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Making a Miracle: How to satisfy Stashu AND the Cass mains

Hyrum Graff··5 votes·1,515 views

#Disclaimer

I don't play much Cass. However:

  • I have been following the Cass threads closely
  • I have done rework concepts for champs I don't play before { Talon and Fiora (WIP) }
    • I know things aren't perfect the first time around. Please, give me feedback. I'll listen and make changes as necessary.

#What Stashu wants

  • Cass should be a late-game carry (an AP marksman, if you will)
  • Cass should have weaknesses in lane
  • Gameplay should mimic her lore
    • When Cass is first transformed, she's not comfortable with her new form; she still thinks of herself as a human. Eventually, she embraces her new form, and all the power that comes with it.

#What Cass Mains want

  • Cass should be a poison mage
    • Her kit should function without twin fang
  • Current stacking passive feels like a chore, designed to deny cass early power
    • It doesn't make sense. Poisoning people to power yourself up?

#What changes to make

#In preparation for a new passive...

  • Rebalance (buff) Cass' AP ratios
    • She's losing the free deathcap passive
    • If she needs to be stronger/weaker at different points in the game, she can have different bases/scaling with ability level.
  • Twin Fang (E) no longer resets its cooldown when used on poisoned enemies.
    • This is on the passive, now.

#Passive: Aspect of the serpent

What's the most inhuman part of Cass' kit? Slinging poison at people? I think not. It's sinking her teeth into someone. Snakes do that, not people. It's also the area of Cass' kit with the most potential lategame power (resets). So it makes sense that when Cass embraces that ferocious, snake-like urge to bite, again and again and again, she unlocks her full (dps) power. It also makes more sense that you get stronger from biting people than from spitting poison on them.

Cassiopeia builds a stack of Aspect of the Serpent once every X seconds and each time she hits an enemy champion with a twin fang.

  • Innate (0 stacks): Cassiopeia's cast times are shortened by cooldown reduction.
    • note: I'm NOT talking about things like the delay on her Q (although this would be possible too). I'm talking about the amount of time she needs to pause for in order to cast the spell.
    • This means that a cass with cdr is better able to kite opponents, since she doesn't need to stop moving for as long in order to cast.
  • Breakpoint 1: Twin Fang now heals for 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 14 / 16 (+ 10% AP).
    • This is known to feel good.
  • Breakpoint 2: If her target is poisoned, Twin Fang's cooldown is reduced by half.
    • You could get rid of this one if you want, for a bigger 'ascension' feel, but I figured it's important for Cass' mid-game teamfight presence.
  • Breakpoint 3: If her target is poisoned, Twin Fang's cooldown is reduced to 0.5 seconds.

#Advantages

  • Since Cass no longer has the ability to spam E's, she has a lane weakness: all-in her
    • You'll have a chance to do this when Cass tries to E you (short range)
    • She'll want to E you because she wants to stack her passive.
  • Since Cass has a lane weakness, she can afford to have more power back in her poisons
    • This way, each of her spell casts can actually feel meaningful.
    • Her laning will have the feel of "hang back and poison them to death, jumping in for a bite if I have the chance or for a kill."

#P.S. The most helpful feedback

If kit suggestions/critiques work, they're really helpful, but if they don't work, they're often useless. If you talk about "feel," that will ALWAYS be useful, and I can keep iterating until I come up with something that works for you. For example:

"I think too much of Cass' damage is in her E." isn't bad feedback. But it would be much more useful to say, "I think of Cass as the poison mage. Right now, she doesn't feel like a poison mage at all. I think it's because all of her damage is locked up in her E, not her poisons."

I promise I will read every one of your responses. I will do my best to respond to everything, but if this thread blows up, I can't promise that.

######Thoughts?

31 Comments

xJLx MCHammer2 votes

I'm a Cass main who wants to spam e and q. I played her over 1,000 games, why you trying to hard so make her something she wasn't designed to be

See the people crying bout her not being a poison Mage is a small vocal minority. Funny how her pick rate is being increased

MrBuffington3 votes

Funny how her pick rate is being increased

I sort of get the feeling that this is because she's a bit overtuned right now; her win rates made a pretty big jump after the buffs she received last patch. The same people complaining about her thematically are also reporting that they're winning lvl 2 all-ins, which probably shouldn't happen if Cassiopeia is supposed to be a late game carry with a weaker early game. They're complaining about how Cassiopeia feels thematically, less about how powerful she is (though that was a large part of the complaints up till now since she seemed undertuned for a while), which I think is a large factor in pick-rates (Warwick's pick rate shot through the roof on 4.20; I doubt there was some massive reawakening of dormant WW mains, mostly people hopping on the "freelo" bandwagon). I mean, Evelynn was one of the holy trinity of jungle just earlier this year; she now has one of the lowest pick rates in the game. Yes, she's weak, but the people sticking with her are probably Evelynn mains; the people who jumped ship are probably people who just hopped on the bandwagon. Cassiopeia's pick rates have only increased marginally by my measures as well.

xJLx MCHammer2 votes

{quoted}

I sort of get the feeling that this is because she's a bit overtuned right now; her win rates made a pretty big jump after the buffs she received last patch. The same people complaining about her thematically are also reporting that they're winning lvl 2 all-ins, which probably shouldn't happen if Cassiopeia is supposed to be a late game carry with a weaker early game. They're complaining about how Cassiopeia feels thematically, less about how powerful she is (though that was a large part of the complaints up till now since she seemed undertuned for a while), which I think is a large factor in pick-rates (Warwick's pick rate shot through the roof on 4.20; I doubt there was some massive reawakening of dormant WW mains, mostly people hopping on the "freelo" bandwagon). I mean, Evelynn was one of the holy trinity of jungle just earlier this year; she now has one of the lowest pick rates in the game. Yes, she's weak, but the people sticking with her are probably Evelynn mains; the people who jumped ship are probably people who just hopped on the bandwagon. Cassiopeia's pick rates have only increased marginally by my measures as well.

I agree that she is got overtuned and will receive a lot of nerfs in the coming patches

Hyrum Graff3 votes

[{quoted}](name=xJLx MCHammer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AgMkap4n,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2014-12-16T01:54:07.410+0000)

I'm a Cass main who wants to spam e and q. I played her over 1,000 games, why you trying to hard to make her something she wasn't designed to be

I'm not taking away your ability to spam q at all (actually q spam is stronger now), and the ability to spam e is only gone for laning.

[{quoted}](name=xJLx MCHammer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AgMkap4n,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2014-12-16T01:54:07.410+0000) See the people crying bout her not being a poison Mage is a small vocal minority. Funny how her pick rate is being increased

I'm well aware that most of the complaints with the rework are lead by a small group of cass mains. That being said, they are the vocal group, so that's what I've got to go on right now. Her pick rate is 1.8%, which isn't terrible, actually, if it were level there, but people always start playing

xJLx MCHammer1 votes

I'm not taking away your ability to spam q at all (actually q spam is stronger now), and the ability to spam e is only gone for laning.

I'm not going to argue about how you are playing her, BUT to get the most of her, you have to be spamming both abilities, that's the intent and it's working perfectly as is. You can still harass your opponent with Q, but one click spam at 850 range in lane is stupid, Riot has already made their stance on this. This is why to complensate for lack of Q dmg, you will get BETTTER Q dmg than pre-rework if you also attempt to trade with your oppoenent

See, you can Q>E>E> and then finish off with a Q, both Q will do extra dmg, the first having less dmg.

Pre rework, you had 2 things to do with Cass; spam Q and get opponent low enough to try and all in with E. Now, keep in mind, in S2, players would not max Q first, it wasn't good enough. They maxed E because if you did the math, Q>EE(maxed) did more than (maxed) Q>EE. At this time, Cass was a bully, but champs like Zed made her into a non-bully. So players decided to go with maxxing Q losing some dmg but being able to just bully champs down by spamming Q while being save. So in retrospect, she went from a bully who wanted to trade by going in the same "E" range as she has now to a champ who avoids trading.

With that said, Cass' design originally was meant to be played with her E being what did the most dmg. This reworked focus on this because it's healthier for the game. She can trade like she did pre-rework as long as you are willing to TRADE. They also gave her the ability to heal in lane and gain mana in lane if she isn't trading or between trades. This is why champs like Xerath got a passive that forces them to go into AA range if they want to maximize their mana refund, it creates a window to trade

I'm well aware that most of the complaints with the rework are lead by a small group of cass mains. That being said, they are the vocal group, so that's what I've got to go on right now. Her pick rate is 1.8%, which isn't terrible, actually, if it were level there, but people always start playing

This is a flawed way of looking at this. Are you going to overturn a ruling by the supreme court because two dozen people are complaining and rioting? You have to understand, the vocal minority who are complaining aren't playing; the ones who are satisfied either drop in once to say it's good, or never drop by, but play the game. You also have to understand that the forum represents less than 1% of the lol playerbase, so taking that into account, that actual % is even smaller when you consider it's only a few cass players who are mad.

So while your suggestions are nice, it destroys what Cass is to me, a champ I've played since S2! It also deteriorates the chances of community working with Riot because we are attempting to disregard their stance of Cass. They already said they wont be reverting the rework, which mean, no further passive reworks. Work with Riot, who already said they want to focus more on her E because it creates windows for champ interactions.

Elphrihaim3 votes

[{quoted}](name=xJLx MCHammer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AgMkap4n,comment-id=000100010000,timestamp=2014-12-16T04:00:02.314+0000) This is why to complensate for lack of Q dmg, you will get BETTTER Q dmg than pre-rework if you also attempt to trade with your oppoenent

MATHEMATICALLY THIS IS FALSE.

Pre-rework, it had 80% scaling, and now it has 45%. Additionally it has a 4 second instead of 3 second cooldown (but since it's a 3-second DoT, CDR won't matter).

Let's assume that the post-rework2 Qs are ALL empowered to the max (+40%) just to bias this towards new Cassio and make the math easier. I wrote up New Cassio 4 times-- base, 100, 250, and 500 stacks-- factoring in the AP increase directly into the ratios.

Old Cassiopeia: 75/115/155/195/235 (+80% AP)

#Edit: Because riot is stupid I had to make a second post to hold the previous version of this post. Located here.

New Cassiopeia (base): 105/161/217/273/329 (+63% AP) New Cassiopeia (100): 105/161/217/273/329 (+66.15% AP) New Cassiopeia (250): 105/161/217/273/329 (+69.3% AP) New Cassiopeia (500): 105/161/217/273/329 (+81.9% AP)

Old = New (base) at 176/270/365/459/553 AP. Old = New (100) at 288/332/447/563/678! AP. Old = New (250) at 374/430/579/729!/879! AP Old = New (500) with less than negative 2000 AP. So never.

So never mind me. This is not false in the excessive-optimization case that I did. However, this still gives the FEELING to the Cassiopeia player that this poison damage is coming from Twin Fang, which is still reducing her effective range to that of Twin Fang, while also making her poisons single- or double-target, but the latter is useless because it requires dividing your Twin Fang damage, which means you'll never do it since two enemies at 40% still have all their power, but one at 85% and one at 0% means you take less damage.

So it gives a false choice, that spreading poison damage is effective when it isn't.

The reason why there are values with exclamation points (!) next to them: I used a sample build of Rabadon's Deathcap/Zhonya's Hourglass/Seraph's Embrace/Void Staff/Haunting Guise, as well as offensive masteries, which has somewhere near 670 AP on it. This is a reasonable build for both pre and post rework Cassiopeia imo, and thus the ! values show that new-cass will actually be better a surprisingly often amount of the time.

Basically: New Cassio is better if you have 250 stacks and a majority of your items, new Cassio is better if you have no items, new Cassio is worse if you have some items.

However, this only applies to your Noxious Blast damage. New Cassio has more Twin Fang damage (reset is more reliable and actually happens sooner + the ratio is bumped by 0/2.75/5.5/16.5% AP depending on Aspect stacks).

However-however, this only applies to your Noxious Blast damage while you're in Twin Fang range and shortly afterward.

re: New Cassio is MUCH worse at poking than old Cassio, but her damage in-fight is higher by a fair margin.

But this seems like a band-aid fix to the problem of "Damage over time is hard to understand"-- making it increase because the enemy is close to Cassio, is, in my opinion, more confusing than just having actually good damage on the DoT spell alone.

LongFur Fox2 votes

You forgot to account for the 40% increase in the ratios. In fact it should look like this

New Cassiopeia (base): 105/161/217/273/329 (+63% AP) New Cassiopeia (100): 105/161/217/273/329 (+66.15% AP) New Cassiopeia (250): 105/161/217/273/329 (+69.3% AP) New Cassiopeia (500): 105/161/217/273/329 (+81.9% AP)

and the ap old cass would need to outscale new cass is then a bit higher with new cass scaling better at max stacks. Taking into account that you do not get the 40% on every tick however still means old cass's q is better when you get some ap. That said i remember old cass typically building pen in lane first so the new q is better early.

Elphrihaim1 votes

#The old version of this for the sake of anybody that cares.

New Cassiopeia (base): 105/161/217/273/329 (+45% AP) New Cassiopeia (100): 105/161/217/273/329 (+47.25% AP) New Cassiopeia (250): 105/161/217/273/329 (+49.5% AP) New Cassiopeia (500): 105/161/217/273/329 (+58.5% AP)

Old = New (base) at ~86/132/177/223/270 AP. Old = New (100) requires 92/141/190/240/290 AP. Old = New (250) with 98/151/203/256/308 AP. Old = New (500) if you have 139/214/288/363/437 AP.

More AP than listed? Old is better. Less AP than listed? New is better*.

So... yeah. This statement is false most of the time...

You get better Q damage if you haven't backed yet, but if you buy even just a little bit of AP, have AP glyphs, masteries, you'll probably have enough to keep up with the new-Q's improved base damage in extended trades or at least not be too far shy.

And then as you build AP, old Cassiopeia becomes undeniably better and better.

Please do not state things as facts unless they are actually true. Because this one is not true, and continually saying that it is (when not only is it not true, this has been told to you more than once) discredits you. :|

Hyrum Graff1 votes

[{quoted}](name=xJLx MCHammer,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AgMkap4n,comment-id=000100010000,timestamp=2014-12-16T04:00:02.314+0000)

I'm not going to argue about how you are playing her, BUT to get the most of her, you have to be spamming both abilities, that's the intent and it's working perfectly as is. You can still harass your opponent with Q, but one click spam at 850 range in lane is stupid, Riot has already made their stance on this. This is why to complensate for lack of Q dmg, you will get BETTTER Q dmg than pre-rework if you also attempt to trade with your oppoenent

I'm not talking about a damage perspective here. I'm talking about a gameplay perspective: Does Cass feel like a poison mage. I think she doesn't, that her whole kit revolves around twin fang.

Futhermore, even if that weren't an issue thematically, I don't think it's healthy to have a champion's kit all revolve around one ability. It gives them a very binary play style and skill path, which is less fun than having options.

Pre rework, you had 2 things to do with Cass; spam Q and get opponent low enough to try and all in with E. Now, keep in mind, in S2, players would not max Q first, it wasn't good enough. They maxed E because if you did the math, Q>EE(maxed) did more than (maxed) Q>EE. At this time, Cass was a bully, but champs like Zed made her into a non-bully. So players decided to go with maxxing Q losing some dmg but being able to just bully champs down by spamming Q while being save. So in retrospect, she went from a bully who wanted to trade by going in the same "E" range as she has now to a champ who avoids trading.

With that said, Cass' design originally was meant to be played with her E being what did the most dmg. This reworked focus on this because it's healthier for the game. She can trade like she did pre-rework as long as you are willing to TRADE. They also gave her the ability to heal in lane and gain mana in lane if she isn't trading or between trades. This is why champs like Xerath got a passive that forces them to go into AA range if they want to maximize their mana refund, it creates a window to trade

Let's talk about Xerath, because I was partially inspired by him. If xerath didn't have his passive, he would never get close to his opponent. He'd sit back and spam q from 1000 units away, just like old Cass did, until his opponent was low enough to finish off.

My Cass also wants to sit back and spam Q, except for one thing: Her passive only stacks up when she uses E on enemy champions. So, she has an incentive to TRADE instead of just harassing with Q.

She should actually be alright at trading if she's able to avoid enemy damage, but she'll lack the ability to turn that trade into an all-in with Q-EEEEEEEEEE. Take a look at this comment for a more in-depth version of that sentence.

This is a flawed way of looking at this. Are you going to overturn a ruling by the supreme court because two dozen people are complaining and rioting? -snip-

This is a pretty silly comparison, IMO, because a rework and a supreme court judgment are pretty different things. There's no right or wrong with a rework, there's a direction that they're looking to take the champion in.

But while we're making bad comparisons, let me make one back at you: If the police are discriminating against a minority, should I let them keep discriminating because, "Hey, I'm a white male, what do I care?" or should I speak up about it and demand justice for all people? Just because they're a minority doesn't mean their points are invalid.

So while your suggestions are nice, it destroys what Cass is to me, a champ I've played since S2!

Could you elaborate on this? I'm getting rid of Cass' ability to QEEEE in lane, but she will still do that during team fights, and she will still be the same hyper carry AP marksman that this rework tries to get her to be.

It also deteriorates the chances of community working with Riot because we are attempting to disregard their stance of Cass. They already said they wont be reverting the rework, which mean, no further passive reworks. Work with Riot, who already said they want to focus more on her E because it creates windows for champ interactions.

I'm not sure why you think I'm reverting the rework. The biggest change with the rework was Cass' passive, which went from the mana one to the stacking one. I'm keeping the stacking passive, just changing its breakpoints. Riot wants to create windows for champ interactions. They did this by forcing her to use her E in ALL interactions with her opponents. I did it by giving her a choice: you could use just your Q to bully now, but if you want to hit your late-game power spike, you need to use your E.

I AM working with Riot here.

Epilogue of Life2 votes

If ur the one who made them remove Talon's silence I will rearrange your face.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

{quoted}

If ur the one who made them remove Talon's silence I will rearrange your face.

Nope. I made those threads after they removed the silence. In my kits, talon gets the silence back, but only under certain conditions. It also gives him a meaningful combo system. Go read the thread!

edit: I did contribute to the idea for the scuttle crab, though :)

Epilogue of Life1 votes

The one that made his E a skillshot?...Personally, I consider that a harsher nerf than the silence removal...what ADC will let you hit that E late game?

Hyrum Graff1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hyrum Graff,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AgMkap4n,comment-id=,timestamp=2014-12-16T01:45:10.907+0000)

  • I have done rework concepts for champs I don't play before { Talon ...

...

>Talon

I linked the thread in the OP, dude. Making judgements about it based on (wrong) assumptions about what it said is completely uncalled for. If you want to discuss it, follow the link, read the thread, and I'll be happy to continue this conversation over there.

Atro Spiker2 votes

Despite how much a small minority is whining, the e machine gun has always been the most noticeable and iconic part of her kit. Cassiopeia's core fighting pattern is qeeeqeee etc. Even thought people are complaining, she still follows the same pattern in a fight.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

{quoted}

Despite how much a small minority is whining, the e machine gun has always been the most noticeable and iconic part of her kit. Cassiopeia's core fighting pattern is qeeeqeee etc. Even thought people are complaining, she still follows the same pattern in a fight.

I agree that machine gun is an iconic part of her kit. I'm not trying to detract from that. It's kind of for that reason that I think this direction makes sense, thematically. When cassio finally embraces her transformation (ie, gets enough stacks), she unleashes her true power (machine gun E).

She follows the same pattern in teamfights, for sure. But from what I've read her laning is rather different -- which is OK, because her laning before was rather... toxic *groan*. I still think my changes offer a number of benefits compared to live:

  • More clarity, in several places:
    1. Poison amp makes it really hard for both cass and her opponents to anticipate exactly how much damage that next Q is going to do.
    2. Current breakpoints, with the exception of the heal, simply make cass do more damage all of the sudden. There's no feeling of 'embracing her serpentine side,' it's just, "Cool, got stronger." When you have a gameplay change, you should actually feel like you're reaping the power of her transformation.
  • A choice between "stay back and spam q, at the cost of a longer delay before my power spike" and "harass with E too, which is riskier but gets me to my power spike sooner."
  • A more intuitive feel. I agree that it's weird that you get stronger from poisoning your enemies. I think it makes a lot more sense that you get stronger from biting them.
MrBuffington1 votes

I think the trouble with Cassiopeia becoming a late game AP Marksman style champion is that her kit doesn't really support that playstyle as well as it needs to; the only element that lends to that is the resets on her E. Comparing her to another champion in this category, Azir, her kit is kind of underwhelming in comparison. Azir has far greater range and zone control, not to mention his DPS isn't as dependent on comboing spells, only good mechanics as far as getting his soldiers to attack the correct target. Moreover Azir does a lot more AoE damage, where Cassiopeia's DPS is still single target. Azir also has the added benefit of mobility, hard CC, and tankiness built into his basic spells. Finally, Azir's ultimate is a far more reliable form of CC that serves to keep him safe but also make plays.

Cassiopeia has a tiny bit of mobility tied to landing her Q, which isn't terribly reliable given it's a fairly small AoE with a non-insignificant cast time/animation; basically it isn't as reliable as casting a soldier behind you and dashing to them. She has a slow on her W and ult (which also has some finicky hard CC). Not to mention her DPS is single target vs. Azir's AoE DPS.

I've heard from some Reds that the issue with Cassiopeia before all the reworks was that she was a powerful lane bully, yes, but this wasn't an issue so much as she have a lot of trouble transitioning to the late game since she's more of a shorter range DPS mage; compare her to someone like Brand or Syndra or Orianna who similarly are lane bullies, but have ungodly burst damage and/or a lot of control they can add to a team in the form of very potent CC. I had a nice exchange over here with Hellioning, who is much more informed about Cassiopeia than I am, and I think a more suitable direction for Cassiopeia would be to give her more utility to give her the room to deal her DPS, like Azir has.

My suggestion is to give Cassiopeia's ult a fear instead of her slow when the enemy is facing the opposite way; it makes sense thematically (that scream is 2freakingspooky), and it gives her consistent hard CC, so the enemy can't just turn around and blow her up (especially since her ult range basically means she needs to flash ult Annie-style, while not having the tankiness or burst that Annie has in her kit). This gives her the space (remember, time = space, ty Einstein) to lay down her DPS since she doesn't have the luxury of burst damage like a lot of other mages in her position. It also gives her more relevance in teamfights akin to champions like Orianna or Syndra or Azir, which improves her lategame functioning like Stashu wants.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

{quoted}

I think the trouble with Cassiopeia becoming a late game AP Marksman style champion is that her kit doesn't really support that playstyle as well as it needs to; the only element that lends to that is the resets on her E. Comparing her to another champion in this category, Azir, her kit is kind of underwhelming in comparison. Azir has far greater range and zone control, not to mention his DPS isn't as dependent on comboing spells, only good mechanics as far as getting his soldiers to attack the correct target. Moreover Azir does a lot more AoE damage, where Cassiopeia's DPS is still single target. Azir also has the added benefit of mobility, hard CC, and tankiness built into his basic spells. Finally, Azir's ultimate is a far more reliable form of CC that serves to keep him safe but also make plays.

Cassiopeia has a tiny bit of mobility tied to landing her Q, which isn't terribly reliable given it's a fairly small AoE with a non-insignificant cast time/animation; basically it isn't as reliable as casting a soldier behind you and dashing to them. She has a slow on her W and ult (which also has some finicky hard CC). Not to mention her DPS is single target vs. Azir's AoE DPS.

I generally agree with you, here. However, that's a issue separate issue to tackle. Here, I'm just trying to reconcile the 'poison mage' and 'ap marksman' identities.

{quoted} I've heard from some Reds that the issue with Cassiopeia before all the reworks was that she was a powerful lane bully, yes, but this wasn't an issue so much as she have a lot of trouble transitioning to the late game since she's more of a shorter range DPS mage; compare her to someone like Brand or Syndra or Orianna who similarly are lane bullies, but have ungodly burst damage and/or a lot of control they can add to a team in the form of very potent CC. I had a nice exchange over here with Hellioning, who is much more informed about Cassiopeia than I am, and I think a more suitable direction for Cassiopeia would be to give her more utility to give her the room to deal her DPS, like Azir has.

See above.

{quoted} My suggestion is to give Cassiopeia's ult a fear instead of her slow when the enemy is facing the opposite way; it makes sense thematically (that scream is 2freakingspooky), and it gives her consistent hard CC, so the enemy can't just turn around and blow her up (especially since her ult range basically means she needs to flash ult Annie-style, while not having the tankiness or burst that Annie has in her kit). This gives her the space (remember, time = space, ty Einstein) to lay down her DPS since she doesn't have the luxury of burst damage like a lot of other mages in her position. It also gives her more relevance in teamfights akin to champions like Orianna or Syndra or Azir, which improves her lategame functioning like Stashu wants.

I like it, but it seems like the fear would be stronger than the stun. Maybe a shorter duration would fix this, maybe not.

MrBuffington2 votes

Maybe i'm just reading your rework wrong, but it seems to me like you're just gating her E behind even more conditions; this gets really confusing imo. In general I feel like gating utility behind her breakpoints is more useful than just giving her AP, but since Cassiopeia has always had her E on a reset, it just seems like it's taking more stuff away from her without as much in return.

I think what's really preventing her from being that late game carry is the fact that she has less utility to get the damage she needs; Azir has his soldiers forming a wall between him and the enemy (literally in the case of his ult), Orianna has her Ball, Syndra has orbs and her stun which shoves people away; Cassiopeia can sort of fend people with her poison slow but honestly, the slow isn't to substantial especially given it's the last skill you max, plus poisons are already deceptive in how much damage they deal, making it not too deterring to walk through it. That's generally the idea behind giving her ult a fear; it allows her to zone, like Syndra's stun; yes it's more powerful, but I think that's the balance between Syndra's stun being a basic ability where Cassiopeia's is her ult.

I generally like your idea about restoring her former lane power, and then transitioning her playstyle more around her E as the game progresses, but I don't know if gating her E more is the correct way to go about it. I think her old late game problems were more to do with the fact that she didn't have the space to deal her damage, since she's a DoT/DPS mage; Stashu's solution was to give her tons and tons of AP so she could deal more damage in a shorter amount of time, where another solution that might feel more satisfying is gating utility behind her breakpoints instead of just raw damage. Instead of getting damage with her upgrades, she can have her old ratios back (maybe slightly nerfed if her lane bullying was too big an issue), but she gets some utility in her upgrades such as (in no particular order):

  • Spellvamp on E (which a lot of people like i think)
  • Poison damage amplification on E (to transition her late game more to the E playstyle)
  • Fear on her ult (to give her more space in teamfights to deal her damage)
  • A damage reduction debuff on enemies hit by Miasma (it's her zoning tool, and also gives her more space to deal damage by keeping her alive longer. It also makes sense thematically; poisons make your enemies weaker)
  • You can even throw in a mini version of her old passive, since she's so incredibly mana hungry

I think utility is ultimately the way to go since it contributes to her gameplay, not just giving her stats for more damage in the form of CDR or actual raw damage.

Hyrum Graff3 votes

{quoted}

Maybe i'm just reading your rework wrong, but it seems to me like you're just gating her E behind even more conditions; this gets really confusing imo. In general I feel like gating utility behind her breakpoints is more useful than just giving her AP, but since Cassiopeia has always had her E on a reset, it just seems like it's taking more stuff away from her without as much in return.

I think what's really preventing her from being that late game carry is the fact that she has less utility to get the damage she needs; Azir has his soldiers forming a wall between him and the enemy (literally in the case of his ult), Orianna has her Ball, Syndra has orbs and her stun which shoves people away; Cassiopeia can sort of fend people with her poison slow but honestly, the slow isn't to substantial especially given it's the last skill you max, plus poisons are already deceptive in how much damage they deal, making it not too deterring to walk through it. That's generally the idea behind giving her ult a fear; it allows her to zone, like Syndra's ult; yes it's more powerful, but I think that's the balance between Syndra's stun being a basic ability where Cassiopeia's is her ult.

I don't claim this would solve everything. I think that after these changes, Cass would need additional utility, especially in Miasma and her ult. This rework is less about getting Cass to a balanced state, and more about fixing her feel so her gameplay expresses what it should, thematically (which is both embracing her transformation and being a snake lady/poison mage).

Regarding gating her E behind more conditions... look, the way this passive is designed to work, something has to be gated by stacks. So then we ask ourselves, what is the most intuitive, satisfying, and thematic thing to gate? You've got a couple options:

  • You could gain utility on one ability for each breakpoint.
    • This ends up feeling a lot like Kha or Viktor
  • You could upgrade every ability's utility a little bit at each breakpoint
    • This doesn't give you that cool feeling of ascension.
  • You could just straight-up give her more power (live)
    • This ends up feeling like the passive is only designed to gate her
  • You could do what I propose
    • It's easy to understand from a gameplay perspective: bite people so you can bite them more
    • It's a noticeable power spike for Cass and Cass' opponents with NO hidden power.
    • It makes sense thematically - as Cass gets used to biting people, she unlocks her full (AP marksman) potential.

{quoted}

I think utility is ultimately the way to go since it contributes to her gameplay, not just giving her stats for more damage in the form of CDR or actual raw damage.

I very much agree with you on this, although it doesn't have to be exactly utility. It has to be something that changes her gameplay style. What are Cass' gameplay styles? Hang back and poke with q and w, and deal crazy dps with E spam.

I do think you could accomplish something similar by giving her utility at her breakpoints. You'd get the slightly different feel of, "Cass had this power [to do damage] all along, but didn't know how to make use of it." Another way of stating this would be "At first, Cass doesn't have much control of her newfound powers, but she learns to master them." IMO, this could be cool, but just isn't quite as in line with what Stashu has said about Cass coming to terms with her transformation and embracing it.

{quoted}

Stuff we've already covered -snip- and then suggestions:

  • Spellvamp on E (which a lot of people like i think)
  • Poison damage amplification on E (to transition her late game more to the E playstyle)
  • Fear on her ult (to give her more space in teamfights to deal her damage)
  • A damage reduction debuff on enemies hit by Miasma (it's her zoning tool, and also gives her more space to deal damage by keeping her alive longer. It also makes sense thematically; poisons make your enemies weaker)
  • You can even throw in a mini version of her old passive, since she's so incredibly mana hungry

  • I agree, healing is a good one

  • I don't think a poison amp is the way to go. Damage amps are really powerful while also being really hard to see and understand. Examples of damage amps done right: Zed and poppy. You know, when they ult you, you need to get the hell away from them. In contrast, Swain just kind of does a lot of damage and you don't know why. Getting chunked by twin fang doesn't make me think, "Oh, I should be careful of her poisons since they do more damage now." It just makes me confused when all the sudden I'm taking more damage than I expect. That's poor design.

    • Furthermore, it makes Cass' damage less reliable. If she's able to attack the same target over and over, she gets a lot of poison amp on them. If she's forced to switch targets, not only does she have to wait until she can hit a q to do that, but her first q also doesn't do as much damage. This means that either Cass is OP when she can focus down one target but balanced when forced to switch, or she's balanced when focusing one target and weak when forced to switch.

  • My issue with a fear on her ult isn't the power level. It's that, since a fear is stronger than a stun, if you keep the "facing Cass is a stun" mechanic, it gives opponents an incentive to face cass, not face away from her. If you change it to a fear regardless of what direction they're facing, you lose some cool interaction, and the 'gorgon' part of her identity. You might be able to solve this by doing something like, "If opponents are facing away from Cass, they get feared for 1s; if they're facing towards her they get stunned for 1s and then feared for 1s."

    • Either way, I'd rather see this just added on to her ult than put on a break point.

  • A damage debuff has the same clarity issue as a poison amp, unless the art team makes some really damn good visual indicators. When someone exhausts you, you know you deal less damage. When you accidentally graze the edge of Miasma, it's frustrating because "Why don't I deal any damage?!"

    • What would you think of the following change: when opponents walk through miasma, the miasma sticks to them for 1s after they leave it, expanding the cloud and extending its duration by 1s. Now during a teamfight, Cass can potentially lay down a really big AOE slow.

  • I think with my reworked passive, we can just make Cass' E cost very little mana. Since she can't spam it early any more, we don't need that part of her kit to be highly mana gated.

MrBuffington1 votes

My main issue with gating her E cooldown as her passive is exactly that; it feels like a gate. Cassiopeia has always had the resets on E, you're taking that away, and then giving back the laning pressure with QW that she used to have (which feels more like reverting a nerf than giving a buff). I'm sort of trying to approach this from a larger design standpoint; sorry if I sound like a broken record:

What are Cass' gameplay styles? Hang back and poke with q and w, and deal crazy dps with E spam.

Basically yours and Stashu's changes have focused on increasing her DPS; yours through E resets, Stashu's through raw stats. Cassiopeia's state pre-rework was that she was an insane lane bully that had trouble transitioning to late game. It wasn't that she wasn't doing enough damage necessarily; if you look at her pre-rework stats, her E damage was actually slightly reduced at most ranks with the rework. The reason Stashu's rework works to improve her late game is by essentially freeing up her build path by giving her CDR and AP, which only improves the timeframe in which she needs to be present to deal damage (namely she becomes less DoT and more bursty). She basically had all the damage she needed before to be that late game carry; the reason she wasn't was because she's still more DoT than many other mages (ie. Brand, Lux, Veigar, Syndra, Orianna) and didn't have the tools to stick around and deal that damage (to a degree; if you were super good about kiting with your Q MS boost and W slow you might have been able to zone people). You had to play like an ADC, but even more cautiously since you didn't have as much tank shred or reliability with your E because it was mana gated and only gave resets if the enemy was poisoned, where ADCs have insane attack speed and can auto whoever they want whenever they want so long as they're alive and in range, not to mention they generally deal more damage because of crits.

My question is mostly something along the lines of: Why are Syndra/Orianna powerful lane bullies AND powerful late game champs, where old Cassiopeia was just a lane bully (for the most part), and new Cassiopeia is just a late game champ (for the most part, barring the recent probably overtuning)?

Syndra has the benefit of not having cast animations interrupt her movement; it's unseen mobility in a way. She has potent harass in lane, an incredibly potent stun on a short cooldown which provides her good safety and utility for later in the game, and her ult is very good burst that lets her delete people throughout the game for the most part.

Orianna similarly has good harass through low cooldown Q and auto harass, she has good safety in her shield and CC/MS of her W, and her ult is incredibly powerful for both it's damage and utility, so much so that she can just use her Q to threaten her ult and make areas of the map effectively unpassable (read: very good zoning tools)

Old Cassiopeia had good harass, like, really good (0.8 AP ratio on her Q with good base damages) and could combo that harass with her E for even more harass/kill potential. As far as late game, as I mentioned before, she did have some good utility that might allow her to kite, sure, but most of her damage is either tied up in her poking with her spells or her E; she doesn't have the burst combos that Syndra or Orianna have, plus her E damage is heavily tied to her ability to poison and damage the correct targets.

New Cassiopeia basically solves that problem by dealing crap tons of damage. Instead of having huge periodic burst damage like Syndra or Orianna, Cassiopeia has high consistent DPS (or at least the potential for it). She still suffers from the same issues that Old Cassiopeia had, but they're less noticeable since she just kills people faster, the difficulty in longer more scattered teamfights is less pronounced since she just melts whoever she wants in a similar fashion to burst mages, where the DPS style should excel prolonged fights because they weather through the cooldowns and are still dealing damage, not just melting people faster than the other person.

On to the suggestions:

Poison amps and debuffs

I agree with you about the amps; mostly just listed this since it's included in her live kit and could be a bit of utility that's loaded into her passive. I think just removing this element altogether and giving her back some of her lane presence in her Q alone; put it on par with Syndra Q or a bit less since she can combo with E, like 55% AP to Syndra's 60% or Orianna's 50% (Orianna can combo with W for even more burst damage plus utility, plus she can do this at longer range). Perhaps even invert her E mana costs; high at low levels to encourage more last hitting for the mana regen/less harassment (like how Orianna can only QW so many time before going oom), but low at later levels so she has her late game DPS more accessible without having to build crazy amounts of mana.

Also agree about the debuffs, was mostly brainstorming ideas to help her out. Poison already needs a better visual indicator, I don't know about adding stuff like "super poison" or "crippling poison" would be beneficial.

Ult fear

The actual balance elements (ie CC duration, damage, cooldown) are highly debatable, but the goal here is to give her consistent/reliable hard CC with her ult, which is something that has been a major complaint for a long time, even before the rework. It's relatively short range so the use case is typically either as a disengage or a flash-engage. As a disengage it's slightly more reliable since the people chasing you will often be facing you, but they can always predict it and turn at the last second. As an engage is risky, which is why flash is probably your best bet for catching the enemy unawares, which is pretty expensive on an immobile mage to be using flash aggressively, especially since Cassiopeia doesn't have the tankiness or burst mages like Annie do. I actually feel like fears are less powerful than stuns, since they drive you away from the enemy/danger, supposedly; this is why Fiddlesticks can have a 2.25 second fear as a basic ability, Hecarim has a giant gap-closer AoE fear, Shaco has spammable fears on his boxes, etc. The duration of the CC might need to be cut just because the the power, but again, balance elements are always up to debate. Thematically I think it just feels better too; the stun facing you gives you the awesome gorgon feel, facing away is like you're running in terror.

I think it could just be a straight change to her ult, but if we're going with the thing where she embraces her power/becomes more powerful as the game goes on, it would make sense to me if her magic (the petrify and slow -> fear) become more potent as the game goes on; she could stun for longer and the slow turns into a fear, or something to that effect. I still like the change as a breakpoint since it actually feels like she's getting stronger, and can encourage different gameplay, instead of just removing something from her kit and giving it back to her as a passive.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

{quoted} sorry if I sound like a broken record:

Don't worry about it. We all know I do, too.

{quoted} My main issue with gating her E cooldown as her passive is exactly that; it feels like a gate. Cassiopeia has always had the resets on E, you're taking that away, and then giving back the laning pressure with QW that she used to have (which feels more like reverting a nerf than giving a buff).

So, here's the deal. Cass needs a laning weakness if she's going to be a late game hyper carry. There are 3 areas where that weakness could be: Harass, Trading, and All-ins

  • Harass: hit them without taking damage yourself
    • Q is cass's primary harass spell
    • This is where old cass was very strong
    • This is primarily the style of a poison mage
    • Usually harass champs have trouble if their opponent is able to turn the harass into a trade.
      • This is a trade-off for being the safest laning strat
      • They do usually have the ability to do ok at trades, but have poor all-ins
  • Trading: You hit them, they hit you. You try to deal more damage than you take.
    • E is cass's trading spell.
    • Live cass is pretty good at this.
    • Usually champs who like to trade have damage mitigation with either shields or heals.
    • Despite having no damage mitigation, old cass could often win trades just by having so much early damage. She could also turn trades into all-ins.
  • All-ins: Fight to the death!
    • Harass complements all-in strength very well, because you can get them low enough so that even if you'd win an all-in at full hp, you're at 3/4 where they are at 1/4
    • Old Cass was good at this, because of resets, and because they'd often be low from harass.
    • New cass doesn't really have the early damage or harass for it.

As long as Cass has "harass" as her weakness, she's not going to feel like a poison mage, because wearing someone down with poison is core to that identity. So we need to give her a different weakness. I've chosen to weaken her trading a little (she can win trades, but it's reliant upon her dodging damage -- it's riskier), and, as you put it, 'take away' her ability to do early all-ins. Stashu chose to take away her ability to harass. Regardless of what you choose, you need to choose something, because a champion with no laning weaknesses (looking at you, Yorick) simply can't be a hyper carry.

You're right. As my proposal stands, I'm reverting the nerfs, and then gating something else instead. As I've said (#brokenrecord), I also want to give her other utility buffs as well, which will maybe feel less like I'm "just putting on a different gating mechanism." Even if I am only putting on a different gating mechanism, I think this one will feel better, because you feel like you've unlocked some aspect of Cass' character, rather than simply gotten more AP.

Basically yours and Stashu's changes have focused on increasing her DPS; yours through E resets, Stashu's through raw stats. -snip because I need characters-

Generally agreed. Except, stashu is giving her late game straight stats buffs so she does more damage / is more bursty, where my rework will basically revert her late-game damage levels to pre-rework (although they can be tunes, of course). From there, I'm planning on compensating for her early-game nerfs with utility buffs.

Basically, going from pre-rework Cass, I: Nerf early game with passive, then buff her overall with added utility. I just haven't added in the second part, yet.

My question is mostly something along the lines of: Why are Syndra/Orianna powerful lane bullies AND powerful late game champs, where old Cassiopeia was just a lane bully (for the most part), and new Cassiopeia is just a late game champ (for the most part, barring the recent probably overtuning)?

Syndra has the benefit of not having cast animations interrupt her movement; it's unseen mobility in a way. She has potent harass in lane, an incredibly potent stun on a short cooldown which provides her good safety and utility for later in the game, and her ult is very good burst that lets her delete people throughout the game for the most part.

Orianna similarly has good harass through low cooldown Q and auto harass, she has good safety in her shield and CC/MS of her W, and her ult is incredibly powerful for both it's damage and utility, so much so that she can just use her Q to threaten her ult and make areas of the map effectively unpassable (read: very good zoning tools)

This is why I added the innate passive. Also, so Cass benefits from CDR as much as other mages, even though she didn't need it, because of resets.

Ori has high early mana costs. Both champs have only skillshots, aside from syndra's ult.

Perhaps even invert her E mana costs; high at low levels to encourage more last hitting for the mana regen/less harassment (like how Orianna can only QW so many time before going oom), but low at later levels so she has her late game DPS more accessible without having to build crazy amounts of mana.

I like the idea of lower mana costs at later ranks, like Lucian's dash.

The actual balance elements (ie CC duration, damage, cooldown) are highly debatable, but the goal here is to give her consistent/reliable hard CC with her ult, which is something that has been a major complaint for a long time, even before the rework.

The new CDR passive is a massive buff to her ult's reliability.

I actually feel like fears are less powerful than stuns, since they drive you away from the enemy/danger, supposedly; this is why Fiddlesticks can have a 2.25 second fear as a basic ability, Hecarim has a giant gap-closer AoE fear, Shaco has spammable fears on his boxes, etc.

Fears are less powerful for engages, but more powerful disengages. If Cass is an AP marksman, she wants disengage more than engage, hence more power.

Thematically I think it just feels better too; the stun facing you gives you the awesome gorgon feel, facing away is like you're running in terror.

Agreed. I'm just concerned about it being weird from a gameplay perspective.

I think it could just be a straight change to her ult, but if we're going with the thing where she embraces her power/becomes more powerful as the game goes on, it would make sense to me if her magic (the petrify and slow -> fear) become more potent as the game goes on; she could stun for longer and the slow turns into a fear, or something to that effect. I still like the change as a breakpoint since it actually feels like she's getting stronger, and can encourage different gameplay, instead of just removing something from her kit and giving it back to her as a passive.

I'd be inclined to include these as she levels her ult, not on a passive.

MrBuffington1 votes

So, here's the deal. Cass needs a laning weakness if she's going to be a late game hyper carry. There are 3 areas where that weakness could be: Harass, Trading, and All-ins

I think you have good insight here, and I think my preferred solution might actually lie in the inverted mana costs on her E; Orianna can harass well with autos and Q pre-6, can all-in at 6 if she got poke down, but using her W early costs a ton of mana. Syndra has good harass with her Q but similarly doesn't get all in potential until lvl 6, also her early trading can be a bit awkward if she isn't landing her stun, and is usually limited by her cooldowns/orb usage.

Even if I am only putting on a different gating mechanism, I think this one will feel better, because you feel like you've unlocked some aspect of Cass' character, rather than simply gotten more AP.

I do think it'll feel better than the current passive, since the current one just gives sort of invisible power, where yours does add some gameplay element. I feel like if I were playing Cassiopeia, the second upgrade you suggested just feels like a tease; why can't I have my reset now?

I agree with your direction though, she could also have very limited trading and all-in potential early, but instead of removing her ability to chain her Es by removing the reset, remove incentives for heavy trading just from mana limitations, by having high early mana costs (and lower max level mana costs). If her Es are costing like, 75 mana a pop early game instead of at max level, she physically cannot trade more than like 3-4 Es early game without going oom; trading 1-2 Es gives her decent harass and limited trading potential (similar to Orianna's QW in terms of mana cost) while putting it on a pseudo-cooldown where she needs to regen her mana by last-hitting with her E for the mana regen (provided she saved enough mana for this).

I think this also gives her interesting decisions/flexibility as far as her leveling order; is she in a position where she can harass heavily with her Q (and therefore deny and snowball early leads), and so prefers to max Q, or does she need to reach trading potential earlier and therefore max E first for extra damage and lower mana costs?

Fears are less powerful for engages, but more powerful disengages. If Cass is an AP marksman, she wants disengage more than engage, hence more power. Agreed. I'm just concerned about it being weird from a gameplay perspective.

I kind of think it's better this way; If she's engaging, she wants to catch people facing her, since fearing them will work better to disengage them; thus she'll have to flash in when they're not expecting it to catch them for an engage, making the stun more preferable. Similarly, the fear works best for disengage, but it's harder to use it for disengage since the other people are more likely to be facing you if they're engaging on you, thus making it more likely to stun than fear. The problem with the slow is that it innately made one part of her ult less useful than the other; here both sides have their use cases, even if it is somewhat finicky, it still gives her ult consistency that she needs/wants as hard CC.

I think going with the Champion Team's approach is generally best; make the kit really cool and worry about balance later :P

I'd be inclined to include these as she levels her ult, not on a passive.

I worry this might feel too much like Syndra; the stacking mechanic sort of failed in that a lot of people felt like it gated power she already should have, and thus it was a chore to unlock it again. This fear is a new ability she gets, and hopefully will be exciting to try to unlock, actually make Cassiopeia feel really powerful, and with how her passive stacks currently, encourages players to take proactive steps at unlocking it and rewards them of doing it well independently of sitting in lane long enough to get the necessary levels.

As it stands, my current draft for Cassiopeia changes based on our discussion is something like this:

  • Passive: Same stacking mechanic
  • 1st break: health regen on E (maybe mana regen too if her E harass early is still a problem
  • 2nd/3rd break: fear instead of slow on ult (not sure when this would be good/what the other break point should provide)
  • Q: AP ratio to ~60% (on par with Syndra; gives her good harass without being too overbearing)
  • E: Now costs 75/65/55/45/35 mana instead of 35/45/55/65/75 mana (makes heavy early trading much more difficult, but allows for more of her mid-late game machine gun play since she can actually use her E in extended fights without going oom).
Hyrum Graff1 votes

{quoted}

I think you have good insight here, and I think my preferred solution might actually lie in the inverted mana costs on her E; Syndra and Ori analyis -snip-

I like this solution as well. However, I will say that with the late-game that Riot intends to give Cass (better than Ori or Syndra -- on patches 4.17 to 4.20, cass had something like the 3rd highest winrate in games that went past 40 minutes), she should have more early game weaknesses than ori or syndra.

I do think it'll feel better than the current passive, since the current one just gives sort of invisible power, where yours does add some gameplay element. I feel like if I were playing Cassiopeia, the second upgrade you suggested just feels like a tease; why can't I have my reset now?

I originally didn't have the half-reset, for this reason. I chose to add it in because I was concerned that Cass would feel really useless in mid-game teamfights without a partial reset on her E. To put this in perspective, I'm thinking of breakpoints like this, in a typical game:

  • 1: Hit at 5 minutes in
  • 2: Hit at 17 minutes in
  • 3: Hit at 20 or 21 minutes in

If you're having the best game ever you could probably hit breakpoint 3 by the 17 minute mark. If you're having a terrible game, you might not hit it until the 27 minute mark. So, there's a pretty short delay between when you hit breakpoints 2 and 3.

I also want to change the passive stack gain to be exponential. Something like: Every 6 seconds, Cass gains 1 + (Current stacks / 25) stacks. You'll be getting 10 stacks/minute at the start of the game. By the time you have 200 stacks, you'll be getting 30 stacks per minute. Note: I didn't calculate this out to see how it actually performs, I'm just giving you the idea.

This would mean that it's important for Cass to manually stack up while she's in lane, but if she's behind and getting blown up in teamfights, she won't have to wait terribly long for her passive to stack up on its own.

The general thing I'm going for is, Cass shouldn't be a lane bully, but she shouldn't be waiting until 40 minutes for her full potential to unlock, either. Additionally, I want her power level to scale more with levels and items, and her play style to change as her passive stacks up. Because, as we've mentioned, when Cass' passive exists only to limit her power level (as opposed to changing her gameplay), it just feels like it's there to limit her. My goal here is to have Cass feel like she switches playstyles as she embraces her transformation, not to feel like she's been crippled until she reaches some arbitrary threshold.

I agree with your direction though, she could also have very limited trading and all-in potential early, but instead of removing her ability to chain her Es by removing the reset, remove incentives for heavy trading just from mana limitations, by having high early mana costs (and lower max level mana costs). If her Es are costing like, 75 mana a pop early game instead of at max level, she physically cannot trade more than like 3-4 Es early game without going oom; trading 1-2 Es gives her decent harass and limited trading potential (similar to Orianna's QW in terms of mana cost) while putting it on a pseudo-cooldown where she needs to regen her mana by last-hitting with her E for the mana regen (provided she saved enough mana for this).

I think this also gives her interesting decisions/flexibility as far as her leveling order; is she in a position where she can harass heavily with her Q (and therefore deny and snowball early leads), and so prefers to max Q, or does she need to reach trading potential earlier and therefore max E first for extra damage and lower mana costs?

My only concern here is that some early mana items could negate this weakness. If Cass comes back to lane with a tear and all the sudden is able to cast enough E's to all-in, then she's removed her early game weakness, and is back to being a lane bully who is ALSO a hypercarry.

I kind of think it's better this way; If she's engaging, she wants to catch people facing her, since fearing them will work better to disengage them; thus she'll have to flash in when they're not expecting it to catch them for an engage, making the stun more preferable. Similarly, the fear works best for disengage, but it's harder to use it for disengage since the other people are more likely to be facing you if they're engaging on you, thus making it more likely to stun than fear. The problem with the slow is that it innately made one part of her ult less useful than the other; here both sides have their use cases, even if it is somewhat finicky, it still gives her ult consistency that she needs/wants as hard CC.

Let's imagine for a minute that Cass' ult stunned her enemies no matter which way they were facing. A guaranteed AOE stun would be really powerful, taking up a large portion of Cass' power budget. Let's look at the use cases, and what the opponent's reactions are:

  1. As a disengage. Enemies jump on Cass. Cass ults.
  • Opponents keep running at Cass after the ult ends.
  1. As an engage. Cass flash-ults the enemy team.
  • Opponents run away from Cass after the ult ends.

Now, let's add in your change -- enemies facing away are now feared instead of stunned -- and look at the two use cases:

  1. As a disengage. Which direction do her opponents turn?
  • They continue to face her. You're engaging, you'd rather be closer than farther once the cc wears off.
  1. As an engage. Which way do they turn?
  • They face away. They're getting engaged on; they want to run.

So, they do the exact same thing. There's no longer any gameplay on the opponent's side, it's just doing what you would do anyway. Whereas now, if you're engaging and Cass ults, you want to quickly turn away from her. Players who are smart enough and have quick enough reactions, are able to counter her ult, to some extent (although an un-dodgable aoe slow is still very strong). It's some built in counterplay.

I think what you've identified that Cass' ult is missing is reliability. The worse case is a LOT worse than the best case, and it's entirely up to her opponents to decide which she gets. The innate passive that I added decreases the cast time on all Cass' spells as she gets cdr. This greatly increases the reliability of her ult (opponents need quicker reflexes to dodge it, or need to anticipate it). I think that's a LOT of added power that you're not considering, when you say that Cass needs utility buffs so she can get her damage off. A reliable ult, coupled with smaller cast animations -> better kiting, does just that.

I think going with the Champion Team's approach is generally best; make the kit really cool and worry about balance later :P

Agreed.

I worry this might feel too much like Syndra; the stacking mechanic sort of failed in that a lot of people felt like it gated power she already should have, and thus it was a chore to unlock it again. This fear is a new ability she gets, and hopefully will be exciting to try to unlock, actually make Cassiopeia feel really powerful, and with how her passive stacks currently, encourages players to take proactive steps at unlocking it and rewards them of doing it well independently of sitting in lane long enough to get the necessary levels.

As I said above, I don't think this change is needed.

As it stands, my current draft for Cassiopeia changes based on our discussion is something like this:

  • Passive: Same stacking mechanic
  • 1st break: health regen on E (maybe mana regen too if her E harass early is still a problem
  • 2nd/3rd break: fear instead of slow on ult (not sure when this would be good/what the other break point should provide)
  • Q: AP ratio to ~60% (on par with Syndra; gives her good harass without being too overbearing)
  • E: Now costs 75/65/55/45/35 mana instead of 35/45/55/65/75 mana (makes heavy early trading much more difficult, but allows for more of her mid-late game machine gun play since she can actually use her E in extended fights without going oom).

Mine is... largely unchanged :P

I like your suggestions, you just haven't convinced me that they're better than what I had planned.

I want to emphasize again how much of a buff I think the innate passive I'm giving Cass will be (because, in discussing the nitty-gritty with you, I kind of forgot about it). It'll be kind of like the way they re-coded Cass' E when the rework went live, so it checks for poison upon cast instead of upon hit: a huge stealth buff to Cass' reliability. Honestly while I think she could use some added utility elsewhere in her kit, this passive may be a large enough buff that she will no longer need it.

MrBuffington2 votes

she should have more early game weaknesses than ori or syndra.

I guess I don't really see Cassiopeia having the late game she does now; I don't think Cass mains are going to be happy with a weak laning phase since it's pretty drastically contrary to how she played before, so I saw something more in mitigating her late game (partially just by not giving her the free deathcap and cdr)

Stacking mechanic -snip-

I think you have some interesting ideas here, and we seem to have the same goal of having her switch playstyle from lane harassment to late game AP marksman; just different ways of implementing it.

My only concern here is that some early mana items could negate this weakness. If Cass comes back to lane with a tear and all the sudden is able to cast enough E's to all-in, then she's removed her early game weakness, and is back to being a lane bully who is ALSO a hypercarry.

I'm not too worried about this; early game her Es are basically auto attacks; there isn't much mana regen that can deal with a spell costing that much that early (tear has very little mana regen, chalice is still nerfed, idol isn't too great on its own either), plus buying early mana regen means she doesn't have AP, so her spells still aren't hitting terribly hard. Unless she starts dedicating significant portions of her runes to mana regen, I don't see it being an issue; still numbers balance can be adjusted, just getting down the concept.

So, they do the exact same thing

I'm not sure the point you're trying to make here. The result would be the same even if the ult was just an AoE slow with no stun involved; if being engaged on the enemy would run, if engaging they would keep chasing.

I think what you've identified that Cass' ult is missing is reliability.

Isn't that what I've been saying (consistency = reliability)? I think you're trying to say that there's built in counterplay to live Cassiopeia's ult, which is kind of the point of why it's unreliable. Cassiopeia puts herself in a lot of danger to ult; sure an AoE slow is powerful, but that's on champions that either have the mobility or range or tankiness to use it safely (Kassadin, Ziggs, Nunu, etc.). The fear is there to limit the counterplay; it could be a 2 second fear, it could be a .2 second fear, that's up to the balance team. What I'm trying to do is give her that disruptive power so she doesn't just get completely destroyed by a person DI-ing backwards; I can't think of any other champion that has such universally simple counterplay affect their ult so drastically.

I want to emphasize again how much of a buff I think the innate passive I'm giving Cass will be

I guess my lack of understanding is that I don't see this as a buff at all; What I basically see is that you're taking old Cassiopeia and moving her E reset to her passive; it looks like a nerf, honestly. I don't see how she manages to be a late game champion with this kit when she couldn't before the rework; like I've been saying, Stashu's rework accomplishes the late game fantasy by giving her so much power that she basically deals DPS and burst. My rework is aimed at giving her utility required to get her damage down. Yours seems like it takes away utility that old Cassiopeia couldn't use to be a AP marksman before and giving it back to her 20 minutes into the game.

Sure, we can talk about your innate passive; she gets shorter cast animations if she builds CDR. Problem is, Cassiopeia's never really been a champion that scales with CDR, at least not as much as say, Syndra or Orianna or Azir. She already has a short cooldown on her Q, resets on E; she needs sustain and AP, that's why RoA/Rylai's is core on her where Athene's is much more optional (and probably more valuable for the mana regen than CDR; 20% CDR shaves less than a second off your Q, which has a 4 second cooldown innately and the poison lasts 3 seconds already; it doesn't affect your E since it's a static reset).

MrBuffington1 votes

EDIT: Did some research on Cassio's builds; recently she doesn't build any CDR, but that's likely because her current passive gives her plenty. Looking back at pre-rework Cassiopeia, builds were still very split, where some players built Athene's where other's didn't; again this isn't entirely clear whether Athene's was core at all or if the mana regen was too valuable to pass up in some cases (other players didn't build any CDR and just went for RoA or Rylai's or just straight AP).

So yes she does scale with AP, but I still argue it isn't as core on her as say, Azir, just because the way her damage works; DoT and DPS based on a static reset cooldown

Kowe The Ewok1 votes

I like the 0 stacks idea but shifting the E reset to such a late point does not feel right. I am not calling it a bad idea, but that will most definitely disappointed the other half of the Cassiopeia players.

That's the point with the original Cass - all skill paths were viable, that's what made her so versatile and fun.

Hyrum Graff1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kowe The Ewok,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AgMkap4n,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2014-12-16T08:19:52.833+0000)

I like the 0 stacks idea but shifting the E reset to such a late point does not feel right. I am not calling it a bad idea, but that will most definitely disappointed the other half of the Cassiopeia players.

That's the point with the original Cass - all skill paths were viable, that's what made her so versatile and fun.

I think I definitely forgot to express in the OP that these breakpoints will be hit relatively earlier. If you're actively harassing with E in lane, you should be hitting the final breakpoint a little before 20 minutes. If you decided to stick back and Q in lane without using E at all, you should be hitting that breakpoint no later than 30 minutes. Maybe if you literally don't touch the E button on your keyboard, you could delay breakpoint 3 at around 40 minutes.

If you don't think this would be satisfying to those players, other options I've thought of include

  • switching the 1st and 2nd breakpoints
  • moving the half-reset to a passive on her E (now cass only has 2 breakpoints, one which gives healing and one which upgrades to a full reset).
Ale non è male1 votes

I think that the true problem is that what the few Cass mains wanted (lane bully that can spam like hell in a quite frankly toxic way - and in a way that make easy to do scripts - QEEEEQEEEE) and what Stashu wants is at the exact opposite (late game ap marksman which is weak early and which power rely on Twing fang)

You probably can't satisfy both without people keep complaining, and that's not your fault, if anything your job is something that should be appreciated

If I can suggest something, take out the first innate passive and swap the breakpoints. The first breakpoint would be the Twing Fang Cd reduced by half if enemy posioned, the second would be the Twing Fang CD reduction to 0,5 sec if target is posined, the third would be heal/spellvamp on Twing Fang

And, imho, if you want to give her the poison mage feeling, Cassio should regain mana not by killing targets on Twin Fang, but by poisoning enemies. For every sec a champ is poisoned, Cassio regain x mana. So if Cassio sucks at poisoning enemies champs she is bullied out of the lane, if she is capable to hit enemies she can stay in lane and farm and trade in a decent way(even though her AP ratio prevent her from bullying people out of lane) , while late game with achieving brakpoints she would shift her gameplay more toward using her E because she can trade at shorter range using E and regaining health while doing it

Hyrum Graff1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ale non è male,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=AgMkap4n,comment-id=0005,timestamp=2014-12-16T18:03:35.176+0000) I think that the true problem is that what the few Cass mains wanted (lane bully that can spam like hell in a quite frankly toxic way - and in a way that make easy to do scripts - QEEEEQEEEE) and what Stashu wants is at the exact opposite (late game ap marksman which is weak early and which power rely on Twing fang)

I also want a late-game AP marksman who has weaknesses early. However, I want her early power to rely on Q harass, while her late game relies on her E. Check out this comment for an analysis of why Cass was a toxic early-game bully, and why she won't be with my suggestions.

You probably can't satisfy both without people keep complaining,

I don't believe that. It will be difficult, but I believe it can be done.

If I can suggest something, take out the first innate passive and swap the breakpoints. The first breakpoint would be the Twing Fang Cd reduced by half if enemy posioned, the second would be the Twing Fang CD reduction to 0,5 sec if target is posined, the third would be heal/spellvamp on Twing Fang

I've considered doing this. I'd like to hear more about the reasoning behind your suggestion, though.

And, imho, if you want to give her the poison mage feeling, Cassio should regain mana not by killing targets on Twin Fang, but by poisoning enemies. For every sec a champ is poisoned, Cassio regain x mana. So if Cassio sucks at poisoning enemies champs she is bullied out of the lane, if she is capable to hit enemies she can stay in lane and farm and trade in a decent way(even though her AP ratio prevent her from bullying people out of lane) , while late game with achieving brakpoints she would shift her gameplay more toward using her E because she can trade at shorter range using E and regaining health while doing it

Interesting change proposal. I'm going to need to sleep on this one.

Ale non è male1 votes

Yeah, I see that you agree more with Stashu rework than with the complaints of old Cass mains, and at the same time that you want to satisfy both

I think that CDR acting on cast time is a mess because it subtracts clarity to cass players and especially to the enemies. It is yet really difficult to react perfectly to play around cast times of enemy spells, and it would become even more difficult to do there . Cass damage has to be reliable for her players to do and for their enemies to react to to feel satisfyng play as her or outplay her. For the breakpoints swap, I think that going wwith the order I suggested, would give you the feel that your E increases in power going ahead in the game and you should change your style accordingly to use it more more and even more into the late game, and it doesn't subtract too power to what cass players were used to with old/actual Twing Fang cooldown reset in early/mid game(since the first breakpoint would be kinda fast to reach, they would have basically have the first step of twing fang reset very soon when they are still in laning phase). So, added to the mana return suggestion, it would still gibe to cas early game weaknesses, but would give the feel of the poison mage which power groe up in a satisfyng way as much fast as the Cass player is doing good Chaining Q(or W) into E into another E or a Q to a champion would feel satisfyng and rewarding because:

  • htting properly Q(W), which are kinda difficult to hit, on enemy champions you are getting mana back to keep spamming spell and being able to stay in lane
  • you can use your E to not necessarily farm(and get the mana back like with the actual system, when you are forced to choose if farm or trade with E) but also to trade with the enemy, getting stacks and E CDR when you choose to trade with the enemy in a way that if you can trade properly you can get faster to the point when you unleash your full power with the E brakpoints achieved

At the same time, you have a clear weakness in lane, because you can't afford to keep Q/W the enemy champs and not use them to clear waves and farm, giving to the enemy the possibility to push hard your lane, and you got to do meaningful choices on when you can use the Q/W to trade(regian mana, chain with E to build the passive) or when you better save it to clear the wave and not let the enemy take the tower down or allow him to leave lane to roam while you are busy in clear wave. Also, it would also require skills, because Q/W are very dodgeable so you got to be careful to aim Q/W upon enemy champs because they can dodge it and leave you with mana problems and the enemy wave pushing, so you can separate the good Cass players from the bad Cass players

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