Cho'Gath Build Guide by Fan22

Hello, this is my second guide here so feedback and comments are aprecciated to improve this guide!

Who i am? Im Fan22 a standard player who plays tanks and mages principaly, i play on the LAS server, aside from that i don't have lots of achievements on league.
I also play rankeds and i Mainly use: Jax, Nasus, Singed, Maokai(duh), Malphite, Tryndamere, Cho'Gath and Blitzcrank.

Remember that English it's not my main language so there can be some ortography errors, if you see one please comment it to improve this guide! :D

Aside from that theres not much left to say from me, lets see Cho gath devouring things!

PROS +Easy to pick up +Good sustain with Carnivore +Can Oneshot squishys just with R going Full Tank +Can be usefull even when behind, thanks to his Ultimate giving additional Health +Insane Oneshots if you go Full AP +Very versatile on builds and runes, can go almost any item! +Good CC, and has a silence +Your R Feast deals True damage and gives additional HP +You can Adapt to whatever your team needs +Late game you are (almost) unkillable with 4K of health, or even more!

CONS -Needs Items for being useful, and some to time to Scale and get Feast Stacks -You relie on your team when going Tank. -Struggles against true damague and armor & magic penetration -You are Countered by % Max Hp damage -It's easiliy kited -Q it's easy to dodge -Inmobile without a Turbo Chemtank, Dead Man's Plate or a Force of Nature -Weak in the early game and when extremely behind or without much Feast stacks.

Cho'Gath its a really good pick, either as a Tank or as an AP mage or AP bruiser. Your R gives you good damage and the ability to have 3k or 4k of HP with just 1 or 2 items, making you ultra hard to kill. I think that Cho'Gath Kit it's very fun to use and his versatility makes him good in any situation and gives lots of experimentation value with builds. He is also not really complicated to play (wich can be very punishing in High Elo). Cho'Gath not only can OneShot people going full tank just using R, but he also provides lots of CC with Q, W, and a slow with % Max hp damage on his E, and that also paired up whit a high sustain passive.

Cho'Gath Abilites



Passive CarnivoreWhenever Cho'Gath kills a unit, he recovers 20 - 71 (+2.83 each level) Health and 3.5 - 7.75 Mana (+0.25 each level).


Tips: Chos passive gives him a lot of sustain in lane, and even in late game.
Carnivore can be used even in turrets and other "living" things like Malzahar void creatures.



Q RuptureCho'gath Ruptures the ground at the target location after a delay of 0.5 seconds. Enemies hit are launched into the air
for 1 second and receive 80 - 300 (+100% of ability power) magic damage, and have their movement speed slowed by 60% for 1.5 seconds after the rupture.


Tips: This ability is good for poking and disengaging, this is your main damage dealing ability when going AP Cho'Gath, remember to use Rupture to get into an enemies meele range and Oneshot him with the W + E + R combo.
Rupture can also be used to cancel Channelings and TP, and also Shen Ult, and since it is an airborne it means that it cannot be reduced by tenacity or purified with cleanse, making it a powerful CC tool when it hits.



W Feral ScreamAfter a 0.5 seconds delay Cho'Gath screams in a cone in front of him, silencing enemies for 1.6 - 2 seconds and dealing
75 - 275 (+70% of ability power) magic damage.

Tips: This ability can cancel channelings, similar to your Q.
Feral Scream it's a really good ability, not only beacuse it silences but it also its hard to dodge and deals a Lot of damage, especially when going AP.
Against high moblity champions in lane (when going AP) we should max either W first since Q it's easily dodgeable.



E Vorpal SpikesCho'Gath's next 3 basic attacks have 50 bonus range and launch a volley of spikes in a line, dealing 22 - 82 (+30% of ability power) (+ 3% of the target's maximum health) and (+ 0.5% per Feast stack) magic damage and applying a 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50% slow that decays over 1.5 seconds to enemies hit.

Vorpal Spikes resets Cho'Gath's autoattack timer.


Tips: As the description says, this ability not only deals a lot of the enemys max HP as magic damage, but also it resets your AA timer, meaning you can autoattack and cast E and land another AA for additional damage, this litte trick can enhance your damage a lot, and it combines with Hail of Blades, wich lets you apply your Vorpal Spikes much faster.



R FeastAfter 0.5 seconds, Cho'Gath devours an enemy unit, dealing 300 / 475 / 650 (+50% of ability power) (+10% of bonus Health) true damage.

Against non-champion units (Dragon, Herald, Baron, Pets, Monsters and Minions) the base damage it's increased to 1000.

If the target is killed with Feast, Cho'Gath grows, gaining 80 / 120 / 160 extra health.
Each stack of Feast gives Cho'Gath 4.9 / 6.2 / 7.5 attack range, up to a maximum of 49 / 62 / 75 bonus range and additional size.

Cho'Gath can only gain 6 stacks of Feast from minions and non-epic monsters, but Feast can stack infinitely on Champions, Dragons, and Epic Monsters.


Tips: This amazing ability deals true damage based on a base quantity + your AP and extra HP, if you kill someone with this ability it also gives Additional Health.
Always try to preserve your Ultimate when fighting for objectives since it deals 1000 additional true damage to objectives, plus your AP and extra HP.
Meaning that you can secure a dragon or a baron really easy, this is why having Tp its really useful, so that you can TP bot and help in a Dragon fight and prevent it from being stealed.

A little detail about Feast it's that all it's effects are upgraded when we level it (on levels 6/11/16 ), for example the quantity of HP you gain from feast stacks, the additional Attack range, size, and true damage.

*Before we see Cho'Gath items & runes i want to give a short explanation about itemization.

First of all, Items, especially on a Tank, have to be adapted every game, for example: Thornmail Force of Nature or Knight's Vow are items that you don't build every game, but when the opportunity shows up they are super gold efficient for you.

So don't take all i say in this guide literally, and always adapt your builds to what you think suits better your playstyle or way to play better!


The second thing it's that as Cho'Gath you will always want items that have HP, movement speed, CDR and resistances (Armor and MR).
But, from all stats, Health its the best one since most of your items, Grasp of the Undying and your ultimate Feast scales with Health. When you have enough HP you should look to buy items that give more resistance or utility.



Frostfire Gauntlet
Frostfire gauntlet synergizes perfeclty with Cho'Gath.
It gives more armor and less MR, Health, and 15% ability haste.

It also has Bami's Cinder passive, and another especial passive.

The passive of the item makes Cho'Gath's next Autoattack create a field of ice that slows enemies inside for 30% (+4% per 1000 health) fpr 1.5 seconds.

The mythic passive gives you 100 health and 6% increased size for every legendary item completed.
This is super good for Cho'Gath since his whole Kit revolves around health and size, and the slow, that aso scales with HP, it's good for not getting kited once you get into an enemies melee range.




Sunfire Aegis
Sunfire Aegis it's another good option option for Cho'Gath, giving you more general damage, especially in long fights.
It gives decent armor and MR, Health, and 15% ability haste.

It also has Bami's Cinder passive.

It has another passive that has a direct synergy with Bami's Cinder.
The passive gives Stacks for every second you deal damage with Bami's Cinder to an enemy Champion or Epic monster, every Stacks increases subsequent damage from Bami's Cinder (inmolate) for 12%, up to a maximum of 6 Stacks.

At maximum Stacks your AA's explode around you dealing inmolate damage to nearby enemies for 3 seconds.


In short, this means the burn passive (Inmolate) will deal additional damage the longer you fight with an enemy, and giving you, at maximum stacks, additional damage on your attacks.
And since Cho tends to have a lot HP, and inmolate also scales with HP, the burn can deal a lot of damage just going tank.

This item it's good into a teamcomp that likes extended or sustained fights, like: Katarina, Sett, Sylas,
Skarner, Jax, Yone, Kayn, etc...


The mythic passive gives you 5% of ability haste for every legendary item completed. This is useful to use your abilities more often, and having on mind all the CC Cho'Gath has, ability haste (CDR) it's pretty useful.



Plated Steelcaps
Steelcaps gives some armor and reduces the damage from incoming autoattacks by 12%, this are higly recommended against a msotly AD team or against champs that relie on AA, like:
Lucian, Jinx, Jax, Tryndamere, Sett, etc..



Mercury's Treads
Mercury treads gives some MR and Tenacity.
Merc's are higly recommended against a mostly AP team or against champs with heavy CC, like:
Cho'Gath(ironically), Maokai, Brand, Morgana, Ryze, Thresh, Leona etc..
Altough they give MR the main reason for getting Mercury tread's it's because of the free tenacity, on Cho'Gath tenacity it's incredibly powerful because you are really inmobile and getting CC'ed constantly let's you useles.



Thornmail
Thornmail its a good tank item that gives armor and HP, its passive causes enemies that attack us to receive 10 (+ 10% of our armor) magic damage and reduces their healings by 40% for 2 seconds, in addition, immobilize a champion It will reduce their healings by 60% for 2 seconds.

This item its technically situational, but due to the fact that there are many champions with healings, or that depend on auto attacks, and the fact that it works very well in a super tank like Cho'Gath, makes it a very common item on him.

It's mandatory against a mostly full AD team.



Force of Nature
Force of nature it's a really good new MR item that gives Health, 60 MR and 6% movement speed. It works on Cho'Gath very well even if there isn't a Cassiopeia or Ryze in the enemy team, bacuse of the high MR it provides and because of it's passive.

The passive gives you a MR and movement speed increase for every stack you have, you gain stacks when taking damage by any (unique) ability. For a maximum of 30 movement speed and 20 MR.

I like more Force of Nature than Abyssal Mask beacuse on Cho'Gath its hard to prock Abyssal Mask passive, and because this item gives more MR and some movement speed, wich helps with Cho'Gath mobility problems.



Randuin's Omen
Randuins gives Armor, Health and 10% Ability haste.

This items passive reduces incoming damage from AA by 5 per 1000 health, capped at a maximum 40% of the attack's damage of the enemy.

And the active slows nearby enemies by 99% for 0.25 seconds and reduce their attack damage by 10% and critical strike damage by 20% for 4 seconds.

Both the passive and the active are insane on Cho'Gath due to your innate tankyness with Feast, making you really hard to kill even for the most feed adc since it essentially reduces a lot of the damage from an AD champ, especially adcs.
This items is higly recommended against champs that relie on AA, like Jax Lucian Yasuo or Jinx.









Grasp of the Undying
Grasp it's probably the perfect rune for Cho'Gath, it gives us extra damage basend on our max health and grants us a permanent Health increase every time we prock it, it also heals us.
This rune it's really good not onyl because it works really well with Cho'Gath health stacking, but also because the extra damage its very useful, in the early game Grasp of the Undying + E Vorpal Spikes does a lot of damage, and later into the game this rune gives a good amount of damage even if we are going full tank.

Altough it sinergyzes a lot and its very useful Grasp its a little bad into hard matchups because we arent gonna use it a lot, and we arent gonna use it at all against ranged champions.


Demolish
Since you stack a lot of HP this rune does massive damage to turrets into the mid-late game, in the early game its useful for taking turret platings and destroying turrets, since Cho doesnt have tools to easily take down turrets, unless you are going AP, in that case you deal some damage to them.


Conditioning
Conditioning it's very good for scaling and getting some free armor and MR, and it also increases a % of them, with some Feast stacks and this rune active you get a lot of free tankiness.


Bone Plating
This rune it's good against Early game champions, reducing their overall damage when fighting you and the reduced damage its very good for short trades and for getting Grasp of the Undying procks without taking too much damage, if you use it try to fight the enemy laner when Bone Plating it's up.
In the late game this rune its very good, making you more hard to kill even if various enemies are focusing you, it also reduces the burst combo from most midlaners.


Overgrowth
As you can imagine this rune sinergyzes really well with Cho'Gath because of the additional Health and because as Cho'Gath you are gonna get a lot of items with Health, it also makes you a lot tanquier in the late game.


Unflinching
Unflinching it's a very situational rune, but when you get the correct game it is super good.
The extra tenacity and slow resistance it gives helps against CC and slows, its really useful in teamfights where people will CC you for ages without letting you even use R.



Triumph
Triumph restores hp and gives some gold when you get a takedown, its a very good rune that helps to somehow live in clutch situations, and in Teamfights the HP restoring helps to survive when you get focused.

Remember you restore a % of your missing health, meaning that if you are about to die this rune could save you, in general it's very useful.


Alacrity
Legend: Alacrity gives extra attack speed, wich it's useful for Cho'Gath since you can use more attacks and helps to use Vorpal Spikes.


Tenacity
Legend: Tenacity it's another good option in the precision tree, the extra Tenacity it's always useful to reduce the duration of CC and slows, because you are very slow and the only ability to catch up an enemy its your Q, so being CC'ed less helps to not let the enemy destroy you.

Here im gonna explain what you should do with Cho'Gath in every phase of the game.

EARLY GAME

In the early game you should focus on procking Grasp of the Undying and farming, farmign ti's important on Cho'Gath not only because of the gold and XP but also to use your passive, Carnivore, if you can't farm because you are already behind or you can't win the trades, just wait until the wave crashes on your tower and farm, always be mearby minions to get XP.
I recommend playing passive and poking with Rupture Q and Vorpal Spikes E + Grasp of the Undying until you hit 6.

Once you hit 6 and have Feast you have 2 options, 1. you wait until the enemy it's low and kill him with Feast to get a stack,
or 2. you instantly eat a minion to get a stack.

I recommend the second against champs that slap you in the early game, the extra HP it's alwaays good to become tanquier, especially in hard matchups.

Generally we want to max Vorpal Spikes first because it gives us a lot of damage and has low cooldown and a slow, and we max second Feral Scream because it deals good damage and it increases the silence duration, to a maximum of 2 seconds.
The reason why maxing Rupture Q it's only good when going AP its because only the damage increases with every point, meaning that W and E offer better things with every point we put on them.

A good trick for Cho'Gath that is very effective against mobility champions its the W + Q combo, the reason for this its because the W silence doesnt let the enemy use mobility spells (not even Flash) wich makes hitting someone with Rupture Q far more easier.

Champs that i recommend using this are: Fiora (this combo let's you use Q without letting her block it with Riposte)
Camille Fizz Qiyana Zed Vayne, etc...

MID GAME

In the mid game Cho'Gath starts to become a high treath for the enemy team, and you will also probably already your mythic ( frosfire gauntlet probably) and finished boots, while you are building your second item.
In the mid game yoou should look to take objectives with your team and always preserve Feast R to kill it, since dragon and herald are free Feast stacks, and remember to ward when you push waves or go into the enemys jungle, since Cho'Gath it's really inmobile if you get caught by the enemy team it's very probably that you are gonna die, so always have vision of the enemy.

Good vision control and the usage of Control Ward can help you to hide in a bush, this works on Cho'Gath similar to Garen, you don't have a gapclose, but if an enemy walks into you with no vision you can disrupt them with Q or E and kill them with Feast, if the enemy ts squishy enough a whole combo + R should kill them.
If you are feed always try to do this since if you pull it off you will always have an even bigger advantague.

Also, in the midgame don't forget to stack as fast as you can your Feast on minions, monsters and objectives, once you have eat 6 minions or monsters you should have enough HP to be reaaaally hard to kill, especially if you are with your team.

LATE GAME

In the late game the enemy team will mostly be at 4 or 5 items, if the match goes long enough even full build and Elixirs.
Here you should have around 6k or 8k of HP with around 140 armor and 120 MR or more, making you really tanky and a huge frontilner, however if the enemy also gets their items they will probably also get anti-tanks like Lord Dominik's Regards and Void Staff, which reduces a bit your tankiness, for this reason try to always bea nearby your team and wait for the perfect moment to engage, because Cho's kit is a little slow and requires to be close you need to get into a TF in the perfect moment, for example when an enemy its bad positioned or if your team stars the fight.
In teamfights use your FeastR wiselly, it is an important ability that can deal a huge amount of damage to squishy champs, you can use it to kill the adc or support (enchanter) or to kill the enemy frontiler, if you are fighting for dragon or baron you should save your ultimate to ensure that your team gets the Objective.

Cho'Gath CC it's very useful, especially his silence, for that reason always try to be nearby your team to help, if you can't help anyone ward the map and farm.

If you win a fight always try to get something out of it, an objetive, a turret, an inihibitor or steal jungle monsters, in the late game some fights and skirmishes in the jungle or in mid can decide the game, so be careful, especially because Cho'Gath doesnt have any escape or mobility.

And last, don't forget to get an Elixir of Iron once you are full build or if an important fight it's about to break out.

Aside from that theres not much else i can say, generally however wins late game teamfights wins the game or gets objectives instead.