first off, their stats seem very similar so i can see why u guys would think this. there r some small differences that make this comparison invalid though.

gragas's AS debuff is a skillshot and thus, can be dodged.
malphite's is not.

gragas is a mage that scales with AP. without AP he isnt very good.
malphite is a tank that scales with armor.

gragas's slow is a skillshot that can be dodged
malphite's slow cannot be dodged


gragas's ult displaces everyone it hits, potentially ruining any and all positioning your team could have set up.
malphite's ult simply knocks the enemy up and keeps them in place.


gragas is a good overall mage who can be a decent overall tank
malphite is a better anti-AD tank who does mildly well as an overall tank.

How does skill cap factor in to whether or not a champion can the same role as another champion?

Gragas doesnt have to be built AP, he was originally a tank with high AP burst potential from his ult and Q. He's kinda like ammumu who can go tank or AP, but there a build that the meta favors even though both are viable.

Gragas ult usually wouldn't scatter people around in all directions unless it was really poorly aimed or intentional. Generally you can aim it so that it knocks most people in one direction.

When you get into games where everybody can hit the skill-cap of their champions, it becomes less about who is better and more about who has the more reliable skills.

If you made Ryze into a skillshot champion(without changing any numbers) it would be an effective nerf.

And yet Ground Slam is practically melee range only. Not only is Barrel Roll easy to land at melee range (assuming similar situations), but it doubles as a long ranged poke/nuke/debuff.

Being AP isn't a downside. There's several good tanky AP items. He doesn't need to stack AP heavily anyway, because he has crazy good ratios. He doesn't need as many pure tank items since Body Slam + Cask + Drunken Rage make him hard to kill.

Body Slam is just about impossible to dodge. Seriously. The animation is fast, Gragas has a massive hitbox and it hits in an AOE around him. I'm amazed that anybody thinks it can be hard to land. It's not hard at all.

Big. Deal. Exploding Cask does more damage, has better scaling, has a larger radius, and a much shorter cooldown. If you aren't playing an AOE comp it's not that useful to keep everyone all together anyway. Usually, all that really matters is that you hit the main focus target. Real useless nitpick. In fact I found your entire comparison to be unfair and irritating.

i'd put a Gragas+Malphite+Ezreal team compositions though, if their debuffs stack then those three together are the perfect Jax counter, it still shows how Op jax is because he needs 3 picks to be countered properly. :S.

You mean like 95% of dom games where all the tanky derps in your face are doing physical damage?

Having said that, Gragas absolutely obliterates Jax bot lane, which makes him a good draft pick right there.

Agreed. Gragas has some viable alternate builds that are held back by that channel time. AD Gragas is kind of decent, with a triforce, since he gets 70 free AD, and has scaling on Body Slam. Tank Gragas synergises really well with Frozen Heart, since he has a 40% AS debuff. But you constantly need to chug chug chug or you lose all your offensive and defensive steroids. 1 second every 20 is crazy disruptive to his actions. That's not even considering stuff like enemies CCing him in the middle of the channel - it's just the upkeep of having to stop in the middle of a chase, or while walking across the map.

I'd like to see the mana restore tied to the channel, but the buff gained instantly when he presses W. So you can break yourself out of the channel early, if you're in a fight.

Malph has a ranged slow, not a snare. His aoe is a massive attackspeedslow, not moveslow - given how many autoattackers/tanky derps that auto between skills and that it hits end total aspd rather than being +/- a la items, that is absolutely crucial. Also, it's not melee range. It's 400 radius, which is to say nearly Sivir/Teemo's range in each direction. "melee" wtf?

You also forgot to mention Malph's passive giving extra survivability, but mentioned Gragas's.

OP, I'm just going to be blunt - you're being a tool. Stop. What you are doing is called strawmanning; by intentionally misrepresenting Malph's skillset and bringing a weaker, imaginary version to the table to "compare" to Gragas, you are doing no one any favors.

That all said, Gragas does have pretty awesome CC via his ult, but MUCH less without it than malphite can put out consistently - 40% CDR lets groundslam be up 4 out of every 4.2 seconds, so he can 100% shut down any target he wants, as well as anyone in the vicinity.

Not to say Malph is necessarily better than Gragas, of course - G certainly outputs longer-ranged damage aka better poke.

EDUT: forgot to mention that barrel is a weaker AS debuff, actually has slightly SMALLER radius than groundslam, and lasts shorter - can have it up, at max, 3 out of 4.2s. Not a TON worse, but less consistent, weaker, smaller aoe, and possible to juke/flat out miss where groundslam is instant.

Your blatant hypocrisy is showing, jackass.

I have yet to play gragas on a free week or otherwise. Is he fun?

This comparison makes me think I could kinda grasp his kit since I know malph. Is the playstyle similar enough that I could?