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Kog'Maw Build Guide by

Stoky's Kog'Maw - Bring the Rain

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36 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Stokyj96

Kog'Maw Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (36) More Kog'Maw Guides

Spells:

Flash

Heal

Items

Start 1

Core Items

Offensive Items

Defensive Items

Boots

Example of Finished Build

Enchantment

Choice of Trinkets

Ability Order

Kog'Maw Passive Ability

More Kog'Maw Counters

Hi! I'm Stokyj96, a silver rated League of Legends player (hopefully gold by the end of the season). I've been playing since season 2 in the support role and in the top lane. However with the turn of season 3 and season 4 I have begun playing underrated and underplayed mid laners, so yeah, I have been moving around quite a bit.
I started playing early season 3 in the mid lane as an artillery base APC, however with the kog'maw "rework" (gutting), this build was made redundant :(. So I decided to take Kog'Maw back to the traditional bot lane!

In this guide I will try and explain my methods of being successful and how to overcome his harsh weaknesses.

Pros

+ High Burst Damage

+ Long Range

+ Scales well into Late

+ Easy farming

Cons

-Weak Early Game

-No Escapes

-Mana Hungry

-No Sustain

-Difficult to Master

really does stand out in the lategame. He can deal a large amount of damage with his abilities melting any squishies that stand in his way. His single target tank-dealing damage is also nothing to scoff at with his auto attack enhanced percent health damage from . Overall he is a damage powerhouse, well deserving of the hyper carry status.

Just like many other AD carries, is insanely squishy, and without any form of escape, that spells trouble when facing the current assassin meta. Thus 's team must look out for him and their adc if he is to survive in a teamfight. Furthermore, a weak early game inhibits his ability to have a significant impact during the lane phase, reducing his "carry potential".

Flash

The best possible summoner for and is a necessity dues to his lack of escapes. Other than that it can be used aggressively to get in range for the last to finish off a weakened target.

Heal

Used to keep yourself alive if happen to be in a sticky situation or to negate a high burst ADC/Support ultimate that you will most likely encounter at level 6. This is also great for those clutch moments in the bot lane.

I do not believe to be a viable summoner spell on AD Kog'Maw due to it's incredibly short range. Think of him like you would a you shouldn't even be in ignite range in the first place. However, if you prefer over heal and it works for you, don't let me stop you :).

Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration

Runes

A Pretty standard rune page for most attack damage carries. The attack damage gives you the edge in last hitting, a mechanic that is required as an adc, especially if the other adc is competent enough to push your lane underneath your tower early, denying you farm. The hybrid penetration marks cuts through their base 30 magic resist allowing you to deal more damage with your abilities as well as enhancing your main harass tool . We take flat health and armor runes to counter 's early squishiness, and since the nerf to armor runes it isn't worth it to run them as seals over flat health. The Magic Resist runes are vital to surviving the laning phase against the high burst supports.

Alternatives

are another option against low risk lanes as they quickly surpass the flat variety at level 8.

UTILITY:9

The other 9 points should go in Defense to give you a few nice stats to increase your laning power and survivability, providing a few knick knacks to keep you going. provides even more move speed to increase your positioning ability. improves your sustain in lane through your pots, allowing you to stay in lane that little bit longer. lowers the cooldown of your only escape, and is taken to make blue buff last longer due to 's mana costs.

OFFENSE:21

In the first tier you want the CDR over the attack speed due to cost of CDR in adc's build being more expensive than attack speed. is a good filler needed to get past tier 2.
In the third tier I opt for and to increase the damage of my abilities and auto attaks, helping to last hit in lane and deal more damage to the enemy. Follow up with and to provide even more damage and a little bit of sustain in teamfights. The remainder of the points are put into , and - all for more damage output.

Icathian Surprise

Upon dying, Kog'Maw starts a chain reaction in his body which allows him to continue moving (but not take any other action) and causes him to gain up to 40% movement speed gradually over 4 seconds. At the end of this duration he detonates, dealing 100 + (25 × level) true damage to surrounding enemies.

Useful Tips

Don't run away from your enemies when you die, as Icathian Surprise will allow you to deal extra damage.
Champions with an ability-blocking shield like Nocturne's Shroud of Darkness can completely negate damage from Icathian Surprise
Using Void Ooze right before your death may help you catch up the enemy during your Icathian Surprise!

Caustic Spittle

Passive: Increases Kog'Maw's attack speed.
Active: Kog'Maw launches a corrosive projectile (straight line skillshot) which deals magic damage and reduces the target enemy's armor and magic resistance for 4 seconds.

Details

Useful Tips

Kog'Maw's Caustic Spittle can be used as an auto attack reset.
Caustic Spittle now has a huge range, great for shredding the resistances of enemy tanks and bruisers from a safe range for you team to take care of.
Use Caustic Spittle before you use your combo as at it's max level, 28% of the enemies magic resist will be reduced, increasing your damage against that target.

Bio-Arcane Barrage

Active: For 8 seconds, Kog'Maw's attacks gain range and deal a percentage of the target's maximum health as additional magic damage. The bonus damage caps at 100 against minions and monsters

details

Useful Tips

[*] can out-range most champions with his Bio-Arcane Barrage ability. Use this to your advantage by harassing enemies through the minion wave, or grab last-hits while being zoned. Take this at level 1 to get an early health advantage over your opponent.
[*]Use 's slow before a charge. Maxing your Bio-Arcane Barrage can be a good way to get kills early game, or simply bully out your lane opponent's CS.
[*]Back off when your is down as you are easily harassed.

Void Ooze

Active: Kog'Maw launches a ball of ooze in a line in front of him which deals magic damage to all enemies it passes through and leaves a trail for 4 seconds which slows enemies who stand on it.

details

Useful Tips

Void Ooze is Kog'Maw's only "escape ability". In order to succeed in running away, point Void Ooze away from your enemy towards where you are running.
Use Void Ooze's slow to set up a perfect Living Artillery.
As Void Ooze hits all targets in a straight line, before level 6 it can also be a good tool to punish the enemy team for camping in bushes as well.

Living Artillery

Active: Kog'Maw launches a ball of acid into the air that drops after 0.6 seconds at target 100-radius area, dealing magic damage and revealing enemies hit for 4 seconds. Enemy champions take 125% bonus damage. Each subsequent Living Artillery in the next 6 seconds after a cast will cost 40 additional mana, capping at 400 per cast.

details

Useful Tips

Trinity Force and Bio-Arcane Barrage, when combined with Living Artillery, can lead to devastating long range damage. This is a great way to prevent your enemies from camping by a turret lending to a strong sieging ability.
Using Living Artillery as often as possible without stacking the passive too high can be an extremely good way for getting kills during the laning phase.
Living Artillery provides a very short time of vision when and where it lands. You can shoot into the bush and see if anyone is there. You can also shoot into areas such as Baron Nashor, Dragon, Ancient Golem, and Lizard Elder to see if those monsters are alive making Kog'Maw a great scouting champion.

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

This is the general sequence for AD Kog'Maw R>W>Q>E. I would like to point out why we take our w first in pretty much all cases. Your W allows you to leash well due to the extra range and offers the largest percentage of damage for level 1 invades. Furthermore, not many people know of this, but against a lot of short range adc's and supports, can establish a massive early lane health advantage by poking at level 1 with his if you poke as the adc is going in for the last hit, just avoid the retaliation damage from their support.

Your is maxed first to get the wave clear happening and preventing the mid laner from shoving the wave to your tower causing you to lose CS. Some players prefer to take Q over W due to the attack speed and 1v1 debuffs it provides, that's all really up your own preference.

Back to Top

Before I make a list of what items are good to get, let me start of by explaining what stats to prioritize when building on and why.

Attack Damage

As he is an AD carry Kog Maw requires attack damage to last hit and deal damage to champions with his auto attacks, and his ult scales by AD therefore it is the most important stat by far. However, I will stress that attack speed is often required over flat AD due to the nature of his .

Attack Speed

Compliments AD Kog'Maw very nicely, allowing your auto attacks to occur more often, and increasing the efficiency of .

Mana

I can't stress this enough how Kog'Maw needs a rather large mana pool so that he may cast subsequent s in the event of a prolonged teamfight and within extended trades.

Doran's Blade is a very stock standard start on ADC's it offers early trading ability via the extra health, as well as easing the ability the ADC has to last hit. The lifesteal is fairly negligible healing only 2-3 hp per hit during the early game.

As the ADC, you're are going to take some damage, you want to be able to sustain through the laning phase, 's offer a cheap form of this sustain to get you through.

is very mana intensive and since the majority of his poke comes from the activation of his abilities you require some form of early mana sustain, these help take the edge off.

These are vital, even with the new trinket system and your these will allow you to attain a wide field of vision and evade ganks. As has no escapes, and since mid lane is the most ganked lane in the game, these are vital to your health.

The Core Build

These are the three main items that you want to base your build around, they offer the high burst and Damage that you require as . Grabbing your sheen early offers a boost in mana and burst damage through which you can harass your opponents through the remains of the lane phase.

and are fairly self explanatory, offering lifesteal, a self peel, attack speed,crits and added % health damage, there is little reason not to get these every game.

A talk about the phantom dancer. I generally take this as my fourth item due to the fact an early along with your allows you to have a high amount of crit chance when combined with your offering a huge amount of sustained damage. I label this as core, but can be taken later, depending on how you are doing in the game. ie. if you are being dived too much, put this on hold and buy a .

Last whisper shouldn't be bought until the enemy team starts stacking armor items as it is not a flat pen item and scales with how much armor the enemy tanks have purchased. I don't tend to use this except when the enemy team has multiple tanks (3 is generally when I build this item).

Useful when the enemy has very "picklike" cc such as a as this allows you to escape a potentially fatal CC effect. As this is an on demand effect unlike it is less of a safeguard and more of a "I'm in trouble item". Do not pick this up if their team has multiple CC that are easily landable, as you will simply get chain CC'ed. For example even if you use your active on an bandage toss, you will still get cc'ed by the .

Makes you more resistant to both AD and AP forms of damage, this really is your only form of magic resist that you can build on . However, this item also gives you the invaluable revive, but 9/10 the enemy team will just camp your body. Think "Artillery".

The Banshee's Veil. This is a very situational item and should be bought if the enemy has a particular form of CC or singular nuke that poses a great threat to you in the back line. Examples include an enemy or which rely on chaining their spells or high damage ultimates. The extra magic resistance and health are always welcome to beef up our little friend.

In most games these are the boots that you will get as they offer a decent amount of attack speed early giving you the edge in the mid game as you are able to auto attack more often to harass and farm.

This may seem like an odd item to build on but I have been running these more and more lately as they provide a large boost to Kog'Maw's movement speed allowing you to utilize your massive range even more effectively via kiting.

Distortion is useful as it lowers the cooldown of your best friend and you only escape allowing you to get out of sticky situations more often.

Furor is what I normally run as it allows your to kite melee range characters more effectively in teamfights with your long range auto attacks.

The Laning phase is probably the most crucial for Kog'Maw. He's a hyper carry by nature and if you fall behind uncontrollably you will be useless to your team until past 60 minutes. If you play your laning phase well, by not dying and farming decently, you will always have a big impact on every game you play.

In most lanes you'll want to start with and try to harass your enemy laner with your extreme level 1 range. You must do this without taking significant damage from minions, otherwise the trade will not be worth it. This early health advantage is crucial as it can shut down what would have been a poke machine enemy mid laner into a passive half health farmer, this is what you want as .

You have decent poke throughout your lane phase between your and , however if you spam these you will quickly go oom, so use your abilities sparingly, try not to miss anything.

So now you've got your lane settled in. If you were able to chunk your opponent, just continue to slow push the lane. If not, just push to the tower and reset the waves so the enemy minions will be able to push to your own tower offering the opportunity to "freeze the lane". When you are pushing, even if you are the adc, go and place your trinket wards and your stealth wards. Do note: The idea behind these ward spots is that junglers will usually cross these paths when ganking your lane. While these aren't 100% consistent, they generally are good warding spots.

Once you've gained the advantage in your lane and you have reset your lane by pushing it under the turret, you should be looking to freeze. You want to keep the amount of enemy minions higher than yours while making sure they don't over push and get too close to your turret. If the minions push too hard, you can always use a to eliminate a portion of the wave.

As you can see here this is a good position for freezing the lane as it leaves the enemy laner susceptible to ganks from your own jungler whilst keeping you safe and sound, well, usually.

Team fighting as Attack Damage is pretty straightforward due to his massive range keeping you safe from harm. However people will recognize you immediately as a huge threat and will act really careful around you if your fed and will blow anything and everything in order to cc and insta-kill you in a teamfight should they see you. Being a good means to play around this global taunt and position so that you can reach the targets you wish to kill whilst keeping yourself safe from the enemy tanks and bruisers.

's main role in teamfights will always be doing damage. It's not your job to protect the AD carry from their front line and its not your job to CC important enemy targets. Your job is to act as a "Living Artillery" unit and barrage their squishy backline with long range burst damage whilst wittling down their tanks and bruisers that will attempt to penetrate the front line and wreak havoc in your teams back line.

The most reliable way of achieving this is by utilizing your and combo to proc in between spell casts. Augmented with the range from your auto attacks will melt them from a reasonable distance. can be used to secure a kill, however, be sure you can make a safe getaway after getting out of position.

If their backline is strong and well-protected, wait for them to be occupied with someone else. This will give you opportunity to land a few shots before they even realize whats happening. This element of surprise is useful to as you are easily able to chunk their carries with a single combo, doing some serious and possibly lethal damage. If they know you're there, they're just going to CC and rush you instantly. If getting close enough to their backline is dangerous and unviable, bomb and kite anyone who dives your team. Just keep an eye on their carries and nuke them when they come into range as they are your main priority.

Note: I'd like to repeat this as it is of paramount importance. All too often I see ad carries diving with their tanks to get to the other teams carries. THIS WILL NOT WORK. You are best kiting their tanks around and with your % health damage shred them quicker than the enemy carries can to your own tanks. You will find that their tanks will often over extend to catch you out, and failing to do so your team can collapse on them and kill them before any serious damage is done to your team's front line. Only focus the carries as if the enemy tanks and bruisers are pre-occupied or have blown their important cd's on another member of the team.

I know it's been a long trawl through this Kog'Maw guide, so I'll make it quick.
Thank you all for reading, and I sincerely hope this guide has been a pleasure to read. I will be adding more content and matchups to this guide to keep it relevant, updating any changes that occur to (though I doubt he will be changed anytime soon). I love reading feedback and welcome the opportunity to answer questions.

A special thanks to:

Uproar - For his amazing animated chapter dividers
IpodPulse - For the amazing signature

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Stokyj96 Kog'Maw Guide

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Stoky's Kog'Maw - Bring the Rain

Stoky's Kog'Maw - Bring the Rain

Recommended Items

Spells:

Flash

Heal

Items

Ability Order

Icathian Surprise (PASSIVE)

Caustic Spittle (Q)

Bio-Arcane Barrage (W)

Void Ooze (E)

Living Artillery (R)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Getting Ready

3. Abilities

4. Itemization

5. Gameplay

Pros

Cons

Flash

Heal

Runes

Alternatives

UTILITY:9

OFFENSE:21

Icathian Surprise

Useful Tips

Caustic Spittle

Useful Tips

Bio-Arcane Barrage

Useful Tips

Void Ooze

Useful Tips

Living Artillery

Useful Tips

Attack Damage

Attack Speed

Mana

The Core Build

A special thanks to:

League of Legends Champions: