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Strategy is highly subjective and may become outdated without any notice. Because of this, the League of Legends Wiki has decided to retire strategy pages and would recommend using other platforms (such as YouTube) to find guides. For more information visit this thread.
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Champion Spotlight[]
Recommended Items[]
Tips[]
- Playing As
Cho'Gath
- Try to line up your attacks with Vorpal Spikes so that they kill minions and harass enemy champions at the same time.
- If you're having difficulty Feasting upon champions, try eating minions until you're larger.
- Using Rupture on creeps in combination with Carnivore is a good way to gain Health and Mana.
- Playing Against Cho'Gath
- Purchasing a few HP items decreases the chances of Cho'Gath killing you quickly.
- Focus on preventing Cho'Gath from getting too many stacks.
- Rupture has a smoke cloud indicating the area it will strike. Try to watch out for it to prevent Cho'Gath from being able to combo his abilities.
Tricks[]
- Ability Usage
- While Rupture has a longer range, Feral Scream is less avoidable and can stop opponents from using movement abilities to dodge Rupture, especially against melee top lane champions with spammable movement abilities like Riven (who is also vulnerable to the silence due to being combo-reliant).
- Both Rupture and Feral Scream can interrupt channeled abilities; with practice and good prediction, they can even interrupt deadly suppression ultimates ( Warwick's Infinite Duress, Malzahar's Nether Grasp) being used on you by casting them right before they use those abilities, because Rupture and Feral Scream have a brief cast time that can only be stopped by death.
- Generally Feral Scream is maxed first to increase the silence duration, however this also makes it very mana-heavy. Against toplaners like Nasus, who is immobile, less reliant on abilities with innate sustain, maxing Rupture (which does not increase its mana cost; at max rank it does 5 base damage per mana compared to Feral Scream's 2.5) can be more useful to force him out of lane.
- While Feast grants a permanent health gain when it kills a champion and a true damage tank-buster, in a team fight it may be more useful to use it first, as it is Cho'Gath's only targeted ability. Prime targets are slippery melee assassins such as Zed, Talon or Master Yi. The heavy damage would make them reconsider sticking around too much in the thick of battle, and their low health state can often attract your teammates' attention to quickly eliminate the threat. Also, as it is a true damage nuke, it becomes stronger if the enemy team has many magic resistance stacking ( Galio) or powerful damage-reducing ( Garen, Alistar) champions that you need to Feast upon frequently.
- Feast is very useful against jungle monsters even if you are not jungling, as even at level 6 it can deal a massive 1000+ true damage in one hit, allowing you to possibly quickly take Crest of Insight solo for laning. It should also be used on the Dragon as it gives a non-minion stack. Note that while it does more damage than Smite (390-1000 damage) especially at lower levels, it has a cast time while Smite is instant.
- Rune Usage
- Cho'Gath can be played as a tank, a mage, or anything in between.
- For Sorcery, Manaflow Band helps him with his mana problems. It is another reason to use Feral Scream before Rupture, due to its higher mana cost (which is negated by the rune).
- Phase Rush gives him a decent burst of movement speed but it may not be too reliable to hit all his basic abilities in the short window, especially given that both Vorpal Spikes and Feast have essentially melee range, and he has the most difficulty getting into melee range in the first place.
- Arcane Comet is good with Rupture as its knock up prevents his opponent from avoiding it.
- For Resolve, Overgrowth synergizes with his health gain from Feast.
- Demolish allows Cho'Gath to destroy towers extremely quickly, especially once sufficient health has been stacked.
- Second Wind helps him with his troubles with poke while Conditioning helps you scale better when building armor (which is a must for Tank Cho'Gath).
- If you feel confident you can also go with Domination: Electrocute can help him burst out enemies way easier in all stages of the game, especially for Ap builds and Predator almost always guarantees a succesful roam and gives a lot less time to react than Teleport.
- From this same Path the rune Cheap Shot and Ultimate Hunter increase Cho'Gath's damage exponencially with whatever little Ap and Cooldown Reduction you may build.
- From this same Path the rune
- Cho'Gath can also see benefits from Legend: Tenacity and Presence of Mind but since the attack speed from Precision is usually useless it's potential is limited.
- An interesting combo is to go Domination with Ultimate Hunter along with Presence of Mind because if you have 30% Cooldown Reduction, you ult somebody right at the beginning of a teamfight (and kill it if it's squishy enough) and help killing other 3 you can ult the last one if at least 28 seconds have passed (25 with 40% CDR). Which is an insane amount of damage no matter your build.
- An interesting combo is to go
- An unusual, but useful rune for Cho'Gath is Glacial Augment. Well-aimed combos of Rupture and Feral Scream allow for easy gapclosing to apply the autoattack slow, allowing for improved ganks and chasing, especially when jungling. Additionally, Cho'Gath benefits greatly from many runes in the Inspiration tree. Glacial Augment also benefits Righteous Glory's engage potential, creating multiple slowing zones and allowing your team to follow up.
- In the first row, Cho'gath can gain extra movespeed from Magical Footwear, or use Perfect Timing to pad his early game and transform it into a Zhonya's Hourglass in an AP build, or Gargoyle Stoneplate in a tank build.
- In the second row, Minion Dematerializer allows him to CS easier in harder lane matchups and improves his splitpushing power. Future's Market can allow him to reach scaling items like Rod of Ages sooner, and Biscuit Delivery affords him improved sustain in both jungle and lane, allowing him to be active on the map for extended periods of time.
- In the third row, Cho'gath benefits greatly from extra cooldown reduction from Cosmic Insight, improved gapclosing from Approach Velocity, and sustain from Time Warp Tonic.
- In the first row, Cho'gath can gain extra movespeed from
- Item Usage
- Rod of Ages is often regarded as Cho'Gath's core item as it gives him a healthy amount of AP, health and mana (since he is quite mana hungry even with his passive). An early Catalyst of Aeons can mitigate his mana problems. If going for a pure tank build, Abyssal Mask can grant similar mana sustain and increased tankiness at the cost of damage.
- He can use all the stats on Hextech Protobelt-01 well and its active gives him some mobility that he desperately lacks.
- For a tankier build, try Righteous Glory.
- For a tankier build, try
- Both Rupture and Vorpal Spikes doubles the Torment damage from Liandry's Torment. With the doubled % max health burn, Madness increasing his sustained damage, Vorpal Spikes' % max health damage, and Feast's large chunk of true damage, Cho'Gath can be a deadly tank shredder. Note that Madness does NOT amplify his ultimate damage.
- When going for a tank build, Gargoyle Stoneplate is an amazing teamfighting item. Because it grants only resistance stats, it is extremely efficient with the health stacking from Feast. Additionally, the bonus health granted by it's active scales Feast's true damage. With enough health, and the buffed active, a single Feast can potentially instantly kill a champion from full health, making Cho'Gath a deadly threat and forcing the enemy team to focus him or lose a carry.
- Cho'Gath is the champion that can build Warmog's Armor the soonest since his Ult can give him quickly enough health to get the passive going.
- If you are ahead and want to build a single Tank Item, Zz'Rot Portal will give you all the resistances you need, a nice amount of Movement Speed near Turrets and an Active that will splitpush for you.
- For AP builds Spellbinder can be a suitable replacement for Righteous Glory if you can't reach enemies.
- If you are not sure if an AP build is appropriate for the game, going Arcane Comet and Demolish secondary while building Rod of Ages, Banshee's Veil, and Zhonya's is a nice balance between ability power and tankiness.
- Alternatively, Cho'Gath can abuse his ability to stack health, his autoattack reset with Vorpal Spikes and his high base AD by going for an AD bruiser build. Typically, this build would take items like Trinity Force to take advantage of his high base AD, Titanic Hydra to improve his sustained area of effect damage in teamfights along with another autoattack reset, and possibly even Sterak's Gage, as it's shield scales off of his bonus health. When abusing such a build, going jungle and building Cinderhulk can be a great buy, as it amplifies the health gain from all your items and ultimate stacks. The build would generally finish by building tank items that favor magic resistance or armor - however, note that Gargoyle Stoneplate is not recommended for this kind of build, as the active reduces his sustained autoattack damage. Builds like this can put out a surprising amount of burst, especially on squishies, provided Cho'Gath can close the distance.
- Countering
- Cho'Gath is one of the few, if not the only champion, commonly regarded as a tank, to entirely lack any sort of mobility, and his large size makes it extra difficult for him to dodge skillshots. Poke champions like Lux or Xerath can give him a hard time. As he lacks an escape, ganking him often especially pre-6 can leave him crippled.
- As he generally stacks a lot of health, abilities that deal a percentage of health is very effective against him, such as Vayne's Silver Bolts (and her Tumble also helps evading Rupture).
- Both Rupture and Feral Scream have noticeable cast times with no travel time. If you cannot outrange him, agile champions such as Master Yi or Fizz can close the gap and engage him at close range.
- Feral Scream in particular is a conical ability cast from the edge of his hitbox, which means it is very difficult or even impossible for him to hit you with it if you are right on top of him.
- Feast, while a targeted ability, also has a noticeable cast time; if Cho'Gath loses sight of you during the animation (e.g. if you walk into brush that he has no sight of), it will not damage you.
- Cho'Gath has two abilities that interrupt channels in an area. Avoid using champions who are reliant on channels. Clustering in general is a terrible idea; if Rupture hits multiple champions, and he would likely follow up with a nearly unavoidable Feral Scream, it would put your team in a huge disadvantage.
- Do not underestimate the reach of Rupture, as it does not have a travel time (i.e. it is just as fast at max range).
- It has a lengthy warning period - he first stomps the ground, then a warning zone appears briefly before the spikes appear. However, if you do not have vision of him, you cannot see the first part and thus the time you can react to it is much more limited. Be wary of him ambushing you from brush, or even from an adjacent jungle path.
