Chogath is a great pick on pretty much any team. He's arguably the strongest tank in the game, with two forms of ranged AoE CC and a true damage mega-nuke that's useful for controlling buffs/dragon/baron, too. Cho also hits really, really hard with his basic attacks, having the highest AD gains per level in the game and a passive skill that adds 80 (!!!) + 0.3 AP damage AoE to your auto-attacks. He is one of the strongest natural sustainers in lane and is a strong jungle pick as well. Let's take a look.
Skills Carnivore (passive): Whenever Cho'Gath kills a unit, he restores 32 + (2 x level) health and 3.25 + (0.25 x level) mana.
This is the reason Cho wins matchups. Last-hitting gets you health and mana. It's been nerfed recently because it was deemed as ridiculously strong, but it's still one of the best passives in terms of lane utility. You can usually get away with building no hp regen and no mana regen due to this, although you may want to if it will help you win your lane. More on this later.
Rupture: Ruptures the ground at a target location. After a delay of 0.75 seconds, enemies in the area are dealt magic damage, knocked into the air for 1 second, and slowed by 60% for another 3 seconds.
Cost: 90 mana Cooldown: 9 seconds Range: 950 Radius: 175
Your one point wonder. Rupture does more damage than scream, but is less reliable in terms of damage. It's basically there to knockup-slow on chase and escapes and for a little farming utility in lane. If you land this, you should deal a significant amount of damage to someone because it sets up literally every other move in your arsenal. Landing rupture is probably the skill that sets good chogaths apart from great chogaths. I smartcast everything and it makes landing ruptures that much faster, but probably a little less accurate--but I've got about 2k games on Cho, so it's second nature to me. Practice rupture. A lot. Practice everything about it. Predict in 1v1 situations, predict in 5v5 situations, practice laying a rupture on top of yourself when getting ganked and flashing out as they get hit, practice blind ruptures over walls and cliffs, practice flash ruptures on chases, practice putting it behind them so they either stand and get hit by your or run and get hit by rupture then you. Rupture is your utility knife, your desert eagle, your auto-shotgun and your body armor. Knowing where to rupture is the key to Chogath.
Feral Scream: Cho'Gath screams in a cone in front of him, dealing magic damage to enemies and silencing them for a few seconds.
This is your lane winner. You can out-trade almost anyone because of this and your auto-attack damage. It's an AoE silence nuke and it shuts summoners down when ganks come. What more do I have to say? Max this 99% of the time.
Vorpal Spikes (Passive Toggle): Whenever Cho'gath uses autoattacks, he will launch spines which deal magic damage in a line in front of him.
Yes, you heard right. It's an AoE Infinity Edge at level 5. Max this in jungle because you wreck everything with it, and once in a while in certain situations it's even good to max first in lane. Cho's auto-attack damage was already the highest scaling in the game without the AoE component. It's worth noting that this triggers spellvamp and Rylai's.
Feast: Devours a target nearby enemy unit dealing true damage. Feast always deals 1000 (+0.7 per ability power) true damage to minions and monsters. If the target is killed, Cho'Gath grows and gains extra health. This effect stacks up to 6 times and Cho'Gath loses half his stacks rounded up upon death.
Cost: 100 mana Cooldown: 60 seconds Range: 100
True Damage to Champions: 300 / 475 / 650 (+0.7 per ability power)
Health Increase: 90 / 120 / 150 per stack
DID YOU EVER GET SO MAD THAT YOU ATE SOMEONE? TRUE DAMAGE NUKE WITH A 0.7 AP RATIO. GET F*CKING HYPED MOTHERF*CKAAAAAAAAAAAA.
Let's talk about Feast. There are two strategies with Feast:
1) Save Feast for strategic situations like ganks, dragons, teamfights and buff skirmishes. 2) Feast fucking everything every time it's up.
I usually use strategy 2 until I'm 5 or 6 stacked. After that it's a mix of 1 and 2 depending on how mad I am CUZ FUCK YOU, GET FEASTED.
Pay attention to your mana. Feast costs 100, Rupture 90, Scream 70-110 depending on level, so for a full combo, ideally you want about 300 mana. That's a lot. Sit back and don't harass with skills for a wave while you passive yourself back into combo land.
Rupture behind, scream in front, flash-ignite-feast-auto-chase. Flash/Ignite/Auto-chase optional, and sometimes you start it off by scream-rupture, flash-scream or flash-rupture. People are very easy to predict when they are silenced and generally run in straight lines. If they don't, that's how you catch them with flash.
Caster Cho mid/top: flat ap quints, mpen reds, mp5/lv yellows, ap/lv blues Tank Cho mid/top: Armor/MS/flat hp quints, mpen reds, armor yellows, mixed mr blues Jungle Cho: Aspd quints, aspd reds, armor yellows, mr/lv blues Retarded max e Cho top: MS quints, aspd reds, armor yellows, mr/lv blues Support Cho: Gold/10 quints, armor reds, mp5/lv yellows, cdr or mr blues
Masteries 1/21/8 for lane 0/21/9 for jungle
DO WHATEVER YOU WANT THOUGH
Builds
THIS IS WHERE YOU G IT UP
I used to follow set builds on Cho like Rod -> Tank or double gold/10, but now I've come to realize that you just build literally whatever the fuck you want on him. I recommend rageblades.
Okay, seriously though:
OPENING ITEM COMBOS:
dshield dring cloth + 5 pot cloth + 2 pot + ward boots + 3 pot
I pretty much open strictly these item combinations vs almost any hero. If you're jungling or going vs a strong AD laner that you don't need boots to outlane, go dshield or cloth + 5 pot. If you need an early ward, cloth/pots/ward. If you think they can't kill you no matter what (lol), boots 3 pot, ring, or shield. If you're going mid against a caster or against someone that does mainly magic damage, ring or shield.
Tanky Stuff vs Physical Damage: Glacial Shroud, Frozen Heart (upgrade it, idiot, don't get both), GA, Thornmail, Lantern, Sunfire Cape, Aegis, Randuin's Omen
Yeah, Lantern. AD Cho wins some lanes super hard and it's pretty strong in jungle even if I do skip it once in a while. Sunfire is generally bad unless you're up against burst AD champs like Talon or need a combination of hp and armor when their burst is AP and their sustain is AD. GA is for those games where you're like "I just really don't feel like dying" because it takes almost all the aggression off of you. Use it in situations where you're not getting focused in the first place but need a bit of a deterrent while you build full damage. Frozen Heart is damn near core in some matchups, an early glacial helps you stack Feast, gives you mana to lane with, makes you near impossible to kill against champs like Garen/Jarvan/Pantheon that rely on physical damage, and nothing says "fuck you" to Renekton quite like a chainmail first. Aegis is amazing but usually I don't carry it on Cho, and I think Randuin's Omen is retarded on Cho.
Tanky Stuff vs Magic Damage: Force of Nature, Banshee's Veil, Wit's End, Merc Treads (ALMOST MANDATORY), GA, Abyssal Scepter, Spirit Visage, Aegis
I almost never get visage anymore. It pretty much sucks on Cho now. That being said, you need it to stack feast sometimes. Force of Nature is the best MR item on Cho, hands down--what better way to compliment your character than massive MR, hp regen and movespeed? Banshee's is situational, but useful. Treads are mandatory except in troll matches where you want zerk greaves, games where you're a jungler and want early zerk greaves, or really really rough lanes where you for some reason can't win without dodge boots. GA is GA and you'll almost never trigger it once you get it unless you're diving something sick or dead after revive anyway. Abyssal is amazing in the right matchups. Aegis is again great but not something you want Cho to carry, in my opinion.
Good damage items--grouped by build mentality:
Lane items for Tanky AP: RoA (coreish), Rylais, Abyssal, Zhonya's... and sometimes, once in a blue moon, Deathcap.
Rod is pretty much the go-to Cho item. Rylai's is good but is harder to build. Abyssal is amazing against caster matchups. Zhonya's is fun but largely useless because who the fuck wants an immobile Cho that can't be hit? Deathcap does a TON of damage but is otherwise completely useless. INSANELY FUN though.
Lane items for Hybrid Cho: Rageblade (coreish), Wit's End (coreish), Lantern, Gunblade, Triforce.
Hybrid Cho is fun. You build enough defense to not get immediately blown up and then MASSIVE DAMAGE. RUN AT THEM AND KILL THEM WITH RAGEBLADE.
Jungle items for Jungle Cho: Lantern, Zerk Greaves, Wit's End, Atma's, Rylai's, Triforce, all kinds of situational tanky shit.
Jungle Cho is something you have to play by ear. The ONLY item you know you're going to get is madred's razor, which 99% of the time means lantern, but 0.5% of the time means you don't upgrade it and 0.5% of the time means you get a bloodrazor 'cuz you're trolling. Do a ton of damage, control dragon/buffs/baron, and survive fights is your goal.
Jungling
HERE IS THE MOST OP CHO PATH OF ALL TIME
Wraith with smite -> wolf -> wraith jack -> blue buff -> wraith -> twin gols/red buff -> twin gols/red buff.
BUY OR GANK
On your first b, you want to get boots, pretty much no matter what. Cho does tons of damage with auto when you max e so you don't need razors until you want to do dragon, but getting it earlier lets you do some crazy fast dragons. As soon as you get feast you should be thinking about laying a pink and attempting dragon. With 2 procs and smite/feast you should be able to do it with one support heal and a health pot, but it's mad risky. If you get a kill and you have your bot lane with you it's almost guaranteed, though, and you're never in danger of getting it stolen unless you get stunned or suppressed. If worse comes to worse just drop feast on a champ while you die and you'll probably pick up a kill.
SPECIAL THANKS TO: All of the oldschool TL players, especially Smash, Loci, Boxed In, DSC, Guitar, Daenius, BEAR BARBSQ, Locodoco, Rhavanna, Caller, Spudman, numbers, BLAZERAID, Chrispy, Jougonaut (RIP), NEOILLUSIONS, Shake, Twodowns, Stoppin, Tapioca, Spinesheath, RED8D, Cynic, Uta/Baikin/Turkeyforce, and my superbestfriends Honver and Kyuubicake.
awesome guide, though I dont really play cho anymore I am going to link this to a couple of friends who do. (and scip people always think you troll until it turns out it's hidden OP jax irelia e.g. )
Masteries + runes 100% depending on the opponent. Well except for flat MR glyphs, always best never not best. Mass armor vs physical damage, mass MR vs magic damage, other cool things against lanes you win anyways.
I've been carrying quite a bit as Cho lately, and and I don't think I have ever used the same build twice. Movespeed and CDR is boss.
Cho crushes Talon so hard in lane it's not even funny. But be prepared to predict/follow his laneswitching because your other solo lane will feed Talon anyways.
5HITCOMBO King of Normals. Love the guide, man. I have a friend who will be especially happy you're back...he's been attempting to perfect your jungle Cho forever.
How do you feel about other AS/AP items than Rageblade, like Malady or Nashors? On paper they look decent, but is it too unreliable to get more than a few autos off in a teamfight for building particularly high AS to be worth it? The 0.3 ratio on spikes makes AP turn into decent autoattack damage in addition to adding to your three nukes, which looks delicious.
What about getting Mejai's to force others to attack you instead of when they would normally ignore you? Nothing says "catch 22" like a 6-stack cho with GA and Mejai's in a team fight.
On October 26 2011 03:37 STS17 wrote: What about getting Mejai's to force others to attack you instead of when they would normally ignore you? Nothing says "catch 22" like a 6-stack cho with GA and Mejai's in a team fight.
How do you feel about giving Chogath red in some situations instead of the AD carry? I've had red a few times by accident (mostly killing the opposing AD carry) and in team fights sitting on an opposing carry or two with red has made my team absolutely dominate.
Hell yeah. Cho is my reliable I want to win this champ for life.
I get an elisas first and then speed boots to own the lane no matter what. the mana regen on the elisa and then q/auto attacking the caszter minions gives you all the mana you need for constant q harass and e backup before just walking back. ROA is a shit ass item on cho I don't give a fuck what people say. gunblade was my choice but after it got srs nerfed I'm trying a more frozen force(thornmail if you arn't afraid of the ap on their team and are afraid of the ad) of atmogs path while protecting the carry's though godly positioning and sheer will of badassdom. Rammus gets his face raped with this build. getting ap Isn't a smart path I just feel with cho. its far better to get more health and ad. the w and q in late game is better for the cc effects to close the distance and let the dps guys on your team get free reign on some poor fool who got in your sight.
theres a lot of playing by the ear like every tank wits end is a hella good item in the middle of the game when MR is very much loved. An item I think should be considered (shockingly) is a phantom dancer. movement speed to get up in their face and do some dammage plus more as which is a godsend on a cho that gets 80 magic aoe dammage with each hit stacked onto your ad.
the 2 people that give me trouble is a ryze and an annie. mid game annie can make you a wet fish by empying almost all your health and stunning you for the rest of the team to kill. you make your worth by being away from everyone else on your team against her. then in late game she becomes the fish by getting slowed by your q and you eating her or her not doing enough dammage to really matter in late game. Ryze needs to close distance to kill you but he can kite better then anyone in the game 1v1 with that casted snare being cdr'ed by useing other spells and having hella cdr on ryze to begin with. just got to hope to get that q down and your teammates to not derp it up.
Cho is an epic tank to play. The team must kill you or you kill them :D all the while buying your team time to win and not derp it up.
On October 26 2011 05:10 APurpleCow wrote: How do you feel about giving Chogath red in some situations instead of the AD carry? I've had red a few times by accident (mostly killing the opposing AD carry) and in team fights sitting on an opposing carry or two with red has made my team absolutely dominate.
I've seen many games where CLG gives Hotshot (as Cho) red buff over their AD, probably for this reason. I can only assume it's a good idea - but good luck trying to convince people of that in solo queue.
Yeah, red buff is amazing on Cho, it's why he's such a dangerous ganker. If you hit them with a red buff proc or a rupture it's pretty much insta-blow flash and maybe still get the kill.
The reason you get a gunblade on Cho is because it gives him MASSIVE sustain in fights and a third form of cc. Gunblade active someone and auto-attack them with vorpal (which lifesteals and spellvamps) then predict where they're running with rupture and scream to silence their escape as you feast them midair.
SPECIAL THANKS TO: All of the oldschool TL players, especially Smash, Loci, Boxed In, DSC, Guitar, Daenius, BEAR BARBSQ, Locodoco, Rhavanna, Caller, Spudman, numbers, BLAZERAID, Chrispy, Jougonaut (RIP), NEOILLUSIONS, Shake, Ruken, Twodowns, Stoppin, Tapioca, Spinesheath, RED8D, Cynic, Uta/Baikin/Turkeyforce, and my superbestfriends Honver and Kyuubicake.
Sigh what not to love about him: -Jungle with him and you'll usually get a dodge -Passive means you farm like you dont give a fuck -Badass silence -Get 5k health ezpz with warmogs (not cause it matters but because you can)
On October 26 2011 11:42 Cloud9157 wrote: How does Cho fair against Irelia?
I play Irelia and it always seemed like an interesting matchup, though I've never played it.
from my experience, she has a small timing window pre level 4ish if you can manage to dodge his q and w his face. but usually, it ends up being a farm fest so i started getting philo+hog if my team is doing fine. just be wary when he's about lvl 11 and when your lane is being pushed all the way to tower. cho can tank tower and eat you alive with his jungler since they can exploit her low base hp (obviously)
On October 26 2011 12:29 sermokala wrote: Saint vicious repping cho on his stream jungleing. basicaly owning face like something else.
For anyone wondering, here is how Saint has been Jungling Cho most often.
Open Boots-Pots into Regrowth to Philo. Head towards Heart of Gold, then Merc Treads. After that get Recurve into Wit's. Then go to Randuin's. After that point, he has done Abyssal but I think it's pretty variable. He eventually turns his Philo into Shurelya's.
Jungle path I have seen him open Wolves with help into Leashed Blue into standard Aggressive most often (Blue, all the creeps, and then Red).
He also sometimes opens Cloth-Pots, into Philo then boots or Heart. When he does that, I have seen him steal Wraiths and then go Sustainable (no-buffs on first thru) and start ganking at level 7. He can get Heart AND Philo by 7 minutes this way which was his biggest roflstomp I have seen.
I think opening Regrowth and stealing either enemy Wraiths or Golems is most ideal for rushed gp5 items (though you need team to help scout), seeing as you can get Philo after first back and Ruby after 2nd and then Heart AND Boots on the next one. Alternatively, if you want to gank, Philo into Boots into Heart might be more ideal if slightly delayed on the 2nd gp5.
maybe now that you, as a trusted cho main, mentioned he is awesome with red buff, I won't have to beg for it like I had to half a year ago /Idideverythingthatbecamecool I disagree with leveling Q first in lane, unless you lvl 1 teamfight. E first gives you much more strenght against melee champions at top and allows you to just bully them from the get go. Q doesn't even help against lvl 2 ganks all that much, I mean its nice but you still take loads of damage and its better to just stay back until the gank threat is over.
On October 26 2011 16:30 Scipaeus121212 wrote: maybe now that you, as a trusted cho main, mentioned he is awesome with red buff, I won't have to beg for it like I had to half a year ago /Idideverythingthatbecamecool I disagree with leveling Q first in lane, unless you lvl 1 teamfight. E first gives you much more strenght against melee champions at top and allows you to just bully them from the get go. Q doesn't even help against lvl 2 ganks all that much, I mean its nice but you still take loads of damage and its better to just stay back until the gank threat is over.
You can't level E early because you push your lane and lose all your farm to not being able to get close to the tower as a melee fighter yourself. You level Q because it lets you make Level 1 plays, zone out melee without super pushing the lane, and threaten squishy ranged characters. If you are pushing your lane blindly you are getting an awful creep score.
At some levels, it doesn't matter, but farm wins games at higher levels. That's why it needs to be a strategic decision when to push towers. Against Ryze and other slow-aa'ing squishies without good AoE you push early and often and smash them into their tower and they lose all their farm to the tower while you can get more, so that's good. but against most melee, you smash them into tower and now YOU can't farm and they can because of the tower.
You can level e just fine. I do it all the time. You just have to do it against people you know you can escape ganks from in lanes you know you don't need to win with w. Scream always hits minions anyway, it's not like you're gonna NOT push lane as fucking Cho. You just play it like old Mord, push wave and move back and ward well and don't do it against like rammus/noc/ww past 6.
Source:
me because i mained cho with the best players in the game
On October 26 2011 18:28 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: You can level e just fine. I do it all the time. You just have to do it against people you know you can escape ganks from in lanes you know you don't need to win with w. Scream always hits minions anyway, it's not like you're gonna NOT push lane as fucking Cho. You just play it like old Mord, push wave and move back and ward well and don't do it against like rammus/noc/ww past 6.
Source:
me because i mained cho with the best players in the game
I believe what I said was... You don't blindly level 1 E regardless of matchup. You do it as an active choice when it fits. Also, there is a difference ebtween getting a couple creeps Screamed and using E from level 1... You push incredibly hard with E whereas Scream is much softer if you aren't blindly spamming in order to push.
On October 26 2011 19:01 Sleight wrote: I believe what I said was... You don't blindly level 1 E regardless of matchup. You do it as an active choice when it fits. Also, there is a difference ebtween getting a couple creeps Screamed and using E from level 1... You push incredibly hard with E whereas Scream is much softer if you aren't blindly spamming in order to push.
You realized you can turn E off when you don't want to push, right?
On October 26 2011 19:01 Sleight wrote: I believe what I said was... You don't blindly level 1 E regardless of matchup. You do it as an active choice when it fits. Also, there is a difference ebtween getting a couple creeps Screamed and using E from level 1... You push incredibly hard with E whereas Scream is much softer if you aren't blindly spamming in order to push.
You realized you can turn E off when you don't want to push, right?
Example of someone coming in without reading the actual series of replies. We are discussing LEVEL ONE SKILLS. So explain what would possess you to take a Level 1 E you aren't using!??!?!
Oh wait, you came into a conversation in the midst, didn't read anything previously said and are talking about something completely irrelevant. My argument is that FIRST PICK E is incorrect blindly and will be incorrect in most lane situations. That is it. No need to waste a point early on E except in extreme cases.
I really wish people would be less focused on being "clever" and more on "reading the conversation."
On October 26 2011 22:38 Sleight wrote: Example of someone coming in without reading the actual series of replies. We are discussing LEVEL ONE SKILLS. So explain what would possess you to take a Level 1 E you aren't using!??!?!
Just because you can turn off the skill means you won't use it at level 1?
Win trades with melees with E. Turn it off when you're last-hitting. 3-4 autoattacks with E aren't going to push harder than Q at level 1.
On October 26 2011 22:38 Sleight wrote: Oh wait, you came into a conversation in the midst, didn't read anything previously said and are talking about something completely irrelevant. My argument is that FIRST PICK E is incorrect blindly and will be incorrect in most lane situations. That is it. No need to waste a point early on E except in extreme cases.
Of course you don't skill it blind. Very few champs in the game skill blind ever.
Double wraith jack is legit, I've done it, you just have to keep the timer in your head and know when it's gonna be up so you can be high enough to safely get in and out (with flash up, of course), but usually it's not worth it as much as the path I listed.
Another really good one against people that start blue is wolf -> blue with leash -> their smalls -> level 3 gank.
Depends, it's usually build-dependent as well. I do it in lanes that push hard against me like mord or champs that can gapclose with no escape skill like xin. Most of the matchups are uncommon ones and ones that I think I'll be either unable to outharass their sustain with scream, able to outdamage their sustain with auto-attacks, or in games where I see myself able to play essentially 100% unafraid of them killing me and I want to go rageblade first. None of the common matchups are really max e, but I do it when I feel like a combination of factors will allow me to get away with it, especially me not teamfighting for a while/them being bad at dodging rupture/bad ganks from their side. It's kind of something you just have to make up on the spot, but if you pick the right one it's amazing.
On October 26 2011 03:37 STS17 wrote: What about getting Mejai's to force others to attack you instead of when they would normally ignore you? Nothing says "catch 22" like a 6-stack cho with GA and Mejai's in a team fight.
Posted this in the last cho guide.
Turns out that only works against bad players, but it does work very well against them.
Against good players, stacking items never work out.
5HIT. I made my TL account... after many years of lurking without... for one reason. To point out one thing. Among the vast majority of champions in LoL, Cho has among the highest of skill caps. Rupture placement and silence timing means everything. I would argue that a great player, with great game sense and instinctive timing could play an item-less Cho and be just as successful. The items are simply what makes him less targetable.
Without ranting, all I really want to say is that what makes him so good, and so underused at the same time, are his ability to build damn near anything and be just as dangerous and effective.
And now that I've been thinking about Cho, it staring across my apartment trying to figure out what I'm about to make for dinner... I actually can't name a champion that is by nature more versatile. Maybe Udyr...
just played a few games for fun as tanky AP cho how is cho balanced rofl? went ROA DFG Abyssal Rabaddons... 3.6k hp with a 2.5k+ burst haha. 1200 of that being true dmg. so much fun :D
On November 02 2011 14:11 SedatedGaming wrote: 5HIT. I made my TL account... after many years of lurking without... for one reason. To point out one thing. Among the vast majority of champions in LoL, Cho has among the highest of skill caps. Rupture placement and silence timing means everything. I would argue that a great player, with great game sense and instinctive timing could play an item-less Cho and be just as successful. The items are simply what makes him less targetable.
Without ranting, all I really want to say is that what makes him so good, and so underused at the same time, are his ability to build damn near anything and be just as dangerous and effective.
And now that I've been thinking about Cho, it staring across my apartment trying to figure out what I'm about to make for dinner... I actually can't name a champion that is by nature more versatile. Maybe Udyr...
Love, Cedated
Udyr's not terribly versatile because of his teamfighting limitiations IMO. Nidalee's similar. They both have flexible build paths and lane assignments, but their utility in teamfights are pretty lacking. I'd say that the guys in Cho's league as far as versatility is concerned are Jarman the Fourth and Gangplank. All 3 can play in any lane or jungle and have very very flexible build paths. They are all good to varying degrees at alternately counter initiating and pelling and initiating and diving in teamfights. I kinda disagree with you about them having the highest skill cap exactly, but I do think that these characters at the very least offer an interesting level of decision making throughout the game.
K so on topic, I feel like Cho has a high skillcap, yes, because in spite of being capable of completely crushing a team at any level, I still fail at it quite often in games against top players. Like, it's rarer for me to be able to hijack a game with Cho like I can at lower levels because people understand the concept of burst estimation a lot better and can juke ruptures without dying, too.
That being said I feel like Cho is very forgiving to play because you have such a huge amount of HP to go with your burst. Quite different from someone like Xerath who just gets blown up by being slightly out of position.
Cho's one of those champs that I love to play because I call the shots. I'm the guy telling everyone what's up in fights, who to focus, where to be at, and how to engage. I enjoy the decision-making and I'm usually the best at it. 90% of this game is thought and 10% is execution, a really good player told me last night, and in spite of being pretty bad at the 10%, I rock at the 90% part most of the time. Take command as Cho. Dictate the fights. Scale back your tunnel vision and hit that one rupture that knocks 3/5 their team up, scream at the people you need to silence, run in and ultralisk them in the face. Bite someone's head off and peel for your carries and let everyone know where to go with your monstrous alien character model.
It's a good feeling to completely beastmode a fight as Cho. Not like Akali, where everyone just blows up, or like Amumu, where you're like "yeah, that was a perfect ult," but more like
everyone running around in jungle and you drop a rupture you KNOW catches over half their team
"GO GO GO" "wow that rupture was sick" "lol look at them run, i'm so good" "GET FEASTED, BITCH" "LOL IGNITE KILL" "FLASH? YA RITE GET SILENCED" "BLIND WALL RUPTURE FOR THE ACE, WHAT'S UP BITCHES"
and then everyone is like "holy shit Chogath just wrecked that fight"
Versus Yorick, its more or less a farm fest unless you get a gank from your jungler, or he is really really bad at dodging ruptures, but generally if you're only able to harass him lightly he will just out sustain your damage, so you generally trade farm, while getting in his face to deny him creeps whenever you can.
On November 27 2011 11:55 De4ngus wrote: you get health back from his ghouls max e and eventually you will be able to autoattack him out of the lane.
cho rapes yorick ~
Basically this. Yorick might hurt a bit at early levels, but once you get some levels and get your E and W up, Cho is nearly impossible to push out of lane.
On November 27 2011 11:50 Ziken wrote: Versus Yorick, its more or less a farm fest unless you get a gank from your jungler, or he is really really bad at dodging ruptures, but generally if you're only able to harass him lightly he will just out sustain your damage, so you generally trade farm, while getting in his face to deny him creeps whenever you can.
What they said. I actually have a special page for champs I know I'm gonna max E vs, it's aspd reds, ms quints, armor yellows and mixed mr blues. Open dshield or cloth + 5 pot and be pretty aggressive, if you hit a rupture or two it's very easy to pick up a kill with auto-attacks.
5HIT, did you play around with any of the new masteries for jungling yet?
Right now I run 15 Arpen / Armor / Mres / MS and 28 / 1 / 1 masteries and I feel like a bigger, more badass train then ever before. I tried running more AS from runes but the damage from masteries is just so massive that I feel as if I don't need it at all.
Been experimenting with those types of masteries on Cho/Maokai/Skarner and it feels pretty boss on all of them. MS quints compensate no utility tree well enough to not get kited and I rather have DOUBLE PENETRATION than the lousy "I cant clear my jungle"-defensive stuff or moar buff duration. =D
Yeah, aspd reds for jungling make way more sense. I've been doing some janky stuff and all of it works perfectly well, 9/21/0, 1/21/8, 12/12/9. It depends what you're looking for against what teams, make your own judgements based on their teamcomp and your playstyle.
You know dat feel when an enemy is jussssst hovering around low enough health where you can feast him, and he doesn't go back so you throw down the Q and you're like "OMG OMG OMG HE'S GUNNA HIT IT" and gives you the kill? Soooooo good.
On November 27 2011 11:41 OnceKing wrote: How do you lane Cho against someone extremely harass oriented such as Yorick?
Depends by "harass". You're going to struggle vs a teemo. But Yorick, ezpz. I'd say enemies that can harass and run easily are going to be a big problem.
On February 13 2012 23:08 Xedat wrote: One quick question, does the bonus magic damage from E benefit from spell vamp or life steal?
it procs rylais iirc, so presumably spellvamp.
edit: proof
v1.0.0.103 - 2010-10-18
Rupture cooldown reduced to 9 from 10 Rupture mana cost changed to 90 at all levels from 80/90/100/110/120 Vorpal Spikes is now classified as an area of effect spell for the sake of items like Rylai's Scepter or Hextech Revolver
The only spells in the game that proc lifesteal are ones that proc on hit effects. E.G. Ez Q, GP Q, Shyvana Q, Twitch ultimate (the latter two being the only on hit AoEs), dunno if I forgot any others. All of Cho's spells work with spellvamp instead but there are auto attack magic skills which don't proc either life steal or spell vamp, like Kog/Teemo/Fizz Ws. Cho luckily escapes that.
in a ranked arranged 5 setting, is cho supposed to have kill potential in lane with the exception of your jungler ganking? I just bought cho and after about 10 games i feel that he's better off philo+hog and just farm with tp as opposed to going for a kill with ignite. I'm seeing that he may as well just harass and force the opponent to go back while he farms all day. it's just too hard to go for the kill against decent players.
regardless of ur summoner u have big burst at 6 (with a good true damage portion), ignite ofc makes this stronger but with a jungler gank you should be a kill threat at any point in the game with ur cc and decent damage
so I have been playing Cho.. I wanted to get some feedback on wether or not I am doing it right.
TP/Flash - 9/21/0 I max R>W>E>Q, on level 1 get Q I will go tabi/mercs + cata/glacial shroud + wits end and then finish Banshee or FH depending on the enemy team.
My main concern is the runes: armorquints or AP quints? Atkspd or mpen reds?
It really depends heavily on the matchup. There are times when you will want to run even something as strange as a full armor page against certain laners because you can shut them down so hard by doing so. I'm not a huge wit's end fan, but Hotshot does it and he's a really strong player so I suggest you follow his lead. Again, it depends what your role is on the team. If you're the main tank I think you really want FH/FoN as your core... Banshees is very situational on Cho because you actually want them to use cc on you and you're so big that most skillshots will hit you anyway, unlike an ad or ap who can weave in and out. As far as runes go, do whatever you want. Mpen always helps, but late game I think the aspd is stronger because you're gonna be autoattacking towers quite a bit.
Of course all of this is standard top cho, for jungle it's obviously aspd and for mid you go full Mpen/ap or some janky Mpen/mp5/mr setup. I don't feel like top cho is quite as strong anymore, but if you're not super high elo it really shouldn't matter because it's so fun.
When I get my computer fixed I'm gonna play shit tons of games with Cho to get back into my groove and I will have this updated when I figure out the next trends. Hotshot did tabi + the philo item in iem, but hotshot also fucked up and lost the game looooooooool.
On March 12 2012 15:21 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: When I get my computer fixed I'm gonna play shit tons of games with Cho to get back into my groove and I will have this updated when I figure out the next trends. Hotshot did tabi + the philo item in iem, but hotshot also fucked up and lost the game looooooooool.
The game he chose to do that really confused me though. Tabi + Philo item vs a double AP kennen-vlad comp? I forget who M5's carry was, but with that much sustained magic damage and Ashe as the AD carry, I don't understand the tabi choice. I could see it being the right choice a lot more than it's currently played, though.
okay, i really need to watch some high level cho gaths. i always end up farming the entire game. as an irelia player, i'm used to farming up till level 11ish (usually) and become godmode and literally drop my opponent. i just can't figure out cho's window of opportunities and end up playing safely as i do with almost every champ i'm not familiar with. i've seen some of hotshot's cho, he seems to be playing cho really passively, just as i have been doing. i have a 1700 elo friend who can beat rumble (and other fairly hard laners) in lane by himself, so i'm guessing there are different ways to play him. suggestions?
Cho's window of opportunity is the time of the game where he has either 2 medium items like glacial shroud + wit's end or his first big item such as RoA and some small components. Usually it's around level 10-16, where he's outleveling everyone and has taken his tower in lane or dropped it to secure a dragon and rally his team for a mid or bot tower. If you're mid lane, very few AP champs will be able to beat you with the right rune page, but mid lane is basically all about who gets better ganks. Cho can kill people straight up in mid, though, because rupture dunks fools who can't dodge. Turning games into farm wars with Cho is a good and bad thing. On one hand, when you hit your peak effectiveness, you'll hit it very early in the game, like 30-40 mins. On the other hand, if the game goes to 50-60 mins, you're going to lose to champs like Irelia, Tristana, Gangplank, Tryndamere, etc., because when you die as Cho late game the stack loss actually hurts.
Basically the trick to beating players in lane is knowing how much harass you can take in what form from certain champs and how the gank will come and being prepared for it when it does. Having the correct runepage and masteries helps, and Chogath is only as strong as your ability to hit rupture. Practice rupture placement. Every one you miss is wasting quite a bit of mana, but hitting that clutch rupture can get you kills you REALLY don't deserve.
omg..just lost my lane to only jaximus's blitzcrank against my cho. He didn't kill me or anything (forced me out of lane and got my tower) but damn his silence and shield are like the perfect way to counter a cho. tbh I thought he was trolling, but then he did in fact chose blitz after my cho pick.
How the crap do you go against a blitzcrank? He went some 2 doran's blade, triforce, last whisper crap. boo
On March 17 2012 00:40 billy5000 wrote: omg..just lost my lane to only jaximus's blitzcrank against my cho. He didn't kill me or anything (just got my tower) but damn his silence and shield are like the perfect way to counter a cho. tbh I thought he was trolling, but then he did in fact chose blitz after my cho pick.
How the crap do you go against a blitzcrank? He went some 2 doran's blade, triforce, last whisper crap. boo
That sounds like a 2gate into Dts into carriers lol.
Hello guys, I've just played quite a bit of jungle Cho games, so let me dump some thoughts in here. Starting boots +3 in jungle seems the best. Masteries 0/21/9 are pretty obvious. I usually start wolves, golem etc. It is pretty fast (something like 3:40 lvl 4 I think?) but really tight and can't gank inbetween really. Maybe some better route? First item is either boots2 or HoG, if I get a kill/assist early and feel like ganking, I get oracles on my first back. Seems pretty good, you shouldn't be dying any time soon anyways. I didn't try madreds, but I don't see for what purpose I would get them; I jungle just fast enough to kill all creeps and have 10-20 sec inbetween every round to do something, except for the ones when buffs are up. My first big item is usually FoN or Frozen Heart, any reason to get other items first? My build usually looks like 2 big tanky items (like FoN and FH) into Wit's End and Rageblade, these really up the deeps. Maybe Rylais makes more sense? But 15% slow isn't anything fantastic, barely noticeable tbh. I'd say best positioning in teamfights is either on top of your carries or between their carry-divers and yours. Maybe if I stay on top of carries, I can get 1 less tank item and get wit's end and GRB sooner? But then your team diver dies faster. Is flash better than ghost? I've been using ghost, but some people have been laughing at me (I'm looking at you Slayer) for using ghost on everyone. Flash would allow me to feast anyone and jump over walls, then again I usually feast their team diver anyway.
So is EQEWER still the best leveling for Jungle Cho? Also is Philo pretty mandatory? I did a blind test-run jungling him last night and I felt very mana starved, but I went WEWQ so that might be part of it. Would you still build Wriggles if you went Philostone?
I don't have a ton of experience jungling cho (so please correct me if I'm saying something stupid!), but I think I'd avoid wriggles regardless of whether you get philo because it feels really redundant - he already clears fast and his health never gets low. I haven't tried going without philo but I don't think the mana regen is very necessary - maxing E first means you can clear camps fairly fast without having to use your spells. My rationale for getting it is typically for the gp5 and eventually building shurelya's more than the sustain.
Getting an early FoN doesn't sound particularly good to me unless APs are getting extremely fed. I think MR options were discussed a bit in the Maokai thread and some of that probably carries over here, but as a tank-jungler I usually find that most of the damage I take comes from AD carries rather than AP, since AD carries are the ones attacking whoever's closest whereas AP carries have more tankiness to target squishier targets and actually waste their spell cooldowns if they cast on you. So I'd tend to prefer smaller sources of MR like merc treads, aegis, wit's, and/or sitting on a negatron until after other core items are completed. But I guess cho with feast stacks gets big enough that any AoE damage is going to hit him whether it's intended for him or not, so he might value MR more than other champs filling a similar role.
On April 03 2012 11:46 De4ngus wrote: i never jungle cho but wriggles sounds pretty bad =/
I dont think its as bad as you think it is. It definitely makes him clear jungle faster and gives reasonable sustain and free wards. It is a good enough early game buy and you can always sell it if you get to ultra late game.
On April 03 2012 11:46 De4ngus wrote: i never jungle cho but wriggles sounds pretty bad =/
I dont think its as bad as you think it is. It definitely makes him clear jungle faster and gives reasonable sustain and free wards. It is a good enough early game buy and you can always sell it if you get to ultra late game.
Sustain is not a problem for Cho because of his passive. Even so, you do a lot of AoE magical damage with your vorpal blades which doesn't work with life steal. Buying a recurve bow feels more effective if you want to speed up your clears. Overall the arguments are the same as for phoenix udyr.
Hey, I've been trying to find this information everywhere. When Cho is in brush and uses rupture, the rupture ground animation doesn't show right? This information would make or break cho gath as a jungler for me.
I remember in the old Cho champion topic 5HIT mentioned how Xin Zhao rapes Cho. Does this still hold true/how would you lane against him (since it's currently free Xin week lol)?
On April 13 2012 02:36 OnceKing wrote: I remember in the old Cho champion topic 5HIT mentioned how Xin Zhao rapes Cho. Does this still hold true/how would you lane against him (since it's currently free Xin week lol)?
Early levels I can see that happening but after Cho starts to stack some armor, ie Ninja Tabi, Glacial Shroud->Frozen Heart and some stacks on Feast, it becomes ridiculously hard for Xin Zhao to burst down
If I were forced to play the matchup I'd probably open a lot of dumb stuff like cloth armor lantern dorans shield(s) glacial and ninja tabi with 2 gold/10 items and play passive until ganks while maxing E in case your jungler comes and you can land something on him.
Update: I've been running solo mid rush gunblade cho lately. It rapes a lot of matchups now that they buffed his movespeed and you can land w even more reliably.
9/21/0 with points in initiator and cooldown, flash/ignite
flat ap/mpen/mp5/lv/flat mr
open boots + 3 pots and qwwewr R>W>E>Q
first buy negatron if you need it, dodge boots if you need it (over chain vest because it delays your gunblade less and gives you more movespeed, always good with cho), or if you're winning just buy parts of gunblade, starting with revolver.
rush gunblade. Once you get gunblade you can pretty much solo anyone by walking towards them -> gunblade -> rupture now that they can't dodge -> scream -> feast -> auto-chase with ignite at any point and most champs can't stop it. Either go tanky now or if you're still wrecking everything start making triforce or PD. Sounds troll but it's actually really freaking legit.
21/0/9 never, RoA -> FH with mercs is pretty standard on a 9/21/0, WOTA is weak on cho, especially after the nerf, Deathcap is strong but you don't have the AP to justify it and you'd rather have Rylais, especially in a tank build, but honestly build whatever you want because you're cho and the only thing that matters is your rupture hit rate.
On May 08 2012 17:18 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: 21/0/9 never, RoA -> FH with mercs is pretty standard on a 9/21/0, WOTA is weak on cho, especially after the nerf, Deathcap is strong but you don't have the AP to justify it and you'd rather have Rylais, especially in a tank build, but honestly build whatever you want because you're cho and the only thing that matters is your rupture hit rate.
this sounds pretty much right. I always build RoA into Frozen heart, like ALWAYS. I usually pick up an abyssal scepter instead of rylais though.
I personally always max Q first, but thats because I usually try jungling and most players don't expect the rupture as much as somone that you are laning against and therefore they don't dodge it well.
On May 08 2012 17:18 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: 21/0/9 never, RoA -> FH with mercs is pretty standard on a 9/21/0, WOTA is weak on cho, especially after the nerf, Deathcap is strong but you don't have the AP to justify it and you'd rather have Rylais, especially in a tank build, but honestly build whatever you want because you're cho and the only thing that matters is your rupture hit rate.
this sounds pretty much right. I always build RoA into Frozen heart, like ALWAYS. I usually pick up an abyssal scepter instead of rylais though.
I personally always max Q first, but thats because I usually try jungling and most players don't expect the rupture as much as somone that you are laning against and therefore they don't dodge it well.
I don't get Rod if I'm going Rylais usually, the game doesn't last long enough. I think that even in the jungle, maxing R>E>W>Q is best because if they don't dodge the rupture, you're going to gapclose on them and apply red buff anyway so the extra auto damage you get off of spines will be easily enough to output more dps than a flat extra bit of burst on rupture. Do what you want, though .
This one time last night I hit Rupture -> Scream -> Feast. I think it was the first time I've ever done that. It was awesome. I still don't think I'll be playing much Cho though, I find it so hard to be useful with him somehow =X.
AP cho is so hit or miss. If you miss your Q there goes half of your damage output. I feel bruiser chogath is so much stronger. I've never thought about hextech on chogath, theoretically should be pretty good on him, but some concerns is the cost effectiveness vs the stats it offers.... I think chogath should just be built bruiser, since he can pretty much avoid building frozenmallet (due to his huge health bonus from his ulti again, but you can build it just to be super beast). With items like atma's, wrig's, wits end, hexdrinker, bloodrazer, offer damage + defensive statas, chogath becomes a tank and a huge damage threat.
On May 09 2012 05:28 wei2coolman wrote: AP cho is so hit or miss. If you miss your Q there goes half of your damage output. I feel bruiser chogath is so much stronger. I've never thought about hextech on chogath, theoretically should be pretty good on him, but some concerns is the cost effectiveness vs the stats it offers.... I think chogath should just be built bruiser, since he can pretty much avoid building frozenmallet (due to his huge health bonus from his ulti again, but you can build it just to be super beast). With items like atma's, wrig's, wits end, hexdrinker, bloodrazer, offer damage + defensive statas, chogath becomes a tank and a huge damage threat.
I like the super generic builds that go double gold/10 -> mercs -> FH + Reverie + Wit's. Not needing HP = rush Frozen Heart to me. Like, seriously, every time I think that on a character I'm just like, "ok, I'ma get FH then."
Cho is definitely one of my favorite top laners. I tend to go boots+3 into either Glacial Shroud > Frozen Heart or Boots+3 > Witt's End as my first items depending on my lane matchup. I guess I don't see the point in rushing RoA because you don't need the health or mana especially if you keep your feast stacks up and know how to last hit. The ability power is nice but also isn't needed. Cho with a witt's is pretty damn scary especially if you get your E maxed.
R > W > E > Q but you get 1 point in Q early for ganks.
My core items for Cho are Merc/Ninja, Witts, Frozen Heart & Abyssal Scepter.
I'm pretty good at Cho, but I never have gotten double gp/10 builds to work that well with him. With a philostone only, yes... think going two sacrifices too much. Then again I suck with bruiser type Cho and never was that successful jungling him either.
I tend to go heavier on AP than I used to with Cho, something like merc treads/RoA/FH/Deathcap/Abysal's/situational item (usually FoN or another armor item). Still go 9/21/0 on him with penetration marks, flat armor seals, scaling mr resist, and move speed qunits. Problem I always had was I'd be first in farm by far, but my team never did enough damage for my tankiness or cc to matter much (which takes a lot of effort on their part). His ratios are sick, and you don't even sacrifice that much tankiness to get deathcap (not that hard to get a negatron and just keep it til deathcap is done).
How about getting a Rylai's on Chogath. It gives AP and it does slow with vorpale spikes. Chogath doesn't need to build HP, but the slow and AP is nice.
On May 17 2012 10:25 BlackMagister wrote: How about getting a Rylai's on Chogath. It gives AP and it does slow with vorpale spikes. Chogath doesn't need to build HP, but the slow and AP is nice.
E has near-melee range, Q already gives a slow, R is a finisher-nuke. W would be the only real contender of benefit from the slow. You're better off building separate health items or separate AP items.
I really like AP tanks like Cho. He's one of those tanks that can potentially do a lot of damage. If only his knock-up CC was more reliable, I would take him as my main tank. Tanks like Alistar can dish out good CC but can never really do damage.
On May 17 2012 10:25 BlackMagister wrote: How about getting a Rylai's on Chogath. It gives AP and it does slow with vorpale spikes. Chogath doesn't need to build HP, but the slow and AP is nice.
E has near-melee range, Q already gives a slow, R is a finisher-nuke. W would be the only real contender of benefit from the slow. You're better off building separate health items or separate AP items.
cho gath is very underplayed IMO. he is really really good against some AP carries mid.
I even dare to say that he is a rather good solid mid laner. rushing abyssmal on him is brutal mid. his silence kinda gives him what keeps kassadin alive but unlike kassadin he can actually win trades with it before lvl 6. also he is a major gank assist because of it and his knockup. after 6 + flash + ignite up his ult becomes a garanteed kill very fast.
top he has problems against alot of those champion who have raw sustained power like olaf i think.
In general I think cho should be played more atm. he kinda has everything in one champion that a team wants: good scaling, good laneing, burst damage, utility.
his scaling is very interesting because he does it with 3 properties very well: ap, mres/armor, cdr. this set makes him a strong candidate for a couple of the most costeffective items in the game and one can allways consider to build him in different ways according to the situation.
On May 09 2012 06:05 zer0das wrote: I'm pretty good at Cho, but I never have gotten double gp/10 builds to work that well with him. With a philostone only, yes... think going two sacrifices too much. Then again I suck with bruiser type Cho and never was that successful jungling him either.
I tend to go heavier on AP than I used to with Cho, something like merc treads/RoA/FH/Deathcap/Abysal's/situational item (usually FoN or another armor item). Still go 9/21/0 on him with penetration marks, flat armor seals, scaling mr resist, and move speed qunits. Problem I always had was I'd be first in farm by far, but my team never did enough damage for my tankiness or cc to matter much (which takes a lot of effort on their part). His ratios are sick, and you don't even sacrifice that much tankiness to get deathcap (not that hard to get a negatron and just keep it til deathcap is done).
as for the gp/10 builds, have you ever tried going kage's lucky pick into DFG (only turn it into DFG until at least RoA, FH and negatron)?
i find that the build I like best is always boots3->catalyst->merctreads->RoA->FH->abyssal->deathcap and then situational, which I rarely get to. so basically the same build as you. I've been wanting to try kage's lucky pick whenever I am in a lane that I am winning...but haven't gotten around to actually doing it.
On May 09 2012 06:05 zer0das wrote: I'm pretty good at Cho, but I never have gotten double gp/10 builds to work that well with him. With a philostone only, yes... think going two sacrifices too much. Then again I suck with bruiser type Cho and never was that successful jungling him either.
I tend to go heavier on AP than I used to with Cho, something like merc treads/RoA/FH/Deathcap/Abysal's/situational item (usually FoN or another armor item). Still go 9/21/0 on him with penetration marks, flat armor seals, scaling mr resist, and move speed qunits. Problem I always had was I'd be first in farm by far, but my team never did enough damage for my tankiness or cc to matter much (which takes a lot of effort on their part). His ratios are sick, and you don't even sacrifice that much tankiness to get deathcap (not that hard to get a negatron and just keep it til deathcap is done).
as for the gp/10 builds, have you ever tried going kage's lucky pick into DFG (only turn it into DFG until at least RoA, FH and negatron)?
i find that the build I like best is always boots3->catalyst->merctreads->RoA->FH->abyssal->deathcap and then situational, which I rarely get to. so basically the same build as you. I've been wanting to try kage's lucky pick whenever I am in a lane that I am winning...but haven't gotten around to actually doing it.
DFG is better now but I'm still hard-pressed to get it on Cho. There's a lot of better stuff for him and it's not like your single-target burst is what's lacking. I don't like the gold/10 builds because A) you farm like a monster already and B) you need to take advantage of your strong midgame with Cho because he doesn't scale into late as hard as other tanks like, say, skarner or mundo.
if anyone is able to make that call on cho it would be hsgg. He played solo top cho the best and might have been the only pro to really use his potential. with hsgg as a jungler I doubt that cho will get back into the meta in any time.
last night I bought gentlemen chogath skin. solo q will never be the same for me.
I think Cho is entirely hit or miss on landing his rupture, which as of now, NO ONE can do even remotely consistently, not even HS anymore. Once that's gone, his disruption and damage is surpassed by many other champions. I think they should lower the delay on his rupture by 0.25s or less to at least make him less binary. It's just way too easy to dodge by anyone with boots 2 imo.
Yeah, Cho's dead. He doesn't scale into late game, period. You're a monster for about 10 minutes but if you don't win or create an insurmountable advantage in those 10 you lose to a better comp every time. He's just doesn't do anything as well as other champs do right now except block skillshots. Wooooooo.
Am I the only one who still main's Chogath??? I <3 my little feasting monster beast :D
And as for HotShotGG's comments, I think that Cho just gets pummeled by these bruisers top like jarvan, or can get easily zoned hard by kennen. he just doesnt have that tankiness that he used to have top lane.
I am not that sure about cho being unviable, I play him occasionally and win with him pretty often, maybe it's just people being tards. One of the biggest problems of Cho is his complete inability to assist ganks in any meaningful way against most top lanes (Lee Sin, Jax, Olaf, Kennen, Riven, Renekton + also anyone with flash up). He certainly does well in lane, unless you are against an AD carry. It feels like you should be able to do so much in teamfights with the AoE silence too, I wouldn't could Cho Gath out just yet. I'm gonna theorycraft on him today and see what I can come up with.
i think cho is extremely strong in the right comp. said comp will have a crazy-good initiator like ashe or morgana or jarvan, someone that can GUARANTEE that cho's rupture lands. once rupture hits, it's over. that person is dead 100%. knockup lets everyone hit their skillshots on the poor sucker, silence ensures no escape, true damage eats through tanks and squishies alike. if cho lands ruptures, he dominates the game, and so to ensure game domination, you have to ensure ruptures hitting.
i've seen a couple teams like TGF run cho top with morgana mid and a high-damage jungle that also has CC (like renekton, ww, lee) and then ashe bot. cho runs more AP than tank. it's a strong comp because you have no choice but to ignore cho, and he subtly wrecks your team
he can be strong in lane if he's babysat for a few levels, and only as a last pick to ensure that any of his really hard matchups aren't picked. i think cho can do well against olaf, for example, but i would never pick him after the enemy picks lee or riven. idk
I am pretty sure you can do just fine against Lee and Riven given you max E and use Atk Spe Marks. Seriously, Cho's E is possibly the best single autoattack buff in the game, it should be maxed whenever playing against melee only champs (like Riven and Lee)
On May 22 2012 00:01 Scip wrote: I am pretty sure you can do just fine against Lee and Riven given you max E and use Atk Spe Marks. Seriously, Cho's E is possibly the best single autoattack buff in the game, it should be maxed whenever playing against melee only champs (like Riven and Lee)
Ah I definitely think the maxed Silence vs Riven is way better, especially early. Longer silence = no passive or CC for Riven.
On May 22 2012 00:01 Scip wrote: I am pretty sure you can do just fine against Lee and Riven given you max E and use Atk Spe Marks. Seriously, Cho's E is possibly the best single autoattack buff in the game, it should be maxed whenever playing against melee only champs (like Riven and Lee)
Ah I definitely think the maxed Silence vs Riven is way better, especially early. Longer silence = no passive or CC for Riven.
What runes, masteries and starting items have you tried it with? I tested it with both AP and attack speed runes, mostly with 9/21/0 masteries and cloth + 5/boots + 3/doran's ring as starting items and in all and every case maxing E proved itself to be far superior.
The reasoning is simple, there really isn't that huge a difference between a 2 second and 3 second silence, because the main role of the silence is to disrupt his combo. The damage increase on the W is to be perfectly honest pathetic against anyone but the squishy squishies, especially given it's long cooldown and increasing mana cost. Now the difference in lvl 1 E and maxed E is 60 damage/hit, which is a lot. "But Scip, the difference between lvl 1 W and maxed W is 200, which is a lot more!!!" That's right sweetling, but that's not seeing the whole picture here is it. Now when you max W and the lane is pushed a bit past the river, 'cause you be chogath after all, Riven can go absolutely ballistic nuts-to-the-walls mad on you can while you can only disrupt him for 3 seconds with your silence and do 200some magic damage that gets reduced by his hexdrinker. Now if you max E my dear, he can try these aggresive shenanigans on you but you just hit him back like a truck and actually beat him in prolonged fight 1 on 1 easily.
Now you might try to argue that maxing W helps you harass him or similiar. That is absolutely untrue, you have to have W up for whenever he tries to jump on you, max it or not, so if you use it you have to back off for 10some seconds.
I am not saying there is no chance that you are right, but as you can see I am extremely sceptical of it since the explanation you provide is insufficient. Could you please elaborate more on how the 0.25-1 second longer silence helps you so much?
I think no matter what Riven trucks Cho'gath so that was a poor example. I don't play Cho'gath, I play Riven, I find W max to poke while last hitting and pushing lane to be a better strategy then trying to fight Riven. Because trying to fight Riven is a bad idea.
According to my experience, given you max E on Cho, use 9/21/0 masteries and start cloth + 5 or boots + 3 (bit less safe) then you can very comfortably beat Riven, thanks to his inability to trade with you once silenced, melee-only nature that exposes him to Vorpal Spikes and physical-only damage that allows Cho to build Glacial Shroud as his first item, mitigating insane amount of damage. Rivens lack of sustain is the nail in the coffin. While it should be noted than Riven is harder to gank than Cho is AND supports ganks better, I would say that Riven is one of the easiest matchups for Cho. Edit: It should also be noted that Chos damage is mixed, much of your damage comes from autoattack that has one of the highest values in the game. Building resistance therefore isn't nearly as efficient for Riven as it is for Cho.
You max e against riven and fight her in the middle of a creep wave with 9/21/0 when your jungler is coming, because if you manage to get a kill off before she gets her lantern you can win the lane, but not by yourself. As soon as she has lantern, she becomes a HUGE pain in the ass, so make sure your jungler camps her, because you need to have a pretty big advantage by then.
You can beat her 1v1 but only if you all-in at the correct points, and a jungler showing up from either side means one of you is dead, and it's probably gonna be you if you commit wrong because your only escape is flash and being insanely sick with rupture. I hit like 4/5 of my ruptures and I still die to ganks. That's one of Cho's biggest weaknesses.
Recently rediscovered TT so I been I've been really enjoying playin Cho in 3s a lot since everyone else picks some AD or assassin, and the team needs sustainy tanky ap dmg cc, etc. I'm using ad/ar/mr/ms and 0/21/9, which i saw Hotshot using dis one tiem in top lanez. The bestest part actually is getting to use feast to force so many reds and dragons. my only problem has been his mana pool issues, I feel kinda stuck getting dorans and/or glacial shroud since i dont really want to get roa or philo on tt. this is not really a problem since glacial shroud is uber but I'm curious/excited about potentially incorporating chalice with the new upgrade.
I'd go AS quints/reds, armor yellows, and flat mr blues, 9/21/0, flash/smite for buff control and some jungling. Open ruby crystal and rush phage into triforce. You're pretty much unstoppable. In S1 my team was evillust/haoz on TT and they were #1 and #2 on TT ladder for a while, I used to do this with them.
Rupture Added red/green rings to indicate which targets will be affected Launch delay reduced to 0.65 seconds from 0.7 seconds
Okay this might not seem like a lot but your rupture hit rate becomes GODLY if you are already good with it. I haven't lost a ranked game with Cho since the patch hit. Shit, I haven't lost a game with Cho since patch hit.
On August 04 2012 14:34 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: I don't have any recent vods! Play against me in an inhouse and request me to play chogath lol .
Okay I'll try to do that! But if you run lolreplay for a week and post them here you would be my favorite person everr <3
And i'm sure the community would love it. Doesn't take any effort either, just .zip them and upload overnight and boom, you're the hero cho'gath players deserve
It depends. I rush rylais almost every game now. I've only lost one game in two patches on SR with Cho mid or jungle doing that. Really, just work on your ruptures. The rupture buffs feel so right--the delay is about the same from click to rupture but the animation is a lot harder to react to now. If you're playing Cho top lane, you can always just get wits end and be good, but core items nowadays are:
Rylais (best item on cho hands down period) Frozen Heart (great carrier) FoN (almost more for the movespeed than for the MR) Sunfire or Randuins (Sunfire Cape + Rylais is insane, but aspd slows are the fotm right now and the active on randuin's is like a mini ult if you flash into the middle of opposing team and blow it) Merc or CDR boots Optional sixth item--depends what you need. Sometimes it's GA, sometimes it's wit's end, sometimes it's triforce. Do what you want here based on the feel of the game. Banshee's is still amazing against a lot of teams with heavy single-target stuns or burst damage.
But yeah, it's mainly just ruptures, and that's a feel thing. Play Cho a lot, he's fun and I think he's going to be fotm soon.
MID 9/21/0 with points in the creep and flat damage reduction--it's huge in lane, especially with your passive Either flat ap/mpen/mp5 mix/scaling ap or ms/mpen/mp5 mix/flat mr boots + 3 opening always Rush boots 2, either cdr sorc or merc--usually merc, rarely sorc unless I'm feeling cheeky and ran my ap page Cata -> rylais or just rylais group your team and engage like a maniac diverge QWWEWR R>W>E>Q
JUNGLE 9/21/0 or 0/21/9 ms/aspd/armor/mr or aspd/aspd/armor/mr cloth 5, boots 3, or regen 1 boots + hog/philo Rylais diverge EQEWER R>E>W>Q
I'm starting to realize that just the THREAT of hitting with rupture is enough to really screw up people's positioning in teamfights. When the AP carry is too busy trying to dodge rupture and stay away from my silence range, they aren't blowing anyone up. Also i'ts very awesome when annie goes FLASH and I go RAAAAAAWRRRRRR before tibbers drops on people.
On August 04 2012 21:22 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: It depends. I rush rylais almost every game now. I've only lost one game in two patches on SR with Cho mid or jungle doing that. Really, just work on your ruptures. The rupture buffs feel so right--the delay is about the same from click to rupture but the animation is a lot harder to react to now. If you're playing Cho top lane, you can always just get wits end and be good, but core items nowadays are:
Rylais (best item on cho hands down period) Frozen Heart (great carrier) FoN (almost more for the movespeed than for the MR) Sunfire or Randuins (Sunfire Cape + Rylais is insane, but aspd slows are the fotm right now and the active on randuin's is like a mini ult if you flash into the middle of opposing team and blow it) Merc or CDR boots Optional sixth item--depends what you need. Sometimes it's GA, sometimes it's wit's end, sometimes it's triforce. Do what you want here based on the feel of the game. Banshee's is still amazing against a lot of teams with heavy single-target stuns or burst damage.
But yeah, it's mainly just ruptures, and that's a feel thing. Play Cho a lot, he's fun and I think he's going to be fotm soon.
MID 9/21/0 with points in the creep and flat damage reduction--it's huge in lane, especially with your passive Either flat ap/mpen/mp5 mix/scaling ap or ms/mpen/mp5 mix/flat mr boots + 3 opening always Rush boots 2, either cdr sorc or merc--usually merc, rarely sorc unless I'm feeling cheeky and ran my ap page Cata -> rylais or just rylais group your team and engage like a maniac diverge QWWEWR R>W>E>Q
JUNGLE 9/21/0 or 0/21/9 ms/aspd/armor/mr or aspd/aspd/armor/mr cloth 5, boots 3, or regen 1 boots + hog/philo Rylais diverge EQEWER R>E>W>Q
Whoa only descriptions for mid and jungle?? I thought top was his most played (and best) role by far. Is this not the case?
Chogath is played top most often and people feel he's a neutral pick but he's really vulnerable to gank, and doesn't do very much besides farm and take first tower in top lane. I feel like he dominates a lot more champions in mid lane and has much stronger build options than 2x gold/10 into frozen heart/wits end. Sure, he'll be unkillable for a while, but if you play right you'll already be unkillable by virtue of killing them too fast instead of them killing you too slow. Chogath loses top too hard to certain champs if they get a gank and you don't, whereas in mid you get ganked a lot but can escape because your tower is so much closer. Also, being mid allows you to feast dragon, which can give you that slight advantage for your team in dragon fights. Basically what it comes down to is that I like being closer to the action, and I hate it when a fight breaks out 4v4 midgame and top lane can't come because they'll never make it in time, whereas when I'm mid I can just walk in, hit rupture from across the screen, silence the flashes as they scatter, feast one, ignite the other, and chase them out roaring into my headphones like a lion.
That's why I'm so "good" with Chogath. Everyone has this idea of Cho being a certain strength at different points in the game based on seeing him in top lane and mid Cho peaks at different points than top Cho does.
It's retarded how strong your initiation becomes when you have flash scream that silences and slows into rupture auto-chase and feast with ignite up. You're not a bad nuker by any means and you have insane sustained aoe cc with rylais and vorpal.
So I was playing cho in an inhouse yesterday and I thought i was going jungle so I had my jungle masteries on and no MR runes except for per level ones. Then shen said he wanted to go jungle so im like np I go top lane cho (with jungle masteries and keeping in mind last time i laned was like level 5). Then vlad (stxz) proceeds to take zero damage from my w and do 100+ with his q somehow. Fast forward 20 minutes and vlad can tower dive me and only lose 1/3 of his hp and is 10/1 and is triple killing my team np. Granted my last hitting was pretty bad but I wanted to improve it so I started trying to stack MR with chalice and merc treads into rylais. What do you do in situations like these? stack gp/5? build more mr? don't suck in lane? max q for more damage on lower cd and higher range to try and zone vlad from minions early?
If your lane opponent is 10/1, you've lost lane. Hard. Even if you weren't the one dying for him to get there. You should be avoiding him and just running away if the minion wave is such that he can dive you unless you have at least one ally with you. You need massive help from your team to shut someone like that down - you can't just expect to stay in lane 1v1 vs. him, even if you have reasonable MR.
Were you missing your W? Was it doing damage and silencing him, but he was sustaining it off? Were you getting most of the last hits in order to fuel your own sustain?
On another note - 5HIT, how do you feel about unholy grail on Cho? Feels like a better ROA for him, particularly in midlane. About the same price, slightly more AP, reasonable resist (and resist is kinda better than HP on cho because of his massive HP pool + solid sustain) and the CDR is lovely on Cho, too. (combines particularly well with FH)
On August 10 2012 03:03 sylverfyre wrote: If your lane opponent is 10/1, you've lost lane. Hard. Even if you weren't the one dying for him to get there. You should be avoiding him and just running away if the minion wave is such that he can dive you unless you have at least one ally with you. You need massive help from your team to shut someone like that down - you can't just expect to stay in lane 1v1 vs. him, even if you have reasonable MR.
Were you missing your W? Was it doing damage and silencing him, but he was sustaining it off? Were you getting most of the last hits in order to fuel your own sustain?
On another note - 5HIT, how do you feel about unholy grail on Cho? Feels like a better ROA for him, particularly in midlane. About the same price, slightly more AP, reasonable resist (and resist is kinda better than HP on cho because of his massive HP pool + solid sustain) and the CDR is lovely on Cho, too. (combines particularly well with FH)
I was the one dieing a lot lol (almost no jungle ganks on either side the entire game). My W did like 50 damage and his q did MUCH more and he was just sustaining it back. Not making the most of my last hits (only hitting about 80%)
Are you aware that 80% last hit rate is extremely good - about 180 cs at 20 minutes? Doesn't seem like you're getting that many if you're dead as often as it sounds like you are. Early you have to be aware of Vlad's Q cooldown, and you always have to be aware of Vlad's E stacks. When his Q is on cooldown early, you don't need to fear him as much. Later, this is true when Vlad drops his E stacks.
It does seem like a pretty bad matchup for Cho, however - you can't just auto him, and your cooldowns are much longer than his. Dunno how you're supposed to play it.
When you're behind though, you need to ask yourself if you're divable. If you are, let your team know and see if they can do something about it. If they can't, don't just stand under your tower to die - you might have to just give up your tower and go try and affect something somewhere else on the map. Cho is especially unforgiving if you're dying repeatedly - you really need those feast stacks to be as strong as you're supposed to be.
On August 10 2012 04:30 sylverfyre wrote: Are you aware that 80% last hit rate is extremely good - about 180 cs at 20 minutes? Doesn't seem like you're getting that many if you're dead as often as it sounds like you are. Early you have to be aware of Vlad's Q cooldown, and you always have to be aware of Vlad's E stacks. When his Q is on cooldown early, you don't need to fear him as much. Later, this is true when Vlad drops his E stacks.
It does seem like a pretty bad matchup for Cho, however - you can't just auto him, and your cooldowns are much longer than his. Dunno how you're supposed to play it.
When you're behind though, you need to ask yourself if you're divable. If you are, let your team know and see if they can do something about it. If they can't, don't just stand under your tower to die - you might have to just give up your tower and go try and affect something somewhere else on the map. Cho is especially unforgiving if you're dying repeatedly - you really need those feast stacks to be as strong as you're supposed to be.
Oh, I was talking about our cs when I first died (was 55/45 in his favor approx) granted he was autoattacking me 24/7 when combined couldn't really sustain me though the damage. lategame I was trying to time my W right when soraka e(?) wore of so my team could burst him.
The right runes go a long way in playing against someone. Vs vlad top you'd want ms quints, mpen reds, mp5 or mp5/lv yellows and flat mr blues, 9/21/0, and start boots + 3 pot, then rush merc treads and stack out feast asap. To be honest, I don't think you should die to vlad before level 6 unless you make a huge mistake and then it's a matter of "can i stack feast out before he can get strong enough to kill me". Vlad's going to win the lane because of his kit almost no matter what you do without heavy camping. You have chances to kill him if he's low and you have q w ignite r and flash up with boots 2 if you can hit silence and rupture then flash ignite feast for the kill. Still, late game vlad just scales harder.
You definitely shouldn't be dying 10 times to him in lane, though, but you'd have to ask stxz exactly what you did wrong.
Also on the Unholy Grail issue, I don't know, I've never really tried it. It came out about the same time Daenius told me I never lose when I build Rylais so I've been going boots + 3 -> merc/cdr/tabi -> Rylais and crushing games for a long time. It's not like you really need that much mana in lane with your passive and although the AP/MR is nice, I'd rather have Rylais for the insane CC and Abyssal for the aura. I'll test it, though, and see how it goes.
On August 11 2012 06:12 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: The right runes go a long way in playing against someone. Vs vlad top you'd want ms quints, mpen reds, mp5 or mp5/lv yellows and flat mr blues, 9/21/0, and start boots + 3 pot, then rush merc treads and stack out feast asap. To be honest, I don't think you should die to vlad before level 6 unless you make a huge mistake and then it's a matter of "can i stack feast out before he can get strong enough to kill me". Vlad's going to win the lane because of his kit almost no matter what you do without heavy camping. You have chances to kill him if he's low and you have q w ignite r and flash up with boots 2 if you can hit silence and rupture then flash ignite feast for the kill. Still, late game vlad just scales harder.
You definitely shouldn't be dying 10 times to him in lane, though, but you'd have to ask stxz exactly what you did wrong.
Also on the Unholy Grail issue, I don't know, I've never really tried it. It came out about the same time Daenius told me I never lose when I build Rylais so I've been going boots + 3 -> merc/cdr/tabi -> Rylais and crushing games for a long time. It's not like you really need that much mana in lane with your passive and although the AP/MR is nice, I'd rather have Rylais for the insane CC and Abyssal for the aura. I'll test it, though, and see how it goes.
On August 11 2012 09:44 Hyren wrote: Do you find the the build-up into Rylai's out of the jungle being kind of...painful?
Well, like they said, double gold/10 and the fact that cho can both clear fast and has decently strong ganks makes it pretty easy to get there. Previously I had been rushing triforce but it turns out that Rylais is so much stronger because it gives you a lot of things you need, damage, hp and probably most importantly, more cc.
So, what champ should i play vs the alien? I thought, Udyr might be decent, as he has great sustain himself and i destroyed a cho with tiger proccs some weeks ago, so he was my "counter". I don't have to mention, that i lost every lane trying to repeat that. There is no way you are not getting the full combo off and cho gets the health back faster, at 6 he eats you as you are low. Sth like panth is bad, as cho will just get some armor and be fine. Maybe sth with even more ranged harass like teemo or nidalee? Or kayle? Or should i take sth with more reliable sustain and just ignore him? Not really my style of play. As he is quite common the last days, any tips would be highly appreciated.
On August 21 2012 00:16 Broetchenholer wrote: So, what champ should i play vs the alien? I thought, Udyr might be decent, as he has great sustain himself and i destroyed a cho with tiger proccs some weeks ago, so he was my "counter". I don't have to mention, that i lost every lane trying to repeat that. There is no way you are not getting the full combo off and cho gets the health back faster, at 6 he eats you as you are low. Sth like panth is bad, as cho will just get some armor and be fine. Maybe sth with even more ranged harass like teemo or nidalee? Or kayle? Or should i take sth with more reliable sustain and just ignore him? Not really my style of play. As he is quite common the last days, any tips would be highly appreciated.
Jayce wrecks him pretty hard. Top lane is all about ganks anyway though so as long as you play a champ that can kill him with gank assistance you'll do fine based on your jungler. I've started thinking about top lane as a 2v2 bruiser lane with one champ roaming instead of in a vacuum.
Nidalee, and others who can harass with primarily autos and not need their skills in combination with autos. Especially ranged auto harass. Don't know how the teemo match plays up, I mostly know the nidalee one from playing the nidalee side. And it's hard to gank a nidalee. Poke poke poke, if he uses his scream you can kittyform and potentially all-in cho. You do a mix of phys and magic damage in kitty form too, so even if he stacks armor he's not walking away taking no damage.
On August 05 2012 12:09 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Chogath is played top most often and people feel he's a neutral pick but he's really vulnerable to gank, and doesn't do very much besides farm and take first tower in top lane. I feel like he dominates a lot more champions in mid lane and has much stronger build options than 2x gold/10 into frozen heart/wits end. Sure, he'll be unkillable for a while, but if you play right you'll already be unkillable by virtue of killing them too fast instead of them killing you too slow. Chogath loses top too hard to certain champs if they get a gank and you don't, whereas in mid you get ganked a lot but can escape because your tower is so much closer. Also, being mid allows you to feast dragon, which can give you that slight advantage for your team in dragon fights. Basically what it comes down to is that I like being closer to the action, and I hate it when a fight breaks out 4v4 midgame and top lane can't come because they'll never make it in time, whereas when I'm mid I can just walk in, hit rupture from across the screen, silence the flashes as they scatter, feast one, ignite the other, and chase them out roaring into my headphones like a lion.
Can you share your build order and runes? I am curious to try.
On August 04 2012 21:22 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: It depends. I rush rylais almost every game now. I've only lost one game in two patches on SR with Cho mid or jungle doing that. Really, just work on your ruptures. The rupture buffs feel so right--the delay is about the same from click to rupture but the animation is a lot harder to react to now. If you're playing Cho top lane, you can always just get wits end and be good, but core items nowadays are:
Rylais (best item on cho hands down period) Frozen Heart (great carrier) FoN (almost more for the movespeed than for the MR) Sunfire or Randuins (Sunfire Cape + Rylais is insane, but aspd slows are the fotm right now and the active on randuin's is like a mini ult if you flash into the middle of opposing team and blow it) Merc or CDR boots Optional sixth item--depends what you need. Sometimes it's GA, sometimes it's wit's end, sometimes it's triforce. Do what you want here based on the feel of the game. Banshee's is still amazing against a lot of teams with heavy single-target stuns or burst damage.
But yeah, it's mainly just ruptures, and that's a feel thing. Play Cho a lot, he's fun and I think he's going to be fotm soon.
MID 9/21/0 with points in the creep and flat damage reduction--it's huge in lane, especially with your passive Either flat ap/mpen/mp5 mix/scaling ap or ms/mpen/mp5 mix/flat mr boots + 3 opening always Rush boots 2, either cdr sorc or merc--usually merc, rarely sorc unless I'm feeling cheeky and ran my ap page Cata -> rylais or just rylais group your team and engage like a maniac diverge QWWEWR R>W>E>Q
JUNGLE 9/21/0 or 0/21/9 ms/aspd/armor/mr or aspd/aspd/armor/mr cloth 5, boots 3, or regen 1 boots + hog/philo Rylais diverge EQEWER R>E>W>Q
Working on my jungle Cho - after Philo, I've usually grabbed an Aegis before attempting a Rylais, but I'm wondering if I'd be better served just grabbing Chain Vest + Negatron instead. You'd be a bit slot-starved attempting to put Rylais together, though.
How do you guys not run out of mana on cho in teamfights (from jungle)?. Early its not hard since i'm using at most 1 q on the camps then when team fights come around i'm pretty much at zero mana the entire team fight after my 1st round of spells. And when laning how do you deal with ganking jungles who can gank well early?(like mao). If i rupture i stop and mao can close the distance with his root and if I throw it on myself akali gets a kill on me if she chills outside of the rupture AoE.
On August 22 2012 02:35 LazyFailKid wrote: How do you guys not run out of mana on cho in teamfights (from jungle)?. Early its not hard since i'm using at most 1 q on the camps then when team fights come around i'm pretty much at zero mana the entire team fight after my 1st round of spells. And when laning how do you deal with ganking jungles who can gank well early?(like mao). If i rupture i stop and mao can close the distance with his root and if I throw it on myself akali gets a kill on me if she chills outside of the rupture AoE.
Easy, be a boss, play hybrid cho, get Athene's. In all seriousness though, I've been experimenting with it and it's insanely good for Cho in my opinion. Downside is that I only jungle Cho in normals and usually get fed, so I wouldn't know how it interacts with your power curve if you don't manage to sneak in some kills. Usually, Cho somehow itemizes mana though (generally through FH), so try getting that a little bit earlier I guess? Concerning your ganking issues, ward properly and don't overextend. There's little reasons to push an Akali to her turret too early considering she's still pretty good getting CS there, so play accordingly. I don't think that's an issue of Cho specifically, but of playstyle.
The point of leveling E is that you don't need to use anything else to clear camps. Spending 90 mana for 80 damage is incredibly inefficient, as is spending 70 mana for 75 damage. Unless you have blue you should stick to auto-attacks to clear camps. The difference in clear speed is minimal.
Cho'gath ganks well early, you just have to learn how to aim Ruptures. It doesn't matter that you stop to cast them if you land them. He's just harder to play than Maokai because he isn't point and click.
On another subject, I haven't been bothering with gp10s on Cho. He doesn't need Philo's mana or health regen to sustain himself, or HoG's health to be tanky. Going straight into Aegis, Rylai's, or Glacial seems far stronger unless you and your team are behind.
It's more about following up your lane to land ruptures than "aim well/predict well" vs an opponent free to dodge. If the opponent has nothing better to do than dodge your rupture, you should expect a 0% accuracy. You want them to be doing something else when you use rupture (being slowed/stunned by your laner, being engaged in a fight, whatever) If, for example, you have a Leona / Taric / Irelia / Annie stun the target and you immediately cast rupture when you see the stun, your rupture pops them up when the other stun is about to wear off, and that guy is probably going to die before even having a chance to flash out (especially since you're following up with scream, so they're 60% slowed + silenced when they land... can't flash out STILL)
Be aware of cleanse/QSS potentially removing a stun you're relying on to land rupture - you don't want them to remove even more CC than you expect.
tl;dr: Don't rupture when your opponent is free to dance around and dodge it. Rupture when they are too occupied to dodge it (whether it be running away and you can rupture ahead of them, or CC'd so they can't get out of the circle.)
I'm talking about when I'm full mana (I only use q to clear until like level 4), I'll just work on my mana management during fights. I can hit ruptures with pretty good accuracy in general. For the akali thing I just realized I keep E on when I last hit and max pushed lane thanks guys
On August 22 2012 03:20 Seuss wrote: The point of leveling E is that you don't need to use anything else to clear camps. Spending 90 mana for 80 damage is incredibly inefficient, as is spending 70 mana for 75 damage. Unless you have blue you should stick to auto-attacks to clear camps. The difference in clear speed is minimal.
Cho'gath ganks well early, you just have to learn how to aim Ruptures. It doesn't matter that you stop to cast them if you land them. He's just harder to play than Maokai because he isn't point and click.
On another subject, I haven't been bothering with gp10s on Cho. He doesn't need Philo's mana or health regen to sustain himself, or HoG's health to be tanky. Going straight into Aegis, Rylai's, or Glacial seems far stronger unless you and your team are behind.
You're going to build into Shurelia and Randiuns anyways so you might as well pick up those gp10s. You can probably get aegis by the time the laning phase is over anyways.
On August 22 2012 03:20 Seuss wrote: The point of leveling E is that you don't need to use anything else to clear camps. Spending 90 mana for 80 damage is incredibly inefficient, as is spending 70 mana for 75 damage. Unless you have blue you should stick to auto-attacks to clear camps. The difference in clear speed is minimal.
Cho'gath ganks well early, you just have to learn how to aim Ruptures. It doesn't matter that you stop to cast them if you land them. He's just harder to play than Maokai because he isn't point and click.
On another subject, I haven't been bothering with gp10s on Cho. He doesn't need Philo's mana or health regen to sustain himself, or HoG's health to be tanky. Going straight into Aegis, Rylai's, or Glacial seems far stronger unless you and your team are behind.
You're going to build into Shurelia and Randiuns anyways so you might as well pick up those gp10s. You can probably get aegis by the time the laning phase is over anyways.
That's the thing about Cho - you don't necessarily. There's a bunch of items I'd rather get then these two. Especially Randuins seems dicey, considering FH is SO good on him and the fact he has no means of getting into the enemy team quickly other than straight up walking.
On August 22 2012 03:20 Seuss wrote: The point of leveling E is that you don't need to use anything else to clear camps. Spending 90 mana for 80 damage is incredibly inefficient, as is spending 70 mana for 75 damage. Unless you have blue you should stick to auto-attacks to clear camps. The difference in clear speed is minimal.
Cho'gath ganks well early, you just have to learn how to aim Ruptures. It doesn't matter that you stop to cast them if you land them. He's just harder to play than Maokai because he isn't point and click.
On another subject, I haven't been bothering with gp10s on Cho. He doesn't need Philo's mana or health regen to sustain himself, or HoG's health to be tanky. Going straight into Aegis, Rylai's, or Glacial seems far stronger unless you and your team are behind.
You're going to build into Shurelia and Randiuns anyways so you might as well pick up those gp10s. You can probably get aegis by the time the laning phase is over anyways.
Spending roughly 6.000 gold on armor only items every game seems silly. Maybe if they have like 3 auto-attackers you could justify it, but that's about it.
On August 22 2012 03:20 Seuss wrote: The point of leveling E is that you don't need to use anything else to clear camps. Spending 90 mana for 80 damage is incredibly inefficient, as is spending 70 mana for 75 damage. Unless you have blue you should stick to auto-attacks to clear camps. The difference in clear speed is minimal.
Cho'gath ganks well early, you just have to learn how to aim Ruptures. It doesn't matter that you stop to cast them if you land them. He's just harder to play than Maokai because he isn't point and click.
On another subject, I haven't been bothering with gp10s on Cho. He doesn't need Philo's mana or health regen to sustain himself, or HoG's health to be tanky. Going straight into Aegis, Rylai's, or Glacial seems far stronger unless you and your team are behind.
You're going to build into Shurelia and Randiuns anyways so you might as well pick up those gp10s. You can probably get aegis by the time the laning phase is over anyways.
That's the thing about Cho - you don't necessarily. There's a bunch of items I'd rather get then these two. Especially Randuins seems dicey, considering FH is SO good on him and the fact he has no means of getting into the enemy team quickly other than straight up walking.
I actually generally don't get Randuin's on Cho when I get Rylais because it's effectively doing the same thing except with all of your skills instead of just an active/passive, and though I do get Shurelia's I tend to get my core Rylais/Abyssal/(Sunfire/FH) first. Depends on the game though. Aegis is strong but I'd usually rather get a Sunfire unless they have mixed damage because Cho's resists with 21 defense are pretty high in the first place and the extra HP/armor makes you really tanky with natural MR gains/merc treads/abyssal/feast HP. CDR is worth it but again, your first priority is Rylais because of how absurdly strong the CC you get from it is. I mean, it adds CC to your CC that lets you chain more CC and gapclose to autoattack. Which now CCs. Wtf.
Okay so I started getting Deathcap again because it's incredibly fun to fullcombo someone as they walk into a bush. Also with the abyssal nerf it's maybe slightly stronger but that's really just a justification. Nothing like hitting a rupture on 5 people and putting them all at half hp. Or stealing a blue buff and killing the person walking to get it. Or catching a flash rupture scream ignite and feasting another dude for a double kill. Then chasing down the guy that was next to them and saw it happen. Nobody really wants to fight you after they see that.
On September 01 2012 19:28 GhostOwl wrote: so how viable is Cho at top these days? Or is it he better fit as a jungler?
He just seems so vulnerable to ganks, especially after he uses his stuff on his enemy. And his CC doesnt seem really that dependable...
I've been enjoying Riven top but Cho top just seems like a downgrade
some of the people that are really strong top, like malphite, are pretty good matchups for cho i wouldn't pick him against someone with a lot of mobility like riven though
On September 01 2012 19:28 GhostOwl wrote: so how viable is Cho at top these days? Or is it he better fit as a jungler?
He just seems so vulnerable to ganks, especially after he uses his stuff on his enemy. And his CC doesnt seem really that dependable...
I've been enjoying Riven top but Cho top just seems like a downgrade
I am not a great Cho player myself, so take what I say with a grain of salt: I enjoy playing him in the jungle much, much more than I do playing him top, but the bestest of best Cho experiences are made middle - you can generally abuse your insane lvl 6 burst to snowball the lane like mad. Favourite new underrated mid.
On September 01 2012 19:28 GhostOwl wrote: so how viable is Cho at top these days? Or is it he better fit as a jungler?
He just seems so vulnerable to ganks, especially after he uses his stuff on his enemy. And his CC doesnt seem really that dependable...
I've been enjoying Riven top but Cho top just seems like a downgrade
I am not a great Cho player myself, so take what I say with a grain of salt: I enjoy playing him in the jungle much, much more than I do playing him top, but the bestest of best Cho experiences are made middle - you can generally abuse your insane lvl 6 burst to snowball the lane like mad. Favourite new underrated mid.
Cho'Gath mid is very powerful, especially with junglers like Maokai. The amount of burst and CC combined kills most mids outright. His jungle and top are very solid, he's about as prone to ganks as most tops. Also comparing Riven to Cho'Gath is a bit unfair as they have very different playstyles and power curves. I mean one is highly mobile and a great skirmisher while the other has great cc and a high true damage nuke. Apples to oranges.
Just started playing cho top. Smashes some people real nice. Had trouble vs GP and Mordekaiser so far, but I think I could solve that by starting boots/pots instead of dorans ring. I just really don't like starting without dorans ring becaues of mana issues :/
I often go dorans ring * 2 + philo stone during laning phase just to keep up with mana T_T I've never had so many mana issues with another champ.
If you're going top lane, try taking your second point in e and don't use rupture except when ganks come. Also, don't harass with scream until level 4 or until your jungler comes for a gank. It's inefficient to blow 70 or 80 mana on a skill at level 1 even if last hitting regains you mana.
On September 18 2012 17:45 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: If you're going top lane, try taking your second point in e and don't use rupture except when ganks come. Also, don't harass with scream until level 4 or until your jungler comes for a gank. It's inefficient to blow 70 or 80 mana on a skill at level 1 even if last hitting regains you mana.
errr
It may be inefficient, but by the time you hit level 4 you'd have full mana anyway.
On September 18 2012 15:34 Complete wrote: Just started playing cho top. Smashes some people real nice. Had trouble vs GP and Mordekaiser so far, but I think I could solve that by starting boots/pots instead of dorans ring. I just really don't like starting without dorans ring becaues of mana issues :/
I often go dorans ring * 2 + philo stone during laning phase just to keep up with mana T_T I've never had so many mana issues with another champ.
why would u ever start off with ring? where is your sustain? always start boots 3 pots on top laners usually.
mana really shouldnt be a problem. philostone + 2 mana crystals (RoA + Frozen Heart) keeps you going til late game.
Pretty good I think, at least initially. It usually devolves into Cho outsustaining you eventually (he'll just stack armor if he's smart), but early on you can control the lane pretty well and keep him on the defensive. If Renekton's jungler swings by, not too hard to pick up a kill on Cho. He has a lot more CC than you though, so even if you win the lane, that doesn't necessarily mean much (unless you completely stomp him! which is possible depending on how good you are/how often your jungler swings by).
Renekton wrecks Cho if you're not properly runed for it, and then it's not bad, but I feel like the advantage is pretty solidly in Renek's favor as he outsustains you with no mana and his midgame is just as strong as yours. Kind of depends on ganks though, you can completely crush him if you get a gank and he doesn't, which is just like all top lanes, I guess.
On September 18 2012 17:45 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: If you're going top lane, try taking your second point in e and don't use rupture except when ganks come. Also, don't harass with scream until level 4 or until your jungler comes for a gank. It's inefficient to blow 70 or 80 mana on a skill at level 1 even if last hitting regains you mana.
errr
It may be inefficient, but by the time you hit level 4 you'd have full mana anyway.
I'm not saying don't use skills from 1-3, but if you 9/21/0 and don't take mana regen runes you have one or two casts total between 1-4 if you want to have mana at 4.
I mean with 2-3 mana regen per 5 base and you gain what, like 6-8 mana per last hit? you gotta farm a whole wave to get a shot at having one cast with Cho's mana costs...
[edit] Carnivore (passive): Whenever Cho'Gath kills a unit, he restores 32 + (2 x level) health and 3.25 + (0.25 x level) mana. [/edit]
On September 18 2012 15:34 Complete wrote: Just started playing cho top. Smashes some people real nice. Had trouble vs GP and Mordekaiser so far, but I think I could solve that by starting boots/pots instead of dorans ring. I just really don't like starting without dorans ring becaues of mana issues :/
I often go dorans ring * 2 + philo stone during laning phase just to keep up with mana T_T I've never had so many mana issues with another champ.
Really don't like the dorans start. If you get anyone seriously bullying you around, you're not gonna keep up in health purely with your passive vs their potions and they can start zoning you off creeps... so you aren't even benefitting from your passive. Also it becomes much harder to support an early gank when you have 50 ms less than they do.
On September 19 2012 08:35 Complete wrote: His sustain is in his last hitting...
yes i understand that, but if u get chunked, how will you last hit if your opponent is smart and harasses you if you try to last hit?
like his passive is nice if ur missing like 100 health or something and want to get back to max, but it doesn't help you if you are low. thats why you start boots 3 pots
On September 06 2012 18:21 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Current endgame build: + Show Spoiler +
=S=S
Why sunfire when FH and randuin's are so goddamn good?
yes i understand that, but if u get chunked, how will you last hit if your opponent is smart and harasses you if you try to last hit?
like his passive is nice if ur missing like 100 health or something and want to get back to max, but it doesn't help you if you are low. thats why you start boots 3 pots
If your opponent harasses you when you last hit, that's what your passive heals. It's hard to chunk a chogath (without a gank) if he has defensive runes early on. I don't think doran's ring is a good start, but it's definitely doable in a lot of match ups.
I've been playing a lot of cho mid (i'm 1200 elo) in ranked 5s with friends / solo queue and i've been dominating against standard mids. That said, I dont think it's because I'm amazing but a lot of mids dont understand the level 6 burst that cho has.
Anyways, a few questions about cho -
I'm not really sure what is an optimal build order for cho - atm i'm running boots 3 pots into double doran ring (for mana regen because I go armour runes) into either lucky pick -> dfg or needless rod -> deathcap.
Also, although I usually dominate lane phase, what should be my role in team fights? I usually stay kinda back because i'm still pretty squishy (i only build AP items) and try to land ruptures on the bruisers and just drop my ult on anyone other than the tank.
As a top lane cho, how do i lane without getting crushed. In general i spam W to harass which works well from levels 1-8ish until the opponent gets a phage and another damage item and i can't out trade him, especially riven. I'm almost certain i'm missing something fundamental in the matchup (i.e. i'm doing something wrong / or not doing something i should be doing).
Also, guys: How does Renekton fair against cho? Because my friend who mains cho is challenging me for top on our team, and I think I'm gonna play Renekton. Any advice? I'm thinking I should crush him.
As a top lane cho, how do i lane without getting crushed. In general i spam W to harass which works well from levels 1-8ish until the opponent gets a phage and another damage item and i can't out trade him, especially riven. I'm almost certain i'm missing something fundamental in the matchup (i.e. i'm doing something wrong / or not doing something i should be doing).
Thoughts?
Well, it's really hard to give advice without knowing what matchup you're talking about, but since you mentioned Riven, I'm assuming you are having problems with physical damage dealers.
The thing about Cho is that unless you are as good and experienced as 5HIT at Cho, you are not exactly going to win lanes by crushing the enemy six ways from sunday. (I might just be a bad Cho, but that's my experience.) What you can do, though, is turn a lot lot lot of lanes into farmfests. A farmed Riven is something to recon come late game, sure, but most teamcomps would rather have a 6 stack 250 armor Cho wrecking havoc by CCing everyone and their moms and NOMNOMNOMing on carries. Essentially, you don't have to trade with her, because there's no need to.
So how, and why, does that work? Essentially, it boils down to itemization - Armor is a lot easier to itemize than damage. Talking about Riven, for example, you might wanna start Cloth 5, get early Tabis, a Doran's Shield if you're really desperate and a Chain Vest. You don't really have to get out of the way of your build because you'll eventually build something with that Chain Vest anyways, and Riven is screwed. Even if she has like 2 Doran's and a BF sword, it doesn't matter because you'll just shrug off her harass and sustain with your passive.
The key to matchups that beat you in top lane is just not to die to ganks (and hurrrr don't die without them either). If you just build into logical survival items you'll do fine. Tabi -> Glacial or Wardens makes you pretty safe, so once you get there you can diversify a bit.
In mid, don't take armor--you're playing as a caster and you'll rarely be tanking enough physical in lane to warrant it over flat mp5 or mp5/lv. 9/21/0 and mp yellows plus your natural sustain should allow you to skip dolans ring (which i just don't like in general on chogath but i've seen strong cho players go dolans dolans dfg/deathcap and do well--i just like rylais because i like winning fights more than getting kills), just open boots + 3 and rush merc treads, which makes both surviving and landing screams sooooooo much easier, then get parts for rylais starting with the giant's belt (or blasting wand if you want, I just like getting the bigger item first, especially while i'm just stacking feast--most people won't play stupid against cho mid and it's really important to have 6 stacks going into midgame so you can blow feast at will). Focus on controlling lane and dragon, farming, and stacking feast in that rough order, but as soon as you get rylais have your team get together and initiate like a madman because scream -> rupture -> ignite/feast -> auto chase is retarded at catching people out of position when everything slows. Take objectives and snowball your advantage while diversifying into defensive items or getting a deathcap.
Mid cho sooooooooooo much stronger and more fun than top cho it's not funny.
On September 21 2012 00:15 Trainninja wrote: I'm not really sure what is an optimal build order for cho - atm i'm running boots 3 pots into double doran ring (for mana regen because I go armour runes) into either lucky pick -> dfg or needless rod -> deathcap.
Also, although I usually dominate lane phase, what should be my role in team fights? I usually stay kinda back because i'm still pretty squishy (i only build AP items) and try to land ruptures on the bruisers and just drop my ult on anyone other than the tank.
The last days i've been quite succesful with Cho'Gath mid, too. Usually i start like you, with 2 Dorans, Sorc Boots, but then i build Chalice of Harmony -> Athenes Unholy Grail. After that most of the time Deathcap/Deathfire, depending. I feel like this gives you alot of power in lane, because you can push fast and not be mana starved so quickly. You can start to roam and try to look for opportunities to help your mates or just farm the jungle. It's really easy to outfarm your opponent and push your minions into their tower.
In later stages, i don't feel like you need to be too scared in teamfights. When you are level 18 and have 6 Feast stacks, you are actually tanky plus at that time i normally end up having a Frozen Heart in my inventory. Your job is to disrupt the fight, silence as many people as possible and walk straight to the carry to eat him if possible. I've been most succesful if I dive right into the fight, after someone else initiated it.
I don't know if my views/build is correct or good, I would appreciate some feedback.
I don't think Cho needs any help clearing waves so if that's your rationale for getting Athene's, try out Rylais instead. It's pretty good. If you're running out of mana a lot and you're not getting blues I guess it's okay, but I don't think it's better than DFG in that regard, and I'm not a huge DFG fan. Grail's not bad but I think you'd rather have Abyssal? I kinda feel like it doesn't matter what you build on Cho so rush gunblade is pretty fun too.
Well, the AP-CDR-resist does sound real nice for teamfights, to output more casts of your awesome CC, as well as sooner feasting. Cho's free max health makes resist items a bit nicer than Health (though I don't disagree that the slow on rylais might make it much easier to land ruptures.)
I think Rylais is good, but as sylverfyre said, resistance is a little bit nicer than flat health and Rylais will only give you the 15% slow. I will try it out, but Chalice seems so good as an midgame item for Cho in midlane.
On September 22 2012 16:53 NucNac wrote: I think Rylais is good, but as sylverfyre said, resistance is a little bit nicer than flat health and Rylais will only give you the 15% slow. I will try it out, but Chalice seems so good as an midgame item for Cho in midlane.
why not forgo Doran's (you don't really need the health), get a Chalice, then rush Rylai's and get Athene's sometime later? I really like Chalice too, it's insanely useful in teamfights and in lane to 24/7 spam your shit.
Yeah, but when you're mid you really don't want to be building FH as a core item, and Grail gives a lot of stuff you want. I'm not saying it's good for sure, but opening Chalice doesn't seem too bad, especially because it gives you a bit of MR (and I've been rushing merc anyway). I think philo is pretty good but I don't build it mid very often unless I get a kill REALLY early because I generally don't build it into anything.
Grail is sounding more and more interesting as a replacement for Abyssal now, gotta go test!
On September 23 2012 05:04 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Yeah, but when you're mid you really don't want to be building FH as a core item, and Grail gives a lot of stuff you want. I'm not saying it's good for sure, but opening Chalice doesn't seem too bad, especially because it gives you a bit of MR (and I've been rushing merc anyway). I think philo is pretty good but I don't build it mid very often unless I get a kill REALLY early because I generally don't build it into anything.
Grail is sounding more and more interesting as a replacement for Abyssal now, gotta go test!
Please report, I've been mildly successful with the build, but I'm still sort of learning how to mid Cho. I figured it was good because the combination of AP/CDR/MR/Manaregen is literally EVERYTHING you want on Cho, even though it is pricey. Opening Grail is probably not the best of ideas, but as already stated, no one is forced to rush it. Chalice is really good for the gold already, and it makes rushing Rylai's all the easier for inexperienced Chos like me because I don't have to be conservative with the mana.
On September 23 2012 05:04 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Yeah, but when you're mid you really don't want to be building FH as a core item, and Grail gives a lot of stuff you want. I'm not saying it's good for sure, but opening Chalice doesn't seem too bad, especially because it gives you a bit of MR (and I've been rushing merc anyway). I think philo is pretty good but I don't build it mid very often unless I get a kill REALLY early because I generally don't build it into anything.
Grail is sounding more and more interesting as a replacement for Abyssal now, gotta go test!
Yea, you don't really want to rush FH as a core item, but late game it's great to have and the mana regen aspect of Grail will be worthless+some of the CDR wasted.
I'd much rather just get a philo+null magic instead of a chalice in mid lane. That can build into mercs, and if you need more MR, you can grab a negatron-->FoN/Abyssal or more null magics-->Wit's End/Aegis/GA. Philo can be built into shurelya's or sold when you get glacial shroud.
I suppose Grail is viable if you don't want to go FH for whatever reason, but then you won't want to get either FoN or Abyssal, which are both amazing...
On September 23 2012 05:04 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Yeah, but when you're mid you really don't want to be building FH as a core item, and Grail gives a lot of stuff you want. I'm not saying it's good for sure, but opening Chalice doesn't seem too bad, especially because it gives you a bit of MR (and I've been rushing merc anyway). I think philo is pretty good but I don't build it mid very often unless I get a kill REALLY early because I generally don't build it into anything.
Grail is sounding more and more interesting as a replacement for Abyssal now, gotta go test!
Yea, you don't really want to rush FH as a core item, but late game it's great to have and the mana regen aspect of Grail will be worthless+some of the CDR wasted.
I'd much rather just get a philo+null magic instead of a chalice in mid lane. That can build into mercs, and if you need more MR, you can grab a negatron-->FoN/Abyssal or more null magics-->Wit's End/Aegis/GA. Philo can be built into shurelya's or sold when you get glacial shroud.
I suppose Grail is viable if you don't want to go FH for whatever reason, but then you won't want to get either FoN or Abyssal, which are both amazing...
Abyssal is great and FoN is probably always the better choice if they run double AP, but getting an early Chalice just has a much smoother build progression compared to Philo+NMM (which costs about 300g more, btw), and it does offer a lot more mana regen. The thing about Grail is that you literally use every.single.stat on it. You won't make use of the magic penetration aura of Abyssal when landing long range ruptures or while feasting, while Grail offers similar stats and makes prolonged fights THAT much easier. I have come to love it, but I guess it's a matter of playstyle.
I didn't realize how efficient the recipe for Athene's was; it's much better than I thought initially.
Still, the mana regen aspect is worthless if you get an FH. If it's a game where I wasn't going for FH for whatever reason, I'll get a Grail from now on so I don't have to hog blue.
Unrelated question: Does Void Staff increase DFG's penetration? Saw a Cho'Gath get DFG+Void Staff+Rabadon's in the solomid tournament...I didn't think the items interacted, but I don't know why you'd get Void Staff on him otherwise.
On September 24 2012 01:27 APurpleCow wrote: Unrelated question: Does Void Staff increase DFG's penetration? Saw a Cho'Gath get DFG+Void Staff+Rabadon's in the solomid tournament...I didn't think the items interacted, but I don't know why you'd get Void Staff on him otherwise.
as far as i know, DFG interacts with MR like a normal spell, in that an enemy with high MR will take less damage from DFG. following this line of reason, enemies with low MR will take more damage from DFG and it will interact with MPen in a normal fashion. therefor it's logical to conclude that void's MPen will increase DFG's damage
On September 24 2012 01:27 APurpleCow wrote: Unrelated question: Does Void Staff increase DFG's penetration? Saw a Cho'Gath get DFG+Void Staff+Rabadon's in the solomid tournament...I didn't think the items interacted, but I don't know why you'd get Void Staff on him otherwise.
as far as i know, DFG interacts with MR like a normal spell, in that an enemy with high MR will take less damage from DFG. following this line of reason, enemies with low MR will take more damage from DFG and it will interact with MPen in a normal fashion. therefor it's logical to conclude that void's MPen will increase DFG's damage
this is true. Cow, when do you find yourself getting FH when playing Cho mid? I generally feel the urge to build a good amount of DPS before I even consider getting a Glacial, and usually, I would much rather get funfire if we already have a FH in our team and I want some armor. I just have a hard time justifying to spend much gold on an item that doesn't increase my damage output at all (I cap CDR from other sources) when I take the spot of the AP carry.
I've tried it out a couple of times, and it's amazing how much mana it gives you. You can literally spam spells without having to worry about mana ever. That being said, I still feel like efficient management of mana and maxing R>W>E>Q with Rylais or Deathcap rush is stronger. My nickname is 100% Rupture though. I feel like the point at which I start to snowball comes significantly delayed when I rush Athene's or even Chalice first. I can see it being very useful in certain matchups like Viktor and Xerath where you need both MR and mp5 to survive harass/burst and farm.
Personally, I'm going to stick with boots 2 -> rylais, but having infinite mana is soooooooooo luxurious.
On September 26 2012 19:16 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: I've tried it out a couple of times, and it's amazing how much mana it gives you. You can literally spam spells without having to worry about mana ever. That being said, I still feel like efficient management of mana and maxing R>W>E>Q with Rylais or Deathcap rush is stronger. My nickname is 100% Rupture though. I feel like the point at which I start to snowball comes significantly delayed when I rush Athene's or even Chalice first. I can see it being very useful in certain matchups like Viktor and Xerath where you need both MR and mp5 to survive harass/burst and farm.
Personally, I'm going to stick with boots 2 -> rylais, but having infinite mana is soooooooooo luxurious.
So basically, unless you are a god at Cho like you are, Chalice into a LATE Athene's might be viable?
I think Athenes is definitely an 'or' item with the frozen heart. they both give resists, CDR and sustain the main difference is FH is more defensive if you're going to be dueling a lot of AD carries or brusiers, grail is more offensive allowing you to go in and duel AP's and be rewarded for kills giving you that clutch teamfight sustain. You don't want both, since you're overkilling on both CDR and sustain.
If I was going chalice I'd mix it with rylais and zhonyas. I imagine mid cho needs to be a lot less rawr rawr I'm a big fucking dinosaur rawr in your face rawr than his top lane incarnation. Basically hup-blaaah-nom-peace. Zhonyas does a better job of assisting that than FH.
I also imagine chalice is a lot better against those mids who can lay on the consistent zoning/harass both so you can absorb it and so you can reply in kind without needing to be able to eat all the minions to sustain.
You do not need chalice top at all, and you don't get FH mid in general because as the AP caster on your team you really have to put out concentrated burst, which differs from top lane because you're more of a caster than a tanky cc bruiser. Honestly? I think Rod is still better than Grail for Cho because Rod is extremely slot-efficient, it's just that you can't get it late and there's better items early.
Seriously though, rushing chalice/grail is like getting upgraded to first class from coach. Suddenly you don't have to think about mana management at all and the fun factor of that alone is probably worth it--I just don't think it's the strongest option if you care to manage your mana and your jungler gives you blues.
On September 26 2012 21:22 Complete wrote: Can I get some advice on laning against Mordekaiser? He seems really hard to trade at all with and he has no mana issues unlike Cho.
On September 26 2012 19:57 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Seriously though, rushing chalice/grail is like getting upgraded to first class from coach. Suddenly you don't have to think about mana management at all and the fun factor of that alone is probably worth it--I just don't think it's the strongest option if you care to manage your mana and your jungler gives you blues.
Thats true, but we are in solo queue and like to dunk on people I think i will stick to chalice/grail mid, in the end it seems to be a choice of playstyle.
On September 26 2012 19:16 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: I've tried it out a couple of times, and it's amazing how much mana it gives you. You can literally spam spells without having to worry about mana ever. That being said, I still feel like efficient management of mana and maxing R>W>E>Q with Rylais or Deathcap rush is stronger. My nickname is 100% Rupture though. I feel like the point at which I start to snowball comes significantly delayed when I rush Athene's or even Chalice first. I can see it being very useful in certain matchups like Viktor and Xerath where you need both MR and mp5 to survive harass/burst and farm.
Personally, I'm going to stick with boots 2 -> rylais, but having infinite mana is soooooooooo luxurious.
So basically, unless you are a god at Cho like you are, Chalice into a LATE Athene's might be viable?
I dunno about the late Athene's...
As I said earlier, Athene's recipe is actually extremely cost efficient.
I don't know, I don't really see Cho'Gath as a top lane champion anymore. Champions with strong early burst (Rengar, Riven, etc) will zone him from the creeps early on when he is weak. Champions dependent on farm (Irelia, Olaf, etc) are given carte blanche to farm hard and become lategame monsters.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I really see ChoGath as more of a Jungler now. Of all the CC junglers, he has the undisputed BEST clear and sustain. Innate tankiness with Feast makes him a decent Oracle carrier too. The downside is that his CC isn't as reliable as someone like Maokai, but whatever,
On September 28 2012 02:31 HughMyron wrote: I don't know, I don't really see Cho'Gath as a top lane champion anymore. Champions with strong early burst (Rengar, Riven, etc) will zone him from the creeps early on when he is weak. Champions dependent on farm (Irelia, Olaf, etc) are given carte blanche to farm hard and become lategame monsters.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I really see ChoGath as more of a Jungler now. Of all the CC junglers, he has the undisputed BEST clear and sustain. Innate tankiness with Feast makes him a decent Oracle carrier too. The downside is that his CC isn't as reliable as someone like Maokai, but whatever,
Personal brag: I've been doing jungle cho since back before they changed the jungle, back before jungling was even a thing, back when the only viable junglers were literally shaco warwick nunu and amumu.
For the record: I called it. And invented it. And reinvented it.
But yeah, I like playing him jungle and mid mainly now, though I'm in the process of rediscovering him in top lane where if he survives the initial few levels/ganks he becomes completely unkillable.
5Hit, do you still recommend Rylais on Jungle Cho? The itemization is incredibly awkward for me and usually I find myself in midgame fights with just HoG Philo Boots1 and Rylais wishing I had an Aegis + Reverie.
Personally I really like Rylais but I feel like you have to be very effective with it to snowball a game because there's a point where it spikes in power and there's a point where it drops off and you have to use the spike to take a bunch of objectives. Sometimes that's hard and sitting around farming jungle as cho makes me feel dumb lol.
Haven't really played around too much with Rylai's might try it out a bit(Jungle Cho!) 0/21/9 Aspd/Armour/MrLvl/Mspd
Something like
Regrowth/Boots > Philo > Rylais > Treads > Shurelias(delayed if with friend) and then a mixture depending on what I feel is needed of
Sunfire Cape Force of Nature Rabaddon's Deathcap Zhonya's Ring Frozen Heart Abyssal Scepter
I tend to always get the philo early and hold onto it for a long time as I duo with my friend who pretty agressively takes wraiths/wolves alot in mid so I try to offset the lack of farm/sustain from not getting to hit things so it'll be interesting to see how Rylai's slots in.
playing alot of jungle cho recently, so much fun and seems super strong. been following the guide on lolpro which is basically rush mobility boots + oracles then gp10's + tanky stuff.
How do You guys play vs Akali top? I have troubles with this matchup (and i am doing fine vs most other top laners) but akali is for me pain in the ass.
Wow, Im playing with a few kids from my school (the program where they bring people over for countries like china to stay in canada for abit; forgot the name) and one guy can only jungle. I lockin cho and go mid thinking "alright i know cho op and my last hitting skills not as shit as before from the 40 hours in last week of dota" and proceed to go 10/0/10 both games with the latter one being only abit harder, seems to me like if you can last hit properly you autowin lane O_O my build was boots3>chalice>rylais(with mercs somewhere here)>FH>whatever i need, usually athene's or some other tanky/ap things(or aegis). Don't see how you would beat him mid, any matchups I should strictly avoid or any weakness cho has? (not counting a little weakness he has in the very early stages pre-6)
There are two ways to do it: Max W and scream at her a lot Max E and shove the wave really hard
Against Akali the importance of defensive runes can't be overstated. You NEED at least MR blues, and armor yellows really help, too. Basically you want to call for a lot of ganks against her before she hits 6 if you're maxing W and if you're maxing E you need to be really aggressive in pushing her to her tower so she can't last hit quite so well. Against good Akali players that won't always work, but it will keep her on the defensive until she gets her revolver, though you're far more vulnerable to gank so basically only do this if you're running armor/mr instead of mp5/mr, and when the ganks come (they will) you HAVE to be on point with your rupture if you want to survive.
At some point she is going to get too bursty to 1v1 easily and your goal is to get 6 feast stacks and max out your defensive items for your team. This is a matchup where you'll probably be getting wits with FH instead of abyssal or FoN, though FoN is still great. Your goal is to wear an oracles and cc her in teamfights, primarily with silence, and to burst her down with feast while she's incapable of darting around. You're not going to put out more damage than her, and she's infinitely more mobile than you are, so make sure your team stays with you, or you're not going to be able to handle her, as she's one of the best-scaling assassins.
Still, her early game is pretty weak and you should dominate her with ganks before she gets revolver/6.
On September 29 2012 19:06 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: There are two ways to do it: Max W and scream at her a lot Max E and shove the wave really hard
Against Akali the importance of defensive runes can't be overstated. You NEED at least MR blues, and armor yellows really help, too. Basically you want to call for a lot of ganks against her before she hits 6 if you're maxing W and if you're maxing E you need to be really aggressive in pushing her to her tower so she can't last hit quite so well. Against good Akali players that won't always work, but it will keep her on the defensive until she gets her revolver, though you're far more vulnerable to gank so basically only do this if you're running armor/mr instead of mp5/mr, and when the ganks come (they will) you HAVE to be on point with your rupture if you want to survive.
At some point she is going to get too bursty to 1v1 easily and your goal is to get 6 feast stacks and max out your defensive items for your team. This is a matchup where you'll probably be getting wits with FH instead of abyssal or FoN, though FoN is still great. Your goal is to wear an oracles and cc her in teamfights, primarily with silence, and to burst her down with feast while she's incapable of darting around. You're not going to put out more damage than her, and she's infinitely more mobile than you are, so make sure your team stays with you, or you're not going to be able to handle her, as she's one of the best-scaling assassins.
Still, her early game is pretty weak and you should dominate her with ganks before she gets revolver/6.
AS Reds Armor Yellow MR/Level Blue Movespeed Quints,
and just run a very textbook build with Mob/Hog/Aegis. Then I build a NegaCloak around the time I finish Randuin. At that point, the build diverges depending on their comp.
I think to cap out CDR on lane cho, DFG > Athene's. Late game you'll be tanky enough with Abyssal/Frozen that if you land a good rupture, you can flash->DFG->scream->feast their AD/AP carry and then just walk out of the teamfight and let your team mop up.
If you're mid you should be wearing blue buffs anyway and if you 9/21/0 I don't think you need both and FH. I prefer to go full caster or rylais cc personally, but I've seen a lot of dfg chos. I can usually full combo without it if I deathcap so I don't really see the point in it.
y i frequently see people get dfg/abyssal into hat on cho mid but I think it's much easier to play cho top and get carried because you're just a god damn unstoppable, unkillable monster (im a bit biased, lost to some really bad chos today and then won a bunch of games with him)
after a few levels you sustain like 300 hp per wave which just straight up destroys some champions i may be wrong on this but cho doesnt really lose any lane except maybe teemo and kayle, and hes super good in teamfights
Jayce, Renekton depending, Irelia depending, Jax, Yorick pretty rough, Rumble pretty rough, maybe a few others like Kennen too but none of them are really that bad except Jayce and Kayle.
I've been playing Pendant-->Philo--->Boots/HoG--->Lvl 2 boots---->FH or Abyssal, then maybe Rylai's. Where does Cho get his tankiness other than feast stacks? Force of Nature? I feel like i get bursted too fast... I'm a newbie sub 30 btw
Cho gets his tankiness from levels. He has to have a level advantage over his opponents as well as correct runes, masteries, and items to feel like that unkillable monster. A lot of people think Cho's a really strong tank, and while he is, it's conditional and it falls off, and that's why you tend to see a dropoff in Cho's lategame efficiency--it's not that he dropped off, it's that his opponents caught up. When you don't have a level advantage over your opponents, you're actually quite squishy, even if you do have tank items.
Also, it's really important to stack feast out as fast as possible while still having it up for crucial objectives and big teamfights.
On September 30 2012 18:02 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: I feel like Cho top has a lot of counterpicks but they're only counterpicks in the sense that if you die to them you can't win lane
Nobody really dunks him off the bat now that ninja tabi is such a viable opening option
So against like heavy early aggressor (Riven, Rengar, Pantheon) its just about opening with like as much armor as possible and then ignoring them until you can just kill creeps and spam /laugh?
I like DFG on him, but only if you're going pure caster, something like Rylai's+Rabadon's+DFG+Void+Athene's/GA/Zhonya's. Not worth it if you're trying to be tanky.
On September 30 2012 23:22 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Cho gets his tankiness from levels. He has to have a level advantage over his opponents as well as correct runes, masteries, and items to feel like that unkillable monster. A lot of people think Cho's a really strong tank, and while he is, it's conditional and it falls off, and that's why you tend to see a dropoff in Cho's lategame efficiency--it's not that he dropped off, it's that his opponents caught up. When you don't have a level advantage over your opponents, you're actually quite squishy, even if you do have tank items.
Also, it's really important to stack feast out as fast as possible while still having it up for crucial objectives and big teamfights.
I think it's important to note here that it's not that Cho gets worse than other tanks, it's that his advantage over other tanks gets smaller as the game goes on. So, if he's jungling, he can start off the game getting BoM, oracles, and gp5 and still be somewhat tanky, but Feast isn't going to carry him for much longer.
I find as either jayce or kayle I go even. The trades usually go with me trying to hit him from outside auto range, him using a rupture behind me, me walking straight into it, and taking some autos because rupture hurts and I get slowed, and then him healing back up a bit. With kayle's slow he may not catch up to use autos.
This is just theory but I think with jayce you could pelt cho with autos until he uesd rupture, then you just change form and jump near him. That sounds like a good way to deal with even cho's sustain.
Still cho can turn things around with ganks. He has a slow, knockup, burst, and silence to delay your flash if you still have it.
On September 30 2012 18:02 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: I feel like Cho top has a lot of counterpicks but they're only counterpicks in the sense that if you die to them you can't win lane
Nobody really dunks him off the bat now that ninja tabi is such a viable opening option
So against like heavy early aggressor (Riven, Rengar, Pantheon) its just about opening with like as much armor as possible and then ignoring them until you can just kill creeps and spam /laugh?
It's that easy. Cloth 5 -> Tabi -> Dolan's Shield if you desperately need it and are low on gold, Chain Vest if you don't -> proceed to shrug off their harass and farm your ass off.
On September 30 2012 18:02 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: I feel like Cho top has a lot of counterpicks but they're only counterpicks in the sense that if you die to them you can't win lane
Nobody really dunks him off the bat now that ninja tabi is such a viable opening option
So against like heavy early aggressor (Riven, Rengar, Pantheon) its just about opening with like as much armor as possible and then ignoring them until you can just kill creeps and spam /laugh?
It's that easy. Cloth 5 -> Tabi -> Dolan's Shield if you desperately need it and are low on gold, Chain Vest if you don't -> proceed to shrug off their harass and farm your ass off.
The only problem with building like that is you can't get your gp5s, which top chogath really likes =(
On October 01 2012 04:30 obesechicken13 wrote: How do you beat cho as kayle?
I find as either jayce or kayle I go even. The trades usually go with me trying to hit him from outside auto range, him using a rupture behind me, me walking straight into it, and taking some autos because rupture hurts and I get slowed, and then him healing back up a bit. With kayle's slow he may not catch up to use autos.
This is just theory but I think with jayce you could pelt cho with autos until he uesd rupture, then you just change form and jump near him. That sounds like a good way to deal with even cho's sustain.
Still cho can turn things around with ganks. He has a slow, knockup, burst, and silence to delay your flash if you still have it.
So I tried out a bot game against a custom level cho. I can't jump fast enough to dodge ruptures. I don't see how people counter cho as jayce or kayle. Imo at best it's a relatively even lane.
What's worst is that since all jayce's jump has a windup, if you try to jump, and rupture hits, the jump gets canceled.
Also, getting hit with one rupture isn't make or break in this matchup. Kayle outdamages Cho so hard with QE and a bunch of autoattacks at level 2 that it's not even funny, though it's a matchup that's basically gank-dependent anyway. Any matchup that the opponent can both kite and do a ton of damage is pretty rough for Cho.
On October 01 2012 12:35 obesechicken13 wrote: So I tried out a bot game against a custom level cho. I can't jump fast enough to dodge ruptures.
Are you trying to react to the cast animation or the spell animation?
Cast. I'm expecting the rupture.
As a Cho player many people who are NOT absolutly predictable in their jukes (meaning always the same way) can dodge ruptures quite successfully. The problem is, I'll still be able to push them away from the creeps they want to last hit if my timing is right.
So far the only player which shut me down completly top lane was rengar, mostly because he did the lvl 1 gank abuse which i had not met at all till that game :p
Malzahar isn't a fun matchup by any means, but he shouldn't be able to kill you 1v1 without jungle assistance before 6, and if you rush merc treads -> negatron against him you can 6 stack yourself pretty fast. You're just timing your power curve to peak a little later than it usually would because he's so strong midgame. Stack feast, don't die, rush abyssal or negatron -> rylais -> abyssal and you should do okay against him. Keys to the matchup are avoiding silence, playing around visions spread, and disrupting his combos with rupture or scream.
Update: Still loving Cho top. There seem to be two results. We either both build armour and MR and just sit in lane until 200 cs, or I get an early lead with W harassment until I can WQR. Rinse, repeat. He's so annoying. W's range feels too big to me.
I don't know about you guys, but I feel when I go Cho that I can always survive lane, but don't really have a job in teamfights. I can disrupt, sure, but nobody shoots the giant dinosaur :\
Well a proper rupture (hitting 2+ important opponents) followed by a silence across the previously ruptured people, followed by a feast on whoever is low certainly does make an impact
depending on how annoying you were in the lane phase you might even get focused which is a win all around.
So far i've had a few teams ignore me, which usually leads to at least one dead carry on their side but possibly a won teamfight for them. Far more often I get focused, esp. if I have shown I can land my spells well before. That almost always means my team wins the fight (obviously ignoring things like 4v2 fights etc.).
Yes cho stops being quite so strong sometime around level 15 (usually when the AD carries start to become the most important chars) but you can still crowdcontrol with rupture and shut down their AP/support players with silence.
Well-placed cc and blocking skillshots are some of the keys to playing Cho well in teamfights. If you feel like you're not contributing enough, check your build for things you want to incorporate that will fix that!
On October 09 2012 11:06 aRyuujin wrote: I don't know about you guys, but I feel when I go Cho that I can always survive lane, but don't really have a job in teamfights. I can disrupt, sure, but nobody shoots the giant dinosaur :\
The easiest thing to do is to Q the ADC (can be dodged, but wastes his time to move instead of attacking) or a bruiser diving at your own ADC.
It also depends what you feel like you'll be more important doing, sometimes you want to be peeling for your adc and sometimes you wanna be forcing their team out of the fight. It comes down to experience, you have to learn which comps you have to do what vs. Sometimes you want to be way in the back, too, especially if you're the caster and not the main tank.
Still learning the match ups but what I find is that once the other top (usually Irelia, Riven, XinZhao, Jax, auto attack champions with gap closers) hits a certain level and have enough attack damage (phage, 1-2 doran sword etc) they can just dominate me even when i'm stacking armour (tabi -> glacial). What really kills me though is that they freeze lane in middle of their tower and zone me. Previously I would just last hit at tower, but if they freeze lane I'm totally fucked. What ends up happening is I lose the CS and play safe so at least I won't feed and hopefully outscale them and be more useful in teamfights. Is that usually the thought process for cho?
Also, I've been leveling E a lot more in top match ups to win trades or at least not get bullied after landing Q and E.
I'm more of a mid cho player but would like to learn top ~
Max E on top lane is severely underrated, I do it now against melee champs in particular and get something like hog -> def boots -> chain -> wits depending on matchup, just play with the order based on what you feel like you need.
On October 09 2012 19:10 Trainninja wrote: More questions about Cho top -
Still learning the match ups but what I find is that once the other top (usually Irelia, Riven, XinZhao, Jax, auto attack champions with gap closers) hits a certain level and have enough attack damage (phage, 1-2 doran sword etc) they can just dominate me even when i'm stacking armour (tabi -> glacial). What really kills me though is that they freeze lane in middle of their tower and zone me. Previously I would just last hit at tower, but if they freeze lane I'm totally fucked. What ends up happening is I lose the CS and play safe so at least I won't feed and hopefully outscale them and be more useful in teamfights. Is that usually the thought process for cho?
Also, I've been leveling E a lot more in top match ups to win trades or at least not get bullied after landing Q and E.
I'm more of a mid cho player but would like to learn top ~
how can they freeze in tower range? Anyway don't forget you can turn off E so you don't auto push when you are not trading.
Also I with maxing E first you can trade extremly well against alot of melee champs.
On October 10 2012 13:28 obesechicken13 wrote: Max E? Really? Even teemo's E is +15 damage per level from range.
There's something about AoE that makes Cho's slightly stronger imo. AoE rylais proc pretty stronk. Early game if you fight in creeps you'll kill them and it'll proc your passive which wins trades if you're good at it .
Also, doesn't teemo's apply a dot that doesn't stack?
On October 09 2012 11:06 aRyuujin wrote: I don't know about you guys, but I feel when I go Cho that I can always survive lane, but don't really have a job in teamfights. I can disrupt, sure, but nobody shoots the giant dinosaur :\
What? Being a tank is enough of a role in teamfights. But this is a tank who has a AoE silence, AoE knockup + slow, and a huge true damage nuke.
On October 09 2012 10:36 Chill wrote: Update: Still loving Cho top. There seem to be two results. We either both build armour and MR and just sit in lane until 200 cs, or I get an early lead with W harassment until I can WQR. Rinse, repeat. He's so annoying. W's range feels too big to me.
What ELO are you?
I've been playing Chogy a lot too recently and he is quite good top! I'm pretty low skill though (can't get the hang of LoL like I could for SC2 .)
Does anybody have some advice during the laning phase on how/when to use his ult? I'm never really sure if I should keep it handy or just build stacks. Occasionally I end up in a position where if I hadn't used it on a minion I could have gotten a kill and feel really stupid!
On October 09 2012 10:36 Chill wrote: Update: Still loving Cho top. There seem to be two results. We either both build armour and MR and just sit in lane until 200 cs, or I get an early lead with W harassment until I can WQR. Rinse, repeat. He's so annoying. W's range feels too big to me.
What ELO are you?
I've been playing Chogy a lot too recently and he is quite good top! I'm pretty low skill though (can't get the hang of LoL like I could for SC2 .)
Does anybody have some advice during the laning phase on how/when to use his ult? I'm never really sure if I should keep it handy or just build stacks. Occasionally I end up in a position where if I hadn't used it on a minion I could have gotten a kill and feel really stupid!
I don't play ranked. I'm not very good.
The cooldown isn't that big (I think ~1min at level 6) but the stack isn't that big either (90hp). If there's any chance of a teamfight or 1v1 duel in the next 45 seconds, I typically hold onto it. If he's at ~75% and my big wave is pushing, I'll WQR jsut to scare him from tower farming. It's easy to continue to harass him at tower with WQ, and after three waves R will be back and he might be surprised to get WQR'd and die.
If he went b without me ulting, I'll use it right away.
You have to play wayyyy differently without ult as Cho. Ult + ignite does serious damage, not to mention how hard W is to dodge. I try to keep it up as much as possible. You can quite often get a 1 for 1 when getting ganked if you have it up. You can also dive so easily with WQRignite.
On October 09 2012 10:36 Chill wrote: Update: Still loving Cho top. There seem to be two results. We either both build armour and MR and just sit in lane until 200 cs, or I get an early lead with W harassment until I can WQR. Rinse, repeat. He's so annoying. W's range feels too big to me.
What ELO are you?
I've been playing Chogy a lot too recently and he is quite good top! I'm pretty low skill though (can't get the hang of LoL like I could for SC2 .)
Does anybody have some advice during the laning phase on how/when to use his ult? I'm never really sure if I should keep it handy or just build stacks. Occasionally I end up in a position where if I hadn't used it on a minion I could have gotten a kill and feel really stupid!
I don't play ranked. I'm not very good.
The cooldown isn't that big (I think ~1min at level 6) but the stack isn't that big either (90hp). If there's any chance of a teamfight or 1v1 duel in the next 45 seconds, I typically hold onto it. If he's at ~75% and my big wave is pushing, I'll WQR jsut to scare him from tower farming. It's easy to continue to harass him at tower with WQ, and after three waves R will be back and he might be surprised to get WQR'd and die.
If he went b without me ulting, I'll use it right away.
You have to play wayyyy differently without ult as Cho. Ult + ignite does serious damage, not to mention how hard W is to dodge. I try to keep it up as much as possible. You can quite often get a 1 for 1 when getting ganked if you have it up. You can also dive so easily with WQRignite.
To some extent I disagree :p
Personally I feel building the first 3 stacks ASAP is more important than one more kill or not. Sometimes I save up (depending on my opponent) but usually I use the first 3-4 on creeps. Only if my lane opponent has a history of being willing to trade harass down to 25% health or so, will I save it for a fight. If they recall home as soon as they hit 50% and make sure to always stay close to their tower, I don't bother (far more common personally).
I agree that it is important for teamfights from the midgame on, but if you are in a solo lane you should be level 8-10 with at least 3 stacks done before the towers disappear (at least your own should be fairly safe, and Chos tower killing speed is bad to say the least )
If there is one thing I dislike about this char, it's that he is a meele character with a bad autoattack, meaning killing towers or inhibitors later on is a chore.
How do You guys play vs Rengar? I am dong fine vs most of melee top champs but rengars dmg seems just too much. I am clueless. Last game i had like 100 armor tabi and he still killed me ridiculously fast.
On October 09 2012 10:36 Chill wrote: Update: Still loving Cho top. There seem to be two results. We either both build armour and MR and just sit in lane until 200 cs, or I get an early lead with W harassment until I can WQR. Rinse, repeat. He's so annoying. W's range feels too big to me.
What ELO are you?
I've been playing Chogy a lot too recently and he is quite good top! I'm pretty low skill though (can't get the hang of LoL like I could for SC2 .)
Does anybody have some advice during the laning phase on how/when to use his ult? I'm never really sure if I should keep it handy or just build stacks. Occasionally I end up in a position where if I hadn't used it on a minion I could have gotten a kill and feel really stupid!
I don't play ranked. I'm not very good.
The cooldown isn't that big (I think ~1min at level 6) but the stack isn't that big either (90hp). If there's any chance of a teamfight or 1v1 duel in the next 45 seconds, I typically hold onto it. If he's at ~75% and my big wave is pushing, I'll WQR jsut to scare him from tower farming. It's easy to continue to harass him at tower with WQ, and after three waves R will be back and he might be surprised to get WQR'd and die.
If he went b without me ulting, I'll use it right away.
You have to play wayyyy differently without ult as Cho. Ult + ignite does serious damage, not to mention how hard W is to dodge. I try to keep it up as much as possible. You can quite often get a 1 for 1 when getting ganked if you have it up. You can also dive so easily with WQRignite.
To some extent I disagree :p
Personally I feel building the first 3 stacks ASAP is more important than one more kill or not. Sometimes I save up (depending on my opponent) but usually I use the first 3-4 on creeps. Only if my lane opponent has a history of being willing to trade harass down to 25% health or so, will I save it for a fight. If they recall home as soon as they hit 50% and make sure to always stay close to their tower, I don't bother (far more common personally).
I agree that it is important for teamfights from the midgame on, but if you are in a solo lane you should be level 8-10 with at least 3 stacks done before the towers disappear (at least your own should be fairly safe, and Chos tower killing speed is bad to say the least )
If there is one thing I dislike about this char, it's that he is a meele character with a bad autoattack, meaning killing towers or inhibitors later on is a chore.
I actually find the opposite, I think Cho takes down towers pretty fast if you're good at timing the waves to double up. But yeah, I agree with your feast strategy. If I have the mana and they have the health to get a feast kill or if my jungler is coming and I'm top lane I'll save feast, otherwise I just feast all the things until I'm 6 stacked or there's a crucial point coming up. If I'm mid lane I'll grab blues with it and generally mids are a lot squishier so two combos and a few auto attacks are all it takes to get them into WQ flash feast range. Stacking feast and not dying are so big to snowballing your midgame as Chogath. If you're not the biggest thing in game at level 9-16 you're going to have a really tough game.
Oh and vs rengar open cloth + 5 and play passive until you farm boots 2. He deals magic with his W so you're going to want tabi (or merc, depending on comp) -> nmm + chainmail as a part of your opening. I'd probably end up maxing e against him and getting aegis + wits in some order after chainmail, depending on how he builds. Max w might be stronger. I haven't played the matchup enough but I've wrecked it pretty much every time I've played it.
Aegis is still in the game, so that's one. Wit's End if you have several tanky people on your team is another one. Negatron Cloak is really good too, items that build out of it should be alright for full item build too. Don't remember what new spirit visage is like, might be worthwile but probably not. But yeah that's kinda it.
Hey, just a noobish question : I just played a game where i found myself lacking any ult stacks i'd say 75% of the game and never got to 6 stack, so as a beginner World-destroying-alien-tyrannosaurus-rex i'm asking you guys : Is it better to use the ult on minions when it's up at anytime ?
i tend to keep in the fear of a teamfight and then i realize that it's only 60 sec CD :/
On December 04 2012 03:31 GregMandel wrote: Hey, just a noobish question : I just played a game where i found myself lacking any ult stacks i'd say 75% of the game and never got to 6 stack, so as a beginner World-destroying-alien-tyrannosaurus-rex i'm asking you guys : Is it better to use the ult on minions when it's up at anytime ?
i tend to keep in the fear of a teamfight and then i realize that it's only 60 sec CD :/
I think that the general idea is spam your ult until you know you need it or your at 5-6 stacks
As a side note: what about chalice on cho in mid? If your facing AP it gives some nice resists and not many people can deal with screams in the face 24/7
On November 26 2012 02:57 OnceKing wrote: So with the removal of FoN coming in, what are your opinions on a new big-ticket MR item?
SV I guess on a lot of champs is going to be a lot bigger I guess. Nothing has more mr then it and it would synergze well with anyone who has sustain heal or life/vamp steal. cho is going to be able to clear wraiths and get a ton of health from it.
On December 04 2012 03:31 GregMandel wrote: Hey, just a noobish question : I just played a game where i found myself lacking any ult stacks i'd say 75% of the game and never got to 6 stack, so as a beginner World-destroying-alien-tyrannosaurus-rex i'm asking you guys : Is it better to use the ult on minions when it's up at anytime ?
i tend to keep in the fear of a teamfight and then i realize that it's only 60 sec CD :/
I think that the general idea is spam your ult until you know you need it or your at 5-6 stacks
As a side note: what about chalice on cho in mid? If your facing AP it gives some nice resists and not many people can deal with screams in the face 24/7
I think that chalice into athene's on cho is really strong. I usually build it first item when playing cho mid nowadays and skip doran's entirely. ap, cdr, mreg and mres. it's really everything a mid cho wants.
On December 04 2012 03:31 GregMandel wrote: Hey, just a noobish question : I just played a game where i found myself lacking any ult stacks i'd say 75% of the game and never got to 6 stack, so as a beginner World-destroying-alien-tyrannosaurus-rex i'm asking you guys : Is it better to use the ult on minions when it's up at anytime ?
i tend to keep in the fear of a teamfight and then i realize that it's only 60 sec CD :/
I think that the general idea is spam your ult until you know you need it or your at 5-6 stacks
As a side note: what about chalice on cho in mid? If your facing AP it gives some nice resists and not many people can deal with screams in the face 24/7
I think that chalice into athene's on cho is really strong. I usually build it first item when playing cho mid nowadays and skip doran's entirely. ap, cdr, mreg and mres. it's really everything a mid cho wants.
All you REALLY need to be able to scream 24/7 is chalice (assuming vs ap ofc, you wouldn't take chalice vs AD) so i like to branch off right there depending on the game. Generally Chalice>glacial is pretty good if i want to influence other lanes since it helps tower dive with the armor and gives you more CDR and mana to spam more spells. Rylais/Athenes/FH after that depending on what i need. It also lets you give blue to your jungler (although you taking it lets you literally spam all your spells when they come off CD)
On December 04 2012 03:31 GregMandel wrote: Hey, just a noobish question : I just played a game where i found myself lacking any ult stacks i'd say 75% of the game and never got to 6 stack, so as a beginner World-destroying-alien-tyrannosaurus-rex i'm asking you guys : Is it better to use the ult on minions when it's up at anytime ?
i tend to keep in the fear of a teamfight and then i realize that it's only 60 sec CD :/
I think that the general idea is spam your ult until you know you need it or your at 5-6 stacks
As a side note: what about chalice on cho in mid? If your facing AP it gives some nice resists and not many people can deal with screams in the face 24/7
I think that chalice into athene's on cho is really strong. I usually build it first item when playing cho mid nowadays and skip doran's entirely. ap, cdr, mreg and mres. it's really everything a mid cho wants.
All you REALLY need to be able to scream 24/7 is chalice (assuming vs ap ofc, you wouldn't take chalice vs AD) so i like to branch off right there depending on the game. Generally Chalice>glacial is pretty good if i want to influence other lanes since it helps tower dive with the armor and gives you more CDR and mana to spam more spells. Rylais/Athenes/FH after that depending on what i need. It also lets you give blue to your jungler (although you taking it lets you literally spam all your spells when they come off CD)
Depends what lane you're in, if you're top and don't need the MR I would say skip chalice entirely because glacial deals with mana issues pretty well, if you're mid Athene's rush is fine but I feel slightly squishy and not as influential as if I merc -> Rylais. Some matchups it's pretty good and allows you to take hp per level seals (vs syndra in particular this is important because she just totally blows you up if she's good).
On November 26 2012 03:09 Scip wrote: Aegis is still in the game, so that's one. Wit's End if you have several tanky people on your team is another one. Negatron Cloak is really good too, items that build out of it should be alright for full item build too. Don't remember what new spirit visage is like, might be worthwile but probably not. But yeah that's kinda it.
Aegis upgrades into a better "all the defenses" item.
Also, the Spirit Visage change is basically "this is a bigger item and it builds out of a Negatron" - it also costs more (2200 total, part of this is because it builds out of negatron) and is up to +20% Healing received - it's even more delicious if you really like the MR and the healing passive now.
On December 04 2012 08:51 Sufficiency wrote: Playing Mordekaiser against Chogath mid is an absolute nightmare.
I still stand by my opinion that Cho is the most broken mid-laner ever.
Diana seems to do fine against him mid - nothing wrong with just autoing him if he silences you after you jump on him, your shield goes a long way against him, and you have the mobility to avoid getting ruptured. Then again, who DOESN'T Diana handle "just fine" mid, currently?
On December 04 2012 03:31 GregMandel wrote: Hey, just a noobish question : I just played a game where i found myself lacking any ult stacks i'd say 75% of the game and never got to 6 stack, so as a beginner World-destroying-alien-tyrannosaurus-rex i'm asking you guys : Is it better to use the ult on minions when it's up at anytime ?
i tend to keep in the fear of a teamfight and then i realize that it's only 60 sec CD :/
On December 04 2012 08:51 Sufficiency wrote: Playing Mordekaiser against Chogath mid is an absolute nightmare.
I still stand by my opinion that Cho is the most broken mid-laner ever.
Diana seems to do fine against him mid - nothing wrong with just autoing him if he silences you after you jump on him, your shield goes a long way against him, and you have the mobility to avoid getting ruptured. Then again, who DOESN'T Diana handle "just fine" mid, currently?
Diana WRECKS Chogath mid and so does Syndra/Xerath/Lee, it's kind of why I'm trying to get him stable in top lane again. Obviously he's an amazing jungle, he was banned or picked in nearly every game at IPL for jungle.
On December 08 2012 00:31 Keniji wrote: Frozen Heart or Iceborn Gauntlet? Iceborn Gauntlet seems like an good item for cho as he benefits from everything, but frozen heart pretty good, too.
really not sure, BUT so far i've stuck to Frozen heart. The 45 Ap simply isn't enough to make me change my mind, esp. since Cho has to be tanky to survive with his stacks intact.
So, I've been having success with Cho in the new jungle pretty consistently, but I've never found a build I've been 100% happy with.
I usually open machete with four health pot and 1 mana pot, and typically back with enough to grab spirit stone, boots, and a flask (~1k). After that I've tried a couple of different things, but I'm not sure I like the tanky spirit stone upgrade - it grants hp, armour, and tenacity, which is great, but it makes me want to grab mercs for MR but nope, tenacity, so I usually grab tabi and something like a negatron or chalice early.
Later on, I think it's not too hard to hit a good mix of 40% cdr and tankiness if I pick between rylais or bulwark and not both, but the early phases are throwing me off a bit. Any suggestions?
On December 15 2012 20:08 TheHumanSensation wrote: So, I've been having success with Cho in the new jungle pretty consistently, but I've never found a build I've been 100% happy with.
I usually open machete with four health pot and 1 mana pot, and typically back with enough to grab spirit stone, boots, and a flask (~1k). After that I've tried a couple of different things, but I'm not sure I like the tanky spirit stone upgrade - it grants hp, armour, and tenacity, which is great, but it makes me want to grab mercs for MR but nope, tenacity, so I usually grab tabi and something like a negatron or chalice early.
Later on, I think it's not too hard to hit a good mix of 40% cdr and tankiness if I pick between rylais or bulwark and not both, but the early phases are throwing me off a bit. Any suggestions?
Nope seems good to me. What masteries do you use? I'm really not sure if wanderer is worth it, but thats not only for jungle cho but for other heros/roles as well
On December 08 2012 00:31 Keniji wrote: Frozen Heart or Iceborn Gauntlet? Iceborn Gauntlet seems like an good item for cho as he benefits from everything, but frozen heart pretty good, too.
Why gauntlet when you can rylais? You don't get all that much benefit from sheen and FH is strictly better, but if you're debating about fitting it into your build, just get a rylais instead.
On December 15 2012 20:08 TheHumanSensation wrote: So, I've been having success with Cho in the new jungle pretty consistently, but I've never found a build I've been 100% happy with.
I usually open machete with four health pot and 1 mana pot, and typically back with enough to grab spirit stone, boots, and a flask (~1k). After that I've tried a couple of different things, but I'm not sure I like the tanky spirit stone upgrade - it grants hp, armour, and tenacity, which is great, but it makes me want to grab mercs for MR but nope, tenacity, so I usually grab tabi and something like a negatron or chalice early.
Later on, I think it's not too hard to hit a good mix of 40% cdr and tankiness if I pick between rylais or bulwark and not both, but the early phases are throwing me off a bit. Any suggestions?
Nope seems good to me. What masteries do you use? I'm really not sure if wanderer is worth it, but thats not only for jungle cho but for other heros/roles as well
I've been running AD : Armour : Mr / level : MS runes, and 2 (Butcher) : 24 (a lot) : 4 (wanderer + insight) for masteries. It feels better than most other things I've tried, but I don't have Attack Speed runes.
If I'm aiming to hit 40% cdr (or close to it), what would you guys recommend for items? Frozen Heart feels awkward after a Tabi + Tankyspirit thing opening because of resistance imbalance, so I usually grab it last after Rylais and Athenes, but it still feels like I'm getting some redundancy there. Have people played with Spirit Visage in the new jungle on cho yet? I might experiment with it instead of spirit stone today and see how that goes.
I feel going glacial shroud early is so good on him. I dont usually upgrade the spirit stone until much later and tend to get mobo boots on him tho, so i need the armor anyway. I tend to build more tanky and less damage in the jungle and just be a huge CC bot, occasionally eating people. I tend to get aegis/bulwark and glacial shroud as fast as possible, then go from there, abyssal often being the first real AP item i get.
What do you guys think about GP10 items for cho? My first item on my way back from jungling is usually a philo stone - usually that ends up satisfying my mana requirements, I then can get a kindlegem for CDR (typically build into spirit visage) instead of needing glacial shroud and FH. Follow that up with a Wits End (seems like this item was made for cho). After the wits end I usually just tank him out more - try to make myself impossible to kill after getting feast stacks up.
I start with machete for jungle but always end up selling it (usually on my second trip back to the shop) rather than build into a spirit stone, - cho doesn't need the extra damage against monsters after his E gets a few points.
I've never tried a Rylais on cho, will give that a shot next game. Does cho's E proc Rylais? Or is it just more for making his silence and nom slow?
rylai is ofc a great item, but do u really need the slow? i dont know. I usually get Roa because of the mana boost. But with frozen heart next thats kinda stupid i guess... hm.
And philo is kinda a waste. if you get machete anyway you can upgrade it into spirit stone and have better regen/faster jungle clearing. Shurelya on cho, i dont know.. maybe. Its definitely not bad, depends on what the sup is getting.
I'm not certain that I'd trade the slow for more mana, especially when it makes the (optional flash) -> silence -> rupture -> feast combo impossible to dodge.
Personally, I upgrade spirit stone, what is the point in SELLING a machete?
@5hit Do you harass a lot in lane with silence? I tend to run oom pretty quickly doing this and I notice you don't build anything as far as mana regen goes. Are you pretty passive unless you have blue?
It depends which lane I'm in, I max e a lot in top lane now, but generally I harass whenever I feel like it'll do something to them and I don't harass when I think it won't do anything to them. In mid lane scream does like 1/4 of their hp and it can keep them playing pretty safe (depending on matchup) and sometimes set them up for kills so I use it to harass when they come in for creeps and let them know that they're gonna be eating a scream and possibly more when they come in to cs. This lets me bully the lane around a bit (depending on matchup) and freefarm, which gives you a little sustain. Because cho has such ridiculous health recovery when you last hit well you can trade a lot more freely with auto/e. I generally stop harassing so much if I'm saving up for a scream rupture ignite auto/e/flash/feast kill or I think my jungler is coming in a bit. I'm starting to like chalice a lot more but it really sets your power curve behind a bit so you have to make the judgement of whether starting to ramp up a little later and possibly at a point where your opponents can deal with a rylais on you is worth having mana all the time. Sometimes it will be, sometimes it won't be, but usually if I go chalice I end up delaying or skipping rylais entirely.
But yeah, if I expect to get blue buffs, and I do, I still do standard rush merc -> rylais and spam harass. Learning the finer points of harassing and farming at the same time is pretty big on Cho, using e when you last hit to harass champ, screaming for the last hit/harass, knowing how to trade with a champ in creeps so you'll end up triggering your passive, etc.
The only problem I have with FF is that it procs on autoattacks rather than having scream slow from rylai's to set up your combo.
On a sidenote, how should the Cho v Kat matchup go? Its reaaaally obnoxious how she gets a cute speed boost to make landing your rupture damn near impossible to land when she comes in to harass.
I like the concept of Jungle Cho. But whenever I do go Jungle Cho I feel like I need to go support/tank items like sight stone or Aegis which means no CDR. Then having to use Feast on targets just to get damage in instead of for last hit on minions. Meaning I'm a tiny Cho most of the game which sucks.
huh? Why would you get sightstone with cho? support should get that, same with aegis. You already have so much utility with the 2 AOE ccs. Frozen heart makes you tanky, gives you mana, CDR(!) and another utility. Your team should appreciate that. Also, you can get a shurelia if needed so the sup can buy something else. aegis and especially sightstone is a huge waste on cho imho
On December 22 2012 16:40 Hyren wrote: The only problem I have with FF is that it procs on autoattacks rather than having scream slow from rylai's to set up your combo.
On a sidenote, how should the Cho v Kat matchup go? Its reaaaally obnoxious how she gets a cute speed boost to make landing your rupture damn near impossible to land when she comes in to harass.
whenever she comes to kill ur minions, scream her and subsequently rupture her; that'll do a hefty chunk of dmg. You cant just rupture up immediately
Sightstone is a really good item on Cho, depending on enemy jungler you definitely might want to get it before finishing your first big item. Aegis is a great, but not the only option; Locket of the Iron Solari is very good on Cho'Gath as well (and on everyone else too). Shurelyas is a viable 2nd item I guess, I don't really like it on Cho though, who is more of a defensive teamfighter rather than an initiator.
You just can't afford to not use your ultimate on creeps early. It makes you weaker in the short run, but those HPs are really important and you want to have 6 stacks before you get level11 for certain. So just feast them wraiths :3
CDR on Cho is nice-ish, but survivability comes first. Frozen Heart might be viable in the extreme lategame, but probably not before. Not to mention that with a bit of regen you shouldn't need so much extra mana anyways.
Yep should just say fuck it if my lanes won't get wards they're dead to me and build CDR. Shurelya's Reverie is also not as good as it used to be and is something I keep forgetting with Locket being the better tanky item. Same with feasting since I'm screwing myself over my trying to help lanes so much and that messes up mid-late game fights.
What? That is a terrible piece of advice if it was intended as such. You are a jungler, of course you are supposed to help lanes and gank them and ward for them, especially middle lane. It's not just that middle laner's gold is more important, you are also able to ward deeper in the enemy jungle, because mid has other responsibilities (like pushing middle lane).
The difference between gold and feast cooldown is that they are separate and should be treated differently (for example, you can't store feast cd unlike gold) and exactly because of that feasting a creep asap is (almost) always the safer play. There is no way you should draw a parallel between the 2.
That is ignoring the fact that CDR isn't even THAT awesome on Cho'Gath. I mean yes it's good, but your W and Q cooldowns aren't as important as you might think; it's the first Scream and Rupture in the teamfight that is the most important and you want to be as tanky as you can to place them properly.
I still ward on all junglers I just won't get sight stone as often. Just the juggling growing Cho with feast on monsters and helping securing kills with Feast seems tough without some CDR as even when ganks with Feast are successful Cho is unlikely to get the last hit with Feast.
If you are having a hard time getting feast stacks with Cho you need to change your prioritizing a little bit. You can make your own choices. Like, sometimes you have the option between:
ganking and feasting for damage and getting a kill
or
feasting a minion and ganking just to apply pressure and get them out of lane
There are situations where you will want to do one, and situations where you will want to do the other. I'm going out on a limb and assuming that you have free will, so make your own decisions for the game flow. Like, don't keep feasting for damage if you only have two stacks and it's obvious you're not getting to 6 if you keep doing what you're doing. Plan to be useful at all stages of the game.
Also, feasting stuff like buffs and dragons to secure them is a pretty easy way to get stacks and you really should be doing that anyway.
I played around with jungle cho builds a bit more. I think opening machete5 and then grabbing spirit stone / boots / flask feels good, but just leaving spirit stone as is and then building cho in the same way as season 2 felt like the best transition from it.
Some other openings I played with were faerie charm + rejuvenation bead + 3 pots, and rejuvenation bead + flask + 2 pot. The idea behind the former being to open with a fast philo stone, but it just felt a lot worse than spirit stone overall. I liked the latter more, and I played with a fast emblem of valor (aiming for aegis at 2nd / 3rd back or so) instead of spirit stone for sustain although I felt mana-starved by the time I started to eat creeps for stacks. Trying out the AP-spirit stone felt like a good combo with it, but it felt like I was building too heavily into sustain at that point.
Bead/Flask/2Pot or machete5 into spirit stone and season 2 cho feels best imo.
Also I don't like Iceborn Gauntlet on cho right away, but I think it makes a good filler item. If you get Rylais, you get a 15% AoE slow on every auto attack as opposed to every other, so I want to say it makes a nice late-game alternative to having built CDR, but then it goes and gives you CDR as well.
Assuming your laners cover their tribrushes/rivers then your only real priority is a pink on dragon. Other good spots are buffs when they're about to spawn and wraith camp.
Hm, so has anyone been playing around with cho? There are just too many items I like on him, its sick, Still dont know if machete->ss is the best build, but spectral of the spirit wraith is pretty nice.
Oh, nice typo xD lol anyway, I think zeyphr is really good on him too when the there not much AP dmg on the other team (wits end). I get ninja tabi then instead of mercury treads.
Also I think wits end is pretty weak atm. What do you think of nashors on cho? xD
i usually build my ss into spirit of the ancient golem over spectral wraith for the tankiness. haven't tried spectral wraith yet but i'm willing to try. maybe i'll try lizard elder too
On January 14 2013 11:10 LeeDawg wrote: i usually build my ss into spirit of the ancient golem over spectral wraith for the tankiness. haven't tried spectral wraith yet but i'm willing to try. maybe i'll try lizard elder too
i typically build a super late ancient golem (like, after at least 2 full items. usually 3 [wit's, FH, SV/Locket). this one time I forgot that golem had tenacity and bough mercs though, so I went Lizard and it was pretty funny applying it to the whole other team with vorpal spikes. it was bad for sure but still pretty funny.
I've been told by a really strong Chogath player that machete + 5 pots -> giants belt (using gold/5 quints) is op because from that point on you're invincible. Lots of good pro players have been doing machete + 5 -> philo, but I think philo is not very good. Aegis rush is kind of weak now for some reason and Cho isn't a very good locket holder so I've been doing a lot of spirit stone -> Rylais kind of stuff (obviously not optimal, but really fun).
I'm still not sure what the best build path for jungle Cho is, and today in the finals we saw wits + IBG + furor merc on lane Cho. I'm not sold yet.
I go machete -> spirit stone -> kindlegem -> wit's -> glacial -> FH + Locket + Ancient Golem on jungle cho. Been playing it a fair bit in ranked right now, it's very stronk IMO.
Btw what is better for increasing clearing time, AS and maxing E or AP and maxing W? AS and E I guess, so an early Wits End maxes sense. Damn I wanna try nashors right now
On January 14 2013 16:42 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Hmm what do you do about MR if wits isn't enough? Aegis/Bulwark? I assume you're not going merc + ancient golem right?
I've been looking around at jungle builds and I'm not quite sure what I like yet.
sorry, forgot to mention BoM for teh gonks. If they only have 1 magic dealer, fuck getting any more than wit's, just go Warmog's if that 1 dude is still killing you. If there's more than 1 magic dealer, go SV or Bulwark instead of locket, but I mean, really HP > MRes options right now.
On January 14 2013 16:59 Djin)ftw( wrote: Btw what is better for increasing clearing time, AS and maxing E or AP and maxing W? AS and E I guess, so an early Wits End maxes sense. Damn I wanna try nashors right now
I just grab the 2nd point in E @ lvl 4 and get dat recurve bow fast. E is pretty bonkers, definitely better for clear times than your other skills.
Just started playing around with cho after the weekend, I am surpised how good he is in the jungle, I was doing the spirit stone boots but going in to ninja tabi/speed 5 boots as you get the tenicicity from the upgraded spirit stone.. not sure what else to build really , thoughts? looked at a few guides and the jist is get big and tanky..
Oh, one thing that I've been meaning to test as well is how much damage feast does to buffs/dragons/barons with butcher passive. I know before that passive was put in it was roughly 1k but I wonder if it'll do like 1.25k with the passive on butcher.
Butcher doesn't enhance true damage (per lol wiki). Last week I feasted enemy blue buff in ww's face at 1003hp, it survived with 3hp and he just q'd and left.
On January 15 2013 02:55 La1 wrote: Just started playing around with cho after the weekend, I am surpised how good he is in the jungle, I was doing the spirit stone boots but going in to ninja tabi/speed 5 boots as you get the tenicicity from the upgraded spirit stone.. not sure what else to build really , thoughts? looked at a few guides and the jist is get big and tanky..
build anything and win cuz chogath is like the best hero in the game tbh
The silence nerf certainly hurts but I think mid cho can deal best with it as he doesn't rely purely on his CC as jungle/tank cho does but also on his pretty strong burst. Tho I can't really say how much ot hurts in laneing as I didn't try it out yet. If I had to guess i'd say the silence should still be long enough to trade in your favour and get out in time.
Build: The way I play him I do need some additional mana reg early. As I mostly play him 9/21/0 the bluebuff doesn't hold as long either. I usually build chalice first item, but I think spirit stone might be a good alternative. Both build into good, cost effective items for cho, too. I really like a rylais rush next (thx 5hit) as the additional tankyness (cho has to be close range eventually to feast) + the slow is just sick on cho. Hit 1 scream? Hit rupture as well and with vorpal he never gets away. I usually build deathcap after rylais to get the burst going, the alternative would be to finish athene/spectral wraith first as cd reduction is important on cho as well. 4th item either frozen heart or locket, because cd and tankyness. I think i prefer locket (if you dont forget the active huehue). You dont need the mana of FH when you have Athene/spectral either. Discuss.
He provides a really good double knock-up, and a double silence. His passive seems wasted, his E is wasted, but his R allows him to remain relatively tanky without many expensive tank items and it allows him to dish out somewhat of a high single-target damage without any offensive items.
Jungle Cho works out pretty well with Rylai, Abyssal, Bulwark, Randuins, Ninja Tabi and Zhonyas. At least that's what I've been doing ever since I bought him.
On February 01 2013 22:47 Djagulingu wrote: Jungle Cho works out pretty well with Rylai, Abyssal, Bulwark, Randuins, Ninja Tabi and Zhonyas. At least that's what I've been doing ever since I bought him.
In higher level games you won't be afforded the opportunity to get those items as they're really expensive for a jungler. Obviously you want a 6 item Cho as a jungler but in reality you're likely to get one, maybe two of those before most games end or they'll end up crushing you anyway because Cho really gets outscaled super late game. If you have the luxury to be getting these items on a jungle Chogath you should really be focusing on finishing games more cleanly because to get these items and not lose you pretty much have to choose not to finish a game or not know how to.
So I was wondering about something I just tried in a game.
I was vs 5 AD it was like Yorick top, Darius jungle, GP mid, cait bot with Taric so really not much magic damage + Darius true damage. I wanted armor and some health buffer obviously (me being cho top vs yorick.) I ended up giving up 1st blood on a delayed blue invade by them and Yorick got it so I started off behind.
I went Dshield into boots and decided to go catalyst for a health buffer into tabi -> RoA -> Frozen Fist and then followed with Randuins. I felt like this build kept up my mid game damage enough when my real goal was just to survive their front line. Game ended as a win soon after. I feel like this build is a strong tank build with good midgame power and even though I started out waaay behind (he got 1st blood and was level 3 when I was 1,) I was able to catch up and eventually just ignore Yorick while farming and if I landed Q was able to kill him.
Against Yorick I'm a little torn, I think one NMM is mandatory because his early game damage is magic but you should also be getting a dshield so your passive can sustain you. Rushing catalyst sounds good and should give you more sustain. The trick to playing vs Yorick is to just time your power curve correctly because once he gets muramana he puts out insane damage and you have to take control of objectives and hopefully win lane before that happens. It's a tough matchup but if you time it right you can outscale him at midgame all the way into late game, especially if you get good ganks. I'm not 100% sold on frozen fist over frozen heart, but I've seen it done a lot and it gives you a bunch of stuff you need.
If I ever see someone pick yorick into me top when i can cho i'll test l0L
On February 11 2013 16:15 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Against Yorick I'm a little torn, I think one NMM is mandatory because his early game damage is magic but you should also be getting a dshield so your passive can sustain you. Rushing catalyst sounds good and should give you more sustain. The trick to playing vs Yorick is to just time your power curve correctly because once he gets muramana he puts out insane damage and you have to take control of objectives and hopefully win lane before that happens. It's a tough matchup but if you time it right you can outscale him at midgame all the way into late game, especially if you get good ganks. I'm not 100% sold on frozen fist over frozen heart, but I've seen it done a lot and it gives you a bunch of stuff you need.
If I ever see someone pick yorick into me top when i can cho i'll test l0L
Well I feel like I disagree on NMM but your 5HIT talking about chogath... so I dunno lol. I felt really secure going dshield into catalyst as the health buffer, passive + dshield + catalyst level up was so much regen his magic damage didn't really matter. After I had this health buffer/regen Yorick just couldn't kill me so I could free farm to RoA (literally just sit in wave and kill all the minions and then attack Yorick.) After RoA I decided on Fist since I wanted to do some more damage and most of the opposing teams damage was bursty not sustainy so I didn't think FH would benefit me too much (obviously it is still a fantastic item.)
RoA + Fist is a good chunk of AP, a good chunk of EHP, an auto attack enhancer + AoE slow guarenteeing your rupture hits. Kind of like how you talked about Rylais into rupture, scream -> auto with slow -> rupture is really strong and a solid amount of damage.
I don't think this has to necessarily be vs Yorick I'm going to try it out vs a bunch of people. If you ever get a chance to test the build let me know!
technically it only scales with voli's health, since it is just increased by a percentage multiplier equal to the target's missing health percent, meaning it doesn't matter how much health you have, if you're at 50% you take 50% more damage etc.
I know most cho's max W or Q first, but what about maxing E first? I just tried it vs a garen top and I completely wrecked face with it. I started cloth5 and whenever he tried to Q and then spin2win me I just outdamaged him with just auto's + E (and a occasional W)
On March 18 2013 23:37 Fildun wrote: I know most cho's max W or Q first, but what about maxing E first? I just tried it vs a garen top and I completely wrecked face with it. I started cloth5 and whenever he tried to Q and then spin2win me I just outdamaged him with just auto's + E (and a occasional W)
Btw this was top
Never max Q first, it's way to unreliable. 1 point in Q for the CC. Maxing it second or third depends on your build and matchup.
Maxing W or E depends on the matchup if you want to harass with W or trade autohits alot.
E also gives you a pretty good push ability without wasting mana (you can turn it off, too, if you don't want to push)
I've been playing a lot of Cho'gath toplane, my build has been cloth/flask-->philo--->boots/emblem--->aegis--->tank stuff(warmogs/sunfire/randuins) I feel like i don't do any damage late outside of my feast. Should I be throwing a RoA in my build somewhere?
On April 03 2013 19:15 nanospartan wrote: I've been playing a lot of Cho'gath toplane, my build has been cloth/flask-->philo--->boots/emblem--->aegis--->tank stuff(warmogs/sunfire/randuins) I feel like i don't do any damage late outside of my feast. Should I be throwing a RoA in my build somewhere?
Cata is a really strong item. 1 health pot and 2 mana pots of regen on level up. But you want it early. If you are getting aegis instead though you should make sure your support gets locket or something.
On April 03 2013 19:15 nanospartan wrote: I've been playing a lot of Cho'gath toplane, my build has been cloth/flask-->philo--->boots/emblem--->aegis--->tank stuff(warmogs/sunfire/randuins) I feel like i don't do any damage late outside of my feast. Should I be throwing a RoA in my build somewhere?
I've been getting nashor's after boots2+glacial shroud, you outtrade people so hard just from silence+aa's, and that's all the damage you need in laning phase. Later on, I think the CDR is really important for being useful, your role is to disrupt what the other team wants to do instead of killing them all by yourself.
I dont like RoA on Cho, actually I dont like it on most champs.
I dont know if its better than Rylais, 150 health/650 mana/more sustain vs slow sounds nice when you already have so much cc, but once you get a frozen heart i dont think you need the extra mana. Plus, getting health and sustain isnt really what I'm looking for when laning with cho. You got the passive. I usually want AS to proc my E more often and armor/mr to help me trading while i stack up my feast. So RoA is kinda useless imho, I dont know. I never get it
On April 06 2013 16:00 Djin)ftw( wrote: I dont like RoA on Cho, actually I dont like it on most champs.
I dont know if its better than Rylais, 150 health/650 mana/more sustain vs slow sounds nice when you already have so much cc, but once you get a frozen heart i dont think you need the extra mana. Plus, getting health and sustain isnt really what I'm looking for when laning with cho. You got the passive. I usually want AS to proc my E more often and armor/mr to help me trading while i stack up my feast. So RoA is kinda useless imho, I dont know. I never get it
^
Especially since the catalyst sustain nerf, RoA is underwhelming.
I definitely think the best way to build him is to get a fast Rylai's, then just build as tanky as you need to while getting attack speed for damage from Wit's End or Nashor's Tooth. CDR is really nice on him, but it's not necessary.
On April 06 2013 16:00 Djin)ftw( wrote: I dont like RoA on Cho, actually I dont like it on most champs.
I dont know if its better than Rylais, 150 health/650 mana/more sustain vs slow sounds nice when you already have so much cc, but once you get a frozen heart i dont think you need the extra mana. Plus, getting health and sustain isnt really what I'm looking for when laning with cho. You got the passive. I usually want AS to proc my E more often and armor/mr to help me trading while i stack up my feast. So RoA is kinda useless imho, I dont know. I never get it
^
Especially since the catalyst sustain nerf, RoA is underwhelming.
I definitely think the best way to build him is to get a fast Rylai's, then just build as tanky as you need to while getting attack speed for damage from Wit's End or Nashor's Tooth. CDR is really nice on him, but it's not necessary.
personally, I think cdr is more important than atk spd. There are just so many ways you can build cho, it's just up to preference.
Rylai's > RoA. I usually build chalice or glacial first item on cho (depending on vs AD or AP) so mana isn't a big issue (especially if you max E in certain lanes), rylai's after that.
My go to build is rylai's, athene's and frozen heart most of the time. So much CC with rylai's and 40% cdr while you still do decent dmg and are somewhat tanky. after that build whatever your team needs. AP or more tanky. When AP dmg from the enemy isn't an issue obv. skip athene's and build nashors or just more armor.
While atk spd is obv. super nice for cho for trading top lane (when you play against someone who actually do trade auto attacks) cdr is so much better in teamfights in my opinion.
yea, pretty much, idk, right now I just derp around with cho, max E -> W, build mass resists + nashors as feels appropriate in lane and right click on nearby creeps/the opponent themselves and then spend the whole game split pushing and soloing people. honestly I just think way too much of Cho's power is loaded into his E and passive right now so might as well suck it up and abuse those aspects.
That's also why he drops off so hard late game, once you get to the point where people can actually kite you effectively your dps drops by like 50% and sustain is only useful in lane
On May 24 2013 11:33 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: That's also why he drops off so hard late game, once you get to the point where people can actually kite you effectively your dps drops by like 50% and sustain is only useful in lane
Most people disagree that Cho drops off. He's certainly scary in lane due to his burst and his sustain but I think he's still capable of a lot even when he doesn't sustain as much.
On May 24 2013 11:33 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: That's also why he drops off so hard late game, once you get to the point where people can actually kite you effectively your dps drops by like 50% and sustain is only useful in lane
Most people disagree that Cho drops off. He's certainly scary in lane due to his burst and his sustain but I think he's still capable of a lot even when he doesn't sustain as much.
His damage definitely drops off, but his utility doesn't. Cho late-game is kinda like an un-farmed Nasus in the sense that he brings a ton of utility to the table without much farm/items/damage using Q and W cc, but his damage honestly isn't really there. Cho's cc is pretty insane if you can hit all your stuff tho.
On May 24 2013 11:33 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: That's also why he drops off so hard late game, once you get to the point where people can actually kite you effectively your dps drops by like 50% and sustain is only useful in lane
Most people disagree that Cho drops off. He's certainly scary in lane due to his burst and his sustain but I think he's still capable of a lot even when he doesn't sustain as much.
His damage definitely drops off, but his utility doesn't. Cho late-game is kinda like an un-farmed Nasus in the sense that he brings a ton of utility to the table without much farm/items/damage using Q and W cc, but his damage honestly isn't really there. Cho's cc is pretty insane if you can hit all your stuff tho.
True damage nuke that scales with AP is always useful though. If you can make it to their backline, their squishies are going down.
Cho only functions lategame when the impetus to engage is solidly on the opposing team. He's a strong peeler and most bruisers don't appreciate getting chomped for 800 true damage when they're trying to dive your team, but he's super clunky due to his long cast times and it severely limits him when he needs to be proactive. So screw it, embrace the beast, build a nashor's, refuse to teamfight, and right click on people. that or only pick him with a kog/trist/cait + lux/xerath/nid comp and peel for your bros when people try to get up in their grill.
Got super fed as jungle cho, went elder lizard + rylais and it was amazing was going to get liandrys too but was a team player and got bulwark then game ended
Well, i tried that nashor's E max rush on cho top a few games, it actually feels pretty good and fun. Outsplitpushed a tryndamere, the cdr lets you stack feast rather fast, and if you get a frozen heart next you're nigh unkillable in the midgame. Fun for sure.
Btw i like flask/ward/pot, but what do you guys get as starting items for cho top?
On May 24 2013 11:33 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: That's also why he drops off so hard late game, once you get to the point where people can actually kite you effectively your dps drops by like 50% and sustain is only useful in lane
Most people disagree that Cho drops off. He's certainly scary in lane due to his burst and his sustain but I think he's still capable of a lot even when he doesn't sustain as much.
I think the biggest problem with Chogath late game is that he gets weaker if he dies. There are times where you'll have fight after fight and it gets progressively easier to kill him because he won't have time or space to build stacks back up and have feast available. I feel like if you start losing fights with Cho you keep losing fights after a certain point.
Rod of Ages into Zhonya's has been my core on Cho lately. Your rupture scales 1.0 and feast scales 0.7 true, I much prefer getting as high raw AP as possible for those 2 spells. Can get a chain vest or negatron cloak before the large rod if you need to be a bit tougher. I feel like everyone tries getting cute with his E and forgets just how much damage feast can do. Also much prefer rod over rylai's for the same reason, you just want raw AP and then tanky stats. Abuse the scaling and no spending gold on gimmicks.
On May 25 2013 12:35 Anakko wrote: Well, i tried that nashor's E max rush on cho top a few games, it actually feels pretty good and fun. Outsplitpushed a tryndamere, the cdr lets you stack feast rather fast, and if you get a frozen heart next you're nigh unkillable in the midgame. Fun for sure.
Btw i like flask/ward/pot, but what do you guys get as starting items for cho top?
I do that or cloth 5 vs. like Riven/Darius type dudes.
On May 25 2013 13:19 TheLink wrote: Rod of Ages into Zhonya's has been my core on Cho lately. Your rupture scales 1.0 and feast scales 0.7 true, I much prefer getting as high raw AP as possible for those 2 spells. Can get a chain vest or negatron cloak before the large rod if you need to be a bit tougher. I feel like everyone tries getting cute with his E and forgets just how much damage feast can do. Also much prefer rod over rylai's for the same reason, you just want raw AP and then tanky stats. Abuse the scaling and no spending gold on gimmicks.
RoA and Rylai's both give the same amount of AP, though. If anything, Rylai's is better in that regard since you need to wait 10 minutes before RoA hits 80 AP.
Holy crap Rylai's is only 2900 gold, I always thought it cost way more. Maybe Rylai's is just better than Rod after all. 100 gold, 150 hp and some mana vs the slow and not having to charge. Belt and Catalyst are pretty comparable in terms of build paths too.
Hi, I'm a dota player who recently picked up LoL to play with my friends. I really enjoy playing chogath but most of my games go horribly wrong. I'm level 22 so I can't play ranked, as such I usually queue normal with 2-3 friends who are in silver/gold and I'm tired of being a disappointment. With cho I usually jungle and occasionally top. My biggest problems are I have zero impact as a jungler and I get crushed 9/10 times in top lane. When I jungle, I start wolves->blue->wraiths->golems->red and after level 4 I look for an opportunity to maybe gank. If not I wait until level 6 or above. The problem is every time I go gank (if they don't have wards) people just flash/dash/whatever out of my spikes and I can never get in range to silence/eat before they just casually walk away. This happens pretty much every game and I usually end up farming the jungle and hoping my teamates don't lose lanes. If anybody on the opposing team get some kills and start dominating there's nothing I can do and the game usually goes downhill from there. Toplane is worse, because most of the time I get bullied like crazy starting right from level 1-2. Off the top of my head my last games were against nocturne, kennen, singed and it's the same story every time. They just use some spells and autoattacks and I would already have lost 20-30% of my health while almost every jungler gank fails because they are impossible to kill. Nocturne in particular would just throw a dagger, run past the minions and start chopping with no shits given and as soon as I turn around to fight back he would shield the q/w and fear me so I lose even more hp. Since chogath is supposed to be "hard to bully" as far as I know and this happens in nearly every top game regardless of jungler ganks it must be something I'm doing wrong. Help is appreciated!
As far as ganking goes, if you can burn a flash just by showing up and casting Rupture on them it's actually pretty good—and a signal to keep an eye on that lane so that as soon as you get an opportunity to gank again, who can go for it with the certainty that the opponent's flash is down. I don't know how fast Cho'Gath jungles so I can't say too much about that, but his kit should theorically allow him to gank as soon as level 2-3 depending on lanes and his start. Since you play with friends, if you can get them to give you a smiteless leash on blue buff, you can run straight to red, kill it using smite, and be level 3 when most lanes are still level 3 (or barely dinged 3), with double buff ready to gank.
There's also the fact that you're a level 30- player queueing with 30s, so with how the matchmaking's done there's probably a majority of level 30 players on the opposing team, meaning they are much more experimented than you, which plays a big role especially in top lane. (On the other hand it should help communication, for example to get that smiteless leash, or to have them bait a trade when you come to gank, so your target already blows its cooldowns and can't just dash out of Rupture when you're suddenly here.)
On jungling, if you burn someones flash, it means they are more vurnerable to ganks the next few minutes, so come back to the same lane again and try making something happen. Also, you don't need level 4 for ganks, so the "quick" route in the jungle, wolf->smiteless blue->red is a super quick level 3 and then gank. (until next patch, with small camps also spawning at 1:55) In top lane, I feel the same as you do.
Edit: @Alaric, Cho clears jungle really nicely, E does some real hard work!
On June 05 2013 13:04 Brambled wrote: So how are you guys doing masteries/runes for jungle cho? Currently doing my standard 9/21/0 jungle page with attack speed runepage.
I usually rune 0-21-9 for the extra long buffs(i like to keep the second blue and make up for it by ganking mid several times =P, also rune AP quins, Magic Pen Reds, armor seals and MR scaling blues, works wonder at Gold III =P dont really know at higher lvls... usually go stone into RoA and from there a tanky item depending on team comp or a Giant belt
On June 05 2013 00:46 WuzzupPeeps wrote: Hi, I'm a dota player who recently picked up LoL to play with my friends. I really enjoy playing chogath but most of my games go horribly wrong. I'm level 22 so I can't play ranked, as such I usually queue normal with 2-3 friends who are in silver/gold and I'm tired of being a disappointment. With cho I usually jungle and occasionally top. My biggest problems are I have zero impact as a jungler and I get crushed 9/10 times in top lane. When I jungle, I start wolves->blue->wraiths->golems->red and after level 4 I look for an opportunity to maybe gank. If not I wait until level 6 or above. The problem is every time I go gank (if they don't have wards) people just flash/dash/whatever out of my spikes and I can never get in range to silence/eat before they just casually walk away. This happens pretty much every game and I usually end up farming the jungle and hoping my teamates don't lose lanes. If anybody on the opposing team get some kills and start dominating there's nothing I can do and the game usually goes downhill from there. Toplane is worse, because most of the time I get bullied like crazy starting right from level 1-2. Off the top of my head my last games were against nocturne, kennen, singed and it's the same story every time. They just use some spells and autoattacks and I would already have lost 20-30% of my health while almost every jungler gank fails because they are impossible to kill. Nocturne in particular would just throw a dagger, run past the minions and start chopping with no shits given and as soon as I turn around to fight back he would shield the q/w and fear me so I lose even more hp. Since chogath is supposed to be "hard to bully" as far as I know and this happens in nearly every top game regardless of jungler ganks it must be something I'm doing wrong. Help is appreciated!
Only just started playing cho recently so probably a lot more experts on this. Top lane Cho has a tough first few levels but you shouldn't be having too much trouble past that. It might be because you are lvl 22 going against lvl 30 people who have full masteries/runes. But starting with flask + pot + ward should give you enough sustain to survive the first few levels long enough to make you basically unkillable without ganks. Also starting cloth vs tough AD lanes makes you very durable but you then lack a ward.
I max E vs melee laners and W against ranged. Maxing E gives you huge bonus damage which a lot of people at my level (silver 1) don't expect from a Cho early on. If you are against a melee trying to all-in you (say, riven), fight in your minions, knock them up with Q, and get free AAs with E on. Your bonus damage from E combined with minion damage should let you win the trade, and if not just back off after you Q and keep farming. With your passive you should be able to quickly regain any health lost whereas they have to rely on pots.
Most importantly early on is don't spam W or Q. They don't do a lot of damage early game, cost a ton of mana, have a long cd, and are also your only disengage from an all in. Cho also has a pretty small mana pool early on, so if the enemy laner sees you spamming w and q they can just wait for you to run oom and destroy you.
When your jungler is ganking for you, and the enemy doesn't have wards, try to start autoattacking and get him focused on you. Don't use your W or Q yet until he sees the threat and starts to run, then W to prevent him from dashing/flashing and lead him with Q for the knockup which should lead to an easy kill.
On June 05 2013 19:02 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Basically the higher you get the more your runes and masteries should look like 0/21/9 with Gp10/AS/armor/MR mix
It's debatable but I think they are stronger because your primary role is to carry aura items and be beefy at higher levels, not to chase people down. MS good too but I feel like GP10 trumps on Jungle Cho.
For whatever reason i decided to pickup cho. Been playing him top but i have no idea how to build him. Currently i've been going 9/21/0 R>E>W>Q and running a generic AP/MPen/Armor/MR page while building tanky. It totally seems to me you can fit a damage item or 2 but im never sure what to get.
On December 18 2014 06:24 Ethelis wrote: For whatever reason i decided to pickup cho. Been playing him top but i have no idea how to build him. Currently i've been going 9/21/0 R>E>W>Q and running a generic AP/MPen/Armor/MR page while building tanky. It totally seems to me you can fit a damage item or 2 but im never sure what to get.
when the guide says you can build literally anything that is pretty much still the case i have won going all attack speed, ie/pd or anything with cho.
if they dont significantly bully you(which after a certain point you dont push chogath out of lane) you can snowball real hard and build pretty much anything and win
I main Cho ever since I started playing this game and I think I have the build well thought out. I'll be talking about tanky Cho top. What you want to build: + Armor and/or MR + at least some AP + CDR + AS if you're feeling offensive What you don't want to build: - stacking HP - Magic pen The core items in my build are: Mercs, Rylai's and Frozen Heart, with Rylai's being finished first. These 3 give me decent tankiness in the midgame, tenacity to not get CC'ed to death and some damage. Unlike everyone else, I get Rylai's instead of RoA, because the 15% slow applies on autos, so it lets me chase people down 1v1 or peel better. And I don't really need flat mana. After this core, I will go for Nashor's Tooth into Banshee's if I'm ahead (to push my advantage by slaughtering everyone), or another tank item. That will be Spirit Visage if I need MR, Randuin's or Thornmail otherwise. There is also the option to go Spirit Visage -> Wit's End against a really AP heavy comp. If I want to top off my build with another offensive item, I go Zhonya's or yolo Deathcap. There are some possible combinations which I have not listed, but I have mentioned pretty much every item that can be built on Cho. Please don't buy Warmog's.
On December 18 2014 22:05 dzony wrote: I main Cho ever since I started playing this game and I think I have the build well thought out. I'll be talking about tanky Cho top. What you want to build: + Armor and/or MR + at least some AP + CDR + AS if you're feeling offensive What you don't want to build: - stacking HP - Magic pen The core items in my build are: Mercs, Rylai's and Frozen Heart, with Rylai's being finished first. These 3 give me decent tankiness in the midgame, tenacity to not get CC'ed to death and some damage. Unlike everyone else, I get Rylai's instead of RoA, because the 15% slow applies on autos, so it lets me chase people down 1v1 or peel better. And I don't really need flat mana. After this core, I will go for Nashor's Tooth into Banshee's if I'm ahead (to push my advantage by slaughtering everyone), or another tank item. That will be Spirit Visage if I need MR, Randuin's or Thornmail otherwise. There is also the option to go Spirit Visage -> Wit's End against a really AP heavy comp. If I want to top off my build with another offensive item, I go Zhonya's or yolo Deathcap. There are some possible combinations which I have not listed, but I have mentioned pretty much every item that can be built on Cho. Please don't buy Warmog's.
I always favored more resist heavy items on Cho, FH etc, health/resists are good too but no need to build straight health bc of his ult obv.
I might be a scrub, but I never feel like I really need Tabi. In the midgame I'm tanky enough with Frozen Heart due to the raw HP from Feast and Rylai's and later I can buy a Thornmail to deal with autoattackers.
If we are talking about AD items, I used to build Rageblade. But then I was like fresh level 30 and starting ranked in Silver 5. BotRK or Zephyr have pretty useful passives/actives, but I don't think they are good enough to spend 3k gold on them and get only 50% AS in terms of stats. I don't count AD, because doing more physical damage on autoattacks doesn't really do much. Cho can't afford such inefficient items, as he is a shitty champion and won't keep up with his opponents unless he optimizes his stats.
Now that I think of it, Zephyr might be a viable option if Nashor's didn't exist, because it also gives CDR. But I only get Nashor's when I'm so far ahead that I can't possibly get killed, so the choice of boots is meaningless anyway.
Definitely agree with everyone saying Rylai's is awesome on Cho.
But I don't think Nashor's is that great. I recommend getting CDR/level blues so that all you need is FH for max CDR, and then you can build a Wit's End if you want more damage.
On December 20 2014 03:42 APurpleCow wrote: Definitely agree with everyone saying Rylai's is awesome on Cho.
But I don't think Nashor's is that great. I recommend getting CDR/level blues so that all you need is FH for max CDR, and then you can build a Wit's End if you want more damage.
I always liked Wits End on cho, i think its actually pretty legit on him tbh.
I definitely agree that Wit's End is legit. I just like to carry whenever I get ahead, so I take scaling AP blues + Nashor's for more damage than scaling CDR + Wit's End. Also, not having to wait till level 18 for max CDR is pretty nice.
Wit's is much better than Nashor's on Cho unless you plan on building AP. I've done some whacky shit with like, Hourglass/Nashor's/Deathcap on Mid Cho, but Wit's is much more practical unless you're going with a heavy AP Build (which is admittedly not optimal under most circumstances).
Wit's End is good, but it should pretty much always be Spirit Visage or Locket imo. If you're up in their face auto-attacking that much you're in the "win more" condition. Cho's not exactly in the greatest place right now, but he does pretty well with tank items on top of a RoA or Rylais. He still stomps a couple matches toplane where you can just cloth5 into glacial and stack feast up. Generally he does well midlane, too, though you will get outscaled by a lot of champs that can stabilize with waveclear mana early enough. From the jungle you just straight up don't have the time for Wit's End. Cho's biggest weakness is that he gets kited and has long cooldowns. Wit's End only solves one of those. I pretty much universally prefer Visage or Locket unless I'm massively ahead, and in that case I prefer Triforce anyway.
On December 28 2014 08:52 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Wit's End is good, but it should pretty much always be Spirit Visage or Locket imo. If you're up in their face auto-attacking that much you're in the "win more" condition. Cho's not exactly in the greatest place right now, but he does pretty well with tank items on top of a RoA or Rylais. He still stomps a couple matches toplane where you can just cloth5 into glacial and stack feast up. Generally he does well midlane, too, though you will get outscaled by a lot of champs that can stabilize with waveclear mana early enough. From the jungle you just straight up don't have the time for Wit's End. Cho's biggest weakness is that he gets kited and has long cooldowns. Wit's End only solves one of those. I pretty much universally prefer Visage or Locket unless I'm massively ahead, and in that case I prefer Triforce anyway.
Eh, I disagree. There are a lot of brawly matchups where it's not trivial that if you get on top of your opponent, you win, and in these scenarios, I find Wit's to be superior to more defensive MR options. Rumble for instance, I find very difficult to deal with with just SV or Locket, because even if I can keep myself alive with one of those items, I don't actually exert much 1 on 1 pressure on him. I also like it as a 2nd item against shit like Renekton/Shyvana/Mundo/Maokai that specialize in prolonged fights and deal significant magic damage as it can allow you to boss these guys around.
It's not a super strong teamfighting item and pales in comparison to resists/CDR in those scenarios, but Cho can really crush the vast majority of Fighters and Tanks in isolated situations and Wit's is good at pushing this strength to an extreme.
On December 28 2014 08:52 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: Wit's End is good, but it should pretty much always be Spirit Visage or Locket imo. If you're up in their face auto-attacking that much you're in the "win more" condition. Cho's not exactly in the greatest place right now, but he does pretty well with tank items on top of a RoA or Rylais. He still stomps a couple matches toplane where you can just cloth5 into glacial and stack feast up. Generally he does well midlane, too, though you will get outscaled by a lot of champs that can stabilize with waveclear mana early enough. From the jungle you just straight up don't have the time for Wit's End. Cho's biggest weakness is that he gets kited and has long cooldowns. Wit's End only solves one of those. I pretty much universally prefer Visage or Locket unless I'm massively ahead, and in that case I prefer Triforce anyway.
Eh, I disagree. There are a lot of brawly matchups where it's not trivial that if you get on top of your opponent, you win, and in these scenarios, I find Wit's to be superior to more defensive MR options. Rumble for instance, I find very difficult to deal with with just SV or Locket, because even if I can keep myself alive with one of those items, I don't actually exert much 1 on 1 pressure on him. I also like it as a 2nd item against shit like Renekton/Shyvana/Mundo/Maokai that specialize in prolonged fights and deal significant magic damage as it can allow you to boss these guys around.
It's not a super strong teamfighting item and pales in comparison to resists/CDR in those scenarios, but Cho can really crush the vast majority of Fighters and Tanks in isolated situations and Wit's is good at pushing this strength to an extreme.
Hmmm maybe I'll give it a try against brawlers. I usually build Cho for the teamfight phase regardless of the matchup I'm in because I just feel like it's so much stronger in terms of effecting the game, but I can see the utility in having an early Wit's End for the matchups you mentioned.
Although my Cho page is generally attackspeed reds if I'm top lane and I usually E max so that might be part of the reason why I have the opinion on Wit's End ;P.
OH but one thing that is really interesting is that I've been thinking about replacing RoA with Righteous Glory because it's just so damn good and you can actually fit a Wit's End into the build from top lane if you don't have to worry about the stacking on Rod anymore...
So what do you think is Cho's role within a team comp? Usually just straight tank/disruptor? I've watched a lot of CaliTrlolz solo queue games (he's been spamming Cho) and he goes really offensive, Rod > Lucidity > Dcap > Twin Shadow. Any opinions?
I usually end up going some combination of tank/cdr/auras. Most of the time the game will scale to a point where you're no longer useful as a damage source and are far more valuable carrying aura items and laying down cc with rupture/scream/feast. I have to do some testing, though, because catalyst -> something else -> finish righteous glory later seems really good now.
I decided to try out jungle Cho'Gath with my Diana runes (AS/ARM/AS/AP) and I was really pleasantly surprised by how strong he felt. E/R meant never having to smite a jungle camp after the first clear (which was amazingly fast), and chilling smite makes the first Q much easier to land in ganks. The pattern was to powerfarm and gank on smite CD, maxing E->W->Q, and building stalkers->mobi boots->juggernaut->resists. Alternatively, with an early sightstone, I imagine him being a reasonable counterjungler with 30s Feast.
This may lose a bit of its strength with the upcoming chilling smite change, but even then Cho seems to fit the role I like soloQ junglers to have:
+ Safe, fast clear + Doesn't need buffs after first clear + Front liner + Still functional when behind
I was previously playing a lot of Sejuani, but her needing mana to farm quickly shoehorns her into ranger's and/or an earlier mana item, whereas Cho can farm quickly with E autos up to level 9. Her potential upsides are greater with a longer-range AOE engage and followup, but I can see Cho edging her out in the worse and average use cases.
Anyone here have any tips or experience with Cho in the S5 jungle?
How do you do Cho'gath vs Riven? I got a kill on her solo and survived with my passive while minions were hitting me. Then after that she flashed every rupture in duels and killed me in the downtime and I didn't have her dps because I went Q>W>E
Is it an E max or a W max? If you go E max do you get Nashors? If you go W max, do you get Frozen Heart or RoA? Do you try to combo W and Q together to prevent her from flashing out of your Q? Similarly do you combo them together against Fizz (E) and Fiora (R)? I've been spamming W a lot without Q. When do you go for harass with Q? I'd always miss because Riven was good at dodging long range Qs and moving around. How do you make it less likely that she shields right before you W? I used it on her as she came in range, and then realized she came in range to E and try to all-in me and then some of my damage would have been blocked by a 1.5 second shield.
How do you use ult? Harass on CD when you get in range? Feast a minion on CD? Save it during laning until you have a potential kill?
I W max vs Riven or any meele-range casters in general, e max when i know that a lot of autoattacks will be traded and the enemy laner is not relying on a certain combo to trade with, that can easily be silenced. i lterally never q max anymore because it´s not very forgiving: if u dont hit the q in the trade you are dead most likely (or getting bullied for the next minute or so)
95% of the time i go RoA, Nashors only when i know i am going to splitpush a lot (this is when i run tp over ignite also), frozen heart 2nd or 3rd item earliest, unless i lose lane heavily. Lately I´ve been going RoA, then morellos a lot because you can get on 40% cdr so quick (cdr boots or FH after)
vs riven: since i w max i never lost to her, i guess it´s just that much better than q... just w every attempted combo, q her if she still sticks around (more or less she would be sitting on top of you) and casually walk away Do that over and over again until she is in killing range with w+q+r
I use ult depening on MU and sums i have, if i got tp and i am in a more farm-heavy MU i ult on cd more or less. I found that ulting at lvl 6 and then just basing if you know you are not getting kill pressure/a gank anytime soon is very convenient. With ignite (which i run only in MUs i know i can kill at 6) i try to hold un for ult a bit more in case of an opening.
only gold/plat elo tho, so i suck and don´t know if this is actually best
Pretty sure you never max Q. It gains 5 more damage per level than W and the mana cost remains flat, but silence duration is pretty big, be it in trades against casters, ganks, or teamfights. It's also way easier to hit, and you can clear a wave with W+autos without losing your "defensive" ability in case of a gank or something.
Dont really love RoA on cho, you dont need the sustain, FH solves all mana problems while giving badly needed CDR, and there are better items to build if you want health/AP.
On April 01 2015 23:09 Alaric wrote: Pretty sure you never max Q. It gains 5 more damage per level than W and the mana cost remains flat, but silence duration is pretty big, be it in trades against casters, ganks, or teamfights. It's also way easier to hit, and you can clear a wave with W+autos without losing your "defensive" ability in case of a gank or something.
The slow gets better and it has a lower base CD though. I saw someone do it on YT even though I was pretty sure W max was more common.
I think I've just realized that people don't miss Cho'gath's Q because they're bad players but rather because the ability is hard to hit.
Do you try to space out your Q W? Like if you land Q then part of your silence's W is going to be eaten up by he knockup right? Overlapping cc is generally bad.
But it just feels more guaranteed that you'll land the W.
Yeah unless you're going for a long-range kill, more than one person, or a zoning move you pretty much always lead with W. Flash Q also crucial to master if you want playmaking potential. W is usually more for harass than for CC in lane unless you're against like Riven or Lissandra, but it is super strong as a flash/escape disable for ruptures.
To answer the original question though (because it happens) sometimes if you land Rupture first it's good to close distance before blasting them with Scream. Weave autos if you have time, too. This is relevant if they're on top of you and you self-rupture, sometimes point-blank screams are hard to hit.
On April 01 2015 23:09 Alaric wrote: Pretty sure you never max Q. It gains 5 more damage per level than W and the mana cost remains flat, but silence duration is pretty big, be it in trades against casters, ganks, or teamfights. It's also way easier to hit, and you can clear a wave with W+autos without losing your "defensive" ability in case of a gank or something.
The slow gets better and it has a lower base CD though. I saw someone do it on YT even though I was pretty sure W max was more common.
I think I've just realized that people don't miss Cho'gath's Q because they're bad players but rather because the ability is hard to hit.
Max Q in ARAM only
And is Rupture hard to hit or are people bad at Cho? The debate rages on.
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