Ideas for Kog'Maw rework

eXploit·Apr 13, 2014·3 votes·1,801 views

As you have probably noticed isn't very popular.

In fact I have never seen anyone play him outside of coop vs AI this year or last year other than myself.

Recent changes to his Q and W made him a little more viable, but I think he needs much more than that.

I play him as ap mid, so my suggestions here are biased towards that, but they also should work for ad builds as far as I can tell.

Most of these changes are to his ult, as I think it's the more interesting part of his kit, and should be used more.

I've sorted these changes from less to more radical.

These following 2 changes I'm very sure of, and would like them to be done even if everything else isn't appropriate.

1.Hitting someone with Living Artillery does not reveal to enemies anymore. Instead it leaves a mark on the ground. That mark is arrow-shaped, and that arrow points in the direction where was when he ulted.

Riot added this reveal mechanic in response to players frustration from not understanding where Living Artillery came from. But current implementation is just too silly. It punishes for doing smart plays and ulting from hiding places, because most champions have no problem jumping to him if they know his exact position.

2.Hitting enemy champion with Living Artillery grants bonus movement speed, but only if is moving towards that enemy.(Like or )

In order to compensate for his strength(long range) Riot made him a distinct weakness(immobile, no escapes, no stun therefore can't escape when caught). And that I think is a good pattern. However as a side effect of that, they actually made him unable to chase enemies when he wants to be aggressive. This suggestion provides him with aggressive mobility, while not giving him any defensive mobility.

3.Slightly increase range of Living Artillery on lvl1

Very starightforward. His ult's range is great on lvl2, and especially lvl3, but lvl1 is just a little bit too short, which forces him to be less active before level 11.

4.Rebalance damage of Living Artillery.

It has a problem of dealing a too wide range of damage. Sometimes when you play ap and you are ahead, Living Artillery may hit like a truck, which may feel frustrating to enemies, while other times when you are behind, or against tanky comps, or most times when playing ad, it barely deals any damage, so you don't even feel like using it at all.

I'm suggesting for a middle ground here, which can be done for example by lowering the damage but making it true damage. Or maybe make it scale with percent of enemies max hp, like Bio-Arcane Barrage.

5.Remove Icathian Surprise, and replace it with a proper passive.

This passive is so wrong on so many levels. I call it "False Hope". First of all, you can barely ever run up to someone with it. And even if you do, there is no actual surprise in "Icathian Surprise". The duration of this state is constant and has strong audio clues to when it will detonate, so it makes no problem for enemy to shield/dash at the last second. Even if those problems could be somehow resolved, it would still have no synergy with his other kit whatsoever. I would prefer something that would help to not die, rather than something that activates when he dies. As to what this new passive could be, I have an idea in my next suggestion.

6.Remake Bio-Arcane Barrage into new passive, and add a new active spell in place of it, with more gameplay to it, possibly a skillshot.

I like effects of Bio-Arcane Barrage. Long range attacks and additional damage that scales off enemies health is sweet. What I don't like is the actual amount of gameplay tied to it's activation. It's just a "press a button to become stronger". Riot likes to talk about such things as "window of weakness", but it doesn't work here because

If you build 40% CDR, that window becomes almost non-existant
doesn't even need an artificial "window of weakness", because his "window of weakness" is anytime enemy comes close to him. Anyone who played knows how quickly he dies.

So my suggestion on how it could be remade into a passive is something like this:

Icathian Frenzy

Whenever you kill a minion or a neutral monster or hit enemy champion with any of your spells, you become frenzied for 4 seconds, gaining additional range and damage on autoattacks.

As for what new active ability he should have instead, I'm not really sure. What do you guys think? I would very appreciate suggestions for it, as well as any feedback about my other suggestions.

21 Comments

JackYAquaApr 13, 20141 votes

I like numbers 1 and 5.
They would really help Kog' Maw and make him more popular.
4 I agree with, but I don't like your solution.
Mine would simply be to buff the base damage and lower the percentage as Riot has done in many other cases.

eXploitApr 15, 20141 votes

What about other numbers?

I'm curious.

JackYAquaApr 15, 20141 votes

They are non-existent, now ^^.

elliodoApr 13, 20141 votes

The problem with him in short is he is an ap caster with not enough ap bounuses

AbiwonKenabiApr 14, 20141 votes

Except he was designed mainly as a marksman, not an AP caster. Hence why he doesn't have a ton of AP bonuses (useless if you build him AD)

eXploitApr 15, 20141 votes

You can't really say that he wasn't designed as an AP caster, when he has AP ratios on every spell, and they all do magic damage.

AbiwonKenabiApr 15, 20141 votes

Except you can because he was designed as a marksman. Can you play him as AP? Yes you can. But what does Riot say his primary role is? Marksman. The people who design the game say he is meant for this role primarily.

You know who else has AP ratios on every ability? Tristana. She can be played AP to good effect, sure, but does that make her an AP caster? No, she's clearly designed to be a marksman. Simply because the champ can be played a certain way does not make them designed primarily for that role.

So no, saying Kog's problem is "he is an AP caster with not enough AP bonuses" is wrong, because you're coming at it the wrong way. He is an AD marksman, so maybe it's the AP bonuses that are out of place.

I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to erase AP Kog or anything, it's just kinda silly to assume a champion cannot be defined/designed for a primary role. They pretty much always are--with a few exceptions like build tradeoffs (I'm a bruiser/fighter; more tank or more damage?) or you're Sion and you are due for a rework.

eXploitApr 15, 20141 votes

That is a too short explanation of it.

AbiwonKenabiApr 14, 20141 votes

Having range increases after kills is kinda pointless and confusing. Attack speed is one thing (Varus has something like this I believe) but range? Range allows you to attack from safety, Champions like Cait, Jinx and Twitch with ult can stand in the rear of a teamfight and still deal a bunch of damage. This can help cover a weakness like low mobility (both Varus and Ashe who have low mobility have pretty good range). But if your range increase only happens once you kill something or once you land a spell, you're probably way too close and the range isn't helpful. I like kind of what you're trying to do with this passive (have more, smarter uptime on his steroid) but I think there are still kinks to work out. Perhaps if his move speed increase is not conditional (he gains it even away from enemies) so he can hit someone, back off and get in position to use his range. I'm not sure...

Speaking on your point about "40% CDR" making Bio-Arcane Barrage's uptime nonexistent, that really isn't helpful: AP Kog really doesn't rely on his W much at all, mostly just his ult. And AD Kog doesn't build CDR much at all, so the window still exists for him.

eXploitApr 15, 20141 votes

Having range increases after kills is kinda pointless and confusing. Attack speed is one thing (Varus has something like this I believe) but range?

Well, my bad, I didn't explain it properly. The main use case here is hitting enemy champions with skillshots. So if you want that strong, long-range attack you need to make hits, and do them at least once per 4 seconds. And the enemies have a real counterplay here. Don't want Kog to wreck you with autoattacks? Then dodge his skillshots.

The part about killing minions is a backup plan for when you can't hit champions, or when you are laning pre-6. Imagine what you can do with it in lane.

Kill a nearby minion, then use increased range to make 1-2 attacks on enemy champion.
Kill a nearby minion, then kill a far minion.
Chain minion kills as much as you can for constant activation.
Hit enemy champion with one of the skillshots and follow immediately with couple attacks.
If enemy pressures you, you can still start the chain safely by killing a minion with Q , E or even R.
If a fight starts on a lane, and you are not sure you can hit someone because they dodge too much, you can quickly kill a nearby minion(there is always a near-death bunch of them on the lanes)

Range allows you to attack from safety, Champions like Cait, Jinx and Twitch with ult can stand in the rear of a teamfight and still deal a bunch of damage. This can help cover a weakness like low mobility (both Varus and Ashe who have low mobility have pretty good range).

All those champions are much safer than Kog'Maw, even though they have less range. And the reason for that is reliable CC, so even if someone got to you, you can disengage(And twitch has invis). Kog'Maw's E may seem like good CC, but in fact it'as good as further away from you the enemy is. And if he's already on your tail, it will only slow him for 0.25 sec.

But if your range increase only happens once you kill something or once you land a spell, you're probably way too close and the range isn't helpful.

You forgot about R. It's range is much higher than W range. So you can still be safe with it.

Perhaps if his move speed increase is not conditional (he gains it even away from enemies) so he can hit someone, back off and get in position to use his range.

Kog'Maw's pattern is "high risk, high reward", but right now he has enough risk, but not enough reward. There are several ways to fix it. One of those would be to decrease risk, but it's not the one I chose. Instead what I propose is to increase reward, and maybe even increase risk further in the process. Therefore we shouldn't give him mobility that can be used defensively i.e. to run away. And hitting someone with R is MUCH easier when he's running to you and not from you.

AP Kog really doesn't rely on his W much at all, mostly just his ult.

This means you didn't see a good Ap Kog. You will be useless in teamfights if you rely just on ult. As much as I like using it, it doesn't have enough power and reliability to go all in just on it.

I experimented a LOT on Ap Kog builds, and found out that combination of item 3100 + item 3115 works perfectly on him, giving all the stats he needs: AP,MS,AS,CDR and on-hit damage boost, making his W very powerful actually.

In case you're interested, my current build for him is this.

4 core items(in this order): item 3100 item 3020 item 3115 item 3023

And then any 2 items from this optional list(depending on enemy comp): item 3089 item 3157 item 3151 item 3135 item 3116 ,and also 10%CDR from masteries.

And if you wander why there are no mana items here, the answer is: it doesn't matter how much mana Kog has, if he can waste ALL of it in a couple of seconds. So I do mana management by careful usage of ult, and not by itemization.

AbiwonKenabiApr 15, 20141 votes

I just spoke to a friend that plays AP Kog more than I have and discovered that, you're right, W is still effective on AP Kog'Maw. However, learning more about that I also discovered something else: this kit is more difficult to balance. Yes, you can be safe by using your ult to pick off people and increasing your range, but that's harder to balance than it seems.

Think about the counterplay: in order to have Kog increase his range, you dodge his skillshots. But in the chaos of a teamfight, Kog'Maw can potentially have unlimited amount of time with hugely increased range--he becomes too safe. So how to fix? You nerf the time? What if it's not enough uptime(after all, Kog hinges on this ability)? And how does the enemy know when the opportune moment is? When it's an ability, it's clear: when Twitch uses ult, it's then down, and his range increase is down for a while. When Jinx is out of mana, she can't do long range, so the enemy knows she can't play safe. When Kog uses his W, there is going to be that amount of time he can't use it after, and it has some easy tuning levers in order to nerf or buff it. Not enough up time? Lower cooldown. Not a huge window for enemies? Raise cooldown. His current kit is easier to balance.

It may be that Kog'Maw's kit isn't actually bad, it may just be that he can't keep up with the meta. The existence of Thresh is huge, turning bot lane into an aggressive early game scramble. Kog does poorly in this type of environment, so he hasn't seen much play; he hasn't really been touched hardly at all before his Q change, so it was the game around him changing. His kit was once strong, and can still be good. But giving him a hugely conditional range increase is either going to be too weak or give him Jinx-like teamfight capabilities, where essentially he just stays back the whole time and deals a ton of AOE. I'm talking release Jinx here, where her "weak early game" was not actually that weak.

Now that said, I totally agree with you that Kog'Maw does not have a large enough reward for how risky he is, particularly his early game. He does not have the safety of other super range champs--even Jinx, who I think is rather easy to catch, at least has her snare to cover an escape + her passive. Kog'Maw only has his wimpy slow.

Whenever I play Kog lately, I've been building item 3078 on him. It gives him extra speed and synergizes well with his ult: I think there's something there for him, kinda like a long range Corki. He used to be a great tank shredder, especially for teams that stacked armor, they were forced to build both armor and MR against a Kog'Maw. Design could bring him back to that level. He can be a great siege champ, with his ult + W, synergizing well with Nidalee or someone similar. There are a lot of options for him with his current kit, he just has too huge a weakness: zero escape. Twitch has his stealth, Jinx has chompers, Varus has his ult, Ashe has tons of slows+ult...what does Kog have to help with his escape problem? Just a wimpy slow and a revenge passive.

EDIT: Just checked and it appears all of his last relevant changes (aside from Q) happened through-out S2 (Varus patch, Draven patch, Jayce patch--it was the summer of manly men) which was when he was pretty popular. I think those nerfs are coming back to bite Kog in the butt now (things like decrease on slow, living artillery mana and bonus percentage nerfs, I don't think that's helping his case right now)

eXploitApr 16, 20141 votes

But in the chaos of a teamfight, Kog'Maw can potentially have unlimited amount of time with hugely increased range--he becomes too safe.

That is like saying "Katarina can potentially have 0 cooldowns on her spells and kill whole enemy team in 5 seconds" which is exactly what happens sometimes, and yet it's not op, the counterplay is there, and it makes playing as and against katarina interesting.

Besides, it's funny that you talk about potential infinite uptime of his W being a problem, because that is already possible on his current kit. When you build 40% CDR it's downtime becomes so small(2.2 sec), that it's impossible to capitalize on.

I've already been in those games and done exactly that - melting everyone from behind my team with infinite W, and I didn't even need to hit anyone with any skillshots, just press W repeatedly, but that's because enemies were dumb.

And of course my solution too would provide such possibility for situations when you outplay your opponents, but it actually provides more counterplay to enemies.

It may be that Kog'Maw's kit isn't actually bad, it may just be that he can't keep up with the meta.

I never said that his kit is bad(only his passive is truly awfully bad), just some things that can be improved, the same as his recent Q rework. I would even say that playing him as AP on mid is actually good, even in current meta. The problem is - most players think that it's a troll pick, and start whining in player select. At least I can now play him thanks to team builder.

But giving him a hugely conditional range increase is either going to be too weak or give him Jinx-like teamfight capabilities, where essentially he just stays back the whole time and deals a ton of AOE.

Why do you think so binary here? Either too good or too bad. As I see it, it will give a wide range of outcomes which will depend on in-game actions. Sometimes you will constantly have long range. Sometimes you won't be able to activate it at all. And sometimes it will be anything in-between. For example at the start of a fight you score some ult shots and go in W range to attack, only to find yourself missing all of your subsequent skillshots, and unable to attack.

Now that said, I totally agree with you that Kog'Maw does not have a large enough reward for how risky he is, particularly his early game

It's not clear from your writing whether you agree that his reward should be increased without decreasing risk, or you think that it's better to decrease risk.

AbiwonKenabiApr 16, 20141 votes

Katarina's moment of weakness is clear: she's spinning in her ult=interrupt her. Clear counterplay is what makes it not OP. A Kat has to go in at the opportune moment, and the enemy has to save their hard CC for that moment she goes in.

I'm still of the mind that CDR is a wasted stat on Kog'Maw, because really you want to build glass cannon, at least on ADC Kog. Perhaps you could build Black Cleaver I guess. As far as getting CDR on runes, you are sacrificing some extra help to your already weak early game for a few seconds shaved off of your W.

I'm conversely a huge fan of ADC Kog'Maw, he's my favorite ADC but I just haven't played him lately for some of the same reasons you've mentioned--mainly that his reward is too low for such a high risk. I am undecided as to which way he should be pushed (safer early game/same late game or same early game/much stronger late game? not sure...) which is why I don't specifically mention which one I would want. I don't know if you played/watched pro level play in Season 2, but he was played quite frequently professionally, and it was just a real joy to watch tanks get totally shredded by his late game. I often got to do that in game myself as well. Unfortunately, he's obviously not played nearly as much as back then.

eXploitApr 16, 20141 votes

Katarina's moment of weakness is clear: she's spinning in her ult=interrupt her. Clear counterplay is what makes it not OP. A Kat has to go in at the opportune moment, and the enemy has to save their hard CC for that moment she goes in.

Katarina's ult is completely unrelated here. I was talking about her cooldown-reseting passive. You say that a highly-conditional passive is hard to balance. I say that Katarina's passive is exactly that. You need to do a certain thing and then you receive a certain effect which is proportional to the difficulty of thing that was required. And the fact that you can potentially receive this effect many times in a row doesn't make it op, it just means you need to work for it. In Katarina's case the requirement is somewhat hard(kill an enemy), so the effect is powerful (cooldown reset on all abilities). While in my suggestion requirement is easier(hit any enemy champion with any skillshot) and reward is proportional to that(receive 4 seconds of increased range and damage)

you are sacrificing some extra help to your already weak early game for a few seconds shaved off of your W.

If CDR only worked on W, it would certainly be wasted, but it works on all of his abilities, including E, which is your only escaping tool.

AbiwonKenabiApr 17, 20141 votes

Katarina's best case scenario is a much more difficult matter than just "land your abilities." She has to go in at the right time, ult at the right time, and be sure she actually gets that kill. Her entire kit is designed around her ult and her passive. There's a ton of decision making on both her part and her enemy's.

I guess my main concern with these changes is...why? What does Kog'Maw stand to gain from his W becoming his passive? Sure he gets a better uptime on his range increase, but there is no real way to gate this, his best case scenario would most likely be rather easy to gain and thus would have increased range all the time. It would increase his harass potential in lane because he simply last hits and then auto attacks enemy ADC. He has increased teamfight potential because as long as he throws his ult into the fray every time the mana cost increase thing cools down (6 seconds). That's 2 seconds he doesn't have his increased range, assuming he doesn't want to ramp up R's mana cost. Katarina doesn't have her resets every two seconds, does she? The only other ADC who has this type of uptime on their increased ranged is Jinx, but she has a cost to each and every auto attack--that's 20 per, not 40 every 6 seconds. How can this not be too powerful? Something like that adds up to a case where it's either broken or not effective enough.

What does Kog'Maw get as a replacement? You mention a skillshot, but since he has such great range at a relatively low cost, the power budget can't allow for anything too much. My problem here is moving his W to his passive doesn't address his core problem: his early game sucks, and it's very difficult to get to his "good" late game, which may not be as good as it once was. I don't think increasing his uptime in the way you propose is going to solve this problem--it's just going to give him even worse problems. If his kit isn't broken, there's no need to fix it. It might just be a matter of kit tweaking rather than straight rework.

eXploitApr 15, 20141 votes

Lol I ran out of space in my previous reply.

And AD Kog doesn't build CDR much at all, so the window still exists for him.

Just because most people don't build it, doesn't mean that it isn't a viable strategy. With recent rune changes you can now build 40%CDR from runes and masteries alone, without any CDR on items.

AbiwonKenabiApr 15, 20141 votes

If you are building that much CDR on runes and masteries alone as ADC Kog, you are seriously gimping your early game even further; it's not really a good sacrifice considering his early game already sucks. By putting in CDR runes, that's MR you could have had against that Annie supp, that's extra AD or Lifesteal you no longer have.

It's not a popular strategy because it's not a very good one. Sure, there are occasionally brilliant strategies that remain undiscovered, but those are rare, and more often than not, those strategies aren't used because they aren't as good.

eXploitApr 16, 20141 votes

that's MR you could have had against that Annie supp

Any defensive stats on kog are wasted. His kit simply doesn't support them. You are either caught and die, or not caught and not die. No amount of mr will allow you to survive a rape from even 2 players.

that's extra AD or Lifesteal you no longer have.

4.5% lifesteal can be good, but certainly not in early game. Extra 6.75 damage won't make you a threat in bot lane anyway, Kog is simply designed for lategame, and bot is not very friendly to those champs.

It's not a popular strategy because it's not a very good one.

It's not popular because Kog himself isn't popular, and his builds are stagnating because of that. And also those rune changes are very recent, so don't expect people to use them right away.

AbiwonKenabiApr 16, 20141 votes

Saying defensive stats are wasted...what? Mind you I'll admit that I haven't toyed around with the rune changes majorly but ADCs almost always have defensive runes (in addition to some AD for help with last hitting, harass, etc) to cover their early game weakness. In fact, a lot of roles have done that in the past: use runes to beef up early defense in order to have an advantage in early exchanges. This is especially important for someone like Kog'Maw, whose early game is crap and needs all the help he can get in order to be stronger in the lategame. Sure a full on engage after you get Blitz hooked or whatever you aren't going to survive (I don't know of many ADCs who can) but most of the time, laning is just small exchanges of harass--a Karma Q, a Cait headshot, etc. Defensive stats help pad against this, and help you survive the early game. They aren't a perfect solution, but they definitely are not totally "wasted."

eXploitApr 17, 20141 votes

Bot lane meta right now is not about harass or sustain. Its about 100to0 all-ins. Trying to buff up Kog's defense with runes here is like trying to cover yourself with a fig leaf, while being naked. How do you win early all-ins if your kit doesn't allow that against champions who are earlygame beasts? You can't. Therefore the best thing you can do is not participate in them. Let them push a little, and then try as hard as you can to hold enemy minions in position as close to your tower's maximum range(without actually crossing it) as posiible, and aim for the lategame.

AbiwonKenabiApr 17, 20141 votes

Then why does any ADC have defensive runes? Why do diamond players always recommend defensive runes with some AD as standard runes for any ADC? It's because that 100-0 all in can be mitigated even by the tiniest of defensive help. ADCs are inherently weak early game--some are much stronger than others, but don't get their damage until they have items. Trying to say compensating for weak early power with defensive runes is basically saying all these diamond players who main ADC are stupid. These guys are the best in the game, waaaay better than either of us. If they are using it, it's because it gives a clear advantage in bot lane. Trying to do anything else with Kog'Maw is only gimping his early game further.

The strategy you describe is fine--trying your best to freeze the lane in a safe spot and just play safe until you get your items and outscale--but having that little bit of extra defense can be the difference between playing safe until late game, and getting caught and/or killed early, losing that late game.