Well this is a guide made by a DIE HARD chogath player. I love this monster. Now before you make any judgment based on the first glance above, consider this. I dislike the setup for this site at times because I play situationaly. There is no definite build, rather a strategy in building depending on the game conditions. So please, enjoy!

For runes I go with a pretty basic setup. Magic pen reds, flat armor yellows, magic resist per lvl blues, and health quintessence.

If those runes choices are not self explanatory, allow me to explain.

Magic pen reds - Very nice choice that will help tremendously with early game. It will help late game too, but by then your ult will be dealing PLENTY of true damage.

Flat armor yellows - I find that chogath has no problems late game in any area specifically. He is a very balanced champion in my opinion. I like to take flat armor to help let me farm without worrying too much about harass

Magic resist blues - These bad boys are my favorite tank runes. As you gain lvl, you will be glad you have them when you start getting hit with lvl 5 spells.

Health Quintessence - Last but not least I take standard health runes here. I find that if chogath has any weakness at all, it is getting a good farm early on for fear of taking too much damage. Grab 3 of these and along with your blues and yellows, you wont have to worry about a thing!

Good ol' masteries. Subtle, yet potent. I go for a mage type setup here with 9/0/21 taking exhaust and flash. There is not much to explain here but.....

9 - Magic pen helps a lot all game along with the cooldown
0 - I build very sturdy, but I find that you are better off with all the great things utility
Has to offer
21 - Utility rocks, enough said.

Now this is the most important part of this guide so pay close attention, everything depends on the game conditions.

Start off with a dorans ring. All the time every time.

When it is time for you to blue pill, ask yourself, what kind of situation am I in?

Situation 1 - "I am laning against attack damage champions"
Situation 2 - "I am laning against ability power champions"
Situation 3 - "I am laning against balanced damage type"
Situation 4 - "We are owning our lane"
Situation 5 - "Lane phase is dwindling/over!"

Solution 1 - "Decide if you need chainmail or would rather grab a second dorans ring"
Solution 2 - "Decide if you need negatron cloak or would rather grab another dorans"
Solution 3 - "grab a dorans"
Solution 4 - "if you have the cash, buy a needlesly large rod, if not, dorans"
Solution 5 - "Forget another dorans, look at who on the other team is owning and/or what kind of damage they mostly have. Get the defensive item for that.

Things to remember

You dont have to rush anything!!!! If you are noticing you need armor, get some basic armor, then biuld ap until you feel like you need more armor/mag resist again.

Example build: dorans, dorans, basic boots, chainmail, mercury treads, blasting want, glacial shroud, abyssal septre

In the above example this is what the game conditions most likely would have been like

Grab dorans, lane phase is balanced, grab another dorans, boots, start getting ganked by ww a lot so i grab armor, then as teamfights begin I grab mercs because they have a lot of cc. Now I am pretty sturdy so I get ability power and continue on the game. Ww is getting a bit fed so i upgrade to a glacial shroud which increases my damage because cooldown and gives nice armor. Lastly that damn veigar is hitting hard as heck so I get abyssal for extra mag resist and a nice aura to help my team.

This is another situational process but I wont get into it too much. There are basic rules

1 - always get q first
2 - always get w second
3 - always get e third
4 - if you are playing defensively in your lane, get w
5 - if you are plaing offensivly get q
6 - if you are having trouble last hitting get e
7 - obviously ult has first priority

So just consider this and use common sense. There are no rules of what to get when, just go with what you feel will be most effective for the next couple minutes

Flash and exhaust

Flash - flash in, nom nom, yay

Exhaust - great anti carry, great for landing the pesky speedy gonzolez

To sum op this guide, USE COMMON SENSE!

I find that people all too often lose sight of their intuition in this game because they want to build like the pros. Well let me tell you something, the pro's never build the same way, never use the same skill order, and use team work. The key to winning is play each game like its its own game. You dont rush a frozen heart against all ap even though it owned the last tryn/vayne/ww team last game. Anyway, enjoy!