Weird Picks #82: Cho'Gath Support

Ever since the release of Patch 7.14, Cho'gath's been on a tear, jumping up leaps and bounds as both a top laner and as a jungler. With a new heavy scaling revitalization of his old toolkit, maybe it's possibly time to look at him in another position as well...support...

Introduction

Ever since the release of Patch 7.14, Cho'gath's been on a tear, jumping up leaps and bounds as both a top laner and as a jungler. With a new heavy scaling revitalization of his old toolkit, maybe it's possibly time to look at him in another position as well...support...

How to Play

Runes: Ability Power Quints, Magic Penetration Reds, Scaling Health Yellows, Flat Magic Resist Blues
Masteries: 0-12-18, Stoneborn Pact Masteries
Abilities: Q, E, W then prioritize R > W > E > Q
Summoner Spells: Flash + Exhaust
Starting Items: Relic Shield + 3 Biscuits
Core Items: Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Face of the Mountain, Locket of the Iron Solari, Ruby Sightstone (build a regular one early), Gargoyle Stoneplate, Knight's Vow

Why It Works

True Damage Scaling
One of Cho's most annoying features is his ability to annihilate champions via true damage. Even if an assassin builds Hexdrinker, Cho can still one shot them before they can rain down on your marksman. As everyone knows, death is the hardest CC.

AOE Crowd Control
While death may be the hardest CC, it's nice to pack a few others as well. Luckily, Cho's no slouch in that area. Featuring one of the last remaining silences in the game and a low cooldown knock-up, Cho keeps enemies wary of stacking in bushes for too long.

Excellent Cooldown Stacking
Most supports tend to stack up on cooldown items, which works wonderfully on Cho, a champion who adores the ability to continuously throw Ruptures (Q) for a potential engagement opportunity.

Potential Pitfalls

Wasted Passive
If you're a good support, you're probably not taking too much CS other than for relic shield. On the other hand, if you're a bad support I guess that would be a different story...anyway, that means your passive regeneration is largely wasted as a non-last hitting player.

No heal/shields
The lack of a direct sustain mechanism is lane is troublesome during the laning phase, especially against a poke lane. It also results in a lack of Forbidden Idol item synergy. However, there are still plenty of viable engage or burst supports, so Cho shouldn't be counted out on this alone.

Slow Peel
Most supports have some sort of reactive peeling power to delay would-be divers. However, Cho's spells are delayed,  resulting in a sub-optimal peel power.

Conclusions

Cho'Gath support is one of those things that can snowball incredibly hard if your team is even or ahead. His ability to AOE knock-up champions is similar to a Morgana binding on steroids, resulting in heavy pressure if nobody can poke him down.

Meanwhile, if the enemy team is very aggressive and heavy on fast burst damage, Cho has great difficulties keeping his allies alive as a result of his slow crowd-control abilities.

Suggested Rating: High Tier 3

What do you think about Cho'gath Support? Comment below!

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