Cassia

This is from the Diablo universe.

“

You have the Warmatron's attention. Make it count.

”

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Cassia is a Ranged Assassin Hero from the Diablo universe. She is the same Amazon the player can control in Diablo II.

After shattering the Worldstone, the young Amazon Cassia had changed. She had seen hatred, terror, and destruction firsthand. If the Askari were to survive the coming darkness, they needed an army. She would begin their training immediately.

Background

A powerful warrior, Cassia belonged to nomadic bands who roamed the plains near the South Sea. The wandering of these groups often brought them into conflict with other peoples, so Cassia was accustomed to fighting to defend her own. She was much sought after as a mercenary—Cassia was loyal to those who hired her, as long as her own ends were also served.

Gameplay Summary

Cassia is an Assassin that can be played as either a focusing on poke or high sustained damage. She is unique as her trait, Avoidance, makes her extremely resilient against basic attacks as long she is moving. In addition, she passively deals increased damage to enemies under blind effects. These combined makes Cassia a natural counter for any Hero that relies on physical damage.

Overall, Cassia can fit into many team compositions due the flexibility of her gameplay style, however, she gains added value if her allies can also blind enemies, further increasing her bonus damage uptime.

Strengths

Avoidance naturally makes her a strong counter to Heroes that rely on basic attack to deal damage.
- For instance, Tracer's rapid, weak attack barely tickles her, and Cassia is better able to wander around a sieged Sgt. Hammer than most.
Passively deals bonus damage to blinded opponents.
Flexible talent tree, allowing her to focus on either poke through abilities, or sustained damage through basic attacks.
Has access to an area of effect burst oriented talent at level 1, Charged Strikes.
Can gain a powerful tool of self-sustain through the level 4 talent Ring of the Leech.
Lightning Fury provides Cassia with a very effective poke, specially if talented into.
Blinding Light covers a decent area of effect.
Fend is a powerful finishing move, specially if opponents are affected by some kind of crowd control.
- It also provides decent waveclear if minions are blinded.
Ball Lightning can deal massive damage under the right circumstances.
Valkyrie is a powerful displacement tool if Cassia has proper setups and/or follow ups to do so.

Weaknesses

Has lower Basic Attack range compared to other ranged Heroes, making engaging somewhat more difficult.
Since Avoidance only works against basic attacks, enemies who focus on spell damage (like Jaina, Li-Ming, and Kael'thas) can send Cassia scurrying in a hurry.
Has no mobility outside of Fend, which once cast, commits Cassia to that position, which can often leave her vulnerable if poorly timed.
She finds difficult to compete against other ranged Assassins that can often outperform her in terms of damage and utility.
Both Heroic Abilities are relatively easy to avoid if the enemy team is not under crowd control.

Abilities

Traits

Heroic Abilities

Talents

Tier 1, Hero Level 1

Tier 2, Hero Level 4

Tier 3, Hero Level 7

Tier 4, Hero Level 10

Tier 5, Hero Level 13

Tier 6, Hero Level 16

Tier 7, Hero Level 20

Talent Builds

Lightning Fury Build: focused maximizing Lightning Fury's poke damage and spam capacity. The core of this build lies in the level 1 talent, Thunderstroke, which allows Cassia to use the ability more often by granting it another charge and reducing its mana cost; and Pierce at level 16, which allows Cassia to maximize the damage potential and hit multiple Heroes at once. This build is recommended when facing multiple ranged assassins focused on ability damage ("mages").
Fend Build: focused on maximizing Fend's raw damage to make it devastating with the right setup, while allowing Cassia to blind her opponents more often thanks to Seraph's Hymn, meaning more damage uptime. This build is recommended when the allied team features heavy crowd control abilities (such as stuns and roots) and when the enemy team has no reliable interrupts to prevent Cassia from channeling Fend.
Charged Strikes Build: focused on improving Cassia's Basic Attack damage through the key talent Charged Strikes, which allows her to put constant pressure on enemy groups. The synergy of the build lies in three other talents that allows Cassia to maximize her damage output: Grounding Bolt at level 13, which pairs perfectly with Martial Law at level 16, and lastly Titan's Revenge. This not only makes Cassia a very strong Basic Attacker, but also makes her a threat to Warriors and other high health Heroes. This build is recommended against a strong frontline featuring multiple Melee Heroes.

Tips

Mastering "stutter-stepping" is key when playing Cassia, to both maximize her damage output while keep her under the effects of Avoidance.
Ring of the Leech is an essential talent for Cassia's survival, as it adds a very much needed self-sustain tool, easily outclassing the other talents in this tier.
Use Lightning Fury to poke enemies from a safe range, while hitting with basic attacks.
Try to hit as many opponents possible with Blinding Light to maximize the damage output (and also healing if Ring of the Leech is taken).
Try to use Fend as a finishing move to execute targets; save it when they're under crowd control effects such as stuns and roots to ensure all the hits will land.
Use Ball Lightning when opponents are clustered, or to win 1v1 situations.
Use Valkyrie is to interrupt opponents' channeled cooldowns, or to pull low mobility Heroes who are out of position.

Matchups

Pairings

While Cassia pairs well with most Heroes due the flexibility of her talent tree and gameplay style, she shines when paired with Heroes that can provide additional sources of blind, as well strong crowd control to allow her to hit the opponents more effectively.

You know you’re in trouble when both the leader of the Protoss Daelaam and an Amazon team-up together. Pairing Cassia up with a front-line bruiser such as Artanis is rarely a bad idea. Not only can Artanis soak the spell damage that Cassia wants to avoid, but he also helps keep the enemy distracted long enough for her to whittle them down with lightning. If that wasn’t enough, Suppression Pulse is guaranteed to embolden Cassia’s damage against an entire team. If you are having a hard time seeing the similarities of her favorite teammates, you must be blind!

Auriel greatly benefits from Cassia's solid sustained damage and poke, giving her much needed energy to fuel her heals. In addition, Auriel's Blinding Flash adds another source of blind for Cassia to take advantage of.

Cassia deals additional damage versus Heroes that are blinded. She has her own way to do so with Blinding Light but has no objections to working alongside allies that can also help her out! Johanna brings a pretty healthy Warrior kit that also excels against auto-attacking enemies while sporting her own blind – Shield Glare. If the enemy is smugly sporting a hefty axe-slinger (looking at you Zul'jin), bringing this pair against him will dull his axes real quick!

Most of the time, Cassia will be fairly resistant during skirmishes, due to her Trait – Avoidance. This means that she can handle herself for a bit but her health will be chipped away over time. What better way to shore up any bumps and nicks she gets along the way than a happy-to-heal Panda! Healing isn’t the only thing Li Li brings that can help Cassia out though – Blinding Wind also blinds their foes, making her a wonderful traveling companion who is more than willing to help Cassia explore the enemies weaknesses! Who’s ready for adventure?

Cassia is notoriously vulnerable to spells, while very strong against Basic Attacking Heroes like Raynor or Valla. Stukov can account for these weaknesses with the silence from his Lurking Arm. Cassia is also a solid mid-range hero that mostly stays near her team, which helps Stukov spread his Healing Pathogen.

Effective against

Cassia's entire kit is built around combating Basic Attackers, as she can heavily mitigate damage thanks to her trait, and blind opponents.

While Raynor can be built around Penetrating Shot, the majority of his damage comes from Basic Attacks, forcing him to play more defensively against Cassia, who can mitigate it.

While The Butcher has the ability to build up his Basic Attack power pretty much without limit, he is still greatly hindered by Cassia, who can just kite him. While he can pin her down with Ruthless Onslaught +Lamb to the Slaughter, Cassia can still shrug off damage considerably.

Tracer's Basic Attacks are amongst the lowest in the game, which is compensated by her incredibly high attack speed. Because of that, Cassia can shrug her damage almost completely under the effects of Avoidance. Therefore, Tracer's only means of dealing solid damage to Cassia is through Pulse Bomb.

Effective foes

Cassia is greatly hindered against teams that feature heavy spell damage, since she has no forms of escape or ways to reduce that kind of damage. Raned burst oriented "mages" can easily worn her out, specially since her basic attack range is lower than other ranged Heroes.

The Lich King could honestly care less about pitiful lightning damage thrown around by a self-proclaimed demi-god. One misstep by Cassia will quickly put her in range of death’s cold embrace. A single well-placed Howling Blast will turn off her Trait, and allow him to close the gap. Once Arthas has her in range of Frozen Tempest, Cassia’s lack of mobility will slowly cause her to succumb to the same fate that has befallen countless poor souls before her.

Cassia becomes a lightning rod for long-range spell-slingers such as Li-Ming. Her Avoidance grants her amazing survivability against basic attacks, but spell casters could honestly care less. Since Cassia relies on closing gaps, hitting skill-shots, and pouncing on immobile or retreating Heroes, Li-Ming has all the tools to out-play and out-damage the lightning goddess.

Getting rooted is often a death-sentence for Cassia since Avoidance is only active while she is moving. Not only is Malfurion a master of rooting over-zealous Heroes, he also brings enough healing-over-time to help patch up any of the consistent damage Cassia wants to throw at his team. While Malfurion is rarely a direct threat to Cassia, any follow up from his team while she is rooted will quickly end in a one-way trip back to the fountain.

Skins

Amazon Warmatron (base)


Amazon Warmatron	Wild Cassia	Wondrous Cassia

Pirate Queen 100: From their secret hideout in Kraken's Cove, Cassia’s fleet of ships unfurl their black sails on a mission to loot and plunder. Mistharbour will soon bow to a new pirate queen.; _{This skin is related to the Mistharbour themed-skins.}


Pirate Queen	Bloodsail	Seafury	Velvet 150

Whirlpool

150

Warmatron 100: After her victory against the Prime Evils, Cassia ascended through the ranks of the Askari to become their most legendary commander. The Warmatron’s battle armor is a gift from Queen Xaera herself.


Warmatron	Deadwalker	Caldeum	Aranoch 150

Askari

150

Lunar 150: Though Cassia was skeptical of the Nexus's Lunar Festival at first, the act of honoring ancient gods and elders rings true to her Askari roots. She now gladly takes part in the festivities.


Lunar	Azure	Honored	Jade	Midnight

Trivia

Accordingly to her in-game lore and interactions with the other Heroes, Cassia has been transported into the Nexus after the events of Diablo II.
The "Wondrous" variation of her base skin is a reference to Wonder Woman.
Many of Cassia's abilities and talents make references to the Amazon's abilities and talents in Diablo II.
Many of Cassia's talents make references to items obtained in Diablo II.
- The level 1 talent Thunderstroke is the name of an unique Javelin .
- The level 1 talent Seraph's Hymn is the name of an unique amulet (however, it is aimed at Paladins).
- The level 4 talent Ring of the Leech references the sufix "Leech", that can be found in random magical items, which causes attacks to steal life per hit.
- The level 4 talent Plate of the Whale references the sufix "Whale", that can be found in random magical items, and increases the user's maximum life.
- The level 7 talent War Traveler is the name of an unique pair of boots.
- The level 13 talent Thundergod's Vigor is the name an unique belt. This item also returns in Diablo III.
- The level 20 talent Titan's Revenge is the name of another unique Javelin.

Patch changes

(Patch February 6, 2018) Note: Lunar skins added.
(Patch October 17, 2017) Note: Whirlpool Pirate Queen and Velvet Pirate Queen added.
(Patch September 26, 2017) Note: Aranoch Warmatron Cassia, Askari Warmatron Cassia skins added.
(Patch September 20, 2017) Note: Basic Attack damage increased from 125 to 130.
(Patch April 12, 2017) Note: Pirate Queen Cassia’s eyes have been uncrossed.
(Patch April 4, 2017) Note: Added.