Damage 47 (+3.2 / per level) Health 380 (+75 / per level) Mana 250 (+50 / per level) Move Speed 310 Armor 11.5 (+4 / per level) Spell Block 30 (+0 / per level) Health Regen 0.97 (+0.1 / per level) Mana Regen 1.42 (+0.15 / per level)
Cassiopeia blasts an area with a delayed high damaging poison, dealing 75/115/155/195/235 (+0.9) magic damage over 3/3/3/3/3 seconds and granting her 15/17.5/20/22.5/25% Movement Speed for 3/3/3/3/3 seconds if she hits a champion.
Cost 35/45/55/65/75 Mana
Range 850
Miasma (W)
Cassiopeia releases a growing cloud of poison that lasts for 7/7/7/7/7 seconds. Any enemy that passes through it is poisoned for 2/2/2/2/2 seconds, dealing 25/35/45/55/65 (+0.15) magic damage each second and slowing them by 15/20/25/30/35%. Continual exposure renews this poison. Cost 70/80/90/100/110 Mana Range 850
Twin Fang (E)
Cassiopeia deals 60/95/130/165/200 (+0.55) magic damage to her target. If the target is poisoned then Twin Fang's cooldown is reduced to 0.5/0.5/0.5/0.5/0.5 seconds. Cost 50/60/70/80/90 Mana Range 700
Petrifying Gaze (R)
Cassiopeia deals 200/325/450 (+0.6) magic damage to all enemies in front of her. Enemies facing her are stunned for 2/2/2 seconds while enemies facing away are slowed by 60/60/60%. Cost 120/160/200 Mana Range 750
version 1.0.0.115 * Twin Fang cast animation sped up * Petrifying Gaze o Cast animation sped up o Cast range increased to 850 from 700 (effect now roughly matches the particle) o Damage increased to 200/325/450 from 150/275/400 o Cooldown reduction with rank is now reflected in the levelup tooltip o More accurately targets enemies that move in/out of the area during the cast time
version 1.0.0.110 * Twin Fang range increased to 700 from 675
version 1.0.0.108 -Base movement speed increased to 310 from 305 -Noxius Blast movement speed buff increased to 3 seconds from 2 -Twin Fang ability power ratio increased to .55 from .45 -Petrifying Gaze slow increased to 60% at all levels from 40/50/60% -Petrifying Gaze cooldown changed to 130/120/110 seconds from 120 at all levels
For this guide, I'm going to shamelessly plagiarize the format of Southlight's fantastic Kassadin guide. Partly because the champs' names sound similar, and partly because some sort of standardization for the champ threads is probably ideal.
Cassiopeia is an absolutely brutal champion, misunderstood and thought to be bad by just about everybody. Cassi is played less than any other champion in the League short of Karma, and it's pretty easy to see why: she's an AP carry (understood by most as useful only for burst damage) that demands mid lane, is enormously depending on repeatedly hitting a 'skillshot' (q), and is liable to break many users' E keys. I expect part of the problem is that most people don't think of rebinding E to smartcast, and are thus turned off by the apparent clunkiness of the champion.
It's their loss, as Cassi has the following assets: -Unparalleled laning power. If her opponent does not buy boots+3hp pots, he automatically loses the lane. -Enormous damage vs champions. Her initial burst isn't quite as huge as, for example, annie -- but over even a couple seconds Cassi starts to clearly take over. -Great chasing power. If you can consistently hit with your Q, Cassi is incredibly difficult to escape, as you're effectively running at +15% movespeed the whole time. -Fantastic scaling with items. -Often overlooked, but she has I believe the best DPS against Dragon and Baron of any champion in the game, including Karthus, just barring AD carries with 3 infinity edges and 3 phantom dancers or whatever. Will crunch the numbers later. -A huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge AOE CC ultimate.
She's just sort of tricky to play. To start:
If you want to play Cassi, you must bind E to smartcast.
I'm certainly not the best Cassi out there, but I haven't seen anyone better - mostly by virtue of how rare her players are, and how seldom she is picked in ranked games. I assume SYDTKO is better.
So, how do you play Cassi?
You kite. You spend the entire game trying to stay in that narrow band of about 25 range where you can damage the enemies, and they can't touch you. So basically, a lot of chasing and running, as we will see later.
MASTERIES
There's two ways you can do masteries. The first is a 'standard' caster build of 9/0/21, which is pretty self explanatory. The alternative, which I use, is 0/8/22.
Why 0/8/22? Don't you want the 15% mpen for maximum damage?
Damage is great. I love damage. Really, I do. Unfortunately, sometimes it's just not worth the tradeoffs. The start of the game is when Cassi is most potent, and she really needs to pick up the ball right here and start running with it. At level 3, if you go 9/0/21, the only real bonuses you're getting from the 9 points you invest into the Offensive tree are: -1.8 AP -3% cdr ~3 magic resistance penetrated on your lane opponent. (Assuming 30 mres, about 10 penetrated by your runes)
...That's not a lot, really. The CDR doesn't make a lick of difference. The AP is sort of nice, but really miniscule, and the 2 mpen just isn't worth it.
If you go 0/8/22, however, you get:
-4 armor (nice against harass) -6 mres (great against burst casters -- your main worries) ~4 hp5, which adds up really quickly when you're trading harass -Greed mastery! Yay!
It's preference, I suppose, but you'll never catch me using anything but the latter, especially considering SoS' synergy with the mana items you'll be getting.
RUNES
Because Cassi is, again, all about snowballing out of the early game, your runes should reflect that as much as possible. You need to squeeze as much damage as you can out of every mana point that you spend-- and also get as much mana as you can. Turn mana into kills, or at least pushing your opponent out of lane.
So, Red: Mpen Yellow: Flat mp5 Blue: Flat AP Quint: Flat AP
This is the ideal setup to do as much damage as efficiently as possible at low levels. Obviously, the flat mp5 won't help you much later in the game- but that's alright as your items will take care of that problem as it comes up. The important thing is to stay ahead of your opponent in hitpoints and creep score. The AP from the runes (combined with your Doran's Ring) adds a whopping 35 damage to your extremely-spammable Q at level one. Abuse it.
SUMMONERS
Flash/Teleport or Flash/Exhaust. It pretty much depends on your lane opponent and how much you respect them.
Basically, if you need to carry your team incredibly hard, Flash/Teleport is optimal. Cassi is strong enough in the lane that you don't need the second summoner to win it handily, and Cassi has one of the strongest counterganks in the game with her ludicrous damage and chasing power. Many are the double- and triple-kills I've gotten by teleporting to bot lane during an enemy gank. Teleport is also great to play silly push games later on in the match because Cassi with a lot of AP sort of completely annihilates creep waves. Flash is obvious.
Exhaust is more of a situational idea. Basically if your lane opponent is someone like Annie, Malzahar, or Orianna who can kick your ass instantly and all at once, you should probably take Exhaust to minimize their damage and especially keep you safer from jungle ganks.
I've taken Flash Heal (yes, I know, crucify me later) in a couple ranked games (and won) as an experiment, but it's probably bad and I might elaborate later. Don't worry about it.
SKILL ORDER
R > Q > E > W, no points in W before level 13.
Why?
Basically, W really really sucks in the lane. I've tried and tried to make it work, and it seriously just blows monkey chunks and is more or less totally useless at that point in the game. Its real utility comes in later, especially during running teamfights, and you just don't need it before then. The ideal situation is one where you are able to get Rylai's at about the same time as W. Then it gets fun, as their synergy is hilarious. W acts sort of like Singed's pool in that the slow is negligible at low levels, and borderline OP at high levels and especially with rylai's. Plus, you know, damage.
PLAY AND ITEMS
Okay, so, you've successfully bought Cassiopeia and her superior Siren skin. You've made an early game dominance runepage and grumbled just a bit while making a 0/8/22 mastery page. You're ready to jump into a game, buy a Doran's Ring, and shit on someone in mid lane. You may want to hold on just a few seconds and read the rest, first.
Bans The best time to play Cassiopeia is when you're first pick in a ranked game, and have control of the bans. This also minimizes the QQ about what a shitty champ Cassi is, as you can pretty much say 'relax im first pick i know what im doing', and so on. Anyway, if you can, you really want to ban Annie. Not just because Annie is broken, but she is also pretty tricky to deal with in the lane. Hopefully next patch she recieves some significant nerfs so that you can ban your fucking nemesis, Kassadin.
RANT ABOUT KASSADIN
I love playing Kassadin. He's a *cough* pushing nuking snarebot initiator, and a lot of fun to play. But when I'm playing Cassiopeia, seriously, fuck Kassadin. It's like his entire kit was designed to specifically counter you.
-He silences you, preventing you from properly comboing. -He has huge range, nullifying yours. -He takes 10% reduced magic damage, wtf. -He's immune to all damage from Cassiopeia, due to his god damn teleporting. -Cassi can't space herself or kite properly when Kassadin is around, because Force Pulse is OP. -Cassi spams spells. She can't do anything but spam spells. Kassadin's OP force pulse is charged by you spamming spells. -Fuck Kassadin.
So, uh, yeah. If you think that there is even a slight risk of anyone on the opposing team picking Kassadin, ban that teleporting obnoxious blue buff stealing mother fucker. You're doing yourself a favor.
Leblanc is sort of the same thing but nobody plays Leblanc so who cares.
BACK TO PLAY AND ITEMS
Buy a Doran's Ring. Go mid lane. Focus on hitting your Qs and not taking any damage in return. Specific tips and tricks for this all-important section of the game will go at the bottom of this guide. Practice this as much as possible, as it's basically the most important thing about Cassi. If you can consistently hit your Qs in the lane, you can probably consistently hit them elsewhere, as people's tiny dodging and weaving motions are a lot easier to predict in teamfights and between lanes. Be good at last hitting. If you aren't good at last hitting, get good at last hitting. You really need the farm with Cassi. Don't be afraid to use her spells to last hit, she actually has one of the best kits in the game for last hitting in the lane from a safe distance.
Your core items vary quite a lot depending on your lane matchup, how well you're performing vs. your opponent, your specific money situation on every trip back, and so on. Basically you need: -Some sort of flat mana item. You need a large mana pool to help DPS dragon and baron down quickly, as well as for extended teamfights. In practice, this pretty much means tear (if you can get away with it without dying in the lane), or catalyst (if you can't). -Some sort of survivability item to survive opposing casters' burst. -A lot of AP.
In a perfectly ideal world where you're completely kicking your opponent's ass, collecting kills by counter ganks, and so on, your items go like this:
If you can get something like a Needlessly Large Rod on any given trip back, by all means do it. Just be aware that it will slow down your Rylai's, and you need to play carefully.
As for your mana needs, they may vary with the specific game. As much mana as possible is great, especially if you're not taking a lot of harass in the lane, but sometimes Tear just isn't viable. One middle-ground route I've found some success with recently is actually getting a Chalice. This item will double your abysmal MRes stat, helping immensely against opposing caster lanes, and it will also cost-effectively minimize your risk of running out of mana mid-teamfight.
As for the Tear, a lot of people give me a lot of guff for it, as despite the above, I still end up getting one in the majority of my games. I spam my spells a lot in lane, with the philosophy that you miss 100% of the shots you don't take -- and you really, REALLY can't afford to run out of mana in a fight. Most casters don't really care as they can sort of blow their load and gleefully run away, but Cassi can keep fighting at maximum power until her mana runs out and then---- she's just a useless neutered duckling wandering around the battlefield waiting to be killed. Don't let this happen to you. Despite Tear not giving any flat health (though it does give you a lot of regen with SoS) or AP, it is often the 'safest' choice for this reason.
You have 2 choices for shoes: -Sorc shoes (if you have 1100 gold on your first trip back, you are probably winning the lane and these are a must to seal your victory and probably get at least one kill) -Merc treads (If you're laning against Annie, Malzahar, Orianna etc. and they are a very good player or you're somehow losing the lane, these might be a sad necessity).
I go Sorcs about 90% of the time.
Anyways, the great thing about Cassi in fights is she doesn't really need to ever commit in order to do loads of damage. She can stay near the outskirts, hit people with Q's, and if it's safe, move just a bit closer to rail them with repeated E's before dodging back out again. Your ult is best used in the following scenarios: -Hit the whole enemy team. Ideally you're following up an Amumu initiation or something and literally get an additional 2s stun on the whole team-- but if you get the chance to just rail a lot of people at the same time regardless of which way they're facing, do it. -Interrupt an important channel. Notably Malzahar and Warwick. You can usually hit one or two other people with the AoE while you're at it. -Chasing. Don't be afraid to hit a runner or two with your ulti if you can't kill them alone before they reach the safety of their towers. The 60% slow for 2 full seconds is absolutely massive, and will often let your teammates catch up and help you secure the kill. -Running. If you're low hp, an ulti in the face followed by you flashing away will get you out of about 99% of hairy situations. For this reason, you should almost never flash in to a fight unless you're trying to kill someone under their tower immediately after you ding level 6 or something.
Uses for your other skills!
Q -Chasing: Q people, keep chasing, Q them again. Don't bother with E as it will slow you down, unless you can finish them off. Keeping up the Q combo will keep you in range and the enemy losing health. -Running: Same idea. You should be able to often hit people blind around corners, in bushes, etc to boost your speed and get you the fuck out of there. The bonus you're getting after the cast time is realistically probably more like 5-10%, but often that's enough. Just make sure you don't miss. -Checking: Check bushes! Check corners! Check for ganks! It's like a short-range clairvoyance that does work and speeds you up! -Farming: With around 100AP, at level 5 your Q can instantly clear range creeps in an AoE, and clear melee creeps with only 2 hits.
W -Chasing: After the speed boost from your Q gets you close enough, throw a W in front of the enemy champ and cut him off so he has to either run through it or waste time running around it. Same as a Singed goop, do not try to throw this directly on top of a running champion, just use it to obstruct his path. -Running: Same thing, but you're getting away. -Checking: It gives you very brief sight, kinda like Veigar's Dark Matter. -Farming: Slows down creeps and kills them instantly with some AP and a quick Q? Yes please!
E -Chasing: If they're sufficiently low HP, you don't need to risk missing a Q. Just hit with E first, and if for some reason it fails to kill em, you can follow up with an auto attack or a Q to collect the kill. -Running: If you're being chased and you're using your Q/W to maximum effectiveness, often the enemy champion will get low hp without noticing that he's low hp. Depending on your hp, your AP, his MRes, what champion he's playing, etc, low hp could be anywhere from 200 to 2000. Anyways, if you're being chased and the enemy champ has run through enough Q/W's (not as many as you might expect) to become sufficiently low himself, you can often turn the chase around. Sit in a bush, Q/W him again as he comes closer, and rail him with your full RQWEEEQEEE combo. Sometimes you don't even need the ulti. Use exhaust if you've got it, collect kill. You remain totally safe in your bush, and abscond with an additional 400 gold. Chasing Cassi is even more dangerous than chasing Singed, it just hasn't become a meme yet. -Farming. Even if you hit a dry target with it, E still only has a 4s cooldown. A great skill for last hitting under towers.
Now, finally, the most important section:
LANING
Oh my god we just got hit by the most terrifying fucking hailstorm I've ever seen and I'm sitting here writing this stupid guide. Anyway, when you're laning, you have to hit Q's. If you do not, you lose the game. Here's how you do it.
First, I must clarify: when I say aim slightly behind, or to the right, or whatever of a champion, usually that means to use the AoE of your Q spell so that, if they stand still, they will just get barely clipped by the edge of it. This doubles the number of decisions that your opponent can make that will result in him getting hit by the Q (ie. he can choose to sit still, or to move back, either way he will get hit. He has to choose a different direction in order to not get hit).
Every opponent has a set of predictable maneuvers he makes. Some are very easy to spot, more are much more subtle. Some of the easiest ones are:
1. Lasthitting. Every champ has to do this, and whether they do it with a skill, autoattack, range or melee, everyone will attempt to last hit creeps when they get low. The trick to nailing people when they last hit is this: a. You have to already be in range. If you move up, they'll see it, and dodge your shot. b. You have to aim slightly behind them. The moment people see Cassi doing her Q animation, they'll move back, although the exact definition of 'back' varies a lot. Basically, default to behind them as in towards their tower. Observe their movements: if they usually dodge to the left, try aiming your spell just to their left, and so on. If you get enough successful predictions like this, then they'll usually freak out and become more predictable.
2. Harassing. Many champions will attempt to harass you back. Dodge their spells (if you can), and return fire, not necessarily in that order. Also, you may sometimes wish to trade hits if you are certain it will result in you nailing your Q- and if their cooldowns are long enough, you can follow up with an E or two as well.
3. Avoiding the sides. This may seem obvious when put into words, but most champions don't like hanging out near the side bushes, as it leaves them vulnerable to jungle ganks. This means that, on average, most people will juke towards the center of the lane if they are already off to the side. Again, study their movements and just predict. You don't have to be right 100% of the time, just try to be right as often as you can.
4. Coming in for jungle ganks. When people start behaving aggressively all of a sudden, you know their jungler is near. And often, this is the best time to nail them with some Q's if you feel you can do so safely. Do it with care, and try to only do it when your Flash is up, but this can single-handedly win you the lane if done right, as the jungler wastes time, the enemy champ takes damage, and you escape unscathed. Sometimes you can even kill the jungler and flash out if it's before level 6!
5. Your jungler ganks. Obvious. The enemy will run away from your jungler. His movement path becomes 100% predictable, and you get some guaranteed free hits and probably a kill.
Alright, my hands hurt a bit so this is probably a good place to stop for now. I'll answer any questions and participate in this thread as much as I can, as well as edit the OP whenever I feel that changes are needed.
Changelog v1.00: jesus v1.01: mpen = mres, ty spine v1.02: added the meaningless minutiae in spoilers bluuuuuhhhh
Good news for Cass players! (I'll try to find the source later, but) W will soon be giving sight in bushes! Also no note on R and its uses? (and how bugged to fuck it is?)
Yay, my favourite AP carry after Orianna! She's a ton of fun to play.
Personally I go E > Q > W, because if you land one Q in lane, you can follow it up with Es Urgot-style. It's more or less free damage - if they don't run away and try to fight instead, you just drop Exhaust and kill them. I don't think there's any champions who can 1v1 her from level 2 on except for those damn silence champs.
I also think it's worth getting at least one level of W before you expect any major teamfights, for dragon and so on. It's vitally important to keep her E from going on cooldown and sometimes you've cast your Q and someone without poison jumps in your face.
On a somewhat related note, although she can kite extremely well, I find that it's usually not necessary, since she just melts anything in front of her. As long as she's in a good position she's pretty resistant to divers, not because of any escape ability but because between R and exhaust and her ridiculous damage she just straight up kills anyone who tries.
Pretty amused to see all 4 people in this thread so far from Canada. Gonna have to call her Canadapeia. Anyways ill make a proper section for Cana's ulti, which is actually not really bugged at all from what I can tell.
On July 20 2011 10:33 Odds wrote: Pretty amused to see all 4 people in this thread so far from Canada. Gonna have to call her Canadapeia. Anyways ill make a proper section for Cana's ulti, which is actually not really bugged at all from what I can tell.
You've seriously never had a champ facing you not get stunned, or one facing away get stunned for some reason? I've had people on the edges of the ult not get affected at all by slow OR stun before, though that could be due to misplay on my part I guess. Flash + ult especially seems to cause this to happen a bunch.
I dunno her ult, while great, has always seemed really clunky and odd in both its range and its effect.
Well the main problem is making the decision of whether to use flash to prop up a good Ult. Most of the time I imagine one would be tempted to that, but it would be a mistake because she needs that Flash as her escape.
There I am not from Canada ^o^. Cass is pretty awesome, but silences and distance closers really make life hard. That and I find that her base movespeed feels like shit, so increase in movement speed from q doesn't always seem to offset the half second it takes to cast q in the first place when running away from someone. Also her ult has the same range as her q, but the cone isn't really accurate so its good to get a feel for the increased range.
I play her as a standard caster- flash ignite, 9-0-21, stack drings until i can get a cap, then rylais-void-bv. I never have mana problems on her, and 2-3 drings gives you enough ap to hit a poison then just KILL someone.
If you never have mana problems on cassi, you're probably playing her wrong, honestly. Her base mana pool is just too small to dps dragon and help properly in a fight.
On July 20 2011 10:50 Juicyfruit wrote: Well the main problem is making the decision of whether to use flash to prop up a good Ult. Most of the time I imagine one would be tempted to that, but it would be a mistake because she needs that Flash as her escape.
as a general rule for all champs, never flash offensively. ofc, if you are someone like prenerf galio and get a penty by flash ulting, you can do that, but generally its a bad idea.
Also, i love cass, but i never get to play her because everyone always wants mid.
On July 21 2011 08:22 Odds wrote: If you never have mana problems on cassi, you're probably playing her wrong, honestly. Her base mana pool is just too small to dps dragon and help properly in a fight.
I'm experimenting with this. Part of the reason I feel this way is probably because I tend to play against high sustain champs in mid, also people buy about 400 health pots once they realize they're against a good cassi and won't be able to dodge every Q.
Just, running out of mana in a fight is REALLY REALLY BAD. If you don't need the mana from Tear for your playstyle, and aren't skimping against Dragon/Baron, then who cares, skip it.
On July 21 2011 08:22 Odds wrote: If you never have mana problems on cassi, you're probably playing her wrong, honestly. Her base mana pool is just too small to dps dragon and help properly in a fight.
I'm experimenting with this. Part of the reason I feel this way is probably because I tend to play against high sustain champs in mid, also people buy about 400 health pots once they realize they're against a good cassi and won't be able to dodge every Q.
Just, running out of mana in a fight is REALLY REALLY BAD. If you don't need the mana from Tear for your playstyle, and aren't skimping against Dragon/Baron, then who cares, skip it.
What about the blue buff? I found that with the blue buff and tear I cannot drop below like 80% mana no matter what i cast, which seems like an overkill. And you should be top priority for blue in the team. So if you consider this, perhaps it's worthwhile to get RoA. It's more expensive, but in conjunction with rylai's will give a LOT of hp.
Blue buff is great as it is on any caster, but if you're casting constantly for an entire teamfight or whatever (especially at tanks, dragon, etc), you'd be pretty surprised at how fast your mana bar depletes even with blue buff. With blue, it's not usually an issue, but can still come up if you have no flat mana items.
I might just be bad. Will continue trying to play without tear and will report results/ change guide as needed.
Blue buff with your passive should make spell-spamming a non issue. Once you max cadence out you should regen faster than you could ever spend mana. At least with tears.
I don't understand cass really. I love playing her, but I always feel like I'm doing badly. I miss too many Q's in lane, get harassed, struggle to win lane, etc. I miss ults, and generally noob up a storm. Then at the end of the game I've somehow got a good score lol. DON'T UNDERSTAND. She just puts out soooo much damage.
Cassi is my main AP carry for ranked games. A ton of fun to play and just straight deadly in the right circumstances. I love having a Singed tanking on my team when I run her.
When mixed with the right comp she truly does shine.
I run MP reds, mp5 yellow, APpLvL blues. Flat AP quints or MS quints.
It's what I like about Cass. She turns into a late game super carry, pretty much regardless of how you do early on. It's helped by the fact that it's easier to hit spells in late game fights because of more CC, or because people's fingers are tired and can't react as well. It's also very easy to predict how people are going to move while positioned around baron or near towers.
I don't think Cass needs blue buff as much as other casters do. Reducing the cooldown on Q only really helps significantly if you miss a lot, and with proper E usage it shouldn't affect that at all (although sometimes my E will bug out and not refresh on a poisoned target). It's okay for W, but that's not your main damage source. Shorter cooldowns on the ult is great, but generally that comes up often enough for teamfights. And it's not a replacement for tear or other mana sources.
Great guide, by the way. I'll have to try it out some.
I've been playing more with straight ap builds sans tear, and they work fine but you are really super dependant on blue buff, so what exactly you opt for comes down I think to preference and team comp.
So I'm thinking of picking up Cass as my main mid champion but want to ask a few questions before i spend my hard-earned IP on her: - does she have any bad matchups (the OP mentions kassadin - is he still a problem after his Q range nerf?) - is there a particular reason i haven't seen much cass play recently in pro games (or maybe i'm just not looking at the right ones)? - does the build in the OP still apply? as far as i can tell the only major change would be the masteries.
(oh, and there's nothing wrong with bumping a champion thread right?)
definitely want to build boots + 3 first instead of d-ring brand is a pretty tough matchup for cass from what ive seen, and i'm sure xerath and fizz do well against her other than that, yeah she hasn't changed much
On December 06 2011 08:36 danana wrote: So I'm thinking of picking up Cass as my main mid champion but want to ask a few questions before i spend my hard-earned IP on her: - does she have any bad matchups (the OP mentions kassadin - is he still a problem after his Q range nerf?) - is there a particular reason i haven't seen much cass play recently in pro games (or maybe i'm just not looking at the right ones)? - does the build in the OP still apply? as far as i can tell the only major change would be the masteries.
(oh, and there's nothing wrong with bumping a champion thread right?)
Cass doesn't really have that many bad matchups tbh. If you can hit your Qs and dodge enemy skillshots you can outharass pretty much anyone. Kass isn't that bad until he hits 6, at which poitn he just poops all over you.
Cass gets picked a decent amount in pro-games. You just aren't watching the right ones x] The issue with Cass is that she needs a good frontline to tank and peel for her as she's innately very squishy, but with the right comp she has one of the highest sustained damages in the game.
I personally go boots3pot into 2 drings then WotA/Dcap. Then I grab Rylais, Void, Zhonyas after. RoA is nice, but I find that it delays your damage too much.
On December 06 2011 08:36 danana wrote: So I'm thinking of picking up Cass as my main mid champion but want to ask a few questions before i spend my hard-earned IP on her: - does she have any bad matchups (the OP mentions kassadin - is he still a problem after his Q range nerf?) - is there a particular reason i haven't seen much cass play recently in pro games (or maybe i'm just not looking at the right ones)? - does the build in the OP still apply? as far as i can tell the only major change would be the masteries.
(oh, and there's nothing wrong with bumping a champion thread right?)
kass is still a royal jackass to nearly all ap's, this applies doubly to cass, since she is 100% combo based. For you to do harass in lane, you hit a q, and then spam the fuck out of twin fang to do dmg. Kass makes it so that when you hit q..... you just start autoattacking, and therefore do the least dmg possible during your poison duration. Note soraka poses a similar problem, but you prob wont see it that often.
the item build is still fine i think. I personally would do boots + double-d's into dcap, just kus dcap too op, but i dont think it would be bad to do what op suggested. Basically as long as you are doing something that would be 'generally ok' on an ap caster i think you're in the clear. In general tho, i would recommend starting boots over dring, just kus so many mu's in mid are dependent on skillshots.
I really love the way cass plays but sitting at about 180-200 ping i've always wondered if im holding my team back by playing such a skillshot reliant character with the ping. I can land her Q's but it seems i cant chase the enemy for the E's as they run off way faster than i can. Is this how it is in low ping situations too, or am i just doing it wrong?
On December 06 2011 11:53 Nikopol wrote: I really love the way cass plays but sitting at about 180-200 ping i've always wondered if im holding my team back by playing such a skillshot reliant character with the ping. I can land her Q's but it seems i cant chase the enemy for the E's as they run off way faster than i can. Is this how it is in low ping situations too, or am i just doing it wrong?
with that ping i would only play garen...if that helps.
On December 06 2011 11:53 Nikopol wrote: I really love the way cass plays but sitting at about 180-200 ping i've always wondered if im holding my team back by playing such a skillshot reliant character with the ping. I can land her Q's but it seems i cant chase the enemy for the E's as they run off way faster than i can. Is this how it is in low ping situations too, or am i just doing it wrong?
with that ping i would only play garen...if that helps.
Bah, my ping never gets under 220, as if i'd wanna Garen permanently! Never known anything different, I'm sure your the same Niko, so just keep at it.
On December 06 2011 11:53 Nikopol wrote: I really love the way cass plays but sitting at about 180-200 ping i've always wondered if im holding my team back by playing such a skillshot reliant character with the ping. I can land her Q's but it seems i cant chase the enemy for the E's as they run off way faster than i can. Is this how it is in low ping situations too, or am i just doing it wrong?
It can take a while to get used to playing certain champs at such high ping. In the situation you described, it might be worth practicing cancelling your animations before, or as, you are triggering them.
I don't know if I described that well enough or not and I'm not even sure if it's possible on cass, but when I used to mainly play on the US, my ping was often about ~160-180, which would mean that, while playing TF, to lock a gold card I would have to lock almost instantly after the red card appeared. Whereas on the EU server I can lock it even while the gold card itself is showing.
Again, not sure if this is possible with cass. But animation cancelling, or a lack of it, is a common cause of the situation you described.
On December 06 2011 08:36 danana wrote: So I'm thinking of picking up Cass as my main mid champion but want to ask a few questions before i spend my hard-earned IP on her: - does she have any bad matchups (the OP mentions kassadin - is he still a problem after his Q range nerf?) - is there a particular reason i haven't seen much cass play recently in pro games (or maybe i'm just not looking at the right ones)? - does the build in the OP still apply? as far as i can tell the only major change would be the masteries.
(oh, and there's nothing wrong with bumping a champion thread right?)
kass is still a royal jackass to nearly all ap's, this applies doubly to cass, since she is 100% combo based. For you to do harass in lane, you hit a q, and then spam the fuck out of twin fang to do dmg. Kass makes it so that when you hit q..... you just start autoattacking, and therefore do the least dmg possible during your poison duration. Note soraka poses a similar problem, but you prob wont see it that often.
the item build is still fine i think. I personally would do boots + double-d's into dcap, just kus dcap too op, but i dont think it would be bad to do what op suggested. Basically as long as you are doing something that would be 'generally ok' on an ap caster i think you're in the clear. In general tho, i would recommend starting boots over dring, just kus so many mu's in mid are dependent on skillshots.
also 21/x/x masteries and all that.
also nothing wrong with bumping a champ thread :D
Which is better to level in lane? I always liked leveling q because of the longer range and good poke/harass, but leveling e would probably be more useful for getting the killing blow
On December 06 2011 08:36 danana wrote: So I'm thinking of picking up Cass as my main mid champion but want to ask a few questions before i spend my hard-earned IP on her: - does she have any bad matchups (the OP mentions kassadin - is he still a problem after his Q range nerf?) - is there a particular reason i haven't seen much cass play recently in pro games (or maybe i'm just not looking at the right ones)? - does the build in the OP still apply? as far as i can tell the only major change would be the masteries.
(oh, and there's nothing wrong with bumping a champion thread right?)
kass is still a royal jackass to nearly all ap's, this applies doubly to cass, since she is 100% combo based. For you to do harass in lane, you hit a q, and then spam the fuck out of twin fang to do dmg. Kass makes it so that when you hit q..... you just start autoattacking, and therefore do the least dmg possible during your poison duration. Note soraka poses a similar problem, but you prob wont see it that often.
the item build is still fine i think. I personally would do boots + double-d's into dcap, just kus dcap too op, but i dont think it would be bad to do what op suggested. Basically as long as you are doing something that would be 'generally ok' on an ap caster i think you're in the clear. In general tho, i would recommend starting boots over dring, just kus so many mu's in mid are dependent on skillshots.
also 21/x/x masteries and all that.
also nothing wrong with bumping a champ thread :D
Which is better to level in lane? I always liked leveling q because of the longer range and good poke/harass, but leveling e would probably be more useful for getting the killing blow
can't say i'm really an authority on cass, but i typically like to do qeeqe, then r>q>e>w with a point in w somewhere around 10 or 11 ish. This is mostly because of how i tend to play solo lanes tho. I come from a background of urgot, pantheon, leblanc, ezreal (back when he was popular as a solo), basically hyper aggressive champs, and it tends to come out in my other champs as well. If you're comfortable sitting back and farming with cass (which is just fine) then you prob dont need to invest as much in e in the early levels as i do. In that situation i would prob go something along the lines of q e e q q for the first 5 levels instead (primarily because you're going to be last hitting with autos for the first 3 levels anyways, so you can save your spells exclusively for harass). not a large difference but may be noticeable. Either way tho, as long as you're not getting w until later on (kus w is shit in lane) i dont think it really matters how you prioritize q or e and just do what feels right for you.
On December 06 2011 08:36 danana wrote: So I'm thinking of picking up Cass as my main mid champion but want to ask a few questions before i spend my hard-earned IP on her: - does she have any bad matchups (the OP mentions kassadin - is he still a problem after his Q range nerf?) - is there a particular reason i haven't seen much cass play recently in pro games (or maybe i'm just not looking at the right ones)? - does the build in the OP still apply? as far as i can tell the only major change would be the masteries.
(oh, and there's nothing wrong with bumping a champion thread right?)
kass is still a royal jackass to nearly all ap's, this applies doubly to cass, since she is 100% combo based. For you to do harass in lane, you hit a q, and then spam the fuck out of twin fang to do dmg. Kass makes it so that when you hit q..... you just start autoattacking, and therefore do the least dmg possible during your poison duration. Note soraka poses a similar problem, but you prob wont see it that often.
the item build is still fine i think. I personally would do boots + double-d's into dcap, just kus dcap too op, but i dont think it would be bad to do what op suggested. Basically as long as you are doing something that would be 'generally ok' on an ap caster i think you're in the clear. In general tho, i would recommend starting boots over dring, just kus so many mu's in mid are dependent on skillshots.
also 21/x/x masteries and all that.
also nothing wrong with bumping a champ thread :D
Which is better to level in lane? I always liked leveling q because of the longer range and good poke/harass, but leveling e would probably be more useful for getting the killing blow
can't say i'm really an authority on cass, but i typically like to do qeeqe, then r>q>e>w with a point in w somewhere around 10 or 11 ish. This is mostly because of how i tend to play solo lanes tho. I come from a background of urgot, pantheon, leblanc, ezreal (back when he was popular as a solo), basically hyper aggressive champs, and it tends to come out in my other champs as well. If you're comfortable sitting back and farming with cass (which is just fine) then you prob dont need to invest as much in e in the early levels as i do. In that situation i would prob go something along the lines of q e e q q for the first 5 levels instead (primarily because you're going to be last hitting with autos for the first 3 levels anyways, so you can save your spells exclusively for harass). not a large difference but may be noticeable. Either way tho, as long as you're not getting w until later on (kus w is shit in lane) i dont think it really matters how you prioritize q or e and just do what feels right for you.
Ive always played taking w first, q @ 2, e @ 3, and then r>e>q>w. The idea is, w at level 1 is useful for the slow, and vision in brush for level 1 fights. It also does the most dmg should someone just stand in it, and its good for clearing the caster wave easily. The slow is useful and people get zoned by it. Second can be either q or e, doesnt really matter, but having all 3 abilities by 3 lets you get quite aggressive. If you then want the most single target damage, level e first. It means that hitting a Q is devastating because you can follow with 2 e's.
On December 06 2011 11:53 Nikopol wrote: I really love the way cass plays but sitting at about 180-200 ping i've always wondered if im holding my team back by playing such a skillshot reliant character with the ping. I can land her Q's but it seems i cant chase the enemy for the E's as they run off way faster than i can. Is this how it is in low ping situations too, or am i just doing it wrong?
with that ping i would only play garen...if that helps.
Bah, my ping never gets under 220, as if i'd wanna Garen permanently! Never known anything different, I'm sure your the same Niko, so just keep at it.
Yeah im just having a whinge. I'll just keep playing her.
On December 06 2011 08:36 danana wrote: So I'm thinking of picking up Cass as my main mid champion but want to ask a few questions before i spend my hard-earned IP on her: - does she have any bad matchups (the OP mentions kassadin - is he still a problem after his Q range nerf?) - is there a particular reason i haven't seen much cass play recently in pro games (or maybe i'm just not looking at the right ones)? - does the build in the OP still apply? as far as i can tell the only major change would be the masteries.
(oh, and there's nothing wrong with bumping a champion thread right?)
kass is still a royal jackass to nearly all ap's, this applies doubly to cass, since she is 100% combo based. For you to do harass in lane, you hit a q, and then spam the fuck out of twin fang to do dmg. Kass makes it so that when you hit q..... you just start autoattacking, and therefore do the least dmg possible during your poison duration. Note soraka poses a similar problem, but you prob wont see it that often.
the item build is still fine i think. I personally would do boots + double-d's into dcap, just kus dcap too op, but i dont think it would be bad to do what op suggested. Basically as long as you are doing something that would be 'generally ok' on an ap caster i think you're in the clear. In general tho, i would recommend starting boots over dring, just kus so many mu's in mid are dependent on skillshots.
also 21/x/x masteries and all that.
also nothing wrong with bumping a champ thread :D
Which is better to level in lane? I always liked leveling q because of the longer range and good poke/harass, but leveling e would probably be more useful for getting the killing blow
Q sets up your combo and you get a bigger speed boost with every level of Q. So, I think maxing Q first is best. I also agree with getting W at like level 10 or so rather than 4.
On January 21 2012 04:18 Jojo131 wrote: Just picked up the game and bought Cassi, what an awesome hero
ty for the guide
I wouldn't suggest using this guide. the masteries are outdated and the item build imo is not optimal. these days i've been going boots > when possible sorc , 2 dorans>, revolver>will eventually, giant belt>rylais, deathcap, void, zhonyas. i used to run ignite on her but more recently saw someone using cleanse and it makes a lot of sense to me to run it. and then 21-0-9 masteries
On December 06 2011 08:36 danana wrote: So I'm thinking of picking up Cass as my main mid champion but want to ask a few questions before i spend my hard-earned IP on her: - does she have any bad matchups (the OP mentions kassadin - is he still a problem after his Q range nerf?) - is there a particular reason i haven't seen much cass play recently in pro games (or maybe i'm just not looking at the right ones)? - does the build in the OP still apply? as far as i can tell the only major change would be the masteries.
(oh, and there's nothing wrong with bumping a champion thread right?)
kass is still a royal jackass to nearly all ap's, this applies doubly to cass, since she is 100% combo based. For you to do harass in lane, you hit a q, and then spam the fuck out of twin fang to do dmg. Kass makes it so that when you hit q..... you just start autoattacking, and therefore do the least dmg possible during your poison duration. Note soraka poses a similar problem, but you prob wont see it that often.
the item build is still fine i think. I personally would do boots + double-d's into dcap, just kus dcap too op, but i dont think it would be bad to do what op suggested. Basically as long as you are doing something that would be 'generally ok' on an ap caster i think you're in the clear. In general tho, i would recommend starting boots over dring, just kus so many mu's in mid are dependent on skillshots.
also 21/x/x masteries and all that.
also nothing wrong with bumping a champ thread :D
Which is better to level in lane? I always liked leveling q because of the longer range and good poke/harass, but leveling e would probably be more useful for getting the killing blow
It depends on the lane. Against many champs E is better because you can land a Q and get a couple E's for pretty high damage, but some champs you'll only ever get 0-1 E's, so earlier points in Q can net you more damage. Generally I do E before Q.
I've tried a lot of different orders between wota, rylai's, and deathcap, but there doesn't seem to be one best build. Getting deathcap third does noticeably affect your damage. I think the most 'standard' build is probably rylai > deathcap > wota, or skip wota and go straight for void staff if you don't find yourself needing the vamp.
I've been trying out the 2doran>revolver>banshee build and its pretty legit if you're ahead. The ability to be able to get those ults off is really useful.
Alot of people also underestimate cass' healing when she has revolver/wota, and you're sitting in her poison pool while she E's. In that situation she can 1v1 most champs as her sustained dmg and healing is ridiculous.
i am surprized that everyone is getting their first level in w around 10. every time i decide to go qeqe instead of qeqw because i want the extra damage i end up missing kills/getting killed in jungle skirmishes/ganking lanes and level 4 is the only time you can get it without getting it over q.
also i used to go 2-3x dring into dcap/wota/rylai's in what ever order depending on the game but than i tried out roa first and it felt so much better.
On January 21 2012 04:18 Jojo131 wrote: Just picked up the game and bought Cassi, what an awesome hero
ty for the guide
I wouldn't suggest using this guide. the masteries are outdated and the item build imo is not optimal. these days i've been going boots > when possible sorc , 2 dorans>, revolver>will eventually, giant belt>rylais, deathcap, void, zhonyas. i used to run ignite on her but more recently saw someone using cleanse and it makes a lot of sense to me to run it. and then 21-0-9 masteries
Thanks for the heads up, starting with boots+pots has been working out great (unless im doing it wrong again -_-)
On January 21 2012 12:01 jadoth wrote: i am surprized that everyone is getting their first level in w around 10. every time i decide to go qeqe instead of qeqw because i want the extra damage i end up missing kills/getting killed in jungle skirmishes/ganking lanes and level 4 is the only time you can get it without getting it over q.
also i used to go 2-3x dring into dcap/wota/rylai's in what ever order depending on the game but than i tried out roa first and it felt so much better.
On most AP Mids you can argue whether to get RoA or a few drings, however on AP Mids that work well with Rylais, getting RoA is stupid.
On annie or morg sure, get Drings or RoA. On brand or cassio, get drings.
Well I play cass alot and would argue that roa is anything but stupid. Cass is a mana dependent champ, in teamfights she's constantly spamming her E and even with her passive this drains alot of mana, so her manapool is pretty important to her as a champ.
RoA gives mana and health, whereas Rylais gives health and slow. As a champ which is great as a counter initiator and standup fighter she probly require the mana over a slow if you are facing a team that is initiating onto you and it is a close game. However if you are ahead and are having to chase them more often it might be better to get rylais, so I think instead of one option being "stupid" and another being right I think it is a situational thing.
Also nothings stopping you from going Dring and ward on first back then building catalyst, which is pretty op in lane.
What do you guys think about Ocelotes super tanky/sustain cass build? He gets Wota, Revolver, SV and rylais before dcap.
Ive tried it out in a few games so far, if I'm ahead and i need to get even more ahead its amazing. at the same time i feel like it has a much larger ramp up time compared to standard builds. I find it really hard to fit all of these items in before big engagements unless im freefarming in lane, getting kills and taking jungle.
Seems like that build would make you pretty hard to kill, but unless you have your jungle feeding you blue the entire game, I feel like you'd be quite mana starved.
Does this include grabbing 2 or 3 drings, or just going boots->revolver->wota->revolver?
it feels like wota + revolver is a bit too much, esp late game the revolver is a bit of a deadweight. I think that the conventional wota> dmg build is a little better in most situations.
I was under the impression it was a troll build. People don't stack 3 BTs on AD carries. You just kill them in 1 CC anyway and they're less of a threat at the start of a teamfight. It's not much different with a cass, tbh. Just build standard.
12 Weeks LoL - Ocelote - Cassiopeia Oce talks about the build in this game. Unfortunately, I think he was a little too excited and flounders a lot, but basically, he says it's great because of your sustained DPS, you'll heal so much that you rarely if ever die.
I just started picking up Cassio and basically went 2 Doran's -> WotA -> Rylai's and felt pretty awesome so far. I've been thinking that RoA -> Revolver -> Deathcap might be a better route to go, but I'm really not sure. Cass is so complex, I haven't been able to figure out what to get in which situations. Any pointers?
On January 28 2012 00:11 cDgCornpops wrote: I personally run MS quints and flat MR blues. Makes laning aginst most AP's pretty safe
that just seems ridiculous to be run on any ap carry... I'm a big fan of MS quints in general but not so much on this particular hero however mr blues instead of ap/lvl is just bad... It's like declaring that you won't be aiming for a lot of damage but are bad at the game and expect to take hits from the enemy ap carry. Especially if u have ms quints u should beable to juke the hell out of any skillshot champion. Also cass might not be played a lot on the NA server but on EUW u see a lot of her. She seems to be like a karthus but easier to use in every way (except R obviously) and her E does ridiculous damage. I would buy her but not enough ip . No worries though if I see a cass on the enemy team i go gragas and roflstomp her from lvl 4 x_x;:. I guess it's just because she is reasonably hard to play so a lot of people just fail with her . . .
Flat mr blues are a good choice if you are against a bursty mage. You deal enough damage anyway, it's far better to be able to survive their combo than to deal a bit more damage. There is no one magical rune setup, since it varies depending on the teamcomps.
On January 28 2012 00:11 cDgCornpops wrote: I personally run MS quints and flat MR blues. Makes laning aginst most AP's pretty safe
that just seems ridiculous to be run on any ap carry... I'm a big fan of MS quints in general but not so much on this particular hero however mr blues instead of ap/lvl is just bad... It's like declaring that you won't be aiming for a lot of damage but are bad at the game and expect to take hits from the enemy ap carry. Especially if u have ms quints u should beable to juke the hell out of any skillshot champion. Also cass might not be played a lot on the NA server but on EUW u see a lot of her. She seems to be like a karthus but easier to use in every way (except R obviously) and her E does ridiculous damage. I would buy her but not enough ip . No worries though if I see a cass on the enemy team i go gragas and roflstomp her from lvl 4 x_x;:. I guess it's just because she is reasonably hard to play so a lot of people just fail with her . . .
I'm lost. You claim that running flat MR blues is bad, and yet you say you go mid w/ gragas and roflstop most cass's. I think having an extra 13 MR and increased movement speed means that you'll have a hard time landing those q's, and when you do they are doing a lot less damage. The 13 MR from my blue's pretty much negates the 10 mpen reds you should be running.
28 AP at 18 might be nice, but when I'm fed in mid because they can't trade with me, and I can farm all day, or just straight up kill them and gank a lane, I think it's better to have my rylais quicker than to wait around for level 18 to have 28 extra AP.
And as stacking dorans is quite common on cass mid, the eHP you get from those is also increased when you have an extra 13 MR. Most mids can hit about 30 Mpen with sorcs, and that puts cass right around 0, I think that 13 extra MR is perfectly fine to improve my laning phase.
On February 01 2012 06:16 Craton wrote: I don't see the point in MS quints on a champ that gets a giant move speed buff from Q, a slow from W, and a slow from Rylai's.
MR blues are debatable and dependent on the matchup more than anything, but I'd rather a different quint.
After about 30-40 Cass games during the last week, I have come to realize that's 100% true. Her early game harassment is even more ridiculous with that 20+ AP.
On January 21 2012 12:01 jadoth wrote: i am surprized that everyone is getting their first level in w around 10. every time i decide to go qeqe instead of qeqw because i want the extra damage i end up missing kills/getting killed in jungle skirmishes/ganking lanes and level 4 is the only time you can get it without getting it over q.
also i used to go 2-3x dring into dcap/wota/rylai's in what ever order depending on the game but than i tried out roa first and it felt so much better.
On most AP Mids you can argue whether to get RoA or a few drings, however on AP Mids that work well with Rylais, getting RoA is stupid.
On annie or morg sure, get Drings or RoA. On brand or cassio, get drings.
Etc.
Not exactly true. Cass has such high damage without any real AP that you can afford to build her RoA into Rylais if the game demands it, (ie they have a lot of burst so the health is useful), and you are still relavent to the fights. Its not needed every game, but its really not a must get drings on cass. (Brand I agree on since you are never close to the fights so double health is overkill)
Another character that getting (eventually) both RoA and Rylais is very good on is Swain because the health goes a long way and Rylais is really good with his ult + slows and such. Don't discount RoA and Rylais just because.
Ive been going 2 Drings, revolver, mercs, wota, rylais then whatever i need and it has been working great. Usually I am so far ahead I just grab my DC 3rd and then Zhonyas into BV/Spell Pen thing having brain fart but the tanky opening really works on Cassi for her sustained damage.
On February 01 2012 06:16 Craton wrote: I don't see the point in MS quints on a champ that gets a giant move speed buff from Q, a slow from W, and a slow from Rylai's.
MR blues are debatable and dependent on the matchup more than anything, but I'd rather a different quint.
It's not worth it for full MS quints most of the time, I usually run 1 MS and 2 AP so I have a small advantage and can catch people for harrass easier.
However against high skillshot lanes then it is worth it as it will allow you to dodge more skillshots at the cost of 10-15 AP. In the grand scheme of things 10-15 dmg is alot less important than dodging their spells.
One example of one of these matchups as cass is when I play against Ahri, her damage output is silly if she can hit all her spells so I run 3 MS quints and even go as far as taking 4 in MS masteries, I'd also take MR blues to make sure that she will not be doing much dmg to me in the lane pre lvl 6. It gets harder at level 6 when she has her ridiculous ult, often if you see her ulting I would do a pre-emptive flash to escape the taunt and then that completely messes up her combo.
Edit: I guess 10 AP on cass is strong as she has no cooldown on E so if you are confident you'll dodge skillshots then I'd still get the AP runes.
After a bit of deliberation and playing a few more cass games to nearly 1800 I take back the statement about RoA. Cass will very rarely run out of mana in a fight provided she has blue buff, so technically Rylais is the better option on paper. However we have to consider the items they build out of, RoA has easier and more useful ingredients to its recipe.
While Rylais does have the advantage of the passive, from my experience it does not help cass much in the fights. Cass is a pretty short range champion who benfits from being closer to her enemies ( can stun more and do more dmg with E.) Most of her damage is AoE so it's only going to be a 15% slow and she's not exactly a kiting champion the way I play her (nor do I think she should be played that way.)
My current go to build is boots+3pot>2drings+wards>wota followed either by Banshees or Abyssal depending on whether im getting destroyed in teamfights or not. If its a high AD team I'll get an early chain vest which eventually turns into a GA at endgame anyway. This is pretty much the build Bladeorade mentions earlier and feels like one of the best options for Cass.
One important note I've discovered about cass is her ability to escape from ganks due to her Q. As long as you arn't stupidly overextended, you can drop your W and Q on the jungler, and simply run out the other side of the lane (this trick makes you pretty safe even if you haven't warded). If they gank on 60-70% HP post 6 you can just ult both the enemies in lane and drop one while theyre stunned. Alot of junglers make the mistake of thinking they're able to fight you and win no matter what happens which always makes me wonder what goes on in their mind as they play.
On teamfighting, this is going to sound like the most obvious piece of advice. The ultimate goal is to stay alive as long as possible as your sustained damage is too damn high. Now the main decision in the fight is whether you are going to go balls in to ult all 5 of them and probly give your life for it, or if you will stay at the back and slowly destroy the bruisers.
If you are doing little damage, feeding and just generally failing in the game you are playing and after you have build your BV. JUST GO IN THOSE FIGHTS AND ULT AS MANY AS POSSIBLE, AFTERWARDS SOAKING UP AS MUCH DMG WHILE HEALING OFF WOTA. I do not know the amount of games i've "fed" and won anyway due to teamfighting well and catching their high priority targets in ulti.
If you are stomping them then this is not the best approach as you just want to stay alive as long as possible and slowly take apart their team. Often in this situation the 2 bruisers/tanks on the other team will come toward your backline and go for either you or your AD, you can ult these 2 pretty easily and drop W/Q to start your E chain, quickly destroying them. After that its usually just chasing up the squishies with repeated Qs and Es when you get close enough. If the bruisers dont die then you have to keep kiting them, as they are melee its easy for cass to deal with as she can kite with Q and W while healing off wota wasting their time.
Other notes:
Suppression cancels your ult if they hit it during your animation, you will not stun anyone (always an audible WTF on Teamspeak.) This is most annoying vs Skarner so make sure you allow for his range on ult if using it.
Closer you are to someone the more E's you get off as cooldown resets quicker.
Movement speed increase on Q allows to kite ganks and in teamfights.
In lane I usually dont follow up with Es until lvl3-4, it's not worth the mana and time.
Cassio isn't much of a burst damage so much as sustained damage. That's why Wota for healing through the sustain and Rylai's for survivability and kiting are typical on her. She doesn't really need a deathcap as her damage comes more from a ton of spells being slammed into your face rather than high ap ratios doing damage in an instant. Kind of like Ryze, in that sense.
Hi im a Karthus player, and i find cass very dificult to master, i can land my qs almost all the time, but the qs have such long CD and i find it very hard to kite in teamfights, any help?
Cass isn't about kiting in teamfights but relying on your E to do massive amounts of damage and spellvamping your health back. Just don't be in a bad position to start with and you can get a good ult off hopefuly.
You should still be moving inbetween E casts either to chase someone down or to get away from someone. If you are not afraid of getting killed, you can move closer, since that increases your dps. You pretty much always have a reason to move around.
Been trying Cassio bottom with Soraka recently. Works quite well for the lane, but you gotta be careful against jungle ganks, since you don't have a reliable escape
Ward? Ive just had a game where the enemy rammus was retarded and i put my W right on top of me so that when he knocks me he gets slowed. then i just EEEEEE and kite(my laning opponent was vlad, so not much burst or ranged cc)
Build a revolver/wota and enough defenses to not be gibbed. This can mean 2 rings -> Wota -> Deathcap, or it can mean Merc Threads + Belt (Rylai) + SV / Negatron (Abyssal) + Chain Vest if their team dives you every single fight. As long as you stay alive you WILL be a threat in the game, especially with the wota aura for your team. This is very different from most APs, where if they don't build a chunk of AP (especially Deathcap) they can be ignored by the other team.
Obviously, how tanky you have to build is the tricky part, given how unreliable solo queuers can be. But this is why Cassio builds are all over the place.
So I got my ass handed to me by Lux w/ Cass twice in the past week. Does anybody else have problems in the m/u? Should I have bought chalice to just farm and try to out scale her mid game? I went Doran's ring first game and second game I went boots and 3 pots, but I just couldn't kill her, and when I tried I got ganked or just strait up lost because I wasn't in range to ignite for the trade.
On February 28 2012 00:52 Sandster wrote: Basic premise of Cassio:
Build a revolver/wota and enough defenses to not be gibbed. This can mean 2 rings -> Wota -> Deathcap, or it can mean Merc Threads + Belt (Rylai) + SV / Negatron (Abyssal) + Chain Vest if their team dives you every single fight. As long as you stay alive you WILL be a threat in the game, especially with the wota aura for your team. This is very different from most APs, where if they don't build a chunk of AP (especially Deathcap) they can be ignored by the other team.
Obviously, how tanky you have to build is the tricky part, given how unreliable solo queuers can be. But this is why Cassio builds are all over the place.
On the note of builds, at IEM Oce built her mainly Rylais into Deathcap/defensive AP items, and didn't go for WotA.
I'm merely specualting, but maybe he wants to be less blue-dependant. Or he wanted better teamfight-survivability. I just found this interesting. And it reminded me of the good old times when i thought spellvamp was bad on Cass because she has 3 AoE spells. ololol
On March 09 2012 03:34 Sabin010 wrote: So I got my ass handed to me by Lux w/ Cass twice in the past week. Does anybody else have problems in the m/u? Should I have bought chalice to just farm and try to out scale her mid game? I went Doran's ring first game and second game I went boots and 3 pots, but I just couldn't kill her, and when I tried I got ganked or just strait up lost because I wasn't in range to ignite for the trade.
You should win against Lux, imo. I only remember playing that matchup once (nobody uses Lux anymore QQ), and I opened boots+pots against her DRing. 3/0 in 8-ish minutes.
Generally, you want to open boots against Lux, on any champ. (imo you should always buy boots mid, too) If you trade her with Cass and hit your Q, it should be impossible for her to hit you with any skills, ever. Maybe the Lux you played against was worlds better than you, but I can't really imagine HOW Lux wants to beat Cass.
In both instances at level 1 I was just getting hit by her orb before getting in range to q. There was no way to trade with out me standing in front of my minions. When I tried that it was root, pop, hello xin, awe I'm dead.
I just compared the two moves on the wiki Cass Q and Lux E. Lux has a radius equal to the diameter of ~3 Cass q's where she can hurt you and slow you so you won't be able to trade. It's pretty significant imho, as its like the length of 3 minions coming to lane so it doesn't even have to be max range. Cass does a ton more damage in a strait up fight. I think I'll try cup rushing next time and just out scaling her. I could just as easily say you should be able to dodge all the max range q's from Cass, and shut all her dps down pre-w.
cass's q is faster cast time, no reactivation delay, gives her a mspd bonus as soon as it hits (even vs minions), and is LESS THAN 1/3 THE CD of lux's e. much less risk for missing a cass q than lux missing her E (if lux misses an E she is essentially out of the fight for the next 10 seconds without losing trades horribly)
dodging a perfectly placed cass q (in the direction that a champ is currently moving in and will be in the next moment) is near impossible without at least boots 2. the movespeed provided by cass q's and the slow on cass W make her a real pain vs skillshot based matchups
Lux vs Cass should just be a farm battle, no need to be supper aggressive, which it sounds like you were bring, and being aggressive vs Lux can be bad as it opens you up to her combo which she can hit you with from long range.
On March 09 2012 05:33 Navi wrote: cass's q is faster cast time, no reactivation delay, gives her a mspd bonus as soon as it hits (even vs minions), and is LESS THAN 1/3 THE CD of lux's e. much less risk for missing a cass q than lux missing her E (if lux misses an E she is essentially out of the fight for the next 10 seconds without losing trades horribly)
dodging a perfectly placed cass q (in the direction that a champ is currently moving in and will be in the next moment) is near impossible without at least boots 2. the movespeed provided by cass q's and the slow on cass W make her a real pain vs skillshot based matchups
Nope, only champs You correct though, she be possible to abuse Lux's long CDs and just spam her out of the lane.
On February 26 2012 07:09 STYDawn wrote: Hi im a Karthus player, and i find cass very dificult to master, i can land my qs almost all the time, but the qs have such long CD and i find it very hard to kite in teamfights, any help?
Generally you want to use your W first by placing it strategically so that it reduces the amount of room for the opponent to run around thus making it easier for you to land your Q's. If the players are good then they will most likely dodge your Q since its really not that hard(if you are not predictable and have boots, if you didnt bring boots then you are essentially fucked).
What I love about Cass is the fact that you have to assess the situation before attempting to do anything. There is a proper timing to use her ult and there is a proper timing of when you should go in and E the crap out of your target. She requires a lot of patience and self control with you just sitting in the back spamming Q and W until CD have been blown. If you attack prematurely, and the other team is smart, you are sooooo dead.
this is how I play her at least, and imo, the most effective way to play her
What do you guys make of her passive? In early game laning (lvls 1-6), do you try to keep it stacked up or just ignore the passive and use your spells when its needed (to deny farm/ harass)
Cassio's passive is really, really good. It's a big reason for not needing tear/RoA even if you have trouble getting blue. Cassio can burn mana FAST, and without the passive can dump an entire mana bar in seconds. 1-6 you won't have enough mana to sustain your passive, so ignore it, but for the rest of the game it's incredibly helpful. Keep in mind that you will almost never spam a dps rotation into a champion in lane; either they burst you down, or you land Q + 2-3 E's and they have to flash/cc you or die.
Cassio vs Lux: you will scale SO much harder than lux, so there's no reason to play overaggressive and risk letting her get ahead. Start boots3 and dodge/bait her binding, then when her binding is on cd you can zone her for 8-10 secs. This is true for a lot of champs that have skillshot cc's, like Morgana and to a lesser extent Xerath/Brand.
If you are still having trouble after, you should practice more vs skillshot champs. A lot of APs are skill-shot based, and to play mid effectively you need to be able to dodge. Lux's biggest threat is catching you with max-range binding, where you are out of range to trade and she can burst you for most your health at 6 (especially if you have no hp/MR).
Also, don't forget about Abyssal Scepter. If you have a build of sorc, 2 rings, WOTA, and Abyssal, you have 60 mpen(!), spellvamp, and 100+ MR (!), not even counting the team auras. It's an incredibly strong 20-30min build, and no AP can trade with you in lane when you have Negatron and spellvamp.
After some thinking, I've decided that my skill order is actually wrong in alot of cases. It's pretty amazing I've got to where I am now without actually doing the math and theory on Cass' early skill order. My previous line of thought was that the benifits of an early maxed out E outweighed early points in Q for almost all situations. However, I never really saw the actual difference in dmg/mana effectiveness and after having a few lanes where I had mana problems pre-6 I've tried to assess the benifits of each opener.
What prompted me to look into this closer was reading Reginalds cass guide for a laugh, I saw that he actually maxes Q first at which point I was thinking "WTF?" as I've always championed maxing E. I did then also remember that against certain tanky or passive lanes, that I was actually running out of mana without really pushing them out of lane, and was already looking for solutions.
Note cass' early lane harrassment mana costs are generally more difficult to calculate the exact figures for due to her passive, however we'll ignore the passive for now and just focus on the net cost and dmg of the spells.
Previously my skill order went Q-E-E-W-E-R maxing E then Q then W. My reasoning for this was that it did not matter that E was inferior in dmg and cost, as it has no cooldown provided that you hit the poisons. I did think therefore that it was pretty much THE way to be playing Cass, and have used this skilling order for at least the past 6 months, with alot of success. The advantages were that you would be able to pump out alot more dmg in a short period with E at level 3 and 5 than almost any other caster in the game and I abused this to aggressively win alot of lanes. It also synergised better with revolver than the other skill order, as the more dps you do as cass, the more spellvamp you will be acheiving. It also benifits alot from Cass' passive and is easier to get damage off of than Q (not a skillshot.)
Reginalds standard skill order went Q-E-Q-W-Q-R maxing Q before E. His reasoning was that at lvl 2 of Q, you can kill the caster minion bunch with 2 Qs, being able to push the lane out further to be able to go pressure jungle and other lanes will keeping up in CS. In respect of this guys intelligence he probably also noticed that Q has a way higher dmg/mana efficiency than maxing E.
So how much more efficient is Q to E in terms of damage for mana? At level 2 of E, your spell will be costing 60 base mana for 95 damage (158% or 1.58dmg/mana) At Level 2 of Q you would be spending 45 mana for 115 damage (255% or 2.55 dmg/mana) So you are getting alot more damage per spell for less mana. (These calculations stretch the definition of efficiency so I'm going to name this section damage for mana efficiency ratio. go away physicists and maths dudes baylife)
What this does not help us with in a real game situation, is dps, how fast this damage occurs. I'm going to assume anyone who's made it this far down this goddamned wall of text knows that maxing E gives alot more DPS. Which is advantageous versus weak lanes. It also does not factor in Cassiopeias' passive, which is more effective with maxing E. Considering that at level 5 you will have a mana pool of around 500, if these harrassment chains are far apart and not affected by passive, then you will be running out of mana after 3-5 actual trades. This was a problem if either they were tanky and did not take as much damage as I'd have wanted to, or if they are OP and run on an energy system (looking at you kennen.)
Against these 2 types of lane, I have adopted my new style of play, rather than heavy pressure with E chains.
Skill order - Q-E-Q-W-E/Q-R from there on maxing E. Instead of constantly looking for opportunities to start E chains on the enemy, I would simply hit Qs and cs, backing out of even having to trade using E as over time I will be putting out way more damage for my mana, eliminating my problem of running out.
However I still do differ from regis order, maxing E after level 6, as at this point you should have blue and 2dorans, meaning mana efficiency has pretty much gone out the window and you should be abusing your no cd damage spell. I will still play the Q-E-E opener against weak lanes where I can dominate without problems.
Build is still boots3>2dorans>wota>defence/offence switching up to boots3>chalice>wota>defence offence in high trade lanes as its fucking op.
Not sure why I wrote this but consider this episode 3 of howard getting bored at work
If you have blue buff, just keep your passive at max stacks. You'll save mana in the end even if you have to spam Q at open space because ALL your spells are 50% cheaper, so even if you waste half your Q's you're still gaining mana.
I've never really tried keeping passive up at all times, seems like too much effort for what its worth for me. I'd probly drop the ball at some point anyway.
I was talking mana probs before blue, against energy champs can be a bit of a pain
On April 26 2012 23:47 InvaderUK wrote: I've never really tried keeping passive up at all times, seems like too much effort for what its worth for me. I'd probly drop the ball at some point anyway.
I was talking mana probs before blue, against energy champs can be a bit of a pain
Tap gave me this advice the other night when I was playing Cass, and it was like a "wow, why haven't I even thought of this" kind of moment.
It is weird to get used to, but just dropping a Q in the middle of nowhere to keep the stack up seemed fairly practical.
Also, regarding your post about which to max - I've always maxed Q. Longer range poke, less opportunity cost if you miss. It's a very easy skill to spam, and once you figure out the auto attack range of your opponents, it's really easy to get free damage when they try to cs.
On March 09 2012 03:58 Sabin010 wrote: In both instances at level 1 I was just getting hit by her orb before getting in range to q. There was no way to trade with out me standing in front of my minions. When I tried that it was root, pop, hello xin, awe I'm dead.
Well that would be your problem. Dodge lucent singularity and the rest is easy. I don't know why people are saying it's a farm lane.. it shouldn't be by default. Cass has a massive advantage- if Lux's misses her skill shots she can't do anything at all for the next 10 seconds. Hit a q during this time and you can knock off half of Lux's health if not get an outright kill. Don't hit a q? Zone her for the next 10 seconds.
On April 26 2012 23:47 InvaderUK wrote: I've never really tried keeping passive up at all times, seems like too much effort for what its worth for me. I'd probly drop the ball at some point anyway.
I was talking mana probs before blue, against energy champs can be a bit of a pain
Tap gave me this advice the other night when I was playing Cass, and it was like a "wow, why haven't I even thought of this" kind of moment.
It is weird to get used to, but just dropping a Q in the middle of nowhere to keep the stack up seemed fairly practical.
Also, regarding your post about which to max - I've always maxed Q. Longer range poke, less opportunity cost if you miss. It's a very easy skill to spam, and once you figure out the auto attack range of your opponents, it's really easy to get free damage when they try to cs.
I can see it's use and would probably follow and use it if I wasn't worried about how fast it would advance the risk of arthiritis on my left hand.
Cass is on sale so I bought her (because she is AP and supposedly god-tier). Then I realized she plays so differently from the other APs (by other APs I mean the ones I usually play, Ahri, LeBlanc, Lux) ... sigh.
Is there a way to NOT smart cast her Q? That smart cast is screwing me up very badly.
Nope, its just like Karthus. I feel smartcast on E is mandatory too. If you really don't want her, you can ask for a refund on their support (which I think they allow once per account)..
On April 29 2012 08:14 h3r1n6 wrote: Nope, its just like Karthus. I feel smartcast on E is mandatory too. If you really don't want her, you can ask for a refund on their support (which I think they allow once per account)..
I did make her E smart cast. That is mandatory, I agree. But that Q has a 3 seconds cooldown and I really do not see why it should be smart cast. Frankly, I would have done better if I could aim it, because in big battles it's pretty hard (for me) to see where my cursor is.
I probably won't refund it... I want to master most APs. But she is going to call more work than I initially thought. I suppose my usual champions all rely on linear skillshot, so Cass's Q is a bit new to me.
On April 29 2012 08:14 h3r1n6 wrote: Nope, its just like Karthus. I feel smartcast on E is mandatory too. If you really don't want her, you can ask for a refund on their support (which I think they allow once per account)..
I probably won't refund it... I want to master most APs. But she is going to call more work than I initially thought.
Honestly, she's really underplayed for how strong she is in lane. For how strong she is out side of lane phase. For all strong she is at all points of the game. She really doesn't have a weakpoint. Yet for a long time she was considered completely terrible. Granted, she has received buffs several times since her release but I don't think it was her buffs that made her so strong, I think it was the fact that people sat down and forced themselves to learn her.
So yeah, she's a pretty hard champion to play. Even numerous pros can't play her that well (Alex Ich is probably the prime example, although jiji's Cass while passable in solo queue isn't that impressive for tournament play). If you want to master all APs I'd probably just tell you not to (since fucking no one has mastered every AP lol).
Regardless, there are lots of AP mids out there. Skipping on one or two because you just don't "get" them or because the investment might not be worth it is nothing to be ashamed of. You can always pick up another couple of APs and come back to Cass later.
edit: Just saying that I wouldn't burn yourself out trying to play Cass. If you don't have fun playing her then don't force yourself to learn her.
On April 29 2012 08:14 h3r1n6 wrote: Nope, its just like Karthus. I feel smartcast on E is mandatory too. If you really don't want her, you can ask for a refund on their support (which I think they allow once per account)..
I probably won't refund it... I want to master most APs. But she is going to call more work than I initially thought.
Honestly, she's really underplayed for how strong she is in lane. For how strong she is out side of lane phase. For all strong she is at all points of the game. She really doesn't have a weakpoint. Yet for a long time she was considered completely terrible. Granted, she has received buffs several times since her release but I don't think it was her buffs that made her so strong, I think it was the fact that people sat down and forced themselves to learn her.
So yeah, she's a pretty hard champion to play. Even numerous pros can't play her that well (Alex Ich is probably the prime example, although jiji's Cass while passable in solo queue isn't that impressive for tournament play). If you want to master all APs I'd probably just tell you not to (since fucking no one has mastered every AP lol).
Regardless, there are lots of AP mids out there. Skipping on one or two because you just don't "get" them or because the investment might not be worth it is nothing to be ashamed of. You can always pick up another couple of APs and come back to Cass later.
edit: Just saying that I wouldn't burn yourself out trying to play Cass. If you don't have fun playing her then don't force yourself to learn her.
Nah I don't need to be able to play like a pro (not realistic). I just want to be able to play reasonably well for an amateur - to me, that means roughly top 5-15% percentile in terms of "skills" (obviously this measurement is biased, but it's usually how I go about it).
Anyways, my current goal is to learn Cass and (once I get him) Rumble. Rumble is going to be another challenge for me because he is going to be solo top (I almost never play that lane).
On April 29 2012 08:14 h3r1n6 wrote: Nope, its just like Karthus. I feel smartcast on E is mandatory too. If you really don't want her, you can ask for a refund on their support (which I think they allow once per account)..
I probably won't refund it... I want to master most APs. But she is going to call more work than I initially thought.
Honestly, she's really underplayed for how strong she is in lane. For how strong she is out side of lane phase. For all strong she is at all points of the game. She really doesn't have a weakpoint. Yet for a long time she was considered completely terrible. Granted, she has received buffs several times since her release but I don't think it was her buffs that made her so strong, I think it was the fact that people sat down and forced themselves to learn her.
So yeah, she's a pretty hard champion to play. Even numerous pros can't play her that well (Alex Ich is probably the prime example, although jiji's Cass while passable in solo queue isn't that impressive for tournament play). If you want to master all APs I'd probably just tell you not to (since fucking no one has mastered every AP lol).
Regardless, there are lots of AP mids out there. Skipping on one or two because you just don't "get" them or because the investment might not be worth it is nothing to be ashamed of. You can always pick up another couple of APs and come back to Cass later.
edit: Just saying that I wouldn't burn yourself out trying to play Cass. If you don't have fun playing her then don't force yourself to learn her.
Nah I don't need to be able to play like a pro (not realistic). I just want to be able to play reasonably well for an amateur - to me, that means roughly top 5-15% percentile in terms of "skills" (obviously this measurement is biased, but it's usually how I go about it).
Anyways, my current goal is to learn Cass and (once I get him) Rumble. Rumble is going to be another challenge for me because he is going to be solo top (I almost never play that lane).
iirc, Rumble loses mid to practically every common mid. Biggest reason he gets run top is because of how bad his mid lane is. But if you get it to work more power to you man.
On April 29 2012 08:14 h3r1n6 wrote: Nope, its just like Karthus. I feel smartcast on E is mandatory too. If you really don't want her, you can ask for a refund on their support (which I think they allow once per account)..
I probably won't refund it... I want to master most APs. But she is going to call more work than I initially thought.
Honestly, she's really underplayed for how strong she is in lane. For how strong she is out side of lane phase. For all strong she is at all points of the game. She really doesn't have a weakpoint. Yet for a long time she was considered completely terrible. Granted, she has received buffs several times since her release but I don't think it was her buffs that made her so strong, I think it was the fact that people sat down and forced themselves to learn her.
So yeah, she's a pretty hard champion to play. Even numerous pros can't play her that well (Alex Ich is probably the prime example, although jiji's Cass while passable in solo queue isn't that impressive for tournament play). If you want to master all APs I'd probably just tell you not to (since fucking no one has mastered every AP lol).
Regardless, there are lots of AP mids out there. Skipping on one or two because you just don't "get" them or because the investment might not be worth it is nothing to be ashamed of. You can always pick up another couple of APs and come back to Cass later.
edit: Just saying that I wouldn't burn yourself out trying to play Cass. If you don't have fun playing her then don't force yourself to learn her.
Nah I don't need to be able to play like a pro (not realistic). I just want to be able to play reasonably well for an amateur - to me, that means roughly top 5-15% percentile in terms of "skills" (obviously this measurement is biased, but it's usually how I go about it).
Anyways, my current goal is to learn Cass and (once I get him) Rumble. Rumble is going to be another challenge for me because he is going to be solo top (I almost never play that lane).
iirc, Rumble loses mid to practically every common mid. Biggest reason he gets run top is because of how bad his mid lane is. But if you get it to work more power to you man.
Yes but as far as I know, he is actually pretty good for solo top. So far I only play solomid and I want to slightly diversity the positions I can play in case it is demanded. Since Rumble is AP, there will be minimal rune investments from my part.
I know I'm not supposed to bump old shit, but I have decided to learn Mid a bit better. I'm already pretty good at CS (even when my team loses, I am ahead in CS or winning my lane 80-90% of the time... somehow), but I feel like I don't roam enough after pushing lane, as I fear the jungler (my primary role), and need to control myself a bit better. I'm not used to staying in the back and blowing my load and running. =p
But my main question is with Cass as I have (probably mistakenly) chosen her for the beginning of my re-learning. This information seems dated, so I'm not even sure if it's accurate or not. So, a few questions and a problem for her:
1) If there some new updated build? I usually start Boots3pot > 2x Doran's > Revolver into WotA > Deathcap > Ralia's > defensive stuff 2) How about masteries and runes? I usually run 21/x/9 on my AP Mid emphasizing Mana over MS in the utilities, and for Runes I just need input on the Quints: I use 1 MPen and 2 MS usually, as the 1 MPen gives me 30 MPen with Sorc's Boots, enough for True Damage on most Supports and offensively-built mages in mid (or so I've read). But, eh, I wanna get better, so I need the best info. Problem) Lux. Goddamn it. I swear, even when that damn stun is dodged, it still hits me. And then range + radius on her Slow is crazy. And super fast Laser cooldown.. =/ Should I just try to force trades with her regardless because Cass supposedly outscales her, or what? She just seems to beat me every goddamn time (jungle Eve doesn't help either).
As far as Lux is concerned, you can easily punish her if she tries to proc her passive once she hits you with a spell. This means that her damage is actually not that great against you. After level 6, she simply cannot do this because you can press R then kill her. The rest is just dodging her E as much as possible and push the lane. I don't think it's a terribly difficult matchup for Cassiopeia (then again, Cassiopeia has no bad matchups except maybe Ahri and Anivia... well, until Zyra comes out anyway).
I am not sure about roaming though. It feels to me that Cass's roam is not that great.... at least not as good as, say, Ahri's... because of how her ultimate works. I personally think it's enough to just steal wraiths or help jungler to counterjungle or arrive early in dragon fights.
Lux vs Cassio is mostly just hitting and dodging skillshots. Lux has fairly long cooldowns, so cassio will win a straight up fight unless Lux is really fed. If Luxs snare is on cooldown, you can freely move in, other than that if you move at her, she will have an easy time hitting the snare, so watch out for that.
OP seems pretty outdated. I use mpren reds, flat mana regen yellows, flat mr blues and flat AP quints on cassio. She already gets a ms buff from hitting Q. The AP quints just help you more in lane, especially since her ratios are pretty good and the spells are spammable.
Build wise you want to be as tanky as you need to be, depending on the enemy teamcomp and the flow of the game. Deathcap is good, but not always feasible and sometimes you just want more life and resistances. You shouldn't have one set build, just get items like Abyssal, Rylais, Zhonyas depending on who is strong on the enemy team.
On July 25 2012 02:23 h3r1n6 wrote: 1) Lux vs Cassio is mostly just hitting and dodging skillshots. Lux has fairly long cooldowns, so cassio will win a straight up fight unless Lux is really fed. If Luxs snare is on cooldown, you can freely move in, other than that if you move at her, she will have an easy time hitting the snare, so watch out for that.
2) OP seems pretty outdated. I use mpren reds, flat mana regen yellows, flat mr blues and flat AP quints on cassio. She already gets a ms buff from hitting Q. The AP quints just help you more in lane, especially since her ratios are pretty good and the spells are spammable.
3) Build wise you want to be as tanky as you need to be, depending on the enemy teamcomp and the flow of the game. Deathcap is good, but not always feasible and sometimes you just want more life and resistances. You shouldn't have one set build, just get items like Abyssal, Rylais, Zhonyas depending on who is strong on the enemy team.
1) Yeah, I noticed that. But what about her giant Slow ball? (You can clearly tell I play Lux T.T) Seems like all her spells are designed to keep people away, and it really pisses me off.
2) I'll give these Runes a shot tonight when I load up.
3) Yeah, that's what I generally do as Jungler and Support - build to the game. I'm just trying to get more comfortable as Mid in general and I like to have a general item set to get.
The problem is just me. When I play Cass Mid, I'm outside of my comfort zone, and just make a ton of mistakes. My most common one is doing my combo incorrectly during engagements (instead of QE(EE), I often just spam EWQ, which is an instaloss), which just snowballs into more mistakes. But on games when I do my combo and kite properly, I just dominate entire teams if they decide to chase me.
On July 25 2012 02:23 h3r1n6 wrote: 1) Lux vs Cassio is mostly just hitting and dodging skillshots. Lux has fairly long cooldowns, so cassio will win a straight up fight unless Lux is really fed. If Luxs snare is on cooldown, you can freely move in, other than that if you move at her, she will have an easy time hitting the snare, so watch out for that.
2) OP seems pretty outdated. I use mpren reds, flat mana regen yellows, flat mr blues and flat AP quints on cassio. She already gets a ms buff from hitting Q. The AP quints just help you more in lane, especially since her ratios are pretty good and the spells are spammable.
3) Build wise you want to be as tanky as you need to be, depending on the enemy teamcomp and the flow of the game. Deathcap is good, but not always feasible and sometimes you just want more life and resistances. You shouldn't have one set build, just get items like Abyssal, Rylais, Zhonyas depending on who is strong on the enemy team.
1) Yeah, I noticed that. But what about her giant Slow ball? (You can clearly tell I play Lux T.T) Seems like all her spells are designed to keep people away, and it really pisses me off.
2) I'll give these Runes a shot tonight when I load up.
3) Yeah, that's what I generally do as Jungler and Support - build to the game. I'm just trying to get more comfortable as Mid in general and I like to have a general item set to get.
The problem is just me. When I play Cass Mid, I'm outside of my comfort zone, and just make a ton of mistakes. My most common one is doing my combo incorrectly during engagements (instead of QE(EE), I often just spam EWQ, which is an instaloss), which just snowballs into more mistakes. But on games when I do my combo and kite properly, I just dominate entire teams if they decide to chase me.
Lux is designed to fight at a long range. Laning against Lux is comes down completely on whether or not you can dodge her skills and if she can hit you with them.
On July 29 2012 09:49 Lightswarm wrote: just played a couple games of cass bot. its pretty funny dominating the other lane. found out that soraka isnt even needed for the support role XD
I am not surprised. Lux + Soraka or Cassiopeia + Soraka are really good kill-lane combinations.
Do what you do against any champ with long CDs: force them to make a choice.
If they lob an E your way, they aren't using it on minions. Cass can push extremely easily and make it difficult for Lux to farm. It's quite hard for Lux to farm under tower because her abilities will aoe the wave and put several minions too low. Eventually she'll do enough damage with AoE that it won't matter.
Anyway, you can usually bait a Q out by running toward them and then sidestepping at a certain distance. You have to feel out your opponent. Figure out if she's trying to lob E behind you (i.e. expecting you to backstep when you see it). If so, you can just continue forward. Once Q is down you can just go to town on her because she won't have anything threatening. E+auto hurts, but not nearly as much as your Q+E spam.
Since Cass is very aggressive in lane and pushes frequently, you need to be diligent about warding and knowing where the enemy jungler is. If you're just sitting back and getting poked by Lux E while she farms, you're not playing the matchup right.
Current Cass build is usually Rylai's into Deathcap. Revolver is out of style, but sometimes taken as a 3rd item, though often not taken at all. You can build her like any mage.
On July 29 2012 09:49 Lightswarm wrote: just played a couple games of cass bot. its pretty funny dominating the other lane. found out that soraka isnt even needed for the support role XD
I am not surprised. Lux + Soraka or Cassiopeia + Soraka are really good kill-lane combinations.
It's really vulnerable to ganks though.
problem with lux is her long cd, whereas cass has basically no cd on anything. and if you are diligent with your warding, the other team should not be able to gank you at all since you have so much control over the lane
On July 29 2012 09:49 Lightswarm wrote: just played a couple games of cass bot. its pretty funny dominating the other lane. found out that soraka isnt even needed for the support role XD
I am not surprised. Lux + Soraka or Cassiopeia + Soraka are really good kill-lane combinations.
It's really vulnerable to ganks though.
problem with lux is her long cd, whereas cass has basically no cd on anything. and if you are diligent with your warding, the other team should not be able to gank you at all since you have so much control over the lane
But Lux also has longer range and she has a good CC that does not have 2 minutes CD.
On July 29 2012 16:35 Cloud9157 wrote: Who needs CC when you get constant ms buff so long as you land her qs? Besides, she has a slow, if she somehow still can't keep up with the enemy.
Landing her Q won't save her. Most junglers have at least one way to reduce movespeed... many also have gap closers. They will catch you no matter how many Qs you land.
Good luck trying to slow them with your W. It's only 15% at rank 1.
You'd be surprised how well w+q synergize in avoiding a gank.
Not saying she can go to tower and harass, but so long as she hovers around middle of the lane, she should be fine. Warding one side of the lane also helps.
Also cass is one of the few champions able to turn a gank around into a double kill. When the cassio has ult up and jungler and mid run at her from the same angle, it can be very dangerous.
On July 29 2012 22:36 h3r1n6 wrote: Also cass is one of the few champions able to turn a gank around into a double kill. When the cassio has ult up and jungler and mid run at her from the same angle, it can be very dangerous.
In mid.
Don't forget that when you are playing the dual lane, you will only be slightly ahead in level against the opposing jungler.
On July 29 2012 22:36 h3r1n6 wrote: Also cass is one of the few champions able to turn a gank around into a double kill. When the cassio has ult up and jungler and mid run at her from the same angle, it can be very dangerous.
In mid.
Don't forget that when you are playing the dual lane, you will only be slightly ahead in level against the opposing jungler.
Well in bot with a support you are generally safer because of better ward coverage.
On July 29 2012 09:49 Lightswarm wrote: just played a couple games of cass bot. its pretty funny dominating the other lane. found out that soraka isnt even needed for the support role XD
I am not surprised. Lux + Soraka or Cassiopeia + Soraka are really good kill-lane combinations.
It's really vulnerable to ganks though.
I'm not really convinced that anything with a soraka in it is a good kill lane. o_o; Seems like a support to lock them down for guaranteed QEEQEE would be a better kill lane. Taric or Ali or leona or something.
What do you guys think of Haunting Guise / Abyssal against dual AP teams? I've seen Paradoxical get Guise into Deathcap as his core build, and I figured against low-medium amounts of MR on the enemy team the Guise/Sorc Shoes/Abyssal build works REALLY well. I've also experimented with Grail instead of Abyssal and it works like a charm. Opinions?
It's a laning item that doesn't become anything useful late game, so unless you score/know you can score a major advantage with it, don't bother with it. Most of the time I have to play pretty safe anyways in the late game, so me doing extra damage early versus surviving 10 seconds longer late game...I'd take my chances with the late game.
On August 10 2012 09:17 Shiv. wrote: What do you guys think of Haunting Guise / Abyssal against dual AP teams? I've seen Paradoxical get Guise into Deathcap as his core build, and I figured against low-medium amounts of MR on the enemy team the Guise/Sorc Shoes/Abyssal build works REALLY well. I've also experimented with Grail instead of Abyssal and it works like a charm. Opinions?
If the enemy team doesn't have a lot of MRes AND the rest of your own team deals mostly physical damage, then going for Mpen items can work; the counter to Mpen is for the enemy team to itemize MRes, but all of them buying MRes would be cost-inefficient against your team that deals mostly physical damage, and if only some of them buy MRes then you can focus on the ones that don't buy it.
If you're mid as Cass and also have a Kennen / Vlad / Swain / Rumble / Morde / Diana, etc. on your team then I would advice against going for an item build that gets countered pretty hard by a Negatron Cloak.
On August 10 2012 09:17 Shiv. wrote: What do you guys think of Haunting Guise / Abyssal against dual AP teams? I've seen Paradoxical get Guise into Deathcap as his core build, and I figured against low-medium amounts of MR on the enemy team the Guise/Sorc Shoes/Abyssal build works REALLY well. I've also experimented with Grail instead of Abyssal and it works like a charm. Opinions?
If the enemy team doesn't have a lot of MRes AND the rest of your own team deals mostly physical damage, then going for Mpen items can work; the counter to Mpen is for the enemy team to itemize MRes, but all of them buying MRes would be cost-inefficient against your team that deals mostly physical damage, and if only some of them buy MRes then you can focus on the ones that don't buy it.
If you're mid as Cass and also have a Kennen / Vlad / Swain / Rumble / Morde / Diana, etc. on your team then I would advice against going for an item build that gets countered pretty hard by a Negatron Cloak.
Those are all things I took into consideration. I dropped a good chunk of Elo the last couple of days and I sit around 1600 now - top/jungle combinations like Riven/Lee are extremely common, so people are inclined to itemize armor. Also, rushing Abyssal has nothing I've ever seen during my games down there - which might be anecdotical evidence, but it was one of the reasons to try the build. The most common mid laners seem to be Ori/Zyra/Diana, which tend to rush RoA or Rylai's for some strange reason. High amounts of MPen counter low amounts of MR and high amounts of HP, so I figured I'd give it a try. Seemed to work out really well, but I guess it's very niche.
On August 10 2012 09:17 Shiv. wrote: What do you guys think of Haunting Guise / Abyssal against dual AP teams? I've seen Paradoxical get Guise into Deathcap as his core build, and I figured against low-medium amounts of MR on the enemy team the Guise/Sorc Shoes/Abyssal build works REALLY well. I've also experimented with Grail instead of Abyssal and it works like a charm. Opinions?
I will go ahead and say it's not a good idea.
It's understandable to build HG on certain AP bruisers on the top lane and some assassins (e.g. LeBlanc) because they typically go after the squishes in teamfights. Cassiopeia typically just burst at whoever is close to her (typically a bruiser with high MR). Since most bruisers can easily achieve 100+ MR, you probably should just wait and get a void staff instead.
Abysal is almost always good in mid, for almost any APs against any other APs. If I am not mistaken, it is very cost-efficient so long as the extra MR reduction can be meaningfully applied (i.e. don't get it if you have sorc boots and your lane opponent has 30 mr)
Even against a 100 MR target, Haunting Guise is still incredibly cost effective, especially if Abyssal is getting built at some point as well. Thing is, Rylais really opens up cassi's options for playing, because it means that once you start comboing somebody, it's incredibly hard for them to avoid your followup without flashing or you getting peeled because it's so much easier hitting Q on a target that's slowed (even only slightly - you only get 15% from E Rylais), meaning you can just keep sticking to them.
On August 11 2012 00:12 sylverfyre wrote: Even against a 100 MR target, Haunting Guise is still incredibly cost effective, especially if Abyssal is getting built at some point as well. Thing is, Rylais really opens up cassi's options for playing, because it means that once you start comboing somebody, it's incredibly hard for them to avoid your followup without flashing or you getting peeled because it's so much easier hitting Q on a target that's slowed (even only slightly - you only get 15% from E Rylais), meaning you can just keep sticking to them.
Against a 100 MR target, HG is a decent item choice in terms of damage for your gold if you already have a bunch of AP from, say, a Death Cap, but that's not good enough IMO. You're locking yourself into a dead-end item that is comparable but not really better than the alternatives you could get for the same gold, which sounds like a crappy deal to me; I'd only consider getting HG if it's significantly superior damage-wise to same-cost alternatives.
On August 11 2012 00:12 sylverfyre wrote: Even against a 100 MR target, Haunting Guise is still incredibly cost effective, especially if Abyssal is getting built at some point as well. Thing is, Rylais really opens up cassi's options for playing, because it means that once you start comboing somebody, it's incredibly hard for them to avoid your followup without flashing or you getting peeled because it's so much easier hitting Q on a target that's slowed (even only slightly - you only get 15% from E Rylais), meaning you can just keep sticking to them.
I am 99.9% certain that it's not as effective as a void staff. As Cassiopeia you definitely need to be a threat to anyone.
On August 11 2012 00:12 sylverfyre wrote: Even against a 100 MR target, Haunting Guise is still incredibly cost effective, especially if Abyssal is getting built at some point as well. Thing is, Rylais really opens up cassi's options for playing, because it means that once you start comboing somebody, it's incredibly hard for them to avoid your followup without flashing or you getting peeled because it's so much easier hitting Q on a target that's slowed (even only slightly - you only get 15% from E Rylais), meaning you can just keep sticking to them.
I am 99.9% certain that it's not as effective as a void staff. As Cassiopeia you definitely need to be a threat to anyone.
During a recent game bigfatlp played, he built Abyssal-> HG on Cassiopeia (maxing E first) against an Orianna. I am slightly troubled by the build because as I was watching the replay, I noticed Abyssal rarely helped him (Twin Fang has 700 range, Abyssal is 600... this is not accounting for travelling time). But he did get fed... so I don't know.
On August 11 2012 00:12 sylverfyre wrote: Even against a 100 MR target, Haunting Guise is still incredibly cost effective, especially if Abyssal is getting built at some point as well. Thing is, Rylais really opens up cassi's options for playing, because it means that once you start comboing somebody, it's incredibly hard for them to avoid your followup without flashing or you getting peeled because it's so much easier hitting Q on a target that's slowed (even only slightly - you only get 15% from E Rylais), meaning you can just keep sticking to them.
I am 99.9% certain that it's not as effective as a void staff. As Cassiopeia you definitely need to be a threat to anyone.
During a recent game bigfatlp played, he built Abyssal-> HG on Cassiopeia (maxing E first) against an Orianna. I am slightly troubled by the build because as I was watching the replay, I noticed Abyssal rarely helped him (Twin Fang has 700 range, Abyssal is 600... this is not accounting for travelling time). But he did get fed... so I don't know.
A lot of people still get it out of habit, I think. But if you need MR and damage, there's not really a better option - Athene's is good but has less MR and not all champs need the stats it gives (for Cass in particular, CDR is mostly wasted on her Q/E and while she does eat up mana her passive somewhat lessens the need for mana regen).
On August 11 2012 00:12 sylverfyre wrote: Even against a 100 MR target, Haunting Guise is still incredibly cost effective, especially if Abyssal is getting built at some point as well. Thing is, Rylais really opens up cassi's options for playing, because it means that once you start comboing somebody, it's incredibly hard for them to avoid your followup without flashing or you getting peeled because it's so much easier hitting Q on a target that's slowed (even only slightly - you only get 15% from E Rylais), meaning you can just keep sticking to them.
I am 99.9% certain that it's not as effective as a void staff. As Cassiopeia you definitely need to be a threat to anyone.
During a recent game bigfatlp played, he built Abyssal-> HG on Cassiopeia (maxing E first) against an Orianna. I am slightly troubled by the build because as I was watching the replay, I noticed Abyssal rarely helped him (Twin Fang has 700 range, Abyssal is 600... this is not accounting for travelling time). But he did get fed... so I don't know.
A lot of people still get it out of habit, I think. But if you need MR and damage, there's not really a better option - Athene's is good but has less MR and not all champs need the stats it gives (for Cass in particular, CDR is mostly wasted on her Q/E and while she does eat up mana her passive somewhat lessens the need for mana regen).
TBH I don't see the need of building Abyssal vs Orianna, who doesn't really have much burst at all. But you are right, it's probably just old habits die hard.
Anyone knows the big secret of why cassio has fallen from grace? seriously she does so much damage, used to be a ban material champ but nowadays no1 seem to use her...
On September 29 2012 15:04 SagaZ wrote: Anyone knows the big secret of why cassio has fallen from grace? seriously she does so much damage, used to be a ban material champ but nowadays no1 seem to use her...
She got some nerfs in february, which hurt her threat in lane quite a bit. 10 damage less on Twin Fang is quite the nerf for the early ranks of it. Can't kill at level 2 as easily anymore. It's still possible though
-Noxious Blast ability power ratio reduced to 0.8 from 0.9 -Twin Fang damage reduced to 50/85/120/155/190 from 60/95/130/165/200
She is still good, but hard to play well. Not many pro players still play her and there is also too many champions. That's why you don't see her. Ahri vs Cassio is just one hell of a skill match-up. And Cassio should probably beat Diana. At the very least stomp her pre-6.
Really? I can't remember another nerf, but that's not saying much. It is also the last one documented here though: http://lol-patch.com/cassiopeia.html
Cass can build tanky and still out-dps assassins after she lives through the burst. And other than that I think it's just a lot of skill involved and knowing match-ups. For example, when you keep the right distance to Fizz and he uses Q, just use your ult and he will be stunned in front of you. WQEE+ignite and that's a dead fish guy.
On September 30 2012 00:59 Craton wrote: There was an additional nerf beyond that which further affected E and ult.
Assassins are the biggest issue: Ahri, Diana, Fizz, Kat, etc. Cass can't deal with shit that can randomly go wherever.
Cassiopeia will win against Fizz easily. It's really the other 3.
As a decent Fizz player, I disagree. Against bad Fizz, yes. Against good Fizz? More even than you think. It's hard for Fizz to farm with Cass poking from range, but once he goes in there, if he can E at a good timing (her ult period) then Fizz wins. You just have to really be aggressive with Fizz vs Cass to show that if she tries to poke you, you're gonna dash to her face.
So I just picked up cass, really liking her so far. Been a fan of QEW->R>E>Q>W, starting charm+ward+pots for an early tear. Once you get your first blue you can chain Q (level 1) all day for crazy fast tear stacking. I've found the spam really lets you take advantage of her passive (50% manacost reduction all day). I've been running a pretty standard 21/0/9 with one point in item CD reduction since seraph's is usually one of my first big items and can really turn a fight around. Flash+Ignite feel standard, but I'm wondering about possibly running with cleanse since silence/stun hurt her so much. Anyone have good builds for her in S3?
Pretty much the same items as usual, although consider getting Liandry's after Rylai's. Maybe a Muramana.
Also, keeping q at level 1 isn't that great of an idea these days. I can understand getting 3 levels and then maxing e, but if your opponent realizes what you're doing they're just going to shove you onto your tower and laugh when you can't cs at all.
Muramana does not work with her E, so it's totally useless on Cassiopeia.
I think if you want to max E first you absolutely have to keep Q at rank 1 until lvl 8, because if you want to depend on E you also need W as a fail-safe. I usually go QEEWERE then E > Q > W if I decide to max E first. If I am maxing Q first I leave W until lvl 8.
On January 20 2013 13:31 Nos- wrote: I thought this was the standard cass build o-o
I thought her E worked with Muramana. But people pointed out that it doesn't, because it counts as a multi-target spell (it also only takes 1/3 of spellvamp).
Oh well.
But TBH the new Archangel's is awesome on her anyway.
On January 20 2013 14:17 zer0das wrote: Man, that sucks. I guess she'd be pretty hilarious if it did work though.
Even if it does, I don't see how she will be superior to Ryze right now.
From a solo que perspective, she's a lot less team reliant than Ryze, especially early. I'm actually really starting to like Cass for this reason. If you're superior to your opponent in lane, it starts to show up early and carryovers to teamfights pretty easily. Also the anti-initiation on her ult is still really strong.
I have recently been thinking of buying Cass and try to make her one of my mains however I haven't seen...actually I've never seen a Cassopeia in a ranked or normal game in the last 6 months. So I have a few questions?
1) What makes her so underplayed now? Is it that just doesn't fit into the current meta or is she underpowered in the state that she is in right now? Do other AP mids do what she does but better?
2) How well does she match up against the AD casters and bruisers in mid lane?
1. She got some nerfs on her q and e, and people forgot about her (+new champions). She's still pretty strong, but she's probably pretty hit or miss against AD mids. A lot of it comes down to your ability to land her q, 2. My guess is she can punish them really hard, but you probably need a specialized rune page to do it.
Edit: Also people's response whenever I pick Cass in solo que is "WTF? Haven't seen a Cass in forever."
On January 24 2013 13:51 Decypher wrote: I have recently been thinking of buying Cass and try to make her one of my mains however I haven't seen...actually I've never seen a Cassopeia in a ranked or normal game in the last 6 months. So I have a few questions?
1) What makes her so underplayed now? Is it that just doesn't fit into the current meta or is she underpowered in the state that she is in right now? Do other AP mids do what she does but better?
2) How well does she match up against the AD casters and bruisers in mid lane?
I'll be waiting for that guide Odds
I used to main Cass.
First off, she got nerfed and nerfed and nerfed patch after patch a while ago. (abyssal nerf, wota nerf, i think her base damages got nerfed..)
Secondly, she has no escapes, and is squishy, meaning that any ad with a gap closer just kills her.
Third, she is really short range which means you need to build tanky to surive and when you do that your damage is just subpar. (Especially since she does run out of mana pretty fast and seems some kind of mana regen/base mana)
Also, with being able to start pure sustain one of her huge advantages (lane harass) is now gone as people can just pot through it.
i played a few games with her this season but you have to be super careful, see the above post as to why,
I think she has her place, but the champions she demolishes are not played so she is not played. (unless they FP ryze ) then you can just trolrololol him :D
Cass not being played is more that she's very very high risk. Her range is short, her hp/level is utter garbage, and she's in general very fragile. Yes she does a lot of damage, but so do other champions that offer more utility and from a safer distance. Doesn't take a genius to play Ryze, but if you aren't particularly good with Cass, you're not gonna have a good time.
I do think that if you're an absolute monster at Cass, you'll carry games almost like no other ap (watch Toyz play Cass in soloq, that shit is no joke)
Still really interested to see how she's played at high ELO, down to item builds, runes, masteries. Haven't caught many Cass games in the LoL client spectator mode or on streams. If anyone knows streamers to watch (besides Toyz, already tune in there whenever possible) post away.
How do people feel about building her similarly to Ryze? RoA seems like a good start if you want a hp buffer and some additional sustain. Tear->AA->Seraph's takes advantage of easy spamming, but seems like a gamble if you need to go hard for either AP or durability. Anyone played with glacial shroud items on her? IBG lets her put down a ton of soft cc. I generally avoid CDR items on her, but it does help ease the pain of an E on an un-poisoned target or a missed Q when you need one. I like RoA->tear->boots1->dcap,AA, boots2->then it gets fuzzy, liandry's? IBG? rylai's? voidstaff? zhonya's? lichbane? depends what you're facing I guess.
Eve-style cassi could work too? Thinking dring+DFG+mobility boots as core, shove the lane then go terrorize elsewhere? Her kit is great for ganks at towers, good burst from range, speed for diving if you can hit a Q, zoning with W? Just gotta make sure your opponents don't just turn around and kill you =D
On February 02 2013 17:43 nanoscorp wrote: Still really interested to see how she's played at high ELO, down to item builds, runes, masteries. Haven't caught many Cass games in the LoL client spectator mode or on streams. If anyone knows streamers to watch (besides Toyz, already tune in there whenever possible) post away.
How do people feel about building her similarly to Ryze? RoA seems like a good start if you want a hp buffer and some additional sustain. Tear->AA->Seraph's takes advantage of easy spamming, but seems like a gamble if you need to go hard for either AP or durability. Anyone played with glacial shroud items on her? IBG lets her put down a ton of soft cc. I generally avoid CDR items on her, but it does help ease the pain of an E on an un-poisoned target or a missed Q when you need one. I like RoA->tear->boots1->dcap,AA, boots2->then it gets fuzzy, liandry's? IBG? rylai's? voidstaff? zhonya's? lichbane? depends what you're facing I guess.
Eve-style cassi could work too? Thinking dring+DFG+mobility boots as core, shove the lane then go terrorize elsewhere? Her kit is great for ganks at towers, good burst from range, speed for diving if you can hit a Q, zoning with W? Just gotta make sure your opponents don't just turn around and kill you =D
I go Tear first, then sorc boots -> HG -> Liandry's -> Rylai's -> Archange's; Abyssal, Zhonya, Void Staff, and DCAP are also good choices depending on the situation.
I don't recommend DFG at all. She doesn't synergize with the CDR whatsoever and the damage amplification is fairly useless because she doesn't do burst.
I wouldn't build Cass at all like Ryze. Rylai's is so important on Cass. I usually get Rylai's/tear/abyssal's scepter in some order, then deathcap, and go from there.
I've never really had problems with Akali, just ult her if she tries to dash to you, then blow her up. If you have a pink ward, there's nothing she can do. I've also found a point in w helps, because her ability to reposition quickly means you need to get a poison on her fast in some situations. Also abyssal's first helps you survive her burst. And a giant's belt too.
On February 03 2013 02:33 zer0das wrote: I wouldn't build Cass at all like Ryze. Rylai's is so important on Cass. I usually get Rylai's/tear/abyssal's scepter in some order, then deathcap, and go from there.
I've never really had problems with Akali, just ult her if she tries to dash to you, then blow her up. If you have a pink ward, there's nothing she can do. I've also found a point in w helps, because her ability to reposition quickly means you need to get a poison on her fast in some situations. Also abyssal's first helps you survive her burst. And a giant's belt too.
I actually typed that out when I died level 7 to her for the second time. Once I had a giants belt I was destroying her. I think it was just I was too squishy to utilise my chain dps before being one shot. Pretty much managed to single handedly turn around the game with good ults and focus/kiting in fights.
Won the game with 14-6-10. Nice guide, I'm not even a mid laner, but the way this guide is written made me wanna be aggressive mid with her so bad. Thank you OP ^^
On February 03 2013 01:56 LOLItsRyann wrote: What are you supposed to do against akali? I got fb level 4, second she hits 6 she destroys me
In S2 it used to be a very easy match up because even though she would absolutely dominate you post-6, she wouldn't even survive to 6 against Cassiopeia. But I suspect things changed since then and I have yet to play this match up in S3.
You shouldn't die to her at lvl 4 though.
The most important item against Akali is the giant's belt. She has only a fixed amount of burst and once you can survive that you will win the trade.
On March 11 2013 06:51 Alaric wrote: Picked up Cass, maxed Q first, after somebody asked me "Why not E first? Isn't it what people did?" I decided to try it, plus they picked Ryze afterwards and Cass is viewed as one of his hardest counters in lane. So it should be safe to try, right?
So I maxed E first against Ryze. I'm dumb, right? (Their jungle Elise ganked twice before level 5, and again twice before I got 7, despite the wards he just kept trying. While it certainly pissed me off it didn't seem to have any influence on the fact that Ryze outtraded me everytime I was in range to use E, plus E's animation is too slow to Q->E->walk back and kite without Ryze getting a W (and hence full combo) off.)
It's not actually that safe of a counter if you have no idea what you're doing.
Easiest way to beat Ryze early (ie level 2-3 or so) is let him walk up and rune prison you- while the animation is going off you have a free q (since you know exactly where he's going to stand), then just wail on him with e until he's dead (and ignite him), since you do more damage than he does. A lot of bad Ryze's get surprised by this. Don't attempt this until the enemy jungler reveals where he is, or you're just asking to die.
It's not exactly a cake walk matchup because the enemy jungler is generally going to be all up on your grill- having them in your lane constantly isn't exactly super uncommon. You should generally win 2v2 fights if your jungler shows up and you do your job. Still, Cass isn't exactly super easy to play in teamfights, so if you aren't used to her, it can be difficult to leverage the any advantage if you get ahead. And if you get behind, Ryze is still Ryze...
Max e first is fine, although 2-3 levels of q helps you farm. Also warding properly so you know where the enemy jungler is helps a lot (ie, ward one side so you can favor the other side and walk away that way). Cass is really bad at dealing with multiple people in her face when she isn't expecting it, so try not to ever get in that situation in the first place.
I also find getting a fast Abyssal's Scepter+Giant's Belt helps a lot- if you survive the initial burst from Ryze, you do a lot more sustained damage than him. Also Cass is super squishy, you generally need to run hp/level seals on her because her health at level 18 is among the lowest in the game (8th lowest).
Thanks for the advice, it's what I found out too (I fucked up and ended up pushing him to tower, then despite standing where I thought was "safe" he flash-W to initiate the first gank. I survived it, but with Elise always sitting near mid warding deep enough is risky, so he got to 6 pretty much in one piece). So far I've rushed Grail and sorcs, then didn't really knew what to build (Abyssal for more MR, Morellonomicon when Singed fed an AD Sion 6-0 and we only had an ignite to deal with his ult, Seeker's whenever I needed armour), I remember warmogs Cass being a thing during s2, and revolver -> rylai being the go-to at one point too (when it was the same with Brand), but apart from the "obvious" core rylai and luxury liandry's I'm a bit lost at what to build. Well, not exactly lost, but I feel I have a lot of choice while being unable to pin-point a core (apart from something generally tanky).
I've really enjoyed the teamfights, even though we were always behind (I've lost my lane every single time, tho only feeding once, and we lost every game so I found solace in the fact that sometimes I did the best out of all 5), especially the kiting part. It's not about killing, but pulling off a good ult and managing to kite those tanky mofos for so long that your team can do well 4v2-3 and managing to get away afterwards, it feels very rewarding and enjoyable.
I remember the masteries in s2 being 9-21-0 for some Cassiopeia players, does it still hold true? I tend to go 9-0-21 on all of my mids, but Cass probably benefits less from %exp and CDR than other mids, though the %MS is always good to have. Maybe I should try to get more defense in my masteries and use ignite instead of barrier, so put more pressure on my lane opponent during early levels like you suggest.
About starting all pots, does her passive really allow for such a low mana pool early on? Between HP seals and no charm/flask/mana pots, I'd have thought she'd get oom fast, esp. if played aggressively.
I generally go flask/3 pots. If you do go all pots, you're not limited to all health pots.
As far as masteries go, I generally go 9/0/21, but 21/9/0 or 21/0/9 would also probably work (or 9/21/0). I don't play enough Cass to really comment on which is best (she's pretty situational these days), but I suspect 21/0/9 is. I've had pretty good success with 9/0/21 though.
I usually go Rylai's/Abyssal's Scepter/Deathcap. Depending on the matchup, prioritize Abyssal's over Rylai's. After that it depends- Liandry's is quite good on her, but I get it super late if ever. I like tear on her just because I loooove Seraph's (and I never can rely on blue buffs in solo que -.-), but it is probably not ideal. WOTA is pretty good on her, as is Zhonya's. Twin Shadows can be quite good too. She does have a lot of options, I find myself wishing she had an extra slot or two quite often.
I used to main Cassiopeia in season 2, and I've picked her up again in the last month or so. I think the Eve build on Cassi is actually pretty poor. Cassi isn't a burst mage, there are better picks if you want roaming and burst potential. It might work, but that's just down to solo queue mechanics, you could do it better with someone else I'd wager. I prefer building her tanky. I like Tear & Cata into RoA with a Haunting Guise quite a lot if I can get away with it. Liandry and Rylai feel essential. Cassi has the highest sustained damage out of almost all other AP's except maybe Karthus and Ryze, so building tanky lets you output more damage than a glass cannon build, unless their team has nothing to punish you for building that way. I don't like Zhonya as much because Cassi is a kite champion who has zero damage when in stasis and generally you'll die if they get on top of you with or without the item. I'd rather build items that stop them getting into range like Rylai's, or damage to kill them before/when they do like Deathcap. Obviously vs champions like Zed an hourglass is good, but I wouldn't want to build Zhonya unless forced to.
I tend to have problems dealing with heavy jungle pressure and roaming champs as Cassi though. It feels like I have to extend quite heavily to put enough pressure on champions to stop them roaming, and that leaves me open to ganks even with lots of warding. Anyone got advice on how they deal with that kind of thing? (e.g vs ahri mid with xin zhao/jarvan jungle feels pretty hard to stop)
Why are you trying to stop the opposing mid from roaming? Anyway, I find that simply advancing the wave is enough to stop people from roaming. Either that or the jungler has to cover which is kind of the same purpose.
Personally I find that advancing with Cass is too risky unless I know where their jungler is or I know their jungler sucks. Usually I like to shove the lane and then go do wolves or wraiths.
On March 11 2013 12:18 SagaZ wrote: Spectral wraith spirit looks absolutly beast on her
Also, the spellvamp is only 1/3rd since her E counts as an AoE skill to prevent abuse.
Its still strong on her, she gets a ton of vamp just from her consistent damage output, and it allows her to MURDER objectives and jungle camps. All the stats are strong on her.
I like Athenes on Cass, she needs some form of mana regen or a mana pool in order to shove the lane and the bit of CDR it gives is really nice since it lets her keep her Q speedboost up continuously if you hit it. I've generally gone Athene's -> sorcs+guise -> rylais -> liandry's. I'm pretty mixed about spellvamp since with poison ticking on two to three targets and the constant e spam, you're gaining a pretty massive amount of health per second, almost as much as an ad carry does but on the other hand, putting a revolver anywhere in your build feels awkward and delays your small skirmish items such as sorcs/guise which are extremely important to get before an aegis or bulwark is completed on the other team.
On March 11 2013 12:18 SagaZ wrote: Spectral wraith spirit looks absolutly beast on her
Also, the spellvamp is only 1/3rd since her E counts as an AoE skill to prevent abuse.
Its still strong on her, she gets a ton of vamp just from her consistent damage output, and it allows her to MURDER objectives and jungle camps. All the stats are strong on her.
I feel that with revolver you can duel a lot of junglers one on one.
On March 11 2013 12:18 SagaZ wrote: Spectral wraith spirit looks absolutly beast on her
Also, the spellvamp is only 1/3rd since her E counts as an AoE skill to prevent abuse.
Its still strong on her, she gets a ton of vamp just from her consistent damage output, and it allows her to MURDER objectives and jungle camps. All the stats are strong on her.
I feel that with revolver you can duel a lot of junglers one on one.
But when ARE you dueling a jungler one on one? (honestly, I feel that once you have your ult, you can 1v1 anyone that tries to jump on you. Stun them and melt them.) Revolver doesn't really help you in larger fights (most notably, jungler ganking you, and any fight 2v2 or bigger.) where you're more likely to get burst down than slowly killed. Guise/Rylais/items with resists do.
On March 11 2013 17:23 Lmui wrote: I like Athenes on Cass, she needs some form of mana regen or a mana pool in order to shove the lane and the bit of CDR it gives is really nice since it lets her keep her Q speedboost up continuously if you hit it. I've generally gone Athene's -> sorcs+guise -> rylais -> liandry's. I'm pretty mixed about spellvamp since with poison ticking on two to three targets and the constant e spam, you're gaining a pretty massive amount of health per second, almost as much as an ad carry does but on the other hand, putting a revolver anywhere in your build feels awkward and delays your small skirmish items such as sorcs/guise which are extremely important to get before an aegis or bulwark is completed on the other team.
I would never go Athenes on Cass, she does not need the excessive mana regen provided by it. If you keep her passive up she is easily one of the best tear stackers in the game, and the tear is easily enough to keep you full of mana as long as you don't spam E all over the creep wave. The stacked archangels later is far far stronger than the athenes, and CDR is a poor stat to stack on cass because obviously her poison gets no benefit other than refreshed duration, and the way her E resets to .5 after striking a poisoned target has zero synergy with CDR.
I don't really get why some of you guys are advocating so many mana items on Cass. In S2 she did fine with just a dorans or two for mana, and I don't think you would need more than a tear, considering her passive. ROA largely seems unnecessary; wouldn't it be better to just build your Rylai's earlier? Especially if you're going to build tear.
Yeah, any more than a tear seems super excessive to me. Athene's/Morello's/RoA are items I stay away from on Cass. Rylai's/RoA is a one or the other proposition if you ask me- there's almost never a reason to get both, and Rylai's is better in most situations. Keep in mind CDR doesn't make her twin fang reset go any lower than 0.5 seconds, so she doesn't value CDR quite as highly as other APs.
Playing against Malph/Jax/Darius in a coop for a quick win of the day made me think, what about Twin Shadows on Cass? It offers some MR and AP, and the %MS helps with kiting along with the active. Since putting down that first Q is so important to get the rest (Rylai makes subsequent ones much easier), wouldn't the active hold value too? Considering it as a kiting item, but maybe that'd just be a crutch for any decent player, esp. once rylai is bought.
On March 11 2013 12:18 SagaZ wrote: Spectral wraith spirit looks absolutly beast on her
Also, the spellvamp is only 1/3rd since her E counts as an AoE skill to prevent abuse.
Its still strong on her, she gets a ton of vamp just from her consistent damage output, and it allows her to MURDER objectives and jungle camps. All the stats are strong on her.
I feel that with revolver you can duel a lot of junglers one on one.
But when ARE you dueling a jungler one on one? (honestly, I feel that once you have your ult, you can 1v1 anyone that tries to jump on you. Stun them and melt them.) Revolver doesn't really help you in larger fights (most notably, jungler ganking you, and any fight 2v2 or bigger.) where you're more likely to get burst down than slowly killed. Guise/Rylais/items with resists do.
Even in teamfights, you are mostly there to kill tanks, so a revolver will help you survive a lot longer against 1-2 divers.
I used to main cassiopeia, but I switched over to orianna because it's easier to first pick ori and get away with it as compared to cassio in S3.
Spell vamp on her is a waste of space ; flask and pots work for the laning phase, and you die too quickly in team fights for it to matter anyways. A ruby crystal would give you more health than the spellvamp from a revolver...4% total lifesteal from a champion with 1500 health is 60 health, and thats assuming you kill the champ. 180/(12/3%) = 4500 dmg that you must deal AFTER resists in order to heal the same amount that a red crystal would give you straight up. Spectral wraith or WotA is 180/(20%/3) = 2700 dmg you have to deal after resists in order to heal for a ruby crystal. It's not worth the gold at all, considering you're prolly the first one they want to burst anyways.
Alright. I went and played ~10 games with Cassiopeia (I'm plat II atm, reasonably high ranked), with a mix of tear/chalice/dorans.
Tear is alright, it gives her a huge mana pool but it does squat, even after it's upgraded unless you're also getting a RoA.. 2.2k mana gives you ~500 hp shield (realistically you'll get ~350-400) and ~120 AP from seraphs which honestly does almost nothing compared to rylais or liandry's. You're literally trading away her insane early/midgame power for a mediocre lategame item.
Dorans - With the new doran's passive (You can generally clear the wave with 3x Q, one W), you get insane lane domination and easy wraith taking. Getting two feels like it's overkill but sitting one a single dorans makes life without blue buff easy. I usually grab a dorans or two + seekers against AD mids since the majority of them are assassins (Cass has the damage to go toe to to with every AD assassin out there, if you hit your poisons).
Chalice - My personal favourite item. It gives you more mana regen than the old double dorans used to give in most cases and just sitting on this til late game works really well. I've tried upgrading it to grail but the cdr - while nice - doesn't help too much. It removes the nasty speed stutter cass has between when Q's land which makes chasing down people easier but doesn't do much beyond that. The MR helps a lot when dealing with bursty mids like diana. As long as you don't die to the initial combo, you win any extended trade.
Essentially what I advocate: Dorans + seekers vs AD mids, chalice vs AP.
As for spellvamp, don't. It's pretty terrible now. Start the game with a flask + ward + pot and as long as you remember to use the flask, it'll heal you more over the course of a teamfight than a wota will for a hefty portion of the game.
After a mana item, liandry's + rylais is pretty core since it allows you to rip apart everyone, tanks or squishies. I personally like having sorcs+liandry's+rylai's+abyssal + mana item + void/dcap/hourglass depending on the game
On March 17 2013 19:02 Lmui wrote: Alright. I went and played ~10 games with Cassiopeia (I'm plat II atm, reasonably high ranked), with a mix of tear/chalice/dorans.
Tear is alright, it gives her a huge mana pool but it does squat, even after it's upgraded unless you're also getting a RoA.. 2.2k mana gives you ~500 hp shield (realistically you'll get ~350-400) and ~120 AP from seraphs which honestly does almost nothing compared to rylais or liandry's. You're literally trading away her insane early/midgame power for a mediocre lategame item.
Dorans - With the new doran's passive (You can generally clear the wave with 3x Q, one W), you get insane lane domination and easy wraith taking. Getting two feels like it's overkill but sitting one a single dorans makes life without blue buff easy. I usually grab a dorans or two + seekers against AD mids since the majority of them are assassins (Cass has the damage to go toe to to with every AD assassin out there, if you hit your poisons).
Chalice - My personal favourite item. It gives you more mana regen than the old double dorans used to give in most cases and just sitting on this til late game works really well. I've tried upgrading it to grail but the cdr - while nice - doesn't help too much. It removes the nasty speed stutter cass has between when Q's land which makes chasing down people easier but doesn't do much beyond that. The MR helps a lot when dealing with bursty mids like diana. As long as you don't die to the initial combo, you win any extended trade.
Essentially what I advocate: Dorans + seekers vs AD mids, chalice vs AP.
As for spellvamp, don't. It's pretty terrible now. Start the game with a flask + ward + pot and as long as you remember to use the flask, it'll heal you more over the course of a teamfight than a wota will for a hefty portion of the game.
After a mana item, liandry's + rylais is pretty core since it allows you to rip apart everyone, tanks or squishies. I personally like having sorcs+liandry's+rylai's+abyssal + mana item + void/dcap/hourglass depending on the game
its literally never good to go chalice over tear, you get more than enough mana to spam continuously with a tear, and tear turn into a hugely cost efficient item lategame, whereas chalice turn into grail, which:
A. you don't need the excess mana regen or passive from ever B. CDR has terrible synergy on cass, having basically no effect on her Q, and actually no effect on her E, which is always reset to .5 on poison. C. is not nearly as cost efficient statswise as the seraphs. the shield is mega-good for surviving burst in teamfights
saying archangels staff does nothing its so nonsensical I don't even understand it, its by far one of the most cost efficient AP items in the game, it gives huge stats. There is a reason you have to charge it up, and cass is probably top 3 at doing that in the game.
cassiopeia seems to me like a squishier version of ryze. i feel like there isnt enough ap tanky items in the game to make her viable enough. cdr isnt really the problem since all her cd are really short anyways. she just doesnt survive the bursts from all these ad bruisers. also, she doenst really have a reliable cc, so she is in effect a full on dmg dealer. she just needs more survivablility and she would be fine in the meta
What he means is that Grail is actually a better survivability item than Tear because assuming 2K HP, 2k mana and 30 MR, Grail gives you more EHP against magic damage than a Seraph's shield, I guess.
As for survivability, rylai/warmogs Cass actually had a surge of popularity (or was it straight-up warmogs, kinda like Anivia's bullshit base values allow her to build whatever items andd still be relevant till late midgame?) near the end of s2.
On March 18 2013 07:16 Lightswarm wrote: cassiopeia seems to me like a squishier version of ryze. i feel like there isnt enough ap tanky items in the game to make her viable enough. cdr isnt really the problem since all her cd are really short anyways. she just doesnt survive the bursts from all these ad bruisers. also, she doenst really have a reliable cc, so she is in effect a full on dmg dealer. she just needs more survivablility and she would be fine in the meta
I think she still does more raw DPS than Ryze. It's just that she can't just run in and snipe ADC like Ryze can =\
Wouldn't it be viable to just buy the chalice and not upgrade it? Just sell it when your items fill up late game. Is it just the case that if you plan to sell it later you might as well just buy/sell doran's ring for about the same cost?
Edit: Never mind, since you can spam Q constantly from the fountain you can just stack the tear in under 20 min.
It's a much more cost effective way to get 20% vamp and the extra passive lets you chunk through baron/dragon/buff camps incredibly fast. Your team gains so much buff control when you build this and since you have 20% vamp from an already very cost effective item.
There are a few fights in the linked video where that 20% vamp saved his life and in one instance he heals for half his HP after just 2 jungle camps.
Here's an example build by Bischu used in the game I linked: tear, guise, revolver, boots, SotSW, deathcap.
It's a much more cost effective way to get 20% vamp and the extra passive lets you chunk through baron/dragon/buff camps incredibly fast. Your team gains so much buff control when you build this and since you have 20% vamp from an already very cost effective item.
There are a few fights in the linked video where that 20% vamp saved his life and in one instance he heals for half his HP after just 2 jungle camps.
One of the main reasons he did so well that game is because of the other teams teamcomp. Cass is weak vs assasains and bruisers that jump on her with cc.
Brand is basically just dodge his shit and your good, shyvana is LOL vs cass, and hecarim is the only scary person for him, and ad kennen is short range enough to make cass very good vs him.
You will not get a teamcomp that nice every game as cass.
But yes, she has potential and vamp cdr jungle item (wtf is name) is pretty good on her. Bischu did delay his liandries very late though for it.
I've noticed many people suggesting Liandry's as a core item on Cassiopeia but recently I've become skeptical about the item for her. Yes it has good synergies with Rylai's which is an item that almost every Cass player will build but the 3 second DoT damage does not stack, only refreshes. So after looking into the item here's what I found. Hope it helps.
1) It does %current HP damage, NOT %max HP. It gets weaker as the fights drag on longer. 2) It deals DoT damage over 3 seconds and it does NOT stack. Hitting another spell only refreshes the duration. 3) Cassiopeia wants to hit spells in rapid fire succession. Which means 3-4 spells during the 3 second DoT.
1020 gold is tied up in the value of Liandry's passive and Mpen. The combine cost is 980 which means you are essentially just buying the passive DoT since Guise already gives you Mpen.
That 980 gold could instead be ~45 AP. Typical 3 second burst is a Q>E>E>E Liandry's from this combo gets you 6 seconds of DoT from Liandry's for your gold = 12% current HP 47 AP from this combo gets you 36+25+25+25 = 111 damage.
12% HP = 111 when your opponent has at least 925 HP (100-0 break even @ 1850)
But because it is %current HP damage you're opponent will need much more than 925 HP because the DoT decreases as you continue to deal more spell damage. This also assumes you miss your 2nd Q. If you continue to chain your combos on an enemy the Liandry's DoT becomes less and less valuable.
Typical 6 second burst is a Q>E>E>E - Q>E>E>E Liandry's from this combo gets you 9 seconds of DoT from Liandry's for your gold = 18% current HP 47 AP from this combo gets you 36+25+25+25+36+25+25+25 = 222 damage.
18% HP = 222 when your opponent has at least 1233 HP (100-0 break even @ 2466)
Notice this damage assumes the target is not movement impaired. It also does not include bonuses from masteries or deathcap. Also the DoT becomes more effective when you are forced to switch targets in team fights and when multiple people get hit by Cass' W or Ult.
Conclusion: Liandry's excels at burning down health on high HP targets and keeps Cassiopeia's damage higher when dealing AoE and constantly switching targets in team fights. However it is not very good at killing opponents 1v1 and almost needs the increased damage from CC to be cost effective. Haunting Guise is still a good item but I suggest never rushing Liandry's and only building it after Rylais.
On April 20 2013 10:20 Ghost-z wrote: I've noticed many people suggesting Liandry's as a core item on Cassiopeia but recently I've become skeptical about the item for her. Yes it has good synergies with Rylai's which is an item that almost every Cass player will build but the 3 second DoT damage does not stack, only refreshes. So after looking into the item here's what I found. Hope it helps.
1) It does %current HP damage, NOT %max HP. It gets weaker as the fights drag on longer. 2) It deals DoT damage over 3 seconds and it does NOT stack. Hitting another spell only refreshes the duration. 3) Cassiopeia wants to hit spells in rapid fire succession. Which means 3-4 spells during the 3 second DoT.
1020 gold is tied up in the value of Liandry's passive and Mpen. The combine cost is 980 which means you are essentially just buying the passive DoT since Guise already gives you Mpen.
That 980 gold could instead be ~45 AP. Typical 3 second burst is a Q>E>E>E Liandry's from this combo gets you 6 seconds of DoT from Liandry's for your gold = 12% current HP 47 AP from this combo gets you 36+25+25+25 = 111 damage.
12% HP = 111 when your opponent has at least 925 HP (100-0 break even @ 1850)
But because it is %current HP damage you're opponent will need much more than 925 HP because the DoT decreases as you continue to deal more spell damage. This also assumes you miss your 2nd Q. If you continue to chain your combos on an enemy the Liandry's DoT becomes less and less valuable.
Typical 6 second burst is a Q>E>E>E - Q>E>E>E Liandry's from this combo gets you 9 seconds of DoT from Liandry's for your gold = 18% current HP 47 AP from this combo gets you 36+25+25+25+36+25+25+25 = 222 damage.
18% HP = 222 when your opponent has at least 1233 HP (100-0 break even @ 2466)
Notice this damage assumes the target is not movement impaired. It also does not include bonuses from masteries or deathcap. Also the DoT becomes more effective when you are forced to switch targets in team fights and when multiple people get hit by Cass' W or Ult.
Conclusion: Liandry's excels at burning down health on high HP targets and keeps Cassiopeia's damage higher when dealing AoE and constantly switching targets in team fights. However it is not very good at killing opponents 1v1 and almost needs the increased damage from CC to be cost effective. Haunting Guise is still a good item but I suggest never rushing Liandry's and only building it after Rylais.
Meh, W is good for zoning and sieging, but really in a teamfight you're gonna pump much more from Q and E spam than from a single W (especially since people don't have that much HP when you rush Liandry's anyway), while Rylai's slow allows you to kite much more efficiently, and with 200 more HP which is a lot considering Cass' pitiful HP pool.
You should use your W either to zone enemies or to ensure a poison DoT on an enemy with a mobility spell (Akali, Jax, Xin, anybody with a gapcloser really) so you're not suddenly powerless if they avoid your Q, during teamfights, not try to put some Liandry's debuff.
I thought the reasons to get Liandry's on her are to kill objectives much faster and to make Q poke stronger. It's not gonna help much to 100-0 someone. But the Q dot keeps the Liandry's dot running for 6 seconds, and Cassio is not going to go in on every Q she hits.
Rylais is probably more important most of the time anyway.
I don't play League anymore, but I sure as heck did play Cassiopeia, and something worthy of note mechanics-wise for the Liandry's discussion is that LoL DoTs apply (applied?) their first tick of damage on impact / refresh, meaning that you'll likely be applying the DoT at a rate that exceeds once per second. Considering that Cassiopiea hits bitches with spells like an angry gangster with a tommygun, it seems like a good item pickup.
So a DoT (such as her q!) apply the actual damage of their ticks at 0 seconds, 1 second, and 2 seconds... so if you could re-apply her q at 2.01 seconds, you'd effectively do the same amount of damage, but quicker than if you (like a good cassiopeia player) had no cooldown reduction and only reapplied Q late into the 3rd second of the duration.
If it reapplies leandry's per damage tick of Q or W it actually hurts my face at how good it should be. Even if it only applies Liandry's on contact with the spells, it should still be a really fucking solid item choice.
Liandry's doesn't, it only starts 0.5s after the first damage tick, which is why is wasn't as huge (esp. for using such a good item as haunting guise as component) since everything ticking every half-second or faster basically reset it until the last tick. They changed it to only refresh the duration, not the delay, a few patches later, so to keep the DoT going you only need to hit a spell ~3s after the last tick from the previous one (ie cast if it was a nuke).
New buffs, Cass' E now counts as a single target damage spell. Hello full Rylai's slow and full spell vamp on revolver!
Tear, Boots, Spirit of Wraith, Rylais, Lyandries seems to be core build with you upgrading to Archangels and Furor boots enchantment late game. Time to break out my cassiopiea and practice again because I suck with her but she is fun to play.
So what are peoples opinions on what the build order should look like? Rushing Rylais or Spirit Wraith seems like a must now that she gains the full benefits from the items. Boots 2 may not be as necessary with the increased kiting from Rylais but with furor enchantment her chasing potential is just silly. Flat Mpen is always better early but I believe its worth delaying HG until 3rd or 4th item and immediately upgrading it to Liandrys.
I hadn't thought of skills, I have always maxed Q first and that's what 90% of guides recommend but I guess E max first is optimal now. How fast can she clear waves with only 1-2 points in Q?
Versus non-push champs, 1 or 2 points in Q is usually enough to keep the wave back with the help of your W. If it's a pushy/farm champion or someone that has a better trade than you, then Q max is better.
Q is considerably better poke and it much easier on your mana than maxing E. If you max E you're gonna go oom extremely fast even with your passive just trying to poke and trade.
Low ranks of Q can basically be spammed for almost no mana to keep your passive stacked up, it's definitely possible to use low ranks of Q and max E. You can also poke with "just E" though beware its shorter range - you're basically turning yourself into Ryze, so I don't see it working well except perhaps against highly mobile opponents with mediocre push (for example, Kassadin?)
In those situations - where you're vs. Melee/Mobility - come to think of it, nearly any melee (they have to go onto you to significantly hurt you, opening them up to jumping into a Miasma cloud for Espam) could be quite vulnerable to E max.
Spellvamp previously already worked as single-target on Cass' E... it's only Rylai (already core dammit, it's only stronger now) and Furor Boots (and I'm not even sure of that).
So I am thinking about playing Cass when I get home but have always sucked with her.
Reading the last bit of this thread it looks like tear, spectral wraith, sorc/mercs, and rylais are core. Then as the game goes on look for a Zhonas/Dcap/Abyssal/Void?
And the guide says no points until 13, are people still doing that? QEQEQR R>Q>E>W?
I think more than any other caster, what I build on Cass varies wildly depending on whom I'm playing against and the conditions of the game. I do like getting tear first if possible, but a lot of the time it simply isn't. When going against Ryze or Akali I usually go giant's belt->abyssal->tear (get tear sooner if there's enough breathing room)->Rylai's. because if you survive their burst you're going to absolutely maul them with your sustained damage. In easier matchups, I tend to get tear/blasting wand first. Spectral wraith is an interesting option, I'll have to try that sometime (never really occurred to me to be honest). I think WoTA is still underrated and makes sense in a lot of team comps and Cass is someone who benefits from it a lot though.
Final build for me is usually something like sorc shoes/Rylai's/Abyssal's/Liandry's/Deathcap/Seraph's. I'm not a huge fan of Zhonya's on Cass but sometimes it feels necessary. Getting randuin's makes more sense sometimes (or a GA).
Skill order on Cass is largely dependent on the game. I tend to go QEEQER (Overall skill order tends to be R>Q>E>W, but flip flop Q and E at times), maybe get a point in W before the third point in E depending on the matchup (if your opponent can reposition themselves extremely easily, W is practically mandatory pre-6, so you can quickly lay it down once they reposition and then wail on them with your E. Against someone like Fizz you're really playing with fire if you don't get W relatively early, for example). At any rate, I think not getting any points in W until 13 is probably a mistake, because it's a quick way to get off lots of E's if you miss with your Q. Or if they try to all in you with an unexpected flash.
Does anyone here have any experience running ms quints with 9/0/21 masteries on cassiopeia? Is it match up dependant? Vs an easy matchup would you rather just run AP quints and 21/0/9 for the kill? Is the ms utility as good as some say? If you do run ms quints with 9/0/21 masteries what seals/glyphs do you run?
I would rather have the normal AP page w/o MS quints when playing cass. Going overkill on MS that early will make your harass tickle for the first few levels, and by the time you hit level 6, the MS is barely noticable with boots. She's the lane bully in 90% of her matchups, so there's no reason to give that up for extra MS. Maybe if you wanted to do some level 3 cheese or something leveling QEE would I consider going that tree, but I wouldn't take that into a serious game.
On October 20 2013 23:00 ReachTheSky wrote: Does anyone here have any experience running ms quints with 9/0/21 masteries on cassiopeia? Is it match up dependant? Vs an easy matchup would you rather just run AP quints and 21/0/9 for the kill? Is the ms utility as good as some say? If you do run ms quints with 9/0/21 masteries what seals/glyphs do you run?
I feel like if your hitting your Q's, you dont need it, and if you are not, it won't help you with it.
Might make kiting easier, but anything she can kite with just movespeed she can kite without MS quints, where things that gapclose, which are the things are suck to play against as cass, arn't really affected.
Well I went against a Morde mid, and I've read that Cass is supposed to soft counter him. Well I don't have a single idea how it's possible, I've landed almost every single Q on him when he was going for a last hit, but his fucking shield always prevented the damage. Constantly. Never been able to make him lose more than 100hp (or I had to burn half my mana to remove like 15% of his hp). Meanwhile he was just 2shotting the whole lane and I was stuck under my turret with 0 chance to outtrade him.
Either you burn all ur mana trying to damage him, or you burn all ur mana to get all the farm and prevent him from hard pushing. How in hell can Cass be better than Morde mid ?
On November 19 2013 05:42 ZERG_RUSSIAN wrote: How did he manage to get enough AP to 2 shot a wave when you have enough burst to make him bluepill at every single level
Coz he had his fucking shield to absord it. As I said, I would have needed to use all my mana to attempt to damage him :/
On November 19 2013 03:15 Sakray wrote: Well I went against a Morde mid, and I've read that Cass is supposed to soft counter him. Well I don't have a single idea how it's possible, I've landed almost every single Q on him when he was going for a last hit, but his fucking shield always prevented the damage. Constantly. Never been able to make him lose more than 100hp (or I had to burn half my mana to remove like 15% of his hp). Meanwhile he was just 2shotting the whole lane and I was stuck under my turret with 0 chance to outtrade him.
Either you burn all ur mana trying to damage him, or you burn all ur mana to get all the farm and prevent him from hard pushing. How in hell can Cass be better than Morde mid ?
Max E
Don't get hit by his skills - he gets most of his shield off of champ damage
Q - auto (to break shield) - spam E, watch him cry
Yes, it is mana intensive, but it is a lane you have an advantage in
Cass is a strong counter against Mordekaiser. She is one of the best counters against Morde... this is my opionion as a Mordekaiser player.
Basically you need good mechanics. After level 3 you can use rank 1 Q almost for free and once his shield is somewhat low, all in him and you will win.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www11.onrpg.com/gamepics/articles/league_of_legends/LoL-Cassiopeia_Siren.jpg)
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. No worries though if I see a cass on the enemy team i go gragas and roflstomp her from lvl 4 x_x;:. 
You correct though, she be possible to abuse Lux's long CDs and just spam her out of the lane.
