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Kog'Maw Build Guide by SWAGRID

SwagSurfin ur way 2 success pt.2 - Kog'Maw (AP Sniper)

SwagSurfin ur way 2 success pt.2 - Kog'Maw (AP Sniper)

Updated on August 4, 2012
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League of Legends Build Guide Author SWAGRID Build Guide By SWAGRID 246 33 492,874 Views 140 Comments
246 33 492,874 Views 140 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author SWAGRID Kog'Maw Build Guide By SWAGRID Updated on August 4, 2012
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Choose Champion Build:

  • LoL Champion: Kog'Maw
  • LoL Champion: Kog'Maw

Introduction + important note

Introduction


Howdy upcoming swag surfers! And welcome to the second part of SwagSurfin ur way 2 success series. Today we are talking about



So why this series?

The SwagSurfin ur way 2 success series will hopefully bring some fresh air into your gaming experience. Most of those builds are different from what you might have seen yet, and this is what makes it so exciting. Having loads of open minded players in our community, I am positive that many of you will have some good success and more importantly much fun playing with those builds.
However, some of them are quite advanced and may seem difficult to handle at first. But after some practise I am sure you can handle it.
Please notice, those are not some troll builds as they might seem at first glance. They are very competetiv as I am playing most of my games ranked using those builds.


One important Note: Before downvoting this I urge you to try it out and if you still not like it, let me know why BEFORE leaving a negative vote. People often have the habbit of saying directly something like: "This won't work" or "this lacks potential" etc. So one more time: Please try it out BEFORE commenting like this!
I am sure you all can imagine what a couple of items are doing on the specific character, but this is not about one ingredient. It is about THE WHOLE RECIPE! It works because those ingredients have a synergy. I won't put randomly stuff in my builds. Everything is worked out carefully.
I am always happy to improve this and I am happy to hear suggestions or pointed out errors. I want this guide to become a staple and be the No1 guide here on MOBA. Looking forward to every helping hand out there.


What happens when you first say its bad without testing:
  • "by A Chubby Baby » March 9, 2012 2:41am

    +1 good start
    overall this guide is very well coded and indepth, however your item build is really bad. archangels? you dont really need that at all." (comment excerpt)


What happens when you try it out:
  • "A Chubby Baby on March 9, 2012 3:56am:
    did try it out, and it does pwn"
    (pm excerpt 1 hour later)

So lets get surfin'
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Overview


What is inside of this guide?

Team 1: Main Concept of abusing Living Artillery for a constant high DPS from an extreme range, forcing the enemies to break open their position.
Difficulty 7/10:


Team 2: Using Rod of Ages. Please refer to chapter 13 for more information. I personally use Team 1: more often. But some people like the sustain with Rod of Ages.

In comparison to the first part of SwagSurfin ur way 2 success series, this guide here is much shorter. The build is quite unique but not as complicated behind the scenes. The handling here is also much easier in comparison to the Karthus handling. However, as said before, this is an unusal build which looks like a typical troll build. But trust me, it is not and you will have a lot of fun!

So lets catch that wave and start surfin'
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Misconception & Logic Fallacies

The user "Slappiz" inspired me of adding this chapter.
He posted down below in the comments the following:
  • "AD Kog to strong!
    Seems fun to test in a normal game, but I doubt this build has high potential."

First of all, I had a very friendly discussion via pm with him, so here is no flaming at all. I am just using this comment to illustrate a very important point. So lets quickly talk about this one.

What he essentially did here was doing a "Logic fallacy" called "Faulty Analogy". I am bringing this up because I have encountered this several times before, when it comes to certain builds.
Of course is his right with his first assumption. I would argue that Kog'Maw is next to Vayne & Corki the strongest range AD champ in League of Legends. No question about it.
However, many people doing the same mistake as above comparing an AD Kog'Maw to lets say this build. You should not compare this with a Range AD build!
You should treat this type of Kog'Maw (ESPECIALLY this one here) as a MAGE. A simple caster, who could go to mid lane for example.
There is a whole other gaming procedure behind this Kog'Maw and a range AD version of this character. Basically I am Xerath on steroids, having his ulti with more range and no CD. I am barely using my auto attack. Treat this as a caster.
So you would have to compare this type of build with another caster build of any char and see if he is still good. And let me tell you is absolutely is. Which caster can spam huge anmounts of AOE damage in 1 second intervalls from a range, where he is immune to all other attacks except some long range ultis? Basically you are the MC Hammer caster:

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Glass Kennen....wait what!?


Oh yea right...Glass CANNON. What is a glass cannon?

The term "Glass Cannon" is used for very fragile characters who have a very high damage output.
As any other glass object they shatter easily, meaning they are extremly squichy. Lacking a proper defense and having a very low anmount of life. They essentially traded survivability for massive damage.



Q: Why are Glass Cannons bad?
A: The answer is quite easy: They die way too fast. Even on a 1o1 they are having a hard time. In team fights they are usually useless.

Q: This is not happening with your build!?
A: Exactly. But more importantly you need to see that this is not so much about the build itself but rather about the playing style. You will more or less use your ultimate only most of the time. The range is what gives you the safety belt for being a glass cannon. Otherwise it would not work, as you are way too squshiy. With this build though, you will have Rylais and a red Elixir + the range, making you basically a glass cannon without a negative component.
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Pros / Cons

Pros / Cons

spaaaaaaace
Pros


+ you got SWAG
+ extremly fun to play
+ out of range for other attacks
+ LITERAL crowd control
+ great scouting
+ very high damage (glass cannon effect)
+ very effective farming
+ best harassment in the game
+ late game over 3300(!) health
space
space
Cons


- a bit slow
- mana hungry
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Masteries

Masteries



I think 21/9 is the best way to play this kind of Kog'Maw. You basically do not need defense, as you are out of enemy range most of the time. You want maximum damage and some good utilities like
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Summoner Spells

Summoner Spells


Flash: Easily the best choice here. It brings you in, it brings you out. You can flash over walls to escape, you can turret dive and flash out, etc
space
Clarity: Especially during early game it helps alot kepping your sustainability. Even in late game it provides 840 mana to you + 420 to all nearby allies! This is ALOT. It refills everybody, which comes in handy very very often.
I also need to point out that in this build you are quite heavily using your mana here by spamming living artilliery. It ensures you to rarely run completly out of mana in problematic situations. When running OOM in a group fights or while you siege their turret, 840 mana allows up to 21 new Living Artillery activations depending on your intervall!
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Runes

Runes



Remember your only way of countering a THUG LIFE? ...That's right baby!

  • Greater Quintessence of Vitality: They will give you a good anmount of life
  • Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration is used from now on. Please refer to chapter 12 for more information.
  • Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: They provide a 7.04% damage boost against any champion with 30 magic resistance all on their own. In combination with Sorcerer's Shoes you are able to bring the majority of champions to 0 MR, enabling you to do much more damage. In addition refer to chapter 12 for more information on MR penetration.
  • Greater Glyph of Vitality: Same reason as your quints.
  • Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration is used from now on. Please refer to chapter 12 for more information)
  • Greater Seal of Vitality: will provide you a good boost of life! 175.64 to be precise
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Abilities

Ability Explanation


  • Icathian Surprise: Very nice passive. Like Karthus & Yorick you are able to pick up kills or assists after you died. At lvl 18 you are dealing 550 damage, which is AOE & TRUE DAMAGE!
  • Caustic Spittle (Q): You will very very rarely use this ability, because this build operates from maximum distance. If you get involved in a melee fight, of course it is another nice nuke, reducing their defense.
  • Bio-Arcane Barrage (W): Very powerful ability. Its range is insane and allows you to attack quite safely. With your ridiculous anmount of AP you will deal 6% (+8.6164)% of their max. health with each shot! 14%!
  • Void Ooze (E): The second best ability after Living Artillery. It will be your main damage dealer early game because there is not much an enemy can do against it. It is fast, aoe, cc and has a 0.7 ratio with ap! It deals increadibly much damage later and allows 1 hitting whole creep waves. It also ensures hits with Living Artillery. Perfect skill.
  • Living Artillery (R): Kog'Maw's most famous ability. The whole idea behind this build is to abuse it! It has almost no cool down and a range beyond words (and enemy attacks). Due to its spammy nature it is very mana intensive, costing 40-200 mana. Oh yea and it is AOE and reveals non-stealthed units.
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Ability Sequence

Ability Sequence Order



  • Void Ooze is your main spell early game. It allows to hit oppoents without coming too close. Because opponents cannot hide behind creeps it becomes extremly effective. It will be by far your most used spell early game. Thats why you want maxed out as fast as possible.
  • Bio-Arcane Barrage it is more usefull then Caustic Spittle and thus maxed next.
  • Living Artillery gets skilled whenever possible because you need that range as soon as possible.
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Items

Items


  • : same reason as always: No swag without good lookin' boots. And swoggy abilities like Pillar of Flame won't hit you as easiliy. You should start with them + 3 health potions and farm until you can get your Tear of the Goddess. You also can retreat faster and your way back from base does not take as long. With 450 additional health due to the potions + clarity, you will have TONS of sustain while being very mobile.
  • : Should be bought before Sorcerer's Shoes. It is one of the most important items, as it provides mana/5 and the highest mana boost possible ingame. As with any low cd spell such as Lay Waste, it synergizes really well with Living Artillery to reach the cap as soon as possible.
  • : maximize your damage. And the ladies like good lookin boots! They also help you to retreat fast when getting ganked.
  • : big amount of health, mana & some solid AP. Please refer to chapter 13 for more in depth information.
  • : if such a thing can help Harry PissheadPotter it surely can help you too. You get this very early because the high ratio of Void Ooze. Also your ultimate becomes very strong right from the beginning. And obviously it provides the highest possible anmount of AP, especially when stacking Archangel's Staff.
  • : By far the best item for this Kog'Maw build. This has everything you want. We want as much mana as possible, because Living Artillery will consume mana like crazy. We also want as much AP as possible. Its mana-to-AP conversion is not unique. This will result in absurd amounts of AP. It is also very cheap in comparison to the other high AP items, making it easier for us to stack them
    As you can see, this item is the real deal. Don't poke it in its eye, though.
  • : Another insane item. The life boost comes in very handy. But even more does it's slow. Living Artillery's best friend here as it improves the chance to hit more often. A mega range CC is always good too. And so is 80AP.
  • : This item does A LOT of damage with this build. I used to use a third Archangel's Staff whichis very strong as well. And since I rarly autoattack, I discarded the Lich bane. But often enough a fight approchaes where you don't have time to retreat 2000 yards to start fireing. Also it nukes down turrets easily. Late Game Void Ooze + Lich Bane activation = gg to most non tank chars. Since it provides 350 mana as well, you will just have 50 less mana than with a third AA! And MR + Movement Speed is also very good. So using this instead of a third AA you tade some AP for a 700+ damage autoattack. It adds up quickly and is highly recommended, though I first discarded this item.


Situational Items

This is the only optional item you will need, if at all.
Here is an excerpt out of the first SwagSurfin ur way 2 success series

"A: Most situational stuff is either to help you stay alive or breaking through some defense, meaning you will be buying defensive stuff, or penetrating stuff...And if you play ranked you usually have a balanced team, so stacking one particular defense-mechanism such as MR is usually only done by a tank.
If your team however is not balanced for some reason and you need to break through MR you switch out..." ...the 2nd Archangel's Staff for Void Staff. Please check out the following chapter for more theory behind Void Staff.
Abyssal Mask will not help you much here, because its debuff only has a 500 range radius around you. You, however, are most of the time 2200 yards away. This is also a reason why you will usually not need a defensive item.
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Doing The Math - The deal with Void Staff & MR in general

MajorLoL brought up an interesting point about using Void Staff because there are many champions who have naturally more then 30 MR.
Currently there are over 40 champions who have over 30 mr. They get +1,25mr/lvl resulting in 52,5 MR. Nidalee & Kayle have 43,5 MR.

What should we think about when deciding wheather to use Void Staff or another Archangel's Staff:
  • Your maximal ability power with this build (without an elixir or Nashor buff) is 865.05 (865AP rounded down).
  • by swapping out one Archangel's Staff for Void Staff our maximum AP will be 767.475 (767 rounded down).




MR Calculations

"Magic penetration and magic resistance reduction are applied in the following order:
[*] Percentage magic resistance reduction
[*] Flat magic resistance reduction
[*] Flat magic penetration
[*] Percentage magic penetration



Stacking magic resistance

Every point of magic resistance requires a unit to take 1% more of its maximum health in magic damage to be killed. This is called "effective health."

Example: A unit with 60 magic resistance has 60% of its maximum health in its effective health, so if the unit has 1000 maximum health, it will take 1600 magic damage to kill it.

What this means: by definition, magic resistance does not have diminishing returns, because each point increases magic durability by 1% whether the unit has 10 magic resistance or 1000 magic resistance." (excerpt from the League of Legends Wiki)






We were reducing the MR by 30 so far, leaving 23 MR on those champions. 40% Magic Penetration by Void Staff is applied last. It will reduce their remaining MR by exactly 9.2 (rounded down to 9).
This leaves us with the following result, based on what we just learned about MR:

WOW! The Void Staff is better for Void Ooze & our main spell Living Artillery! This is a real eye opener.
However, there are a couple more factors we should think about.

1.) not every champ is having over 30 base MR, in fact less than 50% of all champs have over 30 base MR

2.) since we are getting 9 MR penetration by using Void Staff we should heavily consider using Magic Penetration runes instead!

Thanks to doing the math here, stacking magic penetration via runes becomes VERY viable.
Lets see why.

If you get 3x Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration, 9x Greater Mark of Magic Penetration & 9x Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration we are having now 39,35 magic penetration.
This will leave every 53 base MR champ with only 13 MR left. If we were to just reduce the MR by 30 + Void Staff the enemy would have 14 MR left! That is just ONE MR difference!

This gives up the opportunity to get rid of some of those health runes and basically getting a free void staff!
Here is a quick overview of Void staff + Health runes vs archangel's staff + MR pen. runes:

Pros / Cons

spaaaaaaace
Pros


+ 560 gold less in price
+ +1 magic penetration
+ shredders tanks
+ +185 health

space
(+ Health Runes)
space
Cons


- there are less than 50% of champs with a base MR of over 30
- less damage in comparison to the Archangel's Staff(+ MR pen. runes) - option
- -400 mana
- -25/5sec mana reg.



VERSUS


Pros / Cons

spaaaaaaace
Pros


+ +400 mana (up to 10x Living Artillery
+ +25/5sec mana reg
+ more damage over the Void Staff version

space
(+ MR pen. runes)
space
Cons


- cost +560 gold
- -1 MR
- -185 health
- does not shredder tanks









This should give us a very good overview. I personally think that the Archangel's Staff version is superior because:
  • we are not that health reliant thanks to the absurd range (we are still having Rylai's Crystal Scepter & 9x Greater Seal of Vitality though)
  • we are doing more damage
  • we are having much more mana

This should lead us the the following conclusion:
We should leave the item build as it is, but switching out Greater Glyph of Vitality for Greater Glyph of Magic Penetration, and Greater Quintessence of Vitality for Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration.

This leaves us with a very nice option. We can STILL get Void Staff if we are in an unbalanced team and the enemy is stacking MR!

Thank you very much MajorLoL for bringing up this topic. I am sure you too had no idea either that this would come out :)
I am really happy to have this build improved by a lot. Changes will now be updated.
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Doing The Math - Rod of Ages vs 3rd Archangel's Staff

CasterMaster suggested an Rod of Ages. At first I was sceptical. If we were to exchange one of our three Archangel's Staff for Rod of Ages what happens to our damage?
I thought a third Archangel's Staff will result in more damage, due to its mana conversion.
I am right but the damage is REALLY minimal. Why? Because I did forget that the 725 mana the Rod of Ages provides, will be transmuted into pure AP by the other two remaining Archangel's Staff! Thus making the AP difference between both builds very very small.
In addition we get a HUGE chunk of health and 325 more mana! Also the early game sustainability by having Catalyst the Protector is very helpful.

Here are some figures while carrying the Rod of Ages, so you know everything is correct and not randomly put into the build:

- Total AP with this build: 839,7 (rounded up to 840)

Pros / Cons

spaaaaaaace
Pros


+ +325 mana (up to 8x Living Artillery)
+ +630 health
+ more sustainability during early game

space
space
Cons


- Void Ooze deals 28,35 less magic damage
- Living Artillery deals 11,7 less magic damage
- -25/5 sec mana reg
- cost 180 more gold


Trading a bit less damage for up to eight more Living Artillery shots and much more life + early game sustain is a very good deal.

Item changes have been updated.

Thanks to CasterMaster.
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¿Team 1 or Team 2?

As we just saw, the Rod of Ages provides EXCELLENT stuff. But I need to point out a few more things. First off: You will need Clarity less often thanks to the catalyst the protector. This is a benefit as we can more comfortably exchange it for another summoner spell. Please refer to chapter 7 & 17 for more information!
There is one very big downside when using Rod of Ages. You will quickly notice when trying out both versions, that Team 2 has a VERY slow start. You have almost NO pressure. After completing Rod of Ages you are getting 60 AP. Compare that to the AP boost of getting Rabadon's Deathcap as your first item! It is just 500 gold more. After your second big item with Team 1 you will have Rabadon's Deathcap + your first Archangel's Staff resulting in an INCREADIBLY high amount of AP already in the very early game, which I like much better.

So here is a little dilemma. In our last chapter we did the math and realising that exchanging Rod of Ages for one Archangel's Staff is pretty good, even damage wise. But now we see that we will have a very slow early game. If the Rod of Ages would not need another 10 minutes to get his full potential, you could buy it as the 5th ot 6th item.

So when should we go for Team 1 and when for Team 2.

I personally go 90% for Team 1. But if you feel better with a more safe early game and not needing to pressure the opponent, you can gof or Team 2.
I can only suggest Team 2 when you are facing horrible mid chars like LeBlanc, Cassiopeia or Talon. But even here I do not suggest Team 2 all the time. If you notice you have NO chance currently in mid, I suggest going for Team 2 and playing safe/turret hugging. The same goes for: if top and bot lane of yours are already lost and you are facing too much action in mid during the very early game. In this case I can suggest Team 2 as well.
Otherwise I would go always for Team 1.
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Position is everything, not only in poker!

Here is some footage to illustrate some good spots to be at or to use your abilities from.

(the red lines indicate your voide ooze options, in case of an enemy incoming. The blue circles your other Living Artillery options)

How great is this position!? If an enemy comes, you can aoe slow them and you are still able to damage the dragon, for a faster kill. Besides you are also able to damage the enemies if they come from their blue.





The same here as for the dragon. You can scout the enemy, cc them and being able to damage the Baron. Please notice the option for shooting at the bush above Baron Nashor! This will not only scout perfectly as well, but also prevent someone like Gragas to throw in his/her ulti and steal the Baron kill!




Scouting, damagin and being able to steal the Baron kill. And there is nothing they can do about it. Great hideout!







This is my favourite place for sieging. Look at that range! And they cannot do anything about it because of that range and the wall of wood infront of you.
You can also stand infront of their wall. This is very neat as they cannot see you, but after one hit with Living Artillery you able able to see them and even spit out your Void Ooze through that wall. Extremly powerful positions here!
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Strategy - Tipps for better playing & more SWAG


How to become as Swaggy as me or this duck? Simply follow my guidelines.

# You do NOT push the lane.
NO, seriously! YOU ARE NOT PUSHING THE LANE!!!!!
If you still do gtfo this build! Swagrid's time = $$$ So don't waste it!
You simply last hit with voide ooz or autoattack. Last hitting with voide ooze should be done when multiple creeps are about to die simultanously and you won't be fast enough to get all just with autoattacking.


What happens when you push?

- Your jungler cannot gank
- Their jungler can and will gank
- You will die
- Being dead = no swag

What happens when you do NOT push?

+ Giving the enemy the opportunity to do mistakes
+ Their jungler cannot gank
+ Your jungler can and will gank = Kill/Assist = $$$.

If you do like $$$ like I do, you do NOT push FFS.





# You can extend Living Artillery a bit. The maximum range is indicated by your CENTER of AOE. So you are still able to hit half a radius beyond this! (check out the last picture of the last chapter)

# Get the blue buff whenever possible. Thanks to Runic Affinity the respawn of the golem is just a bit after your buff runs out. Unlimited mana and CDR is the best you can have for this build.

# While being in base for shopping and healing, use Living Artillery to feed Tear of the Goddess. It adds up over time. The same is true while having the blue buff. Even when noone is around, use your abilities to increase your mana permanently.

# You can maximize your sustainability by waiting a couple of seconds after using Living Artillery to reset the mana timer.

# Use smart cast + the option to show the radius. This will improve your game a lot. When you hold down your ability button, you can look at the range.

# The caster creeps are fairly weak. Before you are able to one hit creep waves in the later game, you can still kill them VERY quickly by using Void Ooze in combination with one activation of Living Artillery. This is especially usefull when you facing a strong enemy on your lane.

# For quick harrassings you use the following combo:
Void Ooze + Bio-Arcane Barrage + Living Artillery. This is a very effective for several reasons:
  • Once they are slowed they cannot confront you. By now activiating Bio-Arcane Barrage you will deal quite alot of damage + getting more range. So while you do not need to give up position (because of the increased range), they take a good anmount of damage. The only thing they can do is going back. Thats when you place a Living Artillery BEHIND them.
    This sounds like a lot, but with smart casting all the things happen almost simultanously.
    The combo is: E,R+W,R + auto attack, R + auto attack, R + auto attack

# Don't overestimate your lvl 1 Living Artillery. The range is not OP yet! At lvl 2 it becomes much much better. So be careful, you still have to be quite near the enemy.

# check bushes from time to time with Living Artillery.

# Living Artillery grants vision TWICE! Right at the beginning of the activation, and then a second time when hitting a target. Baron Nashor is immune to any kind of debuff though and therefore not granting vision once he is hit. If you want to scout if he is still there, you need to place your AOE center right on him and use the first vision option. Have a look at the second dragon picture. Living Artillery has not landed yet, but I can see the dragon already. This is what you must do in order to scout the Baron Nashor!

# Void Ooze is doing some serious damage! Don't use it for escape or CC only. It is often very rewarding to just throw it into the enemies.

# if you get killed and the enemy is out of range for Icathian Surprise, blow up some minions for extra gold!

# consider the option to use Icathian Surprise against a tank instead of the squishy Brand next to him, because of the true damage
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Crowd Control


This is a very important topic. I am not talking about CC as we know it, like snares, stun, slow, etc. I am talking about REAL crowd control. By that I mean literally being able to control the position of your enemy. The principle is very easy. If you spam your Living Artillery and they do not move, they will die. If they move, you controlled them.
Depending where you place your Living Artillery you can force them to go back or to the side or even move forward.
This puts you in a powerful position and can accomplish several powerful advantages:
  • You can out zone supporting characters like Soraka, stoping her from healing as much or silencing your team. Since those kind of characters are very squishy itself most often, they are littlerally forced to move away or they will die very fast
  • the same principle works when you fight against ranged AD characters. They are very often squishy as well and are dying fairly easy if they do not move. But when they move they are losing Damage Per Second, because they cannot auto attack while moving!
  • Once you have Rylai's Crystal Scepter your real crowd crontrol gets and additional crowd control effect. Now you are able to slow the enemy. This important when their range ad carry is about to retreat vs your team. In addition you are able to safe your team against a push because you can long-range slow the pushing enemy.

As you can see, from your former: "I am a glass cannon, I am just spamming some damage" kinda guy, you suddenly evolved to chess player, moving the figures on the battlefield in a strategic way. You have just gotten power and responsibility.
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Little FAQ

Q: Why do you think this is a superior build? Everything will easily kill you!?
A: No, it will not. That is the whole point here! Range is everything. Always ask yourself the question: "What is the enemy going to do about it?" The less they can do about certain things, the more effective they become.
Having an enemy who is more than 2200 range away, spamming an AOE every single second is horrible for you. So you become that enemy instead. People will realise how absurd this range is in combination with a HUGE MANA POOL and only 1 second cooldown. This is why this Kog'Maw build is the only effective glass cannon in League of Legends. Because you do not really need a defense. Nothing can hit you. With Elixir of Fortitude and Team 2 you are having over arou7nd 3000 life. Think about that.

Q: Why no attack damage for Kog'Maw?
A: Kog'Maw scales so much better with AP then he does with AD, except for Living Artillery.

Q: But isn't this paradox to not go for AD when the spell you are building the whole guide around, scales better with AD?
A: Not really, because spamming Living Artillery is only possible with tons of mana. And the perfect item for this would be Manamune, but unfortunately its mana conversion is UNIQUE and it does NOT boost your other abilities! Archangel's Staff' conversion is not unique. And in addition, your Void Ooze and Bio-Arcane Barrage are really kicking *** with this build.

Q: Why no Athene's Unholy Grail? The mana regeneration is great!
A: Not as great as someone might think. The Grail comes with MR, CDR, % manareg/5, and its passive mana reg.
With a full Build you will end up with around 3450 mana. 12% of that anmount equals 420 mana. So in a group fight you get per kill/assist 420 mana back.
Now pause here and think about the following: You have almsot 3500 mana by yourself already, + Clarity which provides an additional 840 mana. That leaves you with around 4300 mana! On top of that you have the ability to let your mana timer reset. If you take all of that into account you will quickly notice that the mana regeneration is not so important and epic as it looks like. Instead you will just lose a very huge anmount of damage either way. A bit MR and CDR will not cut it. AA provides much much more AP and has a solid manareg/5 already by itself, and Lich Bane provides with almost 1000 damage autoattacks in 2 second intervalls (thanks to your spammable ulti). The Grail works for sure but is not so efficient as someone might think. I think on Galio it has a better use.

Q: Your rune build looks strange. Why no AP here or other stuff?
A: Life is the only thing you are missing, thus making you a "glass cannon". By getting 175 health though the runes + 500 health from rylai's crystals cepter it gives you extra survivability. Other abilities like AP or mana regeneration are not needed because Archangel's Staff provides ridiculous anmounts of both.

Q: Clarity??
A: As already explained in there it gives a good sustain. There is a little misconception about using Teleport over Clarity. Some people argue that Teleport is superior because you can go back and refresh. But Clarity is so much better here. With 2 or 3 Health Potion at the beginning, and not pushing the lane, thus reducing the probability of getting ganked, your health should last long enough. That means being Out of Mana is probably the main reason to go back and refresh. Here comes what most people overlook: Clarity has only 180 seconds cool down in comparison to Teleport which has a whopping 300(!), thats almost twice as much!! Also read chapter 7 again please!
Other spells like Ignite or Exhaust are worse in most situations because you usually do not want to be near the enemy, thus having not enough range for those summoner spells.
Though Heal, Surge or Ghost fit here really well too. So feel free to exchange it for clarity if you are always running good with your mana. Though I made the experience, that refreshing your and your groups mana in late game is far superior than having one of the other spells.

Note: If you will be using Ghost or Surge instead, do not forget to remove 1 point from Mental Force and out it into Summoner's Wrath

Q: Is this competetive?
A: The whole SwagSurfin ur way 2 success series is highly competetive. I am using this build as well as the other ones for all my ranked games, but also for normal games. And the most important thing is that not everyone is using ranked games, and especially not playing in very HIGH ranked games. And mobafire is not for the elite players only. the VAST majority runs non-ranked games or non-high-end ranked games. So I am happy to help those players out as well.

Q: One could argue that another Archangel's Staff instead of Rylai's Crystal Scepter would result in even more AP/damage.
A: And this is correct too. You are losing more or less exactly 140 AP when using Rylai's Crystal Scepter instead of another Archangel's Staff. This would be around 46 damage less per second. BUT when being slowed with Rylai's Crystal Scepter, chances are VERY high to hit a second Living Artillery. And after just 1 more hit, you are miles ahead damage-wise.
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Ending words

Alright friends, thats it for now. A couple more guides coming soon to complete the SwagSurfin ur way 2 success series.
Any questions I am happy to answer. Feel free to recommend my guide to others if you like it and vote me up and +rep me, so more people can enjoy.




'Til then,
turn the swag on and keep swag surfin 2 sucess

p.s. check out the other SwagSurfin ur way 2 success series guides!

Coming Soon

SwagSurfin ur way 2 success pt.3 - Anivia (special)
SwagSurfin ur way 2 success pt.4 - Anivia
SwagSurfin ur way 2 success pt.5 - Ryze
SwagSurfin ur way 2 success pt.6 - Zilean
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Game Play Video

A few words about it. It was a standard game, nothing special, no ranked, no team play. I even died two times. And neither of us had a jungler. So it is not the perfect gaming experience here. But it still illustrates many aspects on how to play him. I did this video especially for "Lumifly" who felt unsure with Team1 (non- Rod of Ages build).
It was also my very very first video attemp ever, so recording, and talking the same time results in non-optimal gaming.
I did 4 videos at different stages of the game and molt them together via windows movie maker. So no fancy editing/cutting here.

The video will show
- that last hitting helps you to stay at your side of the river
- some harras combos (voide ooze + bio-arcane barrage) (+living artillery at lvl 6)
- some long range harass
etc

Dont forget it is meant to show a little bit of gameplay.
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Sources & Special Thanks

1. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Kog%27Maw
2. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_resistance
3. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_penetration
4. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_champions%27_magic_resistance


Special Thanks

1. Sean for coming up with the series' name "SwagSurfin ur way 2 success"
2. A chubby baby for pointing out to use more codecs and finally showing me jhoijhoi's guide
3. jhoijhoi for her fantastic codec guide and providing templates as well as good advices in general. Check her out!
3. CasterMaster for pointing out a major spelling error & reminding me of doing some calculations with Rod of Ages
4. Stipulation for suggesting 2 points in Butcher over Mental Force . I absolutely agree on that. Thanks
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