This is the first build I have ever made, and even though I am level 30 I am still learning. I would love constructive feedback to improve both this build and my own gameplay. Nothing in this build is set in stone and I hope it can be improved. I decided to make this build because Kog'Maw has been my main champion basically since I started plaing Lol and I wanted to make a build guide. There is something about Kog'Maw for me that makes him more fun to play than any other champion, and even though I have tried and bought many other champions, I always find myself coming back to Kog'Maw.


Even though this guide is my first one, I think I am qaulified to post it because of my experience with Kog'Maw. I usually get a 2/1 Kill/Death ratio in games and it is very rare for me to experience a K/D ratio less than 1. Below is a picture of my recent game history.

Pros:

> Kog'Maw Has extremely long range with Bio-Arcane Barrage and Living Artillery.
> Kog'Maw has a good slow with Void Ooze.
> Kog'Maw is a carry and really hurts late game.
>Great true damage nuke passive after you die to finish off those low health enemies. (called Icathian Surprise)

Cons:

>Very squishy early game and not very strong at first.
>Stuns destroy you because you cant get any damage in (you rely on your DPS for lifesteal to keep you alive).
> Kog'Maw is often focused and can die quickly before getting much damage in.

In my runes I focus on lifesteal, attack speed, and attack damage. Obviously Kog'Maw is flexible with his runes as you could focus these runes on armor penetration instead of attack damage or attack speed and get similar succesful results in game. I have tried messing around with the arrangement of these runes and currently think this is a good setup.


In Runes I focus on:

Life Steal- 3X

Attack speed- 5X , 7X and 9X

Attack Damage- 4X and 2X

>Attack speed is good because that is how Kog'Maw gets his DPS.
>Lifesteal is excellent for keeping you alive and helping you stay in action for longer. After falling back from a fight, you can just push the minions nearby and gain your health back instead of having to recall. The 6% lifesteal from these runes+3% from masteries starts you off at the beginning of every game with 9% lifesteal. Thats pretty good for not even buying a lifsteal item.
>Along with attack speed, Kog'Maw gets his DPS from attack damage as well so it makes sense to add some with the attack speed.

Before I start going over masteries I want to say that Kog'Maw is flexible here as well. I could easily see a 21/9/0 instead of what I suggest, a 21/0/9.
What I want to stress though is that the most important masteries for Kog'Maw are in Offense.

In masteries I focus on:

Attack speed-

Damage-

Armor Penetration-

Life Steal-

Improved Ghost and Exhaust-

Improved Recall-

Reduced time spent dead-

Movement speed-

Improved Buff Length-

Starting Items
and

These are what I start the game off with in Dominion. After you buy both these items you only have 5 gold left. The reasons I buy both these items right at the beginning are:

Berserker's Greaves allow you to travel around the map and get to top faster, plus start you out with some attack speed.

Vampiric Scepter boosts my lifesteal because I don't buy any other lifesteal items until a lot later in my build.

Here are the stats at the beginning of the game right after buying these two items (Including the runes and masteries I showed above):





At the beginning of the game, I start out with an attack speed of 1.09, lifesteal of 21% and armor penetration of 21%. This is really good compared to starting out without the runes, masteries and buying different items. If you stay back during the teamfight for top and use Kog'Maws Bio-Arcane Barrage you can get a good amount of damage in with your fast early game attack speed and 21% armor penetration. Furthermore, your 21% lifesteal will help keep you alive.

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Following Items

Malady

I get this item because it continues to build Kog'Maws attack speed as well as having a nice passive that gives you even more damage on your basic attacks. This item also has 20 ability power which is not what I focus on for Kog'Maw, but helps add damage to your other abilites like Living Artillery and Void Ooze. I get this item before Ionic Spark and Lightbringer becuase both of those items are broken up into more expensive base items than Malady (Refer to picture below). At the beginning of the game I would rather be able to buy a couple small items to build up to my large item than have to wait because the base items of the other larger items I want are expensive.



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and

These are the items I get after Malady. The order I get these two specific items really depends upon circumstances in the game. They both give the same amount of attack speed, but each have other different properties:

Ionic Spark gives you some health and has an awsome passive that releases a chain lightning every fourth basic attack. Get this item before Lightbringer if you need the little bit of extra health because you are being focused or killed fast.


Lightbringer gives you a little bit more attack damage that almost equals the damage done by Ionic Sparks Passive. The only reason I would ever get Lightbringer before Ionic Spark is because Lightbringer has a passive that allows you to see a target for 5 seconds after attacking them (with normal attacks only). This comes in usefull when you are up against someone like Twitch or Evelynn because if you are attacking them and they try to stealth and run away, you can see them and continue attacking them for 5 seconds.

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End of Game Items

In Dominion the game length varies greatly on how well your team and the other team is doing. This can mean very fast games where you only get a couple items in your build, to long stalemate games where the teams are really close or one team almost wins, and then the other team makes a long slow comeback. I say this because your build with Kog'Maw should change depending upon how much time you think you have left in the game, and therefore how much gold you think you will be able to spend before it ends. Almosty all games I am able to get as far into my build as Lightbringer and Ionic Spark. After that point is when you estimate how much more gold you will be able to spend. Below are the items that I suggest based upon game length and circumstances.

Executioner's calling Versus Bilgewater Cutlass Versus Sanguine Blade

All three of these items can build off of the Vampiric Scepter you bought at the beginning of the game and give you more lifesteal.

Executioner's calling is the cheapest and worst of these three items. Not that it is bad, but it isn't nearly as good as Bilgewater Cutlass or Sanguine Blade. Executioner's calling Gives you a little more lifesteal, a small amount of critical strike chance, and a passive that does a small amount of damage to champions hit by your normal attacks. I only get this item when I think the game is just about to end and I won't have enough time to buy Bilgewater Cutlass or Sanguine Blade.


Bilgewater Cutlass is the middle of the three items. It is more expensive than Executioner's calling but less expensive than Sanguine Blade. Likewise, it is better than Executioner's calling but not as good as Sanguine Blade. Bilgewater Cutlass gives you a little more lifesteal, and some more attack damage. I get this item when the game is going to end soon, but I have enough time to earn gold to buy it and I don't have enough time to buy Sanguine Blade.

Sanguine Blade is the best of these three items, however it is also the most expensive. It gives you some more lifesteal (the same amount as Bilgewater Cutlass actually) but it gives you a ton more attack damage and has an awsome passive that stacks more attack damage and lifesteal based off your normal attacks. I only get this item when the game is not going to end too soon and I think I will have long enough to save up and buy it.


If you get all the way to buying a Sanguine Blade and the game is not over yet, then you get to make another decision on the last item of the game. This hardly ever happens to me because my games usually end before I can earn enough money to pay for another item.

Another Lifesteal/Damage Item( ) Versus Frozen Mallet


If the enemy team is squishy then it is usually better to try and buy another lifesteal/attack damage item to get more damage in. If you are dying fast and/or are getting taken out of fights by stuns where you cant get your lifesteal and damage in then Frozen Mallet is a good choice because it makes you more durable and you probably wont get focused as much. Frozen Mallet also has a cool passive that slows enemies by 30% for a couple seconds every normal attack you hit them. This is especially useful if enemies keep running away from you before you can kill them. You can use Living Artillery to kill enemies far away, but at the end of the game that ability won't do nearly as much damage as one of your normal attacks. And hey, normal attacks that slow your enemy every time are just awsome.

Icathian Surprise (Passive)

Kog'Maws passive is good for finishing off low health enemies after you die, and you can do a lot of damage if you die in the middle of a teamfight and blow up on multiple people. However this passive does not improve with ability power like other abilities.

Caustic Spittle Q

This ability does a couple of impotant things. The first is that it reduces an enemies Armor and Magic resistance, which is nice early game; but late game when rammus has 200+ armor this part of the ability is less important. This ability also passively increases Kog'Maws attack speed, which is useful because it can help your reach the speed cap on your build (2.5 attacks per second).

Bio-Arcane Barrage W

I think this is Kog'Maws most important ability. It is by far the one I use the most. Not only does this ability allow you to do damage based on an enemies total health ignoring armor, it also gives you ridiculous normal attack range. This is good because it not only allows you to attack from far away, but it can also be used to surprise people. I don't know how many times I have killed someone who didn't realize I was attacking them from sitting on the top turret and shooting over the wall:

Void Ooze E

This attack is an AOE slow and has two main good uses. One is slowing people to prevent them from running away. The other is slowing other people so you can run away. I explain this ability more below in "Tips/Miscellaneous".

Living Artillery R

Kog'Maw has an ultimate with a very long range. It is a skill shot, and enemies can avoid it if they are paying attention and not slowed, stunned, or taunted. The ability reveals any enemies that it hits for a short period of time so it is good for testing bushes for enemies. The way I build Kog'Maw with DPS does not include very much ability power, so this ability does not do very much damage, however it has a lot longer range than Bio-Arcane Barrage and so is useful for damaging people running away. I talk more about use of this ability in "Tips/Miscellaneous" below.

If you play dominion you know that you start out at level three with a choice of 3 abilities. With Kog'Maw I like to start Dominion with all three of his abilities. His AOE slow ( Void Ooze) is especially helpful at the beginning of the game to damage the whole enemy team at the teamfight top. Caustic Spittle is good for reducing Amor and Magic resistance of enemies early game. And of course Bio-Arcane Barrage is good for staying back from the teamfight top and getting in damage.

From there I focus on upgrading Bio-Arcane Barrage because that is the ability I use the most often, the one that does a percentage of the enemies health as damage, and that gives me ridiculous normal attack range. Kog'Maw's range is what makes him good.

As with most other champions, you don't give up a chance to upgrade your ultimate so you do that at levels 6, 11, and 16.

Other than that I don't think it matters too much in what order you upgrade Kog'Maw's abilities. They all have strenghts and weaknesses which I talked about above in "Abilities".

Kog'Maw is pretty flexible with summoner spells, and really it depends on what summoner spells you like. I personally use Exhaust to reduce the damage enemies can do to me and for 1V1 battles with people like Master Yi. I also use to move around the map faster, and get to top quickly. Ghost can also be used to escape in combination with the slow from Void Ooze.

Other summoner spells that could work well with Kog'Maw include Flash, Ignite, Garrison, Surge, Cleanse, and even Promote.

Playing Kog'Maw takes some getting used to. Not only because of how squishy he is, but also using abilities like Living Artillery can be difficult at first. You should never be the first to start a teamfight, and it is smart to stick with other teammates that can be a distraction and take damage while you damage the enemies.

One advantage that Kog'Maw has over other DPS enemies like Master Yi and Jax is that if you can slow them with Void Ooze while they come at you, they are melee champions, and you can get quite a bit of damage in from far away with Bio-Arcane Barrage before they can even attack you.

Furthermore, you can use Void Ooze to make it harder for enemies to dodge Living Artillery.

Living Artillery is a great ability to use for stopping enemies from capping turrets, and because of its super long range and quick cooldown, you can really harass with it.

Thats about it for this guide. I would appreciate any type of advice or even criticism to improve it, so if you read or use my guide please comment, rate, and tell me what you think.