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Riot - Stashu, even - Is there any progress being made on Cassiopeia?

Oleandervine··30 votes·2,116 views

Cassiopeia, right now, can be considered "in a good place" by some; However, this "good" place is strictly numerical and by far nothing that is actually fun to play. Her passive is still in a bad place, gating her powers, taking forever to build, pushing her into a role she never should have been pushed into (hypercarry), and overall attempting to make up for the horrible ratio scaling that her powers have, effectively putting her on par with every other mage when she builds massively more AP than any other mage. Cassiopeia's play style now is poison and then press E as many times as you can before they try to kill you. This is not fun. This is made especially not fun by the fact that E is her only power in her kit that makes her relevant, as her poison damage is non-existent. Furthermore, there's that dodgy, bizarre casting time on her ult that makes using it in a clutch one of the most unreliable things ever. I personally don't care that Cassiopeia can be "OP" once her 30 minute mark kicks in. I want her to be relevant at all points in the game, with all of her spells having their own usefulness aside from setting up for her E. Stashu made some changes in 4.21 that pushed her in a good direction, but he now needs to step up to the plate again and continue working on her to remove that awful passive and put some more fun back into her kit so that she's not just a one trick pony. If she's incapable of being balanced with her kit as it is, then I highly suggest you scrap it and work it anew from the ground up into something is that balance-capable. If Tristana's kit can be mildly altered and yet still keep the majority of her play style intact, while adding the balance that she needed, why on earth could it not have been done with Cassiopeia? Please revisit Cassiopeia and give her the rework she needed.

TL:DR - Fix Cassiopeia. Replace the passive, make her fun to play, give the power back to her other skills, instead of "hit E and hope they die and hope you don't run out of mana."

P.S. Her death animation is still broken. It still reverts to her pre-rework classic skin in all of her skins except Jade Fang. Please fix this. The oversight is getting to be astounding.

31 Comments

ThePlasticSpork17 votes

Cassiopeia's new passive is quite blatantly moronic in terms of design, yes.

For all of the buzzwords Riot likes to use, with invisible power being among them, Cassiopeia's passive pretty much fits the bill for the most obnoxious definition of invisible power you could conceive.

She just arbitrarily gets stronger as the game goes on. Not through leveling, or buying items, or farming, or doing much of anything. She literally just gets stat sticks over time. That is the laziest, most unimpressive, uninteractive method of making a champion a hypercarry ever. You could argue that poisoning champions speeds up that process significantly, but you don't even really need to hit poisons that often to accumulate these stacks within 30 minutes of time. IF you did absolutely nothing in regards to poison, you would hit max stacks at 50 minutes. When you add in actually poisoning champions on top of that, even if you are pretty awful and miss most of your skillshots, you will hit 500 stacks pretty quickly.

25% CDR and 30% AP? Like, what? Riots language about the subject in the past gave me the impression that a champion just having permanent free stats was generally a bad thing for game health, and suddenly Cassiopeia's passive happens. Riot hasn't really had a good record about this sort of thing in the pass (See: Kassadin passive still being entirely in the realm of uninteractive invisible power, and the fact that Kassadin would play pretty nearly the same without the passive as he would with it), and I would daresay that this iteration of Cassiopeia would play the EXACT SAME if you completely took away her passive, which is one of the better indicators that an ability isn't really healthy for the game. Her passive is literally just a stat stick because whatever team redesigned her couldn't find an interactive way to make her stronger.

NinjaFifer1 votes

I actually really liked the way her passive used to be. Giving her free stacks over time was just dumbing her whole character down. At least when you had to farm poisoned minions and Q-E your lane enemy, they understood why it was that you had so many stacks. Really, her old passive had the exact same playstyle as Nasus. The same strategies applied to laning there; keep them from being able to free-farm, and you can delay their late game dominance.

As is though, her abilities are unbalanced in importance, and her passive is just braindead free stats. She's a very clunky and unintuitive. She needs more work.

5G8Nri0B549 votes

Here is the one issue with current Cass. Most people dont like her for being fun or any playstyle. Most new Cass fans like her because "holy shit 54% winrate!"

Kingsgrave2 votes

{quoted}

Here is the one issue with current Cass. Most people dont like her for being fun or sny playstyle. Most new Cass fans like her because "holy shit 54% winrate!"

Honestly at this point if you changed her back or changed her passive significantly you would get a lot of the new Cass fans on here raging in the same way that old Cass fans did and apparently still do.

5G8Nri0B544 votes

Not at all...unless the drastic change is accompanied by horribly low numbers.

The "new Cass fans" would play a blue rectangle that shoots red squares as long as it has big shiny numbers and an above average win rate. It's not Cass they even like, it's the win rate, the apparent OP-ness of her rework.

Tapu Fini8 votes

She is magical Urgot, who himself is slated for rework because of how viable and fun he isn't. I don't understand why they thought making Urgot 2.0 was a good plan.

yellowbricks8 votes

Omg guy 54% Wingate it's all that matters wowowowow

I'd sure watch paint dry for half a year to do something good for 5 seconds

Vediogames fun come on man who you kiddin this is second real life

Buncha damn spikes ITT Cass has been trashed.

Mirage Night7 votes

There needs to be some more adjustments. Her passive still feels like shit. I have no sense any sort of improvement with it. Also landing any form of poision is not even possible anymore. She is in a worst place then she was before honestly.

Krys Star9 votes

I find landing her poisons fine. They're not that much different than before lol. The change they made to Noxious Blast made it more reliable and consistent if anything. My only problem with this rework is that it still changes her identity as a poison mage. Why should I have to TF an enemy twice just to feel good about my poisons? Why can't my poisons just slowly corrode and destroy the enemy?

If anything, this rework broke her. Players are starting to realize how ridiculously powerful she can be and is. I've had too many instances where I completely melt the enemy team and it just feels unfair for them, and myself. 30-35 minutes and I'm at full stack without much effort. Free 30% ap and huge bursts of damage, free 25% cdr and insane healing from TF spam. Her "rework" only made her more unhealthy in terms of balance. You can't balance her with this new rework without making her either complete shit, or completely broken because her passive will make her or break her.

NinjaFifer1 votes

Honestly, I felt that her passive before 4.21 was more fun and engaging. You actually had to try and think about what you were doing to get those stacks. Granted, it meant that I was using my Q as a passive stacker and not a damage tool, which is pretty stupid, but at least the character required a little bit of thinking.

Krys Star2 votes

Yeah but there was nothing fun or engaging about a passive that renders your team handicapped and 4v5 until you got those stacks ramped up and high. League's about getting ahead and sealing the victory asap now. Her previous passive didn't make sense, admittedly, when considering her theme and character but neither does her current passive. If anything Stashu seems to have just worked on Cassiopeia just because he was told to do so instead of someone familiar with the champ's identity, persona, and respect for the community. Cassiopeia will never be the same anymore.

It's clear Riot doesn't care about the community. They only care about whatever nets them big bucks for LCS. These reworks aren't aimed at balance health and such. It's aimed at bringing variety to LCS so that League continues to thrive and keep the cash flowing in. Riot wont admit it, because who would ever admit their biggest flaw as a company: greed? That's all they care about, and ever will care about: dynamics and freshness for tournaments.

NinjaFifer1 votes

At no point was she ever handicapped. Her passive gives her bonus scaling (has little to do with early game), and she still hurt a ton with her base damage off her E. She functions exactly like an ADC, in that she is terrible early game, but absolutely wrecks late game. She just doesn't get a babysitter.

I disagree highly with the idea that League is about winning right away. There are plenty of ways for teams to come back in this game, and the game has some pretty wide gaps between early game champs and late game champs. It's all about the team comps, and how you can control the flow of the game.

Abyssphere3 votes

{quoted}

At no point was she ever handicapped. Her passive gives her bonus scaling (has little to do with early game), and she still hurt a ton with her base damage off her E. She functions exactly like an ADC, in that she is terrible early game, but absolutely wrecks late game. She just doesn't get a babysitter.

I disagree highly with the idea that League is about winning right away. There are plenty of ways for teams to come back in this game, and the game has some pretty wide gaps between early game champs and late game champs. It's all about the team comps, and how you can control the flow of the game.

She very much was handicapped. Pre-rework her ratios were 0.8, 0.2, 0.55 and 0.6. Before you got your omg free deathcap on pre-4.21 Cass, your ratios were 0.45, 0.1, 0.4-0.6 and 0.5. Yes she got free stats eventually and after 75 stacks her scaling began to improve by tiny amounts but it is completely untrue that she was not handicapped. Her early game was destroyed, she literally went from a total scaling of 2.15 to a total scaling of 1.45-1.6. Base damage was also hit. Her passive has nothing to do with her early game but the destroyed ratios and bases did and still do.

Cass objectively hurt much less than she did pre-rework and a lot less than most mid laners.

NinjaFifer1 votes

I never had any trouble dealing damage to my midlane opponents in the early game. It took all my mana to get any kill potential, but at no point did I ever feel straight up handicapped. I felt EXACTLY like an ADC playing her. Weaker, but still able to hold my ground if I played my matchup right.

Ratios do very little for the early game. It takes until level 9ish to complete your first major item for the ratios to actually have any significant effect. Her early game was all about her base damages, and 55/80/105/130/155 on a .5 second cooldown is devastating.

She was weaker pre stack 200 (level 10-12 ish), yes; that's the whole point of a hypercarry. Krys Star was MASSIVELY exaggerating, though, to say that having her on the team was tantamount to the game being a 4v5.

Also, the base damages of ANY of her abilities have been completely untouched since she got the brand new passive back in 4.16. Saying "Her passive has nothing to do with her early game but the destroyed ratios and bases did and still do" is pretty much just straight up wrong. If anything, making E's ratio .55 at all levels, and increasing her AA damage, helped her early game.

Abyssphere2 votes

{quoted}

I never had any trouble dealing damage to my midlane opponents in the early game. It took all my mana to get any kill potential, but at no point did I ever feel straight up handicapped. I felt EXACTLY like an ADC playing her. Weaker, but still able to hold my ground if I played my matchup right.

Ratios do very little for the early game. It takes until level 9ish to complete your first major item for the ratios to actually have any significant effect. Her early game was all about her base damages, and 55/80/105/130/155 on a .5 second cooldown is devastating.

She was weaker pre stack 200 (level 10-12 ish), yes; that's the whole point of a hypercarry. Krys Star was MASSIVELY exaggerating, though, to say that having her on the team was tantamount to the game being a 4v5.

Also, the base damages of ANY of her abilities have been completely untouched since she got the brand new passive back in 4.16. Saying "Her passive has nothing to do with her early game but the destroyed ratios and bases did and still do" is pretty much just straight up wrong. If anything, making E's ratio .55 at all levels, and increasing her AA damage, helped her early game.

Her base damages were touched when she got the new passive? Miasma went from doing 25/35/45/55/65 per second to 10/15/20/25/30 per second. That's massive. Twin Fang went from 50/85/120/155/190 to 55/80/105/130/155 and her ult went from 200/325/450 to 150/250/350.

The only base damage that wasn't nerfed was her Q, and that had the ratio cut in more than half to compensate.

NinjaFifer1 votes

Have not been touched SINCE 4.16... not WHEN. We're talking about the difference between the poison stacking passive that she was given in 4.16, and the changes made to it in 4.21.

Her old passive, the one that reduced her mana costs with each spell cast, is something entirely different. I'll agree that the rework did really disappoint a lot of people by fully ignoring her poison as a damage tool, but I disagree with the opinion that she is totally worthless before 20 minutes. I enjoyed playing her before the new stacks-over-time change, but only because of the playstyle. If I ever paid attention to her theme, the whole character felt wrong.

Baron Von Bangin7 votes

Nope. They tuned her numbers and now that a majority of people have been pacified Riot will stick with her new, shit kit. Much less work that way.

Nausicäa 7 votes

Speak for yourself, Cass is in a great spot, shes fun and very strong.

5G8Nri0B542 votes

Speak for yourself, Cass has 54% win rate, she has a very high win rate so she is very strong

yellowbricks6 votes

The only progress stashu has made is now he can sit in his chair and laugh as Stockholm syndrome sets in and slowly our complaints are drowned out by the mindless fotm riders who just see a 54% Winrate and get all excited. Because fuck fun in a video game right?

I seriously regret ever paying a cent to this company for content that can and will unapologetically be destroyed and replaced by some husk of what it once was. Her skins have been distorted and there's bugs they refuse to address, and I don't think I need to repeat all the bullshit I hate about the new kit. This rework has been a train wreck through and through but because they overturned her numbers all the wannabe pros will slobber over Cass hoping she can pull their lame asses through elo hell.

Devourer5 votes

I know multiple people who love her new play style and find it very strong, all these complaints are from old Cass mains. Stop complaining and adapt or switch mains.

Oleandervine7 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Cloud,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AT8hRANj,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-01-16T04:53:53.974+0000)

I know multiple people who love her new play style and find it very strong, all these complaints are from old Cass mains. Stop complaining and adapt or switch mains.

Adapting would be Tristana mains learning to use the new time bomb she has instead of her old E. The rest of her kit is generally untouched. Cassiopiea is in a different boat in that her play style has completely changed from a mixed poisoning/kiting style to machine gunning with E. Her kit offers no other play style now due to the absence of power in Q, W, and R. For comparison, Tristana's update took out her E shot and replaced it with a skill that made Q relevant, while keeping W, R and her passive the same and as equally relevant as before. Tristana has kit diversity, and most of her shenanigans are still possible while adding in danger and a bit more fun with the different ways to set off her bomb. Tristan actually became more engaging to play because of these changes instead of shoot, shoot, jump, shoot. Cassiopeia became much less engaging to play and much more of a chore because of the need to wait and the very limited itemization that she requires to not have mana problems and problems in close combat.

Abyssphere4 votes

[{quoted}](name=A Cloud,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AT8hRANj,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-01-16T04:53:53.974+0000)

I know multiple people who love her new play style and find it very strong, all these complaints are from old Cass mains. Stop complaining and adapt or switch mains.

So people who love using Twin Fang are happy but didn't realise they could do that just as well pre-rework?

Khell DarkWolf5 votes

And this here is what I was afraid of, the fact that numbers tuning can put her in a good winning spot but doesn't feel fun at all.

I've adapted to it after I've figured it out how to play her in the new kit, but that remains the problem.

It isn't fun, after I pretty much just altered how I played before it is completely binary to play her even though I'm winning a majority of the games I play with her.

And the pillar to all of this, she is only succeeding because she has the twin fang Mana refund. The twin fang poison amp is just icing on the top, it didn't put her to op status nor does it fix the issue of dealing with the poison issue.

Cause I can already see it, the moment she can't have the twin fang mana refund on hit is the day she goes back in the trash heap. I mean hell, all you have to do to mana juggle right now is use twin fang to last hit without using any poison.

Rotation goes like this for first 6 levels in lane:

First wave: Autoattack last hit for cs, harass with Q/W then twin fang unload.

Second Wave: (assuming you did the last harassment action) twin fang last hit to get mana back and pool it for the next rotation (if your low on mana)

rinse repeat

This is just sad.

Honestly, for someone that stuck around for so long with a main champion. I'm not upset because I can win with her, nor am I upset because people think its op/high winrate blah blah.

It is because she doesn't feel fun in the same way anymore.

I still pull her out because she is my most mechanically knowledgeable champion. And people get mad when I lose to my bad match ups that I've known for years of experience "HURRDURR CASS IS OP, HOW YOU LOSE TO THAT CHAMPION!?"

Wullf4 votes

stone me, but I actually have fun playing her.

Psyturkey2 votes

I don't honestly understand the fuss. I think she's fun and, while I may not have played her a ton before I haven't noticed a dramatic difference in her play style.

Sure, her poison hits less hard these days but it barely effects how I play with her, the play pattern is still Poison ---> Destroy someone with twin strike spam.

Mediocre Joe1 votes

cass is on my permaban list right now she is way too strong if anything she needs a nerf, she hits one poison then repeatedly hits E and takes most of your health away. I don't think she is in a weak state right now and I much prefer cass how she is now but she needs a nerf her passive stacks way too quickly. Never been a big fan of Dots which is why I am glad they changed trist because it was annoying to say get hit by one ability and watch your health trickle down. I really don't like the idea of them buffing her poison ability I think she is just fine, I do agree with you on her ult though there is a small delay which is really annoying. I personally think she is fun to play, I don't think hitting some poison abilities and watching their health trickle down to be fun at all. to me it seems really boring if they reworked her entire kit and put the poison damage as her passive then I would be okay with that but returning the majority of her damage to poison just makes her unfun to play.

her old playstyle was hit a Q and walk away letting the poison damage bring the enemy champion low enough, eventually you could just all in, you actually have to position properly now to use your E to bring them low. it adds more depth to her.

if we could make all her abilities apply the poison effect and give her new abilities then I would be okay but please don't bring old cass back.

Gorsz1 votes

I duno man.. im having a lot of fun playing her and ive been playing since season 1. I have over 2000 games with Cassiopeia easily.

She seems to be in a good spot to me.

5G8Nri0B541 votes

Hey we finally have some PBE news on Cass!

She's...getting nerfed.

Sukishoo1 votes

I think she is great.

/end

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