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Why is Cassiopeia really being reworked?

so chad··13 votes·6,598 views

Riot gives the goals of increasing her reliability and toning down her lane bullying as the reasons that they are reworking Cassiopeia, but the truth is she isn’t bullying anyone in lane (she’s some of the tastiest gank-bait out there) and her current rework only makes her MORE hit-or-miss by making Noxious Blast more difficult to land while punishing you even harder for missing it by pushing her power into her Twin Fang (a spell that is useless if you can’t hit your Q in the first place), not to mention in the cases where you can’t follow up your Q with multiple Es you’ve done vastly less damage!

The question is, what does her current rework actually accomplish? Primarily, they’ve made her completely useless until super late game. What does that tell us about Riot’s intentions?

It crushes her ability to compete on all non-Summoner’s Rift maps. Late game hypercarries are universally bad on Twisted Treeline, Crystal Scar, and Howling abyss due to the short games times and general lack of ability to farm. By nuking her early/mid game from orbit they’ve managed to avoid spending any real mindshare trying to balance her for these game modes. This is a clear goal of Riot’s with the rework as they had made multiple map-specific nerfs to her recently and even stated that she is difficult to balance on non-SR maps.

Riot has developed a history of eliminating “out of the ordinary” champions every time they rise up and it looks like now they are gunning for the outcasts even outside of Summoner’s Rift. For many others, and myself the most fun part of URF mode was seeing underused champs like Skarner, Hecarim, Urgot, and Taric rise up from the ashes and stomp their unsuspecting opponents. Once Riot finishes off Cassiopeia they can breathe a sigh of relief because finally Twisted Treeline will be dominated by the usual suspects such as Ziggs, Syndra, Oriana, Morgana, and Lulu.

25 Comments

KSHarrison8 votes

Riot has never balanced for SR around other map modes. To expect them to do that is an impossible task; balancing for one map is already hard enough! Any champions that function on both maps well are coincidences or have been subject to post-tuning by their Dominion/TT teams.

Cassiopeia is a well-known lane bully when she was competitively viable. It may be that in her current state, if Riot were to have buffed her to viability, her lane bully may have resurfaced. In fact, if I am not mistaken, she was recently nerfed on TT because of her power!

They do reworks to put champions in more tunable positions exactly so they can expand champion versatility. In Cassiopeia's case, they are accomplishing this by making her kit even more thematically consistent than she previously was, so I don't get this outlandish conspiracy claim that Riot is trying to eliminate out-of-the-ordinary champions. Some more examples that Riot supports out-of-the-ordinary:

Their Xerath rework was pretty unique, introducing a new long-range mechanic not seen before. Azir is probably the most unique champion I've seen yet. Gnar Braum Vel'Koz Yasuo

All of these champs have been some of the most unique and out-of-the-ordinary champs to date. I don't get your claim at all.

Even the reworks are pushing champions to become more unique.

Nidalee Sona Gragas

They are also advancing the meta in a direction catering to out-of-the-ordinary champions. They removed the stranglehold of early lane bullies and have tried to buff tanky junglers. They are actively affecting the meta with a goal to expand champion viability. Even Lulu in solo lanes they did not shut down. They specifically adjusted her to preserve her various roles, rather than pigeonhole her as support.

So not following OP's position at all, sorry.

RiotMorello14 votes

Very true - Casseopia - WHEN powerful - is a lane bully only. That's why you pick her and what she does.

While we were doing a little texture update, we had a really fast, low-scope idea to help fix her up and make her into something other than a "remove ability to lane champion" and focus on the other identity she does have; AP super-carry.

We don't balance around alternate maps. That's why I don't like the idea of more maps, because they erode the game for low benefit. I do think the proper way to FIGHT stagnation and staleness is to add identities to "why do I pick this champion instead of X?" Cass's low-scope changes are an attempt to address that, as opposed to "I take her to beat the shit out of people when they can't fight me."

Hellioning17 votes

This is not low scope. There are massive power changes, removing about 1/3 of the damage of her Q and giving it to her E, as well as removing basically all of the damage in her W.

It's also ignoring her third identity, of league's poison mage. The only other real DoT character in the game is Swain. Sure, Malz has all of his abilities as DoTs, but his success case leaves him to act more like a burst mage, IE throw all your abilities out and watch them melt before they can do anything. While her poisons are not useless anymore, they are not used for her damage. I play Cass to play as a DoT caster, and I'm not particularly happy about the changes.

MeBuffULongTime4 votes

I agree, I feel that these changes are taking away what makes her unique and are molding her into something more common. I played Cass for the same reason you do, because she is a DOT caster. I feel like these changes are completely blowing past the changes that could have actually made her a better champ, like clearer hitboxes, and a reworked ult maybe?

Lord Graves III1 votes

May I recommend Swain? Swain

Thryale5 votes

This. So much this. I pick cass because I love her wave clear and watching her melt ppl. No, not burst ppl, not delete pp, not chunk ppl, but -melt- ppl. It is insanely satisfying to drop a ton of poisons into the middle of a team fight and watching hp bars just erode and literally melt away.

Sure, it's always nice to be able to kite someone till yer ult just comes off cd, then pelt them with a barrage of E's. But I have never seen that as her main purpose in league. That's Ryze's gig, being the machine gun of league and all. Cass is the DoT queen.

Besides, if riot really wanted to tone down her lane bullying, all they had to do was tone down the base dmg on her Q for her early lvls while leaving the late game dmg on her q untouched.

Also, I thought riot was against giving champs pure stat buffs in their kit. So why is cass's passive nothing but a huge stat steroid? There's no counter play involved, there is no decision making involved. Just "farm up and wreck late" just like nasus. :/

KSHarrison4 votes

Just taking a wild guess here, but "low scope" may be relative. For a Cass player, it feels like a huge change because it does affect her gameplay significantly, but from a design standpoint, all they're doing is changing out her passive and tuning numbers on the rest of her kit. Compared to the full reworks like Nidalee, this is definitely smaller in scale. I doubt the word choice here was meant to imply they will be taking the changes casually.

As for her identity as a DoT caster, I can't deny frustration losing that. At least she will become a unique poison mage without overlapping with other champions as a DoT caster. I'm excited to try the more reliable E, that always pissed me off.

Linna Excel2 votes

What hellioning said.

I'm with the change to her passive in some form because it needed to go. However the changes to the rest of the kit are unwelcome, unwanted, unneeded, and uncassiopeia.

5G8Nri0B545 votes

Umm...Cassiopeia's changes isn't just low-scope, but it's horrendous in how it completely does away with her MAIN APPEAL. It's not mashing E to shoot a barrage of fangs the size of her torso. She is supposed to be THE POISON MAGE OF LoL. Yet you guys chose to remove the significance of her poison in favour of the most boring aspect of her entire kit, the ability that has NOTHING to do with Poison at all. When I heard of a rework, I was hoping you'd emphasize her POISON, not downplay it so disappointingly hard.

Also, your direction for her rework is the complete antithesis of what POISON should be.

  1. Poison as a status should NEVER be a means of buffing or making the user stronger outside of extremely specific circumstances (think Resident Evil, where a scientist injects himself with the G-Virus to mutate and grow)

  2. The signature theme of Poison should be to DEBILITATE. To eat away at your opponent over a long period of time somehow

Be it, significant amounts of poison damage over a long period of time, or an initially small, but ramping style of debuff. What I liked most about playing Cassiopeia in Normal games is how in Sieges, you could slowly rot away the enemy team with your poison. A well-placed miasma to punish the enemies trying to take your turret. Throw in some Q-pokes, and without them realizing it, that significant poison damage slowly erodes away at their health before my team dives in for the kill. Be it defending or attacking, her poison was satisfying in a siege, NOT her Fangs. And no, the slow in her W really doesn't cut it. Asides from being a marginal increase at the final level at best, Slow is far too common a debuff to really make her Poison feel particularly debilitating, especially when you're building Rylai's anyways.

For more detail, please visit THIS thread about why her Rework is disappointing. This is the complete opposite direction she should have gone as it does away with her identity as THE poison mage.

I don't want a Cassiopeia whose Poison serves only to make her stronger and aid her E. The correct path is to make her Poison be central to her playstyle, and her E is faciliating her Poison strategy somehow, not the other way around. Her Passive takes what is so satisfying about Poison, and completely turns it around. Aspect of Poison shouldn't be making Cassiopeia stronger, her Poison should be making her enemies WEAKER.

And while we're here. I'd like to make one more point over all this. The designer(I assume it's Stashu) of the Rework only ever lurks the PBE forums from what I can see. This means it is impossible to get your opinion on a champion you love heard unless you happen to be a PBE-member right at the point that champion relevant to YOU is being reworked. The direction of this rework completely removes what makes Poison so satisfying, and the designer(s) seems to be oblivious of that problem. But it's impossible to let them know this bit unless you're a PBE-er yourself.

**PS **- sorry for the wall-of-text. But Rioters are being really hush hush about Cassiopeia's changes outside of PBE(refer to the final paragraph), so I really felt the need to unload everything at once. I want to play a POISON MAGE. Not one where poison does the opposite of what it should do.

exec32 votes

As others have said these are not low scope changes. These are massive including a complete shift away from her poison tgameplay. If your issue was with her being a lane bully then why couldn't you have done just some number tweaks like move some Q damage into E or something. Instead you gave her an overly mathy passive that goes as far as to PREVENT her from building items and giving her tons of mechanics (a weird mana return and heal on E) that add no gameplay.

Make no mistake you guys are REMOVING gameplay from Cassiopeia in your attempts to make her a 1 build E bot ADC mage and as someone who loves Cass and considers her the most well designed champion in the game I haven't been this devastated since Karma.

And as usual there has been near 0 dialogue on this issue (please don't link to PBE, you should know that the vast majority of people don't have PBE access).

I'm not going to exaggerate and say she's gonna be sh!t after the rework but she will be a lesser, less interesting champion that doesn't even come close to being well designed like Cass's original elegant yet simple design.

Nothing is sacred with you guys and that's both a blessing and a curse. A blessing when you jump into change something that needs changing but a curse when you do the same for a champion you think needs changing but doesn't or at least doesn't need such crazy changes as you end up pushing. It makes me disenfranchised with this game when you f*ck up like that and ruin once good champions (this is from someone who agreed with many reworks like Nidalee, Gragas, Sivir and Heimerdinger and likes the direction of Soraka and Viktor).

Blaine Tog1 votes

I don't see the point in toning down a champion's ability to lane bully... at a time when they aren't a lane bully. Cass doesn't even "come online" until 2 or three completed items these days anyway, and she's ridiculously bad against dive bruisers and high-mobility assassins.

I like the idea of positioning Cass as an AP hypercarry, but I don't like the idea of having to wait even longer each game before I become useful.

Canastus2 votes

I don't see how she's going to survive the laning phase if she's ridden with terrible mana issues once her opponent forces her to retaliate (Deadly Cadence really used to make a difference there) along with her gutted ratios which make it pretty much impossible to poke or farm from a safe distance with your poison. The massive amounts of AP you may be able to stack in the course of this game are a mere illusion since her ratios drag them down to live Cass-levels of damage at best.

All you did was lock away whatever power the current Cass had for over half an hour and not giving anything remarkable in return. What makes you think people will suddenly pick her up after those harsh nerfs? Not only are you alienating her already small playerbase, you're also making her unplayable for everyone else. I strongly suggest checking out the poll in this thread.

You only have one tool to deal damage now and that is her E, too bad the actual range on the thing is too short for comfort. She already had terrible issues against assassins and mages who outranged her in the past, now she's even worse off since they instantly get to bully HER once she goes in for the E-lasthit.

Also how do you even justify a 14 (!) second cooldown on miasma, an ability which hardly deals damage anymore and has such a weak slow before you get around to max it (which is at around level 18)? And how come you didn't fix the terrible issues of her ultimate aka the clunky hitbox, the awful delay and the short range? It's among the most unreliable ultimates in the entire game and you decide to NERF it for a mere 10 second cooldown reduction?

Her kit is inherently flawed and needs more safety to make up for her terrible squishyness and lack of power during the earlier stages of the game. You definitely need to lower the poison-stack-cap or at least allow her to collect more by poisoning multiple champions at once so that she may reach that desired carry status a lot faster before it's too late.

Every other hypercarry in this game has some kind of backup to secure their survival (some form of instant mobility, huge range, a reliable stun or inherent tankyness), that's NOT the case for Cassiopeia. I don't see how she's ever going to recover once she falls behind in lane since the nerfs to her ratios are pretty much the final nail in the coffin. Once that happens, she's nothing more but a liability to her team.

Cuix1 votes

Honestly, I think new Cassi would be a really strong and really fun mage to play. I think this rework could result in a super cool character. However, I remember reading a post in another thread saying "We don't want to make another CDR machine gun late game carry, e.g. Ryze", or something like that. This rework is essentially making her Ryze, only trading survivability for even more damage. That's a potentially awesome character, but I totally understand why it's not a fantasy fitting Cassi. I hope you refrain from releasing this rework immediately, as fun as it seems; there's still plenty of room to make changes on the PBE.

Snaketits2 votes

Please, if you're really reading this, I'd like you to consider what everyone has said so far.

It's quite apparent how many people are worried about this approach, especially due to their experience with prior reworks which were enforced without their consent at all.

It's almost as if you don't even listen to concerns or negative feedback - so what's the point of having a discussion if you never lend us a ear? Please don't be THAT guy.

The Queen Viper1 votes

Tbh Morello, these changes are for the worse. She's already having a hard time against the current popular "meta" picks and after these nerfs, she really doesn't have a chance to survive on the lane or even have the power to contest. Yeah, she was a "lane bully", back in Season 2 that is... now? Hell no.

Seriously, whats the point of forcing cass to be a "afk farm till late game" champ now? How is that even healthy for the game? It's not fun to play like that, this is not a Farmville lulz. Like many before me have said, it's true, she would be a lot weaker after these changes and there would be even less of a point to pick her... after the initial week I will guarantee that her pick rates will go down even further and she will never see any kind of competitive play again.

In all honesty, as a one of the long time Cassiopeia mains since the very season 2 and currently holding the most games played with her this season... if these changes will go live how they are now, meaning the low and inferior AP ratios and dmg compared to her current self, I will personally never touch her again and I will just probably retire from playing League of Legends all together. It's kinda sad really, since not only you are making her early game even harder than it already is, quite similar to what Poppy has now... you are also making my gameplay of choice, playing her as a DoT poison Mage, obsolete. Cassiopeia is already really niche champion, with these changes she would be unreliable, unviable and a liability to her team. Everything that she could do, Ryze could do better.

I truly beg you to reconsider these unwanted and totally uncalled for changes. All what we Cass mains have asked, is to make few simple QoL changes, mostly to her E which have now been done and to make her ultimate more reliable and less clunky... nothing more, nothing less. Her current, the old passive and AP ratios/dmg were just fine already, there should have been absolutely no reason to go and change those. None. Zero. Nada.

The Cassiopeia community were already given a cold shoulder when you didn't listen us with the Jade Fang and her weird hairdo fiasco, so please for this time at least, listen to us.

Beldori1 votes

Very true - Casseopia - WHEN powerful - is a lane bully only. That's why you pick her and what she does.

While we were doing a little texture update, we had a really fast, low-scope idea to help fix her up and make her into something other than a "remove ability to lane champion" and focus on the other identity she does have; AP super-carry.

We don't balance around alternate maps. That's why I don't like the idea of more maps, because they erode the game for low benefit. I do think the proper way to FIGHT stagnation and staleness is to add identities to "why do I pick this champion instead of X?" Cass's low-scope changes are an attempt to address that, as opposed to "I take her to beat the shit out of people when they can't fight me."

Here is the issue i see with this rework, it looks good on paper but come live is gonna be garbage for the simple fact of"why play Cass when i can play X" which in this case the most prominent pick over Cass is Ryze(which is funny since current Cass is a decent counter to Ryze). Everything is focused in rapid fire E with Cass which is what Ryze does but better, he has reliable CC, ends up way tankier with better spellvamp and aoe damage while being a AP super carry machine gun.

Cass actually had a good identity that needed further polish yet instead the team went in the opposite direction with it. Her DoTs are the strongest in the game with Swain coming a close 2nd. You get hit by her Q when it was maxed and it really hurt or you sit in her W too much you pay for it by a chunk of health missing but her biggest issues still are her range and her immobility which doesn't change with the current rework and will ultimately be what causes this rework to flop hard, you go Cass mid i go a assassin mid or a longer range mage and dominate since there is nothing Cass can do(assassin's mobility or long range mage's poke). Go Cass top and she gets ran over by the tanky brusiers that can gapclose or pull her. She will have no niche that is worth taking her.

If Riot wants to keep Cass relevant then either tone back the mobility creep majorly or make Cass more mobile or tanky since she is a low range mage otherwise why take her when you can take something that fits the meta better or Ryze more so Ryze if this rework goes through

DreMLoK1 votes

Very true - Casseopia - WHEN powerful - is a lane bully only. That's why you pick her and what she does.

While we were doing a little texture update, we had a really fast, low-scope idea to help fix her up and make her into something other than a "remove ability to lane champion" and focus on the other identity she does have; AP super-carry.

We don't balance around alternate maps. That's why I don't like the idea of more maps, because they erode the game for low benefit. I do think the proper way to FIGHT stagnation and staleness is to add identities to "why do I pick this champion instead of X?" Cass's low-scope changes are an attempt to address that, as opposed to "I take her to beat the shit out of people when they can't fight me."

the root of all stupidity lies here

Hayaishi2 votes

Very true - Casseopia - WHEN powerful - is a lane bully only. That's why you pick her and what she does.

While we were doing a little texture update, we had a really fast, low-scope idea to help fix her up and make her into something other than a "remove ability to lane champion" and focus on the other identity she does have; AP super-carry.

We don't balance around alternate maps. That's why I don't like the idea of more maps, because they erode the game for low benefit. I do think the proper way to FIGHT stagnation and staleness is to add identities to "why do I pick this champion instead of X?" Cass's low-scope changes are an attempt to address that, as opposed to "I take her to beat the shit out of people when they can't fight me."

Why Cass and not Syndra?

Syndra is 10 times more toxic than Cass ever is/was

so chad2 votes

Any talk of Cass being a lane bully is greatly exaggerated. The only potential midlaners she can really bully are Swain, Ryze, Katarina, and maybe Akali. Even if she does bully them she immediately gets ganked with no real way to fight back. The only time shes been "competitively viable" was for a few months in 2012 and she still got destroyed at the only tournament she was a popular pick/ban in.

To my knowledge no one has accused Riot of limiting "out of the ordinary" kits on champions but of limiting champions when they reach outside of their intended roles. Xerath/Azir (wtf?)/Gnar/Braum/Vel'koz/Yasuo have never been played outside of their normal metas.

Nidalee used to be played top/mid/support and Gragas used to see play mid/jungle/support. Both have had their potential roles reduced since their rework and are now only found top lane so I'm not sure what your point is there either. Sona has never ventured outside of support. Morello has recently admitted that Riot has been too quick to stamp out champs that begin creeping into other roles.

Cassiopeia is one of the very few champs who are strong outside of SR but not on it and after repeated attempts to nerf her out of viability specifically for those maps they are now going for the kill shot.

chumbler2 votes

Yeah I guess it's low scope in the sense that few people play her and you expect even fewer to play her after. Your balance and design teams are a fucking joke, Riot. This rework makes her shallow and worse at everything she does, solves absolutely nothing other than the "Oh she's the best lane bully in the game" problem that only your useless design team believes, and kills her identity.

But I guess since reddit doesn't care about Cassiopeia like they do about Lee Sin, you don't care either. I understand you want to give your interns training projects, but you shouldn't actually publish those training projects. If you want to delete Cassiopeia, at least be honest about it rather than act like this rework is being done for any purpose other than that.

And let's not leave out making her desperada skin about a billion times worse.

MeBuffULongTime1 votes

Do you have a link for the info about Cass's rework?

so chad1 votes

http://www.newsoflegends.com/index.php/wip-pbe-cassiopeia-rework-tu-guardian-of-the-sands-khazix-new-akali-splash-art-24895/

Some of the numbers have been updated since that original post, but you can still get the picture.

Essentially:

  1. Passive ticks up over time giving huge bonuses super late game. The life on hit for twin fang is very strong and the scaling ap is strong but the CDR is pretty useless. She gains stacks by either last hitting poisoned minions or poisoning enemy champs.
  2. Noxious Blast gets its damage gutted and gets a longer delay making it harder to land, but you get a little more speed boost from it.
  3. Miasma gets its damage gutted and has a monster cooldown but the slow is a little stronger.
  4. Twin Fang is the only buff she gets. It actually does quite a bit less damage until you have 800+ AP but it now resets on cast rather than on hitting the opponent which means you will be able to cast many more of them. It also restores some mana when you kill a minion with it, but this isn't a buff as it is merely an attempt to make up for the loss of her original passive.
  5. Petrifying Gaze is mostly untouched, it does a little less damage but has a longer cooldown.

Long story short: don't expect Cassiopeia to contribute to a team before 30 minutes.

MeBuffULongTime1 votes

Thanks!

Yashiro Nakaese1 votes

Not to mention that the new splash art looks somewhat distasteful. I mean, if you look at all the other champs, and mainly her skins, her looks are of a really anorexic 60 year old "model." All I'm saying is, is there a way we could have her look more like her Mermaid skin? Or something that makes her look less creepy?Cassiopeia

Chortle1 votes

{{summoner:10}}

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