Koga, the Lost Hand [Patch 3.05 Vora’s pact]

Overview

Hello and welcome to my guide for Koga, my personal favorite flank/champion. In this guide i’m just going to be talking about, Playstyles, Builds, and just an overall “How to play like you know what you’re doing,” hehe. Let’s get right in to it

Story and Lore

Once, a nameless street-rat challenged the tyrant, Zhin. For the boy’s courage, and his remarkable skills, Zhin granted him a new life in the Thousand Hands Guild, along with a new name: Koga. The guild became Koga’s new family and he became their finest ninja.

But, not all families get along. Out of jealousy, lies were spread and false evidence was planted. Zhin’s resulting fury forced Koga to flee. Now, the exiled ninja fights for his new family — the Resistance — as he searches for the one who betrayed him.

Picking your talent

This one you might need to experiment with awhile. Hehe, I took approximately 15 levels to decide between Dragon Fangs and Adrenaline junkie.

I personally think that Adrenaline Junkie is by far the best and obviously unchallenged by in my opinion more useful than Blood Reaper/Dragon Fangs. This is completely your choice, some people have playstyles fitting to specific talents. We’re gonna talk about the different playstyles/loadouts for them in a different section but let’s move on to items.

Items and which ones are useful

I’m going to name a couple of the ones i’ve found most useful in my current/past strategies.
If you don’t find them as useful as I do, Get out you don’t belong here Feel free to experiment and mix it up a little. (For example if you don’t like Life-rip you can experiment with Kill-to- heal)

Illuminate 4/10 It’s not really that helpful unless they have at least 2 Invisible champions

Resilience 8/10 It’s a massive gamechanger if they have a Sha-lin Torvald or other that stuns/cripples/silences

Haven 7/10 If you’re having trouble getting some kills and flanking hard, you’re gonna want to buy this if the enemies have at least 2 direct damages

Blast shields 7/10 It’s the same thing as with Haven, except for when you’re prioritizing flanking AOE

Chronos -/10 You can’t even buy this one…

Master riding 5/10 Honestly I never buy this, I find Nimble to be much more useful. It’s a personal preference, if you want to get Master riding instead.

Nimble 7/10 at least it is for me* You can get this if you want it/like it, I highly suggest it though

Morale boost -/10 You choose, I’d suggest this item if you like playing Blood Reaper. Otherwise… it’s not that helpful

Rejuvenate 2/10 Really I only get this if I have a Jenos marking me a lot

Life rip 10/10 I get this every single match, in my opinion it is absolutely necessary and much better than kill to heal

Kill to heal 3/10 I don’t think it’s that useful, Mainly cause I almost never take any large amounts of damage during fights

Veteran 0/10 …I have nothing to say except this card sucks, never buy it…

Wrecker 5/10 This one is moderately helpful if they have a Vivian, or a Torvald.

Cauterize 10/10 Cause yes

Deft hands -/10 It depends mostly on your loadout, I have legendary on his card “Surprise” (Regenerate 25 ammo after shadow step) So I never buy this one

Bulldozer 1/10 I never buy this, I never will buy this, I suggest you do the same unless you’re damage Grohk. (I mean I guess you could buy this if they had lots of deployables and you have adrenaline junkie, free energy!)

Well that’s it for the items but we’re gonna talk about loadouts next

Loudouts

Some of my absolute favorite cards and strategies are really weird and probably not played by almost anyone. But in my opinion it’s the strongest for both my playstyle, and… just in general (i’m not biased). Let’s take a look at some popular strategies and cards played.

For this part i’m not gonna take an overly long amount of time, so i’m just going to go over the cards real quick and say which ones I find useful, and which ones I find not that great.

Swift hand, pretty helpful for just an overall Koga build.

Trained killer, I don’t use this, but I find it can be pretty helpful if you’re good with Dragon Fangs.

Unyielding, One of my old favorite cards, very helpful if you’re playing a simple Koga.

Criminal record, and absolute MUST for a good Dragon Fangs build, I highly suggest this.

Raw talent, it’s pretty helpful, good pick if you want a card but don’t have the points to level it up

Trespasser, same thing as with Raw talent, except jump rather than speed.

Wanted, I’ve seen some amazing ammo regeneration builds from this one, the community gets real creative when they find out they can abuse something. I completely suggest and ammo regen build, they’re totally broken if played correctly.

Winds embrace, very helpful if you’ve using an agility ammo regen buid.

Gale storm, I’ve really never used this one… it’s not that great, it’s really rare to get a killing blow with skewer (Dragon claw r-c)

Guild tactics, pretty good if you’re playing a simple Koga build, Though I don’t use claws almost ever…

Surprise, absolutely amazing. In my opinion it’s the best card in the game, it really isn’t used enough, I have a very rare strategy and have only found one other with the same. “Shadow step ammo regen” (SMG’s only) I really think you guys should give it a try, it’s really powerful.

Tenacious, It works well with surprise if you want to level it up to legendary, I don’t use this card cause I maxed out “Something to prove” instead.

Harsh training, You can get about… hm… No points into this one, I find extra health in glass-cannons useless. especially in such small amounts.

Memento, I personally have this card on 1, because The extra 5 ammo from “Surprise” needs not to be wasted

Something to prove, one of the best cards. It gives extra energy to either, A: Flee cause you’re low health. or, B: Extra energy so you can continue your fight and finish off the enemy.

Trigger happy, I don’t use this card, mainly cause I don’t expect healing too much healing due to being a flank…

That’s all the cards, and keep in mind if you like using one of the cards I called “Unuseful” or “Bad”
It wasn’t meant to be offensive, i’m just giving my tips from my point of view.

Anyways, let’s move on.

When to play Koga

I don’t always choose Koga, despite him being my main, I am still a flank main and there are a couple other choices. Though Koga is very powerful, he is also easily challenged (I shan’t say countered) when the enemy team knows how to play against him.

When and when not to play Koga/who counters him hardest.

Jenos, Power of the cosmeum. I usually ignore it and lock Koga anyway when the enemy team plays Jenos, which really you can’t just know which talent he is going to pick, so no blame there.

Sha-lin, probably the hardest counter until you buy up to, resil 2 usually.

Torvald, massively annoying when (in my case) you can’t shadow step away.

Drogoz, being short ranged like Koga can get quite annoying against the air damage that comes out of Dragon dudes ass gun, You can play him if you want, but I suggest getting at least 1 Anti-air.

…I really thought that there were more counters…
I suppose I just get really easily annoyed hehe.

I don’t have much more to say, so let’s move swiftly on.

Overview

Hopefully I helped you learn and get better at Koga, he’s a really great champion and should be played more (please don’t play him so much he starts getting banned in ranked :P).

I’m going to leave a link to my other guide, don’t ask why, lots of people do that. (It’s very different FYI)

[link]

If you liked the guide, you can like it and/or award me, the steam points help me make friends…

That’s all I had to say on my guide for, Koga, the Lost Hand. Goodbye and have a great day.