Boards›Dev Corner

Upcoming Kog'Maw Changes

RiotRiot Axes·9/8/2016, 10:12:45 PM·1 votes·131,180 views

Hi folks,

Kog’Maw has some significant changes coming in patch 6.19 that we wanted to give some extra context on.

When we set out to update Kog last preseason, it was with the intent of doubling down on his already unique and well-supported identity of being the Marksman you could rely on to deal most of your team’s damage as long as you protect and enhance him - reinforcing the notion of ‘protect the Kog’ as a team strategy. By breaking the usual rules of attack speed, we amplified his damage even further while making him functionally less mobile in combat because he can’t move much between shots.

Unfortunately, that direction hasn’t proven successful. His unique attack speed interactions undercut the core identity that we intended to reinforce. The items and masteries that scale best with his new direction provide early- and mid-game power rather than late-game power, warping his power curve. More importantly, the ability to move in between attacks is essential for him to serve as most of his team’s damage output. He needs to be able to keep up with a moving teamfight, or else his opponents simply avoid his range and his allies can’t rely on his damage output as the primary or potentially only major damage dealer on a team.

Given that prior to the update, Kog’Maw was a unique and sustainable design that represented a strong long-term direction for the champion, we are partially reverting his update.

Specifically, his W will no longer break the attack speed cap, apply only half damage from AD, or increase attack speed gained from items, and we’ll be looking at tweaks to his other basic spells to support that direction. We are not reverting changes to his ultimate, however.

One point on other champion updates: we are reverting Kog’Maw because we believe that his pre-update state was a successful kit which hit our goals for champions in general and for Kog in particular, not simply because the update didn’t achieve its goals. We have no current plans to revert any other updates, as there aren’t other similar cases where reversion would bring us to a long-term direction.

504 Comments

LaughingStapler9/8/2016, 11:23:34 PM48 votes

I'm so happy to get old Kog back! I'm ecstatic about this direction and I've missed Kog so much! Even though I never even got out of Gold with Kog, I had more fun playing him than any other champion and loved his power curve too. I felt like I was playing some adventure game with me and Koggy against the dangerous and unforgiving world of Malphite ults., Lee Sin Qs and Fizz Sharks. It was treacherous but like a Phoenix (maybe this is why I love the butterfly skin), I could sometimes rise from the ashes and carry the game if given enough time and accurate ults. from a good position. I have a counterpunching and defensive style which he suited perfectly (his passive fit that too).

I had over 600 games on Kog in S4 - mostly mid with some ADC sprinkled in (my kiting sucked but it felt great whenever I could pull it off). I had probably even more in S5 considering some new accounts I made for him. I played him almost exclusively mid at this point and looked up to guys like Knoch who were amazingly good with ult. prediction and just knowing the limits perfectly. I was still stuck in Gold and made huge macro mistakes but even in terms of predicting with ults., it was a huge difference between me and Diamond players. I felt there was always so much to improve on with him and so many builds to experiment with but I didn't feel overwhelmed by it. As a poker player, I also loved the psychology of Kog's ult. and seeing how they juke it for the first few minutes only to then predict their movements after.

When the rework came, I felt that the styles for him were extremely constrained and despite a good 200+ games as ADC, JG and Mid, I couldn't recapture the magic. He just wasn't as fun and rewarding as my old beloved AP Kog so I gave him up. I've tried every build mid and I just think he absolutely sucks and doesn't fulfill any niche anymore. It feels awkward and too squishy to build him like bot lane Kog while also just being no fun for me even if it were strong. Poke AP Kog with Rylai's and Liandry's just seemed pathetic for poke with dft and even if you could get them lower with E and maybe some Sejuani ult. etc., it didn't feel worth it. Why would I pick Kog mid for poke when there's Xerath, Ziggs, Vel'Koz, Varus etc. who all have better poke while also having stronger lanes and more teamfight control. If you want a cleanup champion, Katarina and Kassadin can do it better while also spiking faster, being mobile and having strong roaming. I tried Luden's and basically full AP with a bit more success but it seemed really cheesy and still not that fun. You're basically hoping to land E or you're totally useless and you are squishy without an escape and almost no crowd control. Again, it doesn't seem congruent and I'd rather pick Annie, LB, Viktor etc. if I want a burst champion. Moreover, none of these builds really felt that powerful late game unless I was very far ahead of the game. AP Kog used to be a vulnerable but terrifying poke/DPS (till he ran OOM anyway) hypercarry with a slow power curve and there's nothing else like it right now. Ziggs is what I tried to replace him with but it's still a very different power curve (Ziggs is no hypercarry), style and strengths/weaknesses. I like Ziggs but AP Kog was still more fun to me and more of the cat & mouse game I wanted to play (starting as the mouse and later becoming the cat! :D).

Edit: Just noticed that no ult. changes are planned. I don't see why. Even just before he was reworked, Kog was not a problem in either competitive or SQ. His ult. did punish poorly drafted comps. without engage but he was definitely not dominant in either lane and never even picked mid in competitive after some MS nerfs. His SQ banrate was also never high even when he was OP in competitive because he had clearly defined strengths and weaknesses as well as ample time for the enemy team to punish his power curve. It felt fair.

If Kog's ult. isn't effective as poke/DPS, he just has no place mid. He no longer has a niche there despite having one for 5 seasons and many original Kog fans who loved him for that. He went through every itemization change and survived so he was definitely no gimmick.

Even if new Kog will have 50% winrate mid and be considered balanced, he won't be that amazing unique mid lane pick he used to be (long-range poke/DPS) and it'll most likely just mean his numbers are better than for other mids which actually do have better-defined niches. For example, if Kog is picked for his burst, it'll probably mean Annie, Brand, Syndra etc. have worse numbers and that becomes hard to balance since you're trying to fight bad design with number tweaks.

Old AP Kog had a unique role as the only hypercarry poke + DPS artillery (AKA from the skies not a boring line skillshot) champion and also the riskiest one (weak laning, needs levels & items, cooldown + mana gated, almost no CC, no escape, squishy). Nothing else was like him then and since. Xerath is a surgical champion with good pick potential. He's much safer, has good CC, decent laning and more burst but far less DPS and range (since his ult. has a significant CD unlike Kog's). Vel'Koz is a teamight all-in/poke champion hybrid with good tank shredding and excellent burst. He has a bit of everything but still isn't really a DPS poke champion and of course he'd be broken with his CC if he were to become one. Kog was already unique both as an ADC and mid.

Arcticahh9/9/2016, 12:03:10 AM28 votes

So why aren't we getting also the old ultimate?? The old AP kog maw was soo fun to play and the pre-season changes killed the playstyle. Please while you're at it, revert also the ultimate changes, please.

AlistarMilking9/9/2016, 12:03:43 AM21 votes

Why not revert the changes to his ultimate as well? His current ult feels very unsatifying for the high cost it has, and AP Kog'Maw relied mostly on that, but has disappeared because of those changes. I liked AP Kog :(

sirwaterfles9/9/2016, 1:08:54 AM20 votes

Can ap koggy be a thing again pls? His ult used to be soo much fun.

Best Kog NA9/8/2016, 10:52:47 PM19 votes

Are you serious? So what you guys are taking is you're taking Kog'Maw and gutting him? The fact that he could break the attack speed limit is what makes him unique as a champion. It gave him something unique. By removing it you guys are removing his identity. He won't have anything that is unique to him now. At least add something that can make him have an identity. I'm really disappointed in whoever at Riot approved these changes.

Vesarixx9/9/2016, 12:25:34 AM19 votes

What about AP Kog? Will he ever return?

Tormentula9/8/2016, 10:27:26 PM16 votes

I still feel like there was another solution.. simply changing numbers on how hard he scales and his base damage would've slowed his early game. Yes the attack speed cap was cancerous since he would just get so many on-hit effects to win trades, but its what identified kog'maw from other ADCs, he still wasn't invincible like all of them, but it made him strong enough to pick him over other attack speed health deleting ADCs like trist or varus. Like literally, without the attack speed cap whats the real identity for KogMaw when Varus exist with his own peel?

Regardless something needed done, but this is a little extreme. What will kog'maw be after these changes? What is kog'maw? A late game hyper carry with peel? Cause thats describing a lot of marksmen this season.

Hell, I wouldn't mind if you guys took the x2 Attack speed and reduced it to x1.5, meet it half way, atleast it'll make kog'maw, kog'maw.

SlashStriker9/8/2016, 10:37:11 PM15 votes

Kog Maw passive is useless late game. Need bonus AD and AP scaling to keep it up or maybe something that scales with enemies' missing health or something

ShadowParker9/8/2016, 10:32:33 PM14 votes

This change is smart. Perhaps ap kog will have a chance to come back a bit.

Cudos.

Wizard Hat9/8/2016, 11:12:24 PM13 votes

One point on other champion updates: we are reverting Kog’Maw because we believe that his pre-update state was a successful kit which hit our goals for champions in general and for Kog in particular, not simply because the update didn’t achieve its goals.

not simply because the update didn’t achieve its goals.

You refuse to accept that something was a mistake even when you're reverting it, that's just pathetic

ofart9/8/2016, 11:26:17 PM12 votes

Old Kog was so fun anywhere. I'm looking forward to this.

ULTIx9/9/2016, 7:54:29 AM12 votes

Great.

Now we can say that the real goal of these changes was just to remove AP Kog from the game.

I remember when Repertoir said the rework should not impact his AP gameplay, but it was wrong as usual. Please, since ult become an useless spell, AP Kog can't rely on anything to keep his identity. Can you be smart this time and listen on what the community wants ? (what Kog lovers wants ?)

You must revert changes to his ultimate. Or please explain us why you highly want to remove his AP playstyle...

LadyRenly9/8/2016, 10:24:19 PM12 votes

is kog still going to be a late game champ?

kogs rework made him really stand out from other adcs, if you're going to change him i hope you can actually do something with him.

bobberick139/11/2016, 3:33:45 PM10 votes

TL;DR: Removing the unique and enjoyable mechanics, AP Kog not welcome here, reworks damaging the meta, quick-fixes for a systemic problem

I guess it didn't occur to anyone involved in this decision that what a lot of players want (probably the majority) is not whether champs are competitive or viable but fun. Having fun is, believe it or not, the main goal of a lot of players. The main fun thing about reworked Kog was the attack speed cap break and unique stuff that he could do as a result. It was different to other champs and that made it enjoyable to play around with. One of the most fun things to do with old Kog was the AP artillery idea.

However, what this half un-rework will achieve is getting rid of the attack speed fun but not returning the AP fun that was possible due to the old ult. I'm sure that, through a number of consecutive buffs and nerfs, you'll make Kog viable and balanced and good for you. Unfortunately a balanced dull champion with no identity wasn't exactly what the fun-lovers were all about.

Additionally, if Riot want's a world where all champions are picked equally so that Kog maybe returns to competitive along with other rarely seen champions maybe there is a better approach. Now I'm a lay person when it comes to balance but given that the same 10-15 champs are played in almost every competitive game (varying by region and local meta) perhaps the solution would be to nerf the perma picks and bans rather than change entire champions kits repeatedly. Ryze is a great example of this. He is a champ that has had more reworks than most people care to remember. After each rework he sees a very brief resurgence in the competitive scene before taking his seat on the bench for another eternity. His strength relative to the current meta fluctuates so wildly as a result that it is almost impossible to judge his strength compared to other picks. This is an intrinsic problem with all reworks. Reworks used to be a fairly uncommon occurrence and the meta used to be relatively stable compared to the current volatile competitive scene. Yes, most of this is to do with huge patch changes part way through a single split but many reworks in a short space of time makes it difficult to assess champions strengths relative to each other.

This is not to say all reworks are bad, some are great (Poppy, Yorick, arguably Skarner, etc). However, frequent blanket changes to a lot of champions is only ever going to make the game more volatile.

To wrap up:

  • This Kog re-rework sounds poor so far in terms of casual players by removing his fun mechanics

  • Riots current gung-ho approach to reworks is harmful to the metagame

  • Reworks are an inefficient quick-fix to champion balance and popularity while not addressing the main causes of the 10-15 champion picks problem

Thanks for taking the time folks, GL HF summoner 31

AstraVox9/10/2016, 12:22:22 PM9 votes

You know, I haven't been around since before s5, but I was here about midway through it, and Kog'Maw was one of the first champs I ever played because I thought he looked insanely cool and I thought he would maybe be fun. But when I played old Kog, I was sorely disappointed. Please hear me out, because I know a lot of people are going to see what I say next and insta-dislike. To me, he had no identity that I could find. He was a ranged poke champ if you built him AP with steep mana costs, and I found quickly that there were dozens of other champions not only more adept at this role, but just better in general for their utility. As an ADC, he did the same thing every other ADC did at the time which was auto attack a lot and throw out abilities that simply don't deal enough relevant damage in comparison to his auto-attacks, yet also didn't offer enough to utility to justify stopping your autos and using an ability unless you simply were not in range of the champion you wanted to hit. Honestly I wanted to love Kog very badly because his design is easily one of my favorites in the game, aesthetically, but I couldn't bring myself to do so... Until his rework. To me, the insane attack speed power up on Kog was easily the most fun ability I had ever seen in the game. I played Kog a few times and after actually getting to 5.0 attack speed, I was having such a blast. I had never had so much fun with Kog, and I can tell you, there is not a single other champion in the game that felt like Kog after that. I quickly mastered his reworked state and loved every minute of it. His early game was still weak, his late game was still potent, nothing detrimental had changed for him, except for 2 things: he was significantly more fun and original, but his AP potential had completely faded away. To me, though, his new ability's fun eclipsed what had never felt that special to me in the first place (AP Kog). Now, my feelings for AP Kog are mixed, because I can't seem to find any logic in an AP poke-based champion having an attack speed buff build into their kit unless their autos are somehow related to the amount of AP they have, which, for obvious reasons, was not the case with Kog. So to me, building him AP felt like I was trying to shoehorn Kog into a role he just isn't fully equipped for. So ultimately, I think removing the doubled attack speed is a HUGE mistake on Kog, and here is my reasoning:

  1. It added to his identity and made him special. He was and is the only champion in the game with the ability to bust the limit of 2.5 attacks per second, and it made him feel like no other champion in the game.
  2. His AP build is pretty much the only loss I can see, from pre-rework, and unless you (Riot) want to specifically buff and enhance his ability to do magic damage, build AP, then I don't even see the relevance of this build in the first place unless you just had fun playing it, because, if you remember, there wasn't exactly a surplus of pro players playing AP Kog'maw, unless I missed something in S4 or below, in which case please tell me, because I have no experience with AP Kog in S4, and I am only going off of what I know as fact post-S4.
  3. If the only reason you are removing the W AS boost is because it negates the ability to move with auto-attacks, then you are essentially just saying people aren't willing to move once they use their W, because you can still kite like before, even if it does mean sacrificing some damage. This, to me, is pretty ridiculous. In my eyes, you shouldn't be pressing W unless you are fully ready to commit and stand still, but if you do make the mistake of using it prematurely and then have to retreat, then that ought to be your mistake. This mechanic, to me, is similar to somebody like Xerath, MF, or Lux with their ults, in the sense that they can to lots of damage but sacrifice mobility momentarily in order to do so, most notable MF, because she is a successful ADC with the same problem as Kog in that she must choose to sacrifice mobility momentarily in order to output her significant damage.

All-in-all, I do hope that this comment is not over-looked and it is read and at least thought about. I sincerely want the best for Kog and the health of the game, but I think this change is unnecessary and, excuse my informality, very stupid. I sincerely hope for the best in League's health and Kog'maw's future, and I do hope my thoughts are considered before this hits live.

LappaDanielson9/8/2016, 10:23:56 PM9 votes

but in all seriousness he has so many champs that just wreck him already (early game, and even some later) that its gonna be interesting to see what changes you can make and still keep him viable. his w increase is to much imo, and he could use somewhat of a powershift but a w revert is alittle far.

DeltaRaven9/9/2016, 3:14:10 PM8 votes

So looking at the update come full circle, all this rework did was kill AP Kog'Maw