Did Cassiopeia get overnerfed?

Dear Riot and community,

today i want to talk about Cass. However before you jump the gun and think that this is one of those "Rework" discussions let me tell you already, that i mainly want to talk about Balance and what the current state of her is.

Cass has always been my favorite champion, mainly because im obsessed with snakes. However nowadays i wouldnt pick her in rankeds anymore and pretty much only in normals to enjoy my time.

The thing with cassiopeia is that she is a rather shotrange mage that is focussed on dps. That means she doesnt just burst you quickly and then walk away (like annie which is also short ranged), she actually has to stay very close to you and dps you down. That naturally makes her pretty vulnerable.

Now, Cassiopeia was considered a very strong pick not too long ago, so what has changed? Lets look at the last 2 nerfs for her:

v5.10

DeadlyCadence.jpg Passive - Aspect of the Serpent PASSIVE BONUS At 100 stacks, Twin Fang heals for 6/8/10/12/14/16+0.1 ability power ⇒ +0.06 ability power TwinFang.jpg E - Twin Fang MANA REFUND If Twin Fang kills the target, it refunds its mana cost plus 3% of Cassiopeia's maximum mana ⇒ 1.5% of Cassiopeia's maximum mana

v5.6

Cassiopeia gets less AP when combined with %AP amplifying effects

LATE GAME CASSI NERF: Dragon buff and Rabadon's Deathcap now interact additively rather than multiplicatively. When these two ability power % modifications (and masteries) interact with Cassiopeia passive, they now give roughly ~12% less bonus ability power at late, late game.

Now, the changes in 5.10 i can kind of understand. Despite beeing a lategame champ, Cass (she always had) has insane dmg and killpressure on lvl 2 and 3. These nerfs made you punish bad CSing with E, which i do welcome, because meaning if you cant CS well, you cant really harass or youll insatntly be oom.

However the change in 5.6 really is a big kick into knees (kappa) for her. 12 % less AP is gigantic for her lategame power. If a champ has no dashes and has to be in close range, the champ should deal more dmg than champs with a million range and selfpeel (looking at you azir). Damage was why you picked cass for. Now because she gets outshined in that department by other champs, that are even safer, theres little reason to pick her, even if you want sustained dps.

Another thing is the changes in Itemisation. While Torment is now a great item for killing tanks, the max AP number has decreased all over the board on pretty much every item except Deathcap. This futhermore nerfed her late (if even by only a little bit).

In Plat and above she has an average winrate of 45 %. And while i do see that she is difficult to play, i still think that its a bit on the lower side.

Personally i find that she is very strong in lane, but is heavily mana gated. Buffing her Manacosts etc would just lead to more of the lanebully style, that she already is pretty decent in (not as strong as pre rework but still decent).

So i see 2 things one could do.

Firstly 1. Give her more safety.

Give her safety not in the laningphase, but in Teamfights. How? Add maybe 50-100 range (Numbers are obviously for debate) to her E on her 250 stack mark. It feels like the 250 stack mark is pretty lackluster anyway. She gets 5 % more ap compared to before and 25 % "free" CDR, which she basically doesnt utilize at all. If the passive would be to overloaded (i mean it already is pretty much overloaded), just get rid of the 25 % cdr and buff her ult Cooldown a bit at higher levels. Cdr is basically a dead stat for her anyway and doesnt give her any meaningful gain at this point.

500 stacks is so much more rewarding and feels way better than 250. This would bring the 250 milestone a bit more in line with the others.

Secondly 2. Give her more DMG - where she needs it.

Cassio is all about Damage. If we dont make her safe, she should be dishing out as much Damage as lets say a Vayne. Just minus the invisibility and the dashing. Now one could just buff the E but the E is already basically 90% of her damage. It feels at time her poison is just a artificial condition put on the champ inorder to make the champion harder. Dont get me wrong. I like the idea, but i want the skills to feel satisfying for themselves. And her poison at the moment is one of the least satisfying things ive ever seen on a champ. What id like to see is some minor buffs to the Qs lategame basedmg or maybe VERY small buffs to the ratio (lets face it -its the better poison) and make her W actually do something. Currently its just a tool to get the enemy poisoned. The slow of it barely matters, its nice and all but slows dont stack anymore and most of the time you build crystal scepter anyways. What i actually would like is that it would get transformed into an actual zoning tool. it stays on the ground for 7 second (i believe) and doesnt move at all. If enemies stand in there for 7 seconds they shouldnt take 100 dmg. They should actually be punished. Instead of just buffing the damage so it becomes a small aniva ult or viktor dot, id give it a MR shred. Something like 5 % MR shred for every second youre affected by the W poison, or standing in it. That wouldnt really make her Damage too threating to squishies anyway and would only affect tanks - and only if you place it well and the enemy doesnt step or dash out of it.

Sorry for the wall of text and for any mistakes you might find. Im not a native speaker, but ive tried to make it as readable as possible. Sadly i dont have a cute Cassiopeia picture, and i dont want to post a pic of my snake neither (boa, who is named after, you guessed it, cass) since there might be some phobias around :>.

TLDR: I outlined why i think the % Ap changes have hit cass to hard and give 2 possible ways to buff her, without making her obnoxious, especially buffing her W.

Thank you for discussing.