Kogmaw feels undertuned

Koechophe·Dec 19, 2015·4 votes·962 views

I don't particularly care about win ratios or anything like that. He just doesn't feel very powerful at the moment. Even in team comps devoted entirely to protecting koggy, I feel like I'd be better off grabbing MF or Vayne or Trist. His W doesn't feel like it's that empowering, and without it he feels short range and lacking in any good sterods. His ult feels alright as an execution, but the damage seems negligable in every other circumstance.

I'm not a kog'maw main. I used to play a lot of him, but not as much this last season. Still, he feels considerablly less powerful than he did before, and even more so less than the other Adcs.

13 Comments

ErockandrollDec 19, 20153 votes

He's not going to be balanced around YoloQ. He's can synergize well with his teammates. He doubles AS from all sources, which could include Nunu's Blood boil and Nid's primal Surge. And then champion abilities that provide on hit effects, like Lulu's Help pix, also synergize with his double AS.

Build a team comp around him, and he can be terrifying.

RebonackDec 19, 20152 votes

{quoted}

He's not going to be balanced around YoloQ. He's can synergize well with his teammates. He doubles AS from all sources, which could include Nunu's Blood boil and Nid's primal Surge. And then champion abilities that provide on hit effects, like Lulu's Help pix, also synergize with his double AS.

Build a team comp around him, and he can be terrifying.

Riot has stated time and again that they balance around Solo, not LCS or 5s, unless it is a MASSIVE outlier in terms of power. Why the fuck would they make an exception for one champion?
Pix' OnHit damage caps out at a constant stream of bolts at 2.0 attack speed. Anything above that gives no further damage.
Building a team around literally any other centerpiece ADC is more effective than Kog. MF can match Kog's single target DPS with her Ult, except she hits the whole enemy team and isn't a useless sack of shit early game.

ErockandrollDec 19, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Riot has stated time and again that they balance around Solo, not LCS or 5s, unless it is a MASSIVE outlier in terms of power. Why the fuck would they make an exception for one champion?

As someone who follows the pro scene. I simply call it where I see it. Perhaps Yoloq is mimicing the LCS, But many times have I seen champs get nerfed if they become overused. (regardless of whether people call it broken or not)

Pix' OnHit damage caps out at a constant stream of bolts at 2.0 attack speed. Anything above that gives no further damage.

That doesn't change the fact that it's pretty much the best synergy in the game. Even if it caps at 2.0 AS, Kog can simply reach that, faster than any other ADC.

Building a team around literally any other centerpiece ADC is more effective than Kog. MF can match Kog's single target DPS with her Ult, except she hits the whole enemy team and isn't a useless sack of shit early game.

Yeah, well, that's her ult. Something designed to have a lot of power when active, and absent of power when on cooldown. But Kog's DPS is pretty much their all the time. And I'd still argue that a Kog'maw tailored team would fair better than any other ADC centric comp.

RebonackDec 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}

As someone who follows the pro scene. I simply call it where I see it. Perhaps Yoloq is mimicing the LCS, But many times have I seen champs get nerfed if they become overused. (regardless of whether people call it broken or not)

Hence the massive outlier clause. Some champions have had a pretty significant disconnect in power between solo and LCS (see: Birdman). I seem to recall one of the Rioters saying they want to address that issue eventually (think it was Statikk?) Riot has realized that sort of balancing isn't healthy for the game and not in the least fair to fans of a particular champion.

That doesn't change the fact that it's pretty much the best synergy in the game. Even if it caps at 2.0 AS, Kog can simply reach that, faster than any other ADC.

Best synergy in the game is with Ardent Censer. Only takes one heal-y or shield-y Support spamming on Kog for that. Given the choice, I would rather have Janna for the extra AD for Koggy's Ult. But that's neither here nor there.

Yeah, well, that's her ult. Something designed to have a lot of power when active, and absent of power when on cooldown. But Kog's DPS is pretty much their all the time. And I'd still argue that a Kog'maw tailored team would fair better than any other ADC centric comp.

Not all the time. Six seconds is low enough that by the time the front line has kicked each other's teeth in Koggy's W has gone on cooldown and he's restricted to sniping with his Ult. He can't hope to go toe-to-toe with any other ADC without his W. Miss Fortune, on the other hand, can weave Qs and pop her 100% IAS steroid after she drops her Ult. Her fallback is quite a bit more powerful.

Also, you aren't considering how much easier Kog is to build a team that totally shuts him down. OnHit damage returns are all doubled in strength against him. Flat damage reductions, likewise, are doubled in strength. He has no way to escape agile divers, he has no way to deal with teams that pack heavy disengage to spoil his W, and he has no way to compete with powerful early game lane bullies.

There comes a point when a champion is so niche that their strengths never come into relevance.

MunchCrunchLunchDec 19, 20151 votes

idk what your talking about i think og maw is stronger than mf and trist. and vayne depending on the situation.

RebonackDec 19, 20151 votes

Riot agrees with you!

They tried to buff him last patch, but due to typical ineptitude they manage to nerf him instead. It's rather akin to the time when Riot tried to buff Sion's Innate health decay rate and crippled him instead of doing anything useful.

KoechopheDec 19, 20152 votes

The thing is, numerically he is worse than he was pre-rework. His W used to do 6% max hp on hit and last 1 second longer. Now it does 2%, which in IDEAL circumstances (that almost never happen) would be doubled to 4%. At the very least they could make the W have 3% base.

RebonackDec 19, 20152 votes

{quoted}

The thing is, numerically he is worse than he was pre-rework. His W used to do 6% max hp on hit and last 1 second longer. Now it does 2%, which in IDEAL circumstances (that almost never happen) would be doubled to 4%. At the very least they could make the W have 3% base.

Two seconds, actually.

Koggy's W used to last 8 seconds. With max CDR it only had a downtime of about 2 seconds.

So both the duration and the downtime on Koggy's W got kicked in the nuts.

Also lost base damage. And stopped him from being able to kite/poke with his Ult and Trinity procs.

Basically, Riot massively underestimated how much of a weakness doubling your attack speed but dealing half damage is.

LaughingStaplerDec 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}

The thing is, numerically he is worse than he was pre-rework. His W used to do 6% max hp on hit and last 1 second longer. Now it does 2%, which in IDEAL circumstances (that almost never happen) would be doubled to 4%. At the very least they could make the W have 3% base.

It used to last 2 seconds longer actually. I broke down a lot of it here.

One suggestion I really like is to have W's CD halved or reset on kills or assists. A big part of Kog's issue even when he's protected is that he has only those 6 seconds to be truly useful. After that, you have to wait 7 seconds before you can put out meaningful DPS and the teamfight may already have swung by then. The goal of an ADC is supposed to be sustained DPS and it's not like Kog's an assassin either so having so much of his damage cooldown and mana gated is really awkward.

If not that, they could certainly bring W's on-hit 1% higher and the AP scaling back at 1% too.

The main problem for me is that EVEN when I get to late game, he doesn't feel any better than most other ADCs despite all he has to suffer through to get there. It's not just that the meta is unfavorable.

AgilsanDec 19, 20151 votes

I personally have never had a problem with him, just build on hit and you are solid. You can melt anything and everything effortlessly. You just need a support who is willing to peel.

ZerglingOneDec 19, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I don't particularly care about win ratios or anything like that. He just doesn't feel very powerful at the moment. Even in team comps devoted entirely to protecting koggy, I feel like I'd be better off grabbing MF or Vayne or Trist. His W doesn't feel like it's that empowering, and without it he feels short range and lacking in any good sterods. His ult feels alright as an execution, but the damage seems negligable in every other circumstance.

I'm not a kog'maw main. I used to play a lot of him, but not as much this last season. Still, he feels considerablly less powerful than he did before, and even more so less than the other Adcs.

He's weaker in every way than he used to be with the exception of on-hit kog which doesn't sustain, crit, or push as well as AD kog. If you have to kite at all, hitting W is a 45% DPS decrease unless you make damn well sure to auto attack twice before backstepping. Does less % damage, less auto attack damage, can't kite well, and less ult damage. On top of that, his core dps item item 3153 was nerfed pretty hard, item 3078 doesn't give AP anymore, and just so much else feels like he took a really hard hit for no good reason at all. Plus he's not winning games when he's supposed to be. Theoretically he's a late game doom dispenser, but he actually falls off remarkably hard due to his low mobility.

I don't even think Riot realized what they did to the poor bastard with item 3075 scaling directly off of armor and him only doing 55% of his normal attack damage per attack. That means he is actually taking close to 30% of someone's armor per 1 auto attack worth of damage.

Sneakyy XDDec 19, 20151 votes

Presumably, it's a problem with how Riot looks at attack speed (and by extension the on-hit damage he does). If you play around with a damage calculator, AS is an absurdly good stat that blows every other out of the water, and it's not even close. As more items are accrued, AS can be better than two other stats combined. However, when you get into the game, AS starts to suck a lot, because it means the champion can no longer move. Being on the move for .5 seconds between attacks when you have a 1.5 attack speed means nothing. Being on the move for .5 seconds between every attack when you have a 2.5 attack speed means you're losing over half your damage.

LaughingStaplerDec 19, 20151 votes

Many share your sentiments. Some more threads about this:

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/txlGL51M-so-meddler-said-koggy-is-the-sustained-damage-centerpiece-adc?show=flat&page=2 http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/yAOq9HeA-lets-congratulate-the-new-adc-with-the-lowest-winrate-and-a-way-forward http://boards.pbe.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/champions-gameplay-feedback/cjPwfumZ-kog-isnt-a-competitive-mid-anymore