Before I start: I am not a pro and lies around 1300 ELO and my experience with Kog'maw is about 50 total games. Since the start i've gone through different builds. From hybrid to AP to Armor pen and now: Magic Pen.

This guide will focus alot on penetration as those kinds of items Kog'maw synergizes very well with Kog'Maw and his Bio-Arcane Barrage and Madred's Bloodrazor. Togeather with enough penetration Kog'Maw will kill anyone, and FAST!

A standard 9/0/21 Caster build. Grabbing much needed Magic pen and Cooldown reduction masteries aswell AP per level in offence. EXP and improved ghost in utillity. aswell with mana regen, Buff durations and everything else you need to be effective!

Kog'maw sometimes have a terrible early game as he's squishy and slow, so most of these runes are there to compensate for this and will let you have a better early game and thus makes him a pukefest lategame.

• 9x Greater mark of Insight: 1 question, why not? Together with the extra Quint we get 10 flat Magic Pen. Then add 20 more pen for and Kog'maw does already True damage to his enemies unless they get some Magic resist.
• 9x Greater seal of Resilience: Kog'Maw is squishy, I admit that. 13 extra armor reduces the majority of the damage in the early levels.
• 9x Greater glyph of Focus: there are not really any good glpyhs for Kog'Maw. But more Cooldownreduction always help, and you get more uptime on your Bio-Arcane Barrage.
• 1x Greater quintessence of Insight & 2x Great quintessence of Swiftness: Yet again Kog'Maw is really slow. Extra movement speed compensate this and instead of 375 you'll run for over 400 with these runes and masteries.

• Yet again we fix one of Kog'Maw main issues, no escape mechanism, he is no or that can just jump away. Ghost will be your prime source of escape and once you have enough ground puke backwards so they either have to step into your Void Ooze and are slowed, often giving the chase up short after.
• Almost same reason why you pick exhaust. IF they do get close and start attacking you, you are basicly done for it, if you exhaust them it can atleast give you some more time to reach that tower or it can turn a 1v1 fight if needed.

Flash
Another exellent escape tool and can be used to flash over walls and jukeing.

Clarity
If you feel you're lacking mana because you waste it too much to escape ganks and harrassing. But a rather useless pick if you know how to preserve your mana for when you need it.

Teleport
With the recent minion buff this spell have become more viable than a free get back to lane spell. Teleport to save a turret and farm big creep waves.

Upon dying, Kog'Maw starts a chain reaction in his body which causes him to move faster and detonate after 4 seconds; dealing 100 + (25 x lvl) true damage to surrounding enemies.


The funniest passive in the game to be honest. Sadly it does nothing the entire game unless you die.
Note: the spell can be blocked by Banshee's Veil and other spell sheilds.





Passive: Increases attack speed by 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30%

Active: Kog'Maw launches a corrosive projectile which deals 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 (+70% of ability power) magic damage and reduces the target's armor by 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 for 4 seconds.

Cost 60mana
Range 625


The passive attack speed is what makes this spell shine, despite it beeing a low CD spell you have to get really close to use it on someone. This is why it's such a great tool for DPS Kog'maw since you'll likely be there to fire it against them as AP Kog'maw likes to be really far away and spam Living artilery. It also lower their armor by a small amount.





Kog'Maw's attacks gain 130 / 160 / 190 / 220 / 250 range and deal an additional 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6% (+1% of ability power) of the target's maximum Health as Magic Damage (Max: 100 Damage vs Monsters). Lasts 6 seconds.

Cost 50mana
Range 530


This is what really makes Kog'Maw shine; 6% of their MAX HP per attack. Bio-Arcane Barrage will be your bread and butter skill for the entire game. This could candidate for the best steoriod in the entire game. The power of this spell is the active.


Cho gath have 3000 HP
11% of that witch is the totalt damage this build will give you. Is 330 Magic damage, and with enough penetration you can basicly say that Cho gath only have about 50 Magic resist left since he havn't gotten any big Magic resist items yet. will reduce your effectiveness by 33% so around 250 damage per shot can make diffrence + your normal AD - resists ofcourse. 4 shots witch you can pull of in under 2-3 seconds have taken away 33% of his HP. Then keep shooting his he's dumb enough to let you. He'll be dead in about 10 seconds.




Kog'Maw launches ooze which deals 60 / 110 / 160 / 210 / 260 (+70% of ability power) magic damage to enemies it passes through.

Additionally, it leaves a trail which slows enemies by 28 / 36 / 44 / 52 / 60% for 4 seconds.

Cost 80 / 90 / 100 / 110 / 120mana
Range 10000


60% slow if you level up this first. Somewhat good scaleing with levels and AP. But it's best used to cut of an escape path, slowing a ganker or farm a creep wave. Level 4 spell + 1 ult = 1 shots the caster wave, exellent farming tool. By the end game a good position on this will allow you to farm an entire wave in seconds.





Kog'Maw fires artillery from a great distance. After a short delay, the artillery falls dealing 80 / 120 / 160 [120 / 180 / 240](+30% of ability power) magic damage and reveals targets for 4 seconds (deals 150% bonus damage to Champions). Each subsequent Living Artillery in the next 6 seconds costs 40 additional mana (Max 250).

Cost 40mana
Range 1200


This spell makes Kog'Maw special, learning to land this spell is crucial to play Kog'Maw effiently, at level 3 the range is enormous, use it to scout brushes, poke before teamfights, steal kills, or finish off a champion that got out of your Bio-Arcane Barrage range. Do not underestimate the power of this spell.

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I start the game with buying a and a . Longwords upgrades into so it's a good item to start with, and it gives you more AD to make last hitting easier. Other good starting items for Kog'Maw are: , , , + or +. The reason i buy Longsword over Dorans blade is a faster Madred's razors. Which will help in your last hitting/minor jungling.



+ parts of if you can afford it. If you picked a solo lane where you need to almost constantly use your E + R combo to farm you might want to spend some extra gold into a for a little 890g setback you can stay in the lane and farm forever. And you get a little more beefier with that +30 MR. Also keep buying and if you belive you're at risk of beeing ganked.
Also note: since you bought a you can help your jungler even easier to down dragon at bot lane earlier than before since 2 razors is better than 1(a lot of junglers buy razors/wriggles for faster jungle)



+++

• Madred's Bloodrazor is essential on Kog'Maw, The item itself gives effiently 400AP as a passive Bio-Arcane Barrage.
• Sorcerers shoes adds 20 more Magic Pen witch adds up to a passive 30 Magic resist ignore. So unless a squishy doesn't get any sort of magic resist you ignore that 30 magic resist and do True damage in theory.
• Malady reduces their armor by 6 for every stack, with a maximum stack of 4 = 24 Magic resist reduction. Great synergy with Bio-Arcane Barrage.
• Void staff adds 40% more penetration, this combined with Acharic Knowledge gives your 49% Magic resist penetration thats almost half their magic resist! So when a tank have 200 MR you basicly ignore 49% of that and leaves them at 102. It also gives 1% more damage to Bio-Archane Barrage as the AP from Void staff and Malady is 100 AP.

Target type: Tank
Target Magic Resist: 200
Malady reduction: 6*4 = 24
Flat Magic Pen: 10+20 = 30
Percentage penetration: 40% and 15% = 49%

200 - 24 = 176
176 - 30 = 146
146 * 0.49 = 71.54(72)

Suddenly we removed 128 Magic resist with our total Magic Pen.
and the formula to calculate resist is resist/(resist+100)
So 72 / 172 = 0.41 = 41% damage reduction.

So now we can do the calculation backwards if we want to see when your damage becomes inefficent.

Lets say the tank want 75% reduction, thats 200 Magic resist. But VS you...

200 / 0.49 = 408 MR
408 + 30 + 24 = 462 MR

yes, read it again 462 Magic resist to have a 75% reduction for you to shread their HP and with 75% reduction you only hit for 2.8% of their MAX HP. But since when did you last see a tank only stack upto 462 Magic resist. It's just too expensive for any tank to stack Force of Nature to be tank vs you.

Magic Penetration is just too effective on Kog'Maw to not avoid it.

So now you do insane damage when your Bio-Arcane Barrage is up but you're still squishy like hell. To get beefier good items like and will get you to 3000 health and that would be enough for you to get close into team fights and hit their squsihy or tank becouse now you CAN survive it. might be good to cleanse stuns, ignites/lethal debuffs or supression if their team consists of such things.


The first 4 items are enough for you to DPS, the only way to increase your damage output is either a this + will put an additional 3% to your a total of 4%. may be a good source of AS and lifesteal, but your AD is not that high for it to really benefit with lifesteal, it's almost better for someone else to get this item than you since the 20% AS and 20% lifesteal from the aura. is a good hybrid item for you since the AP rounds up to another 1% on your while still giveing a huge AS boost putting your AS well above 2 AS. is a good item togeather with Banshees veil since they togeather while put your MR above the 100 mark. will give your even more basic AD and AP damage, + the spellvamp does proc with your Bio-arcane Barrage so you can be even more substained in lategame. But you have to sacrifice surviability for more DPS. and to be honest I belive it's not worth it for some items. If the items grant some kind of HP/defence whilst giving something major in offence it may be worth it for you.

Remember to buy >> is you sence a large teamfight/after baron.

First of all Kog'Maw is very team dependant. A heavy CC team would be best for Kog'Maw as he doeasn't have any good CC of his own. But for a good laneing phase you need to get babysitted. Anyone with a targeted stun, taunt, or shield is a perfect lane for Kog. So what I recommend is get paired up in a duo lane bot/top.
Best lanemates: Rammus, Taric, Shen, Janna, Alistar.
Anyone else can work but these above are the best and often top bans for a reason. :(

Why not mid/solo lane?

Honestly, Mid is better given to a Mage as they can easier burst their enemy down at level 6, Kog'maw just does decent enough damage with your ult to harrass them out of lane. You may get a kill if you have a ganking jungler and solo top/1vs2 lane is too risky for you to farm freely.

Your objective: Farm as much as you can Kog'Maw is very item dependant and you need to have the gold for your Madreds, Sorc shoes, Malady These items are about 4000 total gold. and it's after you get Malady as you can really start doing something.

Kog'Maws mid game start once you have fninished your Malady. And working from here towards Bloodrazor if expensive. 2800 Gold and another 2295 for Void staff. Your main income is still creep waves, but you can easier score a kill and get gold from that source.Inbetween lanes you can get some gold from Wraiths, Golems wolfes with just R + W active.

Once you get Madred's Bloodrazor you become a real asset to your team. Dragon and Baron is easily an objective now for your team as you will help dropping it faster. Dragon is has become a standard jungle creep for you as you can solo tank it with little damage to yourself. and working towards Void staff have never been easier.

Kog'Maw now eat anyone, and damn fast too. You can build more attack speed for more DPS(see chapter 7) But you're too squishy right now so surviability will do much more for you. So it's wise to be building more effective HP is better than a 1 shot. Banshee Veil would be your first choise of item. Blocking a spell every 30 sec can save your life from stuns and other forms of CC.

Frozen Mallet is like having a all tile passive free red buff slow. Great item for you and 700 more HP will put your HP near the 3000 mark, well enough for a carry to be atleast beeft HP wise, and with over 100 armor and about 80 Magic resist you can migitate some damage and survive throughout a teamfight.

Yes is know it's wrong in general terms speaking but if you see that you ARE doing damage to them then go ahead and drop them. That is your job. If you see someone that is in a bad spot, drop them aswell you WILL do that you can basicly focus anyone you like.
But what you want to be carefull about is if you are in a bad spot. Also notify your team if you got an assasin on your tail, as they are your absolute worst enemy and can shut you down hard.

When you engage into a team fight start by activating your Bio-Arcane Barrage during it's duration you can drop anyone uless they have a good escape move. If they use flash or something; switch target. Once your Bio-Arcane barrage is on cooldown witch is about 3 seconds till next time, pop some Living artillery or Void Ooze and when it comes back up, continue to shred them.

Burst casters are your worst enemy, especially is they have some sort of closeing-the-gap mechanism.
Here is a quick list of Champions that you must look out for:


These type of champions are what will screw you up. there is almost nothing you can do vs them unless they either are:
A: Bad, and by bad I mean really bad.
B: Underfarmed

You need help with your team to take these guys out. A quick stun from Taric, taunt from rammus or shen will help your ass here. If you see them going after you, alert your team and put exhaust on them for a decent change.

Tanks to counter Kog'Maw:


Or any items that will slow your attack speed for a longer peirods of time:



From the math we did in chapter 7 alistars ult basicly gives him 450 Magic resist, when it's on CD again, he'll just die.
Malphite can be annoying with the right AS slow from his Ground slam and items.(see above)
Nunus iceball AS slow(chilled debuff, applies to anivia and ashe)

• Pros:

Long range.
Hard counter to tanks.
Fast substained damage.
Good pusher.
Cutest thing in the world

• Cons:

Farm dependant.
Squishy, unless you get surviability.
Hard counterd by burst assasins.
No escape mechanism.
Slow moving.
Team dependant.
Not cute enough


My Build:

• Pros:

Tank killer.
Fast substained damage.
Lot of survivability.
Armor means nothing to you.
Tanks have a hard time countering you.
Fixes a lot of Kog'Maw's Problems.

• Cons:

No real damage to towers, AD is 150:ish and AP is about 100.
Squishy early game, fixed late game.
Can still be bursted down but takes longer.




Kog'Maw is versatile, you can build his as a normal carry or build more attack speed for more attacks to proc with his . Some builds focus more on AP to make more use of his other spells as AD, AS Kog'Maw relies more on the uptime on his . Hybrid is always a mix of those two inbetween and works fine too. But I find this my current build to be more safe and supperior to anything else i've tried before.

This will be a small section where you can download replays to use with haxxalots replays program. avalible for download at http://www.leaguereplays.com/download/

Replays:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10255477/replay_09-03-11_18-46-31.lrf
This game I was teamed up with rammus on voice chat.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10255477/replay_13-03-11_13-08-41.lrf
Basic Kog'Maw normal gameplay. End game ownedge included.

Videos:


Will post more as i play.

PS: Duo lane Kog'Maw with sonoran skin and Rammus with Molten skin are so epic. :)

I will constantly update this guide if I find a better use of masteries, runes, items, builds from the feedback from my guide :)

19/03/11 - Changed masteries
16/03/11 - Added more DPS item suggestions
TheStalker on roarchat got me to fix some spelling errors
18/04/11 - Changed masteries yet again due to popular demand
Don't remember anything more :D