League of Legends – Champion Guide: Cho’Gath [Guide]

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• Strategy
• Abilities
• Spells
• Items
• Supplementary Video

There is no champion in the League of Legends roster quite like Cho’Gath. Here is a monster who is easy to learn and play, but still packs a brutal punch in the hands of a veteran. He is an off-tank with a lot of positive qualities in the game, including some of the most badass skins and voiceovers you’ll find. He is always a good choice in any team.

Picking Cho’Gath is almost a no-brainer as he’s good for almost any team composition. Cho’Gath combines damage, crowd control, and a beefy amount of health into one deadly package. Since he also physically grows in size as the game progresses, you can look very intimidating to other players. That is a double x-factor that makes Cho’Gath a good choice for any LoL player.

At face value, he’s a tank with other benefits. Some would call him a mage in a tank shell, and with good reason. He has abilities that make him the ideal farmer and he can also take a good amount of damage without needing to back off too quickly. Warmog’s Armor is the most obvious item for him due to his Carnivore passive ability. The simplest way to play Cho’Gath is to pile on the health and armor while farming more. If the team is in a fight, you just stand there and spam your skills, end of story.

Some players though don’t go full tank with Cho’Gath because he doesn’t really have a built-in taunt, making him a near-useless piece of meat in the battlefield while enemies go for other targets. Through this reasoning, he will need enough offensive power to be an actual threat for them to go for you so that you can tank the damage and do your thing. Besides, Cho’Gath’s offense is quite good by itself when built up properly, so you can definitely be an asset to the team with this champion.

This champion is someone that can solo top or bottom lanes quite well due to his ability to farm, although it won’t be as good if you’re up against some stonefaced killers from the opposite team. In the early game, you can rake in some hard cash pretty fast, but you’ll then have to watch out for gankers who may want to delay your efforts. You also have to help your teammates out when they’re in trouble. Therefore, Cho’Gath is not really a jungler, even though he can be good at it nonetheless, but some see him more useful in a lane.

Any team with a Cho’Gath would have a strategy centered around this champion due to his versatility and balance between offense and defense. Of course, this is dependent upon Cho’Gath actually having the necessary items to be of any use, which is expected anyway due to the champion’s farming ability. When a Cho’Gath doesn’t have those items, the team gets held back during the game. Aside from that, Cho’Gath also has a few limitations that may make him not ideal for certain matches. For instance, Rupture has a starting delay that makes it easy to avoid. Also, it’s not easy to hit ranged champions with Cho’Gath, especially those who like to hit and run a lot.

However, there are flaws in Cho’Gath that balances him out. For one, he’s not very good in the early game since he lacks health and mana as he’s dependent on items. His abilities have pretty high cooldown, so you can’t really spam them. Despite being easy to learn, he’s actually hard to master because his performance is dependent on predicting the enemies’ movements for the placement of Rupture. Also, his ultimate ability, Feast, has other uses as it collects stacks, so you have to use it outside a major fight. That means you may have it in cooldown once you do actually need it against the opposing team.

Another thing that can counter him is damage that is based on max health, like Bio-Arcane Barrage, Null Zone, Deathfire Grasp, and so on. That brings in a complicated decision of actually not getting extra health, which is counterintuitive to Cho’Gath’s purpose of being a tank. But perhaps the most glaring fault in Cho’Gath is that he’s a melee champion, so he can be kited by enemy champions. They better be running though because if Cho’Gath does hit them, they’ll be very sorry.

Strategy

Farm like there’s no tomorrow while still taking care of your teammates to not get on their bad side. You’d want to get Warmog’s Armor as soon as you can since it will enhance your Carnivore passive ability, giving you a great HP/mana leech with every kill. That’s only one of the reasons why Cho’Gath is such a good farmer and laner, but it’s a pretty good one nonetheless. You can also go for Leviathan and pack on the beef.

By the time you reach the midgame, you’ll have Warmog’s Armor, Boots of Swiftness, and Leviathan. You don’t necessarily need all of these three items as you may get something else, depending on your desired build, but they are the most recommended for most situations. You may also go for Guardian Angel to become nigh unstoppable and have that revive bonus, or Atma’s Impaler if you want to take advantage of Cho’Gath’s high base attack. It doesn’t really stack, but the critical does help against opponents who get high magic resistance.

During the late game, you should have items dependent on the situation. Take note on whether your opponents have items with offensive bonuses AP and magic penetration, or perhaps defensive bonuses like armor or magic resistance. It’s basic metagaming in LoL, but it can get especially razor thin with Cho’Gath since you’ll have most of your standard items already, so one or two slots may be left to get the items that can mean the difference between a good Cho’Gath and a great Cho’Gath for that particular game. A Force of Nature wouldn’t hurt either since it’s one of the best tank items available, giving you both massive magic resistance and health regen. Added with everything else, you’ll be virtually impossible to kill.

Abilities

Carnivore (Innate) – 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 why Cho’Gath is so hard to kill. By being able to heal your health and mana after killing something, it gives Cho’Gath a good deal of survivability. Also, it can effectively reduce mana costs of your abilities, in a certain sense. It also makes him a good jungler, so you can kill off some wolves and golems without too much trouble if you need health and buffs.

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.

This is Cho’Gath’s bread and butter, being the skill that can deal great damage for how much mana it costs. It stuns, so it’s also your primary crowd control. This is great for farming since it’s an AoE ability, so it can also hit multiple enemy champions in a fight if you time it right. The superb range makes it ideal for stopping enemies who are running away, but only if you’ve mastered the timing.

Feral Scream – Cho’Gath screams in a cone in front of him, dealing magic damage to enemies and silencing them for a few seconds.

Here’s another good farming ability as it has pretty decent AoE and deals enough damage to kill minions. This is also quite handy in fights since it can silence enemy champions, so you should use this once you have someone like a mage in range. If you can do it right, you can effectively shut down the biggest of threats with this ability.

Vorpal Spikes – Whenever Cho’gath uses autoattacks, he will launch spines which deal magic damage in a line in front of him.

This ability has no mana cost at all, so it’s an obvious choice. This makes you the best farmer in the game, and it’s handy for pushing as well. You can also dive and last hit towers quite well with this as well. While not a carry, Cho’Gath still gets pretty good auto attack with this, which doesn’t hurt your chances in a game at all. This makes you a threat even if your other abilities are in cooldown.

Feast – Devours a target nearby enemy unit dealing true damage. Feast always deals 1000 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.

This ultimate skill deals an insane amount of damage and has low cooldown for an ultimate, which is useful since you’d be using it outside a fight anyway. Being able to deal 1000 true damage is no laughting matter at all. Once you get six stacks, you become very durable throughout the game and it gives you an aura of invincibility.

Spells

Perhaps the best combo for Cho’Gath is Exhaust and Flash. This is usually the best spells for tanks due to how they can help so much in fights. As long as you cast Exhaust on ganking targets and use Flash effectively to go back and forth in the battlefield, then you’ll be a solid member of your team.

Some like taking Ignite and Ghost for damage and chasing/escaping respectively. This is also a good combination as Ignite can kill whoever may be escaping and Ghost gives you mobility and that extra factor of stealth, making you more unpredictable in a fight.

Items

Core Items
Boots of Swiftness / Sorcerer’s Shoes / Mercury Threads
Rabadon’s Deathcap
Warmog’s Armor

Mage Build
Rod of Ages
Deathfire Grasp
Zhonya’s Hourglass
Abyssal Scepter
Rylai’s Crystal Scepter
Will of the Ancients

Off-Tank Build
Frozen Heart
Abyssal Specter
Force of Nature
Sunfire Cape
Randuin’s Omen
Wit’s End

Supplementary Video