Greetings summoners, welcome to Cho'Gath: The AP Carry Tank. This is my first guide here on mobafire, much effort was put into this guide so honest opinions and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated :D Now I know what you're probably thinking, " Cho'Gath as a carry and tank? wtf?". I assure you, this is a new and exciting way to play Cho'Gath and you will not be disappointed. Please note, THIS IS NOT JUST A QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE FOR WHEN YOU JUST FEEL LIKE TRYING OUT Cho'Gath. THIS IS A VERY DIFFERENT PLAYSTYLE FROM HOW Cho'Gath IS SUPPOSE TO BE PLAYED. That being said, lets move on to the Pros/Cons of Cho'Gath, The Terror of The Void

I take Flash for an escape plan and also for an awesome Flash & Feast kill.

I take Exhaust so that I can slow the enemies even more after the initiation with Rupture

You could replace Exhaust for Ignite but i prefer to have a longer/more potent slow for more easy kills.

Please note,

DO NOT BUY RUNES BEFORE LEVEL 20. WAITING UNTIL TIER 3 RUNES IS ESSENTIAL.

That being said, runes should not be bought until level 20. I would recommend saving up your IP from level 15 or so until level 20. Once you hit level 20, you will be able to buy a vast majority of runes, putting you at an advantage over other players who recently hit level 20, or on a level playing field with summoners at a higher level than you.

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration

• Cost per rune: 410 IP
  
• Cost for all 9: 3690 IP
• These runes offer Magic penetration. Magic penetration works the same way as armor penetration, only instead of ignoring "x" amount of armor, you ignore "x" amount of magic resistance.

Greater Seal of Ability Power

• Cost per rune: 410 IP
  
• Cost for all 9: 3690
• These runes offer extra ability power. Ability power lets you do more damage with your abilities (imagine that). The more damage your Rupture Feral Scream and Feast are doing, the better off you are.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction

• Cost per rune: 410 IP
  
• Cost for all 9: 3690
  
• These runes offer cooldown reduction. The more cooldown reduction(CDR) that you have, the more you can spam your abilities. Once you hit max CDR, you can use your Feast approximately every 30 seconds. Scary right?

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power

• Cost per rune: 1025
  Cost for all 3: 3075
  
• These runes cost a bit more than all of the others. Thankfully, we only need to buy 3 of them.
• These Quintessences, also known as "Quints", offer AP and lots of it. With these 3 runes alone, you will start out with 15 more AP, not including the seals or masteries. After everything is added up, you should have around 31 AP off the start.

Overall, this particular rune page will cost you 14,145 IP. This seems like a lot, and it is. In order for me to purchase all of the necessary runes, I had to save every last point of IP and buy runes from summoner level 20 until level 29 or so. However, I also built an AD (attack damage) rune board at the same time so I wasn't stuck playing strictly AP characters.

• Start with one point in your Rupture then put a point in your Vorpal Spikes.
• After that, 3 points into Feral Scream, grab Feast at level 6 then prioritize Feral Scream, followed by Rupture then Vorpal Spikes and grabbing Feast when you can. A brief skill explanation is below.

Carnivore is your passive.

• Upon killing a unit, you will regain health and mana based on your level. This passive gives you all the more reason to last hit minions.
• Carnivore provides excellent lane sustainability and allows you to not have to recall as often as your lane partner.
  
  Max your Feral Scream First
  • Your Feral Scream offers a silence in a cone in front of you and deals massive amounts of damage.
  • An excellent way to farm minion waves, harass enemy champions, or get those kills on enemy champions when they are low health.
  
  Max your Rupture second.
  • Rupture is an Area of Effect(AoE) slow AND knockup. A VERY useful skill once you learn how to place it.
  • Rupture has a 1 second delay before your spikes penetrate the ground and damage/slow/knock up your enemies. This is important to remember when placing your rupture.
  • TIP FOR USING RUPTURE: When your enemies are in the middle of their minion wave trying to get last hits on your own minions, place the rupture directly on top of the enemy champion. The minions will somewhat block the Rupture animation on the battlefield, leaving your enemies surprised when they get knocked up/slowed leaving them perfectly open for some harassment or even a possible kill.
  
  Max your Vorpal Spikes Last
  • Vorpal Spikes is a very nifty skill. It allows you to shoot spikes out upon hitting a basic attack. These spikes also do extra damage to anyone who comes in contact with the spikes.
  • Vorpal Spikes is especially useful for last hitting minions, securing the fact that you get the gold.
    
    Now for what you've all been waiting for, probably one of the most amusing and most useful in the game,
    
    Put points Feast whenever you can(Levels 6, 11, and 16)
    • Feast will deal 1000 true damage to MINIONS or 300/475/650 + .7% of your ability power.
    • TIP FOR FEAST:The first thing you need to do once you learn Feast, is to Feast a minion. Every time you Feast and kill your target, you gain extra health and grow in size. The more levels you gain, the bigger you will get. Feast will stack 6 times
    • Once you get your 6th stack of Feast, you can start to use your feast as a harass against enemy champions. Feast is a very good way to make the enemy champions panic and either back off, or continue to attack you, and that's the wrong idea on their part. Focusing the tank will surely get the enemy killed.

I felt like the skill sequence section was getting too long and boring to read so I'll make a new section for the combo I, and probably all Cho'Gath players use. You use your Rupture to knock up/slow you enemy/enemies and then use Feral Scream to silence them. Being slowed and silenced makes almost any player go into "panic mode" and they start trying to spam spells at you to get you to back off. However, this will not work in their favor. If you are in lane, you and your lane partner will be doing damage to the champions throughout the whole combo. From here, you have a decision to make. Before making this decision, I would suggest left clicking on the champion that you need to focus on killing.

• If your feast will be able to kill the champion and you do NOT have 6 Feast stacks, without a doubt Feast on their weak bodies.
• If the cenemy champion will not die to your feast and you don't have 6 feast stacks, have no fear. Remember the nice little bonus effect Rupture gives? That's right folks, a slow. The enemy champion will without a doubt, be slow enough for you to catch up to, land a basic attack or two, then feast on them for the kill and another feast stack.
• If you already have 6 Feast stacks, you should play the proper role of a tank, and that means letting your lane partner get the kill. If the enemy will not die from your Feast, Feast them anyways just to speed up the process. Once you reach max CDR, you can Feast every 30 or so seconds.

Here I will explain my item choices:

I start with a Regrowth Pendant and one Health Potion so I can stay in lane for as long as possible. I try to stay in lane long enough to turn my Regrowth Pendant into a Nomad's Medallion and buy Boots. Head back to lane after these purchases. On your next trip back, pick up Mercury Treads and a Ruby Crystal, which will be turned into a Catalyst The Protector. After you get your Catalyst The Protector, pick up a Rod of Ages. After the Rod of Ages you can start to build to counter the enemy team or, if you're playing correctly, build MORE AP! By more AP I mean build a Rabadon's Deathcap and finish with a Guardians Angel. If they are a well balanced team, I would recommend following the items at the top, finishing your build with a Frozen Heart, changing your Nomad's Medallion into a Shurelya's Battlesong, and finally picking up a Guardians Angel. If they are heavy on Attack Damage, you can still build the Frozen Heart but I would recommend building a Thornmail instead of the Guardians Angel.

Farming is a very important part in League of Legends. Without proper farming techniques, you will fall behind in levels and items and become useless in team fights.

• Don't use your Rupture too often, you are very mana hungry early game.
• Just try to use your basic attack as much as possible for the last hit on the minions.
• Once you hit level 2 and learn Vorpal Spikes, farming becomes a whole heck of a lot easier. The extra damage Vorpal Spikes gives makes it so you can hit the minions sooner and still get the last hit.

• I consider mid game to be between levels 8-14
• By now, you shouldn't be having too much trouble with mana. If you are, just don't spam your abilities as much.
• What you want to do is Rupture a good majority of the minion wave then use your Feral Scream to finish them all off.
• You can pretty much instantly clear small minion waves and medium to large size minion waves will fall nearly as fast.
  • NOTE: The more Feast stacks you have, the bigger Cho'Gath will get. The bigger you are, the more area your Rupture and Feral Scream will cover, making large minion waves seem like the usual 6 or 7 minions you get in a single wave
  
  
  Late Game
  • Late game is considered by me to be levels 15-18
  • By now, you should have well over 150 farms.
  • You shouldn't be worrying about getting farms anymore, unless of course it is a very large minion wave pushing one of your turrets. In this case, either have one of your team mates clear it, or if you're very low on farms, use your Rupture & Feral Scream combo to wipe out the wave completely.

As with most games, teamwork is a very important aspect of the game. Even though you're going to be playing a carry tank, you are still the tank. You MUST be the first one into the fight to soak up a lot of the damage to help out your team and protect the squishy carries. Here's some tips to remember when going into a team fight

• Do not, for the love of god, focus the enemy tank. In at least half of the games I play everyday, there is someone who always focuses the tank, and that's exactly what the tank wants you to do. As a tank, your job is to soak up the damage for your team so you can kill the enemy carries.
• You want to focus the most squishy and closet person to you. After that, move onto the next squishy and so on.
• If the team fight is a success, the enemy tank should be left alone against 3 or 4 members of your team, who should be able to take him down.

This is what I hate the most about solo queue. There is always that one idiot who either feeds and blames every body else on the team, or thinks that they're the best LoL player on the face of the planet and if you die twice without getting a kill you get a "omg wtf stoop feeding noobs". It's either that or something in the /all chat saying how your team sucks. This is obviously not the right approach to the situation. Complimenting your team mates on kills isn't very hard. If someone on your team gets a kill early game, just type "gj". It's two letters, it really isn't that hard to do. Plus, it makes them feel more comfortable playing with your team and they will most likely do better. Someone made a mistake? Offer them some advice on how to improve next time. Saying "wtf bro, stop feeding n00b" isn't going to make them want to play. I've seen plenty of times people say things like that, and then the person getting yelled at turns super trololol and just starts feeding to make the ragers life a living hell.

This is, in my opinion, the most fun way to play Cho'Gath. Pleas don't forget to rate and comment on how to make my guide better and more useful. I will be adding some youtube videos in the future and some pictures so it isn't so text heavy. Thank you for reading my guide :)

-PuddingMix