Okay, so Koggy is supposed to be a late-game Hyper Carry

Rebonack·Sep 6, 2015·4 votes·493 views

But he works best building Trinity/BorK and spiking mid-mid/late and taking advantage of his really high base values. Since, y'know, the only steroid he has is his passive Q attack speed. His W is great and all, but there's no incentive to build anything other than IAS for it (and AP if you're going AP Koggy). His Ult has a bonus AD ratio, but it isn't particularly amazing. Base damage is great, though.

Does this strike anyone else as weird?

Kog gets built as a mid-game champ. His win-rate curve reflects a mid-game champ. His massive base values and general lack of scaling supports a mid-game champ.

If Koggy is supposed to be a hyper-carry, wouldn't it make more sense to have lower base values on his skills and have them actually, y'know, scale with relevant stats?

11 Comments

RogueWillSep 6, 20156 votes

He is considered a hyper carry not because of his scaling but because of how hard it is to itemize against him (like corki)

RebonackSep 6, 20152 votes

{quoted}

He is considered a hyper carry not because of his scaling but because of how hard it is to itemize against him (like corki)

Not... really?

Unless he tags a target with his Q first, Kog isn't going to be sitting on any magic penetration. That means even one dedicated MR item like Banshee's will significantly blunt the magic damage he deals. If we're talking about soft targets, GA is pretty common. If we're talking Tanks then I would be shocked to see less than 150 MR, which is plenty enough to render Kog's W and Ult damage a relative non-issue. Compared to Infinity Edge crits backed up by Last Whisper 6% of a target's max HP in magic damage with no %pen support isn't much to write home about. Vayne's bonus AD contributes more.

To be frank, mixed damage is bad on anyone who plans on building Void/Whisper. Being able to focus on a single type of penetration yields much higher damage.

RogueWillSep 6, 20151 votes

I haven't played Kog in a long time but aren't you supposed to run hybrid mark pen on him? Does people now a days use a standard ADC rune page on him?

RebonackSep 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I haven't played Kog in a long time but aren't you supposed to run hybrid mark pen on him? Does people now a days use a standard ADC rune page on him?

Hey, I like running hybrid pen on him. But the rune pages that work out the best seem to be the standard ADC sort backing up the Trinity/BotRK build.

RebonackSep 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

He is considered a hyper carry not because of his scaling but because of how hard it is to itemize against him (like corki)

And just to add something additional to this...

Imagine for a moment that Koggy's W and R both did physical damage.

Then give him back his OLD Q passive.

Passively grants him 25% armor penetration. When he hits someone with his Q it disables his passive and shreds 50% of their armor.

Which Kog do you think would be stronger? The one with hybrid damage or the one who laughs at your physical defense?

RogueWillSep 6, 20151 votes

If you change evrything like that then Tanks will just build heavy HP item and only around 250 armor, they don't have to worry much about MR either since only mid will be AP... Without the % max health he will have a really tough time against tanks since he is fairly stiff and has no real disengages. The only reason players like Draven can pull off a heavy armor red/damage type of build is because they have enough self peel to no die after the first dive.

Meep ManSep 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

He is considered a hyper carry not because of his scaling but because of how hard it is to itemize against him (like corki)

He is one of the main champions in my opinion that makes Riot fear good hybrid itemization.

ks916Sep 6, 20153 votes

It's super hard to itemize against a Kog is part of the reason. But main part he's a hyper carry is because of how good his Q and W is late game.

His Q reduces mr and armour by 28% late game which is HUGE cause once you get that on a tank you just melt them combined with you last whisper (rip tank). Also it gives him 30% attack speed which is pretty good since late games auto's are the best way to get out dmg from adc's and not abilities.

But truthfully it's his W which makes him a monster late game. Part of late game for adc's is always how much range they have since it determines how many autos they can get safely (see Jinx, Cait, Trist, huge range lets them be safe which means more dmg since they auto more). Kog's W gives him extra attack range for 8 seconds and on top of it add bonus 6% of a targets max health as bonus magic damage to let him just destroy tanks. It's true because of triforce he does have a huge spike mid game (I remember riot said they were gonna look at Kog because he spikes so early as a hyper carry, was a while back idk if they still are doing that)

Done25Sep 6, 20151 votes

The scaling in this game has gotten warped over years of tweaking and changes with no overall "goal" of what Riot considered healthy. For example we have Vayne, a hyper carry tank killing Marksman ASSASSIN who is ALSO super safe in lane and can easily kill things with the help of a well timed Condemn.

LovelleSep 6, 20151 votes

Wow you play a lot of Kog and on Dominion (aka mobile/burst assassin land) of all places. Props.