Kog'Maw Build Guide by Zempi

Obey Void!

Welcome, one and all, to Zempi's AP Kog'Maw guide. I've mained AP Kog'Maw for a while now, and i think i've learned enough to finally make a guide on him. Firstly, i'll say that AP Kog is a viable decision for midlane and ranked play, however its more advanced than his Right Click and Win counterpart. If you'd like to learn a bit more how i play AP Kog'Maw, read on and enjoy :)

Below is a video video of one of my favorite mid players, Froggen playing AP Kog'Maw in a game against TSM at MLG.

Pros / Cons of AP Kog

Pros

-Good Damage
-Immense Range
- Bio-Arcane Barrage Allows for hard-hitting AA's
-Great Poking Power with Void Ooze and Living Artillery
-Shouldn't need much defense due to his massive range
-Fun as hail

Cons

-Spamming Living Artillery will drain your mana FAST
-Under-rated By Many
-Using Living Artillery well can take a bit of practice
-Vulnerable to Gap-Closers
-No escapes, very vulnerable if caught out of position

Runes/Masteries for AP Kog

The above runes are good for general/defensive use, with the Armor/MR for tough matchups, but if i feel like i have a safe matchup..
I whip out deez bois. Some may argue that you should take Greater Seal of Mana Regenerationx9 and they are pretty nice to have, but if you're an advanced player you should be able to handle your mana well. However, if you do want to use the regen yellows feel free to do so.


I use this 21/0/9 mastery page for most AP Mids. I'll explain some of my choices.
I take all of the AP based points in Offense, but i put 2 in Mental Force so i can pick up the extra AA damage from Spellsword , and still get down to Executioner .
In the Utility tree i take Meditation for some extra mana regen, nearly equal to the amount of mana regen Greater Seal of Mana Regenerationx9 would give and Runic Affinity so buffs you get from your jungler last longer. If he/she doesnt give you blue buffs, you can tell them "you're mean" in chat.

Items/Enhancements for AP Kog

Offensive Items

If you're playing an AP Carry, i feel that you should always build this before it gets too late into the game. It provides a LOT of AP. Lets see how much it would give us with 200 ap. It originally gives 140, adding that to 200 we already have 340. and 25% of 340 would be 85. So thats 225 AP we gained from one item. So before deathcap, 200. After deathcap, 425. Must. Get.

Now Lich Bane is also a good item for koggie, because you should be auto attacking your enemies with your Bio-Arcane Barrage. So having lichbane will make your autos deal even more damage every 2 sec, based on your AP.

Liandry's is also a very good item, as its passive synergizes very well with Rylai's Crystal Scepters. Its 5% HP burn will be amped to 10%, because your Rylai's will be slowing opponents hit by your spells.

Void Staff is a good item, because it will give you 35% magic pen, and a good amount of AP. It's a good idea to get this if your opponent(s) buy Magic Resistance.

Morellonomicon is a good item, particularly when your enemies are being saved by heals too often.

Defensive Items

More often than not, you'll be facing an AP champion mid. Chalice of Harmony is a good item to get if they're a bit too strong, and it also gives you a good amount of mana regen, and can be upgraded to Athene's Unholy Grail for some ap, and more Magic Resist. Wonderful items.

Seeker's Armguard is a new item, and its a really nice one. If you're facing an AD mid, or theres just another pesky AD champion on their team thats been messing with you, this item is very nice. It also gives you a nice amount of AP, and can be upgraded to Zhonya's Hourglass.

Banshee's Veil can help you out if you're really annoyed by enemy AP's, and it hardcounters abilities such as Karthus' Requiem and Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab.

This item is immensely good if you find yourself getting focused too often, if you buy this heres a tip. If you have Flash up, do not use it before you die. Use it after you've already resurrected to increase your chances of escaping, because chances are they will just all gather around you while you resurrect. Its even better if you manage to get near a wall before dieing. Great item.

If their APC's are really becoming a problem, you can get Negatron Cloak for 45 MR, and build it into Abyssal Mask if you want, but its passive will be useless for us due to Kog'Maw's immense range.

Rod of Ages can be a nice defensive item, with some added AP and Mana, but i wouldn't recommend getting it because if you do ever buy Rod of Ages, you'll generally want to buy it early on so its passive can work, and this will really slow the process of getting your core items down.

When it comes to Boot Enhancements for Koggie, only 3 really appeal to me.

1. Enchantment: Furor. After a little while, i figured out that Living Artillery doesnt proc the Furor speed boost. But, it still works wonders with Bio-Arcane Barrage, so i still recommend it. Allows you to kite more easily, and move around in fights quickly.
   
2. Enchantment: Distortion. Distortion is a suprisingly useful Enhancement. If you find yourself needing flash more often than not in a matchup, don't be afraid to buy this.
   
3. Enchantment: Homeguard. This is also a suprisingly useful Enhancement. I nearly ALWAYS buy this if our team has been pushed into the base. It allows you to instantaniously regenerate all of your HP and Mana when you enter the summoner platform, and gives you a ridiculous movement speed boost for a limited time or until you enter combat. Don't underestimate it.

AP Kog and his Abilites

Icathian Surprise
Upon dying, Kog'Maw becomes a terrorist.
Icathian Surprise is a really good passive, If you do happen to die you can often still snag a kill after you die by running after someone who was low after the fight, or you can run into the majority of their team if you died during a teamfight.

Caustic Spittle
A strong nuke ability for AP Kog.
This ability is the least important of AP Kog's set, but its still a nice ability. If they do get close enough, dont forget to use it to lower their resistances, and deal a lot more damage to them.Bio-Arcane Barrage
Grants Kog'Maw the highest AA range in the game at max level, and deals %HP dmg.
As stated above, deals %HP damage, and gains 1% per 100 ap. So this ability can deal a good amount of damage to tanks, and enemies in general.Void Ooze
Sludge Carpet. Great poke.
This is probably my favorite ability of Kog's, other than Living Artillery. It's a very good poking ability early game, and a massive slow. Fun fact, it has the same base/ap scaling as Caustic Spittle. :DLiving Artillery
Spits in the air, landing at the targeted area at a massive range.
The almighty Living Artillery. One of the best poking abilities in the game in the hands of a skilled player. This ability can be a bit hard to hit, but it just takes some practice. And remember, use this to check suspicious brushes with the vision it grants on hit. No one likes getting gang-banged by the entire enemy team. Also use to scout Baron Nashor and the dragon.

My opinions on Smartcasting (General Info, Large wall of Text)

This will just be a chapter about my opinions on Smartcasting, and how i use it whether or not to use range indicators etc. I hope that this helps anyone recently getting into the game, and maybe even veteran players starting to smartcast. But this is in my Kog guide, so who knows if this will help many people.
"To the point."

There is a game tactic called smartcasting that i have used in league of legends, since i started playing the game. About a week after i started playing, i discovered this Website and looked over a Malzahar guide. I would link it, but i can't find it on the site now. The guide had a chapter specifically on smartcasting, and so i believe it's important that i do this as well, because this gameplay mechanic made me a much better player than i was within seconds. Anyways, how Smartcasting works is you just hold the shift key, and then press any one the ability keys. Q, W, E, R, whichever one you press it will immediately cast on whoever your mouse is on if it is a targetable ability, or if it is a Skillshot, than it will cast say Ezreal's Mystic Shot immediately in the direction that your mouse is pointing. If you're casting something like Koggie's Living Artillery, it will immediately be shot wherever your mouse is. I'm not very good at explaining things, but you should understand it enough, just go into a custom game with a champion who uses skillshots, hold shift and press Q or whatever and you should get it. But smartcasting will (in my case it did) make you a better player, although you might want to recognize the ranges of champions abilities. Then "Smartcast Range Indicators" come in.
I've known about this for a while, but just recently began to investigate them myself. Smartcast Range Indicators is another mechanic you can turn on in the options menu INGAME, i'm sure you can find it in there if you wanna check it out. But when this is turned on, holding Shift and pressing an ability key will not cast it, but it will show the range indicator for that ability. Releasing the ability key will then cast it. So this will help some guys with range and whatnot, its really useful in some cases. You can cancel it and make the range indicator go away by right clicking somewhere on the ground again. Now, my opinion is that smartcasting is a really good mechanic that will help you use your abilities much quicker, nuke alot faster, quicker reactions etc. This really helps out with alot of my favorite champions, especially like Malzahar whereas you could hold shift, press Q, W, E, R in quick *** succession and watch your target melt away. So there you go.

I hope this helps everyone out with the game, and makes you a better player than you are. If you did read this chapter, Thanks alot! This is probably one of the most important things about the game for me, as i've used it for so long i think sometimes i even have the Shift key held down throughout whole games.. But please do try it out, and tell me what you think about it. :D

I did try out the Smartcast Range Indicators a bit, and i prefer not to use them. The range indicator is pretty nice, but it slows the cast time down just a bit and i dont like it. Its a matter of opinion, really.

Farming

I felt like making an update on the guide, and a Farming chapter is recommended in the add chapters thing. Farming is a really important thing to keep up with gold and whatnot and it really helps.

First and foremost, if you can't last hit well you should practice it alot. As i said, its really important. If you arent familiar with last hitting, and you really really want to practice hard going into a custom game by yourself can help you catch along with it pretty easily and youll be safe from anyone trying to stop you. Perfect cs is around ~100 every 10 minutes, but i generally just want to have more/keep up with my lane opponent.
So with Kog'Maw, farming can be relatively easy, he's a ranged champion first of all so you're more safe from harass, and ontop of that he has Bio-Arcane Barrage. Using this can make last hitting in an agressive lane really easy, because it gives you all da range. You can also use your Void Ooze/ Living Artillery to clear waves from afar, ex. shoot your E at the caster minions when they're all lined up to attack and then ult them and they should die. Thats after you have some AP though.

Gameplay [I might add more to this if i'm motivated to enough.. XP]

Been a little while since i made the guide, and i still haven't added a gameplay section.. Sorry about that, but i find it hard to explain how i play throughout the game, but generally i'll just farm for the most part early game and try to throw in some harass when i can. If they're just sitting there like "Hehehe ap kog'maw like he'll do **** to me" Roll out the sludge carpet ([Void Ooze]), [Bio-Arcane Barrage] and spit at them a bit. They'll come to realize that AP Kog'Maw is in fact a very viable champ. Try your best not to overextend, but if you do end up pushing alot, and it does happen since your main ability early game is [Void Ooze] then see if you can't fit in a gank on one of the side lanes, you don't want to be standing in front of the enemies tower all alone just asking for the enemy jungler to gank you. Kog'Maw is very prone to ganks because he's rather slow and has no good escape tools. Your best bet is to [Void Ooze]/[Living Artillery] combo their jungler to try and scare them off before they try to engage the fight. And in some cases you can get away with a kill or even two if they're low enough. Everyone's main priority in the early game though, is generally getting CS, and trying not to die.

Fin.

Thanks so much for reading the guide to the very end. I really do appreciate it, and i hope you learned a thing or two reading it. If you enjoyed it please leave an upvote, and i REALLY love to read comments/feedback on my guides. My other two are pretty noob i believe, but i did try my best with this one and i'm still working on it in fact. I'll be playing more AP kog, and writing down more strategies that i learn in the future. Again, thank you for reading! And good luck in League of Legends! :D Thanks to jhoijhoi for the guide tutorials and dividers, it helped out a ton!