Cho'Gath is an incredibly powerful hero. He can fulfill the role of both Assassin and Tank at the same time. "How does he do this?" Lets look and see.

First off MASTERIES

Offense
Deadliness 3/3
Archmage's Savvy 3/3
Sorcery 4/4
Alacrity 4/4
Archaic Knowledge 1/1
Sunder 3/3
Brute Force 3/3
Lethality 3/3
Havoc 1/1

Utility
Perservence 3/3

Random (2 points to spend)
Burning Embers (Offense)
Demolisher (Offense)
Cripple (Offense)
Hardiness 2/3 (Defense)
Resistance 2/3 (Defense)
Good Hands 2/3 (Utility)

The 2 Random Points can be spent pretty much however you want. The Offense powers obviously only take if you're going to take that spell. The defensive will give you a little more survivability, but beyond early game it's not necessary. The utility is the least likely I'd spend in as Cho really shouldn't be dieing that often anyway.

SPELLS
There are a number of spells that can be useful to Cho. Personally my two favorites are Ignite and Clarity. But I'll go through all

Promote - Nice to take if your team is running Promotes so you can get a wave of tower killing minions all together. Beyond taking it with the rest of the team, I'd pass on it though as by itself it won't make Cho much better.

Rally - Good to combo with Promote or if you are soloing a lane.

Heal - Nice for early game heals, but mid-late game should be unnecessary

Flash/Ghost - Handy for catching runners, but can easily be ignored if you use Rupture correctly.

Clarity - I like Clarity a lot as Cho has low mana early game and you're going to be using a lot of abilities to harass your opponent and, as you'll see soon, you won't have any mana boosting items for a bit.

Ignite - A nice harassment tool to lower enemies hp quicker for Feast or to snag a kill off someone running away. Also gives you a second attack power early in the game, and if paired with the Offensive Mastery, gives you an extra 10 AP whenever you have it on cooldown.


ABILITIES
Cho has 3 abilities you will be using. Rupture, Vorpal Spines, and Feast. Scream is completely unnecessary and specing in it before level 13 will just slow you down.

Purchase Order
1: Rupture
2: Vorpal
3: Rupture
4: Vorpal
5: Rupture
6: Feast
7: Rupture
8: Vorpal
9: Vorpal
10: Vorpal
11: Feast
12: Rupture
13: Scream
and so on

The idea is to get Rupture and Vorpal boosted as fast as possible. At first I focus on Rupture to get a decent AoE on minions and you will be using it to harass your enemy heroes as well. I actually cap Vorpal before Rupture though because at that point you're auto attack will be doing significant damage and you'll want to be saving Rupture a little bit more to try and snag enemy heroes.

Early game - Focus on using Rupture to hit the enemy heroes. Don't rush at them to use it. Try and wait till they're standing at the edge of your range (or closer if they're dumb) and use it without moving. Intelligent players that see Cho moving towards them will back off quickly, so you need to surprise or accurately guess where they'll be when Rupture goes off if they're running around. If their health dips low you can drop in to finish off, but otherwise stay back and just harass them. Once you pick up Vorpal at level 2 you should be meleeing whatever minions are farthest way from the enemy heroes.

Mid game - Once you pick up Feast it's time to start killing. Feast gives you the same HP boost off a minion kill as a hero kill. Always try and save a Feast until it's maxed though. Every time you add a new Feast to your stack, it refreshs the HP boost. So if you had Feasted 3 times when it was only +90hp and then feast a 4th time when it is at +120hp it'll go to 480 instead of 390. However if you've already capped your 6 feasts, it won't refresh. Other then that, try to feast early and get an HP boost. Once you feel comfortable in your HP (varies depending on who you fight) save Feast for killing heroes.

Late game - Kill everything. At this point you should be a terror on the battlefield. Just don't rush head long into the entire enemy team and you should be good.


ITEMS
"So what items do you take to make Cho crazy?" At first you want HP and speed to get your tank on and allow you to move rapidly. After that, it's all AP.

1. Ruby Crystal -> Upgrade to Leviathan's Armor (It's important to do this quickly as every time you get a hero kill or assist, Leviathan's Armor boost your HP further. So the sooner you get it, the sooner it starts stacking).
2. Boots of Speed -> Upgrade to Boot's of Swiftness (gives Cho the chasing power he needs)

Time to get some AP

3. Catalyst Protector -> Upgrade to Rod of Ages (I take Catalyst Protector before Blasting Wand as it boosts HP further and gives you a nice heal as you level).
4: Zhonya's Ring
5: Rylai's Scepter

Rylai's and Zhonya's can be swapped around if you want. Rylai's is more about getting a little more HP where as Zhonya is the huge AP boost you've been waiting for. If you find you still don't have enough HP after getting Rod of Ages, then take Rylai's first. Otherwise get Zhonya's.

6: Deathfire's Grasp

The last item can really be anything. I'd make it an AP item, but it's not necessary that you do. If you find you're dieing alot, Guardian Angel would be a better choice for the Revive on it as that'll save you from losing Leviathan stacks and Feast stacks.

"So why do I start stacking AP?" AP buffs everything about Cho. Rupture, Feast, Scream, and even Vorpal. With 4 AP items, Vorpal's group attack will easily be doing over 120 damage, allowing you to wade through minions with ease and save Rupture for slowing enemies. Feast will do over 1000 damage allowing you to easily take out most heroes (got a Yi problem? Rupture and Scream him before he pops highlander then attack a couple time before Feast. No more Yi)


RUNES
AP and HP Regen are you best bets


Now go forth and teach everyone why it's wise to be afraid of the dark.

Ap chogath is horrible to full tank chogath, 1000 feast burst is only 200 more damage than normal, and you have to spend a lot on that to get lots of burst damage.

On another thread, i tested that if you have zhyoras ring, adn some other ap items for about 8.5k gold, you do 60 more damage on vorpla, while for about the same cost, you can have 2 wartmogs giving about 2.5k more hp and regen, leaving you 1k left for something else.

Its not a bad guide, but not as effeftive as many other guides about chogath, its is not an unknown fact that chogath can gank and be an assassian type.

Stacking ap will get you killed, and less usefull in team fights, more burst isnt helping on other tanks when you do 600 damage rupture while they have 5k heath, the stun alone will let your team kill them, so the damage is unnecesary, if you want bonus damage, get atmas impaler.

kinda true but only against some people, its costs too much mana for someone normal, for example, against people with an easy escape, its really usefull, but if you flash feast, you do true damage, so against other tanks or flimsy carries, (alistar, gangplank) you will not need the scream, rupture is better at harassing, and does more damage if your good, at better cooldown. Although 1 level is usefull for some people like the ones you listed

how is the ap on chogath that abysmal? rupture is 1 for 1 right? and scream like .6 or so (guessing).

Vorpal and feast it is abysmal on but those two abilities dont need AP as already pointed out.

So if AP is out what about cool down reduction? What would Chogaths abilities cap out with max cool down reduction? more ruptures, more lovely feasts, ect.

I still like the AP. Having the huge boost to Rupture is a big help. By end game my rupture is doing close to 800 damage. Can't remember Scream, as I use it sparingly, but it is also up there, which again gives you a nice burst. Rupture, Scream, Feast is almost always a kill shot with high AP.

I advise getting several 1/2 tank items on Cho

chalice for resists and mana regen
frozen heart for armor, cooldowns, and mana (the aura is really bad btw, but the cooldowns are great)
abyssal scepter for resists, ap, and magic resist

arrange your runes and masteries to counter whatever kinds of characters you play poorly against.

you get over 50% reductions to both kinds of damage easily and depending on boot choice and runes/masteries you can easily get over 65% of both. You still do good damage and you can easily get max cooldowns, which i honestly think works better than focusing on AP for effective damage.

AP cho has very little stamina for extended team fights and often will be limited by how quickly he can use his mana.

... sure maybe against carries that dont pay attention, but against better players knowing that a Chogath is mia, you cant rupture surprise them as much as you think


if you are in a team fight, if you land a good rupture, the extra 500 ad damage isnt going to matter, if you can do that much damage in a rupture, your team should be able to do even more, i use rupture late game more so for its stun.

Ap chogath can be good, but requires muh more money to play, a tank chogath with a wartmoggs is already pretty good, and can have a good 4k health, plus regen at max charges. the wartmoggs gives 1.35k more hp, meaning you can take that much more damage

On the other hand, a [COLOR=#ffcc00]Zhonya's Ring[/COLOR], give about 125 ap, for more money. It adds 1/10 of the damage to health, and although it adds 500 extra mana, if you good, killing creeps can provide lots of mana.

One of the few exception i see to this is [COLOR=#ffcc00]Rylai's Scepter[/COLOR], it is very usefull, as it procs slow at ruptures cast, before the spikes come.

I would advise going tank chogath in the beggining no matter what (although health is getting 10% reduction ) and then can move to a more caster positition frim there. In the begining, the extra ap damage, isnt going to help enough, spikes get most of my kills, and 10 extra damage isnt goning to add much, to being to actually live against the first gank attampt to stop you.

I started off as a MFChogath but having played 20 games or so now with him. I nowl feel and will probably always feel a balance of defense to ap/colldowns is the way to go.

Defenses to 100, capped cool downs then depending on how the game is going max defense or go for ap.

For instance last night I played one of the best games of LoL ever where my team was better than the other team but there Yi was so fed and we were lacking stuns save my rupture and his 12 second ulti was ruling the field cause he could zip in slaughter a carry and get out before we could focus him.

We even alomst surrendered but I knew i could take him if I could lock him for even 2 seconds.

Which we did! We got a Nunu ulti, rupture and then a feast on him pushed the mid and when he showed up again (due to capped cool downs) we axed him again with a twitch ulti and a feast, mopped up the rest and plowed on through victory.

Rupture and feast won the day due to damage and the stun of rupture. My feast was at 1k, and my rupture ws pushing over 800.

It freaks carries out when you eat so much of there health or when they are wounded finish them off. They tend to get super careful and dodgey making mistakes.