So...for all the people asking for Cass to be a "Poison Mage"

AceBlack·2/9/2015, 3:19:32 AM·3 votes·1,109 views

Um...what exactly is a poison mage?

Dead serious question. I see so many Cass mains and "Cass mains" screaming at Riot until they're blue in the face about how they ruined Cass's "identity" by not making her this archetype. But when they are asked about what exactly makes a poison mage they just puff out their lips and go "Uhhh...Iunno...Dee oh Tees n stuff".

So it can't just be DoTs that makes a "poison mage". If it is, those two should be more than enough "poison" and "mage". So what exactly do you want?

16 Comments

SaltyToplaneGoat2/9/2015, 3:29:29 AM6 votes

The current Cassiopaia Rework is the biggest waste of potential that I have ever seen - mostly because the dude working on her simply thought of poison = DoT.

Now, let's all think for a moment, what IS poison? A substance that affects you negatively over time, the worse the higher the dosis and the longer you are exposed to it. It doesn't only have to be damage: slowly decreasing movement speed, slowly decreasing vision, slowly decreasing stats... at first the effect could be low, but th longer cassiopaia manages to keep you poisioned the stronger it gets. (Every poision causes stacks on the enemy to build up temporarely, the more stacks -> the stronger the effect.)

I would move the poision part to her passive, with her Q W and E abilties to be diferent ways to apply different poisions that can also stack on the enemy. (Ofc no point & click moves. There should be enough possibilties for three different skillshot/AOE skills. How about a wandering cloud of poision for example? )

Maybe also bonus effects for combining some poisions?

Jambat2/9/2015, 3:47:25 AM3 votes

I'm not a Cass main, but man her rework is rubbish. Land a poison pool then mash Twin Fang like it's going out of style. I can't say what the main players would want with their kits, but I find her to be incredibly boring to play right now.

Edit: And she's zero fun to play against as well.

Kowe The Ewok2/9/2015, 3:29:39 AM2 votes

Putting AoE DoT pressure on a certain area, forcing the enemy to avoid it, while still offering him a choice: Do I accept the severe damage since it is not a nuke and I can lifesteal backup? Do I accept it it as a tradeoff for closing the gap to my enemy? Or do I avoid the damage and allow my opponent to dictate my walking path?

With a 0.9, but longer delay scaling on her Q and noticeable DoT on her W V1.0 Cassiopeia managed to do exactly this. She created "danger-zones" which enemies would try to avoid, "leading" small skirmishes. Meanwhile at bigger teamfights her power would weaken due to the lack of burst she had. Even with a DoT applied enemies would storm through and burst her.

The poison identity she had was spitting down these these delayed, but huge damage numbers - putting strong pressure on her opponents to go for the all-in or all-out.

Ariaflux2/9/2015, 4:06:21 AM2 votes

Identity of a champion is not the solely the result of gameplay mechanics. Let's use Rengar as an example. What's his identity? Hunter. What about him shows that he is a hunter? Jump from bush, throwing bolas, surprise attack. However, gameplay wise, it's a gapcloser, slow and stealth. You could essentially replace his kit with other skills that do the same, gameplay wise, but ruin his identity. How about we make the effects of his skills look like Ezreal's E, Janna's W and Shaco's Q, does he still retain his identity as a hunter then? Another way to think about it can be say, we change his Q to a next skill modifier and move all his damage to his E. Instead of using E to slow and catch the prey like a stereotypical hunter, he will be some sort of ranged character that kills with his bola. That is something that goes against the identity of the character.

My point is, just because gameplay wise, the DoT from a poison and the Dot from other effects practically do the same thing, it does mean that identity wise, they are the same thing. Identity of a champion is hugely influenced by the character design (art and sound etc.).

Onegarion2/9/2015, 4:54:51 AM1 votes

My interpretation of what people want from her in being a poison mage is that here poison is the main component. Right now the poison is a secondary component in which you can Spam E or get stacks. Its not the main thing to do. Her main damage comes with the poison as a base to actually be cass.

To me personally a poison mage is the same as a fire mage. We don't see annie having a random Water attack or her main ability being a non fire ability. Everything about Annie and brand for that matter screams fire mage. While Cass has some poison abilites sure but they aren't the thing you think of when you think of Cass. You think of stacking passive and spamming E. Again this doesn't mean that her poison doesn't deal damage, but it doesn't scream poison mage like some of the other champions.

Gameplay speaking I think a poison mage isn't a late game monster. At best I think she should be early game lane bully scaling ok into the late with her main focus being teamfights. Almost like the opposite of Teemo. Where teemo excels in dueling (when talking about these two only) and solo play; Cass should be the teamfight Poison mage. WHere she should focus on AOE poisons to win. I think not only the angle they have gone with her is bad, but also the way they've chosen to make her play doesn't fit the archetype of a poison mage.

Thats my two cents at least.