Cho'Gath Build & Guide / The Terror of the Rift

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[8.19.1]The Terror of the Rift

by Hoshea_Tiang

(Last updated on October 9, 2018)

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Builds

Summoner Spells

Standard

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Teleport
Flash

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Both summoner spells are just important for Cho' Gath as teleport allows him to get back into lane during the laning phase as he does have some very punishing matchups and also to teleport to fights as he already has a lot of effectiveness once he arrives in a teamfight due to his immense health bar, crowd control such as the knockup and the silence along with the kill pressure on his ultimate. The flash is especially useful to escape from ganks and also to gap close to kill off enemies with his ultimate due to his lack of other movement abilities.

Runes

RESOLVE
Grasp of the Undying
Bone Plating
Second Wind
Overgrowth

SORCERY
Scorch
Transcendence

Bonus :

+65 health and +10 ability power or +6 attack damage, adaptive

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This page is to be used especially against melee champions that you can easily land your q on and walk up to autoattack and proc your Grasp of the Undying but if you are confident on being able to trade with an enemy ranged champion in lane such as Urgot who has a shorter range or Gnar, you may also take this page. However, there are some melee champions who also have a lot of kill pressure if you walk up to autoattack such as Jayce (who has a ranged form), Gangplank (who can harass you low with his Q) and also Camille (who has damage and lockdown with her ult). Bone Plating and Second Wind helps you survive your laning phase while overgrowth allows even more stacking to your health bar. Scorch gives you more laning and trading power when you land your spells.

Items

Starting Items

Doran's Shield
Health Potion
Corrupting Potion

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The usual start is Doran's Shield to give you health and sustain in lane along with a Health Potion. However, you can also buy corrupting potion instead of it or you can also buy it after your Doran's Shield and Health Potion as it really helps you in your mana problems and also in your trading power as it increases your damage once you consume a Corrupting Potion charge.

Boots

Ninja Tabi
Mercury's Treads

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For your boots, you can choose to either buy Ninja Tabi if you are against a lot of AD champions or also Mercury Treads if you are against a lot of AP champions or if the enemy champions have a lot of crowd control abilities.

Core

Abyssal Mask
Righteous Glory
Gargoyle Stoneplate

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The Abysmal Mask is usually bought as a first item especially if you are against AP champions as it gives a good amount of magic resist, health and also more CDR. The passive also solves some of your mana issues while you also allow the AP champions on your team to deal more damage near you. Righteous Glory is extremely important and can be sometimes bought as your first item as it also gives a good amount of armor, health, mana and CDR and its active is very important in your gameplay as it allows you to catch up to the enemy champion for the kill. Gargoyle Stoneplate's active allows you to increase your health for your ultimate to deal more damage.

Other Items

Thornmail
Adaptive Helm
Frozen Heart
Warmog's Armor
Spirit Visage

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Your next items after your 3 core items are fairly situational based on the enemy champions and which one of them is the most important to the enemy's win condition. For example, if the enemy has a fed AD Carry who auto attacks a lot, Thornmail and Frozen Heart would be a good item to get. Adaptive Helm is good against champions who use the same ability repetitively as their main damage source such as Cassiopeia and Ryze. Warmog's Armor is a fantastic item to get if your team fight a lot of skirmishes as you can quickly heal back up to full health before going back in to tank the teamfight again. Spirit Visage is also a great item as it gives health, magic resist and also boosts your healing from Warmog's Armor.

Ability Sequence

Carnivore
∞ Carnivore(Passive)
Rupture
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Feral Scream
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Vorpal Spikes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Feast
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
Vorpal Spikes

Feral Scream

Rupture

Vorpal Spikes

Vorpal Spikes

Feast

Vorpal Spikes

Vorpal Spikes

Feral Scream

Feral Scream

Feast

Feral Scream

Feral Scream

Rupture

Rupture

Feast

Rupture

Rupture

Maxing E first helps your trading and waveclear as it is the skill with the lowest cooldown. After this, you should max W first before maxing Q as it is easier to land and also because leveling up W increases the duration of your silence but leveling up Q does not increase the slow or the duration of the slow. You should level up your ultimate whenever possible.

Vs. Champions

Ornn
Poppy
Malphite
Maokai
Nasus

Jayce
Camille
Rumble
Darius
Trundle

Easy
Normal
Hard

Fiora
Sion
Aatrox
Jarvan IV
Shen

Difficulty
Champion
Notes

Easy

Ornn

Both Cho' Gath and Ornn are tanks that won't really kill each other. However, try not to get auto attacked by him after you get brittle and also keep in mind that he can craft items in lane so you might have a item discrepancy at some point in the lane. Also, ward up your lane and watch out for jungle ganks as his ult can set up ganks quite well.

Easy

Poppy

Once again, he does not have much kill pressure on you but try not to get stunned into the hall by him and also watch out for jungle ganks as he can set up ganks with his E and R quite decently.

Easy

Malphite

It should be an easy farm lane for you as he likes to stack armor while your damage is magic or true damage with your ultimate. Watch out for his all-ins with his ultimate.

Easy

Maokai

He does not have much damage to deal and with most likely lose out on trades with you as your E does % hp damage. Try not to walk towards bushes as he might have planted his E inside. Getting hit by Maokai's empowered saplings from bushes is about the only way you will get out-traded. You can also have kill pressure on him with your ultimate. Ward up your lane to ensure the enemy jungler is not coming as he has a point-click root, slow and more roots with his ultimate to set up his jungler.

Easy

Nasus

You heavily out-trade him with your E so aim to push him in and bully him early. Watch out when he gets a lot of stacks or has his ultimate activated as his Q cooldown is reduced by half when he is in his ultimate.

Normal

Fiora

She does not have much damage early if you avoid getting by on your vitals and you also trade fairly well to her with your E early game. Try to manipulate minion aggro to win you trades as she has minimal waveclear in the early game before she purchases a Tiamat. Do not attempt to 1v1 her once she gets 2-3 items as she can easily cut you down with her ultimate.

Normal

Sion

You can trade fairly well with him but he does has a lot of base damage. Try to use your W or Q to interrupt him when he is charging his Q and do not waste your E to attack him while his W shield is up. Watch out when you are low as he might charge towards you with his ultimate.

Normal

Aatrox

As long as you dodge some of his spells in the early game and do not get pulled in by his infernal chains, you should be trading decently well into him with around 3-4 points into your E. You can also wait out his ult before ulting him for the kill as Griffin Sword's Cho' Gath did against kt Smeb's Aatrox in game 1 of the LCK Summer 2018 Finals. Refer to the chapter titled "Matchup-Aatrox" below.

Normal

Jarvan IV

He does have a lot of burst in his combo in the early levels but you should be able to trade once you have around 3-4 points into your E. Watch out for the enemy jungler especially when you do not have flash because you will not be able to escape from his ultimate.

Normal

Shen

He will be able to pressure you early game as his Q does % hp damage. Try to dodge his taunt so he will not be able to follow-up with his full rotation of abilities. However, after you get a few items you will definitely be able to trade with him and have kill pressure on him with your ultimate. Watch out for his ultimate usage and try to follow him with your Teleport. You can interrupt his Stand United with your Q or W or you see him channeling his ultimate.

Hard

Jayce

Jayce has too much poke and damage for you to deal with and will definitely out-trade you no matter how you trade. Play safe and get as much farm as possible pre-6 and look out for his mistakes after you hit level 6 to burst him down along with your jungler with your ultimate. However, if he does fall behind in the early game, he should become more and more useless and you should lane fairly well against him.

Hard

Camille

You can actually trade decently if you manage to hit her with all your spells including your E but try not to get hit by her outer ring of her W and also watch out for jungle ganks as her ult prevents you from escaping completely.

Hard

Rumble

Rumble has a lot of damage and poke that will be extremely hard for you to deal with before you level up for abilities and get your magic resist items. However, after you have enough tankiness, set up with your jungler for some kills on him with your ultimate as he is still a very squishy champion.

Hard

Darius

Darius has a lot of true damage bleed from his passive and also an ultimate that executes enemies. Try to take short trades with him by using your Q slow to prevent him from getting close to continue the trade and avoid getting hooked by his W.

Hard

Trundle

His ultimate counters you as he absorbs a portion of your health, magic resist and armor, making you less tanky and making him tankier. Try to farm as best as you can in lane and outperform him in teamfights as you can have more impact than him in teamfight scenarios.

Early Game

You can trade decently well against most champions with your full combo, which is usually knocking them up with your Q before getting close to auto attack them with your E up and silencing them with your W while also activating Grasp of the Undying if you have that keystone. However, if you are against a hard matchup, play extremely safe as your laning phase can also be weak. Remember that Cho' Gath can also be ganked by enemy junglers quite easily in the early game as you lack movement abilities or escapes so always keep your lane warded up. If you have fallen low, do not underestimate your passive and focus on last-hitting as it can quickly heal you up.

Getting Stacks

Once you hit level-6, just use your ultimate on minions to gain stacks until you have the maximum 6 stacks from minions. The only exception to this is if you are really confident that you will get a kill on the enemy laner in the near future or if your jungler is coming to gank your lane soon. You can also ask your jungler to allow you to ult a nearby objective if he is taking it such as Dragon or Rift Herald. Remember that you can only gain a maximum of 6 stacks from minions or normal monsters but you can gain unlimited stacks from kills and epic monsters such as Dragons, Baron Nashor and the Rift Herald.

Ultimate usage

1. Securing Objectives
Remember that your ultimate does a lot more damage than the enemy jungler's smite so do not be afraid to rush an objective down and secure it with your ultimate if you are in a position to do so. You can also look to flash in to steal an enemy objective as once again, your ultimate does more damage than the enemy jungler's smite.

2. Securing Kills
As your health bar increases, remember that your ultimate damage also increases and that might catch enemies off guard both in your laning phase and teamfights. One tip that some people might not know about is the game actually informs you when a target is low enough for you to instantly kill with your ultimate with a circle under him.

Teamfights

1. Positioning
If your team has another tank, you generally have more freedom in teamfights to look for special flanks or teleport plays. However, if you are the only tank on your team, you should usually be with your damage carries to protect and tank for them if the enemy team engages.

2. Fights
In teamfights, try to do what a tank usually does and soak up as much damage as possible from the enemy team. Try to block off as many enemy projectiles as possible due to your large size. Use your Q and W to disrupt the enemy and aim for the priority targets such as the enemy's AD carry and finish them off with your ultimate if they are low enough. Using your Gargoyle's Stoneplate immediately before ulting the enemy will definitely catch them off-guard with a ton of damage. Always activate your E immediately when it gets off cooldown in the teamfight. If you manage to catch a priority target with your Q, you should be able to follow up by flashing in and immediately silencing the target before activating your Gargoyle's Stoneplate and casting your ultimate on the target.

One of the mistakes people might make in teamfights is they might save their ultimate for too long looking for the final hit on the target to get the stack. However, you should use it when you get the opportunity to on the enemy carries as it deals a lot of damage when combined with your Gargoyle's Stoneplate and even if your ultimate does not kill the target, he/she would no longer be able to participate in the fight due to the low health bar.

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