily clears minion waves for faster captures

Cons:
- Squishy if you build straight AP
- Movement speed heavy teams can easily dodge most barrels and lunges
- Relies on poke damage versus overtime damage

Seems like he'd be a decent pick what with all the walls and bodyslam, the long range AoE poke, and the fact that that barrel ******* hurts with a bunch of items early game before the enemy gets a lot of MR, and since you'll be getting auto farmed, and almost all squishies rush offensive items rather than defensive ones...

I played one game against him and he didn't stand out.

he's pretty good, but he can't 1v1 that well compared to a lot of common assassins. jax, xin zhao, akali, kassadin, nocturne ftw. Actually you might be able to kill the nocturne if he messes up the spell shield.

He was quite annoying the game I faced him as Tryndamere.