Boards›Gameplay

Cassiopeia players, we're making progress!

Scampy·11/29/2014, 4:48:04 AM·24 votes·13,847 views
http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Cassiopeia_0.jpg

TL;DR--We all want the same thing. Be tough, not mean. Stashu is not evil and has some pretty good ideas we'll hopefully see after this set of changes goes live.

So I've been part of the Cass discussion for a while, and it seems a good number of you guys agree with me on some stuff, so that's cool. I just wanted to make a quick thread to remind everyone what this is all about. Tensions are high, an awesome champ took a baseball bat to the face and left on the curb for a few months, and nobody is happy about it. We're not happy, Stashu's not happy, and I'm sure the other Rioters working with him aren't happy. This whole thing has been a damn train wreck since the beginning, but we're starting to get back on track and have our voices heard!

What's important to remember is that this isn't about getting the entire rework reverted, or getting Stashu removed from the rework, or proving who was right all along about what identity fits Cass the best. We're all following these threads because we want Cassiopeia to be the best snake wizard lady she can be. We've all got the same goal in mind, and we could stand to be a bit more civil with each other.

Calling out Stashu when he says something outrageous and disappears for half a week? I'm all for that. If he's not communicating enough, let him know repeatedly, and we get a night like yesterday where he was on for hours responding to multiple posts in multiple threads. Telling Stashu to resign or calling to have him removed from the rework because he and the rest of Riot is incompetent and spouting that Cass is dead because of him? Not as cool. That's not improving snake wizardry, that's causing a fuss and getting us nowhere.

EDIT: To clarify, the following is not me saying the next Cass iteration is what we want, only that it's powerful, and we need to remember that this isn't about making Cass stronger, but about making Cass more fun (i.e. Less E focus, better passive, etc.)

Also with the 4.21 changes coming out, I figure I'll give a quick forecast for those of you without PBE accounts. I think she'll be very, very strong in the right matchups. Like, holy shiet you have no idea. That poison amp on Twin Fang is so strong if you use it right and it's actually way more fun to manage than you'd think. A late game hyperscaling champ that can all-in you at level 3 with Q-E-E-Q-Ignite for a kill from near full HP? That's not supposed to happen. Just remember that her being strong doesn't mean she's in a great place. There's still a ton of room for improvement.

The passive is still a snake in her boot, so to speak, but if Stashu's latest posts on the subject have been any indication, it sounds like we'll be getting an actual gameplay passive to go along with the current one, or maybe even multiple gameplay passives that you unlock as you stack up. We may even see some Petrifying Gaze tweaks and totally awesome Miasma buffs in the package.

Anyway, keep up the good discussions, Cass players. I've played this game for nearly 5 years and I've seen every major rework since Katarina, and I've never seen a champion's community so united in making sure she's every bit as badass as she deserves to be.

Scampy out.

(If you've clicked all the links so far I hope they entertained you. This takes longer than you'd think.

65 Comments

Elphrihaim11/29/2014, 7:29:45 AM16 votes

If I can boil down one point for Stashu, it'd be this.

"Cassiopeia's kit does not feel good by parts."

In comparison... Let's use Anivia since she has a similar interaction-- setup and then E.

Anivia's Q, W, and R all feel VERY nice alone. Her E does feel only meh alone and feels great when used to follow up Q/R.

Cassiopeia's Q and W basically serve no purpose other than to allow Cassiopeia to escape or to enable E.

Cassiopeia's E, however, does a lot less damage-per-cast than Anivia's E. It has a much lower cooldown (0.5 v 4 iirc), and doesn't do that much less damage (I think 2.5 Twin Fangs = 1 Frostbite but I'm not sure). But the player must continually... hit... a button.

And after each button press, they have to move. And make sure that their enabler didn't run out. etc etc

#Players want, simply, some power without ever having to press the E button on their keyboard.

Stashu compared Cassiopeia's Miasma to Trundle's Pillar of Ice-- they have roughly the same slow!

Except Pillar of Ice creates Terrain. Miasma does not. In exchange for not creating Terrain, Miasma gets the ability to deal damage.

However, Miasma also starts out in a smaller AoE than Pillar of Ice-- it grows to slightly larger than Pillar of Ice's size... over the duration of 7 seconds.

And the Miasma damage is low unless you use Twin Fangs after it.

Noxious Blast is a skillshot that you have to hit very reliably in order to play Cassiopeia.

Alone, it's basically worthless.

Name a champion in this game that has more than one ability that has almost no impact unless some other thing is true even after hitting that ability (and thus having been in range to hit it)-- I'll wait.

[The only champion I can think of is Yasuo, but his Q/E both have INSANELY short cooldowns so the fact that they're low-impact-per-cast doesn't matter since they have a 6->1.33 and 0.5->0.1 second cooldown respectively-- you get to use both a lot if you plan well, and don't have to worry about hitting each time-- Cassiopeia DOES.

And in laning-- Yasuo needs some weakpoint, yeah? Yeah.]

Cuix11/29/2014, 8:19:45 AM14 votes

I think she'll be very, very strong in the right matchups. Like, holy shiet you have no idea. That poison amp on Twin Fang is so strong if you use it right and it's actually way more fun to manage than you'd think. A late game hyperscaling champ that can all-in you at level 3 with Q-E-E-Q-Ignite for a kill from near full HP? That's not supposed to happen.

I don't care. I don't care I don't care I don't care I don't CARE. Buff her numbers into the stratosphere, make her FP/ban every competitive match, nerf her rivals into oblivion, fine, sure. You might get a lot of people to pipe down, but only those who were never really thinking this through. It's not about STRENGTH.

How many times must this be said? How long do people (Stashu included) intend to ignore the most fundamental flaw of this rework? This champion we have right now simply fails to match the character of Cassiopeia.

Who Cassiopeia is: Subtle, seductive, manipulative, opportunistic, observant, calculating, crafty, ruthless, unscrupulous, cursed, venemous.

What Cassiopeia feels/plays like right now: Patient, ascending, energetic, aggressive, flashy, brawly.

Sure, pre-rework Cass had problems. Lane bully, weird passive/E/ult considering her character, yadda yadda. Fine, she could have benefited from a rework. However, this rework doesn't actually fix anything except for making her strictly weaker in lane. I don't understand why it's acceptable that this skirmish-oriented and spam-happy bully is what we're currently calling Cass. Even if she is strong, don't you think there's a problem?

Why is all of her power still on her E? Why is she embracing the curse by being an overt-but-weak bully until she just gets to kill things? Why is this kit okay? Because I seem to be one of like maybe 5 people total saying that it's not.

zions eyebrows11/29/2014, 5:05:59 AM12 votes

Personally, I've liked the direction of the rework ever since it came out. The implementation obviously left plenty to be desired, but as far as the intention-- a late game high DPS hypercarry mage who takes high mechanical skill-- I really like it. They basically turned her into one of those champions who feels like she can 1v5 if played properly, and those champions are always the most fun to play in my opinion. The PBE changes right now also look nice, but I'm really hoping that cass can soon take a break from having major kit changes each patch so I don't feel like I'm wasting my time learning the changes.

Opinions favoring the rework are obviously not popular, so I don't expect this post to be either. But I really do like the direction of the rework and hope to soon see Cassiopeia have a stable identity. I played cass a little before the rework but didn't really realize how much fun she was until afterwards. I really want to try and master her but it just feels as if there's no point if she's just going to keep being changed.

Kojiro Sasaki11/29/2014, 10:13:08 AM11 votes

No, I completely disagree. I don't care how powerful she is, I want my snake poison mage. I don't want the primary focus of her kit to be burst biting dudes, I want it to be POISON and VENOM

Stez00711/29/2014, 11:21:13 AM10 votes

Can't agree with you at all, sorry.

Katarina has been my main since I started. Her rework pissed me off, but it wasn't even remotely as bad as this nonsense. Stashu has been nothing but a stubborn idiot throughout this "process."

I'm with the others on this. IDGAF if the newest changes make her stronger if all that strength is in thr least fun part of her kit. It feels like shit to play her. She's even more PvE than most champs in lane and has a rotation that makes hotkey MMOs from the early 2000s look exciting by conparison.

She is shit. Total shit. A bif steaming pile of shit. Cass is dead. She needs to be revived and Stashu is not the one to do it.

Managing Deadly Cadence was fun. Zone control with W was fun. Hitting Qs and following up with Es for supplemental (NOT primary) damage was fun. Hitting Qs to poke my target down at range or push hard was fun.

Waiting 40 minutes to be useful is not fun. Farming for 40 minutes is not fun. Farming with E and getting murdered cause im overextending to do so is not fun. Having to hit 4 or 5 skills to trade (not even duel, just trade) is not fun. Single target close range DPS on a super squishy is not fun. Being an AP version of an ADC is not fun (unless you scale multiplicatively, ie with AoE damage a la Vlad, Azir, Morde, Karthus. Notice all the late game APCs are AoE ppwerhouses. AoE is the AP version of crits. No/bad AoE=no multiplicative scaling=bad carry by design. No amount of tweaking will change that.)

The reworked Cass is not fun and never will be. Not until you wise up and murder that passive, put the focus back on Q and abandon any single target lategame carry ideas you've ever had. Unless you want Twin Fangs to crit, she will never work in the way you want her to. Even if it did, it would still feel like shit to play.

Tendrian11/29/2014, 10:34:54 AM7 votes

If I can agree to any of this entirely depends on the direction Cass will end up with. As for me, I just want to have the passive gone so bad - and I mean gone not changed.

"Evolution of power" or however you want to call it will simply never be a fitting theme for Cassiopeia, at least not as far as I'm concerned, and it will continue to alienate me from the champ I used to love as long as it is present in any form.

I acknowledge and appreciate the effort Stashu has put in these last days, I really do - but I'm not sold on this unless he finally states that they are moving away from the "gaining power" pattern.

Fury and Emperor11/29/2014, 11:55:52 AM6 votes

This is the point where Riot should be a player focussed company and give the community what they want:

http://i59.tinypic.com/3308q6f.png

thumbnail911/29/2014, 4:46:48 PM5 votes

We told him it was a bad rework before he even launched it.

He launched it anyways.

We told him her problems and what to fix. That mana buff was good, little low, but good. The rest of the changes were pointless.

You are not going to beat the combined experiences and practice the community has with a champion with 1 guy.

But don't take a proven failed rework, and rework it into another failed iteration. Then try to change that one when the entire thing has proven twice that it doesn't work. You are making this brutally more harder than it ever had to be.

Also the focus on E was correct, but you put too much focus on it. Before the kite focused on it while allowing everything to still be a functional aspect. If you needed to just poison you still had a reliable poking output. Now you tickle by throwing sand and still do nothing due to her problems that were the reason for the rework in the first place still murdered her completely.

Dayblazer11/29/2014, 7:25:52 AM5 votes

This attitude could be used about alot of the current designers. Not just towards Stashu.

Serpents Embrace11/29/2014, 9:44:40 PM5 votes

Really? Stashu seems pretty fucking pleased with himself on every post I've seen.

Dominick Destine11/29/2014, 7:23:07 PM3 votes

Cassiopeia? more like Cassiofail-a. Thank you, I'm here all week.

Vanjie12/2/2014, 4:59:28 AM2 votes

I cannot find the other thread about her, but I did not get the chance to offer my own opinions about the champion. Here are my opinions.

I have several issues with Casseopia. I may not be as helpful as some of these other players in this thread, but I used to play her a lot before I moved on to other champions. My issues with Casseopia are the following:

  1. She has a passive that is only useful the more enemies she has poisoned. When she finally gets to the passive stacks they are underwhelming. From what I can tell the passive only stacks on enemy champions. Getting 400+ stacks on enemy champions hardly ever happens.
  2. All of Casseopia’s abilities are easily dodgable. Her Q ability can be run past. Her W ability can be dodged just by moving around it. How is a player supposed to poison enemies with abilities that are easily dodgable? That is the problem. I think she is a lot like Karthus, who I think also has problems with his abilities in terms of hitting enemy champions. At least Karthus has decent range on his abilities and they can be used to place it strategically. Unfortunately he suffers the same fate as Casseopia does with the Q ability.
  3. Her Q ability was changed recently. There is a longer cooldown on it and the cast range was changed. Her Q ability is basically useless now.
  4. I do not feel like her current abilities and special ability truly capture the essence of the character. I was so excited to read about Casseopia because she reminded me of a Disney villain. When I got to playing her she did not feel right for the character. I thought Casseopia was going to be a champion that was sneaky and only went in for the kill when the opportunity called for it. When I first saw Casseopia I envisioned her being able to summon snakes to fight for her.
  5. Casseopia has no sustainability. Her ultimate can be used to escape from fights but that has a long cooldown and can only be used in a few situations. Changes I think need to be done and own ideas:
  6. Get rid of the special ability. The community has even told you, they do not like the special ability. If there was a way to have her abilities hit the enemy champion then I could see the passive idea working. Unfortunately the problem is her abilities are all dodgable, and worse than Karthus. If you are so intent on keeping this passive stacking special ability, you need to fix her abilities then.
  7. I do not know why but I kind of feel like her ultimate would be a good ability. The part that applies a stone effect on enemies should be removed, but it would be nice to have an ability that gives her an opportunity to move back or escape from a fight. It needs to be tweaked and edited but that is just my idea about it. She should get an ultimate that does something else for her and not force players to wait for it on cooldown. Casseopia is slow and it sucks to have to wait for her ultimate if it is on a long cooldown. There are so many possibilities you can do with this character, and this is what we get? There is no imagination.
  8. The most useless ability for me is her Q. I detest abilities that go over the mouse cursor. They are slow and have a really limited cast range on them. Players can simply just run away from it, even if you try to place it strategically in front of their path. The ability is useless in range and usability. I kind of want to see her E in place of her Q. The new Q should apply poison to enemies but also do more damage on enemies that are already poisoned. The damage on it should be adjusted but that would be something more useful than what she has now. She needs to have at least one ability that can poison an enemy. The Q should be changed regardless.
  9. To be completely honest I do not feel there is anything wrong with her W ability, but the fact that he Q ability is also dodgable is why I am mentioning it. Either her Q or W needs to go and be replaced with something that can at least poison one enemy. Even if you try to strategically place it, enemies can still dodge it.
Kowe The Ewok11/29/2014, 4:00:45 PM2 votes

Can we sticky this? It's a good source for quicklinks to Stashu statements.