The champion spotlight video is officially up for Kog’Maw, as are the patch notes for a patch tomorrow morning. This one includes the new champion, a pretty large batch of skins, and some decent healing nerfs (though unfortunately Janna remains almost completely unchanged).

After watching the Kog’Maw video I can tell you my impressions about him were way off. He seems to be a hybrid caster with skills for armor penetration. It’s a weird mix, and I wonder if he won’t lose some damage in the confusion or just be too strong in one direction or the other. His ultimate actually looks pretty cool – it’s a mortar style spell, much like Veigar’s Dark Matter though it can be cast from a long ways off.

As always, I’ll have full impressions for you in the morning.

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?