The Actual Reason Why Both Kog'Maw and Corki Are So Bad Right Now - And Why Crit Is Dying

Their itemization is really fucking terrible.

When you are a Marksman there are two options for what kind of build you are able to go ( unless you are Ezreal ).

One focuses on crit and the other focuses on armor penetration.

If you are a champion that goes for a crit build, you need attack speed, AD and maybe even lifesteal steroids or abilities that can critically strike or have another special interaction with critical strike.

If you are going for an armor penetration build you instead have high base damage and ability damage, high AD ratios and probably bad synergy with attack speed or crit.

Kog'Maw and Corki have neither of both.

Kog'Maws only AD ratio is on his ult and 50% of all damage he deals as a marksman is magical so a penetration build is out of the question. The only interaction he has with crit is his Q attack speed bonus.

Compare that with Lucian who has 3 AD scaling abilities with high base damage, which also are dealing physical damage so that he can go for a penetration build. Or Vayne, which has an enhanced autohit reset on her Q every few seconds, that can not only critically strike but also has a really high AD ratio and procs lifesteal.

So instead Kog'Maw has to go for an on-hit build. The problem is that on-hit currently is only really good on bruisers who only buy a few offensive items - on-hit carry builds are dead ever since old Guinsoo's, Feral Flare, Sated Devourer and the now old Kog'Maw are gone. After Trinity Force and BotRK, the latter being a pretty mediocre item, he actually HAS to go for crit since that is his best option. And as I just said, even so, his interaction with crit is really shitty so it just shows you how bad his itemization is.

Next up it's Corki. He would be an amazing AD caster penetration carry, about 2/3 of his damage comes from his abilities and not his auto attacks, yet because all of his abilities deal magic damage this won't work. Also, the only interaction that he even has with critical strike are his auto attacks, all his abilities don't matter. And 2/3 of his damage comes from his abilities. Just think about it, his synergy with crit is about as good as Zed's or Kha'Zix's synergy with crit.

And with the pre-season, armor penetration builds for marksmen get nerfed even more - they don't get the early flat pen anymore, they can't make much use of the out of combat movement speed the new lethality items give and the worst part is that Youmuu's loses its attack speed for good. Duskblade won't be an option either anymore, none of the AD caster carries have good stealth interactions or need a raptor buff since they won't facechek bushes alone anyway.

So if you are a Marksman in the pre-season, you can't choose between armor penetration or crit builds anymore, the only build you can go is crit ( unless you're Ezreal ). Lucian will soon join the ranks of Kog'Maws and Corki's trash tier level.

And I'm absolutely okay with crit being the only option. For the longest time now, there have been unbalanced marksmen who have too much power in the early game because of alternative builds and that is something that marksmen just should not do. The idea that every marksman should go for a crit build that ramps up in the lategame is one that I personaly really like.

But for that to work, every marksman and AD Carry also has to actually synergize with crit to not be forced into mediocrity.

It has gotten to the point where Master Yi, Gangplank and even Yasuo who gets double critical strike chance have been seen not building crit anymore, aswell as marksmen like Corki, Lucian and Kog'Maw because their interaction with crit is not good enough.

I mean just look at Vayne with her new critically striking Q or AOE critting Jinx with steroids. Or Jhin with his extra movement speed when critting or the mini-crits on Miss Fortunes ultimate.

We need more of this stuff for critical strike to work and if it somehow is so weak that the champions end up building something that is not crit anyway, these numbers have to be buffed.

What if we make Kog'Maws W mini-crit or even crit for full damage, what if Corki's abilities are able to mini-crit aswell, or maybe only some of them? What if we let the bonus damage of Ganplank's barrels crit aswell as the basic attack part of it so that he's not forced to build armor pen anymore? What if Yi's E can mini-crit so that he isn't forced into a mediocre 48% winrate on-hit build?

These might seem a bit weird at first glance but for crit to be the basic trademark stat of AD Carries again, especially now that armor penetration builds are weaker for them, something like the changes of above have to be implemented.