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Here's a little something to consider before you change Cass, Riot.

Canastus··77 votes·8,394 views

http://i.imgur.com/j0KVNoI.png

How come a permabanned champion like Gragas remains entirely untouched by the nerfbat whereas an immobile, squishy champion like dear Cassie gets a rusty shovel over her head the second she sees competitive play? She's one of the easiest champions to shut down in the current meta due to the aforementioned counterplay she offers, you cannot deny that. She can be dealt with, it's by no means a herculean task if you have access to cc or burst.

Now about those changes you had in mind:

Aspect of the Serpent (Passive) 100 stack bonus' Twin Fang heal AP ratio reduced to .06 from .1

Twin Fang (E) mana restore on kill reduced to 1.5% from 3% of maximum mana.

You may not comprehend how devastating those planned changes are going to be once they go live. Since the rework, Cassiopeia heavily relied on her inherent sustain to get through the lanephase. The previous nerfs to her manacosts should have made that extremely clear, now can you imagine what happens if you halve her mana-income along with her health-gain?

She's not going to survive the lanephase if she's constantly low on resources - doesn't all of this sound familiar to you? That's exactly what was responsible for the lowest winrate to ever grace this game along with Azir's release. I'm talking about 4.16 Cassiopeia with her 27% winrate. She literally was unable to defend herself without risking to go oom thus enabling her opponents to destroy her without any fear of retaliation. This very same scenario is bound to very likely happen again if those nerfs go through, do you see my point?

Please, at least try to explain to us why you're doing this because so far we haven't heard a single thing from any of the reds or Stashu who's supposed to watch over her well-being. We merely want to have a transparent discussion with the people in charge of her future, after all the snakelady is very special to us.

159 Comments

Rico Nasty48 votes

Cass needs so much help. They said they want her to be DoT mage, but her Q and W deal very little damage. She relies totally on spamming her E like there's no tomorrow. Very unhealthy playstyle imo. Re-rework, please.

pWasHere18 votes

From what I have read they seem more interested in her as a Mage adc than as a dot Mage.

For Carthage14 votes

Probably because she and Azir are the only two people to basically play a heavy sustained damage style similar to ADC's. The vast majority of other APC champs are either burst or poke. Kog'Maw comes close but usually winds up just lobbing his R about to poke the shit out of champs.

Really, she's in more of a niche at the moment than people give her credit for. But without assistance for your laner from the jungler, she's also incredibly oppressive and generally unhealthy in terms of gameplay. Arguably not so much as LB, though.

Lana Dole Rey5 votes

They NEVER said they wanted Cassiopeia to be a DoT mage. They wanted Cassiopeia to be a faster version of Anivia, both of whom wanted one ability to revolve and augment the main ability (Twin Fang/Frostbite). http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=385999&page=2#post4613331

Riot said they did not like DoT on Cassiopeia because it led to boring gameplay where all Cassiopeia would do would be poke with her poison and give her no real reason to engage due to the fact that she won't have the means to kill someone outright when she wanted to. By emphasizing Twin Fang, her abilities act as a gate to activate Twin Fang's true power and allow for a risk/reward gameplay, where she either fights someone head on, risking her life or end up being passive and losing lane.

This community doesn't know what it wants. It insisted on Cassiopeia buffs and Riot caved in and buffed and buffed and buffed Cassiopeia until she became OP. Now the community wants her to be nerfed or want her to be changed again entirely.

Mathbalnase18 votes

No, the community wanted bug fixes. They were given a rework. After the rework, the community wanted the rework reverted, because it was garbage in concept (boring stacks, overloaded E, etc) as well as execution (unplayably weak). The community offered alternatives, though, to make the rework less garbage without actually reverting it. Stashu said that they were good ideas. Then went in the direct opposite direction and doubled-down on his garbage ideas while adding on numbers buffs to silence the Spike-personalities in the community.

jDVL20eCYs2 votes

unbhealty? you mean spam q and walk away is much healthier then e that put her at risk and force her to interact with the opponent? can you please tell me how health she would be they double her q and w damage why make her e deal half as much damage. please tell me who that is healthier. and btw. cassis q dose as much damage as syndra q with same aoe and cd if you just hit them with 1 or 2 e before. her w is meant do be a big damage spell. its meant to be a utility spell. so fuck of.

Mathbalnase6 votes

Is 'drop DoT and walk away' any worse than most mages' 'drop nuke and walk away'?

Cass' Q DoT does as much damage as Syndra's nuke, if Cass prepares the target beforehand? And you're using this comparison to try to make Cass look strong?

If Cass' E is meant to be a 'utility spell', then it SUCKS. Granted, if it's meant to be a damage spell, it sucks even harder, but that's not a good thing.

jDVL20eCYs1 votes

i said w is meant to be a utility spell and not big damage spell. and its good for aoe slow poison applier that last for 7 sec. its strong team fighting spell that alos grant vision

Mathbalnase4 votes

And I said that it sucks almost as much as a utility spell as it does as a damage spell.

It won't be affecting anyone for 7 seconds if they have a brain. It will sometimes last as long as 4 seconds. Usually only if they're CC'd by someone else, though, in which case it isn't doing much for a good chunk of that.

In a teamfight, it provides a poor-to-mediocre slow against maybe as many as 3 opponents, but often only one, and some situationally (read: most often not at all) useful vision. And negligible damage.

W's most consistently useful purpose is keeping minions poisoned to be hit by E (for the heal and, even more importantly, the mana return) without significant threat of a DoT finishing them off (which would prevent said mana important return). And that's just shitty.

jDVL20eCYs1 votes

say yu miss q but hit w you dps increase with 4 es you would not have got. you get a lot of indirect damage from w via your e. and i like w its not bad. i have a purpose and it feels godo to use. i mean if you compare it to nida human w

Mathbalnase4 votes

'Now you can use your real ability' is not a particularly stunning benefit...

jDVL20eCYs1 votes

as much benefit as azirs q that is used ot set up for w., complain about him instead if you are going to be consistent how useless would cassis e not be without her q and w?

Mathbalnase3 votes

How useless would Brand's secondary ability effects be without his passive? Trick question: you're an idiot.

Also: Azir Q does not set up for Azir W. Azir Q manipulates Azir W. Each ability, however, is powerful as more than simply an enabler for the other.

KnifePlayer11 votes

[{quoted}](name=Red Velvets,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BtqiVhcE,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2015-05-25T02:03:08.715+0000)

Cass needs so much help. They said they want her to be DoT mage, but her Q and W deal very little damage. She relies totally on spamming her E like there's no tomorrow. Very unhealthy playstyle imo. Re-rework, please.

I agree, before she was based on poison, now it's just spamming her E... I just want her old-self back :( She was the DoT champions she was meant to be. She wasn't too weak and she wasn't bad. She acctually was strong. Just because nobody played her means you have to change her. She was fun as hell. Nobody played her just because she was hard to play and they had easier champions to play as(Ahri Leblanc Teemo ) Revert her rework imo Ps: This is just my opinion

RiotRiot King Cobra31 votes

The nerfs make perfect sense. Right now she loses lane to basically nobody if you are skilled with her. Any difficult lane you can choose to just farm out with your superior sustain.

Her lane dominance and sustain is one of the MAJOR reasons she sees so much competitive play. Aside from thriving in the tank meta with her sustained DPS, in the competitive environment where solo kills very rarely happen, Cassio can constantly clear waves mid completely topped off in both health AND mana - something that a vast majority of mid laners cannot do. This allows her to shove lane for free and collapse on lanes and jungle invades significantly easier than other mages.

This is probably the best approach to nerfing her as it still allows her to have a strong laning phase but not insanely overbearing...which it is right now if you know what you are doing. What made her laning weak pre buffs wasn't her mana issues - it was the fact that she did no damage early. Her Twin Fang's AP ratio scaled with level and were pitiful until fully maxed.

Godaren5 votes

[{quoted}](name=King Cobra,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BtqiVhcE,comment-id=0009,timestamp=2015-05-25T03:48:02.771+0000)

The nerfs make perfect sense. Right now she loses lane to basically nobody if you are skilled with her. Any difficult lane you can choose to just farm out with your superior sustain.

Her lane dominance and sustain is one of the MAJOR reasons she sees so much competitive play. Aside from thriving in the tank meta with her sustained DPS, in the competitive environment where solo kills very rarely happen, Cassio can constantly clear waves mid completely topped off in both health AND mana - something that a vast majority of mid laners cannot do. This allows her to shove lane for free and collapse on lanes and jungle invades significantly easier than other mages.

This is probably the best approach to nerfing her as it still allows her to have a strong laning phase but not insanely overbearing...which it is right now if you know what you are doing. What made her laning weak pre buffs wasn't her mana issues - it was the fact that she did no damage early. Her Twin Fang's AP ratio scaled with level and were pitiful until fully maxed.

Yeah screw her laning against her makes me want to throw things.

Sir Yamazuki7 votes

{quoted}

Yeah screw her laning against her makes me want to throw things.

Same here, especially if it's top Cass... thankfully 99% of the people who do that don't play her well though.

A Miss Fortune3 votes

[{quoted}](name=Lord Yamazuki,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BtqiVhcE,comment-id=000900000000,timestamp=2015-05-25T05:23:38.634+0000)

Same here, especially if it's top Cass... thankfully 99% of the people who do that don't play her well though.

If you play smart you'll destroy her in lane. Her Q has like, a cast time (green poison that explodes where you're at) so even if you're in it, you're not actually IN it for like a second.

Take almost no poke from her if you can, if she pokes you she's not always doing it to get you low because it's extremely difficult for her to follow up without like 5 mana potions. When she pokes you she can get stacks of her Passive and if she keeps getting stacks she'll hit her mid and late game much faster.

To go on what I said, it's very difficult for a Cassiopeia to follow up early game with kills because of her crazy mana situation. She has low mana and her kit forces her to spam 2 - 3 abilities that drain her mana pool insanely quick. If she fails to kill you or follow up with her poke with a proper engage, she'll most likely be left with little to no mana and that's when you attack her. Her weakest despite her being able to bully you, is early game and her strongest is late game. Be warned though, when I say her strongest is late game I mean she does like 700 damage every .5 seconds on just one of her spells, not including her Q damage or W damage.

Scarlett Grimm8 votes

The rework just about killed her, they moved everything from her poisons (which now do a pitiful amount of damage) and into her E completely destroying her identity as a DoT mage. Even with her current mana sustain if she goes in she will run out of mana from spamming her E (she only gets the return from kills which is good for farming, not so much drawn out fights). The health sustain is barely able to keep her alive if someone (or multiple champs) jump on her. Add that to the fact that most of her power is locked away until about 20-25 minutes in, long after laning phase has ended and most Cass players are stuck playing the waiting game.

Her R is as clunky as ever especially with her lack of mobility. Too many champs can sidestep the ult just by being on top of her (and it's her only method of escape barring flash).

In this age of mobility Cassiopeia doesn't stand much of a chance if she's facing a good team. She might do all right solo (depending on if she has the skill to survive a gank) but against an organized team its highly likely that she'd lose. Depends on how the rest of her team does in the end.

Earthlord Jazz30 votes

Rework as in going back to the original Cass please

jDVL20eCYs2 votes

please tell me what was better with old cassia and how your play pattern was different/healthier ?

Earthlord Jazz11 votes

I was still new to the game when I started playing her more regularly so forgive me if I'm not super articulate with my response as I'm sure I did not know gameplay patterns as well as I do now (which is still very little). There are several reasons why both I and many others (not even Cass players) prefer her older form.

First: Old Cass could be played several different ways. Her poisons had actual meaning and you could max Q instead of E if you wanted to play a poking style. You didn't HAVE to run in as a super squishy, immobile mage to capitalize on your already landed skillshot. Now was this the best and most efficient way to build her? Probably not, go ask King Cobra. However, it was enjoyable for the Cass player, and you couldn't 100 to 0 players at level 2 (which is the primary complaint I see people whining about for the new Cass).

Second: Old Cass could be built several different ways. While this is a similar point to #1, there is a contrast in build pattern. You could go pure AP with item 3020 item 3089 item 3157 item 3135 item 3040 & DFG do deal punish enemies for not building MR. Or instead you could play the subtle poking game and wear down the defenses of tankier individuals by substituting in item 3116 item 3151. Sure, you can still purchase Liandry but it is nowhere near as effective when you have to risk your bacon just to hit the tank with 3 Twin Fangs with puts your squishy mage ass in a autoattack range for 1.5 seconds. New Cass HAS to capitalize on her new passive by purchasing as much AP as possible in order to benefit from the % AP increase. It has shoehorned her build path into a singular build with maybe 1 exception to the clause being Rylai's since it's so good for her kiting.

Third: As I mentioned briefly above, Old Cass (with the poking style) could not 100-0 you at level 2. She needed to whittle you down and land multiple skillshots in succession to bring you to a point where she could go all in with her twin fang (which by the way puts you in a very vulnerable position). How is that NOT a healthy gameplay pattern, landing multiple skillshots? I'm 95% positive that Cass players would've much rather chose a 1 second longer cooldown on her Q (which by the way she still got anyway in "compensation" for her 25% "free" CDR) instead of this halfway rework that has completely ruined both her identity and a whole playerbase that preferred one style of Cass over the other.

Fourth: Doesn't it make more sense as a snake/poison/seductress champion to whittle her opponents over time with poison? She makes you believe that you're not taking too much damage until it's too late. She'll let her poison do just the right amount of damage before finally going in for the final strike. HOW DOES IT MAKE ANY SENSE THAT NOW, WHEN I POISON PEOPLE, I GET STRONGER????

TL;DR The old Cass has options to work with. She had a poking playstyle that required landing multiple skillshots in succession. She had less lane sustain, solving the problem that Rito has found now. Finally, her identity was upheld better in her older kit compared to her newer one.

jDVL20eCYs2 votes

haha.. .haha.. okey first you play her the same as you always did. you mean you play cassia without ever sue your e? her kit is build around her e as much as syndras kit is build around her q and iris around her q and azirs around his w. she is much healthier now then she was and she is the dps/dot hyper carry mage she was meant to be. if you want q poke why not ziggs, karma?

Earthlord Jazz13 votes

The difference is older Cass did not fully depend on her E for damage. Have you seen the text for her E? Everything in her kit is tuned for one ability, so her other moves are nerfed. That is perfectly acceptable for Cass players that already used a Twin Fang style of play. Poison the enemy, and then jump on them for lots of damage.

However, the rework ignored the other fanbase for Cass. Want to enhance your poison damage? Spam them with Twin Fang twice to get 40% increased damage. By that time, what's the point of me playing the subtle poisoning game? Might as well go all the way and hit them 4 or 5 times with Twin Fang.

I do not want to play Ryze, I want to play a poison mage. Many people on the boards relate Cassiopeia to Rambo, saying this does not fix her character. A Twin Fang Rambo is not her identity: Not in the new lore Riot gave us and neither in her quotes.

You raise Syndra as an example.Remember back before the Syndra nerfs, Riot saw her as an early game lane bully that scaled well into the late game? How about instead of nerfing her damage and stun width, they went the route in nerfing both the cooldown and damage of her Q and making it so you have to hit your W to compensate for the reduced damage. Syndra's Q is what defines her, there's no doubt about that. Syndra mains would be vexed to see Riot take that path. Same with Cassiopeia players (or at least a good chunk of her playerbase from times past).

The difference between your examples is that those champions ALWAYS were defined by those abilities. Cass lore and quotes was defined for poison, and not for an AP Rambo style of play. Even though back then, the Twin Fang style of play was probably most efficient, people found it enjoyable to have presence in a teamfight without always relying on her Twin Fang.

And for your final point of Ziggs and Karma...I have a hard time describing it. How about I put it this way: For years I've been wanting a puppeteer champion. Someone with actual puppets a la Sasori from the Akatsuki in Naruto. Puppets have always appealed to me. However, even though Azir is played like a puppeteer champion, he is more widely accepted as an Emperor and he does not use puppets per se. For some reason, I cannot bring myself to play Azir more than one or two times without getting bored of him. He is just not that interesting for me. He's still a great champion, just an emperor does not fit me as much as a puppeteer. The same goes for a Poison mage. I want to feel like my poison has meaninful value besides making my Twin Fang spam more powerful. I do not want to play a bomber nor an enlightened Ionian that shoots mystic shit out of her hands. I'd like the more poison-centric mage back.

Stackless Python15 votes

Riot doesn't posts on champion balance threads because they can't defend their changes. That's probably because a lot of them before and starting again now, have been silly.

The balance team doesn't read the forums, they don't post, it doesn't appear that they take any consideration towards feedback (unless the whole community posts 50000 threads a day for weeks on end). But the worst is, they don't tell us why they are making these changes, they just make them and we get stuck with useless champions for years, unless you are Lee Sin.

It would be great to see more posts on the "League of Legends Boards" over reddit from Rioters... you know because it's their website. Having an open thread weeks before patches go live with all the upcoming changes and why they are changes would be (in my opinion) a great start towards fixing the brick wall that is the balance team.

Chromatic Eagle3 votes

Didn't Gypsylord make a thread explaining his changes?

Stackless Python1 votes

Was it on the league of legends boards or reddit? Also, it's not pinned so trying to find something like that is near impossible.

Chromatic Eagle2 votes

Can also check out the meanwhile in top lane thread for it. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/plzwzc6G-jinx-nerfs-incoming-context

Stackless Python3 votes

I read that post, but it's only for the Jinx changes, they need to have a post like this for all their changes.

lB2kGRlc8y14 votes

Riot fucked up Cass almost as bad as they did Veigar with his initial rework. They frontloaded her power into 1 ability and made playing her nothing more than abusing one key until the target died. She doesn't need a nerf, far from it, she needs a completed rework, not the half assed bullshit they've been handing out as of late.

Psi219 votes

{quoted}

Riot fucked up Cass almost as bad as they did Veigar with his initial rework. They frontloaded her power into 1 ability and made playing her nothing more than abusing one key until the target died. She doesn't need a nerf, far from it, she needs a completed rework, not the half assed bullshit they've been handing out as of late.

The Riot Balancing team isn't the brightest.

procrastinasian3 votes

{quoted}

abusing one key until the target died

Hecarim

gg git diff2 votes

They front loaded her power into 1 ability and made playing her nothing more than abusing one key until the target died.

Before her rework she was still heavily focused around just landing a Q/W then spamming Twin Fang.

Davy Crockett8 votes

Veigar Needs an honorable mention too.

Kurama72 votes

My problem with cass is she's a hyper carry with a very strong laneing phase. Level 2 if she hits you with whichever posion she picked, she can spam e and push you out of lane easy. Hyper carrys aren't supposed to be amazing at all points of the game, their early should be gated. Along with that she gets a lot of free stats from her passive, and has some of the easiest farming options in the game. I hardly ever (i don't think i actually have seen one) go oom from last hitting with her e making csing with her extremely easy. She's also not as squishy as people make her out to be, a lot of the cass's i've seen go rylais into seraphs which means shes sitting at a good amount of hp, and defense from her seraphs while doing massive damage. I just want her to be either a non-lane bully or nerf her late game damage, one or the other.

Champion Skin8 votes

So basically revert the rework? And make her more of a early-mid game champion like she used to be

Commando Yi2 votes

she does insane damage

willcarry4gold7 votes

[{quoted}](name=Commando Yi,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=BtqiVhcE,comment-id=0013,timestamp=2015-05-25T14:29:36.853+0000)

she does insane damage

just like Ahri Akali Diana Draven Jinx Kalista Karma Karthus Katarina Kennen KogMaw Leblanc MasterYi Nidalee Nasus Orianna RekSai Riven Rengar Rumble Sivir Syndra Talon TwistedFate Urgot Varus Vayne Veigar Velkoz Viktor Volibear XinZhao Yasuo Zed Ziggs

BluePolarizer1 votes

Cass actually has double the sustained damage of Katarina. Previously Karthus and Fiddlesticks were the kings of magical sustained damage; no longer.

Stackless Python3 votes

But if a Fiddlesticks ults Cassiopeia while on the same playing field (in items and gold) he will win. The same can be said for Cassiopeia, if she ults him first he loses.

Doesn't that sound like... counter-play?

Auz the Ripper1 votes

That's simply "play"

"Counterplay" refers to how you can react to an action Like Stunning Katarina when she ults

Stackless Python2 votes

Ulting Cassiopeia before she can ult you isn't counter-play then? If you want to apply that logic, your example is just a play also.

You can kill Cassiopeia just as easily as she can kill you, it's dependent on the player to land the skill shots to follow up with the E damage. Riot has put such a focus on mobile champions as of late that even if you get hit by the Q or W, you most likely have a dash/escape to get away from the E damage.

Auz the Ripper1 votes

Ulting her first is a preemptive strike, not counterplay because you aren't reacting to anything she's doing

Counterplay would be dodging her poison so she can't get her E reset You react to her trying to combo you

Stackless Python2 votes

And you counter her ability to play... by not letting her make that play "counter-play".

"Counterplay (chess) an attack that is intended to counter the opponent's advantage in another part of the board."

If you stop someone from making a play by killing them, you have countered their play.

It doesn't matter the definition, what is important is that Cassiopeia can be played against and killed just the same as other mages, she isn't destroying everyone in lane, she doesn't push everyone out of lane, and she doesn't regain full mana by using E on a wave while a person backs. The changes are going to push Cassiopeia into a bad state where she isn't going to be picked over other champions because she doesn't bring anything special.

Balance changes shouldn't be made based on FOTM, yes she does well right now because of the types of champions being picked, and she didn't do well before because of the types of champions picked.

Martyrofsand1 votes

Sadly as much as I love Cassio she needs some pretty significant changes because as she is now she really can't be healthy in the game. Her remake has brought a new problem to light, not really with her so much as with the itemization of league of legends itself. Magic resist is not designed to be able to deal with a champion capable of putting out the constant damage Cassio can put out. Sure there are some other constant damage mages like Karthus but his damage is spread out among a team where as Cassio's is tunneled into 1 person.

This creates a massive problem in that you simply can't itemize against Cassio. Even if you stack both Banshee's/Locket/Visage/mercs to try and account for her it isn't going to give you enough magic resist to account for her damage. You end up with 150 magic resist, which can be enough for a normal mages burst and then kill them while their spells are on CD, but Cassio's damage doesn't go on CD, she just continues to pump out a ton of damage and eat you alive inspite of all that magic resist.

In this regard the Cassio rework is broken. Not because of "it doesn't fit with her character" not because "to much is loaded onto the E" but simply because there is no way to itemize against it in the game. Now it may sound simple to just say "well bring back force of nature" or "add more magic resist items" and think that will fix the problem. Thing is, it might fix the Cassio problem but then it creates a problem for every other mage in the game. If people have enough Magic Resist to absorb the damage of someone like a Cassio how are other mages like Xerith/Orianna/Syndra/Viktor/etc etc who couldn't even hope to reach Cassio's potential damage suppose to compete?

This in the end brings us back to Cassio herself. While I have come to enjoy her rework and have had a lot of fun playing it, and it is indeed powerful, in the end it is a broken design with how mages are set up in league of legends. If you create magic resist to make it possible to itemize against her you make other mages unplayable. If you nerf her damage then she isn't going to be able to compete or be viable. Nerfing her sustain and her mana regen isn't going to fix the problem, she will still be perfectly fine with tear and she will have enough sustain to get through the laning phase against most opponents. Simply put you can't fix the problems the rework has created without creating far worse problems. She is going to need another rework, something that really reinvents her in a way that can be made healthy in league. Sadly she has yet to really exist in such a fashion.

RiotRiot King Cobra3 votes

I disagree with this. Cassio, with the upcoming sustain nerfs, is perfectly healthy in the game. The fact that you can't stack MR and survive her damage if she manages to get it all off is the entire point of Cassio. You take her out fast or you are punished. If you let Cass get her items then that's your fault for not shutting her down. The nerfs should make her easier to punish in lane.

Cassio's design is perfectly acceptable if you ask me. She trades instant burst damage for sustained damage that eats through MR and health.. It's the reason she excels in this tank meta. She's not inherently broken because your MR can't handle 5 seconds of constant Twin Fang, she just does well against the popular champions because they can't instagib her and she can sustain through their comparatively mediocre damage. When tanks stop being popular and assassins/early pressure junglers come back into flavor you will see a lot less of Cassio because she can't deal with that well. And then people will stop complaining about her and start complaining that the popular champions are broken because of something along the lines of "you can't itemize against their burst because then you do no damage yourself."

Is Cassio really good right now? Yeah - this is the perfect meta for her - 1-2 threat enemy comps that don't have a lot of dive. When the reign of tanks comes to an end, Cassio will most likely become a niche pick again because she is super easy to take out with multi-threat dive/assassin comps.

Martyrofsand1 votes

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one. Even you yourself have said Cassio doesn't really have a bad match-up, even back when Zed/Leblanc were FoTM, and how many times have we seen a Cassio sporting Exhaust wreck these assassins that are suppose to destroy her? Are highly mobile assassins good against Cassio? No doubt, but do they out right counter and/or stop her? No they don't.

Cassio is suppose to be the AP ADC, the problem with this though is that there is currently armor itemization against ADCs that can make it difficult for ADCs to just melt people, it's fine for them because AD damage in this game is designed around being constant and high, as such armor can be stacked up to extremely high levels, I've seen people break 400 armor in this game, and the resistance is very noticeable. You can't do that with magic resist because there simply isn't enough of it.

Cassio doesn't shred magic resist, there simply isn't enough magic resist to account for her damage and if their was then other AP champions wouldn't be able to compete. That is the problem this Cassio rework has brought to light.

RiotRiot King Cobra2 votes

I'm not talking about wrecking her in lane. Sure, she doesn't have a lot of poor lane matchups, there a few champions like her in that regard - Orianna and Syndra (who actually beats Cassio in lane) to name a couple. And that's OK - League isn't a 1v1 game. Also, in competitive I don't think Zed or LB have been picked into Cassio that much so we haven't seen a Cassio sporting Exhaust wreck any assassins really.

If Cassio falls behind, it's extremely easy to snowball a game against her. She's insanely item dependent - if a tank gets ahead and gets some MR she'll go OOM trying to burn them down before she kills them.

Cassio really only has her consistent damage going for her. That's all she ever has had. She doesn't bring the utility of Orianna or the catch potential of Syndra and Ahri. Saying she's broken because its hard to stop her by building resist when she gets her core items is ridiculous because that's the whole point. If she gets her items it should be expected that she's going to be shredding the tanks that other mages can't.

And sure, I think she should be allowed to do far more sustained damage than ADCs - they have the ability to burn down structures a lot faster than she does and their damage is all resource-less point and click.

Right now Cassio is built completely glass cannon because she can get away with it since nobody is going to be diving her. When the enemy has a Kha'Zix jungle, Fizz mid, and heavy engage top like Malphite you can bet your ass Cassio is going to die regardless of Seraph's shield and Zhonya's unless she has a Janna sitting on her if she builds like she does now. And if she doesn't build like she does now then she doesn't do the insane damage that you are saying is OP.

Cassio didn't bring to light an MR itemization problem. If she can't burn down the full build Mundo and Gragas when she's rolling then there's seriously no point in picking Cassiopeia because in that case you're better off picking a champion that can easily get to the enemy carries and take them out fast - which Cassio can only do if they position poorly and she catches them with a flash ult or something that shouldn't happen.

Martyrofsand2 votes

We actually saw it when it was fnatic vs Unicorns of Love for the Cassio vs Leblanc match-up. There where several highlights to consider including Leblanc jumping on Cass just to east exhaust+ult and die while doing all of 25% of Cassio's HP in damage.

Same game had a lovely 4 man gank on Cassio and Nunu that saw Cassio kill leblanc and Lissandra before eventually dieing to the Sej and Naut.

Note both of those plays where all done before Cassio had more than a tear built. This idea that her early game damage is lacking straight up wrong.

As for this idea that "Cassio with items should be able to destroy others" just think about that statement for a moment. If Cassio is ahead I would agree she should be melting people, anyone that is ahead should be. Thing is I'm not talking about being ahead. I'm talking about a tank with 3 magic resist items and merc treads vs an AP carry with equal items and those magic resist items being irrelevant.

We went through this once with assassins having so much armor pen/shred that armor was irrelevant and it was just as toxic and stupid then as the issue with Cassio is. If you are a tank building correctly then there should be a reward for that and dieing to Q+6E spam from Cass most certainly isn't rewarding.

To deny that magic resist itemization is not set up for a champion like Cassio is simply crazy and to think its healthy is even crazier. I get she is your main and you love playing her and you love how strong she is, but if you step back and look at magic resist items in league, the mentality behind why people have built magic resist in the past and then look at what Cassio does its pretty clear why the set up is in fact broken.

Oh and for the record I never said Cassio was OP. I've said it in several thread but I will say it in this one...

Broken =/= OP

It is possible for a champion to be worthless yet broken and OP but not broken.

RiotRiot King Cobra5 votes

That's the point of taking exhaust though and that was good play on PowerofEvil's part. He outplayed LeBlanc hard with his ultimate prediction and was rewarded for that. In regards to the 4 man gank on Cassio and Nunu, if you watch the gank play out, Sejuani used all of her cooldowns on Nunu (wiffed her ult), Nautilus was level 5 and used his anchor on Nunu, LeBlanc used her abilities on Nunu, and Lissandra came in late. That was basically Cassio freely beating on Leblanc while she focused Nunu then 1v1'ing the Lissandra while still having exhaust up because the two tanks had all their abilities on cooldown. Cassio had a tear, Sorc Shoes, 2 Doran's Rings, and a Null Magic Mantle. So she had way more than just a Tear.

A tank with Randuins, Frozen Heart, Thornmail vs a Vayne with BT, Botrk, and PD will probably still lose to the Vayne if she plays it right. Some champions excel at 1v1 extended dueling. I can easily say that the Cassio building and playing correctly should be rewarded for doing so by being able to 1v1 the MR stacking tank because that's what Cassio is supposed to be able to do. Cassio counters tanks - that's her niche and why she is popular. You're basically saying she's broken because she is good at what she's supposed to do and it's entirely a slippery slope argument.

Beyond all that, if you actually think about in practice, the Mundo or Sejuani with Spirit Visage, Warmogs, Banshees, Mercs will probably destroy a Cassio with Seraph, Abyssal, Void. It's when she hits 500 stacks + DCap + Void that tanks have to be weary of her because that's the point where her life vamp becomes relevant and their damage falls off.

And I'm not denying that magic resist itemization is not set up for Cassio - it isn't. If all mages were able to put out sustained damage like she and ADCs could then MR itemization would be in a pretty sour place. What I'm saying is that it isn't a problem because the only champion that benefits from that lack of itemization is a full build Cassio and that's exactly the point of Cassio - if you don't kill her she's going to take out everybody on your team. It's not a sign of a broken mechanic or champion. It's literally as simple as: the meta is saturated with tanky champions and Cassio is a counter to them because of her immense sustained damage - same reason why Azir and Vlad are popular. When the late game scaling tanks of top lane and jungle fall out of meta, then you'll probably see the late game team fight oriented champions fall off as well in favor of pick-oriented and poke-oriented ones that excel early to mid game.

I'm not defending her because I main her and enjoy seeing her strong. I agree with the nerfs. I'm just calling you out on something that is not correct. Cassio's resurgence as a top tier pick does NOT highlight that she is broken by design due to how she scales beyond the resistances provided by MR stacking. That statement is just a gross complication and sensationalist way of stating her intended strength - she is a counter-pick to MR stacking tanks and tanks in general.

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