- A Kog’Maw Rework is necessary because he boasts incredibly low pick rates in both casual and competitive play.
- The kit design does not fit League’s current game design which prioritizes selfishness.
- By buffing or changing certain aspects of his kit, some fans have brought new ways to fix the champion.
Kog’Maw, the Mouth of the Abyss, has always been an enigma in League of Legends. Despite boasting impressive damage potential, his lack of mobility and reliance on protection have relegated him to niche pick status, rarely venturing into the professional scene. Some fans took it into their own hands to figure out just how to breathe new life into the champion, here are some of my favorite ideas!
Why Does Kog’Maw Need a Rework?
Kog’Maw embodies the classic hypercarry archetype: high damage, low defenses, and zero mobility. While such a profile thrived in earlier seasons, the modern League meta emphasizes adaptability and outplay potential. Champions need tools to escape ganks, reposition in fights, and adjust their builds to counter enemy strategies. Kog’Maw, unfortunately, lacks these tools. He’s a glass cannon that requires constant babysitting and perfect positioning to be effective.
Runeterra Doesn’t Check For Steroids
User PureInsanity brought a very interesting idea for a Kog’Maw rework. Instead of giving him outplay potential, their idea took Kog’s already perfect ADC kit and put it on steroids, both figuratively and literally. The user took current Kog’s W and split it into 3 for his abilities.
His new passive, Evolution’s Resolve, offers a “second chance” mechanic, granting Kog’Maw a brief period of invulnerability upon taking lethal damage, kinda like Karthus. This functions similarly to his current passive but makes it fit the design more by letting him use his attack speed and on-hits. It also makes it more difficult for enemies to just dash away, which isn’t unusual.
His Q now grants him attack speed, and his W grants him increased range. The user proposed his E to grant him penetration, but I think turning it into a burst of movement speed would work better. Only one steroid can be active at a time, and you can switch freely between them like Sona’s auras.
His new ultimate culminates this identity of buffing your autos by temporarily giving you all the buffs at once. The reason I like this concept is that it gives the adorably pungent void puppy enough buffs to out-damage other champions while staying true to his identity of being the only true on-hit specialist. The movement speed buff on his new E also gives him kiting potential without giving him a dash, which every champion seems to have nowadays.
Weaponized Bile
User AbyssalRaven‘s “Inverse Tryndamere” Kog’Maw goes in a completely different direction. The kamikaze passive is switched over to be part of his Ultimate. The new passive, Caustic Curiosity, replaces his mana bar with a unique resource called bile. This bile can be built up passively, by dealing damage with the new Q, or by scoring takedowns.
This Bile is used by Kog’Maw to cast his other abilities. Furthermore, his autos and abilities gain range based on the amount of Bile he has currently. His Q is similar to in-game Kog’Maw’s Q, being a long-ranged skill shot that deals damage. This doesn’t cost Bile and is your main way of building up the Bile bar. Furthermore, AbyssalRaven’s idea to apply on-hit effects and letting the skill crit provides the final polish to the skill.
I adore the new W as well, a toggleable skill that turns Kog’s autos into a stream of ooze that bypasses attack speed. The E provides Kog with the final element to put him in preset day Runeterra, providing him with a knockback for when an Akali gets too close.
The Ultimate comes in 2 parts, and I like one a lot more than the other. Firstly, it locks down your Bile pool, making it so casting skills doesn’t affect your Bile. This is the perfect ultimate for a kit like this, providing a sideways buff that weaves in perfectly specifically to Kog’s kit. The part I’m not so sure about is the Kamikaze mechanic. It’s a good way to pay homage to the champion’s origins, but it feels out of place in the kit. A better way to implement the Void champions’ signature true damage would be to lock it behind a “deal x amount of normal attacks to deal true damage” passive.
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Heya, I’m Asad (Irre) Kashif! I’ve been writing about anything and everything since as far back as I can remember. Professionally, I started writing five years ago, working both as a ghostwriter and writing under my own name. As a published author and a council member in Orpheus, my journey in the world of writing has been fulfilling and dynamic.
I still cherish the essays I wrote about my favorite PS2 games, and I’m thrilled to have transformed my passion for game journalism into a career. I’m a theory crafter for Genshin Impact (and now Wuthering Waves) and have a deep love for roguelites and roguelikes. While I prefer indie games for their distinct aesthetic and vibes, I do enjoy triple-A games occasionally. I’ve also been playing League since season 6, and I main Akali! I have a keen interest in discovering and playing more obscure games, as well as researching forgotten titles. Additionally, I am a front-end programmer who dabbles a bit in gamedev occasionally.