Armor pen... Kog?

yoshi2790·Aug 8, 2016·3 votes·839 views

I have a question:

Kog'maw's W does 2x attacks. So it will probaly proc armor pen 2x as fast?

If it does, then why does nobody build armor pen Kog'maw? Wouldn't it be insanely strong?

something like:

Is it because of the on-hit build overshadowing it? you know, this one:

And what if we combine them? something along the lines of:

Or or

Just a question. Because with the recent, ADC build armor pen META I'm suprised when I think about it that this didn't include the META.

EDIT: Thanks for clarifying! :)

Since he does mostly magic damage, this build isn't so strong.

10 Comments

Votable JesterAug 9, 20163 votes

Armor penetration isn't "procced." Armor penetration just helps your physical damage ignore the enemy's armor. None of Kog'maw's abilities deal physical damage, so this isn't as helpful of a stat for him

The main reason armor penetration builds aren't popular on Kog'maw though is that the armor penetration builds are intended to boost the adc's mid-game power. Kog'maw already has an inexpensive item that does this (which you listed), item 3091 .

MunchCrunchLunchAug 9, 20162 votes

magic pen kog is superior

ItankyouAug 8, 20161 votes

Try it, become a korean god. U can be challenjur too

ZelnickAug 8, 20161 votes

Usually you get those items because adcs and mids only have like 40-80 ad/mr, making flat armor pen and cooldown more effective. If a tank is fed like Nasus, then you want Lord Dominick's.

AvienalAug 9, 20161 votes

Considering Kog takes a massive reduction per shot to fire a bunch of shots via one of his abilities, i would think it wouldn't work as well on Kog since just like Kindred, they both are champion types to exploit the hell out of on hit effects.

When i usually see these Armor pen builds, it seems to sacrifice critical hits and attack speed, the latter if only temporarily, to work via pot shot'ing targets for massive damage per hit over a slew of shots over the same period of time, which could all have chance to crit. Sadly those kind of kits dont work too well if they don't high stack Critical hit chance (Or they are Scummy double crit up Yasuo or MVP Snipa'assassin Jhin who can just build attack speed and critical chance and get AD for that, on top of he relies more on hitting crits for running around, high scale damage insanely strong and basically doesn't need penetration to really penetrate targets, less its against thanks which he just GG's them using Lord Domnik's which might as well give Jhin auto +15% damage bonus, slash half that high stack bonus armor, creating his own glorified High Caliber Death'stick for all them tanks), which for champions that don't get some scale bonus off of critical chance, might as well scrap the critical chance early game in favor of doing blast damage that might as well make them like mages in terms of blast power.

Though a mix idea of the build might work, but you can only build certain items first in the pathway and can't build them all at once. Reason why champions like MF and Lucian are such power houses thanks to these pen builds and we still have the sad champions like Tristana still stuck in the dumpster with a kit that can't allow her to be as viable as Kog'ma who atleast has utilities to 'let' him concentrate on on hit items more then his scalings to deal proper damage to targets.

ChatillonAug 9, 20161 votes

I glazed over the 2nd half of your post, but I like the way you talk lol

KiharonAug 9, 20161 votes

The reduction per attack actually ends up being a non-factor due to the extra attack speed. In fact, ignoring the extra on-hits and extra range, his W makes him do the equivalent of just having +10% AD. That said, I would say that attack speed and on-hits are Kog'Maw's intended primary form of scaling.

The deciding factor as to when an armor pen build better than a standard crit build, especially after the last change to ghostblade and IE/ER, is more whether you have a lot of base damage vs AD/crit scalings. Basic attacks have 0 base damage and 100% AD scaling and can crit for double damage, making the crit items better for damage. On the other hand, many abilities have base damage with some AD scaling but no chance to crit, making the armor pen items more useful. Lucian was a good example of this, with the added bonus that he could stack Black Cleaver very quickly. Jhin is a tricky case because of his passive, but has enough ability damage that either build can work depending on how many autos you are getting in.

KiharonAug 9, 20161 votes

The on-hit build is better than a standard adc build because he can proc them so much more (along with having another on-hit in his kit). Because he is still doing a fair bit of physical damage, armor pen is still good as a late item. The choice of which item is probably debatable. His magic damage doesn't benefit from Giant Slayer, the enemy team may not need him to pick up Grevious Wounds, so they aren't completely ideal. He would benefit from 20% CDR to get W back up sooner, but he then has to stack his armor pen on each new target and doesn't have much time to utilize the Rage speed while W is active.

AvienalAug 9, 20161 votes

{quoted}

The on-hit build is better than a standard adc build because he can proc them so much more (along with having another on-hit in his kit). Because he is still doing a fair bit of physical damage, armor pen is still good as a late item. The choice of which item is probably debatable. His magic damage doesn't benefit from Giant Slayer, the enemy team may not need him to pick up Grevious Wounds, so they aren't completely ideal. He would benefit from 20% CDR to get W back up sooner, but he then has to stack his armor pen on each new target and doesn't have much time to utilize the Rage speed while W is active.

Exactly, the only reason i see this armor pen 'stack up setups early game' is because there's plenty of mid, jungler, top lane or even support who would snatch up tank items or atleast 2 of them would in a match and shut down the viability of ADCs into the team fight transition a considerable sum. Sadly now that even if they 'remove' the tank itemization abuse thru some proper means, i feel like there's going to be too many champions that are going to be stuck in the top tier thanks to these penetration builds and then cause either penetration items to get severely weakened or get them nerfed down to bad capability, which the former could just bring us back to square 1 on what started the issue, even though mages/fighters/junglers might have a better time fighting against these now neutered tank and pseudo-tanks, it would probably end up in the same regard, warp ADC viability if they were to take a hit from this mess.

On-hit builds and insane scale crit builds or pen builds are typically how marksmen are working at the moment, it kind of feels like they need to flesh out some of the marksmen before they get to the current state of Assassins where some just over'lap each other or some just utterly make other champions unviable, like Tristana whose's gag was suppose to be the long range poker and bomber type of marksmen, but now Jhin and Caitlyn and heck Varus in that regard too bring so much more to the table and have powerful utilities that let them strike targets at long range for large damage. To where Tristana's range bonus on autos and some of her spells have no chance to keep up at the same pace.

Especially to at least not result in us having more then just champions like Tristana being stuck in the trash can currently (Before you complain she's viable, i've played her plenty of times, too many other marksmen have way more powerful utility from roots, super long range pokes, slow fields, mine traps, passive slowing, a 'lock on mode' for one particular attack ability, the list just plain goes on), if she doesn't get things like the slow on her W moved to E and an extra passive tacked on to the range bonus with a few other ability gimmicks revised properly, there's no way i can see her as no more then a joke pick in 'regular' game play.

RisenDarkKnightAug 9, 20161 votes

No armor pen isn't good on Kog'Maw. He usually does mosty magic damage. It's true he can apply lots of black cleaver stacks quickly, but it's only worth buying if the rest of team is all ad (and no one else bought it). His W does % hp magic damage, and if he builds Wit's End or Rageblade though do more on hit magic damage. The only physical damage he usually does is his base AD + the 15 from runaan's and maybe some from BoRK. So flat armor pen really isn't that good on him.