The State of Cassiopeia

Dear Riot Games,

To put it bluntly, Riot, you didn't deal with the rework of Cassiopeia very well. Since the rework her win-rate has plummeted to the lowest in the game, hovering around 40%. I know you must have had good intentions but what you ended up doing was gutting Cassiopeia's early game in order to buff her late game. Rather than just leave it at that I'll give an explanation on whether the changes made to each ability were good and bad and how they effect Cassiopeia's late game.

Old Passive: Deadly Cadence After casting a spell, any subsequent spell-casts will cost 10% less mana for 5 seconds. The effect stacks up to 5 times.

This passive gave Cassiopeia the ability to spam abilities without losing too much mana, which was essential in order for her to be able to spam her e every .5 seconds. However this also made you feel as if you were being punished if you used e to cs, so while it was an interactive and useful passive it also wasn't very fun.

New Passive: Aspect of the Serpent Cassiopeia gains a stack of Aspect of the Serpent for each second that an enemy champion is poisoned, for each poisoned unit that she kills and when she hits an enemy champion with Twin Fang, up to a max. of 400 stacks. 75 STACKS: 5% increased ability power, and Twin Fang now heals for 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 16 (+ 10% AP). 200 STACKS: 10% increased ability power and 25% bonus cool-down reduction. 400 STACKS: 30% increased ability power.

This new passive looks good on paper however when you look at it in comparison to how the rest of the kit was changed you realize something. This new passive gives you 30% increased AP as compensation for the 45% ratio nerf on her q, a 45% ratio nerf and 315 base damage nerf on her w (assuming you stand in it for the full duration), and a 10% ratio nerf and 100 base damage nerf on her ult. The only thing that was buffed was her e, which now has higher late game base damage and scaling, refunds mana on kill, and refunds health on hit. Her e can now be used more often due to the CDR but that is about it.

Old Q: Noxious Blast (Applies Poison) MS Boost upon hit: 15 / 17.5 / 20 / 22.5 / 25% Cool-down: 3 seconds TOTAL MAGIC DAMAGE: 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+ 80% AP)

This was the ability that cemented Cass as a lane bully. Sure you may argue most people feared Cass due to her ability to kill people with e spam but this ability, with it's high AP ratio, allowed Cass to poke people out of lane. While you may argue that this is unfair as her late-game potential should warrant her having a weak early-game this ability is not dissimilar to Syndra's, Ziggs', and Lissandra's q's in the context of being able to poke people out with an average damage low cool-down skill. While the fact that it enabled her to attack you with her e may lead you to believe it's OP this isn't the case for two reasons. Firstly if a Cass tries to all in and fails the mana cost of e causes her to be OOM afterwards. Secondly she has to get very close to use her e on you and with the mobility creep we are experiencing a mobile jungler and mid can turn around the situation and kill her.

New Q: Noxious Blast (Applies Poison) MS Boost upon hit: 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30% Cool-down: 4 seconds TOTAL MAGIC DAMAGE: 75 / 115 / 155 / 195 / 235 (+ 35% AP)

This skill remained largely the same except the AP ratio. While late-game the change isn't too major due to the new passive, early-game is a different story. By killing the AP ratio of this ability you made it so Cass players have to max e first. Sure most of us maxed e first before but some of us could still max q and poke/farm until 13 until e was maxed for team-fights. Now we're shoved into maxing e and the mages I mentioned before (Ziggs and Syndra) can now easily poke her out of lane, as her poke does virtually no damage now, with minimal return fire. The nerf to the AP ratio early also kills her competitive viability as now her early AOE damage and poke is horrible in comparison to other mids, and in the LCS early dragon fights usually decide games. While the increased movement speed is nice it doesn't justify the rest of the nerfs.

Old W: Miasma (Applies Poison) Cool-down: 15 seconds Slow: 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 % MAX. MAGIC DAMAGE: 225/315/405/495/585 (+ 135% AP) (Over 9 seconds)

This ability was usually maxed last as, while it did a ton of damage, required the enemy to be AFK or cc'd in order for them to stand in it's 9 second duration. However, in AOE compositions this ability did tons of damage as the whole enemy team couldn't leave it due to AOE CC (Thanks Amumu).

New W: Miasma (Applies Poison) Cool-down: 14/13/12/11/10 seconds Slow: 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 % MAX. MAGIC DAMAGE: 90 / 135 / 180 / 225 / 270 (+ 90% AP) (Over 9 seconds)

This ability still performs it's function, which is to slow down the enemy so you can attack them with e spam. However now it does much less damage and in late game AOE team-fights it will do pretty much nothing. This ability does much less damage than Morgana's tormented soil, and while it slows and allows her to use her e, there's no reason for an ability with a shorter duration to do so much more damage. Again, the increased slow is nice but it further pushes you into playing around your e rather that being able to poke.

Old E: Twin Fangs Cool-down: 5 (0.5 seconds if target is poisoned) Base Damage: 50 / 85 / 120 / 155 / 190 (+ 50% AP)

This was what made Cass relevant all game long. While some mages fell of due to being unable to burst single targets down late game Cass had sustained damage and burst damage keeping her strong all game. While this sound OP the lack of mobility she has kept her from carrying every game, as she was easily focused. Pre-Mobility Creep she was OP (During Season 2) but she was balanced for the last year or more. The key here was that if you maxed e and had good positioning you could wreck early fights, and otherwise you could max q and wait for late-game. And while Cass had burst, it wasn't near the level of many burst mages (Annie, Brand, and Syndra).

New E: Twin Fangs Cool-Down: 5 (0.5 seconds if target is poisoned) Base Damage: 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 / 155 (+ 40 / 45 / 50 / 55 / 60% AP)

Now that the AP ratio scales with level you must max Twin Fangs first to do anything as Cassiopeia, as it gives you health, mana, and passive stacks now. While the base damage is lower the other changes make it a stronger ability than before, especially the new passive. But this is what the problem with rework Cass is: She's become a mid lane ADC who can't kill turrets. Her AOE has been nerfed drastically and her E stands as the only thing to have been buffed: her single target damage. This makes her less of a mage and more of an AP marksmen (like Teemo) with an AOE CC ult. However unlike Teemo she doesn't build attack speed so she cant kill towers so her late game use boils down to set up to spam your e and ult when it's most useful.

Old Ult: Petrifying Gaze Cool-down: 130 / 120 / 110 Base Damage: 250/325/450 (+60% AP)

This ult was and is a game-changer. At level 6 it's relatively high base damage and 1.5 second stun/70% slow allowed Cass to snag some kills and late game allowed her team to either initiate a fight or to clean it up with its CC. You could ambush people with this ult for an easy kill and in general was a great ult.

New Ult: Petrifying Gaze Cool-down: 120/110/100 Base Damage: 150/250/350 (+50% AP)

The only complaint I have here is that the 100 base damage nerf prevents Cass from getting kills early. Otherwise, this ult is better late-game now thanks to increased scaling (from the Passive) and a lower Cool-down.

As you can see, Riot, the changes to Cass did more harm than good, giving her the lowest win-rate in the game, and ended up looking like harsh nerfs. Based on this rework I believe your intentions were to change Cassiopeia from a jack of all trades champ (Burst, Sustained, DOT, AOE, Single Target, CC) into an AP marksman that destroys teams late-game with her OP e spam. However you didn't take into account that her early game was so weak now that she could rarely get to that late game OP point and even if she did her lack of mobility meant that with proper focus she wasn't much of a threat. Riot many Cassiopeia mains and I would enjoy to see her reverted to her pre-rework form where her win-rate was always hanging around 50%, the sign of a balanced champ. And if you want to fix the fact that she isn't played much do something about the mobility creep going on in this game, as she is fun to play.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                               From, The Fizzlestick

Statistics and Ability Information obtained from the LOL Wiki and LOLKing.