Discuss: Cassiopeia kit rework twist

So I've been coming up with a twist on a kit rework for Cassiopeia for years now, but only recently have I been trying to brainstorm something for everyone given the chaos going on with the current rework.

I never intended to think of Cassiopeia reworked, but it did happen. I'm not happy about it nor do I approve of it (but I'm not going to rant about it), but I wanted to share my crack at the design and gather feedback on it with explanations.

This is only a few days old of the few yearly ideas I been coming up with fantasy of if I had control of game design "How would I make a character I like play/feel better?"

So a few days fresh out of the oven, for Cass mains. You tell me:

Passive: Mark of the Serpents Seal
For every 10 points of AP Cassiopeia has, she gains 15 flat mana

Q: Noxious Blast (Active): After a brief delay, Cassiopeia blasts a small target area with an explosion of poison. All targets hit are poisoned and dealt 75/100/125/150/175 (+15% AP) magic damage over a period of 3 seconds and adds a stacking poison that does 5 (+5% AP) magic damage that stacks up to a maximum 5 times. Cassiopeia is granted a movement speed boost for 3 seconds if she hits a champion with the blast zone of the spell and doesn't stack with continuous spell casts.

COST: 60 / 55 / 50 / 45 / 40 mana
Magic Damage Per Second: 25 / 33.33 / 41.66 / 50 / 58.33 (+ 5% AP)
Total Magic Damage from inital cast blast: 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 / 175 (+ 15% AP)
Stacking Poison: 5 (+5% AP) magic damage per stack

Movement Speed: 15%/ 17.5%/ 20%/ 22.5%/ 25%
Cooldown: 3 seconds
Delay: 0.6 seconds
Range: 850
Diameter of AoE: 150

W: Petrifying Gaze (Active): Cassiopeia deals magic damage to all enemies in a cone in front of her. Enemies facing her when damaged are stunned for 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2 seconds, while enemies facing away are slowed by 10%/15%/20%/25%/30% for the same duration.

Cost: 100
Magic Damage: 75/100/125/150/175 (+50% AP)
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Range: 850
Cone Angle: ~83º

E: Twin Fang (Active): Cassiopeia shoots a pair of fangs that deals magic damage to her target. Twin Fangs is granted 2 charges for use and recharges every xx/xx/xx/xx/xx seconds. If the target is poisoned when hit then Twin Fang's does not consume a charge. Each time twin fangs hits a target, they are stacked with "Fang Barbs" that lasts xx seconds.

COST: 70 / 65 / 60 / 55 / 50 mana
Cooldown: 0.5 seconds
Range: 700

R: Hexing Cadence (Active): Cassiopeia hexes all enemies afflected from her abilities and if the target is afflected with her Fang Barbs she recalls any Fang barbs on her targets back to her into charges.

If a target has 1 stack of Fang Barbs, the barbs detonate dealing magic damage per barb and form a pool of miasma that slows and damage anyone standing in it for xx seconds. For Every stack of Fang barbs that detonate, the Miasma pool starts bigger.

If a target has 1 stack of Noxious Poison, it is consumed and targets are afflected with Corrosive poison over a period of 3 seconds for 10 (+10% AP) magic per stack consumed.

Cost: XXX Mana Cooldown: XX/XX/XX seconds/minutes

Here is the idea behind the passive:

• it serves as a tool to lessen the sting of early mana pool problems of constant spell spam using

It isn't the end all be all to your mana issues if you did have them, but it is to provide a cushion.

Because of the issues Riot has with "so-called" lane bully her early game damage numbers were nerfed. Most Cass players liked to play aggressive and needed that damage to thrive in that environment.

So the compromise:

• Q has low damage initially yes, for one spell cast wonders which won't raise flags on Riots end
• Q now has a mechanic that rewards you extra damage for continuously landing Q's in a row and you manage to keep pace
• Ramping up with lower mana costs, it can still be a tool to help wave clear (even though it isn't instant two shot clears most mages have) it helps alleviate some sting in that department

This tackles the problem of Riot saying it does too much damage at the beginning because the player in control doesn't have to fire one spell and forget (Their "no counter play" argument). But in return we're given the tool needed to get familiar play back, by having to use more spells on the same target over time. Since she will be casting alot more spells it would only make sense to have mana costs scale down per point into it, I think this can be a win-win situation for both ends of the players and Dev team.

Onto W.

Some people must think I'm insane (I'm sure) to suggest giving Cass her Petrifying Gaze into a miniature ability form and removing Miasma in its place. So lets talk about it:

• Petrifying Gaze in past does damage, but more often then not was used as a tool for disengage for anything trying to focus her out.
• Having such a situational ability as an ultimate can feel underwhelming sometimes if and when you're trying to kite and stay back when it should be prized to be used much more often (I.E. Kat ult, Ahri Ult, Yasuo Ult, Annie Ult, Fizz Ult). A Good example of a ult that is Situational (Although not bad to have) based on conditions that probably don't get used as often you would like (Don't confuse me that I'm saying they're useless) are: Xin Ult, Pantheon Ult, Rengar Ult, TF Ult, Galio Ult, Maokai Ult

I would look at it more like a tool for disengagement on a downsized scale to open up more interaction one a more frequent basis. And part of the reason I did this was because of the new Ult I put into place for what it offered on a bigger picture into her entire kit which I'll explain further down.

Twin Fangs.

I really took my original idea I had a few years back and then combined it with someone elses idea of having a charge system.

Basically, we know that originally did do alot of damage but often that came with first soften up your targets before you can all in. Some may argue that twin fangs was the sole reason they killed opponents without using anything else which honestly isn't true.

You have to look at the bigger picture of the pie as to why you were able to do it. You'd have to be lucky to have an opponent allow you to get off more then one or two fangs off back in the day.

Everything here isn't focused into one ability, but spread out unlike the current rework on live by Stashu which is very Twin fang centric.

Twin Fangs in this concept rework here is this:

• It still does damage, but not overbearing damage
• It has a stacking mechanic (barbs) but for a very different purpose and a setup for a different mechanic
• While at lvl 1 it starts with two charges
• The purpose of the charges is to address an issue some players may have with constant target changing but still retains it old mechanic if you happen to use it on a poison target you refresh the cooldown but in the form of not consuming a charge. Basically a limited use gate if you absolutely must have to use twin fangs without landing a poison (Q in this case)
• Because of the nature of how kit works (even pre-work) it is only logical to have a scaling lower mana cost per level associated with skill point leveling as you will be constantly be on your toes in and between spell casts which fit

Onto the Ultimate, Hexing Cadence:

I was playing around with the idea of a combo esque play flow which was something I would usually do alot. I thought about it and figured to have it work, each ability would have to trigger some sort of dormant action based off which ability was used which creates different actions based on the number of combos that could occur (Think Marth, Roy or Ike from Smash bros?).

But when I originally came up with this, I initially replacement Miasma with this ability and made Q in a smaller hybrid of the Q and Miasma mini on quick cast. I realized that the amount this ability can offer with the combinations of plays that it would be too much for the line up of the 3 main abilities. It started speaking a bit more towards being an ultimate so thats why I placed it there.

I wanted to retain the poison feel that I originally enjoyed and enhance it, but I kept coming back to why I don't like the live rework (Stashu's) which was the poor iteration of how the poison works and feels. After playing around with numbers and the idea of opening up a combo play, I came up with basically:

• The amount of Q stacking poisons you can get on an opponent in turn becomes a gate to become a stronger venomous poison (Think Pokemon's Poison affliction and then into Toxic'd poison)
• Playing off the twin fangs barbing stacks that are stuck in an opponents skin, I thought about triggering them almost like remote mines (GoldenEye 007) when they get retracted, thus one of the combos is to leave pools of the original Miasma that can start tiny or larger depending on the amount you got off before triggering
• I wanted to come up with another combo trigger involving a 1 to 1 (Q stacks to E Twing Fang stacks) that would create another effect as a bonus but haven't thought that far yet
• I also wanted to incorporate a trigger involving the mini petrifying gaze, but I also haven't that far nor do I know what could actually be another effect involving it

I didn't want to create a lane bully (by terms of Riot saying is unhealthy), I didn't care for what my late game was so long as I felt useful in accordance to what my purpose was. And I definitely did not want such a poor and boring early game where I felt useless, because an oppressive early game where you're constantly boxed in (Live Stashu rework) is not fun and doesn't matter long you endure to wait for late game.

It has to have balance. An okay and fun experience early game flowing into a (multitude of different) balanced out late game.

As such, it turned out to be a type of Poison (DoT) AoE combo mage.

So with that, feedback? and (to the picture):