Cassiopeia mid season mage update ideas
With the recent announcement of the "big 6" champions slated for the mage updates I immediately thought of changes for my favorite champion of the bunch, Cassio. Changes made to her existing kit will be marked with a *
*Passive - Cassiopeia's abilities and auto attacks interact with enemies poisoned by Noxious Blast, adding stacks to poisoned targets, and adding stacks of Aspect of the Serpent to Cassiopeia. Stacks on targets capped at 5. *Aspect of the Serpent – Cassiopeia’s curse empowers her for reaching poison stack milestones: Aspect of the Serpent One 100 STACKS: + 5% AP, and Cassiopeia gains 2% movement speed per poison stack on enemy champions Aspect of the Serpent Two 250 STACKS: + 5% AP, for a total of + 10% AP, Twin Fang now heals for 6 - 16 (based on level) (+ 6% AP) and adds 2 stacks to poisoned targets. Aspect of the Serpent Three 500 STACKS: + 10% AP, for a total of + 20% AP, Twin Fang deals additional damage (5% max hp) to targets with 5 stacks of poison and heals for 10% of damage dealt (before resistances).
Noxious Blast (Q) - ACTIVE: After a 0.4-second delay, Cassiopeia blasts the target area with poison. Enemies within the area are poisoned, taking magic damage over 3 seconds. Damage is increased for each stack of poison applied to enemy champions. Subsequent casts add 1 stack of poison to targets and reset the duration of poison. (movement speed increase moved to passive)
Miasma (W) - ACTIVE: Cassiopeia deals a small amount of damage and slows poisoned targets by 10% per stack for 1 second. Targets with 5 stacks are stunned instead, dealt a moderate amount of damage, and timer on poison is reset. (Think Kalista's Rend, no targeting required, no limit on number of targets)
Twin Fang (E) - ACTIVE: Cassiopeia fires fangs at an enemy, dealing magic damage and reducing the cooldown of Twin Fang if the target is affected by Cassiopeia's poison. Twin Fang adds stacks to poisoned targets and restores 1.5% of her missing mana if the target dies.
Petrifying Gaze (R) - ACTIVE: After a brief delay, Cassiopeia blasts enemies in a cone in the target direction, dealing magic damage and slowing them by 60% for 2 seconds. Enemies facing her directly are instead stunned for the same duration. Petrifying Gaze deals true damage to enemies with 5 stacks of poison.
I am unsure of whether or not to keep Aspect of the Serpent or just scrap that portion of her passive altogether and move all the poison stacking mechanics of her abilities to the passive, maybe make it like Syndra where the max stack effects only unlock when you fully level an ability. That would also make the current “power grows over time” mechanic stay with her.