@Riot, remember Cassiopeia?

Canastus·Feb 18, 2014·3 votes·1,767 views

Since there have been a bunch of topics on the other board already, it's about time this one gets a similiar thread. I'm talking about Cassiopeia, The Serpent's Embrace, of course.

I'm a dedicated Cassiopeia main on EUW and I'd like to use this opportunity to talk about my own experience with this champion while trying to bring up the opinions of others from past threads. I hope you consider some of this if you should happen to rework her later this season.

Many players including me feel that Cassiopeia herself hasn't aged very well over the years, her mechanics have been left untouched and her kit hardly changed at all. The result is a champion with heavy problems at positioning herself in a meta dominated by mobility and instant burst-damage.

Cassiopeia herself is a short-ranged, squishy, dps-mage - properties which turn her into a huge liability for her own team later on. Whereas other squishies have some sort of backup-mechanic to secure their survival (burst or/and mobility to quickly get out), Cassiopeia doesn't have one.

Her laning-phase is quite the tricky pony aswell. You either snowball your lane early on by getting first blood and thus getting the vision and mana-regeneration you desperately need or you risk falling behind in lane.

Should she die during the first 5 minutes of the game, you might aswell consider your lane lost. It's incredibly easy to snowball against Cassiopeia, a champion who is incredibly dependent on items to make up for several of her handicaps.

Now even if you managed to secure yourself a dominating role, things quickly change during the later teamfights. Suddenly you become much more passive due to the constant threat of getting jumped upon while trying to hide behind your team. Too bad your buddies only have eyes for their adc.

Speaking of adcs, if she's supposed to play like one, how come she can't have any decent spellvamp of her own? Meanwhile the adc gets to make use of inherently broken lifesteal-items which fill up your health instantly after clearing a single minion wave. They also don't have to rely on mana just to keep on attacking while Cass clearly does.

Okay, so she got a two second stun on her ultimate but that's meant for dis-/counter-engaging. Don't expect to make any plays with it, you'll be lucky enough if your team even follows up otherwise leaving you behind with up to 5 enemy champions which you can impossibly melt down on your own.

Speaking of her ultimate, I still can't understand how this ability has been left untouched all those years. Its range is terribly short and comes with an awful delay aswell. Sure, you might say that may be necessary for counterplay but if you're already in range of her ultimate, you deserve to be punished.

Besides that she doesn't have any other means of peeling for herself except for blowing her Summoner's spells. Experienced players can easily detect the casting-animation of Petrifying Gaze and simply turn around to avoid the stun at all, others simply jump/flash out of there.

Another great issue is the hitbox of her ultimate - I'd like to share to share some screenshot-evidence on that case:

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=888550&d=1391354284 As we can see, enemies like Lee Sin who can easily jump unto Cassiopeia automatically avoid getting hit by Petrifying Gaze. Sure, you might say that's intended due to the animation but I'd like to raise another question.

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=888549&d=1391354276 How come something like this is allowed to exist? Lee is clearly getting damaged despite staying BEHIND the source of Luxana's laser. Why can't Cassiopeia recieve the same treatment?

Many of you will try to bring up her amazing damage-potential but what use is all this if you can't stay alive long enough? You instantly get focused down and in worse cases your ultimate even gets interrupted by hard cc and death itself.

So what's the result? An incredibly situational champion with delayed skillshots who lacks any mobility or inherent defenses who constantly has to deal with a meta which literally punishes your existence.

There's a reason why Cassiopeia hasn't seen any play in a competitive environment since a long time, and that's for a good reason. High risk, high reward? There's no reward in playing this champion anymore.

11 Comments

Linna ExcelFeb 18, 20142 votes

A few thoughts.

Yes she needs a little TLC, but mostly in the form of a numbers tweak I think.
She used to build WotA and maybe Wraith for spell vamp. Both items suck on her and Wraith doesn't give SV any more for laners. WotA just sucks in general now.
Part of her mobility is linked to hitting a champ with a Q or slowing a champ with a W. This is a double edged sword.
Her passive helps with her mana issues but it also forces her to keep spamming. Timing her all ins is everything. And as said, she lacks mobility to stay with an opponent and needs to keep blowing her mana to have any chance to cling or escape.
The delay on her skill shots is a killer to get used to for people learning her.

Overall I think her ability to do damage is mitigated someone by her lack of mobility, but in today's meta that is more of a burden to her. She's almost forced into supporting now, but annie does that job better, with more range, and more reliability.

CanastusFeb 18, 20141 votes

The sad thing is, even Annie pulls off stuns as good and maybe even easier thanks to Flash/Tibbers while dealing an insane amount of damage - all that without any restrictions on the direction your opponent is facing.

I also feel that her Twin Fangs constantly fail to reset due to her Q going off way too late while you throw your E the next mili-second thus making it arrive before your target is even poisoned. And of course there's the issue of missing the lasthit on a dying target which makes you lose the reset on E, too.

What she needs the most is a rework on the way her abilities work, she can't even properly use her kit with those flaws. A shortened delay on all of her abilities would be strongly advised here.

Linna ExcelFeb 18, 20141 votes

Either a shortened delay or make hitting her skills more rewarding would work. For instance maybe her E could improve like Nasus's Q: every time it resets from hitting a poisoned target, it gains a few stacks of AP or some other benefit.

Another thing that needs looked at is her passive. While it makes all-ins easier on you, it also encourages people to waste mana in order to stay at 5 stacks. That seems too toxic for her players to me. She definitely needs some form of mana management, but I don't think her current passive is the best way to go about it.

KosmicosisFeb 18, 20142 votes

I played cass in normals since I joined 3 years ago, a bunch in s2 ranked, and some in s3 ranked. I feel her big problem is the lack of useful spellvamp.

I typically build her very HP heavy: RoA, Rylais, and Liandrys; and the last 2 items were typically WotA and Abyssal/Zhonyas(situational).

WotA was nerfed at least twice since then. Once, it was cost increased and the build changed to include a blasting rod. Next, it was turned into an auraless item with less AP... While the CDR and mana regen on WotA is nice, it was not worth the 30AP. The no-brainer option now is to buy Athenes instead, but now you have no vamp (aside from runes+masteries).

I assume WotA isn't seeing much play these days, and it is likely in need of another change, which could help our Cass.

EDIT: I say she only needs a tweak, and I would apply it to her passive. The amount less mana per cast needs to increase, because let us be real here: the real problem is mistiming a fang, which damage gates you. Mana shouldn't be the reason if you are using your spells as intended. Make it 15-16% per cast, stacking to 75-80%, this sound OP on paper, but it removes the mana gate. This allows a good player to use her properly or a bad player to still mistime or misuse a fang which is the real gate.

CanastusFeb 19, 20141 votes

I agree, spellvamp in general has been nerfed into utter submission. Riot probably fears champions like Vladimir who would could become a true problem if their main source of sustain would recieve a buff. But seeing as even Vlad is in a terrible state right now, I wouldn't mind to see his core-items changed into something far more useful.

I also feel that her passive is overrated, 50% cost-reduction for having to spam pretty much the entirety of the game can be incredibly bad for you since it literally forces you to waste your mana. She really needs her passive changed into something else - how about a certain percentage of her mana-costs being restored with each successful hit of her abilities? It would reward precision and punish those who mindlessly spam.

KosmicosisFeb 19, 20141 votes

That passive would be nice but I think OP unless it was only for her E. so what I mean is, "Every time Twin fang has a CD reset, the mana cost for Twin Fang is refunded." Or rework the passive entirely and put what I said above on her E.

As it stands, "Deadly Cadence" doesn't really meld with "spend less mana on abilities," so I feel that a new passive that matches the name better would be nice.

CerealBoxOfDoomFeb 19, 20141 votes

question. Why can't Cassiopeia go bot with a support

CanastusFeb 20, 20141 votes

I suppose people aren't used to that kind of meta-shift by sending their apc to bot-lane while their adc is taking mid. It's very unlikely to happen.

SophistafunkFeb 21, 20141 votes

Oh my lord please stop asking for reworks.

Have you learned NOTHING from Karma, Skarner, Xerath, Olaf?

Okay Olaf might be all right, but please stop asking Riot to rework champions. They have literally NO IDEA what they are doing. Look at Xerath - 3 abilities that are nothing more than rehashes from other champions.

CanastusFeb 21, 20141 votes

Are you calling Karma bad? I've seen some pretty amazing ones on solo-lanes who were more than able to hold their own.

Now on the case of Skarner and Xerath, it's quite obvious they're undergoing some further refining due to being the most recent reworks to hit live yet. Skarner is alreay getting major buffs in the next patch and it's only a matter of time until Xerath gets what he needs.

So what's remaining? Olaf? You already admitted that he's in an acceptable state. You should try to trust Riot a little bit more, after all it's the playerbase giving the shots by demanding reworks and buffs - and on the case of those champions we can see, they do listen.

CanastusFeb 28, 20141 votes

Bump. It's beyond me how Riot can neglect a champion for that long without ever addressing those issues.