Theoretically, Cassiopeia's poison needn't hurt that much to make her a Poison Mage, just "sticky"
There are two identities Cassiopeia. One she possesses. And one she should have had. Take a quick guess which they are.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5525/11239259366_a797a2e445_b.jpg http://tfwiki.net/mediawiki/images2/thumb/2/2b/Coming_of_the_Fuzors_1_Quickstrike_intro.jpg/300px-Coming_of_the_Fuzors_1_Quickstrike_intro.jpg
Right now, Cassiopeia** have** Rhinox's identity. But Cassiopeia should hold Quickstrike's identity. Rhinox is a badass Twin-Chaingun wielding warrior who doesn't afraid of anything. Quickstrike poisons, but he is incompetent if anyone gets too close to him...he was supposed to be a slightly less incompetent Waspinator.
As the title itself says, for Cassiopeia to truly fill the Poison Mage archetype, making her poison actually do damage is the most logical and obvious solution. But theoretically there COULD have been a way for Stashu to make her Poison damage be complete and utter shit as they are now, but still be satisfying to land. However, it needs to achieve something with a SIMILAR NET RESULT. The core things to remember when fulfilling a poison fantasy is that
a) being inflicted on it fudges the victim over the longer it's on them
b) the effect sticks
When her Q and W didn't do shit damage, the poison screws them over by making them have too little hp to engage, the effect sticks because damage. With it's damage being pure shit as they currently are, her poison is a mere afterthought and their "utility" consists of a small speed boost and a type of CC that's becoming more and more irrelevant as champions stop caring about being slowed what with their 2-3 gap-closers.
I probably suggested this before...in fact I'm positive I have.
Her current Passive is stupid because it contradicts the very fantasy of Poisoning the opponent. Instead, what if her Passive changes into some sort of semi-permanent debuff of various sorts based on duration?
For instance, something akin to...
Embrace of Poison: Units poisoned by Cassiopeia will receive semi-permanent debuffs based on how long they have been poisoned. The debuffs received will stack upon each other, and can only be removed by death, healing at the fountain, or with Cleanse.
Mechanically, each tick of poison applies a stack just like her current Passive, but instead of having it on Cassiopeia the poisoned target that lingers till they die or heal at the fountain. And the debuffs will be "Lose this much of this", "Lose that much of that", "This happens, and that's terrible", etc. All really minor debuffs that over a period of time, makes the poisoned champion essentially have the strength of one who is an entire level or more lower.
For example,* "-5% Armor/MR", "10% Heal Reduction", "-5% damage" which after more poisoning becomes "-20% damage", "-10% Attack Speed", "-2% item stat bonus", "take 1% extra damage", "take 2% extra damage"* "all ability cooldowns increased by 0.05 seconds" etc.
Under this type of poison, the opponent is fudged over because they're losing more and more of themselves till they can not fight properly anymore. The effect sticks because it's semi-permanent till death, return to fountain, or cleanse. The net result should hopefully be just as, or even stronger than getting hit by pre-rework Cassiopeia's poison that often. Would put her more in the offensive utility mage role, but hey, who the hell thought AP Rambo was a good idea!**?
Her Twin Fangs could even have it's damage drastically lowered and perhaps be made less overloaded to give even more strength to her new Passive because hey she's not supposed to be goddamn Rhinox, she should be more like a less retarded Quickstrike.
Of course that still doesn't solve the issue of why the hell does Cassiopeia feel more like Sylvester Stallone gunning down his foes with an assault rifle and not more like Yoko Ono poisoning the Beatles until they eventually break apart from the inside out (TL;DR - her E!!!)
Also yeah I like analogies and metaphors if it wasn't painfully obvious enough.
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