Cho'Gath, Top Lane, and Being Better then your lane opponent

This post will teach you the tips, tricks, and basically whatever the hell I want to right about Cho'Gath when your playing him in the top lane

Step 1: Preparing to win your lane

A bit of a cocky title, but your runes, masteries, and spells should be in check before you being, runes and masteries I am not expert at personally (rather spend my IP for getting champions then runes and I have Masteries I just do whatever with). As for your spells take and , These will be your friends in making sure the enemy doesn't have a fun time

Step 2: Pay attention to the loading screen

The Loading Screen is your preparation for things to come, mainly you want to look for

A. Who is on the enemy team? B. Which lane will they most likely be in? C. Do they deal mostly AP or AD?

Using these can help you get a general idea of how your gonna have to plan out your future as your stomping on the enemies

Step 3: The Game Begins, and so does your rampage

You spawn in as the great, all powerful, void creature , your are gonna need the following to start off : This to help out your passive better, with every last hit you'll get health back and a WEE bit of mana, with this you'll be getting more mana for your buck, which is always good for sustain x2, sometimes your enemy plays aggressive as fuck, sometimes the jungler decided it's better to camp top and not notice that your jungler is taking his camps, needless to say, your passive may not help you recover all the time, so a quick chug of the health pot can help you out.

WARDS SAVE LIVES! More importantly it'll alert your ass, I usually like to put it in the classic bush in the river, but wherever you want to put it is up to you really.

Now your lvl 1, scrawny, but not useless, what skill to activate first? Personally it's a tie between Rupture (Q) OR Vorpal Spikes (E), each one has it's ups and downs:

Rupture is Cho'Gath's heavy hitter, it's his skill that has the most range, most damage, and has the most devastating effects, however early game it's a bit costy and any smart top laner can see and walk a wee bit to the left to avoid it's effects. Another problem is the radius it shows is actually smaller than it is, so don't be surprise if they are in the circle of spikes yet aren't knock-ed up.

Vorpal Spikes on the other hand is free, lets you hit several things in front of you, and can let you last hit creeps easier with it's damage bonus. However you lose a good amount of harass you'd get from Rupture, it's damage isn't enough to make an enemy retreat, and the because your melee if you hit the enemy champ with it you'll draw the aggro from the enemy minions.

Whichever you start with is up to you, but once you get to lvl 2 put your second point into the one you didn't pick, so if it was your Q you'd put a point in your E, and vice versa.

Now depending on if your jungle is capable of taking gromp by them self or if they need a bit of help may alter how you start out a bit, but don't worry you'll be ending up with more CS then your lane opponent soon enough.

Now how do you play Cho'Gath top? Well for being an eldrich abomination he actually is an anti-aggressive champ if that makes sense, basically he punishes champions that try to push and be aggressive. His Q can mess up even the most destructive of assaults and with a follow up W silence followed by a few basic attacks you'll more often then not have them running away instead of continuing to move forward. Your goal as Cho'Gath is to deny you opponent as much CS as possible, while at the same time making sure they cannot leave lane for awhile or else their turret will take massive damage. Here are a few tips in denying your opponent the gold they need.

1. Have your Q ready when attacking minions - While your getting your own farm, have your Q ready to activate incase your opponent gets either too close or seems to be planning something. If it hits them then your punishing them for trying to think they stood a chance, if you miss then you at least caused some zoning, and perhaps hit some minions, making them easier to kill in a bit/giving you some free gold.

2. Early game minions fucking hurt! - While you may be wanting to deny your opponent as much farm as possible, that doesn't mean the minions will be as weak as the champ they are pushing for. It may not be much, but that chip damage adds up over time, and a reckless champ can suddenly see their health slowly drop to dangerous levels. If you need to feel free to toggle E off, it won't give you that added damage, but it will ensure you don't get any aggro on yourself.

3. Be suspicious if an enemy is under their tower - You've got your enemy under tower, the CS between you two are slowly dropping more and more, but for some reason they aren't trying to push anymore and are just using their AA. Get ready for someone to come from behind you! An early game gank is evil against Cho'Gath as he hasn't reached he rank of all poweful quite yet. Use your ward trinket to keep the River visible and use the brush in lane to trick your enemy if need be. If they come a ganking, your job is to make a mad dash to your tower asap, you will also more than likely only get one chance to use your Rupture, so try aiming it below your feet. Since more of the time it is the Jungler ganking and they are almost always melee, they will get hit by your Q easily and then you can flash to get more distance from the two of you.

4. Last hits are more then just for the gold - Your passive, as stated, gives you health and mana whenever you kill something, and with Doran's Ring you'll get more mana for anything you kill. As such your sustain is tied to getting those minions to cough up a bit of everything!

Step 4: The Cho'Gathening Begins!

So say you've been the terror of the void your suppose to be, your opponent is low on health, doesn't have much cs, and their Jax doesn't know how to gank for his life/failed terribly. All in all a job well done! Time to go back to base and become even more powerful. And how shall we start it off? Go straight for , the little sucker gives you more sustain than you know what to do with! When the time comes, or if you have enough gold from the get go, turn that thing into a , pick up a few health pots, and use your to head back to lane and not miss out on any CS and continue with making your lane opponent useless for their team.

As for boots, the best option for Cho'Gath is to grab , more often then not the enemy team has some CC under their belt, and the best enchantment would belong to Homeguard (the white one), it'll let you heal up faster and if your teleport is down it'll give you the boost needed to get to lane quicker.

When it comes to other items, that situation really, but here are some things I usually like Sooner or later your gonna be a big target, literally, so the enemy ADC will more then likely hit you a couple of times, it may not negate all the damage, but it does punish them for attacking you, and most of the time it make their lifesteal useless if they take more damage then they heal.

Is another case of bitchslapping ADC, you get close to them and by the time they realize their Attack Speed has been decreased they'll have already taken a rupture to the rectum. It's also good against other champs that while they may not rely entirely on their AA, still use them nevertheless, nothing more annoying to an Azir then knowing his soldiers aren't attacking as fast as he wants them to... The mana and cooldown are also nice things to have as they will allow you to use your skills more often.

You are Cho'Gath, you go in, fuck shit up, and then eat the stragglers, but what if you could do it EASIER? Since Cho'Gath damage is AP dependent this helps you out by giving you more power will decreasing your enemies magic defenses and buffing yours, sorta like a pseudo penetration if you will.

Sometimes there are no minions for you to make use of your passive, so while you just took a beating and killed the enemy Darius, you need to make a dash towards mid to help your team, not only does this give you a lot of health/regen, but it's bonus regen passive is very useful for recovering wounds, true it may not be the best option, but if you want the sustain and beefiness then this will do the trick.

Cho'Gath, by nature, is a tanky motherfucker, so as such you get to spend a bit of gold making him hit harder, so you now have some AP, why not get SOME MORE AND THEN INCREASE THE AP YOU HAVE BY A PERCENTAGE? I think it speaks for itself

Step 5: Time for Teamfigh- oh you just killed the enemy team!

Assuming everything has gone according to plan, you have done your job well and have at least taken down the first tower in the top lane and have at least two items completed. Perhaps it's time to help out your team? Yeah it's time to help out your team, and boy he offers alot to the table. The power of his Q and W can easily break any enemy initiations/escapes. And when in doubt you can just take a bite out of the fuckers to make the kills sooner. Here are some things to take with you.

1. Your R is basically a max Smite and then some - at level 18, Smite can deal 1000 true damage to any creep, jungle camp, dragon, or baron, Cho'Gath however can deal that 1000 true damage at lvl 6, this means that you can prevent the enemy from stealing the dragon/baron by just eating the fucking camp, at the same time it can also be used to speed up the process if your jungler is there and their smite is up.

2. Your job is to tank, killing happens as an after effect - As a tank, you job is to soak up the damage out there while at the same time harassing the enemy, if they happen to die from a result of you being a tank, then cool, you got a kill! If not then hey, they are gonna have to readjust their plans.

3. Stall for the greater good - Cho'Gath does not go down easily, take advantage of that... Your team going for Baron? Distract the enemy team by pushing mid HARD. Enemy giving chase to a low health ally? Run up and give them a something else to worry about! You'd be surprised how much the enemy team will burn just to kill one champion, and for someone as hard to kill as Cho. And if you die, well... The needs of the many outweigh the wants of the few. The enemy team WANTS you dead, however your team NEEDS the enemies stuff on cooldown so it'll be easier to kill them later.

4. Every lane is top lane! - The strategy that you used in top lane can also be used in teamfights, punish the aggressive and send them running! Not much to say for this one really...

**5. ** - That shit on cooldown? PUT THE WARD DOWN IN A BUSH! Someone on your team is gonna notice the minimap show Teemo attempt to sneak attack your team and as such you'll be able to pubstomp him into submission. If need be you can upgrade that trinket into a so you got permenant vision on that area till you place a new ward/it gets destroyed.

And with that I have just given the best guide I could write at 2 in the morning without passing out, if you got any question, comments, or just want to be a dick and call me wrong, wait till I wake up in a few hours and I may reply to them. Hope this helps you dominate top lane better and good night!