Ok, so I tried the new Cassiopeia for the first time. Here's how it went.

Agidyne·Nov 7, 2014·37 votes·5,198 views

For like, 40 minutes, I felt I did no damage whatsoever, I felt I was healing Riven with my Poison, it was so dumb

I never felt as useless as I did, despite almost never missing my Q and spamming my E. The sole reason why we didn't lose by then was because our Draven was fed as fuck as could nearly 1 shot everyone in the entire enemy team with an Axe Crit.

After I reached 400 stacks, had Rabadonns and a L.Torment, I literally walked up to Riven and Blitzcrank(had lost hope at that point), Ulted them, pressed Q and E 3 times, instantly murdered Riven and Blitz survived because of his Mana shield.

Seriously

WTF IS THIS?

58 Comments

Arc NoirNov 7, 201425 votes

Welcome to the ideal Cassiopia riot wishes to have, useless for 35 minutes unless your lane opponent jammed a crayon up their nose.

Seriously, that passive is really poor and I think it's crippling the rest of her kit. I don't know why they keep insisting on having it, no offense to Riot.

2pudge1cupNov 7, 20147 votes

ya her passive has a stupid power curve

AgidyneNov 7, 20144 votes

Did I mention I was like 0/8 when that happened?

Knight SoIaire Nov 7, 20141 votes

i personaly like the new cass ... i wont say that she is ballanced but she can realy get under your skinn once she gets stacked and kills half of your team before they get out of her ults stunn

MadFuhrerNov 7, 20144 votes

as a person who played nothing but the new cass for like 4 weeks, I love all the people complaining about a lack of damage early on cass. the only time you should be lacking on damage is level 3 and before you have tear. getting athene's is a waste of a slot. with the %mana return on e kill, you should build tear. Also, you aren't an assassin, but you have very high dps, so if you were hoping for alot of frontloaded damage before 400 stacks then you are kidding yourself, but you still do substantial damage.

OrbvNov 7, 20147 votes

Well you can't poke well and any bursty mage will kill you (leblanc, annie, syndra, Viktor). She doesn't have any presence in lane. That's the issue. Did you play old Cass? The difference is very vast. For levels 1 - 9, landing any poison followed by 2 twin fangs did more damage than 1 poison and 3 twin fangs because her scaling was better.

Also the new change is that they are removing the %mana return in the next patch. So she really...really has a worse early game (let alone bad waveclear)

FunkyyCatNov 7, 20143 votes

They're actually putting back the mana return, aknowledging that she needs some sort of mana sustain (check out the stickied thread)

Knight SoIaire Nov 7, 20142 votes

(leblanc, annie, syndra, Viktor)

those are mages that are supposed to kill other mages with one combo so what is the problem also you forgot veigar

oh and about those mages cass definetly wont have it easy early buut late she straight out counters them she can get the seraph, rylai , abyssal scepter and bam she has like 600 ap and 2 slots free for full tank items that wont realy gut her dmg

dunno how about you but i think cass can become quite good if we experiment more with the stuff that her kit allows you to build

OrbvNov 7, 20147 votes

Yeah Veigar is a huge issue. But ignoring the bursters. Unless you receive 700 AP you can't beat sustained damage dealers either. At lvl 6 Swain/Malz/Brand/Lissandra/Mordekaiser/Vel'koz will also still wreck you because you will not have your heal by then and they have too many methods to get away from your damage.

But it is impossible to get more than 400 AP with the 3 items you mentioned. And as many boards have pointed out, unless you have 800 AP, you are dealing less damage than pre-rework Cass unless you can land 4 Fangs EVERY TIME.

With the new Cass you do not have the option to build tank items. WIthout 700 AP, the heal on her Twin Fang is negligible because its ratio is very low. If you go for Rylai's, you already are not reaching your maximum potential and buying Abyssal guarantees that you will be doing less damage than pre-rework no matter what else you buy.

Cassiopeia was always "Quite Good". The rework should be trying to make her "Viable". They have done the opposite of that and made her more difficult to ever see in competitive play. No professional players use stacking champions, Nasus hasn't been seen since the early summer competition when he was still strong. The only way to get about the same as pre-rework is to buy Seraph's, Rabadon's, and Hourglass. Include boots and you only have space for 2 items to protect yourself. These items need AP or else you don't break even. And in that case, you never really buy strong defensive options without hindering your damage.

POINT She does not have the build options, playstyle options, nor the leveling options that she did before. No matter what you test, with this Cass there is an OBVIOUS build/level/playstyle path every game or else you are not benefitting from her passive.

Knight SoIaire Nov 7, 20141 votes

i dont remember the combination but prolly it was rylai wota and seraph... late game i had over 600 ap without any kind of rabbadon

ppl try to abuse her insane amount of ap by stacking it over the roof but its a possibility (didnt play enough to confirm) that more effective way would be to skip the big ap items and let yor passive fill the gap while you pick some tankyness making you a well rounded ball of stats

OrbvNov 7, 20142 votes

I wish the passive could fill the gap, that in theory would have been genius :(

The reason it doesn't fill the gap is because the ratios were so good before, that you could build defensively. But it cancels it out for her to receive more AP with worse ratios. And the increase in AP 30%, does not counter balance the reduction of ratios 70%. That is a stark difference. The new Cass is not better than the old Cass. They are about even actually, but definitely not better.

Knight SoIaire Nov 7, 20141 votes

dont forget the cdr and the build in heal the kit got diferent and most of the time we are comparing the 2 without looking at the entire kits

i dont know i didnt test it to be sure but i think it might be possible

pE4CbxDPQONov 7, 20144 votes

Are we playing Cass mid still or has she moved into the safety of the top lane?

FunkyyCatNov 7, 201416 votes

How ironic that top lane is now the "safe lane"

LlaniteNov 7, 20142 votes

was and is always the safe lane. When did it change?

FunkyyCatNov 8, 20143 votes

Someone didn't play during the fighter top lane meta (Riven, Reneckton, etc.)

LlaniteNov 8, 201413 votes

It died since the Ryze pandemic.

SzedeklevestNov 8, 20143 votes

It died since the Ryze pandemic.

I lol'd

LankPantsNov 8, 20141 votes

If you remove the champs who are played in each lane from account mid is innately safer than top due to the shorter distance between the middle of the lane and the tower, meaning you have far less distance to cover when falling back to your tower, however a combination of metashifts in both lanes and the dominance of TP top lane meaning you basically get a free fuck-up have made top generally a little bit safer than mid

ThryaleNov 8, 20141 votes

not just that, but mid lane is more vulnerable to ganks than top. Top only has one entrance, while mid has two, thus it takes more wards to stay safe in mid unlike top lane.

LankPantsNov 9, 20141 votes

Typically you ward a side and hug it, so a jungler who ganks from the other has far more ground to cover, also often junglers will leave wards around mid to watch out for the mid laner/invades, as well as there being a lot of popular pink ward placements near mid. As such when playing with a decent team ward coverage around mid is rarely a problem, in solo que however mid can be less safe due to people having no idea how to ward. Mid is also a little safer than top as your jungler is near mid far more often, meaning any gank on mid risks the possibility of a counter gank.

ThryaleNov 9, 20141 votes

You are aware tht junglers don't start to consistently leave wards for their mid laners till high gold, right? I'm still in just silver, and it's a rare occurrence when my jungler does anything to help out with lane wards.

Meep ManNov 8, 20141 votes

Darius Jax Riven When these guys were the top dogs, making the lane probably the most frightening position since you could lose a lane and end up feeding a tanky carry that could do better than an ADC at carrying and killing. (Renekton the other way around, killed early game, but became a Super Tank late game)

Tapu FiniNov 8, 20141 votes

Riven goes mid sometimes. It's generally against squishy immobile casters with limited CC (See: Cassiopeia.) She kind of just craps on mid if they can't keep the Riven away.

Luigi TortelliniNov 7, 20143 votes

Don't build torment on her. Just stack as mush ap as possible. My build is usually tear > rylais > pen boots + zhonyas + death + void. Rylais is pretty great on her, slow them down as you speed yourself up.

CanastusNov 7, 20143 votes

Just had the displeasure of laning against an ap mid Sona with the gutted snakelady.

Either Cass is too weak or Sona is simply stronger. Anyway, her ult made mine look like a joke. Petrifying Gaze must lose its godawful cast-delay, period. She was able of bursting down the entire team with Crescendo and her poke-damage with Sheen/Lichbane alone was sheer insanity. She constantly drove me back to my tower and even got a doublekill when our jungler tried to gank. Even Sona outperforms Cass at this point.

utDOOMNov 8, 20143 votes

It's nearly impossible to win lane against an AP Sona. She outrades basicly every ap mid (I even won lane against old le-blanc), has good sustain, and can kite junglers really easily, so she can't even be ganked.

AP Sona would probably beat old cass in lane too. (maybe)

Long Dong WukongNov 8, 20143 votes

It's you losing within 30 minutes every time because it's effectively a 4v5

OyddAWqJ5rNov 8, 20143 votes

Is this the new Tristana? Play a super super super safe comp and let her farm for 40 minutes for free win? :D

I haven't seen or played Cass since rework. It's pretty disappointing. I still have yet to understand why she received a rework in the first place.

Kitten EaterNov 8, 20143 votes

all this cass nerfing is to deal with the cass bot thats floating around. or so i heard.

exiledFromBadmenNov 8, 20141 votes

LOL

FunkyyCatNov 7, 20142 votes

Yeah i feel you man, after seeing everyone's constant negative comments i kinda stayed away from Cassio since the rework... until yesterday.

Here's the match history: http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1621801705/47403544?tab=overview That was one of the funnest games i've had in a while. Played with 2 friends and 2 randoms, before like 15 minutes we all thought the game was over, but i was doing well and kept going. Next thing i knew our Tresh was going all madlife, me and Graves both did crazy damage (yes, i did damage with Cass at 15-20 minutes, what an outrage) and we pulled ourselves back in the game and snowballed.

OP whining and cussing here cause he did no damage going 0/8 is straight up ridiculous and uncalled for. Personally i went for QEW then max E, build athenes sorcs rylais then situational and i never really felt weak at any point in the game, especially not with 1000 ap by the end of the game.

EDIT: that was meant to be a reply to Scilica, my bad.

AgidyneNov 7, 201410 votes

Perhaps you don't know why I went 0/8

I dealt no damage whatsoever for 35 minutes.

I'm not kidding when I say my whole combo wouldn't even be enough to take over Rivens shield.

But suddenly, I reach 400 stacks and bam, I start literally one shotting people.

The Q Poison still dealt no damage whatsoever, but it was good enough to let me spam my E non-stop, and my all my damage came from that alone.

I don't remember using her W to anything other than wave clear. All my damage came from my Ultimates nuke(1000 AP nuke) and my E spamfest o'rama.

It's just funny that a champion, despite being 0/8 can murder anyone by spamming undodgeable shit after 50 minutes, and kinda come back that way while dealing 0 damage before her 400 passive mark.

FunkyyCatNov 7, 20141 votes

May i ask what you actually built in order to do "zero damage" early?

AgidyneNov 7, 20142 votes

Sure

My first items were Tear and Haunting Guise as the enemy Riven bought an Hexdrinker and I needed the Magic Pen.

Didn't have enough for a NLR and probably wouldn't buy it anyway do to Cassio's stupidly bad ratios.

FunkyyCatNov 7, 20142 votes

Yeah that's your problem right there imo.

You wouldn't want the tear cause it only hinders her already average early game, and isnt really needed imo. For the haunting guise, it really doesn't build in anything you want (Liandry's really isn't a part of her build anymore). For the pen, just rushing sorcs would've been much better as it would've helped you kite more, which is crucial to cass.

After that, rushing rylai's would've been best. With that, no one can get to you if you play it right and land your q's, not even a riven. Maybe just getting the giants belt and getting a temporary seekers before finishing it and then getting zhonyas and the rest of your core.

You mixed focus on late game with tear and early game damage with the hauting guise, whereas you should've focused on utility/survivability, getting a bit of damage on the way with the buffed rylai's

OrbvNov 7, 20146 votes

Tear has been proven to be one of the best items for her starting out. There isn't another mana option for her that wouldn't reduce her late game power.

Against Riven it might be smart to not get it right away if you need seekers to survive. But it adds a lot of needed mana

Generally tear into Rylai's if you think you can be useful early. I usually with go for Houglass before Rylai's because it takes forever to stack enough to become aggressive.

OneriosNov 8, 20141 votes

I do wonder it it is possible to delay tear for a bit on her. Her early game is not going to be good regardless of what you build, but building tear as a first item puts her into a really bad spot due to losing all potential poison pressure and ends up costing her cs as a result. She stacks its really fast anyway, so could it be worth delaying it until after your first item, leaning on the mana regen from e to keep sustained, and recalling after major engagements happen (due to her kit nature they tend to end up with one party dead or too low to stay in lane anyway). You get tear so that she does not run out of mana in prolonged fights/sieges when she can't rely on e regen, but that's not a factor in lane.

LongHair FoxNov 8, 20141 votes

I do wonder it it is possible to delay tear for a bit on her. Her early game is not going to be good regardless of what you build, but building tear as a first item puts her into a really bad spot due to losing all potential poison pressure and ends up costing her cs as a result. She stacks its really fast anyway, so could it be worth delaying it until after your first item, leaning on the mana regen from e to keep sustained, and recalling after major engagements happen (due to her kit nature they tend to end up with one party dead or too low to stay in lane anyway). You get tear so that she does not run out of mana in prolonged fights/sieges when she can't rely on e regen, but that's not a factor in lane.

She needs a mana item sure but RoA is fine alone on her. Tear is decent if you can get away with it or need an early rylais but i typically go with just RoA and i have mana enough for teamfights where the enemy has a heavy tank frontline like rammus + mundo (god it gets fun melting mundo with cassi)

AgidyneNov 7, 201411 votes

Do you know how little sense that makes?

"Don't build Tear on Cassio" - Tear itself has been a core component of her item build. Even before the rework.

If you get Athenes, you get wasted Stats. If you go RoA, you lose Ability Power. If you go Morellonomicon, you also get wasted Stats.

She deals no damage early on due to shit ratios. I want old Cassio back.

I want to have a decent champion at all stages of the game rather than having 1 champion that is shit and suddenly becomes a monster 50 minutes in.

Having Haunting guise must not have been the best option, but it was the safest as it gave every stat I needed. Magic Pen, Health and HP.

And still, I was doing fine. I didn't die much against her in lane.

It's when teamfights started that a 200 AP Cassio would not be able to duel a Blitzcrank because her ratios are shit.

FunkyyCatNov 7, 20143 votes

Yet somehow i do just fine with her.

I'm not saying she's optimal atm, a rework to the rework is probably necessary, but that's not an excuse to be so closed to every suggestion you get. You did shit, i did great. i know that's not an argument but ffs at least be open about it.

"Don't build Tear on Cassio" - Tear itself has been a core component of her item build. Even before the rework.

Yeah, dont build tear on cassio, as i said it hinders her already average early game, cause surprise, this is not old cassio, and you should probably try to adjust yourself to it

If you get Athenes, you get wasted Stats. If you go RoA, you lose Ability Power. If you go Morellonomicon, you also get wasted Stats.

Honestly i don't even know what to tell you... what do you expect, this one perfect item that does everything? No, you have to make a choice here, big deal, it's called a compromise.

League is a complex game, i dont think i need to convince anyone of that, yet it seems to be brought down to cost efficiency numbers constantly, and that's just ridiculous.

OrbvNov 7, 20146 votes

I don't know why you keep referring to her early game as Average. It's BAD. Riot has openly declared it purposely gated. The only other champion they did that to was Poppy, and at least her gating makes sense.

Also Tear was an option on old Cass. It is almost mandatory on new Cass. She goes OOM in teamfights faster than any other mage, arguably Kassadin/Ryze. She has no teamfight sustain, which Old Cass did have because of her passive. And unlike the 3 items that were mentioned, Seraph's doesn't have any wasted stats or actives.

Until you receive 400 stacks, AP does so little for Cass it's painful. It probably is in fact smarter to go with Rylai's early just to survive long enough to possibly do some whittling.

The Queen ViperNov 7, 20142 votes

Yet somehow i do just fine with her.

Well, since you basically only play Normal games with her, it's not surprising. Like I said earlier, you can literally build anything there and still do just fine, 'cause they are Normal games for a reason. You could pick even Urgot and do just fine there.

Yeah, dont build tear on cassio, as i said it hinders her already average early game, cause surprise, this is not old cassio, and you should probably try to adjust yourself to it

Not sure how old Cass relates to this, since with her old passive you didn't even need an early mana item. Anyways, no matter how average her early game is, Tear is pretty much mandatory with her now if you want to play her well and optimally. Not to mention, Seraph is quite good in mid/late game.

TsundayNov 7, 20142 votes

Tear is a good item on her, but it's not a good first item on her unless you're already ahead in lane. If you're even in lane buying something with basically no damage/defensive stats to it isn't going to be helpful. I would have gotten and early tear, but not with the guise and not before I built a little damage. Since you want games to last a while with Cass it'd be a decent second back.

soulbanana8Nov 8, 20142 votes

After hearing this, isn't she a strictly worse Veigar?

IceKingChernobogNov 9, 20141 votes

Yes her early game is non existent, at least when veigar Q pokes you, you take a nice amount of damage. With cass it's "Oh, she poisoned me, that tickles"

ComannderShepardNov 7, 20141 votes

Hey look, someone else has seen how cassiopeia is good after the rework and how powerful she is in the late game.

LlaniteNov 7, 20141 votes

I don't get the exaggeration really.

Pre-patch her Q is 250 something + 0.7 AP? Post-patch its still 230 something + 0.45, you get 10% AP @15 minutes or so, so effectively .5AP. Come out .2AP + 30 dmg nerf and it goes from 'insane' to 'no dmg'?

ZinzonNov 7, 20141 votes

250 + 0.90 pre-patch! **0.9!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! **

So it's actuallly a 0.40 ratio +30 nerf which is ENORMOUS!

Serpents EmbraceNov 8, 20141 votes

Preach it.