EPTAlright. It's time.
KING CHO IS BACK WITH THE GUIDE TO WRECK SHIT
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
Magic Damage: 80 / 135 / 190 / 245 / 305 (+1.0 per ability power)
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.
Cost: 70 / 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 mana
Cooldown: 13 seconds
Range: 700
Cone Width: ~60º
Magic Damage: 75 / 125 / 175 / 225 / 275 (+0.7 per ability power)
Silence Duration: 2 / 2.25 / 2.5 / 2.75 / 3 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.
No cost
Range: 500
Magic Damage: 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80 (+0.3 per ability power)
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.
GET BLOWED UP.jpg
Summoner Spells
Ignite/Flash
Teleport/Flash
Smite/Flash
(Pretty self-explanatory.)
Runes
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.
AND NOW I'M GONNA SHOW OFF SOME PICTURES
+ Show Spoiler +
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GO NOW, AND FEAST THE WORLD
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