Missing the Mark on a Marksman. Ft. Kog'Maw.

First is a quote from Xypherous on attack ranges:

"Attack range is a major part of combat feel and zone of control feel.

A lot of champion's feel 'wrong' or 'off' subtly when their zones of control don't line up - and so things that alter ranges (especially dramatically in an instant) usually feel incredibly off-putting.

We do have range modifiers - but they're usually gradual (Tristana) - or in the case of Kog'maw, it simply syncs his attack range with his other zone of control (Q/R/E) low-range.

Think about it like this:

When you have a shotgun and a chainsaw - you know what you're good at - and what you aren't. You have excellent zone of control in short proximity.

When you have a sniper rifle and a rocket launcher - it's similar, you know how you should fight and what feels natural. You have excellent zone of control in mid-range.

Now imagine a character with a shotgun and a sniper rifle. Your combat ranges aren't sync'ed and so your positioning often feels kind of off.

Now imagine if those ranges changed - but not enough to sync. Where you should stand and who you should hit just gets this muddy weird feeling because you don't know whether to move forward or backward."

Note: this post was made before the marksman update.

And the next is from Meddler:

We do think Kog's a champ you should feel rewarded for building a protective team around, given his lack of escape/hard CC and dependence on sustained auto attacking. That's a space that a few different champions should be able to exist in though, provided they're doing it in different ways (e.g. MF as the wombo character you want to pair with AOE lockdown for the duration of her ult, Kog as the one you want to protect for extended periods of time with AA enhancing buffs where possible, Trist as the one to protect if you want to push towers quick mid game etc).

Okay so we seem to have some disconnect here on Koggles. His W suddenly changes his attack range and puts it in line with the rest of his abilities. However, is only up for 6 seconds and will immediately switch back to an unsynced range for 7 seconds. The disconnect here is twofold. First, Kog's attack range doesn't fit with the rest of his kit when his W isn't up and it will only fit him for 6 seconds (This means the amount of time in which Kog's autos don't fit the rest of his kit is ultimately greater than the amount of time which they do fit). Second, Kog'Maw's sustained damage fantasy doesn't mesh with his reliance on auto attacking when W is not available. The second point is compounded by the first because the rest of his kit becomes desynchronized with his normal attack range.

By desyncing Kog's auto range from his kit you lose a major amount of zone control "feel" and you become disconnected to this zone. With Kog's extreme immobility, if you exit the natural zone of his kit (auto attacking without W active) you won't be able to easily resync again (or effectively reposition) when the active comes back on and will simply put a player off more.