Why NO ONE Plays Cassiopeia | League of Legends

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Cass is like Anivia. You rarely see them in your games but when you do, you better pray they're your teammate.

Thankfully she isn't played often.

For me she is an appealing champion, but every game on her feels sooo sweaty. You need to farm items, dodge skillshots (because you are in everyone's range), kite as hell, land every Q, monitor mana pool, go above and beyond to ult people, while there are so many characters, who, though won't deal the same DPS are able to do it faster/more consistent/ or from a distance. She can be menace to deal with in some team comp, but there are a lot of situations, when you are pretty much useless and can not play the game, because everyone is faster than you or has greater range.

She doesnt look like nicky bois version thats the main reason shes unpopular

I feel like I saw this exact video two to three years ago

one thing barely touched on is that in the current state of lethality, Cass struggles to actually do her damage. An ADC clicks on a target, and they shoot. Cassio needs to hit Q, and THEN she starts doing damage. With burst damage being as high as it is right now, if you go into a fight with an annie and hit Q, annie can have you eat her entire combo before your first Twin Fang is on target. It might not sound like much, but it's a major cause of why Cassio builds so much durability, and with mage durability items not being particularly good atm, a major cause of why Cassio doesn't do well. The funny thing is she's a very easy character to fix. The mechanics that fix her are already in her kit. They just haven't been embraced. Not mentioned at all is that Twin Fang heals Cassiopeia on hit, and with the rate she fires them, this healing can be very substantial. But she has the lowest base armor in the game and pretty meh HP. If they leaned into making Cassio a regenerating bruiser mage, she'd require no mechanical changes and actually be an extremely good and likely popular character. Boost her durability, drop her damage a bit, and bam, we have only changed some numbers and Cassio is good.

People barely played cass because they couldn't hold their load for the entire match.

Shes gotten like no changes in years

I think 1 of the key usages of Cassiopeia's W that was missed is that often times the best usage of W is as a stand your ground tool where if you're playing into a target that is going to dash into you then if you place your W underneath yourself and force your enemy to stand in it if they want to hit you, then all you really need to do is be capable of surviving their initial burst.

Her grounding, paired with her being incredibly strong with Rylays (which doesn't have an AD counterpart anymore now that FM is gone). In this league of mobility... I'd say she is extremely strong, but has a high skill floor due to her core mechanics having low forgivability.

The thing with how item-reliant she is is the items she buys aren't to augment her playstyle, they're to shore up her weaknesses and I'm glad you mentioned that specifically. If you play a marksman, the champs aren't good without items but they still feel like the same champ at 1 item and at 6 items, just with more damage. Cassio isn't like that. After you get your items you feel unstoppable but early on she feels straight up dysfunctional. No mana, no sustain, no bulk, auto-lose trades if you miss Q yet no reliable way to land Q early, all of her items are just covering these weaknesses. It works out because the items cover for her very well and she's still a strong champ, but early game Cassio is as close to playing as an actual caster minion that I've ever experienced and I've been a Neeko main for 4 years

Cass is insanely strong, but as someone who plays her a lot her biggest issue is she is both difficult to play and impossible to blind pick. She requires the dedication of a one trick, but is situational. If someone plays a long range control mage like Viktor, Syndra, or Ori, or the enemy pick a poke/disengage bot like Cait Seraphine, the game is completely unplayable. In the right situations, however, where teams want to dive into you, she is psychotic. But most people don’t want to invest hundreds of hours for a pocket pick unless they really love the character.

the thing that makes cass worth learning is how oppressive she is when played correctly. other champs and kits will be better on average in most games, but cass can be really oppresive, which some other champs can't really apply that pressure into the early/mid game

11:46 I remember when this was performed on a pro play match, Everyone tried to play her just to do this.

One thing I really enjoy about Cass is that you buy Serfas, Rod of Ages, Frozen Heart, Spirit Visage and for runes Conqueror with maxout healing... And than you deal less damage, but you are surprisingly tanky and healing bit too much. 1v3 becomes surprisingly easy if you hit your spells and kite properly. Also very nice way to see enemy team rage

i disagree with some of your points. She as an AP ''AA'' champion means that her E scaling of AP makes all her poisoned E damage seems like you are getting hit by a crit, since the E will roughly deal around 800 damage each since she a high base damage on her E and 70% of 800 AP is roughly 600, also her lack of on hit is compensated by the fact she is burning you with her Q, Liandrys and blackfire torch. She is THE duelist mage, in fact this is her more clear identity, she is the best 1v1 mage in the entire game and easily top 5 best duelists in the game, a good Cassio will make sure you are getting hit by her Q, and if you get hit you are doomed, she has a lot of mind games behind her duels, and they are very overwhelming and stat checky. There are champs who can keep with her or have straight up advantadge in a 1v1 in the late game like Fiora, Kayle and Yasuo (with a wave), but all of them are not even guaranteed win, cause there is a lot of room for counterplay for both sides. also a correction for you Vars. her 700 range on her E would be insanely powerful if wasn't by the fact it is treated center to center instead of edge to edge like an AA, so her 700 E range ignores completaly hitbox range, while AAs counts their AA range + the enemy hitbox range, for example the 550 range Vayne hitting a Caitlyn will mean Vayne has her 550 innate range + 120 from Caitlyn's hitbox, totalizing 670 range in total, which is -30 range compared to Cassiopeia's E, so Cassio's E true range in average is around 580 agaisn't most champs, thats why it is so painfully low to a mage, since she has no invisibility or innate ms boost like Vayne's R and Q.

Cass has a special place for me, since I started playing LoL when she was just released (with breaks of course)

Cassio is so underrated as a lane bully! Sure she scales well-ish but as someone who mained for 5 years and still plays her at times she feels the best in the early game pre-6 and at 2 items.

NickyBoi would like to have a word with you