Kog'Maw/Strategy

Skill usage

 * strength lies in his mixed damage and ability to strike enemies from a distance utilizing his and  while keeping enemies at bay with his  and outright destroying those too close with  . However, he has notably short attack range while  is on cooldown and suffers from low base stats (apart from mana) and lack of mobility.
 * Remember not to run away from your enemies when you die, as will allow you to deal extra damage.
 * Think before  away from a laning phase fight; if you notice that the enemy marksman is tower-diving you and you're about to die, keep striking him while getting as close as possible. When you die, follow him with your, possibly getting a return kill or burning an enemy .
 * Using  right before your death may help you catch up during your .
 * Right clicking on the enemy champion during  will make  follow the target. However, if your vision is lost on the target via brush, you may stop pursuing.
 * can sometimes be used to deliver one last hit in a chase since it has a longer range than his auto attack.
 * Most underestimate their true power with a full build.  combined with the attack speed from your items and  should be used to shred tanks or for the extra range.
 * can out-range most champions with his ability. Use this to your advantage by harassing enemies through the minion wave, or grab last-hits while being zoned.
 * Use slow to set up a perfect.
 * Use  slow before a  charge.  Maxing your  can be a good way to get kills early game, or simply bully your lane opponent.  The percent health damage on it is one of your greatest advantages, allowing you to take down even tanks.
 * is only disengage ability. In order to succeed in running away, point  away from your enemy towards where you are running. You will be able to run over it without a problem, but they will be forced to run on top of it the whole time resulting a drastic speed reduction.  or  can give you the "lead" needed to compensate for the short casting time.
 * You can however, click on the map immediately after using to stop the animation, making the escape easier, though it can still be dangerous and  or  can compensate where necessary.
 * Ability Power, combined with, can lead to devastating long range damage. This is a great way to prevent your enemies from camping by a turret.
 * Be careful spamming as it can easily lead to mana starvation.
 * Using as often as possible without stacking the passive too high can be an extremely good way for harassing at any stage of the game.
 * provides a very short time of vision when and where it lands. You can shoot into the bush and see if anyone is there. You can also shoot into areas such as, , , and to see if those monsters are alive making  a great scouting champion.
 * If the hits a champion, your team will be able to see that champion for 4 seconds. This can be useful to continue auto attacking or using other targeted abilities after an enemy has fled into the bush.
 * You can use behind the enemy to scare them so that they run towards you, which can then let you land other shots.
 * can be used to assist you in 1v1 scenarios due to its short cooldown.
 * On Howling Abyss, can deal massive amounts of damage and harass using  and  provided he has built AP.  is particularly effective there, as it has both long range, AoE, a very good ratio, and a slow which will help you land subsequent  shots. The only downside to  is its relatively long cooldown and slow projectile speed, but this drawback can be mitigated by the fact that most players do not see it as a real threat when it's not used to block off their escape, allowing  to unexpectedly deal high amounts of damage with it. As  hits all targets in a straight line, it can also be a good tool to punish the enemy team for camping in bushes.

Build usage

 * is a flexible champion with a variety of build options due to his mixed damage and scaling, similar to . As an ADC, his kit is more auto-attack oriented due to his and the built in attack speed passive on, thus he scales better with attack speed, critical chance, life steal and on-hit items rather than flat attack damage and armor penetration items. As an AP mage, he makes use of all of his abilities (particularly his  ability) to deal heavy sustained damage from afar and significant instant burst in moderate range emergencies.
 * A good default  build has several AD items, one serious mana regeneration item, and assorted hybrid helper items according to taste that give AP, attack speed, life steal, cooldown reduction, or other stats appropriate to the situation. However, he can also be built pure AP, which reduces his CS ability and single target damage but strongly improves his burst and the damage of .
 * When building a hybrid, be sure to get a . It is one of the most cost efficient items on any hybrid build.
 * When building an AP, a when used with  can make subsequent hits with the ability easier due to the slow.
 * Key items in this build are and  as they allow  to sustain the usage of  for an extremely long time. This leads to AP  signature power as a sieger and pokeish champion, but he can anyways output heavy burst combining,  and  (in that order if possible) if forced into closer range.
 * After the main mana items classic high ability power ones like and  are musts. Both ,   are good choises.  Try to avoid  as AP  prefers to fight at long distances, but you can take it if fights are still happening close by.
 * Grabbing early allows the passive to be charged quickly by the low Cooldown and mana cost of  which is a great way to prevent mana starvation.
 * Depending on your build, the later upgrade into or  can prove a strong upgrade to your damage output.
 * is a good item choice for its synergy with and.
 * Building both and  gives 50% attack speed, a bit of AD, some armor penetration, one bonus percent on, and cooldown reduction cap, all without activating  active effect.
 * is another early-game item you may want to consider for, as it is a very efficient item for the price as all stats on the item are useful.
 * An AD build is quite useful (such as, , and ) on  due to his AD-scaling on ,  providing a passive attack speed bonus, and the naturally-useful trait of doing a lot of damage with your autoattacks while having practically unmatched range with  active.
 * Getting some life steal at the beginning of the game is a good idea to help you survive in your lane longer.
 * Starting with a and building into a quick  can lead to some great damage output for a DPS build. The shield is also very useful as a defensive component as  is naturally very vulnerable and often a top priority for the enemy team.
 * 's passive effect has great synergy with . The active also gives a way to defend himself
 * Similarly, building grants him a passive that allows  apply  on multiple enemies.
 * Rushing is relatively useful for  since the 's Rage passive adds additional mobility for kiting and chasing potential, something that  lacks. Its mixed stats will also make 's abilities slightly more potent.
 * However, is a relatively expensive item that is not cost effective to build for the 's passive with  since this ability costs too much mana. Should the player wishing to utilize . Consider building mana-regeneration items such as  or  in the build.
 * An is a significantly better item for  with . Because 's kit is heavily basic attack oriented, the 's passive will allow  to replenish his mana pool with just basic attacks. The life steal is also relatively useful for, and the cooldown reduction will allow  to use his  more often.
 * Building AP or DPS depends on what the enemy team consists of. Tanky DPS and tank enemies will call for DPS, while a balanced or assassin team will need AP. This is because DPS will kill faster but expose yourself to danger, while AP lets you take off health from a reasonably safe distance.

Countering

 * Laning with an enemy can be difficult because of his long range from his.
 * However he is very vulnerable to all-ins. Supports who can perform such early on like, or  are very effective against him
 * Properly building defensive items against is incredibly difficult.  His damage is very high on both sides while also having % max health damage and an armor & magic resist shred on top of that.  Almost no champion -tank or not- is able to take his focus for too long, so locking him down and killing him as fast as possible in any fight is a top priority.
 * Building is sub-optimal against, since  magic damage component will not be reflected. Consider building  and  instead, as these will better reduce 's damage per second output.
 * is fairly squishy at early game. Putting pressure on him can make him under-leveled.
 * is a champion who requires a partner with strong CC to keep him protected.
 * He has no reliable escape ability, so he is usually paired with highly defensive supports. He is still more vulnerable to ganks than most marksmen who don't have reliable escapes.
 * As with most marksmen, a bursty mage or assassin can quickly kill him, based off of their kit. This is very important due to the sheer damage he can provide in fights.
 * Never feel safe when   is somewhat near, has a long range that gets even longer per each rank of the skill, making it possible to harass and even kill you while on a turret. This is particuly important against AP, as -unlike marksmen - he can sustain the usage of the ability for a very long time thanks to more wide mana & mana regeneration items available to mages, and the ability power ratio of the spell is significant considering its cooldown and cost.
 * AP is one of the best turret siegers in game. Assassins and/or champions who can rival his range (, ) minimize such threat.  also well known for being one of the best siege breakers thanks to her ultimate, which upon activation gives bonus movement speed to allied minions and champions within a certain range.
 * is extremely vulnerable on his own and if left alone he is a very easy gank.
 * Be careful with early battles, bringing down first may result in you getting killed by . If you're able to kill the enemy support first, you could lower the odds that the support will damage you enough to be killed by.
 * might win auto-attack trades due to his kit's built in scaling, one strategy to counter this would be to avoid direct confrontation and step in for the kill after you have poked him within a burst-able range.
 * Dashing or blinking from his ooze will make his slow useless, but avoid using speed boosts while in the slow as they will not give you the speed needed to escape.
 * Unwarded bushes don't guarantee safety, may still hit you with his non auto-attack based skills if you are out of the "line of sight".
 * After killing, quickly move away to avoid his.
 * Alternatively, champions with an ability-blocking shield like  can completely negate damage to them from . This is a viable way to protect allies from, as  might simply rush towards the nearest champion. Using a spellshield at the correct timing would negate the damage to you as well as possibly drawing  away from the rest of your team.
 * A good tactic is to juke to a brush during his.
 * Move erratically to avoid being hit by.
 * only form of CC comes from his, so if you're chasing him or running away try to juke it to make your life a lot easier.