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?
I realize this is a day or so behind, but I’ve been pretty busy with Spike stuff and pre-holiday stuff and frankly, so much changed in this patch it’s actually a little tough to keep up. I’ve finally been able to sit down and play a couple games, and I’ve read the patch notes enough times that I feel like I know what’s going on to a degree that I can put down a few coherent thoughts. Here goes.
I’m going to cover champions first, though that’s not really where the big changes are.
Cho’Gath, Ezreal, Fiddlesticks, Katarina, and Malzahar all got some incremental buffs that should help them out. Fiddle still needs a rework in my opinion, but I think Ezreal should be a bit more competitive, Katarina should feel more balanced between AD and AP, and Malzahar might deal a bit more damage.
Garen got smacked with the nerf bat. Seriously, I can’t tell you how happy I am about this one. It’s been so long overdue that I almost can’t believe it’s here. He actually got a scaling buff, but the fact that you can no longer stack Sunfires means Garen will have to work a LOT harder to get his job done. I’m glad to see him get a scaling buff, too. I’ve always been tempted by DPS Garen, and now maybe I’ll be able to give him a serious go.
Gragas got a significant Drunken Rage nerf, which was also likely overdue. Coupled with the removal of Innervating Locket, Gragas will be much easier to bring down, but could be frustrating to play as a tank.
I would love to be in on the meetings regarding LeBlanc because I just. don’t. get it. She starts so alarmingly broken that they have to hotfix nerf her, a move I haven’t seen since, well, I don’t even know when. Since then she’s been slowly buffed. She’s almost back to where she started. Give her a little more range and less CD scaling on her ult and, bingo! You have release LeBlanc. I know, she’s still a shade of her former self, but it’s funny that she got crushed by the hotfix and they’ve buffed her in every patch since. Also, the last thing I thought she needed buffed was her stun duration. Seriously, why?
Olaf got a much-needed scaling nerf. I remember saying when he launched that a) he’s overpowered when farmed, but b) he’s like a bad Mundo until he gets some farm. I still believe those things to be true, though the second to a lesser extent. Olaf’s obvious advantage over Mundo is that he’s excellent in the jungle. This nerf will make him slightly less scary late game, though he’ll still be brutal.
Twitch got a pretty big nerf, and though I originally thought it might be a bit of an early game buff, it might have brutalized him. I’m terrible with Twitch, in fact, I’m comfortable calling him my worst toon. There is something about his attack timing that I just fundamentally do not get, but I’ve tried building him every way I could think of since the patch and nothing has been all that impressive. It’s not so much the change to damage versus attack speed but the fact that his attacks are limited. You might blow your ult on one or two people just to have more show up, at which point you’re sorta screwed.
Urgot caught a buff, but it’s a strange one. His poison became physical instead of magic (I actually like this, and it’s a perfect idea for Cassiopeia), he got a slight range buff, he got some scaling damage ratio buffs, and a shield buff. There’s definitely some creative problem solving with the physical change, but they might have gone a bit far with his other skills. We’ll see.
After writing all this I realize I just need to make another post for all the other changes that came with this patch. You’ll see that tomorrow.
Cassiopeia released today, adding another caster to the mix. I had the chance to play a couple games with her this afternoon and, I gotta say, I don’t really like her. Though she has a fairly active playstyle, the poison and Twin Fang combo plays away from a mages typical strength: super burst damage.
As Phreak mentions in the champion spotlight, Cassiopeia relies on a full combination of spells to get a kill. She has to land her poisons, maximize damage output from Twin Fang, and land her ult. Miss one of those things and her damage plummets. It sounds fun, like a sort of high risk, high reward game. The problem is, her skills all utilize different casting mechanics, so it’s pretty tough to chain them. Her Q skill casts on mouse position, her W is a ground target, her E is a single target nuke, and her ultimate is a cone. Add to all of that the fact that you need to move to get into position because her range is fairly small (with the exception of Miasma), while watching your enemies to determine when they’ll be facing you so you can get a stun instead of just a slow. When you pull it off it feels great, but with Flash and all the champions with ranged slows, dashes, knockups, and knockbacks, it’s actually extremely hard to pull off perfectly.
As I mentioned above, there’s also a very simple positioning issue. When I want to get a kill with Annie, I’ll Disintegrate -> Tibbers -> Incinerate -> Ignite -> Disintegrate, which is almost always a kill (if I’m willing to blow that full rotation). The thing is, I can cast those spells very rapidly and then get out. If I just want to harass, I can stun with a spell and cast either Disintegrate or Incinerate for a nice, solid chunk of health. With Cassiopeia, the full kill combo takes a lot of mouse movement, and the equivalent harass combo, probably something like Noxious Blast or Miasma to a couple Twin Fangs. The fact that you have to cast four or five times means you’re in range for return fire for the majority of those casts. She has no disable, so you better hope you can give better than you’ll get, or harassing won’t work very well for you.
That said, I found she’s much more fun in lane than as a solo. With a lane partner, there’s someone to produce a little threat with you, and someone to soak some of the heat if you’re about to take return fire. It also brings more damage, giving you plenty of opportunity to bring a target down.
As much as I wanted a poisoner, Cassiopeia doesn’t quite cut it. She has to expose herself too much to deal respectable damage, so she typically ends up casting a Twin Fang or two, which isn’t quite enough to prep someone for a kill. Her current skillset is tough to balance, though. Buff her damage output too much and she does big damage in burst, but continues to deal sustained damage like a late-game carry at every stage of the game. Honestly, I think she might be better if they just made her into a carry. Make her abilities deal physical damage so that she has some early game burst and can rely on her auto attacks later in the game. She has a ranged slow, a movespeed buff, and targeted nuke for early game harassment (that would scale well early because it worked off armor pen instead of magic pen).
Winter is officially here, folks. Well, officially officially it begins December 21st, but Riot’s got the Snowdown Showdown ready to go, and that’s close enough for me. This year brings a new batch of very cool skins along with the new champion, Cassiopeia, and her own skin bundles.
I’ve got Riot’s full gallery for your perusal here. Snowdown Showdown skins will include: -Santa Gragas -Reindeer Kog’Maw -Silent Night Sona -Nutcracko -Re-Gift Amumu -Ragdoll Poppy -Candy Cane Miss Fortune
I think my favorite is probably Re-Gift Amumu, though I’m really digging Reindeer Kog’Maw and Nutcracko is great (despite the fact that more people will think his name is Shacko and not Shayco). As for Cassiopeia, she’s getting a western skin and a siren skin, both of which seem appropriate.
These should all be available with the patch, though there aren’t any patch notes up yet, nor is there a server status message. We might be waiting until Wednesday.
This video is…really something. I’m still excited to see the Cassiopeia release, but why on earth was this video made? I’ve heard 16-year-olds get more creative with sexual innuendo than this. If you have 1:28 that you want throw away, by all means, press play.
