Talk:Cassiopeia/@comment-12304313-20140827235708/@comment-1330314-20140828145011

The point isn't that mages are the only class that scales with CDR -- they're not -- but that CDR is one of the very few ways mages can scale their damage. If you're maxed out on CDR and have your penetration item(s), unless you're the only way you can deal significantly more damage is by stacking raw AP. Saying that CDR on marksmen makes them more powerful is like saying attack speed makes mages more powerful: even though there are some champions who do make good use of that stat, that's not a true scaling point for most members of that class.

Cass doesn't need CDR on live because her kit is designed specifically so that she can permanently poison her target without any cooldown reduction. The downside to this is that messing up your combo (which can be due to buggy E checking just as much as it could be due to a misplay) will lock your damage out at very awkward moments. The free CDR on her passive means that she still doesn't need to itemize for the stat, so no change there, but also that her combo's a lot more forgiving. On top of this, her new ult will have a ~60 second cooldown at rank 3, which is a major increase in uptime.