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The current state of Cassiopeia and how to fix her.

Canastus·12/10/2017, 7:46:50 PM·19 votes·2,962 views

Cassiopeia hasn't been doing so well since receiving those nerfs back in 7.18. Riot was trying to steer her focus more towards lategame while cutting down her early to midgame power, however that made her pretty much unviable in a meta-game that seemed to get shorter and shorter with each passing season. The average game lasts 25 minutes now with most games already being decided after 15 minutes, that's the kind of meta we're dealing with.

I'm aware of the buffs on the PBE for her (increased E-scaling), however they're not the solution to her problems. She'll be stuck getting 3 mana-items before building any actual damage and games are already decided after that. Right now, Cassie is sitting at a 45% winrate on diamond level and above, and she's undescribably bad below that. At the same time there are 20 other champions who are within the range of a 55% winrate and don't seem to get any nerfs at all which isn't very nice.

There are some ideas I'd like to bring up on how to approach this snake problem. First of all, an update to her passive has become absolutely mandatory. It's unacceptable that she's omitted from getting flat mpen while every other mage in the game can deal true damage to their lane opponent from getting a simple pair of boots. Meanwhile that 6th item-slot of hers serves no purpose as long as she'll never reach that full build state. It feels like an extreme handicap and not a strength, I'd gladly trade it in for something else.

The least Cass deserves would be a secondary passive that gives her one point of mpen for every level she acquires (thus arriving at 18 mpen like everyone else). She'd also need her basedamage nerfs reverted since she won't be making any use from increased E-scaling due to being forced to rush 3 mana-items just to function, this leaves her with very little AP to begin with.

Now if you truly care about her balancing, you should strive for a final rework. However this time get rid of her Twin Fang ability, it's literally the source of ALL her balancing issues. Having a low cd point and click ability as your main source of damage is a terrible design, she'd be far better off by relying on skillshots entirely as long as she gets some of her power back.

Turning her into a proper poison mage would easily be the most healthy approach if you're looking for a long-term solution.

https://i.imgur.com/nK0tkeg.png

42 Comments

Penns12/10/2017, 7:59:54 PM7 votes

3 mana items

with all 3 of them giving high AP unless you go Abyssal lel

King Jarvan12/10/2017, 7:52:24 PM3 votes

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

invisiblecat112/10/2017, 10:14:25 PM3 votes

How about she gets to use press the attack?

Then she will get a keystone that she can actually use

Fack you Brad12/10/2017, 11:27:23 PM3 votes

#bootsdontdiscriminate

For me, the problem with Cass is that she is forced to itemize into mana in order to pursue the "sustained damage" identity. If she just builds straight damage to complement her E ratios, then she would definitely fall short on mana every fight due to the nature of her spammable abilities.

XeroKimo12/11/2017, 1:43:46 AM3 votes

I do miss my poison mage cass, BRING BACK POISON MAGE CASS!

A Bad Nasus12/11/2017, 2:59:07 PM3 votes

I don't get how after all this time they still haven't listened to cass's playerbase and shifted the power from the e spam to the rest of her kit. They can keep her e damage the same on minions for farming purposes, but make its damage start low and ramp up based on the opponent's missing health while her q and w can get some meaningful buffs.

Teridax6812/11/2017, 3:35:08 PM2 votes

I largely agree with this assessment and its conclusion. I'm not the most experienced at playing Cassiopeia, but I agree that her Twin Fang feels like the source of many of her problems: it doesn't really provide any unique gameplay of its own, so much as punish Cass's opponents extra hard for getting caught in her Q or W. Additionally, while Cassiopeia is balanced around being a late-game champion, Twin Fang gives her a lot of bullying power in lane, as outside of its mana constraints its only limitation comes from Cass's ability to chase her target, typically only the tower or minion wave while in lane. I imagine many players may be attached to it due to how it's been a core part of her kit for so long, but at the end of the day it's a DPS pump with no real gameplay or interaction of its own.

I also agree that Cass is the champion with the greatest potential for being a poison mage, yet that potential has remained untapped for a very long time. Currently, she's kind of midway between being a poison mage and an AP pseudo-marksman, and neither playstyle gels exceptionally well with the other. In addition to this, her passive is a non-mechanic, wasting a slot for what could be an additional source of gameplay for her and her targets. Looking at her current kit, Cass is already able to apply a host of negative effects on her victims, such as damage over time, a slow/ground, and even a stun, so it really is a matter of structuring her kit in a way that makes her choose what kind of harm she wants to apply to her target, and thereby become a proper poison mage.

T4underbolt12/11/2017, 1:13:08 AM2 votes

Not doing well xd. Expect always killig you or forcing to back at level 1 then 2 then 3 and like that all laning phase. Toxic champion with no counterplay. Cass buffs are as reasonable like yasuo buffs or if riot decided to buff ornn.

Oleandervine12/11/2017, 8:10:38 PM2 votes

I feel like bringing back an iteration of Deadly Cadence would help her immensely. I miss it. For those of you who don't know, back before 2014 when they first reworked her with the Shurima event(and utterly butchered her), her passive was Deadly Cadence. For a few seconds after casting a spell, her next spell will have it's mana cost reduced by a percentage, and it stacked up to 5 times. This helped her with the spammable spell fantasy, because it helped to mitigate her mana. It was oppressive before because her poisons were incredibly strong and it made her oppressive. However, now that her newest rework has balanced out her poisons and her E, I think Deadly Cadence could return and help her out with her mana issues.

DeadUnborn12/11/2017, 3:05:59 AM2 votes

I think a better solution would be to change her passive so she isn't forced to buy tear/roa

I'm thinking something like refunding mana that scales with E rank when hitting posioned targets

Elq12/11/2017, 1:36:40 PM2 votes

When cassio is your favorite champion but you are silver... T.T*[sg-janna]* I still play her In norms...

Linna Excel12/10/2017, 10:09:17 PM2 votes

For awhile now, I've been thinking that Cass' E should be an on hit effect only. Maybe it's time for riot to really consider that. It's basically an auto-attack replacement now.

Bjørnetjenesten12/10/2017, 10:21:21 PM2 votes

They need to give her E some dmg, scaling with her manapool (like ryze and kassadin) and revert the 0.1 ap buff they are gonna give her now. Her mana stacking is unfortunately necessary but gives 0 dmg and it feels like shit playing her early.

I like spamming her twin fang, thats what makes her unique and fun to play, so i dont want that reworked.

[cass-cry]

Kats Pajamas12/10/2017, 7:54:15 PM1 votes

DFT mages in general from previous patch suck now.

Even Teemo who acts like Arei is a reasonable replacement feels it.

Lord Phazanor 12/11/2017, 4:44:20 AM1 votes

"Having a low cd point and click ability as your main source of damage is a terrible design, "
You mean an ADC?

Attticus Finch12/11/2017, 5:31:49 AM1 votes

Make her a mana-less champion/reduce the mana cost on her E to almost nothing and go all-in on her identity as an AP ADC, then gate her early game power by drastically increasing the CD on her E to the point where she needs to build CDR and max its level to bring it down to a more manageable CD.

If they could scale her E from like a 2.5 second CD early game to a 0.5 second cd at max rank with 40% cdr a lot of her issues with lane oppression and scaling could be fixed, especially since Morellos+transcendence is giving her 30% cdr by 12 minutes anyway.

Binding Eclipse12/13/2017, 10:01:58 AM1 votes

Yeah, her passive is trash. I much prefer the last iteration, what with the serpent stacks.