Hello all! Cho'Gath has been one of my all time favorite Champoions in the game. I was looking at the guides for Cho'Gath and I noticed that no one really plays him like I do. I felt like you guys might like another view on the Terror of the Void. I really hope you like this guide. Enjoy!

PROS! Carnivore gives him amazing sustain Great early trading with Vorpal Spikes Natural tankieness with Feast Very hard to kill Practically with impossible to kill late game Two AoE CCs ( Rupture & Feral Scream)

CONS! Not very mobile Easy to kite Rupture is hard to land and easy to dodge No innate escapes When playing Gentleman Cho'Gath, like I do, all your teammates get extremely jealous of your ravishing good looks and are likely to react with rudeness, because they are NOT Gentlemen.

Ignite - This is a must on Cho'Gath. He has really good early game kill potential with his Vorpal Spikes and Feast. Having that extra damage will help to secure kills or stop an enemy from healing back up during duels.

Teleport - As horrifying as the Terror of the Void is, he's not that fast, which makes getting to teamfights or even getting back to lane difficult. This give you the global presence you lack and gives your team the help they need. I take this over Flash because, generally, if you feel threatened you can just Rupture and back out.

Flash - I can understand taking this. It still has many uses and is one of the greatest summoner spells. Go ahead and take this spell if you're not yet comfortable or confidant in your abilities with Cho'Gath.

All the Other Summoner Spells - No.

Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed - Due to Cho'Gath's lack of mobility these are helpful for kiting, roaming, and just keeping up with your team in general.

Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration - These are fantastic. All of Cho'Gath's moves scale with AP. With these marks you can deal so much damage with your Vorpal Spikes and auto-attacks.

Greater Seal of Armor - With most top laners being AD Bruisers or Hybrid Damage dealers these are very helpful and provide good early game tankieness.

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist - Helps a lot against most all magic damage early game. Very helpful. You can also run 3 Greater Glyph of Magic Resist and 6 Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist for a bit more Magic Resist mid to late game.

Offensive Mastery Tree

Fury - This is the only mastery you get in the offense tree. It is very helpful when trading because most of your damage comes from Vorpal Spikes

Defensive Mastery Tree

Block - Very good for trading early and help against ranged harass if you top lane against a ranged opponent (i.e. Teemo, Lissandra)

Recovery - The extra health regeneration helps sustain over time

Enchanted Armor - The 2% bonus Magic Resist and Armor helps a ton mid to late game

Unyielding - Helps out against ranged harass and syenrgizes well with Block

Veteran Scars - Extra 36 health could make the difference between life and death early game

Oppression - With your Rupture slowing enemies helps out when trading or fleeing with low health

Juggernaut - 3% maximum health is really nice late game, especially if you just build him straight tank.

Hardiness - 5 bonus armor is nice for durability in lane

Resistance - Just more durability in game, still really helpful

Perseverance - Helps you stay in lane longer and just over sustain

Swiftness - With Cho'Gath's lack in mobility this is very helpful when you trying to escape or charge head first into the enemy lines

Second Wind - Probably one of my most favorite masteries for any tank who need sustain. With Carnivore this makes you very hard to push out of lane. This mastery is also good on champions like Shen, Zac, Dr. Mundo, and Volibear

Legendary Guardian - Basically your own mini tenacity. Very helpful due to Cho'Gath's lack in mobility

Utility Mastery Tree

Meditation - Cho'Gath is quite mana hungry if his abilities are use to often. To often I've found myself just glad to have this little bit of mana regeneration to throw out that last Rupture or Feast.

Possible Item Starts

Preferred Start - I prefer to start out with Crystalline Flask, 2 Health Potions, a Mana Potion, and the Stealth Ward. This gives you that much more sustain in lane and allows you to be extremely aggressive early on. You can use moves and trade with opponents more often. If you're not partial to being aggressive you can use the extra sustain to easily outlast your lane opponent.

When Against Ranged Opponents - Against top laners like Teemo, Vladimir, or Lissandra I find it best to start Doran's Shield. In combination with Block and Unyielding their auto-attacks hurt that much less. It gives you a lot more durability in lane.

When Against High AD Opponents - When against a high AD opponent like Riven, Tryndamere, or Rengar I like to start Cloth Armor and 5 Health Potions. When I find myself having to start this way I either toss the Cloth Armor aside till later or I build into an early Warden's Mail to later build into a Frozen Heart.

Core Items

Sunfire Aegis - This is very good for Cho'Gath. Since your not very mobile you'll want to stay in lane as long as possible. Being able to push quickly is very helpful. This also gives you a lot of DPS during a fight.

Wit's End - This is an extremely large source of damage for you. With most all of your damage coming from your Vorpal Spikes this just increases your damage tenfold. I am a die-hard fan of Wit's End, I use it whenever possible.

Sorcerer's Shoes - These gives all your moves a good kick (no pun intended). Other boots that are ok to use are Ninja Tabi and Mercury's Treads. I only get those if I'm falling behind though. You have enough tankieness to not need them in the long run.

Abyssal Mask - This is a great item. It gives you plenty of magic resist to tank more and it's passive is great during team fight when your Sunfire Aegis is dealing all that AoE DoT. It's good to get this before Wit's End only if (A) your planning on team fighting earlier or (B) there is a Fiddlesticks on your team. The Abyssal Mask's passive mixed with Fiddlesticks' passive will shred your enemies magic resist during team fights.

Frozen Heart - This is great item. It gives you more tankieness and more mana to use your moves more often. You can sometimes build this before Abyssal Mask if they have a fed AD champion causing mischief around the rift. It also gives a great passive just to impare the stats of the enemy team during teamfights.

Warmog's Armor - This late game item makes you pretty much unstoppable. It's not as important as your early to mid game AoE items but it is really good late game. Another final item you can't get is Rylai's Crystal Scepter, but only get this is you are really far ahead.

Greater Vision Totem - People seem to forget that you can upgrade these things. I like this upgrade because it gives you a free Vision Ward to hide in Baron Nashor's pit.

Carnivore - In my opinion it's one of the best passives in the game. The sustain given to you by this passive is ridiculous. Whether in the top lane or jungle you should never find yourself running low.

Rupture - This is your only movement impairing ability. I only take one point in it at level 1 and max it last because the damage from it is really not significant. The key to learning this move is timing and knowing what your opponents are most likely to do. As an example, I was playing Cho'Gath in the jungle and I went to gank bot lane. When the overextended Tristana saw me I knew she was going to try to Rocket Jump over me to escape my Feral Scream so I put a Rupture at what I knew was her max range of her escape and she landed right on it and we picked up the kill. This is Cho'Gath's most difficult moves to master so don't get discouraged if you miss it quite a lot when you first start playing him.

Feral Scream - You know how annoying a Fiddlesticks' Terrify can be? You, not being able to do anything for three whole seconds while you get decimated. Well imagine that as a silence. Not that bad you say? Well imagine you entire team silenced for three whole second. Yeah, thought so. A lot can be accomplished in three seconds and with a well placed Feral Scream you can turn the tides of many a teamfight. I max this right after Vorpal Spikes because it's utility far outweighs its lack of damage. It is another hard ability to land, but not as hard as Rupture

Vorpal Spikes - I LOVE this ability. The sheer harass damage that you can get of with this is awesome. This is a very unique ability; Vorpal Spikes adds on magic damage to your auto-attack and makes a wave of spikes shoot a short distance past your target. The spikes only deal the damage from the move itself but it scales off AP so you can deal some major damage with these bad boys. The trick to using these is lining up the spike's range attack with a minion so when you go to take a CS you are harassing the enemy at the same time. Now this move can toggle on and off. The ONLY time you should turn this off is when you are hitting a turret and you don't want your spikes to hit a champion and get the turrets attention.

Feast - This is your source of natural tankieness. at the lowest level and with all 6 stacks it gives you and additional 540 health and late game it gives you 900 health. It's a great ultimate. It does significant damage to champions making it a good execute. It also does 1000 true damage (with an AP scale) to monsters or minions, making Cho'Gath the last enemy you want in a fight for Baron Nashor.

In Lane - During the laning phase of the game you key focuses should be: (1) Creep Score, I cannot express how important this is, it is very easy to execute creeps with Vorpal Spikes so no excuses. (2) Not dying! You're not Karthus, it's not ok if you die. You loose stacks if you die which can weaken you quite a bit. (3) Harassing. Let me be the first to say that kills are not all that important, but keeping up with damaging your lane opponent is. If you push them out of lane you can deny them a lot of gold and experience. If you do see an opportunity for a kill than take it, but don't go all #420YOLOBLAZIT mode on them and dive them under turret and get yourself killed.

In Teamfights - Peel the enemy team back like a banana! With your Rupture and Feral Scream you have a great amount of control during teamfights use it to your advantage. Also you are supposed to be absorbing damage for you team like a sponge in the ocean. You are a tank. You are strong.

When fighting for Baron Nashor or the Dragon - Your Feast does a flat 1000 damage to monsters and minions, mix that up with a Smite and you got yourself a game turning advantage. IMPORTANT: Make sure, when you try to steal something, that you either Feral Scream or Rupture the enemy jungler so that they have no chance to Smite.

I really hope you liked my guide on Cho'Gath! I also hope that this contributes and improves, your play with the Terror of the Void. Well I'd love any constructive feed back or just all around comments on my build! Thanks for reading!