I still can’t play Cassiopeia

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Among the changes this patch were a couple buffs to Cassiopeia. I was kind of excited because I’ve always like the idea behind Cass, I just couldn’t seem to get the hang of her. After playing with the changes I gotta say…not much has changed.

A little disclaimer: I did much better in one game with Cassiopeia than I have ever done, but it still didn’t feel quite right. You might say the buffs worked, and to some extent I think they did. The Twin Fang cast speed increase was a good thing, same for her ult. Her ult also seems a bit more reliable now, which is good.

The thing I still can get, though, is all the different ways she has to cast. She just requires a crazy amount of mouse movement to land all her different spells at the same time. I think the big problem is Noxious Blast, which is on a mouseover cast. I understand the thinking – it has a relatively short cooldown so it needs to be easy to cast. That’s all well and good until your target starts moving. And then that target starts casting spells. Spells that you need to dodge. Maybe I’m just lazy, but this equates to a massive number of clicks to land a couple spells.

This becomes a bigger and bigger problem as Cassiopeia’s opponents get more and more bursty. If Brand can blow me up in 3 spells but it takes me 5 or 6 to do the same thing, chances are he’ll fare better in most fights. I think Brand is a good counter example because both he and Cassiopeia are high energy combo casters. When you land that combo it feels amazing. With Cass, though, I feel like I’m much more taxed to land a somewhat inherently difficult combo.

That would be a fine thing if it felt like a skill ceiling but it feels more like a click ceiling. Is there something I’m missing here?

  

Deathcap and the state of the game: I never saw this coming

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I’ve been hesitating to write this post for a couple days now. I keep waiting for inspiration, some sort of clarity, but it never comes. There’s a lot to say about this patch, but I’m not sure I can derive any kind of coherent point about it all. Things are different. The game is different, and it’s different in ways I definitely didn’t see coming.

I’m going to completely ignore the champion changes. The significant buffs are all reverts of former nerfs or changes everything knew was coming. Also, the real game changes are in the items.

Zhonya’s is gone, as I’m sure you noticed. In it’s place we have Zhonya’s Hourglass, an AP item with armor and the old Zhonya’s invulnerability, and Rabadon’s Deathcap, the mother of all, rush-this-first-with-every-AP-toon monster of an AP item. It grants 155 AP plus a 30 percent AP boost for 3300 gold. I realize the old Zhonya’s wasn’t wildly more expensive, but 3300 gold for what becomes 200 AP and that 30 precent boost is UN…REAL. I don’t really want to talk much about what this will do to balance because frankly it’s too early to tell, but I can tell you I have seen a huge increase in the number of casters on the board in any given game.

I do have a few bits of anecdotal evidence that I think deserve some airtime. First, I saw a Veigar at level 14 with more than 1000 AP the day the patch came out. Second, the Deathcap is way too good on Vladimir – his passive gets way too much out of it when added to core items like Rylai’s. Rylai’s plus Deathcap is like 500 AP for him. Lichbane tower pushing is insanely good right now. Lichbane in general is insanely good right now. Lastly, if a caster gets ahead of you, well, be prepared to die a LOT.

All that said, I kind of like the changes. Deathcap needs to be toned down in some way, but it’s really refreshing to see people mix up their choices a bit. It’s not 3 tanks a support and a carry anymore, and that’s a good thing. The downside is that a sweeping change like this is like pressing a reset button on the metagame, mid season no less. Some would say that’s a great thing, but it’s a strange move in a game that’s trying to make a name for itself on the competitive scene. I’m fine with changing things up in the middle of a season, but make the changes small. The big picture stuff is good – the metagame is changing, different champions are being played, different builds hitting the drawing board – but the game has changed so much in the last two months that it’s starting to feel a bit like a beta test.

You can find evidence of the dramatic change in the pace of the game. Over the past week both the length of the game and the victor at any moment has varied dramatically. I had my first 60-minute game in ages earlier this week. I also had at least one that was over in 20 minutes. I saw kill counts swing between teams more heavily than I have seen since well before season one launched. Again, these aren’t bad things per se, but to have them all happening at once, all in the middle of a season, all in big bursts is probably not the best thing for the game.

The most definitive thing I can say about the changes is this: I think Riot started to feel the pressure of a restless player base and made radical changes as a stopgap until Magma Chamber and more game features could be released. Again, this is not to say I think the changes are all bad – some of this stuff may have been on the test docket for quite some time – rather, all of the changes at once is too much strain on an experienced player base. As much as people cry for change, it’s a fact of life humans will always resist. We are creatures of habit, and when you mess with the habit too much we tend to freak out.

  

The Fiddlesticks situation

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I still remember the game that made me unlock Fiddlesticks. I had just played against him and seen how devastating his ult could be against a team. I was still new to the game, probably no higher than level 14, but I knew from my time spent in DotA that any ultimate with that much team-slaying potential is worth having around.

Fast forward to today. Well, yesterday, actually. I decided to play Fiddle in a ranked match just to see how he would do. I was excited to see his name in the patch notes, but his changes may as well not have have happened. I’ve given up on my “rules for maintaining ELO” again, mostly because I really like the draft system versus the free for all rules in normal, so any champ is on the board for me. I started in the jungle like I normally do and all was well. I was farming fairly quickly, picked up dragon at level four, and all seemed well. Then the teamfights started.

At first it was okay – I was showing up just a little late so my ult could deal some real damage without much threat to my well being. We did lose one fight, though, and it was all downhill from there. Although Fiddle is a solid farmer in the jungle, he is terrible in lane, so once the laning phase is over, he’s pretty much screwed as far as cashflow is concerned. If you aren’t winning teamfights, you’re going to be hurting for some gold right when you need your damage to scale quickly.

I think he could be helped in a couple ways. One, change Dark Wind. It used to be his bread and butter damage spell, but it’s been nerfed beyond usefulness. Fiddle needs a solid nuke outside his ult. Something that can’t be as easily interrupted as Drain. Something to help him produce a little bit of cash in lane. Another thing that could help would be giving his fear some sort of secondary component, like passive cooldown reduction, and making it a static 1.5 or 2 second fear. That deprioritizes the skill as he levels, giving him room to build more points into his damage skills.

I’d really love to see Fiddle return to some form of viability as a caster, and I don’t think it would take much to get him there.

  

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