Cassi 3.0, can poisons be healthy?

Well no, but let's get the cheeky answer out of the way. Cassi is the big bad poison mage, the character that's supposed to well... Make like a viper and rot away her prey from the inside out. Riot's initial rework did, honestly, hit all the chords it needed to. Stacking via poisons gives a reward for actively farming or harassing with her main stay abilities. E is then the pay off, offering huge dps if she gets the time to get a few fangs in, but as everyone who has played her probably found out she's just not thematically there. Even I, who has been enjoying the rework, have barely thought about my poisons as damage but just as a way to get in some E. She feels like an AP Kog where if she gets to sit still she'll obliterate your team in a few seconds with her huge dps but her ramp time makes getting there awkward. There's also the issue of identity.

Cassi's design/thematic points.

• Snake mage, focuses on poisoning her foes.
• High dps and kite potential.
• High scaling mage with a predictable power curve as the game progresses (More so post rework as pre-rework was a nightmare early)

Cons of this

• Reliance on high accuracy with skills leading to a high skill floor.
• Low mobility means positioning and awareness also must be on point.

So we can see what Riot wants for this champion. The shift to her hyper-carry passive and focus on E leads her to being well... A hyper carry. The problem is Cassi gets absurd amounts of AP that only Veigar tends to manage but her low ratios means she's just on par with other dps mages. So how do we fix this? Way more poison interactions, obviously!

I've been constructing a new passive and modified areas of her kit, so feedback on how well this could help get Riot on the right track and help get Cassi's third update out faster for us all to enjoy. Explanations after the kit.

Passive - The Viper's Embrace ~ Each tick of Cassiopeia's poisons and damage from Twin Fangs gives Cassi a stack of Viper's Embrace. At (roughly) 8 stacks her next basic ability gains an additional effect. Stacks last 3 seconds.

Q- Noxious Blast ~ Same as live, functionally, although the ratios and damage would be buffed as it'd go back to her main staple of damage. Viper Embrace ~ Noxious Blast deals greatly increased damage and doubles the movement speed bonus.

W - Miasma ~ Same as live, ratio buffed. Viper's Embrace ~ Doubles the slow and extends the duration, damage the same.

E - Twin Fangs ~ Ability power ratio removed. Base damage buffed, deals additional damage based on a % total damage of poisons affecting the target. Dealing damage to targets with both instances of her poison also restores health and mana on cast. Refresh on poisoned targets remain. Aspect of the Viper ~ Deals additional damage equal to the full damage of the poisons affecting the target.

R - Renamed "Venomous Assault" or w/e is fitting. ~ No longer stuns if targets are facing her. Enemies caught in the blast are dealt damage as well as additional damage based on the number of poisons affecting the target. The poisons are consumed by this effect and the abilities linked to them are refreshed. For the next 8~12 seconds all of Cassiopeia's abilities function as if under the effects of Viper's Embrace to enemies who were affected by the blast. Additionally, Twin Fangs will stun the target for .5 seconds.

Explanation- Well that's probably one hell of a kit change. The idea behind it is to have everything in her kit interact with her poisons in some way. With the damage and ratios of Q increased, probably in a way that gives her a weaker than pre-rework early game but a strong late game through scaling, this allows Cassi players to feel like their poison really is their bread and butter. By removing the ratio of Twin Fangs and making it based on her poison damage this makes it easier to gate or tweak her dps while giving her sustain on double poison targets rewards players who are able to effectively use her abilities.

Her new passive also further puts Cassi into the idea of a sustained damage, dps mage that rewards Cassi for making extended trades or getting into fights to do her job. Her old one was because of how hungry she was and her new one was to cement her place as a late game mage which her new twin fangs does instead.

The change to her ultimate allows her to have something that synergizes with the rest of her kit instead of it either being a disengage or enabler for her to have ~2 seconds of 100% uptime on her opponent. With damage based on her poisons it gives her predictable power levels and spikes as Cassi builds AP throughout the game. This means balancing her early, mid, and late game power is as simple as tweaking her poisons.

All in all this kit would lead to players picking Cassi for her sustained damage and late game potential. With the change to her ulti she loses utility and CC in exchange for much higher dps which I feel should be how she plays. She's all about afflicting her opponents with deadly poisons before moving in to secure the kill by sinking her fangs right in.