Riot, how much longer until you'll acknowledge Cassiopeia's existence?

Canastus·Jul 21, 2014·4 votes·776 views

Let's face it, Cassiopeia hasn't been in a good spot since over two seasons now. You could even say she's the Urgot of midlane.

I've lost count on the number of occasions when people tried to bring her issues up, just to be left unheard. In very few cases however someone from Riot shows up, tells us about the nature of her niché, and mentions how they'd like to try some tweaks on her. Then they're gone, never to be seen again.

Several months pass and not a single trace of the dear snakelady, neither on the PBE nor on any other news update. It's been like this for over a year already. Currently a great number of champions are experiencing changes as preparation for the next patch and yet again Cassiopeia has been left out. It's almost as if she doesn't exist. As a dedicated EUW Cassiopeia main, I simply feel neglected by you.

Don't you think you've been letting her playerbase down for far too long already? When will she recieve those QoL-updates she desperately needs? And what about her blatantly flawed ultimate? Don't you think midlane deserves a bit more diversity with dps-mages such as herself? Will you give her the chance she deserves?

21 Comments

Flying BuntcakeJul 21, 20142 votes

Cass is the Queen of DoT

CanastusJul 21, 20142 votes

That may be so on paper but the reality is very much different. I strongly advise checking out the second link in my starting post.

Serpents EmbraceJul 22, 20141 votes

Citin' yourself as a source.

You ooze legit.

CanastusJul 22, 20142 votes

My linked thread serves as another example on how even a pinned (!) discussion about Cassiopeia didn't even manage to attract any responses from actual Rioteers. They couldn't care less about her at this point, which is a sad fact - one that I must address.

Serpents EmbraceJul 22, 20141 votes

Because it's nonsense? :\ You got pinned because a mod found it a conversational piece. It's the Boards equivalent of celebrity gossip, with the same amount of substance.

Continue your crusade, by all means. It leads no where, though. The only reason they would "look at her" is if they do a sweep of mages or of mage items. There's nothing wrong with her in particular, despite your allegations.

AlexXenoJul 23, 20142 votes

I do agree her ult needs an upgrade, and I have heard people complain about her E refresh (never really noticed myself) but! To play devils advocate. I think it's more the current item setup that needs some rework. She(At least how I play her) takes less of the purely overpowering items (like item 3128 ) and items that make her a bit more tanky and special effect like item 3151 . and those items at the moment seem to be lacking in what is needed. I think stattic in their recent open chat mentioned something to this effect and I have to agree. She's meant to be a substantiated source of damage which is something I really like. BUT! the current meta prefers burst damage instead of drawn out ordeals. But I hate her ult. I don't even cast it most of the time it just seems like such a waste of time with the casting time and range<3 Cassiopeia <3

Also, that picture is so adorable!

CanastusJul 23, 20141 votes

Sadly those items are quite lackluster on her, I've stopped building Rylai's and Liandry's since some time already and performed way better without them by going for pure damage instead (Tear, Deathcap and Void Staff rush).

There's no reason to buy any of those other items anymore, it's as you said. They're too weak in a meta where burst damage rules above everything else, something which Cassiopeia lacks heavily. And even if they'd change those items into something viable, it'd be no excuse for her clunky mechanics. She needs those QoL-updates.

Personally, I blame Riot for making her look so sad.

Willahelm FulberJul 21, 20141 votes

If you check the Statikk Q&A, they're working on figuring out how to scale back the issues with more mobile champions. Here is the link for you, I hope this helps you understand why she hasn't been touched.

CanastusJul 22, 20141 votes

This doesn't explain why we've been given unfullfilled promises for over a year now. This is about restoring faith and credibility, simply stacking further promises on older ones won't make up for what has been done to the bond between players and developers. Only actions may help at this point.

Willahelm FulberJul 22, 20141 votes

Riot is working on this. The actions are only visible in the PBE, until the correct balance is found.

CanastusJul 22, 20141 votes

The PBE didn't feature any Cass changes for over a year now. One year which I've spent patiently waiting for nothing. As I said before, they may say "we're working on this" but in the end nothing's actually happening.

AlexXenoJul 23, 20141 votes

Wait.. is this a smurf account... level 9? waiting over a year?

CanastusJul 23, 20141 votes

Took you long enough to realize. I've created my NA acc back then so I may discuss balancing issues with Riot since the EUW boards are entirely devoid of any red presence. They simply forgot about us so I took matters into my own hands. I'm still very upset about the way they treat their european players. Several months of DAILY server-downtimes and lack of communication, without any compensation.

Naturally the ping is unbearable on NA for someone from Europe so I restrict playing on there to very rare occasions (bot-games during EU downtimes for instance). Since then I've contributed to plenty of discussions which is why I decided to stick to this name even though these boards allow to post with EUW accounts now. It's pretty much about reputation at this point.

Willahelm FulberJul 23, 20141 votes

Do you really want your favorite snake-lady to change form? She's still really strong in a lot of matchups (I pick her often against ziggs) and her damage output is good enough. If you read the comments from the Statikk Q&A (linked above), you would have noticed they're talking about "mobility creep." Champions with high mobility (yasuo, zed, etc.) overshadow Casseiopeia and other less-mobile, mid-range champions (of which casseiopeia is one.) They have to choose between BUFFING less-mobile champions or NERFING more-mobile champions. I have a feeling they're working on the latter of the 2 options. Looking at several of the options on the page for "QoL for casseiopeia" honestly, the only one I see changing maybe is her ult's hitbox. Or Lux's. Either way, none of the rest really is QoL.

CanastusJul 23, 20141 votes

As long as champions like Lee Sin are allowed to exist, the mobility creep will NEVER disappear. Cassiopeia and her kind need buffs, and not the other way around. It's the most effective way to deal with the situation since it takes a lot more work to balance a vast number of overly mobile champions instead of dealing with a small pool of weaker champions. And don't get me started on the latest "promises", they said the exact same thing a year ago and nothing has happened since then.

Willahelm FulberJul 24, 20141 votes

Riot hit the nail on the head when they said that they can't nerf Lee Sin... yet.

Their problem related to Lee Sin is the way they want him is exactly the way a certain other champion they nerfed to shit over the previous 2 seasons used to be: Shaco.

Shaco's design is that of "Early Gambit, fall off later on." I don't think they realize/realized it, but if they actually made Shaco more playable in that sense then we wouldn't have as much problem with Lee Sin. Riot could nerf him to shit until they figure out exactly how their vision of him can be balanced.

CanastusJul 24, 20141 votes

The thing is, Riot doesn't want to nerf any of the existing mobile champions. They think their mobility is what really defines them, so what's the consequence? Cutting down on their strength is not a viable option, they did that several times with Lee already - the same goes for Kassadin.

And yet those champions remain inherently problematic since they refuse to alter their kits in any signifanct way, mobility is simply THAT strong. It's the most important thing in the entire game since it EASILY enables you to avoid skillshots, engage fights and gives you the chance to reposition yourself.

Champions like Cassiopeia are far too easy to outplay by someone who can jump around nonstop, it's already bad enough that her ultimate has an awful delay. All your efforts are wasted if your enemy only has to press a singe key to ruin your entire combo. Where's the skill in that, or even the cost?

Mobility simply has too many advantages. It's by far the most broken mechanic in this game.

Willahelm FulberJul 24, 20141 votes

I honestly agree with you, but if they make these highly mobile champions that are "balanced" to the immobile champions, they'd have to make the immobile champions so tanky or do so much damage that they're OP or riot has to nerf the mobile champions so much that they're practically unplayable (no tankyness / no survivability).

I always felt that league of legends was designed as a game of "balancing chairs." a 2-legged chair has ample opportunity to fall over, but a 3-legged chair can't. A champion that does a lot of damage and has a lot of utility probably SHOULDN'T have their tankyness buffed, unless they're totally rebalanced, if that idea helps you understand what I'm saying.

If you nerf all of the mobility champions to do very little damage, they all become one-trick ponies: Kassadin can hop walls and interrupt channels! Yasuo can block spells and blink to you when you get knocked up! Zed can create shadows that clone his spells! These are all examples of 1-legged chairs, which always are on the verge of falling over.

If I were to play a game of league in a way of balancing chairs, I'd want to play to my champion's strengths (the legs of the chair) play to my opponent's weaknesses (try to make him try to lean his chair the wrong way)

Honestly, to counter mobility creep they need to add a mechanic that counters it to assist immobile champions. This would open up an avenue for more immobile AD carries / casters as well (cough cough urgot). Right now, when I'm facing a mobile champion as casseiopeia or urgot, I make the simple assumption that "eventually, they will end up on top of me" and as casseiopeia I wait until that moment, then I pop ult and w right on top of myself. This works extremely effectively. But something that can instantly lock down an opponent for a given amount of time (casseio ult, if played well.) helps a ton against mobile champions. I do think a lot of people don't understand that yi is a part of the mobility creep, and his obvious hard counters basically involve stunlocking him. That's how I go about dealing with highly mobile champions.

PhoenixUnrealJul 24, 20141 votes

She's brand new. What about the real forever alone champion? The real Urgot of mid lane. Galio One of the first champions made, and he's been nerfed more times than Irelia.

I love Cassi, but I wanna see my gargoyle friend too.

CanastusJul 25, 20141 votes

He wasn't forgotten entirely, after all he did recieve compensation buffs after the nerfs to Athene's Unholy Grail. They never cared to do something similiar for Cass.

PhoenixUnrealJul 25, 20141 votes

I'll give you that, but after how long of waiting? His last buff before that was 20/15/10 seconds reduced off of his ult in 3.11, which really didn't help much since the base CD was 3 minutes, and before that was a move speed buff in V1.0.0.1

I think the real problem is how immobile mages with AoE ults fit into their roles. We dont really have a place for them yet. Cass top lane is incredibly rewarding if you do not get hit. I did that and took move speed quints and started item 1001 item 2003 x5