Talk:Cassiopeia/@comment-4748826-20140127215927/@comment-3116092-20140128131409

It really comes down to preference and who you're laning against. Tear (if you plan to just farm and farm), Chalice (versus AP mid), and Catalyst (vs AD mid or counter assassins) are all valid starting options. Athene's is usually better than Seraphs since she can use the MR, cdr, and mana passive.

Pure AP is ill-advised on Casseopiea as her range is a little short for her to poke safely and her Miasma is unreliable in damage champions (and is mostly used to farm minions or as a zoning tool). also its rare for you to make the most out of her AP ratios (often times you'll refresh Q way before the poison damage fully ticks and you'll likely get 2-3 ticks at most out of W, and the amount of AP you need to double E and R damage is excessive). She is better built tanky AP with HP and resists

Spell Vamp is OK on her, but its not super strong. Its effective if you expect to get poked a lot in lane, but even on twin fans (where it is strongest) the healing will hardly help you in an all-in (where a different item would have gone further). Problem with Spellvamp is that in most cases it won't help your survivabilty and it delays the rest of your items. Alex Ich recently 100% to 0% a blitzcrank while at 5% and lived (it was an impressive outplay) but only because the blitzcrank had no damage or MR. much of Cass's spells are AoE and DoTs so not only is the healing reduced, it is delayed.

Magic penetration is really, REALLY strong on her since her base damage is quite high. Abyssals, Haunting Guise/Liandry's, and Sorc shoes all give her massive damage output (voidstaff is often unneeded as your magic damage is consistent... unless they have like a mundo or galio with 120+ mr, which is uncommon).

Rylai's is great on her as she'll NEED the HP, the slow helps alot, and when combined with Liandry's burn she can melt even tanks. Liandry's will do far more damage than a deathcap due to her consistent magic damage. in fact DFG will actually fair better than deathcap (since the active works with ALL magic damage and not just the low AP total you'd have while going dcap) and is very scary on a fed Casseopiea.