Heroes of the Storm Cassia

[Vlad 411]

This thread is for comments about our Cassia guide for Heroes of the Storm.

[Anomiaz 0]

Well written, thanks for the guide!

[Skyewalker 20]

So what is generally the safest/most successful option for quick match? We all know how important it is to wreck opponents in those wacky QM games ;-P

[FriskyBear 0]

What tier is Cassia in? Will she be competitive in ranked?

[Guest Icipher]

Valkyre is far better than Ball lighting. Pretty useful to repostion enemy heroes or to catch fleeing ones. Well played it is always a sure kill.

[positiv2 947]

8 hours ago, Guest Icipher said:

Valkyre is far better than Ball lighting. Pretty useful to repostion enemy heroes or to catch fleeing ones. Well played it is always a sure kill.

The meantime between casting the spell and the spell taking effect can sometimes be too long if your opponent has quick reflexes and is able to keep their cool-headedness. In lower leagues where players aren't that good, or when you face a team full of channel abilities, Valkyrie can be quite useful, but since you also get advantage of people not splitting with Ball Lightning in the former case, and the latter case is very rare, you want to go for Ball Lightning, as it gives you much higher damage output.

[positiv2 947]

19 hours ago, FriskyBear said:

What tier is Cassia in? Will she be competitive in ranked?

I haven't seen her that much yet to be able to fit her into a tier with precision, and a lot of players still need to get used to her, but she seems to be underperforming quite a bit. I would put her into one of the lower tiers, probably tier 5 out of 6. 

[Straften 24]

22 hours ago, FriskyBear said:

What tier is Cassia in? Will she be competitive in ranked?

According to our tier list descriptions, she belongs in Niche tier. She can be very useful in (and against) the correct comps. However, she is not first pick material at this time.

On 4/8/2017 at 4:59 AM, Skyewalker said:

So what is generally the safest/most successful option for quick match? We all know how important it is to wreck opponents in those wacky QM games ;-P

It will really depend on what team compositions look like, as well as the map you get. If you are playing on a map that has two lanes and you are in the 4 player lane, Charged Strikes will get a lot of value. If your team needs poke, Lightning Fury is a good bet. If the enemy team lacks interrupts and you can get in close, the Fend Build can perform very well. If you aren't sure, I would recommend the Charged Strikes build. It is fairly useful in most situations. Be sure to try them all! This way, you can get a feel for what each of them can and cannot accomplish.

 

[Skyewalker 20]

18 hours ago, Straften said:

 

It will really depend on what team compositions look like, as well as the map you get. If you are playing on a map that has two lanes and you are in the 4 player lane, Charged Strikes will get a lot of value. If your team needs poke, Lightning Fury is a good bet. If the enemy team lacks interrupts and you can get in close, the Fend Build can perform very well. If you aren't sure, I would recommend the Charged Strikes build. It is fairly useful in most situations. Be sure to try them all! This way, you can get a feel for what each of them can and cannot accomplish.

Thanks!

[Valhalen 1,484]

What is really taking me a long time to get used to is Cassia's basic attack range. A lot of times I end up overextending a bit because I'm already used to the "default" long range.

I really like the Lightning Fury build, it feels so much like the Javazon build in D2. I think the Charged Strikes build tends to perform better overall, but Lightning Fury build is definitely useful when the enemy team doesn't have many Auto Attackers, so you keep poking around.

But as said in the guide, she is really a niche Assassin, and will underperform if there are no additional sources for blinds in the team, sadly, specially given the limited number of heroes that can blind (Li Li, Johanna are the only ones that can inflict blind by default, where the rest require specific talents, such as Artanis' Supressing Pulse and Auriel's Blinding Flash). Let's hope Blizzard adds more Heroes that can blind in the future.

She is still one of the most amusing Assassins to play, though.

[Morcalivan 86]

Cassia was my last purchase for the currently complete set. Played with her a bit more and after a guy I played with gave me some suggestions, I agree that the Fend build is the best with his slight modification of Thrunderstroke at level 1. Fend is opportunistic but also nihilistic, while Thrunderstroke offers much needed poke to create those openings. Ball lightning is definitely the better choice. Especially when you get a map location that creates a small walled in stretch where fleeing or attacking enemies simply cannot separate. Cast your ball and then stay away and poke until they're down to lower in health then wipe them all with fend. Pretty fun to play. Not sure why encouraging basic attack at such a short range is a suggestion to be honest. She has enough problems surviving just using Fend. Fend, don't Feed! :p

[SpiderZeal 0]

Charged strikes does not apply to structures anymore, so is all this guide useless, now? I see it mentioned everywhere like it's all that makes her good.

Edited June 25, 2019 by SpiderZeal

[Straften 24]

18 hours ago, SpiderZeal said:

Charged strikes does not apply to structures anymore, so is all this guide useless, now? I see it mentioned everywhere like it's all that makes her good.

Lightning Fury is the first recommended build; it does not include Charged Strikes. However, there were some obsolete mentions of Charged Strikes in her list of Strengths and in the discussion about maps. I will remove those; thank you so much for the feedback! 

More updates to come soon.

[Guest Zujola]

Build not complete. It is out of date. Please reupdate. ?

[Guest Razhag]

Just a small thing. The guide says autoattack + Lightning Fury will reset/cancel our Avoidance. That's not true.

You should autoattack first and cancel animation with Q, then move a bit and auto attack again. This gives you 2 very fast auto attacks, as you cancel the animation of both autos (the auto after Q flies out with no animation). And Avoidance will not be cancelled if this is done correctly.

[Guest Grounding Rod]

In lightning fury build Grounding Rod should be considered as a situational alternative to surge of light. You sacrifice that dmg, yes, but that slow combined with Power Strike simply wrecks certain team compositions by making it easier for your teammates. If enemy has certain heroes who rely on hitting and running away or a tank like Garrosh or a healer like Li Li it certainly is worth considering to take it.

[Guest Fend Cassia simp]

So I think it's worthwhile saying that, while it doesn't appear here, Cassia's fend build is very much viable depending on the situation. It sits in an odd spot of having the highest winrate in the most populated brackets for ranked*, but a far lower pickrate. Don't get me wrong, this guide's builds are more consistent, both in their number of games played, and with damage in game - but they lack options for making impact through plays that will decide the outcome of the game. Basic attack, and poke build Cassia damage the enemies; but Fend Cassia kills the enemies.

If you can go fend, you should go fend.

If they can't punish or knock you out of a protected fend, then there's no reason to give them the option to disengage by going a different build. There are so few heroes that can finish kills without relying on teammates to set you up; there are so few assassins who can self sustain as well as fend Cassia. She is a quintessential soloq powerhouse when she takes advantage of fend; rather than just being another one in the roster of "top dmg/3 kills/lose game" copes.

*50.6% wr for Silver, Gold, Plat over 16.2% pr; versus the 49% and 47% wr's of this guide's builds. Even more so ! - If you look at brackets individually, fend's winrate goes from almost even at plat, then higher at gold, and even higher at silver. Yeah the players are worse, but so is the reliability that allies will synergise to impair escapes long enough for Cassia to matter.
Bonus: It's also the highest wr, lowest pr in Diamond.