Riot’s gone and posted the official “champion approaches” info for Kog’Maw, including his skill list. It looks like the latest creature from the void will be making his way to the League by the next patch.
Let’s have a look at his abilities, shall we?
Bio-Arcane Barrage: Kog’Maw’s attacks gain range and deal a percent of the target’s maximum health as magic damage.
Void Ooze: Kog’Maw launches a peculiar ooze which damages all enemies it passes through and leaves a trail which slows enemies who stand on it.
Caustic Spittle: Passive: Increases armor penetration. Active: Kog’Maw launches a corrosive projectile which deals magic damage and doubles his passive armor penetration for 4 seconds (Removes the passive until available again).
Living Artillery (Ultimate): Kog’Maw fires a living artillery shell at a great distance dealing damage and revealing targets. Additionally, multiple Living Artilleries in a short period of time cause them to cost additional mana.
Icathian Surprise (Passive): Upon dying, Kog’Maw starts a chain reaction in his body which causes him to detonate after 4 seconds; dealing magic damage to surrounding enemies.
It looks to me like he’ll play a little bit like Kayle, with the active cast on Caustic Spittle increasing damage he deals and the ranged attack he gets from Bio-Arcane Barrage. I have to say, I’m not thrilled to see another melee toon, and his passive has to be among the worst in the game. When will that be useful? When you die? Isn’t part of the game trying to not die? Four seconds also seems like an eternity for the detonation. It would be much more interesting, in my mind, if targets he killed were infected and would explode after they had died. As always, we’ll have to see how this plays out, but for now I am wholly underwhelmed by his skill list.
Will Kog’Maw be the latest toon that’s banished to unplayability?
He’s supposed to finish a trio with Cho+Mal right? So Cho is tank/range caster, Mal is range dps & Kog is melee dps? ROUGHLY of course.
You know, I was thinking about his passive and whether or not it was lame. Thinking about it in the context of a melee dps… I think it makes sense. It makes the other team have to play around you. Especially if he puts out good dps they are going to have to shift their playstyle a bit – especially if they are melee heavy and dependingon a) how big his boom radius is and b) how much damage it does.
I think it needs to do some pretty serious damage. Sure, you’ve got 4s to avoid it… but make it really pay if you fail to avoid it or the other team stuns you when he drops, etc.
I think it may bring something new to the table, but we’ll see.
My disappointment with him is mostly tied to how completely his powers FAIL his description/story. They should not have given him that eating/devouring storyline and then completely unrelated powers. WTF!? Also, it looks like he has a gun in his mouth in the screenshots, which is dumb.
I don’t think the void characters are part of a trio, at least I haven’t read anything to that end. You are right, though. His skills completely fail to complement his story/lore. Why isn’t he more of a poisoner/maimer with some sort of eating skill?
Apparently you are able to move during those 4 seconds, so that should make it interesting…
Good call Bumble – here’s the official Riot post
Can you attack while on your “bonus 4 seconds”? Either way, that sounds much better.