Playing Koga with high skill
by yobrun
Adrenaline Junkie
Generate 1 Energy for every 80 damage done with your Submachine Guns.
SMGS
Criminal Record
Gain 5-25% Lifesteal while in Dragon Stance.
Dragon Stance
3
Gale Storm
Generate 15-75% Energy after earning a Killing Blow with Skewer.
Skewer
3
Guild Tactics
Heal for 160-800 for each enemy hit with Skewer.
Skewer
3
Unyielding
Reduce the rate of Energy consumption while in Dragon Stance by 6-30%.
Dragon Stance
2
Wanted
Regenerate 4-20 Ammo every 1s while Agility is active.
Agility
4
Guide
First of all I want to tell you that I´m from Germany so if there are any big mistakes just ignore it.
Playing Koga can seem quite hard for some people, especially if you never played any champ like him. But maining him is quite rewarding. (There are better alternatives like Evie or Sha Lin but I chose Koga because I prefer his playstyle.)
So let´s start with an overview of the content in this guide:
At first I´ll tell you about his abilities, then we´ll go over loadouts and how to play them correctly. At last I´ll give you some tips and a few glitches you can use.
Abilities: Before going on reading you should go into paladins, go to koga, click on advanced and read it.
Now that you´re back you know that Koga has two weapons to attack: his submachine guns and his hellkite claws. His hellkite claws deal 650 damagae every 0.55 seconds while his submachine guns deal 80 damage every 0.06 seconds (yes 80 not 40, 40 dmg for every shot) or 800 damage in 0.6 seconds (sounds a bit overkill, but it´s nearly impossible to land every shot). He is also able to deal 700 damage with skewer.
Then there his movement abilities shadow step and agility but I´ll talk about that later. At last there is his ult dealing 3000 damage in 2 seconds.
Loadout: Creating a proper loadout for Koga is not easy, especially because he has the most playstyle options in the whole game. It´s important to know that Koga isn´t like other flanks. Zhin can use Billow to take no damage or counter for backfiring, Buck can heal himself instantly and use insane liferip loadouts, Lex can use combat slide and a speed loadout to dodge attacks, Evie is just mobile as hell, Maeve is mobile and can heal herself fast, Skye is invisible or can use a heal + speed loadout, Androxus can use backfire and is quite mobile, Moji can use insane liferip tactics, talus can escape whenever he wants and Koga...well...yeah.
Koga can´t do anything of this. He can´t use backfire, he can´t go invisible, he´s not that mobile, and his healing abilities aren´t the greatest. I mean sure you can use a deck with criminal record 5 and winds embrace 5, or go with trespasser 5 and raw talent 5, but then you don´t have enough points for other cards. So I came up with this one which can be customised for starters. When you start playing Koga you should definetly use this deck: Swift Hands 4, Unyielding 2, Something To Prove 1, Winds Embrace 4, Memento 4. After a few games you choose one of his abilities to master. For example Agility. Now you change Memento 4 to Wanted 4. Go into a game and use the agility as long as possible to memorize the durability of this abilitie. Next you maybe decide to master Dragon Stance next. Now you change Swift Hands 4 to Guild Tactics 3 and give Unyielding a third point. Go into a game and try to hide behind something when you change to your Hellkite Claws and go back to the fight. Now that you also masterd that as good as possible change to the deck above. You may ask why you should use Gale Storm on 3 and not less. That´s because you get one full energy bar back after killing someone with skewer. By using less than 3 points on this card you won´t regain a full bar which mostly leads to death. Using Gale Storm correctly is in my opinion the hardest task. If you haven´t noticed yet: the mentioned starter deck is a deck with worse but easier cards than the one on top.
One last thing: if decide to create your own deck, don´t use the shadow step cards!!! They are very bad, but most people don´t realise that
Tips: Now that the big Loadout topic is clear, here are some extra tips:
- Koga can climb up walls, many some don´t know that but it´s very helpful
- You should use the Hellkite Claws on mobile targets like Maeve or Evie, it´s very helpful
- You can do multiple Shadow Steps without getting hit a single time, just keep pressing down left click
- While using Agility you can jump over other champs so in close combat they easily loose the sight of you
- Use Shadow Step to prevent any big damage. For example if Skye just ulted and you can´t get away wait until her bomb explodes and use shadow step at the perfect
moment to prevent you from dying
- If you play with a friend get Koga and Jenos, it´s just overkill
Glitches:
These "Glitches" I call them aren´t really glitches. It´s more like something you maybe didn´t know. They have been in the game a very long time.
The first is not very important but maybe it can be helpful someday. If you have the cards Tenacious and Trigger Happy in your deck you can press right and left click at the same time to gain more health because Trigger Happy is affecting Tenacious.
The second one is a very important one: Shadow Step not only keeps you safe from a bad effect, it also removes them. So it´s like: Dredge slowed you down? Use Shadow Step! Maeve used her ult? Use Shadow Step! Willow stopped you from getting healed? Use Shadow Step!
I hope you are successful with this guide. Have fun!
