Kog PBE Changes

PrometheS·Feb 4, 2016·18 votes·2,425 views

These changes will make Kog stronger as an ADC and Jungler (his ganks are trash and he's vulnerable but Sated damage is sick). However, they seem geared towards powering up his early-mid game rather than his late game eat everything fantasy. At level 18, he's in the same exact spot as before and I think he's supposed to be weak early-mid but strong late. With so many things nerfed about him and poor penetration options for Hybrid builds, I don't think Kog's late game fantasy is fulfilled so I'd rather that be made stronger than making him more of a mid game carry.

I'd also still like some answer for those players who like him as AP poke (a style that was butchered after the changes).

26 Comments

Cosmic WarperFeb 4, 201610 votes

They're buffing his early-mid game because they're weaker than any champion in the game, and it doesn't let him ramp up at all. Kog maw still fulfills his late game fantasy if he builds a rageblade, runaan's, and BoRK, he just needs to get there. Helping him get there is way more valuable than buffing up his lategame because even if it's buffed he wont reach it if his early and mid game power is the worst in the game.

RebonackFeb 4, 20166 votes

[{quoted}](name=Cosmic Warper,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=vvYwMUFE,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2016-02-04T03:16:19.996+0000)

Kog maw still fulfills his late game fantasy if he builds a rageblade, runaan's, and BoRK, he just needs to get there.

No he doesn't.

Kog is at his strongest right now late mid to early late. In the actual late game, he drops off considerably due to the fact that OnHit effects don't stack as well as AD/IAS/Crit/Crit Damage in addition to it being more likely that other full-build champions catch Kog out and annihilate him before he has a chance to react.

Before the AD ratio was removed from Kog's W, he had an actual late game power curve comparable to Twitch or Vayne.

The PBE changes will help his early game (levels 1 - 3 for the most part), but they're doing nothing to address Kog's most glaring issues if he's actually going to fill his fantasy as a hyper-scaling totally immobile long range sustained damage source. First, he needs to actually scale powerfully into late game. Second, he needs to actually be able to deal sustained damage instead of getting a six second spike in power and then becoming useless.

If I wanted an ADC with that power spike functionality, then I could pick Vayne, Twitch, or Miss Fortune with better chances of success.

Blue Moon WolfFeb 4, 20163 votes

I blame the fact riot is trying to make games shorter, late game carries got hit hard (with a few exceptions). These are champs that either need to wait till they are at full build to really become a threat or get really fed early on. With riot trying to make games shorter, the only option they have is to get fed early, which can lead to some bad calls (like trying to chase the low health enemy under the turret).

BonipherusFeb 4, 20162 votes

it's basically just an early game band aid.

why they are doing this instead of treating his actual problems (not fulfilling his immobile, dps, void puppy of doom fantasy) are beyond me.

arcinexFeb 4, 20162 votes

ADC Kog'Maw will definitely be a lot stronger when the PBE buffs hit live.

AP Kog is still strong. His ult now does more damage on lower health champions. (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urx1A8t86NM before the change it would have probably taken me two ulti's to kill off Ezreal)

Not only is AP Kog still strong, the W rework (doubled attack speed) give AP Kog something useful to do if a team fight breaks out and his Q -> E are on cooldown while still being able to output relavant damage

TaylFeb 4, 20162 votes

Jesus, he was at like half hp.

NichtHurzFeb 4, 20161 votes

Yup. Now it just is a lot better to build AP Kog on heavy magic pen, his Q E R or E Q R combo obliterates many squishy champs.

PrometheSFeb 4, 20164 votes

{quoted}

ADC Kog'Maw will definitely be a lot stronger when the PBE buffs hit live.

AP Kog is still strong. His ult now does more damage on lower health champions. (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urx1A8t86NM before the change it would have probably taken me two ulti's to kill off Ezreal)

Not only is AP Kog still strong, the W rework (doubled attack speed) give AP Kog something useful to do if a team fight breaks out and his Q -> E are on cooldown while still being able to output relavant damage

Yes, but the scenario where it's strong doesn't occur often enough for it to make him viable. I'd much rather have reliably good damage than an execute and I'm sure my team would prefer it too. It also means that your laning is even more garbage because you're not going to be facing someone that's below 50% HP normally. Also, keep in mind that his ult.'s mana reset and mana costs were heavily nerfed. It's not even just the change from a poke tool to an execute. But regardless, executes appear better on paper than they are in game. Almost every time someone's below 25% HP, a normal ult. would be just as useful because someone else on your team will likely flash for the kill or throw out some spell. In a sense, they are "overkilled".

arcinexFeb 4, 20163 votes

Instead of basing your response on speculation, why don't you play AP Kog'Maw yourself :)

It's annoying having to explain the strengths of a champion to somebody who has never played said champion, rather it's pretty much pointless to someone who hasn't touched the game since season 3 but here goes:

the scenario where it's strong doesn't occur often enough for it to make him viable.

The scenario of enemies being at 50% health or lower occurs easily if you are able to dish out your Q + E damage or your teammates do damage. Honestly the only time when this situation wouldn't occur is so rare that you would literally have to be afk in fountain for it to never occur.

I'd much rather have reliably good damage than an execute and I'm sure my team would prefer it too.

AP Kog'Maw does have reliably good damage as well as an execute. Nobody is forcing you to play it if you are not confident in your ability to carry :)

It also means that your laning is even more garbage because you're not going to be facing someone that's below 50% HP normally.

Please tell me why you think it is necessary for your opponent to be below 50% health in lane when your goal as AP Kog'Maw is to scale mid-late game with a few items and then being able to deal fatal damage?

Kog'Maw's laning is actually scary good. It's on par with Anivia. E + R is good enough to kill an entire minion wave at level 6.

Also, keep in mind that his ult.'s mana reset and mana costs were heavily nerfed

"heavily nerfed" Last I checked, increasing mana costs by 10 per cast didn't count as being heavily nerfed. And the added 4 seconds for his ult cost reset? No biggie. Everything that was recently changed was an expected power tune.

It's not even just the change from a poke tool to an execute.

AP Kog'Maw still benefits from the long range harass from his ult. You say it like you should never use his ult to poke. Resource management, ever heard of it?

Almost every time someone's below 25% HP, a normal ult. would be just as useful because someone else on your team will likely flash for the kill or throw out some spell. In a sense, they are "overkilled".

Oh yeah? Like when? What ults? You have clearly never experienced an AP Kog'Maw with item 3116 if you are comparing his ult to other ults as an execute. But it is something you need to see in action in order to understand its power. Lmk if you know of a champion with a spammable ulti as potent as AP Kog'Maw's ok buddy?

PrometheSFeb 4, 20168 votes

{quoted}

Instead of basing your response on speculation, why don't you play AP Kog'Maw yourself :)

It's annoying having to explain the strengths of a champion to somebody who has never played said champion, rather it's pretty much pointless to someone who hasn't touched the game since season 3 but here goes:

The scenario of enemies being at 50% health or lower occurs easily if you are able to dish out your Q + E damage or your teammates do damage. Honestly the only time when this situation wouldn't occur is so rare that you would literally have to be afk in fountain for it to never occur.

AP Kog'Maw does have reliably good damage as well as an execute. Nobody is forcing you to play it if you are not confident in your ability to carry :)

Please tell me why you think it is necessary for your opponent to be below 50% health in lane when your goal as AP Kog'Maw is to scale mid-late game with a few items and then being able to deal fatal damage?

Kog'Maw's laning is actually scary good. It's on par with Anivia. E + R is good enough to kill an entire minion wave at level 6.

"heavily nerfed" Last I checked, increasing mana costs by 10 per cast didn't count as being heavily nerfed. And the added 4 seconds for his ult cost reset? No biggie. Everything that was recently changed was an expected power tune.

AP Kog'Maw still benefits from the long range harass from his ult. You say it like you should never use his ult to poke. Resource management, ever heard of it?

Oh yeah? Like when? What ults? You have clearly never experienced an AP Kog'Maw with if you are comparing his ult to other ults as an execute. But it is something you need to see in action in order to understand its power. Lmk if you know of a champion with a spammable ulti as potent as AP Kog'Maw's ok buddy?

I do play him myself at a Platinum level with hundreds (if not over a thousand) of games under my belt so your claims about me not having played him enough are beyond ridiculous. I probably played him even just this season more than you have in your entire LoL career. He is pretty terrible now and you can choose to ignore reality but it doesn't change. Observe how many high ELO Kog mains, like Knoch have given up on him or the fact that he hasn't been played a single time in competitive since. PowerofEvil used to be a force on him in EU LCS (even though he was pretty much the only one willing to use him), now there isn't a single Kog game from him. Scarra gave him a try mid over several games recently and ultimately gave up too.

I've played both extensively and the new one is much weaker overall. The only ability that is stronger is W and that's not even 100% true since it has a mana cost now and it is weaker until you have extra AS, plus its duration is shorter and you lose some kiting ability. You no longer win because you're AP Kog (old AP Kog was disgusting late game) but rather in spite of it. Had you chosen Lulu, Lux, Ahri or a myriad of other champions, your path to victory would have been even simpler. If you really are interested, there are dozens of threads about Kog that explain the details of why this is true but there is no doubt that he is much weaker mid now.

arcinexFeb 4, 20162 votes

You can't hide your stats in this day and age. In fact you have yet to play a single ranked game, let alone a game in any mode since the release of the new client. Before you say you play any champion at plat level why don't you actually get to plat :)

PrometheSFeb 4, 20166 votes

{quoted}

You can't hide your stats in this day and age. In fact you have yet to play a single ranked game, let alone a game in any mode since the release of the new client. Before you say you play any champion at plat level why don't you actually get to plat :)

Oh wow, people may want to be anonymous and have multiple accounts.... no way. What a novel concept! You really think I'd even be on a league forum and have strong opinions about balance if I hadn't played in that long? It's silly that you'd even consider this a possibility.

You're just so obviously wrong and by such a large margin (in complete disagreement with every Master+ player I've talked to), that you need to read other threads before even beginning a debate about this. Stop acting as if you're providing some valuable new information as if everyone isn't already aware of Rylai's or Kog's kit etc. You probably had a few good games or faced weak opponents/good matchups and came to some unsupported conclusions. Play 50+ games on him when real ranked is back and we'll see what you think then (assuming no major buffs to him).

This and this are a good place to start.

Urgonnalearn2dayFeb 4, 20165 votes

{quoted}

Oh wow, people may want to be anonymous and have multiple accounts.... no way. What a novel concept! You really think I'd even be on a league forum and have strong opinions about balance if I hadn't played in that long? It's silly that you'd even consider this a possibility.

You're just so obviously wrong and by such a large margin (in complete disagreement with every Master+ player I've talked to), that you need to read other threads before even beginning a debate about this. Stop acting as if you're providing some valuable new information as if everyone isn't already aware of Rylai's or Kog's kit etc. You probably had a few good games or faced weak opponents/good matchups and came to some unsupported conclusions. Play 50+ games on him when real ranked is back and we'll see what you think then (assuming no major buffs to him).

This and this are a good place to start.

I'm Obama and Wild Turtle. We fused over the weekend.

But seriously don't go throwing around credentials without proof. Just no.

AbyssphereFeb 4, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Oh wow, people may want to be anonymous and have multiple accounts.... no way. What a novel concept! You really think I'd even be on a league forum and have strong opinions about balance if I hadn't played in that long? It's silly that you'd even consider this a possibility.

You're just so obviously wrong and by such a large margin (in complete disagreement with every Master+ player I've talked to), that you need to read other threads before even beginning a debate about this. Stop acting as if you're providing some valuable new information as if everyone isn't already aware of Rylai's or Kog's kit etc. You probably had a few good games or faced weak opponents/good matchups and came to some unsupported conclusions. Play 50+ games on him when real ranked is back and we'll see what you think then (assuming no major buffs to him).

This and this are a good place to start.

I agree with your side of the argument but if you want to tell people that you're arguing with a Plat POV then... post on your Plat account. There's no legitimate reason not to and there are so many more "I'm Diamond but posting on a smurf because... reasons" posters on this forum than there are people posting on actual Diamond accounts that I'm pretty sure the majority are lying.

As I said, I think you're completely right about Kog'Maw, but you have to be willing to show people your credentials if you expect people to listen to you based on them. If you care about hiding your plat account then just don't bring it into conversation.

PrometheSFeb 4, 20161 votes

I didn't use my ranking as an argument and only mentioned it in passing when he accused me of not having played since S3. The emphasis in my post is on the # of games not rank and nor was it anything like "I'm X rank so trust me." Thus, your comment seems out of place. Posting on my main makes me more self-conscious and less able to say everything I want to if it's controversial. I'd rather present things how I see them.

zecastarFeb 4, 20161 votes

{quoted}

ADC Kog'Maw will definitely be a lot stronger when the PBE buffs hit live.

AP Kog is still strong. His ult now does more damage on lower health champions. (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Urx1A8t86NM before the change it would have probably taken me two ulti's to kill off Ezreal)

Not only is AP Kog still strong, the W rework (doubled attack speed) give AP Kog something useful to do if a team fight breaks out and his Q -> E are on cooldown while still being able to output relavant damage

Level 16 is Kog's biggest power spike and he's vs a level 12 Ezreal. Just the Luden's burst and Bard auto probably does 15-20% of Ezreal's HP. Kog's 5/3/11 with 214 CS which is just a massive amount of gold from assists and CS. I'm not sure what that video's supposed to prove. Old Kog could do this just as easily while doing way more damage vs higher HP.

Rico NastyFeb 4, 20162 votes

He's not even bad y'all calm tf down

BisaknospFeb 4, 20162 votes

i want his old kit back its so unfun to play kog now since you only have to press w and stand still old kog could at least kite and still do lots of damage and not so team reliant

RebonackFeb 4, 20162 votes

If we wanted to make AP Kog more viable, the simple solution would be to smooth out his Ult's bonus damage scaling. Giving it 2.666% bonus damage per 1% missing HP would make it hit 200% bonus damage at 25% health as it is on Live, but it would be vastly more useful at all other health values aside from 100%.

It would give his QER combo significantly more bite.

MagicDragon300Feb 4, 20161 votes

The PBE Updates will help Kog a bit, but he still has a lot of issues at his core that hold him back such as his mana issues and his W uptime. The extra AS moved to his W (which is the first max for Kog) would grant him a lot of early stats he just couldn't reasonably get before, which would really help for when he is the weakest. Overall, these changes could help Kog, but he will still have issues he already had which might either still keep him down still or make him stay balanced.

Melee FormFeb 4, 20161 votes

I'm just glad they haven't forgotten Kog'maw.

ScoroctFeb 4, 20161 votes

I feel ap kog could work if his ult got changed to have a slightly higher mana cost, but lack the mana cost growth, or just make the growth less insane. it honestly feels like a jinx ult that i only press if something super low on hp is nearby, and not the artillery spell it used to feel.

RebonackFeb 4, 20163 votes

{quoted}

I feel ap kog could work if his ult got changed to have a slightly higher mana cost, but lack the mana cost growth, or just make the growth less insane. it honestly feels like a jinx ult that i only press if something super low on hp is nearby, and not the artillery spell it used to feel.

This is intentional.

Ziggs and Xerath are supposed to be the artillery Mages.

Ez, Corki, and Varus are the poke Marksmen.

Riot decided to focus Kog in on his long range machine-gun niche to the detriment of his poke and tank-busting niches. Power needed to be siphoned from somewhere else.

IntrionFeb 4, 20161 votes

Kog'Maw is still a strong AP mid. While he does need to build both Athene and Seraph to sustain his mana, he has some of the best wave clear in the game post 6, allowing him to push waves from afar and stay away from assassins. His late game DPS is insane.