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Cho'Gath Rework

SUPERX4PANDA·12/22/2015, 9:59:16 PM·2 votes·889 views

Greeting everyone reading this discussion! This is a topic I've felt quite strongly about for the past months and my long years of League have (hopefully) led me to have some tiny (deathfire's) grasp of understanding regarding balance. I know many may instantly reel at the thought of changing one of League's most iconic and classic champios, Cho'Gath, but I believe that Cho'Gath has the potential to become the true nightmare that he was made to be.

What are the problems with current Cho? Cho'Gath is one of the original champions who, like Shen, has aged reasonably well with time and find their periods of being picked throughout all levels of play. This is in contrast to old champions like Poppy and Sion, who did not age well with the game and were reworked. For this reason, it may not seem that Cho needs a rework at all, but reworks such as the Fiora, Juggernaut, and ADC updates were made with the purpose of adding more definition and uniqueness to each Champ. How does this work with Cho'Gath? There are several issues with Cho in respect to the relationship of concepts, visuals, and gameplay mechanics

  1. He is a mage. To any players who still play Cho as a full tank, times have changed. Cho'Gath is primarily built with a RoA into full AP. While this behavior is perfectly viable with his kit, does it really make sense? Cho'Gaths a giant hulking void monster with massive jaws, terrible scything arms, and spikes and size that terrify all in his wake. His primary damage? Magic!
  2. Half-ranged, half-melee. No counterplay. Two primary abilities are ranged (Q,W) which is where half of his burst chunk is loaded. Second half is loaded in his ult, which is essentially auto-attack range. Silenced, knocked up, eaten. Giant AOE's and targeted, instant 1k true damage (with AP).
  3. He is burst oriented. Forgive me for thinking this is wrong, but I don't think it makes sense for a giant monster who grows in size with every victim he consumes should revolve around hitting someone with ground spikes for half their health and then just eating them for the other half. This is an overall clash with his identity as a giant void monster that revolves around eating to grow.
  4. Feast is very, very, old-school. This is particularly true with the stacking mechanic. Back the days of yore (ick), snowballing items like Sword of the Occult, Mejai's, and Leviathan were implemented because of the more open-ended, wild nature of the game. Snowballs were common, back-and-forths could take place in every game. Many of those snowball mechanics are gone now; even Mejai's isn't nearly the same level of pure risk that it used to be. Cho'Gath still retains this style of pure snowball mechanic that isn't friendly to a front-line fighter. In essence, his health stacking on his Feast limits him to the QWR burst champion he is.
  5. The "terror" of the void. Outside of getting big, nothing about Cho'Gath screams (except his W) "omg this monster is going to rip us apart!"

What are the fixes? While many of these things work in the current meta, Cho'Gath's health stacking snowball and stupidly high AP rations relegate him to playing as a "safe", melee, health-stacking, burst oriented mage. This is mess of thematic and mechanical elements that just don't make sense.

Before I bore you to death further, here is my presented kit (without all the numbers followed by the explanation of what I intended.

Reworked, The Terror of the Void

Passive: Sea of Bodies- When Cho'Gath kills an enemy, it has a chance of leaving behind its corpse. Cho'Gath may right click to eat the corpse and gain ~8-12 maximum health. Enemies may right click to destroy these corpses. Siege minions and large monsters always drop a corpse and champions drop corpses that cannot be destroyed and grant 50-100 max health (based on level). Cho'Gath grows in size based on his number of consumed corpses.

Q: Void Rupture- Cho'Gath stomps the ground, erupting earth in a line to deal magic damage (far less AP ratio, higher base damage) and slow enemies. Targets caught at the farthest half of the spell are knocked up.

W: Nightmare Maw- Cho'Gath selects a target enemy champion and selects a line to throw them in that is not directly behind Cho'Gath, dealing physical damage based on their maximum health.

E: Scythes of the Void- Cho'Gath's next basic attack deals bonus magic damage and will strike in an area in front of him, stunning the target of the attack (not very long, 1 sec-ish). For 5 seconds after the strike, Cho'Gath will fire Vorpal Spikes on his basic attacks in a cone, dealing bonus physical damage.

R: Nightmarish Feast- Cho'Gah viciously devours target champion or large monster (no minions), dealing physical damage based on their missing health. Whenever Cho'Gath successfully feasts a unique enemy champion, he may upgrade one of his abilities. For his first three, he may upgrade one of his basic abilities. For his fourth, he may upgrade his passive. His final feast upgrades his ultimate. Each upgrade adds a physical change to Cho'Gath, increasing is terror. Clarity Note: You must eat each enemy champion at least once to gain all of the upgrades. You may eat the enemy Darius in top lane twice in a row, but you will not be able to upgrade an ability for eating him any time beyond the first.

Upgrades: Q: Increases width by 25% on each side and knocks enemies up at all parts of the spell. W: Increases grab and throw range. Throwing an enemy into a wall or other champion will heavily slow both struck and deal another small amount of damage. E: Stuns all enemies in the initial strike and increases Cho'Gath's attack speed during Vorpal Spikes. Passive: Cho'Gath gains 10% bonus health from purchased items, capped based on his level. R: Cooldown is reduce to 40/30/20 seconds, now deals true damage, and heals Cho'Gath for 20% of his maximum health when he successfully Feasts a champion.

Overview This new kit redesigns Cho'Gath as what could be the most juggernaughty(?) of all juggernauts. What more perfect melee champion to become a near unstoppable monster if allowed to reach his full potential than a void-born nightmare beast who eats to reach higher levels of terror? Overall, he remains immobile, but his skills cater to him being up close, while Void Rupture still allows him some means of closing gaps. Early game, he relies on his magic damage bases to deal meaningful damage in trades. W would cost a lot of mana early and not throw very far (as to not let Cho just chuck someone into tower), but he has some tools to escape ganks while being immobile. His passive also allows for much more stable health gain, getting it slowly over time as opposed to large chunks. You're also safe from loosing it, but opponents can still deny you the health by fighting to destroy each corpse. Mid-Game, hopefully he's been allowed to eat 1-2 enemies with jungle support, and he can join more skirmishes with reasonable presence, depending on if he's opted for more control with Q, single-target catch with W, or damage with E. Alternatively, Cho can remain in top lane and continue feasting to gain health. However, if he neglects to join fights and feast new targets, he will never reach his true nightmarish potential. Late-Game, by the time Cho'Gath is near full build and has all 5 upgrades, he is nothing short of a nightmare that will trample any lone champions that dare engage him. Cho can lead the charge as a tanky juggernaut that will squash any squishy that tries to run. However, CC and kiting will prevent Cho from ever getting his jaws around anyone. If the enemy Cho is ~10/3 with all of his upgrades, send at least 3 to fight him. 1v1 or 1v2 will just be more meals.

What each skill truly does:

Passive- As mentioned before, it provides incentive to farm and defend the corpses that fall while allowing a more stable and predictable health gain that the opponents can still work around. The upgrade provides reason to buy health items, and not just build straight damage. Q: Repurposed from burst damage to being a "gap-closer" against immobile targets. The spell still offers decent damage, but is primarily for utility and fight control once its upgraded. W: While seems a little weird at first, this skill is incredibly diverse. You can throw people away from you, towards your teammates, into friendly Galio ults, into range for Poppy E and Vayne E, all sorts of options once you get in range of someone. Upgrade further allows those plays to be made, adding a little extra ease and damage for being in the right position. Long cooldown and high mana cost would restrict its power in the early game. E: For someone with such massive claws, they should be used for disemboweling opponents. E has been shifted to be a more active damage component, providing some extra CC and main dps to get opponents in range to be eaten. Upgrading it allows for more damage through the attack speed increases and advises foes to leave whoever was caught for dead, lest they get stunned and eaten as well. R: Cho'Gath's old ulti was unfair. Giant burst of instant* true damage. His new ultimate requires you to take time to weaken them enough to swallow them whole. This skill must be utilized to full effectiveness in the macro game in order to unlock its full potential. Snowballing in lane won't give you your full power, but if you and your team work to get you full upgrades, Cho'Gath will become the unstoppable nightmare he wants to be.

As far as visual upgrades though, my biggest change would be Cho'Gath's animations. He looks like the Derp of the Void when he walks and has such abrupt and non-threatening stomping, attacking, and feasting animations. Perhaps eating a champion will cause them to disappear entirely after the corpse is eaten until they respawn? Model-wise, the base can easily stay close to the same, but as Cho'Gath grows and feasts, his features morph with him. With Q, his legs and feet could become larger and more developed. With W, his mouth and head could become more terrifying. With E, his arms and claws grow sharper and more gruesome.

Cho'Gath has the potential to become what I would consider the coolest and most spine-tingling update to any champion, surpassing even Sion's impressive character and model rework. His juggernaughtyness would surpass the likes of Illaoi, Darius, Morde, etc to become the true Terror of the Void. Thank you all for reading and please leave your comments! I'd love to hear all opinions from the first-day players to the rioters alike!

Bear in mind that this would be far from a complete rework, so judge it as such please :)

5 Comments

ModThe Djinn12/22/2015, 11:37:20 PM2 votes

Hm.

Definitely an interesting direction, but I'm not sure it feels like Cho'Gath, nor do I think it really fits the idea of a Juggernaut. It has three forms of hard/soft CC, whereas a Juggernaut typically has 1 at most, and the kit doesn't really have the feeling of ponderous unstoppability that I think you were aiming for.

I'm also surprised that you say Cho'Gath has no counterplay, when he's melee range with a dodgeable Q as his only partial gap-closer. It may not be EXCITING counterplay, but there's a lot you can do against a Cho'Gath as a result.

You're right, however, that his mage-focused build is awkward at best for his fantasy, and there could be some good improvements in that direction.

Lonely Flame12/23/2015, 10:38:28 AM1 votes

{quoted}

  1. He is a mage. To any players who still play Cho as a full tank, times have changed. Cho'Gath is primarily built with a RoA into full AP. While this behavior is perfectly viable with his kit, does it really make sense? Cho'Gaths a giant hulking void monster with massive jaws, terrible scything arms, and spikes and size that terrify all in his wake. His primary damage? Magic!

Not really. While Cho'Gath has the potential to be really strong when built with straight AP, I've yet to see this actually occur. Most people will go for a tank/AP build, for example RoA, Crystal Scepter, Liandry, a Spirits and some Armour. There's AP in there but there's also a lot of health with MR and Armour. Also I'm not sure if you relies that Dr Mundo, a giant hulking monster with a giant cleaver, also deals magic damage on his Q and W.

  1. Half-ranged, half-melee. No counterplay. Two primary abilities are ranged (Q,W) which is where half of his burst chunk is loaded. Second half is loaded in his ult, which is essentially auto-attack range. Silenced, knocked up, eaten. Giant AOE's and targeted, instant 1k true damage (with AP).

No counterplay? The signal on that Q is massive. Most people with boots can move out of it before it happens. And it's not a 'giant AOE' in the slightest. In fact it has one of the smallest AoE's of any ability in the game at 175 radius. The only one's I could find that is lower is Cass' Noxius Blast.

  1. He is burst oriented. Forgive me for thinking this is wrong, but I don't think it makes sense for a giant monster who grows in size with every victim he consumes should revolve around hitting someone with ground spikes for half their health and then just eating them for the other half. This is an overall clash with his identity as a giant void monster that revolves around eating to grow.

He's only burst oriented if you build him as such. His Q and W are designed more for disruption during team fights.

  1. Feast is very, very, old-school. This is particularly true with the stacking mechanic. Back the days of yore (ick), snowballing items like Sword of the Occult, Mejai's, and Leviathan were implemented because of the more open-ended, wild nature of the game. Snowballs were common, back-and-forths could take place in every game. Many of those snowball mechanics are gone now; even Mejai's isn't nearly the same level of pure risk that it used to be. Cho'Gath still retains this style of pure snowball mechanic that isn't friendly to a front-line fighter. In essence, his health stacking on his Feast limits him to the QWR burst champion he is.

Because Feast has a stacking mechanic it's old school? 3 of the last 7 champions released have a stacking mechanic. Kindred gains stacks on her passive from successful kills. Bard gains stacks from picking up chimes. Kalista builds temporary stacks on her basic attacks with Rend. Cho'Gaths ult rewards you for successfully killing things in the same Kindred does. Sure it's a lot more simplified, but it's also capped at 6 stacks, which he loses half of upon dying. And so what if he has a QWR combo? He's not designed to be mechanically complicated. He's a Tank first and a Mage second.

  1. The "terror" of the void. Outside of getting big, nothing about Cho'Gath screams (except his W) "omg this monster is going to rip us apart!"

Akali is 'The Fist of Shadow', and doesn't use fists. Kog'Maw is 'the Mouth of the Abyss', but all of his abilities use regurgitation and spit. Fiddlesticks is 'the Harbinger of Doom', yet he isn't a herald for anyone. It's just a title.

Passive: Sea of Bodies- When Cho'Gath kills an enemy, it has a chance of leaving behind its corpse. Cho'Gath may right click to eat the corpse and gain ~8-12 maximum health. Enemies may right click to destroy these corpses. Siege minions and large monsters always drop a corpse and champions drop corpses that cannot be destroyed and grant 50-100 max health (based on level). Cho'Gath grows in size based on his number of consumed corpses.

...this is more broken than his ult. You haven't specified if this is capped or not, or if you lose any of these stacks upon dying. With this ability he will snowball WAY quicker.

Q: Void Rupture- Cho'Gath stomps the ground, erupting earth in a line to deal magic damage (far less AP ratio, higher base damage) and slow enemies. Targets caught at the farthest half of the spell are knocked up.

You've basically changed his current Q to have a slow between him and his target.

W: Nightmare Maw- Cho'Gath selects a target enemy champion and selects a line to throw them in that is not directly behind Cho'Gath, dealing physical damage based on their maximum health.

I don't get what this ability does? You click an enemy champion, then the direction you throw them in?

E: Scythes of the Void- Cho'Gath's next basic attack deals bonus magic damage and will strike in an area in front of him, stunning the target of the attack (not very long, 1 sec-ish). For 5 seconds after the strike, Cho'Gath will fire Vorpal Spikes on his basic attacks in a cone, dealing bonus physical damage.

Why does this stun them? Why is it only a few seconds after that Vorpal Spikes launch?

R: Nightmarish Feast- Cho'Gah viciously devours target champion or large monster (no minions), dealing physical damage based on their missing health. Whenever Cho'Gath successfully feasts a unique enemy champion, he may upgrade one of his abilities. For his first three, he may upgrade one of his basic abilities. For his fourth, he may upgrade his passive. His final feast upgrades his ultimate. Each upgrade adds a physical change to Cho'Gath, increasing is terror. Clarity Note: You must eat each enemy champion at least once to gain all of the upgrades. You may eat the enemy Darius in top lane twice in a row, but you will not be able to upgrade an ability for eating him any time beyond the first.

Upgrades: Q: Increases width by 25% on each side and knocks enemies up at all parts of the spell. W: Increases grab and throw range. Throwing an enemy into a wall or other champion will heavily slow both struck and deal another small amount of damage. E: Stuns all enemies in the initial strike and increases Cho'Gath's attack speed during Vorpal Spikes. Passive: Cho'Gath gains 10% bonus health from purchased items, capped based on his level. R: Cooldown is reduce to 40/30/20 seconds, now deals true damage, and heals Cho'Gath for 20% of his maximum health when he successfully Feasts a champion.

This is alright, but the rest of his kit is pretty lack luster in all honesty. The idea of being rewarded for Feasting on unique things is interesting. I'd change it from upgrading his abilities and include the jungle camps some how.

Look, don't get me wrong Cho'Gath could definitely use some love. I've offered up a very simple tweak myself in the past. But this kit is just...messy. What's the combo? You Q to knock them up/slow them. Walk towards them and stun them with your E, then eat them with your R. You aren't going to throw them away with your W because that throws them out of range of your ult. So essentially, all you've done is change is removed his silence and add a stun.