Kog'Maw Build Guide by Tehcookizguy

Introduction

Hi! It's me again from... Well, just look at the side and the creator :O Now it's time for my guide on my favorite AD Carry (and the super fun AP Kog'Maw). The AD guide is just about how to play Kog. The build is standard for AD carries. The AP guide wasn't made by me. It was influenced by CLG eu's Froggen's build from this video. Watch it after this guide, and see how he plays.

That was by NeiLalwaysLeeT.

About the Acid Insect

Kog'Maw is one of the best late game carries (AD and AP) in terms of damage and range, but lacks mobility and can easily be killed if his team can't peel enemies off of him. His low mobility makes him poorly designed for the current meta in solo queue. However, with a competent team, he can shred through teams if given the opportunity.

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Pros Long autoattack range with Bio-Arcane Barrage active (710) %health magic damage Good poke with Living Artillery Good balance of early, mid, and late game power One of the best late game carries

Cons Squishy (like most carries) No reliable escapes Low base autoattack range Caustic Spittle's active is useless except for farming AP scaling on most abilities

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Pros Stupidly long range (beyond vision) with a level 3 Living Artillery Autoattacks still hurt a lot with Bio-Arcane Barrage and Lich Bane Easy farming with Void Ooze and Living Artillery DPS, so not useless after initial burst Super fun ^_^

Cons Bad early game due to being squishy and having low damage Vulnerable to champions with a lot of gap-closers (i.e. Ahri) Blue/Baron-buff reliant Living Artillery can cost a LOT of mana if used in rapid succession

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Runes

AD:

Pretty standard runes for an AD Carry
Greater Mark of Attack Damage - Attack damage for autoattack harass, Living Artillery, and last hitting
You can also get 6 Greater Mark of Desolation and 3 Greater Mark of Attack Damage and you'll get some Armor Pen.
Greater Seal of Armor - Armor since you'll be going bot lane, against another physical damage AD Carry or some bruisers in a double bruiser kill lane
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist - You most likely won't be going against a magic damage dealer during laning phase. During late game, you'll want to make sure that you have enough magic resist to survive, when you actually meet their AP Carry.
Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage - refer to above

You can also get Greater Glyph of Magic Resist if you're against a heavy poke lane ( Sona, Lulu).

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AP: Greater Mark of Magic Penetration - Magic Pen. Combined with Sorcerer's Shoes, they'll let you do almost true damage with your spells provided your opponent doesn't have scaling magic resist or MR from items or runes/masteries.
Greater Seal of Replenishment - These will give you mana regen. Simple enough. The Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration runes are much better later in the game, but most mages won't have mana issues past laning phase. You can get either one, since you'll be spamming hard late game, but Void Ooze will cost quite a bit of mana early on.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist - Some much needed magic resist against the magic damage dealing mids since you'll be weaker early game.
Greater Quintessence of Ability Power - Standard mid quints. They'll give you 15 AP at the start of the game.

There are other choices for AP Kog, such as Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power, Greater Seal of Armor (against AD mids), Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed, and Greater Mark of Armor/ Greater Mark of Magic Resist against strong laners. These aren't the only choices, feel free to experiment with different runes.

Masteries

AD: For masteries, I go 21/9/0 taking all the physical damage increasing masteries and the health and armor in the defense tree. (Say that like Phreak in the spotlights :3)

AP: I go 21/0/9, taking everything to increase my magic damage and the Butcher mastery to farm better. Mental Force is still pretty useless, even after its buffs, so Brute Force can be used.

Items

For an AD build, you can get one or two Doran's Blades on your first recall to give you some sustain and some AD to help trade/snowball better.

AD (Standard):
Standard AD Carry items. Not much to say here. It will give you the most DPS assuming your enemies know how to build properly. If none of the enemy team have much armor, then get another Phantom Dancer or another defensive item instead of Last Whisper. The second build is getting a Phantom Dancer before your Infinity Edge. I normally only take this path if my support is Nunu, as you can do tons of damage(TM) with Bio-Arcane Barrage active. Get the B. F. Sword before you complete your Phantom Dancer, but after Zeal, as without any AD, you'll lose a lot of damage without Bio-Arcane Barrage up. Also, you can opt to get a Zeal before your B. F. Sword, which I normally do if I don't have enough gold to get the Best Friend Sword.

AD (AoE):
These items are oriented towards doing massive AoE damage to your enemies in teamfights. Keep in mind that this isn't the best build meant for laning as you'll have nothing for your AoE to really do but help you farm (The Statikk Shiv will give you some small burst damage on every few autoattacks). The Shiv will let you shoot lightning, and builds from a GP10 item! VERY SITUATIONALLY will you want a Runaan's Hurricane, and you only want it if the enemy team is building little to no armor (very unlikely) and likes to group up a lot (either from your team's Orianna or they just like to group up).

DEFENSIVE ITEMS:
Always have a defensive item as an AD carry.

Here's a list of possible defensive items:
Guardian Angel - Just a generally good defensive item. Good stats, and an amazing passive.
Mercurial Scimitar/ Quicksilver Sash - MR, and the active is really nice for getting rid of stuns and suppressions.
Banshee's Veil - Good against teams without good poke, since it allows you to ignore their main initiation move if the bubble HASN'T BEEN POPPED.
Big HP item ( Warmog's Armor/ Frozen Mallet - Warmog's is really strong right now, especially when armor is essentially a useless stat, and FM can help you kite some carry-divers.

AP:
Archangel's Staff will give you enough mana to spam your Living Artillery in teamfights.
Rylai's Crystal Scepter will give a 15% slow to all of your Living Artillery bombs. It helps chase as well since Living Artillery has a short cast time. If you feel that you don't need the slow, then get a Rod of Ages, which will give you more mana.
Rabadon's Deathcap will give you more AP. Just a pure damage item.
Void Staff will give you magic penetration. Don't get Abyssal Scepter, since you won't be in range to use it to full effect.
Lich Bane will make your 710 range autoattacks HURT HARD. Along with 14% max hp with Bio-Arcane Barrage, you'll also get 900 physical damage every 2 seconds.

There are other viable choices to get, such as Athene's Unholy Grail and Rod of Ages. AP Kog'Maw doesn't really need defensive items, since he'll be so far away that it doesn't even matter. If you want some attack speed to make your Bio-Arcane Barrage really hurt, then get some. This is just a guide for you to BUILD OFF OF AND CHANGE BASED ON WHAT YOU NEED.

Tier 3 Boots:
I like to get either Furor for better kiting or Distortion since you have no reliable, built-in escape.

Most important items in the game: Sight Ward and Vision Ward. Green wards will let you see around the map. Pink wards will help you kill their wards if placed properly. And don't tell me "That's the supports job!" If you don't get a ward at all during the game, you are just bad. They'll help you control/contest objectives such as Baron and Dragon, and they'll help prevent jungle ganks.

Summoner Spells

I don't recommend other summoner spells because they're bad, or you don't really need them since you'll should be far enough that it won't matter. Get them if you wish, but I warned you.

Early Game

AD:
As stated before, you have one of the best late games. But that doesn't mean you have horrible early game. With Bio-Arcane Barrage, you have an amazing autoattack range and can poke them with Living Artillery. Kog'Maw also has the highest level 1 base HP of all traditional AD carries.

Even if you do have a decent early game, you should still focus farming instead of kills, since the most popular AD carries currently ([aka only Ezreal) have much better early games than you because of their burst.

For Kog'Maw, I prefer having Nunu or anyone who can peel for me really well. I don't think that most aggressive supports ( Leona, Taric work on Kog, since he doesn't have much burst damage early game to follow his support up with.

AP:
You don't have as much of an early game as your AD counterpart. You just have to farm until late game/level 16. Abuse your Bio-Arcane Barrage's range buff, and attack them when they come to last hit. Don't bother trying to land a Living Artillery to harass if they have tier 2 boots unless they're predicatable, or have slow reflexes.

Also, WARD.

Mid Game

During mid game, you should still be farming. A big goal during mid game is dragon control. Every time a team kills it, keep a timer on it in chat. It's 6 minutes after it dies. This allows you to take or contest the next one. You should also continue farming for your items and/or charging your Tear.

Continue warding and taking objectives whenever possible.

Even if you're the AD carry, you should still get wards. I get a few Vision Wards and put them in front of the Dragon pit or the tribush.

Late Game

Late game, a.k.a. teamfights and Baron control. Your team should be able to Baron at any point past 20 minutes if your team is well-farmed or fed. Depending on your jungler, sometimes even sooner. After a team kills it, Baron will respawn 7 minutes after. Keep a timer, and tell your team to start going to the Baron pit 30 seconds before it spawns.

During teamfights, stay out of the range of anything. Just stay 710-2000 range away, pelting them with your ult and/or Lich Bane autoattacks if AP, or right-click-to-winning as AD.

If you have an open slot in your inventory, then get one or two wards, as always.

Bonus: How to be an AD Carry
1) POSITION YOURSELF. Don't chase their low HP support through their team.
2) Attack the most important enemy in range. If the only enemies in range are Maokai and Udyr, attack the one who's doing the most damage (usually Udyr). If their AD carry's in range of you, and it won't hurt you to attack them, then do it. Just don't die just to kill them.
3) Know when to use your summoner spells. Lee Sin hits you with his Q? Don't Flash until he uses the second part. Morgana lands her snare and starts her ult? Don't Cleanse until the stun hits you, or if you can, just Cleanse out of the snare.

Positioning

Positioning in teamfights can be the most important thing for the carry. The AD Carry's job is to deal constant damage to the enemy team. Know that if you die, the team's damage will be decreased dramatically. The AP Carry's job is to bombard the enemy team with AoE Spells, or assassinate an important target (such as the enemy AD Carry or AP Carry). As an AD Carry, know who to target, and constantly reposition yourself so you're safe. Don't charge into the middle of the enemy team because your team said to: FOCUS THE CARRY LOL NOOB. That's the bruiser/assassin's job. But, as Kog'Maw, you have no repositioning skills like Graves and Ezreal. You need to walk between each attack to dodge skillshots, and stay away from the enemy bruiser/assassin.

Conclusion

Well, this is the end of my guide to Koggles. It isn't really in-depth, but if I get enough support, then I'll make it as in-depth (somehow, not really much to explain about AD Carries) as my Ahri guide. So... comment and vote!

If you haven't already, watch the video I linked above. Here it is again if you missed it.

Please, contructive criticism only, if you can. And provide explanations in your critique.

Font I used in the banners: Acid Reflux, by Pennyzine

Screenshots

Feel free to submit some to me!