Overview
While his reputation as a hyper carry has diminished over the years with other champions being introduced into the game, Kog’Maw is still one of the most dangerous late game carries in the game. When he’s able to get some items and reach a true end game state, he can single handedly win your team fights, especially if he’s left unchecked. Click here for the latest data on his best builds, including Runes, Items, Summoner Spells, and more.
Keys to Remember About Kog’Maw
Kog'Maw is a late game hyper carry that lacks in mobility, which means you'll need to be really good at orb walking and kiting backwards when necessary. This means you need a good understanding of spacing and knowledge of which enemies have the means to threaten you.
Living Artillery [R] can offer some decent chip damage before fights, but if you're on an AD build, be sure to not over extend yourself to land it -- the damage isn't worth the tradeoff of being in proper positioning before a fight begins.
Strengths
Bio-Arcane Barrage [W] is the bread and butter of his kit -- just pop that bad boy and go to town on enemies. With your extended range and added damage shred, even the tankiest of champions will find themselves quickly melting under the power of Kog’Maw’s corrosive auto-attacks. If a team is built around Kog and can properly peel for him, it can be extremely difficult to deal with him because of his large range. This is combined with his Living Artillery [R], which allows him to poke enemies from afar to bait them into engaging on him, which he can thwart a little bit with Void Ooze [E].
Weaknesses
He’s extremely immobile and is very much a glass cannon type of champion -- even his Icathian Surprise [P] is a passive that accounts for his death, as it allows him to explode on enemies that have killed him. His damage is also reliant on Bio-Arcane Barrage [W] being up because of the range it provides -- without it, he’s a relatively short range carry without any sort of mobility to back him up. If enemy teams are careful to bait it out and then turn once it’s down, they can greatly reduce his output. Kog is also a champion that has a lot of awkward synergies in his kit (the product of being an older champion) in that his ultimate wants more AP while you build AD, and his passive needs you to die when you’d rather survive.
Game Plan
Early Game: Look to farm and scale -- you aren’t going to win too many engagements or trades early, so it’s fine to just let the enemy push you in and get what you can.
Mid Game: You should have some value at this point in the game with an item or two online, but you’ll still be fairly weak without much utility. You just want to play around your stronger teammates.
Late Game: At this point you have huge carry potential and should use your W whenever an enemy oversteps -- even a couple of auto-attacks can be enough to greatly chunk out if not outright kill an opponent.