He works so well top lane against a lot of popular picks and not to mention he's an ap bruiser which is perfect if your mid lane is ad, which happens quite often right now with all the zed and yasuo picks (assuming yasuo they haven't been banned ofc :P )
Cloud Potato3 votesNo mobility and his mana costs are too high.
I Main Swain1 votesearly game yes, but that's easily solved (in terms of mana costs). as for mobility, that's 1 of the only 3 things that frustrates me about him. the other 2 are his slow casting times and the way that a person could be inside the circle but not get knocked up or damaged.
Cloud Potato2 votesNeeding to buy items to solve mana issues is still inferior to not having those problems at all. It's not a dealbreaker though, especially with access to Grail. As for his slow cast times, I think W could stand to be changed to give it more counterplay (everything besides Q is point and click), and the cast time could be removed there. Q needs a long telegraph though, but seeing as Cho is a basic attacker I think removing the cast time is a good idea. Q is plenty easy enough to dodge as it is. Q failing is a bug, and I obviously agree it needs fixing.
I Main Swain1 votesits just a dorans ring, and his passive restores mana as well anyways. if you are playing right you can go without any mana items aside from an roa, frozen heart if you want to spam for days. also, I think his w is fine. it has a slow-ish cast time that he has to stop to use, and it does very little damage. as for the q I completely agree. his q as a total takes about 2 seconds to cast if you go from cast to knock up.
Cloud Potato1 votesThe little damage is in part due to the lack of counterplay. Instant AoE abilities are a step below targeted abilities on the counterplay scale, and I think that for a champion who both has an on hit effect ability and a targeted true damage nuke (that I don't think should be changed, by the way) having a third low counterplay ability is not a good idea. If Cho was stronger he would probably make melee champions cry, much like Maokai and Alistar do now.
I Main Swain1 votesnow hold on, I didn't ask for a damage buff, I was just saying its an entirely utility based ability, and it also isn't an instant cast. it has a decent delay, hence having to stop to use it. often, if you die after the animation goes off the effect of it doesn't apply still because of the delay. his w isn't really super low counterplay, it has a decent cooldown and only really works on going all in, whether he goes all in or the enemy does.
EvilRabbitt3 votesNo one appreciates the power of a low cooldown, high power, self boosting, true damage ultimate execution?
I Main Swain1 votes"its funny isn't it? how your best friend can just, blow up like that!" - gentleman chogath
Lyrìc3 votesAs cloud said, cho has no mobility and his mana costs are way too high to do much in early game. Along with this the meta is based around sieging and mobility at the given moment, with those not having those traits needing a strong form of cc or wave clear to be classified as as good pick in the current meta.
I Main Swain1 votesoooooh no trust me, you don't really have much of a problem with mana, sieging, or clearing waves. first off, start dorans ring and start and max e for the high aoe damage and lack of mana consumption. gives him ballsy waveclear which increases his mana and health regen, as well as pushing the wave to their tower and forcing them to lose cs to tower. only thing you gotta worry about is keeping warded up. he sieges incredibly well, and level 1 i can usually take the enemy laner down to about 1/3-1/4 hp by simply clearing my wave really fast and autoing them when im done. so ya, anyways he has really great cc and waveclear, you just have to be good at landing his q (which i do think is just a little too clunky).
SnowFall2 votesTrue tanks get shredded too fast in this meta, there is no point playing cho over mumu or rammus
I Main Swain1 votesa true cho doesn't go "true" tank. just go bruiser, I sometimes even like to go more on the end of carry. I actually build him very similar to swain now that I think about it, and I still get the tankiness I need while dealing tons of damage.
Worgslarg1 votesPersonally, he's a great toplaner imo, and if fed he becomes a team-wrecking monstrosity, but his laning phase is terrible against anyone who isn't stopped by his silence.
He works well against ryze and yasuo in my experience, though that may be partly that his pick rate is so low, not many people can counterplay him.
EndlessSorcerer2 votesI wouldn't say he's bad against anyone not affected by his silence. He can max E first against a lot of melee champions and win pretty much any trade against them by just autoattacking. It also lets you save your mana and cooldowns for their utility instead of damage.
Sire Hippington1 voteswhile he theroetically is strong, his clunkyness gives him a hard time vs more mobile champs. And as ap-bruiser, he curently is outclased by Mao and Gragas, both offering mobillity, easier to land cc and poke, %dmg reduction and %health damage.
I Main Swain1 votesI wouldn't say hes outclassed, imo, but i do think they have more popular playstyles and abilities.
I Main Swain1 votesso this is my brothers post that he apparently did on my account, not totally sure why but whatever, i kinda agree with it to an extent as a fellow huge chogath player (gentleman cho is the way to go). he really is incredibly strong top lane, underestimated by most of the community (as far as ive seen). however, he is pretty clunky ability wise and his mana costs tend to drive away people who like to spam instead of sustain (which is many people). one idea i got from don pavoni's post is that they could give him some hp scalings on his abilities so that A) you get more rewarded for stacking his ult and B) gives the true tank players (bad build imho) a little love damage wise. or they could make it so that when he reaches full stacks 6 stacks he gets an added bonus on top of the hp, like longer ability ranges or something.
i almost want him to argue with me so that it will look like im having an argument with myself :P anyways just my 2 cents...on "my own" post