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A realization I came to about Cassiopeia's playerbase as part of said playerbase.

TheUltimateSpear··12 votes·929 views

...And that is that we don't agree on anything everything.

One camp of her player base likes Cassiopeia's Twin Fang spam pattern if not the whole rework. They like Cassiopeia's current aggressive playstyle, close range and with high DPS. Some, but not all, like the hypercarry powercurve that was given to Cassiopeia as well.

The other half of Cassiopeia's fanbase prefers her "poison side," and hates the rework because her poison abilities, Q and W, were significantly nerfed, and all her power was shoved into her E. This side pictures Cassiopeia as a "Debilitating champion," wearing away at her opponents with her poisons and, pushing this further, having various debuffs applied to Cassiopeia's opponents depending on how she combos her spells.

Now, I am of the later camp. If I got my way, Twin Fang would be basically scrapped and Cassiopeia would be very focused on melting her opponents' health bars with her poisons, kiting and debuffing them while doing so, machine gun or no.

But I'm only one person and one side of Cassiopeia's fanbase. I realize now that some people DO like Cassiopeia's Twin Fang and high DPS that comes with it.

So, I realize now that asking for Riot to scrap Cassiopeia's E is impractical, and also inconsiderate of a significant amount of her playerbase.

But by the same token though, I think the camp that prefers Cassiopeia's Twin Fang spam also needs to consider the camp that prefers her poison abilities.** If we ask for Riot to put some power into Cassiopeia's other abilities aside from her E and make her poison abilities powerful on their own, that is no more an unreasonable request than for the other side of Cassiopeia's fanbase to ask for Riot to preserve her DPS with Twin Fang.**

Honestly, at this point, I'd be content with Q and W dealing high damage on their own for Cassi's gameplay update. I think some unique debuffs or other things to spice up her poison abilities would be really cool, but I'm not going to push even for that. And even that is not an unreasonable request IMHO.

TL;DR: If you like Cassiopeia's DPS with Twin Fang, that's fine. If you like Cassiopeia's poison abilities, that's also fine. Both sides should consider and respect the other.

15 Comments

Casri5 votes

I like Cassiopeia's Twin Fang playstyle. It gives her a unique identity within the game. It may be repetitive/limit her options but it gives her some of the highest dps in the game.

Pure DoT mages don't tend to be that successful, nor interesting in League (just look at Swain), DoTs can be reduced through heals, shields, lifesteal, spellvamp, stasis, invulnerability etc in a way which burst damage just can't due to its instantaneous nature.

I think turning Cass into a pure DoT mage with no instant damage would be a mistake which could kill her viability. The most successful implementation of DoTs has been with Brand with his burst-combo playstyle with the DoT passive rounding the kit off, but I wouldn't want Cass to become Brand 2.0.

I agree with the pro-poison mage crowd that Cass' poisons feel entirely too weak (mainly Q due to the massive nerf to the AP ratio that came with the rework), but I don't see a way to make her poisons much stronger without nerfing Twin Fang, and thus her reliability.

One thing I'm vehemently opposed to is Cass' passive which dictates her power spikes to a greater degree than any other champion. I think we can all agree on this, at least.

TheUltimateSpear1 votes

I mostly agree with what you said. In my mind for a hypothetical Cassi update, her E wouldn't be a poison but a more standard nuke because as you said pure DOT champs aren't very successful and don't actually really exist in League. But that's neither here nor there.

As for balancing her poison abilities with twin fang, I think it's possible- granted, not easy.

If Cassiopeia was given high damage on her poison abilities again, I think Riot could love tap her E without needing to hit it too much. Basically, raise the cooldown refresh upon striking a poisoned target to like .8 seconds from .5, and that's just guessing. Give her opponents more room to react and shave off some power without gutting the actual damage.

Thoughts everyone?

Makior724 votes

Ima be honest here..... I legit forgot cass was a champion in this game until i read this post.

lolipopevelynn4 votes

i dont get it, twin fangs has ALWAYS been a core part of her play style pre rework and post rework. post rework just heightened that play style actually.

the arguments for cass have been flawed from the start.

TheUltimateSpear1 votes

To be fair, I think most people realized it, they just didn't like it much. :P

thumbnail93 votes

The poison abilities are always going to be weak because of the power they bring in the early levels for bullying.

That's the entire reason they were nerfed and we got this passive in the first place. They wanted her to be a late game monster but not crush your face in lane and that's what her Q and W did when used right. There's just to little counter play to the old damage Q did.

#firstworldcassioproblems.

Oerba No Naja1 votes

well they could respect her and " gate " her poison's power for mid game ( when laning phase is over ) and the problem was solved pretty easily .

thumbnail91 votes

[{quoted}](name=Oerba No Naja,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=tlyTWTmG,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2016-02-10T19:22:03.119+0000)

well they could respect her and " gate " her poison's power for mid game ( when laning phase is over ) and the problem was solved pretty easily .

They did that by her new passive although it killed her mid game as well. They would have to make a low base and then high ratio to scale it back up. You still end up in the boat where if she builds anything around 80 AP, here comes the pain train.

Zarkkast2 votes

I'm no longer a Cassiopeia player, ever since her rework.

I used to main her in Season 3 and I will likely main her again if she's put back in a state I appreciate (though I will never forgive the lore changes).

I don't understand why we can't have both.

Before her rework she had her machine gun and her poison. After her rework she only has her machine gun, the poison being only an asset in order to spam your E.

If Cassiopeia was brought to a state similar to what she was before her first rework I think everyone would be pleased with it.

Veraska2 votes

I do want the poisons to be more then just a enabler for her E but I want them to be more focused on a utility aspect or something aside from independent damage

A poison mage that withers you down with Q sounds cool but really unfun to play against, they'd Q you and slither away with the ms buff while you take dmg with no real options to counter attack

When twin fang is her primary damage source she's still gated by needing to land skill shots despite her E being targeted itself and she has to interact with you for the duration of the poison to pump out Es, she's rewarded for this as they do a crap load of damage but at least you have the option to try and fight her

Both poison mage and high DPS marksman esque mage are cool and unique identities and I know repetoire is good enough at his job to make both cass player camps happy

Oerba No Naja2 votes

TL;DR: If you like Cassiopeia's DPS with Twin Fang, that's fine. If you like Cassiopeia's poison abilities, that's also fine. Both sides should consider and respect the other.

I like both , im super happy with her current gameplay ( her current gamelplay has a ton of bad aspect but i will ust say what makes me still play cassiopeia ) wich is super agrresive and nervous , i like the high dps , i like the sustained dmg . But i also miss my old poison . I think that twin fangs and poison are complementary and is a iconic duo . The rework is coming and im confident that cassio will be better , closer to her old self im pretty sure that the rework will make the both sides happy since riot repertoire is one of the few rioters who considers the player base feedback .

AirSonance2 votes

I wonder what Riot would do if they could sate both camps at once? Clearly there's two distinct playstyles here. Work it right, and Cass's abilities could be split into two champions.

Am I just coming from completely off the wall here, or could this actually work out?

Ralanr1 votes

The same could be said for any champion playerbase that disagrees with each other.

Oerba No Naja1 votes

I dont want to be rude but the most of time . players who want cassio to become a full poison mage are just casuals players who dont rly care and just think about the thematic and not the gameplay's identity and viability .

The Sword Saint1 votes

The problem with putting her power into her damage over time effects is that DoT's just do not feel as powerful to use as they feel to be hit by. It's a disproportionate satisfaction curve. You really have to make dots very very strong for them to feel good to use, but to do so makes them incredibly painful to deal with - especially when they are the fire and forget kind of dots that poisons represent where you pop into range for half a second to apply poison then run away and let someone burn for several seconds.

The only way I see cass working as a 'poison focused mage' would be to push her into the more support/utility role who does negligable damage overall but whose poison effects do things like amplify the damage done to an enemy by ally champs, apply grievous wounds, apply conditional slows or stuns, etc.

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