Cassiopeia’s passive is “Snake Grace” and ensures that her running speed increases with each level. However, Cassiopeia cannot buy shoes in exchange for this bonus. However, this in turn allows you to use the 6th item slot you have freed up for an additional legendary item, which means you can outscale many opponents. In addition, you don’t have to spend gold on shoes and will receive your item power spikes earlier in the midgame.

You start at level 1 with Cassiopeia’s E, the “Double Tooth”. Cassiopeia attacks the selected target, deals increased damage to poisoned targets and heals itself for a portion of the damage dealt. If the target dies as a result of the E, Cassiopeia regains 50 mana. This makes the E very useful for load-hitting minions, allowing you to farm more easily than with your autoattacks. This ability also has an extremely low cooldown of 0.75 seconds, so you can spam it if you have enough mana. This also results in Cassiopeia’s high constant damage and, thanks to the E, she can heal herself quite well in fights. As the main source of damage, E is maximized first.

At level 2, you take Cassiopeia’s Q, the “Poison Explosion”. After a short delay, Cassiopeia soaks the selected area with poison and gains 3 seconds of extra movement speed when she hits an enemy champion. All targets hit take magic damage for 3 seconds and are considered poisoned, causing your E to deal increased damage. The cooldown of Q is also quite low at 3.5 seconds, so you can use this ability often and therefore maximize it for the extra damage. From level 2, you can also trade very effectively with your opponent if you use Q->E->E->E. However, you don’t have much mana at the start of the game to keep this up for long, so you should keep a close eye on your mana in lane.

Cassiopeia’s W, the “Miasma”, completes her basic abilities at level 3. Cassiopeia releases several clouds of poison in the selected area, which slow and inhibit enemies running through and deal magic damage to them. Inhibited enemies cannot use any movement abilities as long as they are within the miasma. You can therefore use this ability very well as a follow-up to your team members’ CC to secure catches. It’s also great for zone control, blocking paths or stopping enemy engages. Since your other abilities offer too much valuable damage, the W is maximized last.

You level her ultimate ability, Petrifying Gaze, at levels 6, 11 and 16, which causes Cassiopeia to emit a vortex of magical energy from her eyes that deals magic damage to enemies hit and stuns them for 2 seconds if they look in Cassiopeia’s direction or otherwise slows them by 40%. Just like the W, this ult can be used as a follow-up to a strong Engage from your team or as a Disengage or Re-Engage when enemies jump on you. A well-hit Cassiopeia Ult can completely turn the course of a teamfight on its head.

Combos: Cassiopeia’s standard combo is Q->AA->E->E->AA->E and you want to use this as often as possible in longer fights. You use your W and Ult to prevent opponents from escaping and to defend yourself against attackers.