Tips for playing Chogath top

Certain items are useful, on any champ or situation. Some items work really great in tantum with another item, generally being less effective without that said additional item. Some items truly shine on one champ, and are a waste of gold on the other. RoA and Frozen Heart are both great item choices for Cho Gath if he wants mana. The RoA gives him more health and AP as well, making him larger (to be honest one of the reasons we all play cho is to see how big we can get ) and the AP lets him hit harder. The Frozen heart doesn't give him AP or HP, but the armor and passive give him as much, if not more sustainability in combat. The Frozen Heart's true value to Cho'gath is that lovely 20% cdr. I run 5% flat cdr blues and +5 scaling cdr blues, so I have +5 cdr lvl1 and +10 cdr lvl18, from Runes along. With a Frozen Heart, my Cho'gath has 30% CDR with a single item buy.

If you really want that extra AP and feel like you're ahead, go for it. You'll snowball harder. If you aren't sure or if you're behind, the Frozen Heart. Ever tried getting both in the same game?

If you get a Rylai's Scepter, you don't HAVE to get Lindry's. But if you get Lindry's, I strongly suggest you DO have not only the Rylai's (obviously) but the Nashor's Tooth as well. Rylai procs off Cho's vorpal spikes, more auto attacks (fast atk spd) mean more frequent Rylai procs, since Cho I believe is the only champion in the game that can proc Rylai as fast as he can. Since his auto's don't have a cd, he can technically only be hindered by his atk spd as to how often he procs the slow. Nashor's Tooth is even more atk spd, 20% cdr (with Frozen Heart and no cdr runes this is 40%) an additional on hit effect, and improves the other 2 items. Nashor's + Rylai + Lindry is a combo you could try out. In this situation you're not really tanky, you wanna annihilate and burst people away. Wit's End, Devourer (for jungle cho) and Lich Bane are nice items to sack into this build. On AP build paths lately late game I sell my Boots (usually sorcerer's) to get an additional AP item.

Lots of words and things and ideas with concepts and numbers and stuff. Try it out! Hope you find any of it useful. I get some flak from team mates about my build but it usually stops around 23 mins into the game =) Cho can be tank, ap, or on hit effect hidden op.

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Hey thanks for the detailed comment, it helped a lot. In regards to lane matchups, how does chogath fare against ranged top laners (lissandra, lulu, kayle, etc.). I haven't gone against many of them, so I don't really know. Also, since I'm a pretty big noob D:, I don't really know much about pushing other than the basic stuff they say on some streams (Don't push without a reason, only last hit, push lane before going back etc.) so if you have some more detailed explanations, that would be awesome. Something I noticed about my ult is sometimes, when a champion is low, there's a red circle around them, and in my experience, it means my ult can then 1-shot them. Am I seeing things, or is this supposed to be in the game. It's not mentioned in the tooltip so I'm not really sure. (Not using any hacks, scripts, so it's not that). Anways, thanks once again for the great answer.

Heyomayo- you're right about the red circle! Riot's champion spotlight on chogath explains that it's a 1 shot kill :).

Versus ranged champions, you're going to need to focus on as much sustain as possible - most ranged champion's weakness is their lack of sustain ... They either sacrifice a ton of mana (kayle, nidalee) to sustain, or have none at all (lissandra). I'd suggest double dorans with flask if you're getting beat up hard, or just double dorans into your regular build.

Basic flow chart for cho (half joking) Level 6? NO? KEEP FARMING YES?MOVE ON

Do you cover half the screen? NO?KEEP FARMING YES?MOVE ON

Fight.

Did you win? NO?KEEP FARMING UNTIL HALF THE SCREEN YES?MOVE ON

Take objectives.

Repeat.

As far as him recommending you silence before knock up, consider this. If you're going up against an Irelia that goes in to last hit a melee creep, you put your q on her. irelia see's the red circle indicating Rupture is about to bust her chops. She can use her dash attack on one of your caster creeps, thus putting herself out of the dmg zone of rupture. A simplier example if you going to Rupture a Lucian or Ezreal that dashes/shifts out of the dmg zone. Some champs have ways to reposition themselves even when caught out (going to last hit, performing animation of another move) Plus in emergencies people WILL flash out of Cho's q to avoid the inevitable combo that follows. If you catch someone with your cone of silence, they can't use spells or summoners or even actives. If you have Rylai's to proc the slow, you're all the more likely to land your Rupture afterwards.

The trade off is they won't be silenced when they recover from the knock up, since you'd have silenced them first and w would go on cooldown. Figure out which situations call for which set up, opening with q or opening with w, and see which works best for you in which senario. Cho Gaths' e Applies vorpal spikes to his autos. Vorpal Spikes is a spell, so all of Cho's auto's will proc Rylai's Scepter's passive (the spikes, not his actual auto attack)

Imo I'd take Nashor's Tooth over Zephyr, because it applies additional on hit effects (rylai's scepter, vorpal spikes, sheen/mallet) gives him AP ( true dmg ult scaling on AP, q has like, 90% AP scaling) Cooldown (Cho wants to use his moves as often as he can when possible, like Lux) and Attack Speed (more attacks in shorter time, proccing more on hit effects, such as 3 extra auto's in 5 seconds then without, thus 3 extra vorpal spike procs/nashor on hit procs/ect )

The tentacity and ad can be found else where, namely Juggernaut if he's jungle or Merc Treads in lane, or Masteries if he plans for tenacity ahead of time. Chogath ties with another champ for the highest Base AD in the game. So to be honest without building any ad at all cho's going to have a respectable auto attack. It just seem's AP benefit's cho more then anything, AP makes his auto attacks stronger then even flat AD, due to his kit and item synergy. Mage's AP IS applied to stuctures, you just don't notice it so much because mages tend to lack the atk spd of marksmen or bruisers.

Believe it or not, last hitting is a big part of mana regen. And not just on Cho'Gath. The feast mastery in offense masteries and the doran's ring passive provides a ton of mana, and then you have your Cho'gath passive.

Last I played Cho'gath mid versus a Zed I was perfectly fine with double doran's ring into cloth armor/sorc shoes and inevitably a Zhonyas Hourglass (and a thornmail after that, heh!). I never got blue either. But I was running teleport mid and sustained with that (was planning to go top but we decided to swap)

But Rod of Ages is not terrible. The sustain catalyst provides is very convenient in lane. The finished item provides a nice mix of damage, survivability and sustain. After a certain point in the game though it's just a stat stick and you outgrew its utility (sustain; you no longer level up and managing mana is not longer an issue anymore...) Late game its full stack HP and AP may be good but pure tank or AP items may be more useful.

In my opinion though Cho'Gath has to be a real damage threat to be strong, and he needs bulk to survive as well. RoA rush assists with both.