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Kog'Maw Build Guide by

Taste My Spit ! - Your ultimate AP Kog'Maw Build.

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Kog'Maw Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (46) More Kog'Maw Guides

Spells:

Flash

Ignite

Items

Starting Items

Buy this during lane phase

Core Items

Situational

Final build Example

Ability Order

Kog'Maw Passive Ability

More Kog'Maw Counters

Chapter 1

Introduction

Hello folks! This is YayaFTW, and It's an honor for me to present you the ultimate AP Carry Kog'Maw build!

The main reason I decided to make a guide about Kog'Maw as an AP Carry is because I noticed that this playstyle for this versatile and popular champion is underrated by many players, especially the new-comers. But what most of you don't know, Kog'Maw is one of the most painful Mid-Lane Champions to play against.

Here's a quick glimpse of what he can do: (Credit goes to Best AP Kog NA / Cohen5250)

The point of this build is to show you how to build a devastating Kog'Maw to tear apart most, if not all AP mid-lane champions.

I'd appreciate the feedback my friends, truly! To be honest this is my first guide, and i'm looking forward to improve, so feel free to leave comments and ideas on how I can improve anytime! Let's get this started!

Big thanks and Credit to jhoijhoi, I am using his build template, a true genius this jhoijhoi.

Pros / Cons

spaaaaaaace

Pros

+ Exceptional Farmer.
+ Excellent Harasser with
+ Jungler friendly with
+ Devastating combos early and late game.
+ Lane Destroyer/Dominator if mastered.
+ Not mana hungry if you manage it well.

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Cons

- Squishy early game.
- His ultimate takes skill to land.
- Very vulnerable to Gap closers (Akali, Lee sin, etc etc..)
- No sustain.

Masteries

21 Points in the Offense Tree, maxing the Ability Power tier, you know, the casual mage tree.
9 Points in the Defense Tree, in the Flat HP / Scaling HP tier to get rid of some of that early squishiness and survive potential enemy ganks.

Runes

Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: Boosts that early Void Ooze damage and scales well with the Offense tree.
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: Synergizes well early game with Void Ooze and late game with Caustic Spittle.
Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction: I prefer AP Scaling runes over AP Flat ones by far because they give the same amount of AP at level 7, and more than double that amount at level 18. And I guess an average Kog'Maw player can make it easy and safe to level 7 regardless of which of both these runes.
greater seal of Vitality: With these runes and the 9 Points in the Defense tree along with Rod of Ages, you can say bye-bye to squishy Kog'Maw.

Summoner Spells

: I mean come on ! is more than a must-have on every single champ in my opinion. It saved my life every single game I played so far.

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: This spell works like a charm with + combo early game. It significantly increases the damage output and often secures a kill if you catch the enemy out of position.

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: I suggest this spell for skilled people only since it takes fast reflexes and correct momentum to use it successfully. It takes 's slot, but against some mid-lane champions like or some junglers like it's worth it, maybe even mandatory.

Ability Explanation

Icathian Surprise: Were you trading damage with an enemy champion and something went wrong? Did their jungler come out of nowhere? did they manage to finish you off while they are low health? Fear no more ! Just run to them and explode their sorry @$$ off and get your well deserved kill back !

Pro tip: If you are being chased by a ranged champion and you know you can't make it, turn around and go melee on them and dish as much damage as possible, and finish them off with your passive after you die. If you keep running away you will eventually die and you won't catch him with your passive.
Caustic Spittle (Q): This spell can nuke hard, dish a lot of damage to squishies late game and lets you shredder a tank with his armor/magic resist debuff, but I find that this spell isnt that useful early game, and that it takes away the range advantage of Kog'Maw's combo if you rely on it a lot.

Pro tip : Don't level this spell until late game, and when you do, use it to initiate combos or weaken tanky champions.
Bio-arcane Barrage (W): This ability is just Godlike!! This is what makes Kog'Maw one of the best harrassers in the game by FAR! I can't believe how many times I get a "Stop this **** this isn't fairplay!" from the enemy champion when I combine it with Void Ooze because I leave him at 8 cs in 10 mins of the game.

Pro-tip: Pay attention to minion aggro when you harass, it might be the reason you die since you have no sustain. Also, always combine this ability with Void Ooze, The more time he is slowed the more hits you land on him. Also use it to last-hit minions easily if you have trouble with that.
Void Ooze (E): What can I say, this is what makes Kog'Maw the excellent farmer he is. In Mid-game and this spell at level 5, you just easily melt the whole minion wave, melee and caster combined!! And that's not it, this spell is one of the rare spells that fully synergize with any jungler in the game, along with Karthus's Wall of Pain. And again that's not it ! It hits so hard and slows so much it can make a whole 5-man enemy push back off when combined with Living Artillery!! And on top of all, it's one of the easiest skill-shots to land..what more do you want?

Pro-tip: Don't use it unless you're melting an enemy wave or going for the kill or saving a teammate or yourself, also, its range go a little bit further than the displayed range. Use this spell wisely because it can turn the tide of a chase if used in the right moment.
Living artillery (R): Ohohohoho, now we're talking serious. Your enemies will find this ultimate to be by far, the most annoying ultimate on earth, besides the Spin-2-win Death Lotus and the Press-R-2-Win Requiem. You can use it to chase, harrass, farm, steal, secure, check bushes, anything, literally anything, and above all EXTREMELY fun to use. BUT it's takes skill to land, a lot of skill and practice. But let me tell you this: master this ultimate, and you will demolish the lane, destroy it.

Pro-tip: Living atrillery has an extreme range, and grants vision on successful hit. ALWAYS HARASS WITH IT! and always predict your enemy's movement, where he's going and land it a little bit farther to get him in the hitbox. Also, always be aware of your whereabouts, don't just keep snipe-chasing the enemy till you find yourself in their base getting killed by turrets, happens a lot.
One more thing, manage the use of it, it can drain your mana pretty fast if you chain it a lot. And never hesitate to use it to check bushes and steal drakes and nashor's.

Ability Sequence Order

> + >

I decided to max out simultaneously and since they work like bread and butter with each other, and leave out for the end since it doesnt cooperate with the other spells early game. Of course, I level up whenever I can.

Items

Item Sequence

: Let's you deal almost true damage early game. If your enemy team tend to focus you with CC switch them for Mercury's Treads late game.
: Let's you stay in lane forever and also sygergizes well with Archangel's Staff.
: I don't even need to explain, all I can say is that it let's you have around 950 ap late game.
: Let's you spam your ultimate without going out of mana early. Also gives a sh*tload of AP.
: Just throw an AA between every spell you cast and you'll be dealing crazy damage.

Farming/Laning

In Laning phase, you should focus on two important things: Last hit as much minions as you can, and zoning the enemy champion. While doing so you should keep in mind a few tips:

+ Always avoid minion aggro. If the enemy minion wave has more pressure than yours, don't harrass unless you're going for the kill and That you're sure to survive after getting him. You have no sustain so you will end up zoning yourself if you harass unconsciously.
+ When you are harrassing/zoning the enemy champion, keep in mind that their jungler will certainly come to gank your lane to free his friend from your pressure, so never overextend without wards or while is on cooldown.
+ While playing AP , I found out that there's a specific moment when I often get a kill if your jungler is a bit tanky/not squishy or has insane gap closing mechanics such as or . The way to always snap a certain kill is that, after zoning and harrassing your enemy, his friendly jungler comes in to help. There's a 90% chance he will burn his to close the gap on you and help his jungler to kill you after the jungler engages you. What you do is throw a in front of you so they can't chase you, and if necessary away. After a fail gank the enemy jungler will guard the mid lane for the enemy mid champion to recall and come back. When t jungler's gone and the enemy mid is back, Now is the time you go for the kill: pop your HP/Mana pots and go aggressive on him, just spam all the spells and make sure you never miss. The thing is, he won't recall back when he falls to low HP because he just recalled a while ago and he wont risk losing more farm/exp. Now all you have to do is towerdive with your jungler, immediately + if he fights your jungler back, or Snipe him off with while he runs back to base. Make sure your jungler is good and knows what he's doing.

Teamfights

In teamfights, your job is easy and simple: Try to hit as many enemies as possible with , focus with and along with AA with procs between spells and their carry, and constantly throw a between AA. If you are winning the teamfight, be ready to snipe off the runners/flashers with your ultimate and get the well-earned ace.

+ Always try to stay away from enemy spell/AA range since you have much more range. If they try to focus you and you drop low health and you know you'll die a certain death soon, go in the middle of the lot, spam as much ultimate as you can and explode in the middle of the teamfight.

Summary

Well this is it ! I hope this wasn't too long to read, I tried to keep things simple. I also hope you enjoy playing this champ as much as I did. I am expecting your feedback my friends! And i'm looking forward to improve as I could use a bit of help from you guys with that =P

If you found this guide very helpful, please Upvote and +rep me as a lot of time was put in this and I would like to see some encouragements and motivations to help me make more guides in the future. If you do downvote for any reason, please let me know why in the comments section below and I will do my best to rectify my errors.

At last, i've managed to collect some screenshots of successful games from solo queue gaming with AP these last few days. I never went negative with him in these last 16 games I played but I only won 12 of them. After all, it's a team game, and one can't do a whole team's job ;) Send me yours and i'll upload them along with mine gladly.

Also I wanna thank these people who helped me a lot through their templates and guides to make this guide, thank you guys. It was jhoijhoi who mentionned them in her template and I used her template so they deserve credit too.

PsiGuard
LameoGamer
Bloofyre
ShadowNet
SirSpank
Meridianprime

Happy spitting! See you later!

Change Log

17/07/2012: Detailed the item build section.
16/12/2012: I was about to archive this guide but when I saw the good feed-back I decided to update it for S3, although there wasn't much to change except Masteries.