Reworking Cass as a DoT Mage via Building a Better Passive

So I dislike Cass's new passive. In general, I don't like stacking growth passives on champions. Typically they end up being the same Invisible Power that Riot often says they don't want. Also, I don't think they (typically) sync up with the spirit of what a Passive is, and in this case it doesn't even relate to the champion its on.

Passives should be core identifiers of the champion. Unique things that only they do, special augments that exemplify who they are, etc. A passive should give a champion unique options present only to them. There's obvious gameplay pattern ones like suiciding-in since he knows he'll revive or always looking for a good place to die. Then there's subtler ones like , whose passive opens him to unique build paths like no other top-tank.

At the moment though, we seem to be running the well rather dry on mage passives, in particular. I'm kind of getting tired of free mana passives on mages like , not to mention the ability-passive free-mana passives like , etc. wee bit repetitive eh? Oh and now Cass has one. **Great. **

Anyway, the best passives, I think, are the subtle gameplay-driven ones. Not super powers like revival, but ones that reward you for playing in certain ways or taking certain actions in less new-game-mechanic-y-ways. In the simplest case, you have someone like , whose passive gently nudges her gameplay patterns and creates a power that is uniquely Vayne (being an inescapable batman huntress). In a more elaborate case, you have someone like . I'm not actually too fond of Annie's passive. I think it's a bit too binary. But it's an example. One of my favorite's though, was 's old passive. It was one that not only enabled and empowered her playstyle, but one that actually matched her motif in a very core way. Cass had one of, if not the most, fitting passive of any champion from her time. It screamed serpent, gave her rhythm and flow, and lent itself to everything from the cadence of keys pressed to the undulations of her model.

I understand that her passive was a bit overpowered before and allowed a good Cass to bully immensely (I assume much more so during the testing phase with the E fix in place + the old passive). But this was not the answer. But in terms of design, well..

Cass's new, stacking thingy:

• Invisible Power

• Dramatic, Invisible Power Spikes (what were you thinking?)

• Just gives her free stats (except for the initial twin fang buff, giving her a completely unnecessary and rather arbitrary healing factor), which is rather uninspired

• Does not encourage interesting gameplay decisions outside of "use your abilities on enemies so that you can better use your abilities on enemies" (and the completely unnecessary and rather arbitrary healing factor buff)

• Feels unrewarding, possibly even unnoticed (save the healing thingy, etc)

• Enables no counterplay for the enemy outside of "don't get hit by her abilities ever" and "stop her from farming"

• Despite the name "Aspect of the Serpent", doesn't really seem to fit the idea of a snake at all, nor of poison. It's just kind of... here's some damage. Enjoy.

So honestly, it seems to have missed the mark on just about every one of Riot's prized design principles, as well as alienating a good amount of players.

So what should her passive be, then? Well if I'm not mistaken, the goals of this passive were to minimize her early lane bullying while allowing her to ramp up by playing well. But since 'playing well' amounts to 'do the same things you would have done anyway', it's kind of hollow.

A passive should:

• Define the champion uniquely I already listed some 4 champions whose passives are just "get mana back". But even an uninspired passive such as 's can fail to define a champion.

• Give them unique options, builds, abilities and decisions See building , or managing stacks to heal herself optimally. One of my personal favorites is 's tactical-feeding powers.

• Match the theme and identity of the champion :Berserker :Undead :Brutal Executioner :Hunter, etc For a bad example, why does Liss get free spell casts? What does that have to do with an immortal ice queen?

• Ultimately provide a unique experience Abilities provide some of this, but the passive can shape the abilities. all have a little bouncing doodad that they throw out, but Brand's passive makes you choose targets more carefully and enables you to follow up with other spells at added power, thus shifting your cast order and ultimately your playstyle. Ryze's provides CDR through his passive, and can multi-proc his ult. This changes when and how you use it and ultimately provides a unique experience. A passive can powerfully influence what a champion is and does. Just look at .

So without wasting more time, my pitch (numbers are just kind of thrown at the wall here, and can be adjusted):

Nerf her base damages across the board, nerf her ratios a bit too. Then put in this passive:

Venomous Cadence Hitting champions with her Q, W and E grant Cass stacks of Venomous Cadence. (base 3, max 10) Poison damage does 10/25/40+ 8% AP per half-second. (grabbed from her Q and halved) Cass gains some sort of visual aura/particle, depicting her current number of stacks. For all abilities below, X represents the number of stacks of Venomous Cadence.

Which alters her abilities thusly:

Noxious Blast ACTIVE: Cassiopeia hurls poison at the cursor's location, which strikes after a 0.65 second delay. All enemies within the 75-radius area are poisoned, taking magic damage over X seconds. (3-10 seconds of poison)

PASSIVE: Cassiopeia gains a (X *5) movement speed boost for 3 seconds if Noxious Blast damages a champion. (15-50 flat MS gain)

Miasma ACTIVE: Cassiopeia throws a growing cloud of poison to a target location, granting sight of the area and growing from a radius of 125 to 250 over 7 seconds. Enemies in the area are poisoned, slowed by (X *5%), and take magic damage per second for 3 seconds. Continual exposure renews the poison. (15-50% slow) (I like the idea of keeping the ticks here flat, but that could be changed)

Twin Fang ACTIVE: Cassiopeia fires fangs at an enemy, dealing magic damage. If her target is poisoned, Twin Fang's cooldown is reduced to 0.5 seconds. Also, if her target is poisoned, Twin Fang refreshes the time remaining on it (The goal is that twin fang is a tool not for poisoning, but for keeping them poisoned, and for building stacks)

Petrifying Gaze ACTIVE: After a brief delay, Cassiopeia blasts all enemies in a 80º cone in front of her with her gaze, dealing magic damage to them. Enemies facing her when damaged are stunned for 2 seconds, while enemies facing away are slowed by 60% for 2 seconds instead. Also, when poisoning a petrified enemy, Cass gains 2 stacks of Venomous Cadence instead of one

Goals The goal of this passive is to turn Cass from a conditional-constant-damage-burst-mage-plus-some-DoT-damage into a true DoT mage. Damage will be generated not by poisoning an enemy but by keeping them poisoned. A keep property of dots in this game is that re-applying them typically doesn't stack them, but instead refreshes them. This is a good thing, of course. However, it also limits the potential of a DoT mage. They either do too much damage or too little, and since they have the whole 'over-time' property, they generally need to be alive in a fight for a while (see ). Building tank isn't conducive to everyone though, and it limits your design options. You either end up a tank like or a nuke+a novelty DoT like . And we probably shouldn't let them stack, as we get multiplicative with the power scaling rather quickly (imagine Brand's passive stacked, for example).

To make a true AP Carry out of a DoT base without just becoming a tank or a nuke, you'd need to up the damage. Unfortunately, this can be really abusive, or it can just make you a slow burst mage (Sort of like ). There's really no difference between doing all the damage over 3 seconds and doing all of the damage over 1 and then waiting 2 seconds. Really the only thing it opens up is the situational ability for an opponent to respond during those 2 seconds via a heal or shield. However, at comparable damages, this makes a DoT mage just.. awful. At higher damages, this makes a DoT mage overpowered (outside of situational counters such as ).

The key then, isn't the damage, but the duration. To make an AP Carry viable and relevant with DoTs as her primary source of damage, she needs to embrace both the Damage and the Time parts of that word. This is something Riot hasn't really looked at before.

But here, by situationally allowing Cass to enhance the duration of her DoTs, you're allowing her to increase her damage without making her nukey, without needing her to be exceptionally tanky, and without just making her a nuke-over-time.

I don't think this will necessarily make her amazing by herself, but that's largely due to how much better instant burst is than anything ever. Maybe you guys should work on building some kind of item to help. Maybe something like Poppy's passive crossed with a banshee. I.e. An item you can build as a carry that actually answers enemy instant nukes without negating them or being a freakin GA. Just a suggestion.

Anyway, here's how it hits the marks:

• Define the champion uniquely No one else does anything like this.

• Give them unique options, builds, abilities and decisions Initially, it appears that this is just ramping up her power for doing damage. In a sense, that's true. But in a sense it's also false. There's a balance to be found with all DoTs for refreshing. You want to wait on the second until the first one is just about up, for example. Likes to keep the stacks up in addition to adding more: 5 stacks is nice, but 4 stacks for almost their full duration followed by 5 stacks for its full duration is even better. This problem exists for every DoT in the game, but for this version of Cass, it becomes far more pronounced than for anyone else (since you'd get a stack for every champion that enters the W, for example, and you'd get them twice as fast if they're petrified), and lends to her playstyle. You have to ask which skill you want to use at any given time to optimize time remaining vs damage being dealt, and you have 3 skills (one of which is spammable) to do it with. You may want to hold the W for longer since it will refresh the poison fully, has a long cd and long range, or you may want to W early for the slow (or to hit multiple champs and gain stacks more quickly). The same logic applies to the Q, which gives you haste and has a mild AoE as well. The trick then becomes optimizing the cadence. Throwing every spell as soon as it's off cd should result in an under-performing Cass. Holding some abilities to maximize the refresh while using others to generate stacks quickly will be the mark of a strong Cass. That's the balance, that's what this brings to the champion uniquely.

• Match the theme and identity of the champion As a snake-person, Cass is always talking about her poison. Now she's showing it to you and making it do tricks.

• Ultimately provide a unique experience By playing the cadence of the abilities differently, you can vary her damage output in meaningful, strategic ways. Few other champs hold abilities or strategize around DoTs. The closest you have is old , back when expunge consumed stacks and you had to wait as long as possible to maximize his damage (why did you take this out, again?)

• Cuts her lane bullying Her lane bullying will be entirely skill based. Getting hit by a stray Q will do little, and even a Q+E won't be much, but if you let her keep slapping you and let her keep her stacks up, she'll overwhelm you. Dodging a Q or staying temporarily out of range of E will cut her momentum and allow you to trade back fairly. The slows and hastes are minimal at low stack levels, as well, meaning she'll have to choose which she doesn't want when opening a trade with her lane opponent.

• Allows her to ramp up powerfully later When teamfights start, a good Cass can be expected to land her W on multiple targets, even on multiple ult'd targets, allowing her to quickly generate stacks and deal extended damage. The slows and hastes allow her to zone powerfully while doing so. Dodging her abilities drops her stacks and cuts her power, though, giving her the counterplay she needs.

This meets all of the criteria, plus the additional criteria from the design of her current passive, and it fits the champion in a meaningful way while opening up intuitive gameplay unique to

Last, again, these are speculative figures and this is an initial draft with no real testing behind it. Poison can tick on the **quarter **or the **half **or the **full **second. Stacks can generate extra seconds, extra ticks, more damage per tick or even more ticks per second. They could even apply other effects at higher levels like grievous wound or AS slows.

But the key here is that we make the poison DoT her primary source of damage and allow her to manipulate the nature of it by managing her abilities (please don't interpret that as 'give her Syndra's passive')