Counter Guide

How to Beat Cho'Gath

Matchup Guide · Evergreen · 3 Counter Picks

A Cho'Gath jungler takes your dragon with one bite, then walks into your team and takes your carry the same way.

Fighting over an objective with it feels hopeless, and it isn't in your head. Feast [R] deals a huge chunk of true damage to monsters, so with Smite up it wins almost every contest for a dragon or Baron. Every champion it eats makes it permanently bigger. What it lacks is legs. There's no dash anywhere in the kit, and everything it does to you it has to do from close range or with a delay you can see coming. If you're deciding whether to ban it this patch, check our solo queue tier list.

Matchup Snapshot Cho'Gath, the Terror of the Void

Where You Meet ItJungle

Damage TypeMagic, plus true on Feast [R]

Why It Is FrustratingWins every objective fight

MobilityNone

Biggest ThreatFeast [R]

Hardest CounterLillia

What a Counter Needs

Enough speed to never stand inside Feast [R] range
Damage that grows with its health bar

Patch 26.18 Matchup Data

Who Beats Cho'Gath on Patch 26.18

Best Picks Into Cho'Gath

Lillia1,654 games53.1%
Shyvana2,557 games51.9%
Kayn3,218 games51.8%
Ekko1,317 games51.4%

Picks Cho'Gath Beats

Jax1,178 games42.0%
Zed886 games42.4%
Rengar1,166 games43.6%
Hecarim1,431 games44.4%

Win rates are for the champion listed, in the jungle against Cho'Gath. They come from Nerfplz's own ranked solo queue games on Patch 26.18, Silver and above, 76,317 Cho'Gath games in all. Only matchups that show up in at least 1% of those games are listed.

Cho'Gath Overview

Strengths: What Makes It Dangerous

Feast [R] owns the objectives. Against a monster it deals 1,200 true damage before any scaling, so a Cho'Gath with Smite ready takes dragon or Baron from you at a health total you'd never try to steal from.
It never stops growing. Each champion kill with Feast [R] adds a permanent stack of health and size (and a little attack range too). The size and range top out eventually, but the health never does.
Feral Scream [W] shuts you off. It silences everyone in a wide cone for up to two seconds, which is long enough to lose a fight without casting anything.
Its ganks hit hard for a tank. Rupture [Q] knocks you up for a full second and slows you by 60% when you land (1.5 seconds of it).

Weaknesses: Where You Get In

No dash, no blink, no speed boost. Cho'Gath goes everywhere at walking pace, and it can't chase anyone who's faster.
Rupture [Q] has a delay. It erupts about 0.6 seconds after the cast, so you can step off it if you're moving.
Feast [R] is melee range. It reaches 175 units (a touch more with stacks), so it only eats someone who's already standing next to it.
Its healing needs something to die. Carnivore [Passive] only restores health on a kill, so a long poke fight wears Cho'Gath down with nothing coming back.

Countering Cho'Gath

Any one of these is enough:

Outpace it. A champion with any speed or dash can keep out of Feast [R] range indefinitely.
Deal damage based on maximum health. Every Feast [R] stack is extra health, and percentage damage gets bigger with each one.
Take objectives when Feast [R] is down. It's up to 80 seconds at rank one. Without it, Cho'Gath's claim on a dragon is ordinary.

Already in the game against it without one?

Playing Into Cho'Gath Without a Counter

Track its ultimate before every dragon and Baron. If Feast [R] is ready, don't start the objective unless you can keep Cho'Gath out of the pit (Smite alone won't beat Feast [R] plus Smite).

Keep moving when the purple cracks appear under you. Rupture [Q] takes a moment to erupt, and a standing target is the only one it reliably hits.

Fight it before the stacks build. A Cho'Gath with no kills is a tank with a long cooldown. One that's eaten three of your team won't go down to anyone.

Best Cho'Gath Counters

We'd start with whichever of these is already in your champion pool. They beat it in different ways.

Lillia Never Gets Eaten

Cho'Gath has to be right next to you to use Feast [R], and Lillia almost never is. Her abilities build speed each time they land (Blooming Blows [Q] holds up to four stacks of it), and Watch Out! Eep! [W] is a short dash on top of that. A slow, dash-less tank spends the whole fight walking after her.

Its health helps her. Dream-Laden Bough [Passive] burns a share of the target's maximum health, so every health stack a Cho'Gath earns is more damage Lillia does to it. Swirlseed [E] slows it by 40% for three seconds, which keeps it a long way behind.

Shyvana Shrugs Off the Knock-up

Shyvana wins the duel on damage that scales with the target. Her attacks add a percentage of maximum health as magic damage, and Molten Burst [E] does the same, so a fat Cho'Gath is a better target for her than a lean one.

She's also hard to lock down. Dragon's Descent [R] flies in with displacement immunity, so a Rupture [Q] that lands under her flight doesn't throw her into the air. Scalemail [Passive] builds magic resist (and armor with it) from takedowns on large monsters and champions, which cuts into most of what Cho'Gath deals.

Kayn Turns Its Health Against It

Kayn's form comes from who he's been hitting, and Cho'Gath is melee, so every hit on it counts toward Rhaast. That's the form built to kill tanks: Reaping Slash [Q] and Umbral Trespass [R] deal a percentage of maximum health, and Rhaast heals from what he deals. While he's inside Cho'Gath with Umbral Trespass [R] he can't be targeted, so Feast [R] has nothing to bite. Shadow Step [E] walks him through walls, and a champion with no dash can't follow.

Itemizing Against Cho'Gath

Mercury's Treads cover its magic damage and shorten the silence. The rest are for killing it. Lord Dominik's Regards deals up to 15% more damage based on the target's bonus health, and Feast [R] stacks are exactly that. Liandry's Torment burns 2% of maximum health per second on a mage. Blade of The Ruined King takes a slice of current health with every attack, which a Cho'Gath has plenty of.