A lot of people posting on the forums saying that graves early game is countered by staying out of his range and poking him down.
In a bot lane vs a Graves I took Ezreal. I had never played against graves before but I'd seen the spotlight so I stayed as far back as I could, last hitting with my q when it was necessary to stay out of his range.
As soon as I started going to harass him, I'd sidestep the minions to get a q off at its max range or find a gap in between them. He still somehow manages to get into range of me with with dash and gets off a Buckshot, taking over a third of my health consistently until I went out of my way to build armour. (at level three this is kind of unfair for one ability) Even if my lane partner, Alistar, knocked him into a wall and pulverized and I then landed all my abilities he would still somehow win the trade off. Dealing more damage to me on his own than we did to him (his lane partner sucked, wasn't a support and didn't do much) EZ's full combo did very little in comparison to his Q alone. Once he hit six he was hitting me for over 50% of my health bar in two abilities in relative safety, seeing as I couldn't even do that much with a full combo (including several Q's and W's landed in chasing) that would require me to overextend.

This is before you look at his extreme usefulness in teamfights, serious AOE damage and blocking line of sight for several members of the enemy team.
Not an OMG NERF QQ thread but genuinely asking how I'm meant to counter him? What botlane champs outburst him?

TL;DR Graves early game burst, how to counter?

Armor or Armor pen..?
Ive bought him and played a few games.

He is basicly one of the few champs that you can actualy use and play with your brain, like the smoke etc. Not just, Q click E click W click R click, dead.

But yeah, Dash and Q is a great combo for him, BUT, that does make him weak, because the dash is his escape, and its on CD, best thing to do is prolly, CC the **** out of him then, stun, slow, and just beat him to death ;D

Built armour to stop him from halving my health instantly the second I came back from B.
Obviously I built armour pen too being EZ... and have runes for it.
Still didn't dent him, at least not in comparison to what he was doing to me.

Graves is allmost the same as akali on lvl 1 with the Q +flash Q combo onely it's at lvl 3 and u dont have to burn a flash to deal that damage well i would say get armor seals and hp quints so he doesent have that big burst on low levels.Otherwise i dont know what to do :S

Graves is hard countered by cc (more than the other ad's) because he must be very near to do his maximum damage, try to stun/slow + have an assassin in your team and tro to focus him.

I'm more concerned with the laning phase against a graves with a support he can easily get his q off and walk away. As I said, in the few games I have played, even with my full combo and cc from a support he outdamages us both.
Obviously late game you just focus him/get your assassin to take him out.

EZ's has absolutely 0 usefulness if his damage falls below what it takes to kill the other team members in a teamfight, seeing as he has no utility abilities (besides his w, which doesn't have a huge effect unless you walk right into the middle of the enemy team or they line up nicely by chance)
If I start building Armour and health to counter one champ that will probably leave him close to useless when it comes to doing damage.

Graves Q at low levels actually has a fairly high cooldown, compared to ezreals 2(?) second cooldown Q, if you were hitting him enough while his Q was on CD there's no way he'd be trading well with you, especially since you had a heal

It's not 2 seconds that early in the game but it's a fair point. Graves will dash in to do the damage he does then walk back out with the help of a support, hide behind minions so I can't Q him. If I extend to hit him (which is why I hung back in this game) you get a Q to the face, some hard CC and exhaust, another Q. Free kill.

In a solo lane I'd probably harass him off the minions but in bot my damage was so miniscule and with the threat of a second champ to attack me if I tried to move in to harass I couldn't do much.

walk left-right, left-right, while farming, then E to him, get a Q on him, run away?

I get a Q in, he doesn't take much because of his armour built up from his passive, he gets off a Q and dashes in or just auto's me as move back.
He's 100-200 health worse off, I'm missing half my bar....