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Kog'maw outclassed?

ZippoBolter·12/14/2014, 7:48:23 PM·3 votes·488 views

Kog'maw is well known as a late game hyper carry due to his W which grants him long range auto attacks and 6% max HP magic damage on-hit. On top of this, kog'maw has long range poke abilities and can shred enemy resistances with his Q. However, as an attack damage carry, do these pros really make up for the cons?

Kog'maw has no escapes for starters, being a general handicap in safety, especially in soloQ where peeling is a luxury. However while other champions have something to help combat divers, kog has absolutely nothing. Kalista has her passive, vayne has tumble, condemn and stealth, jinx has her snare and passive, ashe has permaslow and stun, sivir has move speed and spell shield, twitch has stealthy positioning, draven has move speed, huge life steal and can knock enemies out of their gap closers. Varus and miss fortune are also severely lacking when it comes to keeping a diving champion off of their face but atleast they have their respective snare and move speed to CC the diver or bail if it gets bad. Kog'maw has his puddle, but outside of it slowing down a melee champion who lacks instant gap-closers its very unreliable and now bruisers can just run right through it due to boots if swiftness if they lack a dash without much of a problem.

Kog'maw should never be picked against a team with diving champions even if they are willing to peel, instead kog would be the counterpick ADC to tank compositions with multiple champions like braum and mundo, right? I see multiple problems here:

  1. While kog has his tank shredding steroid active he will be very effective, but when it's on cooldown (50% of the time) his tank shredding capability will be gone and he will have to fight at a very risky 500 range with zero mobility and pitiful kiting ability.

  2. % Magic damage is effective, but the really, REALLY beefy tanks like alistar and ramus have huge tanking steroids, wouldn't vayne be more effective as a dedicated tank killer due to her true damage which has 100% up time?

  3. Tanks in laning usually have some kind of initiation ability like blitz hook, thresh grab, ali combo, Leona combo etc. While kog'maw would shred them in teamfights, in laning they are the perfect champions to take advantage of kog'maws low mobility and lack of escapes.

  4. Other champions lacking flashes like draven and jinx have 100% up time on their steroids and jinx can use her range whenever she needs. If kog is zoned or unable to accomplish his goal within the duration of his W he will completely lose his tank shredding ability and be stuck with poor range and damage for the rest of the fight unlike his competition.

Of course, kog'maw has better sieging and wave clear then most ad carries,but it's still a far cry compared to what AP carries like ziggs and xerath can do and is generally better left to them. Kog can go AP to fulfill this role, making his ult which doesn't normally pack the punch like ashes, dravens, jinxes or ezreals, but then that's a completely different build. AD Kog just doesn't have that presence with his spells. Kog'maw works best when hes with the team but this is more of a requirement otherwise he is outclassed completely by others who can duel and escape better when split pushing or alone.

Also, that passive. Kog'maws passive is truly terrible for a carry requiring you to die to gain any benefit at all. Mobility completely screws it along with shields and heals. Imagine jinx with this passive over her own, where she could potentially cleanup a fight or kite with that insane move speed, she now gets nothing except exploding when she dies. It will give someone a kill here and there, but really dying is the opposite of a carries goal in team fights and skirmishes.

The way I see it is kogs W is his saving grace, but when its on cooldown he's very subpar with mediocre poke, vulnerability to assassins and fighters with his zero mobility and reliance on his team to accomplish anything. Does anyone else think he should have a real passive, 550 base attack range and possibly allow his W's % damage to remain on his auto attacks when the ability and bonus range is on cooldown?

5 Comments

Epilogue of Life12/14/2014, 8:32:45 PM2 votes

ya i agree that kog's passive is a bit silly...commit suicide to gain unreliable (sort of) nuke?

Rebonack12/14/2014, 11:21:20 PM1 votes

Keep in mind that Koggy was created before Riot mobility creep'd the hell out of the game.

I'm of two minds on this, really.

I love Koggy. I've mained Koggy since his first free week. I enjoy every single Koggy build you can imagine and probably a few that you can't. Koggy has an amazing kit for an AP champion, but because of how punishing his Ult is, Riot really can't allow AP Kog to be very strong. When AP Kog is strong and he manages to get rolling taking or holding objectives is nearly impossible when he's on the other team. On the other hand, Koggy's magic damage is bad for an ADC. I can understand it since he was created before Last Whisper applied to skills, but still! If his kit did physical rather than magic damage it would be far easier for him to itemize in such a way to maximize his damage.

As much as it pains me to say this, I think it would be a good idea if Koggy was partly remade to function purely as an AP or AD champion. That could be accomplished by making his W and R physical or by removing the Ar shred and IAS from his Q and then buffing his Q/W/E ratios by a not at all insubstantial amount.

Another random idea I had was (please don't hate me!) remaking his R (and W). Instead of a long range artillery shot that steps on Xer's toes as the game's artillery mage, remake it into an OnNextHit skill that adds some additional range to his next auto attack in addition to its bonus AoE damage. So to break it down...

W becomes a passive that gives Koggy percentile HP damage OnHit. It no longer increases his attack range.

R becomes an OnNextHit skill that deals a bunch of bonus magic damage to his target and targets near them, increases the range for that attack by (a lot), reveals the target for a few seconds, and has a ramping mana cost. Koggy would lose his artillery skill (the sads!) and gain an undisputed niche as THE super-long range auto attacker in the game.

Now I'll say again, I absolutely LOVE AP Koggy. But I also understand why Riot can't allow him to be powerful (dat R). So to that end, I suspect it might be a decent idea to remake his R into something that meshes a bit better with what Riot has decided is his main build.

Meep Man12/14/2014, 11:56:01 PM1 votes

Koggy has a lot more range than most which allows a team that can stop mobility to let Kog'Maw destroy in a fight. But if the team can get past Kog's team (which can be sometimes easy these days due to Flash and lots of mobility), Kog is as good as dead.