Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight featuring Cassiopeia, the Serpent’s Embrace.
Cassiopeia is a very active mage champion, relying on positioning, leading her targets, and quick hands to reach her full potency.
Cassiopeia’s passive is Deadly Cadence. After casting a spell, future spells cast in the next five seconds will be 10% cheaper. This effect stacks up to 5 times for 50% off.
Her first ability is Noxious Blast. Similar to Karthus’s Lay Waste, she poisons targets near your cursor after a brief delay.
If she hits a champion, she gains bonus movement speed for a short time.
The hardest lesson to learn about Noxious Blast is that it has a three-second cooldown, which is more difficult than you might think to remember if you’re used to playing Karthus.
Second is Miasma. A growing cloud of poison appears at a target location which damages and slows enemies that walk over it.
Third is Twin Fang. She sends out a simple single target nuke whose cooldown almost immediately refreshes if she hits a poisoned target.
Cassiopeia’s ultimate is Petrifying Gaze. She damages enemies in a cone in front of her.
If they’re facing her, they are turned into stone and stunned; otherwise, they are slowed.
I tried to play Cassiopeia as a jungler. You can see that even at level 1 she has the power to die horribly against most jungle monsters.
Instead, Cassiopeia can take either a solo or duo lane. Repeatedly casting Noxious Blast will keep your passive stacked up.
With my rune and mastery build, you can spam it almost indefinitely and kill the enemy caster minions in just 3 casts, as well as giving you the potential to harass your opponents.
These runes I speak of are magic penetration marks, mana regeneration per level seals, ability power per level glyphs and flat ability power quintessences.
I complement this set-up with 9/0/21 masteries, taking magic penetration in offense and default caster masteries in utility.
I open up with a Doran’s Ring and a Health Potion, graduating to Sorcerer’s Shoes, Rylai’s Crystal Scepter as soon as possible, and any general ability power items from there.
I prefer Zhonya’s Ring, Void Staff, Archangel’s Staff, and Deathfire Grasp, but you might decide you need more durability through Guardian Angel, Abyssal Scepter, or Banshee’s Veil.
Take Ignite and Flash. Start with Noxious Blast, but keep it at level one. Max Twin Fang as soon as possible, as it’s your main source of damage output.
Max out Miasma immediately afterwards, taking your ultimate whenever available.
While soloing, always wait to cast Twin Fang until you have poisoned the enemy target. Missing even one will pretty much end your ability to combo against your foe.
One cool thing about Cassiopeia is that only one her abilities even requires a target. Here I blindly scout for Twitch with Noxious Blast.
You can see here that I hit him as I’ve gained Noxious Blast’s movement speed buff.
However, if you can’t guess where your opponent is properly, you might just get taken out before you can react.
Twitch took his time getting around the likely spam spots so that he could hit me without taking damage before-hand.
If you’d rather work with a teammate, note that poisons from champions like Teemo and Singed also work with Twin Fang.
Here I’m able to grab an easy kill on Reindeer Kog’Maw with just Twin Fang, finished off by Teemo’s Toxic Shot as he Flashes away.
When fighting against Cassiopeia, note that she is extremely reliant on her full combo, as well as her ultimate in scary situations.
If you can dodge Noxious Blast or get out of range for Petrifying Gaze, you have a great chance of winning the fight.
And now, a special announcement from Silent Night Sona and Reindeer Kog’Maw.
Unfortunately Silent Night Sona wasn’t complete at this time, but you get the idea.
Putting it all together, dodging Noxious Blast and Miasma will give you a huge window of opportunity when fighting against Cassiopeia.
Sometimes you might have to use Petrifying Gaze to help set up your combo. When that’s the case, your opponents should try to have their back turned so they won’t be stunned.
Once you do land a poison, I strongly recommend you smart cast Twin Fang, which defaults to Shift-E on American keyboards.
Obviously Sona is not much of a duelist, but these key ideas still hold.
Thanks for tuning into the Cassiopeia Champion Spotlight. Do you want to get out there and summon her right away? “Of course!”