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The problem with Cassiopeia indepth by a Cassiopeia Main since release.

Queen Cassiopeia·1/3/2016, 2:15:50 AM·107 votes·13,191 views

Her whole kit was designd around her passiv. She had a spamm Style in her kit which was only allowed because her manacost got lowerd due her passiv.

This made her a good early&Mid Kite&Poke Mage while still beeing viable in the lategame if she was good enough to land a few risky Q´s and had the perfect kiting skills to outplay opponents in the lategame.

That made her a really fun but difficult champion to learn with a completly unique kit.

Cassiopeia mains were rare but were a highly respected playerbase due them having to practice way more then other Champs because they had to learn how to kite a ADC with 2.0 Attackspeed while still landing all of her skillshots like a mage.

The Rework was there to limit her early Poke and Midgame powerspike and push it more into the lategame while giving her stacks that increased her lategame dmg and lowerd her early pressure.

What went wrong?

They shifted 90% of her Dmg onto her E and took a gigantic chunk out of her Q and W importance.

They deleted her Mana-Management Passiv which allowd a good Cassiopeia Main to control her manacosts.

What did the Playerbase of Cassiopeia mains liked about her?

Her early&Midgame Power, her unique Lane-Control with her Poisons and for the high skilled Players her lategame kiting potential.

The Rework was a big fail. The whole Cass Community hates her rework until today. The Dev´s are saying that the Cassiopeia Rework was a failure too.

The Reworks were directed to outdated Champions with outdated kits, which Cassiopeia´s kit wasnt. They reworked only half of her Kit because the Dev´s had no real idea about her and still after a gigantic wave of negativ feedback pushed it live.

They tryd to buff her with numbers which "worked" but only in Winrate because she had unbalanced numbers. Even with a 54% Winrate the Playerbase was still angry, not because the Champ wasnt powerfull enough... no... they didnt like what they did to the Gameplay-feeling that they changed.

The Passiv feels really boring. Because of the missing Manacost Passiv, she goes OOM with her new only E priorized style REALLY quickly.

She has BY FAR the most linear Itembuild, which was forced by the Passiv. lets have a look at that shall we?

OK!

  1. You need to have at least 1 Manapool Item -> Pick One -> ( item 3027 / item 3040 )
  2. Because of the nerfed AP Ratios and her % AP buffing Passiv you need to get item 3089 (which´s interactions-math with 500Stacks got also nerfed )
  3. Like almost every Mage and exspecially a "Late Game" Champ like reworked Cass needs item 3135
  4. item 3116 because of the CD nerfs to W after the rework to be able to kite effectivly
  5. item 3020 Everyone needs Boots and it helps you in the earlygame with flat pen and MS for kiting,chasing and dodging.
  6. This is the only "Free" Item-Slot but you have to use it based on the Enemy-Team sadly. Against High HP Tanks -> item 3151 Against Heavy AP Dmg -> item 3001 Against Heavy AD Dmg -> item 3157

When before the Rework you had a large amount of possible Items which all worked in different ways.

Fun Fact -> Statistics show that a Cassiopeia gains roughly 12k Gold in a Game which is a really low amount because that means she is only able to finish 3 Full items and her Boots, which means most of the time she cant even get to her "Powerspike" which raises her Winration btw after 40+ Minutes to a flipping 50,25% - 50,50% which shows that her "OP Lategame" has almost no influence at all.

So, what do we have today?

  1. A boring Kit ( playing as and playing against ) which focuses only on one On-Hit Spam Spell.
  2. Two timers which work together and are gates based on how soon you hit 500 Stacks and have your full Items, which is even harder because of the latest changes that end games around 10-15 minutes earlier.
  3. An extremely fragile Early&Mid for the exchange of a "good" late when your Team peels you enough and carrys you trough the first 25 minutes.
  4. Being called a "noob spam no skill" Champ... when before the update she was one of the most skillfull champs in the whole game.
  5. 46% Winrate which is continuously falling after all the nerfs although having the biggest amount of Scripters out of all Champs which distorts the number positively, making the true number even far worse.
  6. Her Passiv is hands down useless for her because of the nerfs which makes it sound good, but is worse and a lackluster and I will explain why.

25% CDR has almost no use for her. They increased both her Q and W CD so there is no point in it, which makes it a lackluster and there are no items atm which gets her to 40% CDR without capping which steals her a lot of Items. The only good thing is that you have your Ult more often which you already had after buying item 3174 which you cant buy anymore. Her incredible 0.06 AP Ratio Heal ONLY on E with 6 / 8 / 10 / 12 / 16 Flat heal... which are incredible bad numbers ( 76HP with 1k AP ). And her Manasustain is by far the biggest joke atm. 1,5% Mana refund when killing an Enemy with E. You need to kill 4+ Minions with E to REFUND the mana you had to use to poison them with lvl 1 Q. And 7+ when you used W to poison them. Let alone that you most likely cant kill 4+ Minions with only 1 Q and you waste mana when using W because a normal Minionwave is only 6 minions and even with a canonwave you dont refund 100% and wont be able to farm the whole wave until Midgame. And then... her INCREDIBLE % BONUS AP!!!!!1!1!1! Yeah, would have been incredible if they didn´t slaughter her Ap Ratios so she HAS to stack AP or she deals no dmg and her Dmg is worse then the old one UNTIL you reached Fullbuild, with 500 Stacks, then your E deals around 180 more Paper-Dmg with your E. And this numbers gets even lower because in the Lategame, the Enemy´s will have at least 1+ MR Items which lowers the Dmg even further to be irrelevant. 7. A Kit which completely revolves around her "Late Game Powerspike" which like already said, puts her on a 50,25% Winrate after the 40min+ mark, which clearly shows that it has a way to little impact for an unforgiving 40mins.

The Devs says that Cassiopeia was only a half-reworked because they had no idea how to complete it. Her 1 Side is her unfitting Passiv and the other one are her classic Spells.

The Rework got Cassiopeia almost no new Players, lost her a gigantic mass of her Mains she used to have, has a Kit which is anoying to play and anoying to play against AND while having an annoying Gameplay for both sides, no Playerbase she even has a dreadfull low Winratio.

If you want to test it yourself, search for the 50-100 Last Threads about Cassiopeia. They are only about Rework ideas because she´s just a bad champ right now.

It would be the best for her that her reworks gets reverted until they have a more thought trough Rework which, she really doesnt need anyways. And maybe, they use someone who doesn´t ignore all the feedback and then wents missing for 6 MONTHS . Which was extremely disrespectfull.

They basicly did a reverted Poppy Rework.

Poppy got reworkd because her Early and Mid was trash but her Late was incredibly strong.

Cassiopeia got exacly the opposite.... trashy early/Mid with a (not so) powerful lategame.

And its only normal that the community hates it.

140 Comments

Aezanthya1/3/2016, 2:20:04 AM45 votes

sorry but they just don't care.

BastionKross1/3/2016, 4:22:32 PM20 votes

Ahh Cass, the mage with the power of a marksman!*

*If you make it to late-late game, successfully poison your target, don't switch targets, and don't get blown up into tiny pieces because of your horrible range, mobility, and lack of options for defense.

It's no wonder why Stashu was run off the boards and is laying low at the moment. Any time he pokes his head up he gets swamped by Cass mains. Can't say I blame them, though. Thank god Rioters all learned from from Stashu's mistake and this kind of thing will never happ-

Mordekaiser

...Nevermind.

4NoxiousHours1/3/2016, 2:43:49 AM20 votes

Cassiopeia needs a new kit and visual upgrade.

Numbers will not solve ANYTHING. They gave her a semi-kit rework where they don't change the entire kit but they rephrase everything.

Her visual is also screwed up where she doesn't even look like a half snake lady.

Bulimia Vomit1/3/2016, 3:06:22 AM10 votes

Theres an e in passive, just saying. But yeah, this isnt news. Shes literally a walking passive and to make matters worse her passive is time gated.

A Level 7 Nami1/3/2016, 5:19:12 AM9 votes

Actually Refunded Cassiopeia after the rework because she felt nothing like the champ I used to play.

Krys Star1/3/2016, 7:32:30 PM8 votes

I wish they'd just revert the rework and leave her in her old state, until she's ready to be looked at again. She was rarely played even then, and nobody complained about her kit at the time except for people who had difficulty dodging skill shots. Now, she just tags you with poison once and spams Twin Fang. That's not fun for both the player and enemy... Her old kit had a lot of meaning and thinking.

BBBombBB1/3/2016, 3:43:07 AM7 votes

I appreciate the effort you put into this discussion. However, you are making large generalizations that aren't true. I have been a Cassiopeia fan before and after her rework. While I was sad to see her old passive leave, I welcomed the changes to her kit. Her new passive is engaging. It pushes me to use my abilities forcefully on enemies instead of spamming at nothing just to reduce costs (which is what the old passive did). I love sneaking into the enemy jungle before minions spawn to snatch a couple poison ticks on enemies.

The changed added to her E to refund mana on kills is also interactive. I have to choose between forfeiting the cooldown to regain mana, using poison (Q or W) to refund less mana and keep the cooldown, or damage enemies at no mana refund. The E changes are what help me stay in lane (along with the healing integrated with the passive).

Also, Cassiopeia does not have a linear build, but her choices have been consolidated since her rework. Before, she could opt for cooldown items item 3174 /item 3165 . I rarely purchase those now because the passive provides enough CDR. You are missing items like item 3152 that are great for healing and small amounts of CDR as well as item 3285 for additional burst and movement speed. She has the same items to choose from as any AP mid laner. I don't buy item 3089 most of the time because I prefer the utility in other items.

Sure, some things I liked more in her previous state such as higher ratios on her Q and W, but it's OK because other things have improved (not to forget that her E cooldown refresh became more reliable).

I was hesitant to try Cassiopeia when she was changed because I didn't know how she would turn out, but that's how it is with any champion that's changed. Some people will like the changes, and others won't.

I'm open to changes in her kit, as I am to changes in any champion. It isn't necessary to overhaul her kit with a rework.

Canastus1/3/2016, 2:30:23 PM6 votes

I agree wholeheartedly, Cassiopeia simply feels terrible and the recent changes to vision and snowballing made her even more unbearable to play as. Games usually end after 25 minutes now due to constant curbstomps and overly onesided matchups which leave very little room for comebacks. Her average winrate for games of this length is between 39-44%, that's simply horrendous.

The most you can do is try to avoid feeding and hope to god that your team doesn't fuck up until you finally have your core-items, until then they have to manage a 4v5 since you'll be sitting under your tower most of the time. Sadly that almost never works in Solo Q. 15 minutes into the game and the score's already at 0-15, in worse cases someone also goes afk. This is the kind of nightmare I have to deal with on a daily basis.

Picking Cassiopeia is like asking your team to lose since you'll be putting the responsibility of carrying the game on your teammates who are anything but reliable. She feels extremely useless and your team is only going to confirm that sentiment if you make the mistake of playing her.

Riot truly couldn't care less about this champion. She's pretty much the Urgot of midlane at this point. Whose idea was it to create a short-ranged, immobile, squishy ap carry with focus on single-target-damage along with troublesome cast delays and unreasonable manacosts? There's absolutely no room for her in this game anymore.

CasterGilgamesh1/3/2016, 4:28:43 AM6 votes

i truly agree with you riot took one of my favorite champions gutted her called it a rework ruined her visuals and ruined her splash art and don't even seem to care.... they hate her like the makers of family guy hate Meg the only champion i think riot hates more than Cassiopeia is Evelynn and maybe RekSai (she got nothing but nerfs since release) and Yorick(they will never remember him) also let's not forget some honorable mentions like Kassadin(he now just rift limps) Diana (she was nerfed to the ground just barely got back) Sona (rework was just a nerf as well) Nidalee (reworked then nerfed hard) Zilean (rework was nerf passive is almost worthless and has a borderline none existent player base) Varus (he is doomed to be ignored maybe a good thing might ruin him like cass) The biggest thing that needs to go with this "new" cass is her passive it has to go its holding her back.Also her twin fangs either needs to be changed so its not the focus or just remove it entirely since riot clearly can't handle letting it stay. Every single thing you have wrote was exactly what needed to be said i wish riot had at least half the intelligence you had since time has shown us they are clearly idiotic.As seen by these cases Cassiopeia Evelynn Sona Soraka Kassadin I love this game but it just pisses me off how incompetent riot seems to be.Sometimes i want to petition to fire the people who make such idiotic changes (not really but you understand my rage)

Rubber Jesus1/3/2016, 5:29:21 PM6 votes

You forgot about the nerf to her lore.

This is totally opinion but the VU was a nerf to me.

  1. Her splash is worse, making her face too elongated and "bitchy" looking compared to the old splash. It follows the much hated fashion of Katarina and Fiora in this regard.

2.Her in game VU update was worse. Her body used to flow, her large breasts rising and sinking like a perpetual wave. Now the have decreased her cup size and they no longer flow as well.

3.Her voice over is awful as well, and the community was pretty adamant her original voice acting was one of the best in the game.

That's all I can see you left off.

Chespin20131/3/2016, 9:47:15 AM6 votes

I never played the old cass but when I tried out new Cass I just hate playing it because its just basically a carpal tunnel simulator and doesn't feel at all like a poison mage like riot said she is

BlackTh0ughtz1/3/2016, 2:45:54 AM6 votes

You may not have liked her after the rework but I was fine with her after the passive rework after the rework. (I hope that makes sense). The thing is they nerfed her and stealth nerfed her too much. If the goal is to make her an adc like mage then the shifting of her damage to an auto attack like function is what makes the most sense and I enjoyed the playstyle myself. I've played about 400 games of cass since s4 and 5 and I agree that now she is near unplayable. The effort is no longer worth the reward. I can't complain after seeing theyre making an immobile mage rework and I'm sure they're going to include her in that. If not I will start the riot. Pun intended

Muh Meh1/3/2016, 3:13:57 AM5 votes

I understand you don't like Cass as she is and that's a perfectly valid opinion, but I personally think she's a lot of fun and satisfying to play. The problem is a lot of Cass mains liked the parts of her kit which were bad gameplay design. She's in a much healthier state now. Perfect? Absolutely not. She could still probably use some changes(I think the passive ramping should be adjusted or changed). In my opinion though, she's not super far from where she should be .

FistOfSharkiesha1/3/2016, 7:33:45 PM5 votes

There's no reason to play Cass when high utility ADCs like Ashe and Varus exist. They do literally everything she does better and easier with no weak early game.

Matezoide1/3/2016, 11:25:41 AM5 votes

[{quoted}](name=Queen Cassiopeia,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ofg4G7hq,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-01-03T02:15:50.076+0000) Cassiopeia mains were rare but were a highly respected playerbase

No.

Yes, she used to take a lot of skill back then and etc, but lets not pretend this was true in the slightest.

Dominick Destine1/3/2016, 5:46:55 PM4 votes

I tend to agree with the original poster.

Cassiopeia is absolute garbo and needs to be reworked... I want to play the character but not when it's in such a terrible position (Unplayable).

Saianna1/4/2016, 1:42:54 AM4 votes

I'll be honest. I didn't read it. There were countless threads about Cass. I've tried my best to read them all and you know what?

In the end every Cass-related thread comes to 3 things:

  1. Riot fucked up badly
  2. Riot ignores how badly they fucked up
  3. It is pointless, because Cassiopeia =/= Lee Fking Sin with his huge playerbase.

I am with anyone for "fixing" Cass (in all possible ways). I just know that Riot isn't a company that cares about players. They just need your wallet.

Leu071/3/2016, 7:59:37 AM4 votes

She is not riot's golden egg chicken neither she is LC$BIGPLAY$$$ like freaking Zed who I am tired of seeing every game. In the industry (riot is an industry) is all about the money, they will not give her love because she does not even have cool skins that people would buy, there are almost no fanarts, products, no sponsoring on her at all. She is not Ahri, she is not Yasuo, she is not Thresh. She is Cassiopeia and riot is completely missing the chance to make her great, fun, cool and popular, they could make money if they invested a little on her, but they hate her, thanks goodness it's not all lost, she still got faithful players like you and me who love her <3 let's just be persistent and maybe they would make a place in ther schedule for some big snake love.

Pale Pirate1/3/2016, 10:35:43 AM4 votes

With this update they completely broke cass, and it was very obvious this kit was going to be broken even before release. They should at least show some respect and do something about it.

Rozzeta1/3/2016, 9:07:01 PM4 votes

You provide a good point, but please allow me to give you piece of advice:

Cassiopeia mains were rare but were a highly respected playerbase due them having to practice way more then other Champs because they had to learn how to kite a ADC with 2.0 Attackspeed while still landing all of her skillshots like a mage.

Avoid making self complacent comments like the one above.

Captain Aishi1/3/2016, 6:02:01 PM4 votes

Riot knows they messed up big time, but they keep insisting she had 'bigger problems' before the rework, which to me only refers to the amount of cass scripters that were starting to run around in ranked at the time because aside from that... neither me nor any other cass players saw game-health problems with her kit, and Riot always insists that she did, that they have data to back it up, but they never explain WHAT the problem actually was (if they were right, I'd feel much better if they actually told me why so I could understand)

CarameI Frappe1/4/2016, 6:38:49 AM3 votes

Well written post you made OP ... too bad Riot won't look into this.

I feel they're not happy with Cassiopeia so they're pushing her under the rug until something comes up ... but until then, they're going to be working on everything else so we won't even see her get any loving / skins / anything for some years or more :'(

The Whamboozler1/3/2016, 6:59:50 PM3 votes

Except her late isn't even THAT strong. I mean, yeah she puts out the hurt but she's INSANELY vulnerable while doing it due to how short the range on her E is... and even then it's single target when mages are meant for AoE damage.

Everything Cass can do Azir can do 12 times better, from earlier in the game and he doesn't have to play her lame "are they poisoned" minigame to do it.

SpecterVonBaren1/3/2016, 7:16:06 PM3 votes

I still remember how out of nowhere her rework was. She was like Brand was before Deathfire Touch, not a commonly seen Mage but one that had dedicated players and their own unique style and strengths. She wasn't in a state like Poppy or Sion where her kit was clunky or toxic and clearly needed to be reworked, so it just comes out of nowhere for everyone. All just so it could coincide with the Shurima event.

She's like Skarner is now, yes, she's functional, but she was functional before and had a theme to her that made sense and worked.

Poske1/3/2016, 5:17:19 PM2 votes

There are couple of issues with your post

  1. You dont understand why she needed rework
  2. She actually has lots of build options ...

If you are looking for a champion with linear build take a look at brand Whether you are mid / support you are forced to go frost queen claim > rylai > lyandri > rabadon (Since you have lots of ap by then and his rations arent ultra awful)

Any other Brand build is absolute trash and like 5 tiers below however I dont think thats a problem since he has rather unique buildpath

Cassiopeia has build options you just cant deny that...

  1. She needed a rework BECAUSE SHE WAS TO SIMILAR TO OTHER MAGES... which would result in her overshadowing others or being overshadowed They tried to make her unique A lategame mage hypercarry (She used to be toxic early game champion) . Its a good direction but they failed

-Passive is disgusting. It takes to long to be fully stacked and forces her to build 120 Ap items and have 131231230 ap despite meh ratios -I dont even mind E dealing more dmg then q or w. Mainly because people are overexagureating since poison dmg is a bit harder to notice... Stashu did enhance her poison aspect as much as he could (With that eq interaction) so dont be like that Riot didnt listen Whole bias story that cass is not a poison mage is funny .. because literaly everything is based around a poison in her kit

The fact that cassiopeia is mage marksman who has no escape and trouble swapping targets is a problem

The Yetii Rider1/3/2016, 2:04:33 PM2 votes

Riot isn't ignoring Cass mains feedback.

Here's the problem. I had to explain this to Morde mains as well.

Cassieopeia's rework is classified as 'complete'. Therefore, Cassieopeia is currently only able to be changed by the Live Balance team. The Gameplay Update team, which handles reworks, is no longer able to touch her until they clear their backlog.

So what can the Live Balance team do? Change mana costs, change damage, change cooldowns, maybe move some power from one ability to another.

Things like what the Cass mains want (removal of her stacking passive, refocus on her poisons, better itemization options) isn't in the Live Balance team's power.

The largest change the Live Balance team has done to date was the removal of Draven's old passive and the addition of League of Draven, complete with new particles for the cashing in of Adoration. And even THAT probably had to go through Gameplay Update at some point.

If you want this Cass fixed you need to talk numbers, not concepts, because that's all that can be done to her for a long time.

Troiann1/3/2016, 3:17:31 AM2 votes

They can't buff current Cass's mana costs. She's already a bitch to deal with if you're playing something immobile and melee.

They have to rework her again.

And we all know how waiting for reworks feels like at Rito Gamings.

Veraska1/3/2016, 4:01:20 PM1 votes

There's gotta be a compromise here, you might not think anything about old cassiopeia was unhealthy design wise, but riot did so they made changes, what you call unique playstyle riot would call toxic -no pun intended, playstyle I'm speaking about the Q max in lane and how awful dots can feel when they're over tuned, and I'm old cass' case, they had to be overtuned yo maintain that aspect of it

Cassiopeia had 2 combat styles, the E max which used the poisons as a means to rapid fire your opponent down, and the Q max which was more about applying the dot and walking away while they melt, one was obviously safer and way less interactive.

I personally, like the E focused cass much more, it's more engaging, requires more inputs and more commitment to fight someone then the Q style, riot seems to agree with that sentiment since they did the rework around the E. It wasn't the most graceful way of making her E have an essays length tool tip, but the principle is overall healthier.

If you can find a way to make cassiopeia a better "poison mage" without returning her power into her dots then I'd love to hear it, but riots explained why they don't like it and why she probably won't revert towards that.

A side fact I dunno if any of you guys gave ever played smite but they have a poison mage (well, assassin) who accomplishes the challenge pretty well, all her abilities apply a lingering poison which is just a small debuff (it might not even do damage) but it makes her autos do a ton of % health damage. Her gameplay focuses on her poisons, but she needs to engage with the opponent to have them function

Calabok1/3/2016, 2:26:58 AM1 votes

way too much text for a stupid champ.