@Stashu: Have you ever considered making Cassiopeia NOT revolve around Twin Fangs (E)??

5G8Nri0B54··43 votes·3,661 views

Cassiopeia has thousands of problems thanks to the rework. Her Passive is backwards for a poison mage. You're trying to make her a hyper-carry. You completely removed her AoE potential. You took all satisfaction away from 2 of her most interesting abilities just so her E can be as strong as you made it. And she sucks...really badly. The last problem is easy to solve (just buff her already), balancing is easy relatively speaking.

But there is one issue with her kit. One complaint about her rework that you either turned a blind eye to, or............may have been lost among your replies to complaints, because some of them were kinda jumbled. And because I just realized a number of your replies were apparently hidden after enough downvotes, make Rioters immune to being hidden please. :p

Either way, I'll just be direct about one of my many criticisms over your rework.

MAKING HER ENTIRE KIT REVOLVE AROUND HER TWIN FANGS (E) IS A TERRIBLE DESIGN CHOICE

I've made threads. trying to explain to you the problems with focusing on her E.

I've made posts after posts and posts (I hope those URL jumps to the correct posts)

If you want me to list all the problems with her E, then fine, here they are.

**-- 1. The entire kit revolving around that E now runs contrary to her POISON MAGE fantasy. -- **

It turns her into a mano-a-mano brawler. It turns her into this!. The fact that all her damage comes solely from her E turns her into a boxer. A brawler. It's low-range high-single target nature is what goes contrary to her character. Maybe if it was an execute, it'd have been better. But why is a POISON MAGE looking to get in up and personal to go mano-a-mano with her enemy?

I implore you to try to justify how that image fits Cassiopeia in the slightest. Why does she have a strong all-in at all when that goes completely against the Poison Mage archetype? When it goes contrary to snakes in general.

What should a POISON MAGE be doing? She should be hanging back and spreading poison amongst as many targets as possible. She should never be in a position where she has to get dirty unless it's for a kill. In fact, screw the kill part, she isn't even worried about getting that kill, she just wants to sit there poisoning her enemies, if her enemy dies, it's because they succumbed to her poison as they struggle to get closer to her while the poison eats them away.

She doesn't want to challenge a single warrior to a duel to the death. A POISON MAGE wants to avoid direct confrontation so their poison can do their magic.

-- 2. It's easily the least interesting and satisfying ability in her entire kit. --

Her other two abilities are AoE and they fit her thematically. She's a Poison Mage, they poison enemies hit. More importantly, both of those are SKILL SHOTS. Delayed skill-shots no less! And what is her E? A boring POINT-AND-CLICK nuke whose purpose is to be spammed. It's SINGLE-TARGET unlike the AoE of the other abilities. Maybe a little movement and kiting in between, but in the end you're trying to break your E button in it's best-case scenario. It's a short-ranged, point-and-click ability.

-- 3. Your E trivializes all her other abilities. --

Q - Unrewarding pile of trash that does no damage unless you enhance it with her E. E - Unrewarding pile of trash that does no damage unless you enhance it with her E. R - Thematically it has nothing to do with her really, but design-wise, it works out. It's a high cooldown dis-engage. Outside of that function, you're only using it so your opponent can stay still so you can E them some more.

edit: You keep mentioning how her Q's MS speed is so awesome and rewarding. But let me tell you. When ALL other champions can get their powerful MS-buffs at the press of a button for a spell that doesn't disrupt their movements, and Cassiopeia need to get hers by standing in place to land a skillshot just to get hers. THAT'S CEASES TO BE REWARDING. Is it balanced? Sure why not. But balancing is much easier than making a champion rewarding and thematically sound.

-- 4. You made landing skillshots UNSATISFYING AS HELL, where as you made the braindead point and click spam ability the only rewarding part of her kit --

I feel this is self-explanatory, but do you see ANY problems here? That the abilities that are unsatisfying are the frikkin SKILLSHOTS and not the spammy point and click ability? That a POISON MAGE's most unsatisfying abilities are her POISONS while her most satisfying ability is a generic POINT AND CLICK nuke that primarily does DIRECT damage?

-- 5. wth dude after all the visual tweakings why is she still hurling big-ass fangs the size of her torso at a breakneck pace? --

Really, my biggest beef is #1 which completely changes her from a POISON MAGE into "Magical Kenshiro".

But #2-5 are problems too...less so 5 than 1-3, but it's still something worth noting anyways.

91 Comments

ShadowParker9 votes

I think, we ultimately need to stop with these posts. Until a day after the patch. Because this isn't helping. Lets give him a chance. If his new plan fails, than lets do it. But for now, I think he has enough on his belt.

5G8Nri0B544 votes

This is still pre-season where more drastic changes can happen. More importantly, this isn't just LoL, but decisions and designs in general. The LONGER something stagnates, the less likely they will changes and the more the fire to change something will burn out. That is the biggest worry with the lack of update and more drastic changes as of late.

Quite frankly, the very fact that after all these feedbacks given and her rework is STILL this "E-centric Single-Target Hyper-Carry with an unsatisfying Stacking Passive" leaves an air of urgency to those who want Cassiopeia to either revert to her old flawed self or become what she is SUPPOSED to be.


Not to mention...maybe we could test his new updates out if he actually released them out on live. But even if we could test it out, it's STILL fundamentally flawed.

  1. Still revolved around her E and only her E, nothing about the update changes that.

  2. Still exclusively single-target damage, nothing changed about that.

  3. Her Passive is still unsatisfying, nothing changed about that as well.

  4. Her curve is smoothed a tiny bit, but she's still a hyper-carry thanks to the rework.

In other words. Yes, being able to test out what she is to become would give some clarity. But the fact of the matter is her rework is still wrong at a FUNDAMENTAL LEVEL.

ShadowParker2 votes

But the thing is, people are asking him to explain said things, OVER AND OVER AND OVER. And not to mention that I bet he has already explained the same question in another thread.

Give him a break, give him a chance. Just wait a few days after cassiopeia is put on live.

5G8Nri0B544 votes

And besides, if he doesn't address these concerns despite all these new threads being made, how will stopping them made help?

Is there any reason why her mano-a-mano AP Brawler style right now should belong on a champion like her? Or any Poison Mage at all?

Serpents Embrace8 votes

Maybe if we inundate the boards with these threads again we'll get some recognition that isn't just rudely brushing us off.

I Main Swain4 votes

it already is inundated and none of the posts have been "rudely brushed off". literally every singly red response has been the POLITELY explaining their position, saying what they're working on with cass and their plans for her, and responding to people's posts saying why they would or wouldn't work out.

Serpents Embrace11 votes

You're right. It's so totally not rude to respond with generic phrases that don't address anything that was said. And then following that up with the opposite course of action.

The passive is a chore and the kit is too E focus?

Let's take away the majority of the input for the passive and make it timed based AND add in another effect to E. but it's okay it's totally a buff to poisons as we drain even more damage out of Noxious Blast to "compensate".

BastionKross8 votes

Let me give an opinion that's not from someone who loves Cass. (I don't even own her as a champion, but I have played her on free week before and after her rework)

She's a snake lady, so naturally she should be the League's premiere poison mage. What that means to me is very specific: If you get poisoned by Twitch Singed Teemo it's not exactly a good thing, but if you remove yourself from the poison source the effect wears off soon enough and you're not too banged up if you got out early. However, if you get posioned by Cassiopeia you should be afraid. You should look on in horror as the poison continues depleting your lifebar after you've separated from Cass. You should be begging for heals or shields, or chugging down potions to keep a chunk of your lifebar from being taken from you in a slow, methodical burn. Lots of damage once you're infected, but slowly and over time. That's what I imagine when I think of a poison mage.

Right now, she's the opposite of that. The poison is just there to apply a debuff that allows her to machine gun her E. Her kit shouldn't revolve around that, that should be something extra. The cherry on top of the poison sundae. A move you can throw in if you feel it's safe enough to get away with, but not needed.

When old Cass put down a patch of poison, you didn't walk through that unless it was a dire situation. When new Cass puts down poison, I'm more worried about the slow than the damage.

5G8Nri0B545 votes

Wait...she was in free week?

One of the reasons I bought her years ago was because she was never out in free week. You know. Until literally 1 week after I bought her. :/

But yeah you get the idea. Her Poison exists purely to enable the one ability in her kit that does not fit her at all. Whose playstyle turns her into a magical girl version of THIS.

And as cool as that concept may be, it does not belong on Cassiopeia, let alone a POISON mage.

BastionKross7 votes

Oh yes, if you play ARAM you always know when certain champs are free. Nidalee Varus Lux Sona Ziggs

Old Cass used to be one of the ones you'd look out for. That puddle, when put down near a tower, could easily choke out half the bridge for the enemy team. You didn't walk through that unless you were tanky. That's the level of respect her poison used to carry.

Now? You reroll snake lady. Because even with five opponents in lane with her, her passive isn't going to pay off unless the game goes on longer than it has any right to. She's not scary anymore. Granted I'm not insisting they balance her around ARAM, I'm just making the point that nobody fears the poison mage's poison anymore, and that's bad.

Like, really bad.

5G8Nri0B546 votes

Yeah that's kind of the gist of it. She's a poison mage...where you literally don't give a Twitch's ass about getting poisoned from. What you fear is the non-poison aspect of her kit, and even then, only if she's within range to land that ability anyways.

The rework is a letdown in so many different ways.

KidKaiser7 votes

my guess is. they hated the "well. im poisoned now and there's nothing i can do about it." kinda like zilean bombs.

except. there's champions like LB and Fizz that just bursts you so hard you wished you were being poisoned to death instead. for those clutch heals and shields.

the "get poison'd and slowly die" thing she used to have was 'too toxic' apparently. while we still have Fizz walking around with his immunity pole and 10k damage.

Serpents Embrace7 votes

The claim that her lane bully power was too oppressive was tagged with "when she was strong".

At the level she was right before the rework was launched she was pretty UP and far from oppressive, even in lane.

KidKaiser6 votes

i honestly found the rework to be somewhat of a surprise.

lulwtf ?! Cass got a rework ?! why !??!?!?!! and apparently by the Cass rework logic.

if anything. i was expecting Urgot to get reworked or looked at

Serpents Embrace3 votes

I didn't find out until 2 weeks before it was put on to Live, and I checked S@20 daily during that time period.

The only reason I don't any more is because this rework has jaded me so much I literally do not care what's going to happen to League.

KidKaiser2 votes

I didn't find out until 2 weeks before it was put on to Live, and I checked S@20 daily during that time period.

The only reason I don't any more is because this rework has jaded me so much I literally do not care what's going to happen to League.

i feel the same way. honestly. i loved the old Cass. much more than the reworked one. old Cass actually felt more along the lines of, "HAHA YOU I POISONs YOU. now u die. or come back and i poisons u some moar"

but i suppose the rework fixed that about her. but she lost her 'poison mage' identity.

and again. if anything. Fizz actually fits that poison role more. cuz W DoT + Grevious Wounds.

if the initial burst didn't get you. you sure as hell could bet the DoT will. or another Q from our much loved fish.

Serpents Embrace2 votes

I wouldn't really call it "fixing". Her poison and kite play-style is reminiscent of many other mages but that's not a "design flaw" as Stashu seems to think. Most mages are very similar. The best examples I can use would be Lux, Morgana, and Zyra. They each have a circular AoE damage spell, a linear CC skill shot, a utility skill and an ultimate with burst attached to it that interacts with their other abilities. Playing them doesn't feel similar, though, because of subtle differences that distinguish their skills.

And yeah, Cass is the "poison mage" with the weakest dots in the game. Caitlyn traps scare me more than Miasma right now. At least they do something on their own.

5G8Nri0B545 votes

It's staggering how people do not realize that DoT itself comes with counter-play by definition. Unlike direct damage, all it's hurt is slowly coming over a period of time, giving plenty of counter-attack, shield, and healing opportunities.

while we still have Fizz walking around with his immunity pole and 10k damage.

Ironically enough, DoT is exactly what works against his pole as it's the only thing that still hurts him when he's standing on his pole.

Khristophoros4 votes

She always revolved around E.

The problem with the remake is her waveclear was gutted tbh. She had a solid and safe laning phase because she could fall back on morg-like farming. The loss of her old passive was only a minor issue.

But when it came to killing champs she always relied on E for damage. It was pretty much the only way to be a big threat.

I wish they'd just give back the base damage on W. That would fix her right up. She needs it because she lacks escapes or CC pre-6 so it's the only way her laning phase can be viable.

Tapu Fini13 votes

E was always the cherry on top, not the central mechanic. Landed some poisons? Toss a fang over there if it's safe. Enemy getting low/going in for the kill? Get some extra dps out there with E. It was never Land these poisons so you can do your damage.

The poisons were damage enough on their own, and twin fang was the insurance policy. Now the poisons are just the way to spam twin fang.

Edit: And while I don't think it's the only issue at hand, Miasma definitely needs another look. "Twin Fang spam" is the current excuse holding it back. Oh, look, more of her kit suffering because of machine gun fang.

Serpents Embrace8 votes

That sentiment is just fundamentally wrong.

Compare with Anivia's Frostbite, as they share the same initial design concept. They're a damage reward for correctly using your other abilities. Anivia doesn't need to use Frostbite to be impactful but it definitely gives her a great "high moment" when she lands that double-tap Q in to a big, fat E.

Cassiopeia was the same way, using your Q and W correctly to slither circles around your opponent was amazing all its own. Being able to toss and E or two in to them while using your speed buff to dodge their retaliation skillshots was just icing.

The major problem with the E-centered kit as it is now is that it reverses that. Q and W are no longer rewarding on their own and exist only to set up E - which is a bland skill when looked at alone.

5G8Nri0B545 votes

Exactly.

That and, who in their right mind would think this is what fits Cassiopeia?

(also to take note, as powerful Anivia's single-target damage was, nobody can deny how devastating her AoE was)

Areklis1 votes

Maybe it was because having a Q and W playstyle also felt like a valid choice, whereas now focusing on E seems like a one way.

ChargeItDownMid3 votes

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5G8Nri0B545 votes

...make her a clone of Syndra?

Trust me, no matter how badly her rework is handled, Cassiopeia will NEVER be the "wait around till level 6, then land a stun to insta-gib opponent with R"-type champion Syndra is...Annie is more similar to Syndra.

(speaking of that, those two champions do need some attention so they can be less..."that")

But you are right, there is a problem with Cassiopeia atm that does make her too similar to Syndra.

And it's that EVOLVING PASSIVE of hers! Yeah, notice how it basically violated Kha'zix, Viktor, and Syndra's territory with how it works.

ChargeItDownMid2 votes

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5G8Nri0B543 votes

Except you are making cass exactly into that. The only difference would be use r for the stun and q + e for the instagib.

You see, this kinda stops being an "insta-gib" the moment you have to repeated spam her E to slowly kill the opponent, especially when as early as level 6.

Syndra's "insta-gib" comes from literally pressing the R-button and they're dead provided she lands her long ranged stun. The thing you fail to realize is that Cass has no 100-0 combo, not even in her best case scenario could she ever 100-0 an evenly matched opponent, let alone so early in the game.

I don't think you know all that much about Syndra if you are comparing her to Cass. I mean, sure Cass kinda ripped off her Passive with it's thematics, but outside of that, they have a lot less in common than you'd think.

5G8Nri0B542 votes

Also, is NO ONE at least a tiny bit bothered by the fact that her main method of attack is to hurl a set of fangs larger than her torso?

I know I put that as #5 indicating it as the least pressing issue, but still.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

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chumbler10 votes

but her game-play is far more interesting with her huge fangs shooting out at people like an assault riffle.

No it isn't.

5G8Nri0B544 votes

Sure cass may be more thematically appealing with poison as her main source of damage but her game-play is far more interesting with her huge fangs shooting out at people like an assault riffle.

Then make a NEW champion where such a mechanic actually FITS the champion. It's a no-brainer.

You see. When you start with a champion with a certain theme in mind, you want to make the kit FIT that theme. Not scrap it and create a crappy unfitting one.

Imagine if Nautilus was made into a squishy and mobile burst-assassin, but all his sound effects, dialogue, and appearance is still that of the slow hulking metal man.

Serpents Embrace7 votes

I don't think you or Stashu have a grasp on what "interesting" actually means.

A pure-damage ability isn't interesting. It's not thematically interesting, it's not visually interesting, it's what it is. A damage spell with rewards if you've used your real abilities right.

Twin Fangs should exist to support the rest of Cassopeia's kit - not the other way around.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

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Serpents Embrace3 votes

That's such a terrible outlook for it.

Twin Fang is nothing but damage, whereas none of her other abilities are. Instead, you've taken that obvious point and decided that "anything with damage must then be boring" which makes little sense to me and only relates to my earlier post because you clicked on "reply".

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

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Serpents Embrace4 votes

Her Q, W and R give her the potential to control areas with DOTs and CC.

The fact that you're even trying to argue that they're "just as uninteresting" as a single-target auto-targeted vanilla damage skill is mind boggling to me.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

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Serpents Embrace3 votes

You're right. We do.

Cassi also predates most of them. :| And Ryze beats her out on the late game, magic damage DPS machine because his kit allows him to do so in a way that's sustainable and realistic. Cassi now needs to build primarily AP but has to hit with ground based skillshots in order to spam a very short ranged spell. It's theoretically questionable at best.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

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Serpents Embrace5 votes

If you think this is a numbers issue you're just as misguided as Stashu.

chumbler4 votes

If you think this is a numbers issue you're just as misguided as Stashu.

I'd go with "completely clueless" more than misguided.

ChargeItDownMid1 votes

[deleted]

Serpents Embrace5 votes

Ryze beats her in this regard for two reasons, both of which are independant of numbers.

First, he does something else. He's tanky, and that just lets him live longer to toss out more spells.

Second, he fits with the AP DPS Fighter theme more than Cassi.

The Cass rework didn't make Cassi more unique, it just amplified her weaknesses and gave her new ones.

chumbler4 votes

Which are all due to her numbers being too low. She only has more weaknesses because her numbers are off. If we were to double all of her base stats, spell base damage, and ap ratios, how many of those weaknesses would still exist? Almost all of them would be eliminated simply from changes to her numbers.

You realize that would be a completely stupid way to try to fix her, right? The problems with this rework cannot be fixed by numbers. How are you not understanding this?

Oh right, you think "autoattack but worse" is an interesting skill.

5G8Nri0B545 votes

I'm gone for 20 minutes and there's literally new posts all over the place, and over half of them are impossible to seek out with how this forum works. But I'll just start off here then.

The reworks failure is NOT A NUMBERS ISSUE.

It's a complete change to a paradigm that goes contrary to what she SHOULD be. It drops a pattern that is actually SATISFYING to people who like Cassiopeia over to one that belongs on the opposite of a Poisonous champion.

If you think Cassiopeia's problem is that her numbers are undertuned, then you really fail to see the bigger picture.

Balancing is easy (relatively speaking). What takes actual work is making a champion whose kit fits them AND is balanced. This is where the rework fails hard. Asides from having a boring as hell style now, it's also one that doesn't fit her.

chumbler3 votes

Except numbers are actually the only reason why the rework failed. Her kit is more interesting after the rework and she fill a much more unique role than she use to fill. The only thing that doesn't fit is the numbers and they are obscuring everything else. She is not satisfying to play because her spells do not do enough damage and her power curve is completely out of wack. She is boring because her numbers do not allow her to do anything. All of these things would be fixed once someone fine-tunes the numbers.

All of those issues would be fixed by reverting this idiotic rework.

5G8Nri0B545 votes

Because spamming a POINT AND CLICK direct damage ability is so much more interesting than a completely DoT delayed skillshot.

Also, you can only be a "generic AoE DoT/poisons" mage champion if there's already a number of them around. And I don't know about you, but I see a lot more generic nuking mage. A lot more mages who relies on pure instant damage to take down a foe rather than wearing them out. A lot more boring uninspired point and click mages rather than one who relies on a small delayed AoE that only inflicts DoT.

A Slime Appears1 votes

"When it goes contrary to snakes in general."

Wait, so snakes throw poison clouds in real life? A snake wants to do two things to you : Get up in your face and sink its fangs into you (ahem), or wrap around you and choke you to death. Neither of that fits the "sits back and throws poison clouds" "archetype".

5G8Nri0B543 votes

Conjuring about poisonous gas does however, fit the POISON MAGE archetype, which she is one.

Spamming an endless stream of giant fangs like Vegeta trying to spam his blasts is neither snake nor poison mage.

Chrige3 votes

Not sure about snakes, but most poisonous animals poison and then walk way and wait for you to die, not get in your face and keep poking you to death.

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