What happened to Cassiopeia?

Canastus·Jul 13, 2014·30 votes·6,271 views

First of all, Cassiopeia was the very first champion I ever picked up. I still remember how her unique design caught my attention when I was scrolling through the massive champion-roster on your site, I instantly knew that I had to play her. That's how I got sucked into this great game which I'm playing to this very day.

Since then I've become a dedicated Cassiopeia main on EUW with over 900 games on her alone. Indeed, she has become very dear to me which is why I must address the points which I'm about to make. I'd like to talk about the major predicament that she has become as a champion and how she continues to struggle within a merciless meta which condemns her existence.

Many players including me feel that Cassiopeia herself hasn't aged very well over the years, her mechanics have been left untouched and her kit hardly changed at all. The result is a champion with heavy problems at positioning herself in a meta dominated by sheer mobility, hard cc and instant burst-damage.

Cassiopeia herself is a short-ranged, squishy, dps-mage - properties which turn her into a huge liability for her own team later on. Whereas other squishies have some sort of backup-mechanic to secure their survival (burst or/and mobility to quickly get out), Cassiopeia doesn't have one.

Her laning-phase is quite the tricky pony aswell. You either snowball early on by getting first blood, thus enabling you to acquire the vision and mana-regeneration you desperately need, or you risk falling behind.

Should she die during the first 5 minutes of the game, you might aswell consider your lane lost. It's quite easy to snowball against Cassiopeia, a champion who is incredibly dependent on items to make up for several of her handicaps.

Now even if you manage to secure yourself a dominating role, things quickly change during the later teamfights. Suddenly you become much more passive due to the constant threat of getting jumped upon while trying to hide behind your team. Too bad your buddies only have eyes for their adc.

Speaking of adcs, if she's supposed to play like one, how come she can't have any decent spellvamp of her own? Meanwhile adcs gets to make use of inherently broken lifesteal-items which fill up their health after clearing a single minion wave, for absolutely no cost. They don't have to rely on mana just to keep on attacking while Cass clearly does.

Okay, so she has a two second stun on her ultimate but that's meant for dis-/counter-engaging. Don't expect to make any plays with it, you'll be lucky enough if your team even follows up otherwise leaving you behind with up to 5 enemy champions which you can impossibly melt down on your own.

She's obviously not suited for solo q play and requires a great deal of coordination within your team to make full use of her abilities, yet competitive teams refuse to pick her. Can you guess why?

She doesn't have any other means of peeling for herself except for blowing her Summoner's spells. Experienced players can easily detect the casting-animation of Petrifying Gaze and simply turn around to avoid the stun at all, others simply jump/flash out of there.

Speaking of her ultimate, I still can't understand how this ability has been left untouched after all those years. Its range is pitiful and comes with an awful delay that can be interrupted at any time. Yes, you still hear the scream but the ult won't go off. Sure, you might say that may be necessary for counterplay but if you're already in range of her ultimate, you deserve to be punished.

The biggest issue however has to be the actual hitbox of her ultimate - I'd like to share some screenshot-evidence on that case: http://postimg.org/image/u0ktkgwc7

As we can see, enemies like Lee Sin can easily jump on Cassiopeia thus avoiding getting hit by Petrifying Gaze entirely. Sure, you might say that's intended due to the animation which makes Cass appear to move forward but I'd like to share another example: http://postimg.org/image/6rps9sfs5/

How come something like this is allowed to exist? Lee is clearly getting damaged despite staying BEHIND the source of Luxanna's laser. Why can't Cassiopeia recieve the same treatment?

Of course many of you will try to bring up her amazing damage-potential but what use is all this if you can't stay alive long enough? You instantly get focused down and in worse cases your ultimate even gets interrupted by hard cc and death itself. Even being knocked into the air negates Petrifying Gaze entirely.

So what's the verdict? To make it short, Cassiopeia is an incredibly situational champion with delayed skillshots who lacks any reliable mobility or inherent defenses who constantly has to deal with a meta which literally punishes your existence.

There's a reason why Cassiopeia hasn't seen any play in a competitive environment since a long time, and that's for a good reason. High risk, high reward? There's no reward in playing this champion anymore.

49 Comments

Hyrum GraffJul 13, 201412 votes

Your thread is back!

To reply to its contents, I totally agree with you. I think if riot just did a QOL cleanup/buff for Cass - shorter cast times, better hitboxes, etc - it would go a long way towards increasing her viability.

CanastusJul 13, 20147 votes

I was cautious enough to create a backup within a notepad file since the first incident (the loss of my Lissandra thread), that's how I was able to preserve this huge wall of text.

I'd also like to see some changes and cleanups on the current kit. If everything should fail, I'd recommend a rework since the mobility creep is clearly taking over this game.

Hyrum GraffJul 13, 20146 votes

I think with the rise of mobility, it'd be really cool to see an anti-mobility champ - someone who is not mobile, but who is good at punishing mobile champs - Veigar's w comes to mind.

I'd love to see Anivia's wall damage/slow enemies who dash through it.

CerbearusJul 13, 20143 votes

Too bad Veigar's range is about as far as he is tall...

Goldenelk598Jul 14, 20143 votes

Fixing the hitbox on her q would make me cry tears of happiness.

bbbbatesJul 15, 20142 votes

Is that a short joke?

KhodexusJul 15, 20142 votes

I see that joke didn't go 'over your head'...

RathlordJul 13, 201411 votes

How about a champ with reverse karma/Leblanc mechanics- if you break the chain, it stuns, but if you stay close you're okay.

Hyrum GraffJul 13, 20146 votes

That would be really cool! I also think it would fit well with the new champ being a disruption tank.

GhastlyGhoulManJul 14, 20142 votes

Wow, that would actually be really cool!

PrivetJul 16, 20142 votes

How about a champ with reverse karma/Leblanc mechanics- if you break the chain, it stuns, but if you stay close you're okay.

I very much like that. Kinda like how Puck's (dota hero) ultimate works. A mechanic like this is definitely in need of an introduction in League so that mobility is a choice instead of a necessity.

Phantom DataJul 15, 20142 votes

No fuck that she is good enough without a buff. If you cant kill with Cassio you dont deserve to play with her.

savaiiJul 15, 20145 votes

What facts do you have to support the claim that she is good enough wihout a buff? Stats of how frequently she is picked up in competiive play? Popularity polls? You have nothing to support your claim that she is "good enough without a buff" unless good enough by your definition means effective against players that haven't played against Cass because of how often she is used.

Linna ExcelJul 14, 20144 votes

I could have sworn I replied to this but then it went bye-bye. I can't remember everything I said so I'm going to have to skip over stuff.

She needs a VU, maybe IronStylus can talk about this more
Her passive is a noob trap. She has to be rather careful with her mana.
She doesn't fit the meta: she is an immobile sustained damage mage
Her ult is a bit wonky and requires an all in
She has a high skill floor: she needs to hit 2 skill shots that require a bit of prediction on your part in order to open up her E's damage. Her E is short ranged.
She works as a support, but not as well as Lux, Morgana, Zyra, or Annie because she lacks CC and her ult is pretty limited.
She is capable of high damage so her kit pays for it dearly.

CanastusJul 14, 20142 votes

Someone deleted my thread without any given justification, I've yet to recieve a reason from the moderator(s) in charge. I was lucky enough to see your reply in my inbox, too bad the actual thread was already gone by that time.

Ironstylus actually confirmed a VU for her once they actually get to work on her, he isn't too happy with the animation of her tail. He'll most likely scrap her current design for something more fitting after her lore has been updated (see Shurima Desert event).

Linna ExcelJul 14, 20141 votes

Yeah, I've had threads of mine deleted without reasons given before too. One that I know of was asking for a Jinx skin that was similar to Black Rock Shooter because Jinx is begging for a look like that. The anime is bad from what I've heard though.

CanastusJul 14, 20141 votes

Well what do you know, someone actually pinned the thread. Looks like it'll remain at the top for the next 24 hours. I only wish someone from balancing would drop by to share their own view on the matter.

doviendeJul 14, 20141 votes

Or they can't say anything because it might already be in-progress? Sometimes the absence of information is information.

Earl EulrichJul 15, 20144 votes

I really have to disagree here...

Cassio has excellent ways to peel for herself if you position correctly due to a slow, a powerfull ms buff and her ult ofc (+rylais is great on her)
she can build rather tanky(or even support) and still put down meaningfull dps, so jumping on her is not necessarily her death
she can always fall back to farming savely with her q+w cleaning waves without putting her at risk, not really a do or die laning
she really is a unique high risk - high reward champ that promotes aggressive play, maybe too much risk for the (coward) competetive scene right now, but that doesn´t mean she ain´t still very strong. She just has a very high skill-floor.
I think the only buff she would somewhat deserve is lowering her absurd manacosts, she really gets rid of the mana incredible fast despite her passive.

CanastusJul 16, 20141 votes

I don't like her passive at all, it's actually quite counter-productive to her already low mana pool thus forcing you to waste your mana just to keep the cost low. There's no window for her to regenerate any mana if she keeps it up like that.

They should revamp Deadly Cadence into something entirely different to reward a more precise use of her abilities without being forced to spam endlessly, like a partial return of the mana-costs with each successful hit of her skills.

KhodexusJul 16, 20141 votes

Or what about letting her auto-attacks return mana when she hits a target that is poisoned? I could see that being a more thematic and effective passive, and it'd do some very interesting things to her playstyle, make her want to actually use auto-attacks, rather than simply spamming spells.

JordaXJul 13, 20143 votes

She doesnt see much play because of how clunky her kit is. There are a lot of bugs within her kit. Especially her ult.

Secret PigeonJul 14, 20143 votes

Played a game with Cassie where I ulted Riven mid-jump, (before she reached me), and she "turned to stone" yet continued to pound on me for two seconds. Not sure if this has to do with the mechanics of the ability or what. Feeling like it should cancel out things like that. o-e

LiquirillJul 15, 20142 votes

this is a common Riven bug. I saw the same thing with a Riven getting Sion-stunned mid combo.

Noam BraumskyJul 15, 20142 votes

I hit her mid jump with a Heimerdinger Grenade and it didn't even slow her...

FlagrockJul 13, 20142 votes

Cassiopeia isn't in a bad spot. She gains MS with hitting her Q, she has insane dps potential if you hit one poison because then you can spam your E on a 0.5 second cd. She has great wave clear with her W and Q combo. She doesn't struggle with mana after getting tear because of her passive. I don't understand why you think Cassiopeia is so bad.

She does need some QoL help since she is so old especially with some of her abilities, but playing against her and as her, she is in a pretty good spot. Cass is a super bully early because of the low cd on her twin bite if she has poison on the target and this makes her frustrating to lane against because if you don't dodge that quick q you're going to be chucked hard. The main issue that I see with Cass becoming "top tier" is she'll be a super bully and push everyone else out hard because of her low mana costs with passive combined with low cd combos.

tl;dr: Cass is in a good spot with her low cds allowing high dps while being tanky with items. If she's buffed she'll be overbearing in lane and be nerfed to the ground

RenaiCirculationJul 14, 20142 votes

Well if baconhawk, says I should post here, then I guess will. :P

Honestly, I think her ult just needs the treatment Cho'gath's ult just got. Speed it up!

I don't play a lot of Cassiopeia- partially for some of the reasons stated (and my ping doesn't help), but I do like to! While yes, she does struggle in the high mobility meta, I think good positioning could overcome that if her ult was actually landable against good players. Her kit is like no other, and it would be awesome if I could pick her without being a potential liability!

YoulawnJul 14, 20142 votes

Personally I love playing Cassiopeia but she is a very iffy champion. She either does well if she can out bully her opponent or poor if she loses lane or gets ganked. I have to agree that cass's ult is a bit weird like the instance like that lee sin q"ing in. Her ult is very nice if you can get a 5 man stun because once a team chased me and face checked the brush when I ulted and got a 5 man stun which led to an easy teamfight and win. If you can get the stun, that is, it can change the course of a teamfight but it's very hard to get the stun off in lane if your winning because the other champion will most likely have their back faced to you because obviously they don't want to get stunned. I really hope they rework Cassiopeia

as well as Veigar

Phantom DataJul 15, 20142 votes

Renekton made her into boots and in turn warwick turned him into boots so now warwick got 2 pair.

LiquirillJul 15, 20142 votes

therefore clearly, even numbers of into-boots-turning make for unviable champions, while odd numbers of champions-turned-into-boots make a champion viable.

LiquirillJul 15, 20142 votes

Awesome read. Hope Riot will consider your input.

Btw the picture links aren't working correctly. If I click on them, I get redirected to this same page. I need to copy and paste them into the adress bar to get the pictures.

CanastusJul 16, 20141 votes

The image links work fine for me, not sure what's causing the problems on your end.

I'm heavily disappointed at the lack of attention Cass has recieved from Riot, they seem to have forgotten her entirely.

insane we trustJul 16, 20142 votes

This is perfect. Basically, Cass is outdated. New champs her range have almost no cast animation, while the hyper carries that she should fit in with out range her by a lot. And for her to maintain her high dmg output, and use her passive, pretty much forces her to become vulnerable to ganks, with no escape because her cast animations remove any benefit of her q speed boost or w slow. Basically, you need to get fed and rely on the enemy facechecking bushed for kills. I mean even the slow on her ult is pitiful compared to a lot of champs. Although, I doubt they'll ever work on her though, so she's more for when you play with lower elo friends.

CanastusJul 16, 20141 votes

Exactly, what Cassiopeia needs the most is a shortened delay on her abilities, especially on her ultimate. It's among the most unreliable abilities in this entire game, no doubt about it.

AMiCuBSJul 16, 20142 votes

Heck I would at least like to see some QoL changes/fixes and maybe a modest base speed increase, like +5. that would make me quite happy. As someone who likes playing the archetype of Cass, and the lore behind her, yet I am not the best about always nailing the Q for the speed boost, or some of the other hings that the kit technically allows, but are insane to do to shore up her base stat weaknesses, a tiny nudge couldn't be SO bad could it?

Serpents EmbraceJul 13, 20141 votes

OH hey it's this noise again.

There's plenty of reward in playing Cassi. She's one of the top mages in 3s and can be uncontrollable when you pick her in to a lane that's in your favor (Anivia or Swain in 5s, for instance).

But you wanna keep bitching that's cool too. Won't change my fun with her.

LiquirillJul 15, 20142 votes

You're implying that it's okay to have a champion that's only strong/balanced/fun to play on one map?

Serpents EmbraceJul 15, 20141 votes

I'm not implying anything. Cassiopeia has a great design, and isn't hurting in a balance way that would require any of the drastic changes Canastus wants.

She has clear strengths, as she's capable of putting out the most magic DPS in the entire game. Her high skill threshold is rewarded with big pay-offs, even if Canastus denies it. Her ultimate can decide fights, even if it only slows. All of her basic abilities are immensely powerful on their own giving her amazing zoning potential with her Q, amazing lane push and area control with her W and high, easily spammed magic damage with her E.

But on the balance side, she's got clear weaknesses and windows of opportunities. She's weak to burst mobility (Riven, Lee Sin, LeBlanc to name a few) and she's weak to silence because of her reliance on abilities. If she uses her W and Q without poisoning her target - she's very vulnerable for 3 seconds.

Cassiopeia isn't popular but that doesn't mean she needs attention. The fact that she's so dominant in 3s is just icing to the fact that she's a niche pick - and just bolsters the counter-argument to Canastus' because it shows that in the right meta, she's thrives. Just because 5s isn't that meta doesn't mean it's a problem that needs to be addressed.

I'm not opposed to QOL changes, but that's not what Canastus wants. :\ And there's no way I can support someone who wants the entire design to be scrutinized because he doesn't feel powerful enough in SR solo queue.

CanastusJul 16, 20142 votes

Sorry, but people couldn't care less about Twisted Treeline, the actual maingame takes place on Summoner's Rift.

There's a reason why TT or any other gamemode aren't played on the LCS, next thing you'll probably start talking about the meta on Dominion, ARAM or even URF. Personally I wouldn't want to waste a single minute on any of those gamemodes, they're just not worth it.

Who would even take you seriously by playing them in a competitive fashion? Riot mainly focuses on SR when it comes down to designing and balancing their champions - because that's how the game was supposed to be played. And that's where the overall consesus in this community lies.

Serpents EmbraceJul 17, 20141 votes

"Sorry, but I couldn't care less about information that doesn't support my opinion." is all I saw. What did you say again?

KhodexusJul 13, 20141 votes

In my opinion the only thing that maybe needs to be changed with Cass is her ult/passive. Passive works, mechanically, but I don't really see how it works thematically. As for her ultimate, yes it's powerful, but as mentioned it can be slightly buggy. Either just streamline it, or maybe make it something a little more to reflect the idea of a 'gaze' attack, perhaps slightly lower effect duration, but longer 'hit duration' (and allow you to move while using it?) Overall it's good, but it could be refined.

As a final note, just make her E automatically 'smartcast' I hate having to toggle that for Cass and Cass alone.

KaderaJul 14, 20141 votes

I don't think Cassiopeia is necessarily in a bad spot but instead just needs a few indicators to show her abilities better while also fixing some of the bugs that she may have (I don't play Cass but I'd like to express my opinion from what I've read in this thread). Maybe putting range indicators to her** Q, E, and R** so they're easier to hit while also being able to be seen by the enemy. I'm not quite sure what is or isn't wrong with Cassiopeia's ultimate but maybe putting a slightly more significant slow to enemies that aren't facing her might help with the problems you discussed. I'm not really sure just expressing some opinions that I had.

AightJul 14, 20141 votes

Cassio is one of the strongest champions on TT, and the reason, as you stated is because of her mobility - however it's like playing an AD carry that scales with magic damage! Her DPS if someone is poisoned is incredibly potent, and one of the Challenger Cass players(whose name escapes me right now) admits that a great Cassiopeia player utilizes the ult as a crutch, and that a truly great Cass player doesn't need it.

Trash WormJul 14, 20141 votes

Well a little nerf, and a big model change will do just fine...

Wait! I'm not finished yet. I played Yasuo against Cassiopeia , let me tell you she is strong, especially with her Twin Fang. At the early game she uses her 2 abilities pretty quickly and they are all about Q+E and Q+E. She can take down Yasuo without any minions around, and her Q's Casting Area is (in my opinion) little bit further than the turrets. I died many times by just escaping to the turret, and when I actually was close, just comes, uses her Q, I'm dead and the turret didn't do anything. Just saying to Riot, please reduce the range of her Q (if it's 75, make it 60), and the casting Range so the Turrets' would be further than . Also check these links for more info. http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Cassiopeia http://lol-champions.findthebest.com/compare/12-112/Cassiopeia-vs-Yasuo

CanastusJul 16, 20142 votes

I don't understand how you can propose nerfs to Cassiopeia if Yasuo is actually one of the hardest counters to Cass since he can all-in her at any given time, his early game is easily as good as hers. Now if he hits his whirlwind, she's already as good as dead. She automatically loses any trade if someone manages to get into her face.

Trying to play passively against Cass as a melee-champion is a big mistake since it'll give her plenty of time to farm and harass. Always make sure to keep the advantage in terms of health and she's done for. If you're really worried about confronting her, just ask your jungler for help. She's among the easiest champions to gank in this entire game.

Trash WormJul 16, 20141 votes

Sorry, man. I must have played against a really good cass. She killed me at lvl 2 and then master yi tried to gank but died as well, givining cass a doublekill at the very start :(

UrCounterJul 14, 20141 votes

i think that ryze need rework before cass while its so awesome to play it but its looking kinda old... Ryze let him summoner 13 and get like new heimer u even can not imagine how he was before rework if u havent seen him... as well ryze is one of the oldest champions in lol...... pllz riot

Sire HippingtonJul 15, 20141 votes

I think ur a bit to dramatic about her state, but it's still true that she didn't age to well and is a very risky pick(well, she allways was a risky pick, but now even more).

But u didn't mention her potent poke with Q spam, her incredible waveclear, her strong zoning, her kiteing potential combined with what could be the highest dps in the game(besides 6 item vayne/kog/tris maybe). The Q speedbuff is quite strong, so is the W slow, especially with rylais, if she survives the intital burst she usually can kite down any melee, and her dps is high enough to burst down any squishy in the 2sec stun of her ult...

The ult is a bit to unreliable though, the cast time is realy a bit high, and cassios effecktive range is pretty low for how squishy she is and that she got no instand escape/hard cc, makeing her incredible risky vs assasins and divecomps, but also vulnerable vs longrange poke comps.

Giving her more base tankiness and a faster ult would help alot, but it must come with a nerf to her ult cc(0.25sec less duration) and some less dps, as any straight buff could easily put her over the top

And for the ult hitbox, i think cassios works as intented, while lux has a broken hit box(just like on her Q, that lady still needs to be fixed)

Anyway, there are some other mages that share similar problems, like brand, malz or anivia. Malz and Brand are incredible vulnerable as soon as they face more than one enemy, as they lack any form of peeling or disengage, and anivia ust gets screwed by all the mobillity. But just like with cassio, any straight buff could bring them over the top as their damge potential is insane, and anivias controll also is very high

CanastusJul 15, 20141 votes

If the actual viability of a champion is decided by their ability to adapt to any given situation, Cassiopeia has to be the most unreliable pick out there. None of her abilities work once someone sits in front of her face (her ultimate being the worst offender due to its flawed hitbox and terrible delay), it's incredibly easy to stick to Cass once you've jumped onto her. Her dps simply takes too long to really go off which is enough time for any burst-damage dealer to wreck her, thus making her lose any fight she gets forced into.