Hello. My name is darkzilla and I am an unranked player on the NA server. This is my first guide on mobafire so please bear with me. I have played League since the good old days of season 1 however I do not claim to be exceptionally skilled at the game. I'm not the best player and I'm willing to accept that and just have fun with the game. I've recently picked up Cho'Gath after a while of not playing him and I re-realized how fun it is to be super tanky and just walk through everything and not really have to care about it. I have been using this build recently and it allows you to be very tanky and still have a large amount of damage from hydra. Without further ado, let's get into what makes this build work.

I like Cho'Gath because he has the simple purpose of being a tank and he is very good at it. He has little other utility unless you go AP Cho, in which case you have the ability to obliterate any target within sufficient range of you, but you can't do much else afterwards as you're a close ranged, mana hungry champion with no escapes and relatively long cooldowns. Here are the pros and cons of TANK Cho'Gath.

Pros:
-Very tanky
-Fairly easy to play/understand
-Can easily execute important targets with Feast
-AOE silence and AOE knockup
-Good dmg if you build hydra
-Good base dmg
-Easy clears

Cons:
-No mobility/kitable
-Mana hungry
-Somewhat reliant on landing Q

I'm a scrub and I don't actually have enough IP/runes to experiment and find the best setup. I can imagine that a good setup might include HP and hybrid pen runes, but my advice on runes is quite uninformed and you would probably be best off using whatever you see fit for runes or taking advice from somebody other than me.

See the masteries section above.

I like to take Strength of the Ages as my keystone because of the bonus HP and the fact that you can stack it in the jungle, however Grasp is very viable and can be used in place of SotA if you want more damage.
I go 6/6/18 with my masteries. 18 in resolve for added tankiness, 6 in cunning for bonuses to jungling capability, and 6 in ferocity for added dmg with double edged sword and because the first 2 tiers of ferocity give more value than the 3rd and 4th of cunning in my opinion.

Cho'Gath's abilities are all very useful when used correctly and they have relatively good synergy with Cho and his team.

Q: Rupture
An AOE knockup with good range and radius as well as good base dmg. This is Cho's all purpose ability. Use it in ganks, teamfights, initiations, jungle camps, minion waves, and any other situation in which you need area damage or CC. Has a relatively high mana cost so don't spam it too much. I like to max this first as it has the highest damage and most utility of the basic spells if you can land it. Cool trick: after clearing your blue side jungle, you can come for a lane gank mid. When you do this, Q over the wall to hit raptors. This will proc Hunter's Talisman 4 times and heal you for a god amount of health.

W: Feral Scream
AOE silence with slightly less damage and mana cost than Q. It is a cone based ability and will hit most enemies in front of you if you use it on a group. It is mainly a utility spell so I max it last.

E: Vorpal Spikes
A toggle ability that causes Cho'Gath's auto attacks to throws spikes through his target and out to a decent range behind it. It doesn't do huge amounts of damage but the extra damage can be useful, and this is an extremely important ability for jungling. I take this first and max it second. You can use this to try to zone a laner from farm by throwing the spikes through a minion, however it is a good idea to turn this off when hitting turrets as the spikes can inadvertently hit a champion and cause the turret to attack you. This ability has a synergy with hunters talisman causing the regen to proc for every monster hit by the spikes on every auto attack. This gives you great staying power in the jungle and lets you keep your health high so that you can safely gank lanes.

R: Feast
You eat some one. It's pretty simple. It does an ton of true damage and makes you grow if you get a kill with it. The stacks give you increased size, more health and bigger Vorpal spikes. Farm it in the jungle or ganked lanes, or use it to execute key targets such as Dragon or fed enemy champions.

Passive: Carnivore
Killing anything heals you and restores mana. Gives you good sustain in jungle and lets you heal after ganking a lane.

Boots of Swiftness:
Pick boots to fit your needs in the situation that you're in. I personally like swiftness as it makes up for Cho's lack of mobility.

Stalker's Blade - Cinderhulk:
Blue smite lets you slow a target to get in range to Q them, eat them, auto them, let your ally hit them, and do various other things to their detriment. This also compensates for your lack of mobility. Cinderhulk fire does a minimal amount of damage, but any little bit helps. Mainly, it gives you a TON of HP. Side note: Make sure you start with Talisman as it lets you sustain a lot in the jungle. See Rupture and Vorpal spikes.

Titanic Hydra:
Great item on Cho. It scales very well with his large amount of HP and can give him very good damage in lategame.

Sterak's Gage:
More health and a bit of damage. Gives you a big shield if the enemy focuses you. This item makes you even harder to kill which is a great thing. If you need more armor of MR, this is the item I suggest swapping out.

Warmog's Armor:
MORE HP!!! This makes you crazy tanky and you can regen all the damage you took in a teamfight if the enemy leaves you alone for about 10 seconds. This is a great item.

Zz'Rot Portal:
The armor and MR from this item make your 5k+ HP even harder to get through. Also the buffed voidspawn can get to about 900 dmg which lets you use this to push pretty hard.

Now that you know how to play this magnificent void dweller, get out there and feast on you enemies, summoner!


OMNOMNOMNOM!!!