Updated for Season 3! New Annie Skins look amazing! + Show Spoiler +
Annie is still a badass. Still one of the most fun APs in the game imoimo.
Season 3 update: Disclaimer, I'm not an incredible League player. But Annie is by now my most played champion and I've played this game casually since 2010. Which makes it kind of funny that I play the most stereotypically casual AP champion in the game. Some parts of this guide may or may not be relevant to 2k elo players but I think most of this stuff is helpful to people who play at most other skill levels. I'd played Annie mid, as an AD carry, as a support, as a top lane tanky bruiser, and even as a jungler. This guide will focus purely on AP mid Annie as that's the ideal non-troll way to play her. I realize that no one plays this champion anymore and that few people will read this guide unless she gets fotm again (or maybe when people are interested in her after the visual re-work!). But still, I love this champion so I had fun updating this guide a bit.
Visual upgrade note: Stun particle swirl is super noticeable and Frostfire Annie no longer has the OP black swirl but has the same really easy to spot white swirl that all the other skins have. Panda Annie looks kind of cool though!
Annie is one of my favorite champions in League of Legends. She's a great AP carry to learn as she's always been incredibly strong and she fits with a lot of different team comps. On top of all that, she's relatively easy to pick up which makes her great if you don't normally play APs or if you just want to add another AP champion to your repertoire. I've played more Annie than any other champion in LoL and I feel like I know her pretty well so hopefully this guide will be helpful to you! I'd also appreciate any criticism or suggestions for additions to this guide and I'm more than willing to answer any questions or respond to some theory craft related to Annie.
The absolute best part of Annie is that while she is definitely easy to pick up she has a lot more depth than the average player gives her credit for.
Disintegrate: Mana cost reduced to 60/65/70/75/80 from 60/70/80/90/100. Incinerate: Targeting cone is now attached to Annie. Molten Shield: Cooldown reduced to 10 seconds from 16. Duration reduced to 5 seconds from 8.
V1.0.0.141:
Summon Tibbers: Reactivating the ability while Tibbers is active now allows you to control your pet, similar to Alt+Right Clicking. You will also see a self-only targeting particle when using this ability, depicting what command your pet is following.
V1.0.0.139:
Base health increased to 460 from 424. Incinerate mana cost reduced to 70/80/90/100/110 from 80/95/110/125/140. Molten Shield: Fixed a bug where it was returning damage to turrets. Duration reduced to 8 seconds from 15. Cooldown reduced to 16 seconds from 30. Mana cost reduced to 20 from 25. Armor and magic resist bonus increased to 20/30/40/50/60 from 10/20/30/40/50.
V1.0.0.138:
Pyromania now works like other charged passives; activating a spell with the stun no longer builds a charge, but the number of charges required to energize reduced to 4 from 5.
V1.0.0.122:
Disintegrate Damage reduced to 85/125/165/205/245 from 90/130/170/210/250 Ability power ratio reduced to .7 from .75
Incinerate Damage reduced to 80/130/180/230/280 from 85/135/185/235/285 Ability power ratio reduced to .75 from .8
V1.0.0.120:
Fixed a bug where Molten Shield damage wouldn't trigger if the damage done to Annie was absorbed by other shields.
v1.0.0.118b
Restored old animation (skip hop run) to Annie. Disintegrate Base damage changed to 90/130/170/210/250 from 80/125/170/215/260. Ability power ratio increased to 0.75 from 0.6. Mana cost reduced to 60/70/80/90/100 from 60/75/90/105/120. Incinerate: Ability power ratio increased to 0.8 from 0.6. Damage reduced to 85/135/185/235/285 from 85/145/205/265/325. Mana cost reduced to 80/95/110/125/140 from 80/100/120/140/160. Summon Tibbers: Mana cost reduced to 125/175/225 from 150/200/250. No longer gives experience on death. Gold bounty increased to 50 from 15. Tibber's health increased to 1200/1600/2000 from 1200 at all ranks. Now gains armor per rank: 30/50/70. Now gains magic resist per rank: 25/45/65. Lowered the duration to 45 seconds from 60 seconds. Area-of-effect burn damage is now 35 at all ranks from 40/60/80, but now has a 0.2 ability power ratio.
V1.0.0.112:
Classic Skin Splash Art updated.
V1.0.0.100:
Corrected the buff tooltip on Molten Shield so it correctly states that all attackers receive magic damage.
V1.0.0.99:
Molten Shield now reflects damage to all normal attacks instead of just melee attacks.
V1.0.0.86:
Fixed a bug where using Molten Shield after respawning would not trigger the Pyromania counter.
V1.0.0.79:
Increased the missile speed for Disintegrate.
V1.0.0.75:
Fixed a bug that allowed her to double stun.
V1.0.0.63:
Basic attack projectile speed increased to 1200 from 780.
V0.9.25.34:
Summon Tibbers: If Tibbers kills a sigil monster, Annie will now receive the sigil. Disintegrate spell projectile changed back to previous look.
V0.9.25.24:
Incinerate ability power ratio reduced from 0.5 to 0.6. Summon Tibbers ability power ratio increased from 0.6 to 0.7.
V0.9.25.21:
Summon Tibbers: Improved AI to function better.
V0.9.22.16:
Infernal Guardian renamed to Summon Tibbers.
V0.9.22.15:
Summon Tibbers: Reduced Area of Effect on Tibbers Burning aura from 400 to 350. Disintegrate Damage increased from 80/125/170/215/260 to 90/130/170/215/260.
V0.9.22.7:
Infernal Guardian Cast Range reduced from 650 to 600.
V0.8.22.115:
The Infernal Guardian, Tibbers, now dies after 60 seconds or when Annie dies.
July 10, 2009 Patch:
Reduced attack speed to be in line with other casters. Infernal Guardian: Reduced Damage from 250/375/500 to 200/325/450.
June 26, 2009 Patch:
Attack Speed reduced to be in line with other casters. Pyromania stun duration modified to 1.75 from 1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5.
V6/19/2009:
Infernal Guardian: Reduced cast range from 800 to 700.
Passive: Pyromania - After every 4 spell casts, Annie's next offensive spell will stun its target for 1.75 seconds.
This is what makes Annie a such a good champion. If you can get good at managing her passive you're on your way to mastering Annie. This passive also creates some interesting mind games you can play in lane and is what makes Annie viable late game as her stun can be used to both gank and also swing teamfights into your teams favor.
Disintegrate - Annie shoots a mana infused fireball, dealing magic damage. Disintegrate's mana cost is refunded if it kills the target
This is primarily used for harass in lane and for farming. If you use it for farming make sure that Disintegrate will kill the creep you target as the refund of mana upon kills is why Annie should never have a mana problem in lane. This ability is a single target nuke on a short cooldown. You want to max Q over W in lanes that are going to be harder as Q is your primary harass tool and will also make last hitting easier. Otherwise, if you expect an easy lane max W for more burst damage and thus more killing potential.
You'll usually max Q 95% of the time but max W can work sometimes too. W is more damage but Q has half the cool down and is helpful for last hitting and harassing.
Incinerate - Annie casts a cone of fire, dealing magic damage to all enemy targets in the area.
Get this at level 1 and charge up stun as soon as the game loads in. Annie is one of very few champions that can have a level 1 AoE stun and it grants you so much strength during level 1 fights or invades. It's basically an AoE cone that does more damage than Disintegrate and can be an AoE stun for when Tibbers is down. The cooldown is a bit longer so make sure you don't miss it! This spell is instant and the stun and damage applies before Annie even finishes the cast animation so you can pull off some really clutch plays with her W.
Molten Shield - Places a shield around Annie for 5 seconds that increases her armor and magic resistance, and also deals magic damage to enemies every time they use basic attacks on Annie.
This skill is okay. It can save your life sometimes and is helpful for getting your stun up quicker. In some match ups I don't get this until level 8,With Annie you want as much damage output as soon as you can get it so maxing Q and W first is more helpful.
Sometimes I'll get E at level 4 just because of how much more aggressive this game has gotten and how many champions can easily harass Annie. It also helps to build your stun so getting this sooner = more stuns. There are still a lot of match ups where you can delay this until level 7-8. Also if you plan on roaming a lot early you're gonna want to delay this until level 8 or so.
Summon Tibbers - Annie releases her bear Tibbers from his toy prison, dealing damage to enemy units in the summon area. For a limited time of 45 seconds, Tibbers can attack, while continually dealing magic damage to surrounding enemies.
Proper use of Tibbers is what will either make you dead weight or a huge asset to your team as Annie. Obviously you should put levels in this as soon as you hit 6/11/16. Tibbers essentially has a sunfire cape on at all times so you want to keep him close to your enemies while he's up. You can move Tibbers by Alt+clicking and you want to make sure you have him auto-attacking an enemy that you want to kill as soon as you drop him. Unless you're in laning or ganking just one person you want to try and get Tibbers to hit multiple enemies and you should also try to time it with your passive stun.
Damage 48 (+2.625 / per level) Health 348 (+76 / per level) Mana 250 (+50 / per level) Move Speed 310 Armor 8.5 (+4 / per level) Spell Block 30 (+0 / per level) Health Regen 0.9 (+0.11 / per level) Mana Regen 1.38 (+0.12 / per level)
Flash: Get this always as Annie. It's just way too good on her. Flashing in and then using Tibbers stun is just way too strong. Flash also has the added utility of letting you survive ganks, leap walls, and get better positioning in teamfights. With Annie this skill isn't just an instant "save me" spell but it also serves as letting Annie initiate fights by herself.
Ignite: This is usually the other summoner spell that I pick up on Annie. It just adds to her level 6 burst combo and is also really good for countering champs with healing and picking off low HP targets that would normally have gotten away. Typically this is the other summoner you want as Annie.
Ghost: Not viable on Annie. Flash -> stun is your initiation and it's absolutely crucial to have Flash. There is no debating Flash on Annie. Replacing Ignite with Ghost reduces your damage and kill potential especially in mid game and the mobility increase is not worth it imo.
Teleport: This spell is legit on Annie. It's best to run it in organized play. But even in solo queue using TP to get behind an enemy team's bot lane or their top laner can net you easy kills. You can also use it in conjunction with jungle ganks or counter-ganks to turn losing battles into winning battles for your team. It reduces your kill potential in lane however so it can be a bit risky but other than Ignite it's the best secondary summoner spell on Annie.
I don't run any other summoner's on Annie ever. You could maybe justify Exhaust but I would much rather get Ignite over it as it's incredibly rare that Exhaust would get me a kill that Ignite/Flash doesn't. Unless the other team is just running a comp where Exhaust would be good to have, don't get it.
I'm open to suggestions on Runes but what I've found to work pretty well,
9 Magic Penetration Marks 9 HP per level Seals or 9 Flat Armor Seals 9 AP per level Glyphs or 9 Flat MR Glyphs 3 Flat AP Quintessences or 3 Movespeed Quintessences
You shouldn't need mana regen as Annie because her Q makes mana mostly a non-issue in lane. The only time you're actually using mana is if you're harassing or if you're going to push the lane just before you back.
You can run MR Glyphs if you don't own AP/level Glyphs or if the lane is really tough. Against strong magic damage divers like Diana you probably need MR Glyphs but if you're against say Kha'Zix or Zed you can get away with AP/level.
Armor seals are also really viable. Even against magic damage dealers in lane because you'll still take physical damage from jungle ganks and enemy mid laner auto-attacks. Against AD mids having armor Seals is basically required.
MS Quints are solid on Annie because you have low spell range and roaming around the map is really viable on Annie.
May 27, 2013 update:
I really like Hybrid runes. Used to run AD or Armpen reds on Annie sometimes because 625 attack range is OP. But with hybrid pen you only lose out on approximately 2 MPEN and make up for it with 8 Armpen. If you're going to auto attack a lot in lane (and you should) hybrid pen is really strong.
Offensive tree is fairly standard. You want the CDR on summoner's in the utility tree because you're really reliant on Flash. You want the movespeed because you have low range and no escapes. Buff duration because longer blue buffs means a stronger lane phase.
Starting items: Generic is Flask + health pots. Boots + 3pot actually still works on Annie since your spell range is low but you only want to do this in a lane you know that you won't get heavily harassed in. You can't really open Faerie charm because you're not going to build Tear or Chalice on Annie since you have no really huge mana issues. If you want to build Morello's you can open Faerie Charm though.
Doran's Rings are incredibly good on Annie. Most games you'll get 1-2 on your first back unless you just have a huge surplus of gold from a first blood or something.
Boots are almost always gonna be Sorc shoes. Homeguard is good but if you run TP/Flash you want to buy Distortion boots (even without TP distortion boots are solid due to Annie's reliance on Flash). Mobility boots are really strong for roaming if you plan on roaming a ton.
Viable Items: In a lot of games you will probably rush this item. It's just the best item in the game for burst casters. Once you have NLR and I believe 3 points in W you can usually insta-clear the caster minions. If you manage to first back with 1600 gold buying NLR can be incredibly strong. The only time you wouldn't rush this is if you're going against an AD lane or if you're rushing Abyssal because you're against a high magic dealing champion (especially an assassin such as Diana or maybe even Akali). There are some people who prefer DFG rush over Dcap but that's really all down to play style preference.
This item is vital. It's required in every game as Annie. Buying Zhonya's isn't a question of "If" it's a question of "When." Against an AD lane like Zed, Talon, or Kha'Zix you will probably first buy this after building armguard. Even if the enemy team is kind of light on physical damage this item is essential because it sets up so many plays. You can pull of some really risky Flash->Tibber stuns followed by a quick Zhonya's so that you won't insta-die after you blow your load. Because Annie has rather high cooldowns on everything but Q getting a Zhonya's usually results in a lot more team fight damage since it'll shave 2 seconds off QWE cooldowns.
DFG is fine on Annie. It used to be a shitty noob trap because you didn't need the mana regen and it really hurt to not use it at the start of your combo. Now it offers no mana regen, gives CDR which you love, and gives a ton of AP. The active also deals %-max HP instead of %-current HP so it doesn't hurt quite as badly to use this after your stun (although you end up missing out on the damage multiplier). Not something you're going to rush unless you want to do an Abyssal+DFG rush build (which is honestly still viable on Annie).
The nice thing about DFG is that Annie loves CDR since lower CDs means more Tibbers which means more ganks. Fast DFG or DFG rushing can work really well in match ups where you don't need to build tanky. The thing that sucks is that while you really like CDR most of the really good CDR items come with mana or mana regen which are two stats you don't really want on Annie.
Very very strong. Ideal for roaming and ideal for added early game damage. Getting this right after Deathcap is probably the most damage per gold you can achieve during early team fights but it leaves you very squishy. There are some games where you can get this as a second or third item and other games where you might want to want until your fourth or fifth item to pick this up. Regardless if the game goes long enough you're going to pick up Void Staff as the 40% spell pen is simply irreplaceable.
If the enemy team is low on MR and you don't like DFG then this item is good to go with your Zhonya's and Abyssal. Semi-tanky Annie is pretty much the most ideal way to play her imo since your late game damage suffers a lot more than other AP mids. Rylai's adds lots of CC (Tibber's AoE applies it so as long as he's alive you have a permaslow walking around the map), a significant chunk of health, and decent AP. There are much better items to get on Annie first but this one isn't that bad for super late game. Usually this will be your fifth item if you don't feel you need BV or Warmogs.
Really strong item on Annie still because Abyssal has 650 range and all of your spells are 625 range. Which means that all of your spells take full advantage of the MR shred that Abyssal applies. The MR you get from Abyssal is also really helpful and makes this item incredibly strong when laning against champions like Diana who can kill you easily if you mis-position. Other items probably take precedence but if you want to play tanky Annie this item is ideal.
Been playing around with this a bit more. Against an AD lane I still like rushing armguard into Zhonya's and against most magic damage dealers I like rushing Abyssal. But you can build this still. Typically going 1-2 Drings into RoA can be incredibly powerful if you get ahead with an early kill or something. And RoA is really nice on Annie since you typically want to build tankier than most other mages to begin with.
Personally I think that Lich is hilarious on Annie. I mean, part of it is kind of trolly but at the same time you have 625 range so sometimes blowing your shield and then autoing an enemy can be decent poke during mid and late game stand offs. It's probably something to round out your build in the late game if you don't know what else to buy for your sixth item. You usually can't abuse the passive since you're a burster that casts all four spells at once so at most you'll only get two Lich Bane autos off a team fight. Still this item can be hilarious if you build it early. But probably not very ideal.
If you wanna take tank Annie to the next level these two items can be kind of fun. GA can work well too but I typically prefer Warmogs or BV since you already have Zhonya's. Usually you're not gonna build this stuff but there are games where getting straight defensive items can be ideal.
& Meh. Haunting Guise early is good because Annie likes all of the stats it gives. Health, AP, MPEN. Liandry's not as good unless the enemy team is health stacking since you don't re-apply it all that well and you can't really abuse the double stack that much. A lot of times if you buy Guise it's to give yourself a quick power spike before a gank or before trying to force a 1v1 with your lane opponent. Then you'll just sit on Guise for the rest of the game and probably sell it for something else rather than building Liandry's. You could go Guise->Rylai's->Liandry's though if you're hellbent on building Rylai's on Annie. But it's usually gonna be better to just get Dcap and Abyssal+Zhonya's.
Items to never buy on Annie: Will of the Ancients - You don't need spellvamp you're fucking Annie. You have a million CD on every spell that isn't Q. Athenes - The CDR is fucking awesome! The mana regen from Chalice is wasted on Annie though. Morellonomicon - Viable because of its cheap cost and the really beneficial stats it gives (75 AP+20% CDR for 2200 gold is really good). But you don't need the MP5 and frankly there are other items which are more vital on Annie. Archangel's Staff - While Seraph's active is pimp as hell on Annie you take about eight years to charge tear. And you don't need the mana or mana regen.
This is an alternative way to play Annie. Link to the guide on SoloMid can be found here. I've tried this a few times and it works out really really well in solo queue especially against a mid laner who doesn't roam that well (or if your opponent has shit map awareness and just doesn't roam at all).
You run Hybrid Pen marks, Armor seals, MR glyphs, movespeed quintessences. You go 9/0/21 masteries. + Show Spoiler +
Skill order is WQQWQRQEQ after level 9 R>W>E. You want to dish out as much damage as possible so you don't level E until 7-8 (this works on regular Annie too but is especially important in this build). Start boots and 3x health pot + 2x mana pot. First buy you pick up mobility boots and alacrity upgrade to give yourself crazy move speed for roaming the map (this takes advantage of Annies high base damage). Then prioritize damage getting Dcap/Void as fast as possible (follow up with DFG+Zhonya's). You don't ever have to go for kills on enemy mid although if your jungler ganks or they present themselves obviously take them. You want to keep an eye on top and bot lane and roam to gank as often as possible. Even if you don't have ult up WQ with a stun is usually enough to get a kill or blow summoners to give your laners a huge advantage.
During mid game you basically roam as much as possible. You don't give a shit about farming mid and you don't give a shit about the mid outer turret. You just roam around the map and kill things like the demented satanic little girl that you are.
Full credit goes to "Moonlight Drive" for this build linked at the start of this section.
Playing Annie:
Update for Season 3, I don't wanna change this section. I wrote this guide just before Season 2's start. I'll just add to this that against AD mids, since they're still semi-popular, it can be tricky to lane as Annie. Just trade with them if they force you to and try to harass with your OP auto-attack range. Some of what I've written in this next section might be wrong or outdated. Feel free to point it out and I'll change it or else tell you how stupid you are.
Annie is a very strong laner and you should abuse that. I like to play Annie aggressive and abuse whoever I'm laning against at early levels as that helps set the tone for the rest of the laning phase. Try to take solo mid as it's better for her than solo top. There's less places for your opponent to hide and it's more narrow and small which is helpful to an AoE burst caster like Annie. Just focus on last hitting for the first level or two, making sure to use your Q for a last hit whenever it's off cooldown. Last hitting as Annie is very easy as her auto attack range is longer than most champs which means you can auto relatively safely. You also have your Q spell which refunds mana if you kill a creep with it so make sure to spam it to help your last hitting, especially under tower.
As soon as you have your first stun up I like to hit the person I'm laning against with a Q and then W them. Better players will be keeping track of you Pyromania however and will be prepared for your stun, but in general if you can Q+W combo someone in lane while stun is up it can help cement a lane advantage.
While in laning phase you should also use your stun to zone people out. Most champs will back up when they see that your stun is ready and sometimes people will back up quite a bit essentially letting you zone them anytime your stun is ready. Be careful though as there are champs that can easily trade blows with you and won't be intimidated much by your stun pre-6. If you find yourself getting harassed really hard max Q over W and use your Q to harass back.
Once you hit 6 you can kill most champs with your combo. Maybe harass them some with Q first to get a guaranteed kill when you drop your full combo. Hopefully you haven't died yet, had to blow flash, and have a few Doran's Rings. If your opponent gets too close to you while your stun is up (or nearly up) you can just Flash and combo them. Assuming your stun is up a standard combo is usually RWQ plus Ignite and auto attacks from both you and Tibbers. You can chase a bit to wait for Q to come back up off cooldown as well (although a lot of times you don't need a second Q if you harassed well in lane, you may not even need Ignite).
Some of the mind games you can play as Annie in lane are just great. A lot of these won't work against people who are good/paying attention but if you happen to be against someone who's just not really "on their game" you can abuse it. Make sure to keep track of your stun, once you have level 6 and four charges on Pyromania you can usually bait your opponent to get yourself an easy kill. Hit them with a Q, which will bring up your stun. After you Q them pop Tibbers (which will stun) plus your W and maybe ignite. Your Q should be off cooldown before they can get away. The great thing about doing a combo like this instead of just having your stun up and opening with Tibbers is you don't have to burn Flash to get in range so even if your opponent Flashes out you can just Flash and get a second Q off. Remember that while playing as Annie or against an Annie to try and always keep track of where her stun is at. You can view her Pyromania stacks by clicking on her, example: + Show Spoiler +
Once you have ult you can gank lanes like a boss. Make sure that if you go to gank though that it's not going to allow your opponent to free farm mid for too long (or preferably at all). If you have Tibbers/stun up you can get kills pretty easy if your opponents are too pushed out at top/bot but even if your ult is down your QW with stun is usually enough to gain either you or your allies a kill. I find that I usually need to gank the side lanes when I solo queue. It's also totally worth it to Flash + stun when you gank lanes as helping your allies win top/bot will help your team win the game.
Midgame and lategame fights are pretty straightforward as Annie. Mostly just watch your position, don't let the other team pick you off because you're standing out in front of your entire team. You should try to have either RoA or Deathcap (depending on build) by midgame fights which means you hurt a lot. You want to hold on to your stun and use either Tibbers or your W to catch multiple enemies in it. Annie's AoE stun is what makes her a viable champion pick for teamfights. If you can't consistently get more than one enemy in your stuns in fights you're hurting your teams chances to win.
Finally, Zhonya's Hourglass can work really well on Annie and I like to get it if I don't feel I need Banshee's Veil that much. With Hourglass you become god-tier initiation. Flash in to surprise the other team, use Tibbers stun to stun multiple enemies then WQ and pop Hourglass. Your team should be able to clean up the rest.
Tough Matchups: Section mostly for talking about what lanes I have trouble with as Annie. If you have other suggestions for tough matchups post them along with advice and I'll add it here. Just because a matchup isn't favorable or is "tough" doesn't mean it's unwinnable. + Show Spoiler +
Brand & Cassiopeia
I hate both of these match ups as Annie. I'm grouping them together because I handle both of these the same. These two champs are very aggressive laners and they both have AoE spells that out range Annie's spells. This makes laning against them a bit of a hassle. I max Q over W for more harass rather than more burst damage. With both of them you want to dodge their AoE spells. Brand's AoE leads into a nasty combo that can do a ton of damage even at early levels and Cass's AoE leads into a flurry of spells she can spam at you. For the first five levels you want to just stand a bit behind your caster minions to try and stay out of range of their spells and use your autos to last hit the enemies melee minions. Both of these champs tend to push lane while trying to harass you so let them and get your farm when lane pushes.
Once you hit 6 laning against Brand can get a bit easier as you can now kill him when your stun is up but Cass is, imo, just as hard when you hit 6 as she is at early levels. Regardless, hitting 6 without dying or getting significantly zoned means you can usually scare them or kill them. Just don't get stunned by either of these champs and do your best to dodge + farm and you should be okay.
Kassadin
He just straight up shits all over you. I really don't know how to beat this lane if the enemy Kass is good. His Q outranges yours and silences you. If you use spells to try and harass him you just feed his E which hurts a lot and slows you. I've tried doing both my standard build and RoA build, not sure which one is better. Boots means you can harass a bit easier, if I get Q'd by Kass I can sometimes chase a bit if he doesn't have boots and then Q him when silence is down. This doesn't work that well though if enemy minions agro on you.
Just play safe and get your farm. If you hit 6 before him and think you can gib him do it. Cause after 6 he's going to be incredibly difficult to lane against. Try to ride your advantage pre-6.
Oriannasuggested by r.Evo
I haven't gotten to play against Orianna since her most recent nerf. Since this match up was already "close" I would imagine that Annie is now a stronger laner than Ori. However, you should be careful because an Orianna that can hit her QW can out harass you if she's smart. Her Q still outranges all of your spells but if she misses a Q it means you can do free harass. She also has a very short auto attack range of 500 meaning if she goes to auto attack you can get a spell off on her. Just be careful to avoid her ball and you should be able to win lane against her. Addendum, no one plays Orianna anymore but she's still good. Lane is honestly even now so long as you don't let yourself get zoned (basically don't play like a pussy).
Xerath
He's OP and just straight up outlanes you. There's not much you can do about it other than dodge his Q. If you can dodge Q, especially if he's trying to stun you, then you might be okay. But pretty much anytime he gets ult if he stuns you once you're dead. Just wait for him to get nerfed. He beats pretty much everyone in lane but Annie especially has issues with him due to her short range.
Talon Only champion that I'm adding for Season 3. While Annie has a lot of trouble with tons of ADs that go mid along with a bunch of new APs that have come out since Xerath, Talon is a total cunt. You can't beat him in lane. At level 6 you can actually kill him but it's very likely that he'll jump, silence, and kill you first. If you can catch him off guard you can win but if he plays properly you don't have much of a chance without jungle aid. Just far with OP auto-attack range and play passive pre-6/when you don't have stun up.
Note: These are the champs I have the most trouble with as Annie, any suggestions or additions to this list are appreciated.
Additional note: Morgana will outlane you too. But she outlanes all APs so I felt no need to put a section on her. You basically just try to get farm and if you get the chance to go gank you take it.
Would appreciate some tips and criticisms. I'm gonna try to pretty up this thread some more tomorrow. This is the first guide I've written for this game so if I forgot something, my bad. I may try to think of some more stuff to add to the "playing Annie" section for tomorrow as well. I think I should probably elaborate a bit more on what all you can do in teamfights, but yeah.
v.1.001 - Added AP quints as a viable choice. Expanded the masteries section to mention neutral monster buffs a bit more in depth. Changed "Bad Matchups" to "Tough Matchups." Added Orianna as a Tough Matchup.
v.1.002 - Clarified a few things and just added extra info in general. Updated the Brand/Cass section.
v.1.003 - Added a screenshot to demonstrate viewing Annie's Pyromania stacks when playing against her.
v.1.004 - Updated masteries to include neutral monster buff masteries. Added a screenshot of masteries page.
v.1.005 - Updated Runes as I now use flat AP quints. Thanks to those who suggested them.
v.1.006 - Updated patch history and skillset to reflect her nerfs from most recent patch.
v.1.007 - Updated runes and the Orianna section.
v.1.008 - Update for new masteries, added Xerath to tough match ups cause he's a bullshit champion.
v.1.009 - Some general updates to various parts of this guide.
v.1.010 - Updated for Varus patch.
v.1.011 - No one plays Annie. Update for Season 3 anyways. Annie fotm incoming as visual re-work approaches.
v.1.012 - Updated for new spell icons. Visual update looks really good although she's pretty flashy. Sad news is that Frostfire Annie no longer has black swirl when her stun is up and in fact the stun particle is way more noticeable on Annie now. Otherwise the upgrade looks pretty slick and the new voice acting is solid I guess.
v.1.013 - Update hybrid pen runes over AD/Armpen runes as an alternative. A few touch ups.
I'd love a short part about how you feel about laning against Orianna.
I've had so many weird games from both sides of the matchup and peoples opinions vary completely on which of those buttrapes the other. (I think it all comes down to lanecontrol, since Orianna is prone to getting zoned by Annie whenever the lane is pushed towards Annies tower while Orianna can QW-punish lasthits when the lane is in the middle, but I'd like to see some comment from you.)
I've only recently picked up annie but she seems real fun. My biggest problem so far has been dealing with AD champs and champs that outrange annie. I get dumped on by cait and just seem at a loss for how to deal with her. If I try to harass I eat an Auto-Attack + Q + Cait nets out of range. and pre-6 even if I manage to get a QW stun combo off I end up eating a ton of damage on my way back to the minion wave as she shoots me in the back of the head.
At level 6 I can't seem to kill her because at that point she has 2-3 dorans blades and I dont have the damage to kill her.
One of the best ways to bait an early kill is to have 4 stacks and use e to proc it as they come in range. Using Q for your stun isn't really reliable because of its travel time. It's usually more effective to stun with W or R.
On July 21 2011 03:26 LancerStarcraft wrote: I've only recently picked up annie but she seems real fun. My biggest problem so far has been dealing with AD champs and champs that outrange annie. I get dumped on by cait and just seem at a loss for how to deal with her. If I try to harass I eat an Auto-Attack + Q + Cait nets out of range. and pre-6 even if I manage to get a QW stun combo off I end up eating a ton of damage on my way back to the minion wave as she shoots me in the back of the head.
At level 6 I can't seem to kill her because at that point she has 2-3 dorans blades and I dont have the damage to kill her.
Cait's a problem for most casters, imo, since her auto attack range is longer than most the range of most spells. Only way I've found to deal with her is to get an early gank that gives you lane control.
Annie is pretty fun to play, especially with flat AP glyphs and quints. I only play her when she is free but when she is boy is it fun mandropping people with tibbers.
Out of curiosity, what do you put the points you take out of Util mastery into? Annie's not that blue dependent but 15% buff duration is still definitely better than 1% regen or 1.25% base mana, and at least comparable to 1 gold/10 or 1% ms.
On July 20 2011 21:34 r.Evo wrote: I'd love a short part about how you feel about laning against Orianna.
I've had so many weird games from both sides of the matchup and peoples opinions vary completely on which of those buttrapes the other. (I think it all comes down to lanecontrol, since Orianna is prone to getting zoned by Annie whenever the lane is pushed towards Annies tower while Orianna can QW-punish lasthits when the lane is in the middle, but I'd like to see some comment from you.)
I haven't had a lot of experience with this match up. Most Orianna's aren't that good and the times I've laned Ori vs. Annie I've usually won but there was at least two occasions where I got completely owned. I'll add this though to "bad matchups" and probably change the name from bad to "tough" since I agree with you that it can go either way.
On July 21 2011 03:26 LancerStarcraft wrote: I've only recently picked up annie but she seems real fun. My biggest problem so far has been dealing with AD champs and champs that outrange annie. I get dumped on by cait and just seem at a loss for how to deal with her. If I try to harass I eat an Auto-Attack + Q + Cait nets out of range. and pre-6 even if I manage to get a QW stun combo off I end up eating a ton of damage on my way back to the minion wave as she shoots me in the back of the head.
At level 6 I can't seem to kill her because at that point she has 2-3 dorans blades and I dont have the damage to kill her.
I don't come across Cait too much anymore because of where current meta is. Generally she goes duo bot. But, yeah, she's not an easy matchup for Annie pre-6. A lot of times when I have matchups that I struggle with I just play passive and harass only if it's safe but harassing Caitlyn is hard because her autos outrange your spells and your autos. As Cratonz said, call for an early gank. If you have stun up you can either kill her or force her to burn a summoners. Wait for level 6, if they're stacking Doran's try to just trade some hits with your Q and then full combo her once you know you can kill her.
On July 21 2011 03:43 dnastyx wrote: Have you tried running Flat AP Quints on Annie? If nothing else, you might want to mention them as a viable option in the OP.
I'll add it to the OP and try it myself once I grind out enough games for the IP. Thanks!
On July 21 2011 04:15 Juicyfruit wrote: Is it just me or is that ice Annie skin very "cheap" for concealing her stun particles.
I loved the skin once it came out and when I first played a game with it and noticed that the stun was much harder to see than the others I realized that this would be the skin I always use lol. Generally when you play against an Annie though you need to pay attention to where her Pyromania stack is. Good Annie players will only get to 4 stacks on it and then dive you for the stun (usually using Q to not stun as people will think you're just harassing and then Q will generally be back up to use once you blow your Tibbers/W). The best way to beat an Annie in lane is to keep the panel showing her stacks up on the top left side of your screen rather than waiting for the particle effect to show her stun. But since most people are lazy and don't do this it makes the Frost Fire skin incredibly cheap (and fun!).
On July 21 2011 05:15 TheYango wrote: Out of curiosity, what do you put the points you take out of Util mastery into? Annie's not that blue dependent but 15% buff duration is still definitely better than 1% regen or 1.25% base mana, and at least comparable to 1 gold/10 or 1% ms.
I like to give blue buff to other people on my team, especially when I solo queue. I've just had more luck with games when I'm nice to my teammates to warrant giving it away especially since I don't think Annie needs it much. I get 1 point in Greed and 1 extra point in Quickness. It might be better to get the buff duration mastery so I'll try it out later and mention it in the OP. For me though, I don't find myself ever needing blue buff and generally there's at least one person on my team that can benefit from getting it more than me.
edit: I'm going to be trying out new runes and the mastery suggestions over the next few days as Annie. Once I do I'll clean up the runes/masteries section and just add a spoiler tag for "other viable choices."
I could've sworn enemies couldn't see the stack count for pyromania.
I also find Annie doesn't need blue buff, but I also find she's the best carrier on most teams I end up with. The CDR is the most useful part since it lets you get your second stun that much faster in a team fight.
On July 21 2011 22:18 cascades wrote: Just had a player did this most effective tactic: How to play annie: Cast W/R when they up => hope for doublecast => win lane/get kill.
On July 21 2011 18:22 Craton wrote: I could've sworn enemies couldn't see the stack count for pyromania.
I also find Annie doesn't need blue buff, but I also find she's the best carrier on most teams I end up with. The CDR is the most useful part since it lets you get your second stun that much faster in a team fight.
It's definitely nice to have it on any caster but when I play Annie I can usually do just fine without it and therefore let my AD carry get double buff. However I've been playing around with getting the monster buff masteries and picking up blue for myself in games to see how it goes. I'll probably change masteries around because so far I like it better.
You can see Pyromania stacks. I'll add a screenshot to the OP though. Seeing what stacks she's on is pretty vital for playing against an Annie.
On July 22 2011 06:55 overt wrote: It's definitely nice to have it on any caster but when I play Annie I can usually do just fine without it and therefore let my AD carry get double buff. However I've been playing around with getting the monster buff masteries and picking up blue for myself in games to see how it goes. I'll probably change masteries around because so far I like it better.
Most AD carries get comparatively little of their DPS boosted from CDR. The only common AD carry I'd give blue over Annie is Corki.
On July 22 2011 06:55 overt wrote: It's definitely nice to have it on any caster but when I play Annie I can usually do just fine without it and therefore let my AD carry get double buff. However I've been playing around with getting the monster buff masteries and picking up blue for myself in games to see how it goes. I'll probably change masteries around because so far I like it better.
Most AD carries get comparatively little of their DPS boosted from CDR. The only common AD carry I'd give blue over Annie is Corki.
Yeah, I like giving it to Corki and Ezreal. I don't mind giving it to Ashe either so her ult can come off cooldown a bit quicker.
I realize that it's still almost always better for Annie to get it over the AD carries but I'm stubborn. ;P
On July 21 2011 22:18 cascades wrote: Just had a player did this most effective tactic: How to play annie: Cast W/R when they up => hope for doublecast => win lane/get kill.
Check the gen discussion thread. Its a different bug. The damage done does not line up to it being a doublecast, mostly considering that with those items, she would have had to triplecast to get that damage.
On July 21 2011 22:18 cascades wrote: Just had a player did this most effective tactic: How to play annie: Cast W/R when they up => hope for doublecast => win lane/get kill.
Yup it works. Just cast shit when ur ulti is off cd. If bug occurs => get kill. Bug no occur => enemy forced to back and lose farm. Can't lose.
From what I've read on gen discussion and from my own play as Annie I don't think anyone can reproduce the bug. Or, at the very least, I don't think your suggestion will reproduce the bug and if anyone does now how to get that bug to work they haven't told anyone yet. Hopefully Riot can fix all of these Annie bugs, it's getting annoying. If someone does figure out how to reproduce the bug please just report it to Riot rather than posting it on TL and encouraging people to do it.
I've decided to change my masteries to what several people have suggested. I've been getting blue buff more in recent games as Annie and while it still isn't necessary the other options for her just aren't that great. I still put a point in Greed though as I think it's better than an extra point in Meditation or a point in Expanded Mind.
Well supposedly there is way to reproduce it. But you guys are totally missing 2nd part, its annoying. Even if you fail to bug, so? You still force other guy back.
On July 23 2011 04:39 overt wrote: I've decided to change my masteries to what several people have suggested. I've been getting blue buff more in recent games as Annie and while it still isn't necessary the other options for her just aren't that great. I still put a point in Greed though as I think it's better than an extra point in Meditation or a point in Expanded Mind.
IMO 1 point Meditation > 1 point Haste. 1 mp5 feels more significant than 3-4 movespeed. But at this point the difference is really splitting hairs.
On July 23 2011 04:42 cascades wrote: Well supposedly there is way to reproduce it. But you guys are totally missing 2nd part, its annoying. Even if you fail to bug, so? You still force other guy back.
I don't think exploiting the fact that there's a bug is a good way to improve your game though. You get the bug to work and you get a free kill. You don't get the bug to work and now your ult is gone and they have to back. But Annie with ult on CD means her killing potential plummets and you'd be better off setting up guaranteed kills instead of just mashing your full combo every time your ult is up hoping for the bug. It isn't going to make you better at this game and even worse you'll be getting kills and probably wins you don't deserve all because of an exploit. Seems pretty pointless to me.
If you find some way to reproduce it just report it to Riot so it can hopefully be hotfixed soon.
On July 23 2011 04:39 overt wrote: I've decided to change my masteries to what several people have suggested. I've been getting blue buff more in recent games as Annie and while it still isn't necessary the other options for her just aren't that great. I still put a point in Greed though as I think it's better than an extra point in Meditation or a point in Expanded Mind.
IMO 1 point Meditation > 1 point Haste. 1 mp5 feels more significant than 3-4 movespeed. But at this point the difference is really splitting hairs.
Yeah, it's pretty insignificant. I think I take the movespeed on casters over the mp5 because it's higher up on the tree and thus I assume it has to be better. I don't think it's a big enough difference though to be very noticeable.
On July 23 2011 04:42 cascades wrote: Well supposedly there is way to reproduce it. But you guys are totally missing 2nd part, its annoying. Even if you fail to bug, so? You still force other guy back.
I don't think exploiting the fact that there's a bug is a good way to improve your game though. You get the bug to work and you get a free kill. You don't get the bug to work and now your ult is gone and they have to back. But Annie with ult on CD means her killing potential plummets and you'd be better off setting up guaranteed kills instead of just mashing your full combo every time your ult is up hoping for the bug. It isn't going to make you better at this game and even worse you'll be getting kills and probably wins you don't deserve all because of an exploit. Seems pretty pointless to me.
If you find some way to reproduce it just report it to Riot so it can hopefully be hotfixed soon.
On July 23 2011 04:39 overt wrote: I've decided to change my masteries to what several people have suggested. I've been getting blue buff more in recent games as Annie and while it still isn't necessary the other options for her just aren't that great. I still put a point in Greed though as I think it's better than an extra point in Meditation or a point in Expanded Mind.
IMO 1 point Meditation > 1 point Haste. 1 mp5 feels more significant than 3-4 movespeed. But at this point the difference is really splitting hairs.
Yeah, it's pretty insignificant. I think I take the movespeed on casters over the mp5 because it's higher up on the tree and thus I assume it has to be better. I don't think it's a big enough difference though to be very noticeable.
I am not recommending people use bug. I meant that annie needs to be banned because while annie's bug is obnoxious, I have seen 2 players in ranked exploiting this "tactic". For most annies that want kills when they ult, the bug doesn't come up as often.
It also set me thinking -If you have blue, would this be valid even without bug if you facing a good player? (Aka one that doesn't stay in oneshot range)
2) AoE bug: When something dies between casting an AoE spell and the animation that deals damage when that dead thing is in AoE range will make the AoE dump double damage onto the closest possible target. Double damage tibbers, lux l@z0r, veigar, morde, etc. while some sources indicate this may work on all or most AoE heroes, some sources indicate it only works (usually) on morde. I am currently unable to test this.
3) Annie bug: This may be just bug #2 or a separate bug. Seems double hitting smartcast key of incinerate or tibbers will make it deal double damage. Morde's E has the same bug.
2) AoE bug: When something dies between casting an AoE spell and the animation that deals damage when that dead thing is in AoE range will make the AoE dump double damage onto the closest possible target. Double damage tibbers, lux l@z0r, veigar, morde, etc. while some sources indicate this may work on all or most AoE heroes, some sources indicate it only works (usually) on morde. I am currently unable to test this.
3) Annie bug: This may be just bug #2 or a separate bug. Seems double hitting smartcast key of incinerate or tibbers will make it deal double damage. Morde's E has the same bug.
Annie double hit using smartcast doesn't work anymore. That was already fixed. I just tested in custom game to make sure.
From what I've seen/heard the current bug with her tibbers/W is the same bug that effects Morde's E and Lux ult. It seems true that it happens when something dies, so if you think an Annie is abusing it try to steer clear of near dead minions.
Buy frostfire annie. The skin makes her whirly stun charge indicator almost impossible to see when she walks around. Collect free elo against the people who don't know/check her buffs.
I think that smartcasting RW actually might play a role in that bug we currently see. That is if you can cast R -> W and then get the game to kill a couple of minions from W's damage before Tibbers actually lands. This might involve lag.
After all the most reliable way to make sure that minions die during the cast animation of an AoE spell is to kill them yourself.
1. If you are going to combo someone at 6/11 etc where it wont be an instagib, consider walking forward after your initial stun. This is occasionally the difference between getting that second q/w off or not.
2. I feel that AP carry Lux has a pretty decent matchup against Annie. She has huge level 6 burst, very high range which keeps you from effectively zoning her and her snare/slow means you have to be a bit extra mindful of ganks. Lux wont walk over you, but Im not sure it's possible to close against Lux without using your flash, which makes her very frustrating to play against.
1. If you are going to combo someone at 6/11 etc where it wont be an instagib, consider walking forward after your initial stun. This is occasionally the difference between getting that second q/w off or not.
Hm, I felt like this would be kind of obvious but I might add it in to a future edit.
On July 24 2011 03:23 red_b wrote: 2. I feel that AP carry Lux has a pretty decent matchup against Annie. She has huge level 6 burst, very high range which keeps you from effectively zoning her and her snare/slow means you have to be a bit extra mindful of ganks. Lux wont walk over you, but Im not sure it's possible to close against Lux without using your flash, which makes her very frustrating to play against.
AP Lux isn't a bad laner and does well in a lot of match ups but very few people play Lux as their team's AP carry. She just doesn't do enough consistent damage lategame. Hell, even by level 10-11 her damage starts to fall off. So I don't think the match up is going to happen very often.
But, when it does happen it is true that laning against a good Lux player is tough because not only does her E give her great harass but her level 6 combo is pretty deadly. The problem with Lux vs. Annie though is all you have to do is dodge Lux's snare and you've eliminated her combo. Even her ult is dodgeable. Since I open with boots on Annie (and I recommend others do the same) it makes it even easier to dodge Lux's Q, E, and R. I feel like Lux can definitely be doing well in the lane against Annie just from harass from E as you're not going to be able to dodge that spell forever but once Annie hits 6 she should be able to just kill Lux.
So while I think that Lux is definitely not that bad in lane against Annie I don't think she's much of a counter to Annie at all especially when there are champions like Kassadin and Brand who can shut Annie down a lot harder.
Whenever annnie goes up against someone with higher range, I find myself taking damage and not being able to reliably return it. Ezreal for example. This sucks. I mostly just try to be passive and kill minions, but every time one of those free stray q's hits me, I have to chug a potion, and since potions have gotten nerfed... well it sucks. Eventually I'll have to go back and Ezreal won't.
Then come late game, you're supposed to keep your stun up, but does that mean I can't hit minions anymore? Like I can't even farm otherwise I'll lose my stun stacks?
I think I'm gonna give up on annie as my go to AP carry.
Her only strength over other AP carries come late game is her mass stun. She doesn't have the range of xerath or lux so if she doesn't build tanky, she'll die a lot more, but if she does build tanky, she'll do less damage.
-normal match player.
btw, shouldn't one of the annie threads be closed?
Well, against a champ who is able to poke you, you just have to play back and farm w/ your Q. If you get a chance land a stun w/ a Q/W combo just to add some damage so they can't play as aggressively. Obviously your mana takes a little hit if you do it too often and can't manage to pressure them. If they're willing to push forward and really try to zone you out more, then that should open them up to ganks from your jungler.
Late game, as far as your stun, you you can drop a q/w/e pretty quickly to get a few stacks back and beyond that it's just knowing if you really need to have your stun available or not. If you're looking at a team fight you obviously want your stun up and if that means your team gets farm instead of you, that's not exactly a huge loss.
Yes I guess you're right. A DFG, ignite, 2xQ, W, R should be able to one shot them if I'm careful, so I just have to rely on health pots to not get pushed out of lane till then I guess.
On December 21 2011 12:57 obesechicken13 wrote: Whenever annnie goes up against someone with higher range, I find myself taking damage and not being able to reliably return it. Ezreal for example. This sucks. I mostly just try to be passive and kill minions, but every time one of those free stray q's hits me, I have to chug a potion, and since potions have gotten nerfed... well it sucks. Eventually I'll have to go back and Ezreal won't.
Champs with skillshots that don't pass through minions as Annie aren't too bad you just have to watch your positioning. Stay behind minions and Ezreal can't hit you. Ez will try and get creep advantage at level 1 though so he hits 2 before you and has more minions so that he can Arcane shift + Q + auto you. Do your best to not give him creep advantage, if you can hit level 2 before him the lane will go a lot easier.
It's champions like Brand/Cass/Xerath who can harass you through minions and who have more range than you that are really annoying as Annie because you just have to do your best to not get too low before you hit 6 since you have kill threat once you have your ult.
On December 21 2011 12:57 obesechicken13 wrote: Then come late game, you're supposed to keep your stun up, but does that mean I can't hit minions anymore? Like I can't even farm otherwise I'll lose my stun stacks?
I think I'm gonna give up on annie as my go to AP carry.
Her only strength over other AP carries come late game is her mass stun. She doesn't have the range of xerath or lux so if she doesn't build tanky, she'll die a lot more, but if she does build tanky, she'll do less damage.
You can farm late game. You just can't farm if there's about to be a team fight because you need to have stun ready to go. If the enemy team is pushing your tower then your whole team should be there, in which case the farm going to your AD carry is better anyways. Also, Annie has a pretty fantastic auto attack. The animation is crisp and her AA range is pretty long. Like, iirc, pre-Caitlyn she was tied for longest AA range.
You'll have to judge for yourself if blowing your stun is worth it but it really doesn't take long to get a new stun up. Assuming all your spells are available and you blow stun to farm, you can have stun back up in less than 8 seconds. I realize that's a long time but you should be able to tell if you're going to need stun sooner than that and make the call yourself.
Annie can initiate really well. Flash + Tibbers stun+W does massive AoE damage and if you catch three or more enemies in it you've single handedly won the team fight for your team. Even if you die your AD carry can just clean up all of the low HP enemies. But yes, there are AP carries who have better late games than Annie. Annie is a really good champ if you want to just have good lane control and crush people in solo queue because she's really good at winning her lane and she scales into late game pretty well. She has bad lane match ups but she also has plenty of good match ups as well.
On December 21 2011 12:57 obesechicken13 wrote: btw, shouldn't one of the annie threads be closed?
When the new guides were requested to be made only guides that had recent activity were to be reported to be closed. The old Annie thread had no recent activity so it didn't get closed. Frankly, there are newer APs that people find to be more fun and Annie tends to come and go in terms of how often she gets played (as is the case with a lot of the older champs). But I try to keep this thread as updated as possible.
On December 21 2011 12:57 obesechicken13 wrote: Whenever annnie goes up against someone with higher range, I find myself taking damage and not being able to reliably return it. Ezreal for example. This sucks. I mostly just try to be passive and kill minions, but every time one of those free stray q's hits me, I have to chug a potion, and since potions have gotten nerfed... well it sucks. Eventually I'll have to go back and Ezreal won't.
Then come late game, you're supposed to keep your stun up, but does that mean I can't hit minions anymore? Like I can't even farm otherwise I'll lose my stun stacks?
I think I'm gonna give up on annie as my go to AP carry.
Her only strength over other AP carries come late game is her mass stun. She doesn't have the range of xerath or lux so if she doesn't build tanky, she'll die a lot more, but if she does build tanky, she'll do less damage.
-normal match player.
btw, shouldn't one of the annie threads be closed?
Even though Annie's range (basically the range of her q needed to hit a stun) is not long, she can be an exceptional bully in lane and can clame an extremely large zone around the minions if played aggresively, able to last hit like a goddess and push back when being pushed.
Dont forget that her AA has pretty much the longest range in the game. This allows her to get free hits on most champions if you keep moving in the lane, animation cancel a bit, and try to hit them when the last hit.
It's important when playing Annie to not play "frightened" in lane, when they come close and poke, chase and poke back. She has exceptional last hitting so even if you dont manage to poke back you can zone them out of 2-3 last hits while missing less.
If you are having extreme difficulty dont be afraid to get a cloth armor or something to let you sustain more and keep in mind that you can always outplay an Ezreal or other annoying laner. If they get an early advantage and snowball just forget everything else and farm like a bawss, in low elo you can destroy lanes against people with first blood quadra kills just by hitting under your tower, managing your waves and farming like a mad man. And then since you are playing Annie you (flash) combo them when they get arrogant and get their killing spree money as well .
I sometimes take a point in E early so i can manage my stun better and hide it by staying at 4 stacks and popping e to combo them when they feel safe. E is very useful if you have trouble getting your stun back up and if you learn to last hit with AAs you will be able to keep it up to zone or use your spells when needed while getting back to 4 stacks easily, especially after you get your catalyst. Annie should never ever have mana problems anyway.
And if everything else fails you can always Flash - R - drop everything on them - Make Moneyz, cause you are Annie and have a giant flaming Teddy Bear.
Edit: Concerning Teamfights, I'd advise people that feel squishy with her to make it a rule to never - ever initiate a fight unless they are all sitting in a warded brush waiting for a bear to fall off the sky... Just sit back, let the tanks initiate and find the proper moment to unleash. A good Tibbers- W - Q is usually 80% of what is needed from you in teamfights, after that you can sit back waiting for W to come back up, die to an Olaf or go farm a lane, your job has been done. Your stun has burst so dont drop it when they are away and full health. Wait for the fight to get started first. In terms or tankiness, your Roa should be more than enough most of the time if you play careful and this is coming from a person that likes his carries tanky...
tldr: Bully your lane, farm like a boss, be patient in fights.
All your points make perfect sense to me. Have you ever thought of having your stun stack at 3 then when you want to fight E first then throw out your combo? You'll still get your stun off as both W and R have fast cast animations and having Q in the air also puts a stack on it.
A couple of times I've had success turning Annie into a tanky DPS with RoA, Rylai pieces, WotA etc. Her Q cooldown is low enough and you can make good use of your E while dishing out decent damage at the same time. Being beefier also allows her to initiate more easily and make more use of her really good passive. I guess it's like Vlad with more immediate burst but less sustained along with consistent reliable CC.
Well, main factor here is range, if you are close enough to hit your W, you might as weel do it at 4 (shield at 3) and stun with Q or Tibbers at 5. But at longer range, Q'ing at 4 and ulting at 5 may allow them to dodge Tibbers which would be a big waste
You also want the Tibbers AOE to tick on them for as long as possible so stunning with R gives you maximum damage and positioning Tibbers to block their escape path while they are stunned will hurt them even more.
Concerning Tankiness you are absolutely right that (if this is what your team needs,) its perfectly ok to play her like that. Besides, Annie does not become unstoppable with 700 AP like say a Kassadin would so investing in extra survivability is fine, but I was trying to make a point that obesechicken13 shouldn't feel that he HAS to build tanky and allow that to restrain him in his build choices...
Edit: A typical build for me would be Cata->ROA->DeathCap->Hourglass/Rylai's/Abyssal/other Surv. item but you are not forced to any path and can freely counterbuy / adjust with no restrictions like "I need to build tanky" etc.
Im really enjoying as annie but as you said kass seems to be very hard to beat. He's a free champ this week and its really making it difficult for me. Who should I swap for and should I go bot or top when kass gets put in mid to counter me?
Ive played mirror annie mid twice and i was able to outplay the other annie but kass is just built to counter annie with a longer range attack and silencing.
On January 19 2012 20:26 R04R wrote: All your points make perfect sense to me. Have you ever thought of having your stun stack at 3 then when you want to fight E first then throw out your combo? You'll still get your stun off as both W and R have fast cast animations and having Q in the air also puts a stack on it.
A couple of times I've had success turning Annie into a tanky DPS with RoA, Rylai pieces, WotA etc. Her Q cooldown is low enough and you can make good use of your E while dishing out decent damage at the same time. Being beefier also allows her to initiate more easily and make more use of her really good passive. I guess it's like Vlad with more immediate burst but less sustained along with consistent reliable CC.
Why would you build tanky Annie though? o.o
RoA can be okay in some match ups but Annie is designed to do damage and insta-gib people. The best way to do that is Dring stacking into Deathcap.
I guess you could play tanky Annie but she just seems like one of the last champions whom I'd want to go RoA/Rylai/Wota on. Mostly cause she's a burst caster, not a sustained DPS caster so Wota feels pretty wasted imo. If the active on Zhonya's isn't enough to keep you alive after you initiate a fight then you either got wrecked in lane because your burst isn't strong enough or you initiated poorly.
On January 21 2012 05:48 ZeromuS wrote: Im really enjoying as annie but as you said kass seems to be very hard to beat. He's a free champ this week and its really making it difficult for me. Who should I swap for and should I go bot or top when kass gets put in mid to counter me?
Ive played mirror annie mid twice and i was able to outplay the other annie but kass is just built to counter annie with a longer range attack and silencing.
You can run some fun bot lanes. I wouldn't go top as most of the tanky DPS characters can survive your burst so you'll just end up wasting your full combo on them. Maybe if you can wear them down it'd be okay. Ranged AD carries do well against Kassadin though, so if your ranged AD goes mid you can run botlane with like a Taric, Leona, or Alistar and have that retarded double stun lane. Not to mention you're going to outrange every AD carry except for Caitlyn botlane.
So yeah, if you're going to switch I would recommend botlane but few people are willing to mix up the meta. If you lane against Kassadin just try and punish him pre-6 and try to hit 6 before him so you can gib him before he gets ult. Once he has 6 just play passive and don't die. If he leaves your lane to gank just call mia and push up the lane really hard.
edit: When I say try to punish Kass I mean only do it if it's a safe trade. His Q outranges your Q and W. So if he Q's a minion (which he will do at some point) try and go in to combo him. Pre-6 if you know his Q is on CD you have a small window where you can try to get damage off on him. But for the most part Kassadin isn't a fun lane as any AP carry so if you're getting owned early just try to play passive and get your farm without dying.
Another thing about going vs kass - abuse the SHIT out of your 625 auto-attack range. If you're ever getting the chance to throw off a Q on him, make sure to follow it up with at least 1 autoattack, your Q+auto will out-trade his vanilla Q. I think playing aggressive vs a kass that's trying to be harass you with Q works a lot better than just cowering and eating occasional Q's anyway.
On June 07 2013 02:27 AsnSensation wrote: Annie noob here, max W or Q, take a point in E or wait till lvl 8?
Generally W at lvl 1 and get stun at fountain just in case you or they invade. Even if you don't use it, having that stun charge at lvl 1 allows you to posture aggressively in lane right away.
WQWEWR, R>W>Q>E
I've always had the most success with maxing W over Q. It allows heavy wave clearing fairly early on. I use Q to land a stun on opponent and then harass with a huge damage incinerate.
Sometimes I'll get E at 3 if I'm against a bruiser, but always before 6. It lets you cycle your passive really well (it's negligible mana cost, pretty short CD) and you can use it for stun mind grapes. Expecting to get ganked? Sit on 3 stacks of your passive, wait for enemies EW to stun 2 and skip away or kill them.
On June 07 2013 02:36 TheYango wrote: My personal feeling has always been 3 Q by 6, then max W for a two reasons: - Q is the stronger skill in lane, but W has more teamfight usefulness (AoE stun/damage, higher up-front burst) - Pre-6 mana efficiency on Q is at a premium, but post-6 if you do not start upping W, you lose out on clearing power against champs that will insta-clear a wave with blue buff.
On June 07 2013 02:51 jcarlsoniv wrote: I also haven't considered E max second with liandry + rylai, that sounds super fun. But also tankier than I care to be (I already build RoA on her, so getting Rylai seems like too much defense).
One of peoples' traditional complaints with teamfighting with Annie is that engaging with her low range is awkward once you hit the point where you can't burst someone out of the fight. While the remake improved her scaling, her general power curve is still that of a burst caster early-midgame that transitions into a more supportive usefulness lategame. Because of this, I think a path of item development that gets early offensive stats to maximize her burst, and then transitions later into more defensive stats/CDR to support her teamfight control with repeated stuns seems to suit her power curve best. RoA seems to do the opposite of this because it's an item that doesn't reach it's peak offensive power until fully charged.
Liandry's fits her very well, IMO, because as an item, the Guise buildup suits a champ that needs early-level burst potential, that transitions into supplementary %-HP damage lategame when you buy Rylai's and get the Guise upgrade.
The most awkward points/questions to answer I can think of for this are: 1) What CDR sources are most suitable for Annie? 2) What burst damage AP items are strong at the 1-1.5 major item timing that Annie needs to maximize her burst damage in? 3) What defensive items are most suitable for making the transition in the level 12-14 range when Molten Shield isn't maxed yet?
You are not going to get 3-4 Seconds (after you initiate) to get another (Q) off in High ELO games and if for some reason you do, either your enemy is an idiot, or you're not going to kill them.
I think the initial scenario that I devised the 3Q->5W skill order for was vs. Kassadin, but practically speaking it applies to other champs that have similar CDs in the 8-10 second range.
Basically Kassadin effectively blocks your ability to engage with QW combos because Null Sphere has a range advantage over Disintegrate and proper animation canceling blocks your ability to combo both spells before a silence intervenes between them. If you are simply trading Q for Q or Q for W, Kassadin comes out ahead because of his passive, and the rest is him not eating too much free autoattack damage.
The low CD on Q lets you catch a 4-5 second range after any trade where you can threaten with it and they can't retaliate because their core engagement skill is still on CD.
On June 07 2013 03:10 jcarlsoniv wrote: People always pick Kass to counter pick my Annie, but I almost never have issues with it. Unless I really slip up, I usually do just fun. This could just be an experience > counter pick thing though. Maybe someone who plays as much Kass as I do Annie would easily beat me, I just may not have found someone like that yet.
I should point out the inception of this was a long time ago, prior to the Null Sphere range nerf. That specific matchup actually isn't a good example anymore because with 650 range Null Sphere, I don't think there's an advantage anymore. I was just using it as an example because it's the one that made most sense to me initially. The concept applies to any champ that trades with a CD in the 8-10 second range that can trade better/evenly with Incinerate, but cannot trade into the 2nd Disintegrate CD at 4 seconds.
Fairly certain he still does have a Q range advantage, which is always super annoying. I could just be bad though.
On June 07 2013 03:10 jcarlsoniv wrote: My skill order/item build is just what works for me. If people have more success with Yango's build, that's awesome. Mine is just developed off of ~100 games of experience this season instead of the theory/math craft, even though Yango's posts make my way of doing things seem inferior.
If that's the way I came off, then I'm sorry. A lot of this is still unfleshed out (as indicated by the 3 questions I posed), and I was just merely positing something based on my understanding of Annie's kit as it exists right now.
If anything, I think it would be good if you had any potential answers to the 3 questions.
Oh, no, I wasn't being defensive about it at all. You raise great points, which is why I said that your theory craft makes mine seem inferior.
CDR - I'm a blue pot whore. I always buy them as soon as I can afford them, often even after just my catalyst. Other than that, I don't really build much more CDR, relying on blue buff/pot for it (which I know is heavily exploitable). DFG is very very good on her even though I don't often build it. Liandry's is also a good option as you have explained.
As for getting the right items at the right timings, I usually get my RoA somewhere between 12 and 18 min (depending on how well or poorly my lane is going). This gives me a good basis for tankiness and light damage early on, and just keeps getting better for the next 10 min.
Double DRing into Dcap also works. Or Guise, as you said.
She's honestly an extremely versatile champ. Like, if I'm against an assassin, I'll often get Armguard into DCap (or just straight rush the Zhonya). And to substitute the damage/mana regen/tankiness that I would be missing from RoA, I'll sometimes pick up a couple Rings.
I've also had success with RoA into Abyssal if I need to.
Upping this thread 'cause I'm on an Annie spree and am doing pretty well with her atm.
Here are the builds I tried (I always go mobi boots first) :
Morello - DFG - Void - Zonhya - Rabadon
Morello - Rylai - Liandry
RoA - Zonhya - Rabadon
The first one is pretty funny, and allows you to blow shit up incredibly fast. Its big problem is that if they have a strong frontline, you will never get to that backline. I lost 4 matches where I did this build against Nidalees (uncatchable backline) and 2 where I was against Naut (heavy frontline). I would avise it if they go pretty heavy on jumping in with not-that-tanky characters or have squishies with no escape and a weak frontline.
The second one is the one I'm settled for atm. It just works in all situations, and allows you to really use Tibbers to its full potential. With this build, you're more about pet-controlling than hardcore nuking, and you will peel like mad for your AD. It will also make you very tanky (+800hp) and, with the Rylai slow, you're pretty much unkillable. I think this is the best build for Annie to carry hard in teamfights.
The third one sucks. Period. RoA just takes too long to charge on Annie, who is a very high-tempo character. You will be ganking and blowing shit up non-stop, you don't have the time to wait for it to become cost-effective. Morello is just way better because the 20% CDR will help you tremendously.
So I tried out spirit of the spectral wraith on Annie after Voyboy said he thought Annie top could potentially be really strong with it. It's really strong on Annie mid too. With the q spam it's pretty difficult to shove her out of lane, and the mana regen means you don't need another mana item.
On June 14 2013 03:07 zer0das wrote: So I tried out spirit of the spectral wraith on Annie after Voyboy said he thought Annie top could potentially be really strong with it. It's really strong on Annie mid too. With the q spam it's pretty difficult to shove her out of lane, and the mana regen means you don't need another mana item.
Annie top is a ton of fun. Going Spectral Wraith -> Guise -> Rylai's I have yet to lose lane with her. I'm not sure whether it would be better to rush guise though. I do kind of think that it's better to avoid it mid, because mid lane really doesn't need the same sustain that top does -- your opposing laner likely won't have as much, and if you sustain well they will just back and kill you with their gold advantage. Also, you will be backing more because you are roaming. I might be wrong here but I would rather get on with the 100->0ing squishy ADCs. This might be different if you had someone like e.g. Khazix top, so it wasn't a problem that Annie was bringing more utility to the table.
Is anyone else using roaming Annie? http://www.lolking.net/guides/98398 I've been enjoying it so far. I think I want to try building a little more like akabeastmode2 next -- he goes very burst intensive. Benign Sentinel, akabeastmode2, and Annie Bot are the high level players I'm getting my build from, by the way.
Ive been digging the Annie support recently. Although I had look at those Krepo builds and its a little bit weird. Ive been running my (fairly) standard sup masteries 9/0/21 with hybrid pen runs and AP quints and it works for me. Might try the offensive masteries and see how it goes.
Also been going W first and looking for level 1 double stuns. But im pretty sure the only reason that works is cos im in silver -_- Annie is a beast in invades though.
EDIT: Does anyone know what the Royal Support annie runs? Runes/masteries/items?
I don't know what runes he runs or exact masteries but I believe he goes like 17 into offense or something crazy and just plays really aggressive. Tabe's items are typically Kage+Philo asap followed by boots (upgrades to mobility usually) and a sight stone. Then spends all the rest of his gold on wards. His starting items are just green wards, 1 pink ward, health and mana pots.
Annie support only really works in solo queue if your opponents are bad or if you have teammates willing to follow your initiations. If your team starts picking pussy champions it's hard to make support Annie work.
I did some quick googling and some guy claims Tabe runs 21/9/0 masteries, hybrid pen, flat armor, flat AP blues+quints. I don't know how accurate that is.
Been playing mostly Annie Support on my smurf and wow is it powerful. I highly suggest her for anyone in silver or lower who are stuck playing support. Her burst is just as strong as Leona or Zyra except she isn't melee all-in like Leona or squishy and skillshot reliant like Zyra. The 625 autorange makes her a nasty poker as well.
Inspired by Tabe but modified to fit my own playstyle.
Summoners: Flash/Ignite Runes: AP/Hybrid Pen/Armor/MR or AP/Hybrid Pen/Armor/CDR Masteries: 9/0/21 WQWEW. R > W > Q > E Items: Stack drings and buy wards. Get sightstone when you can afford it. Don't build any more items unless you are fed.
Emphasize buying pinks/oracles to control brush throughout the game. Annie excels at picking people off and she can't do it if they can see her!
the rise in annie support being played allows me to counterpick leblanc support! this makes me happy. pretty much freewin even if you go support masteries and they are going balls-deep (AP) you outdamage annie hard and at 6 you both get a good spike not just her.
Read the posts above mine about support Annie, and I wanted to expand on it a bit. Hopefully we can do some in-game-crafting and find the best way to do it!
Out of curiosity I played support Annie for the first and second time ever in TLIH last night. The games themselves weren't great indicators of her nitty-gritty strengths and weaknesses (first game Elo mismatch in lane, second game 3-0 lead from lvl 1 fight), but they did tell me that she is fun.
Summoners: Flash/Ignite. Exhaust might be needed if opponent has something mean like Kassadin or Jax, but that's not fun.
Runes:
Glyphs: Haven't experimented much, been running pretty standard 6 flat MR, 3 MP5. I'm not sure that Annie benefits very much from the mana regen runes, as compared to supports like Lulu.
I'm considering a single crit chance glyph, because why not. You AA a lot.
There are a few unexplored options here (Mpen, AD, scaling AP, crit), but I don't have the IP to test them out.
Seals: 9x armor. Yawn. Riot pls.
Marks: 9x hybrid pen. The difference in AA harass damage was noticeable once I threw down a million IP to replace Mpen marks with hybrid pen. I recommend them.
Quints: This is the tricky one, and along with glyphs, the one that I think has the most room for improvement. I currently run 3x flat AD. You need to be more selective with your purchases if you can't get kills. Wasting wards will hurt.
You will not be gaining that extra 18 gold per minute if you are used to running 3 GP quints, which is 540 gold in a 30 minute game.
I am also considering using flat HP quints. I run them on my smurf that only has 2 rune pages and they are really nice. Anyone who has a lot of quints available to them and wants to experiment, please report.
Side note: I typically run a single mp5 quint on almost all of my supports. I don't think it's needed on Annie, but I'm not sure yet.
The idea is to be aggressive with Annie - these pages give you damage early, both from AA harass and your skills. As usual, I have no idea if Annie needs the mana regen. I also don't know the math on the difference between Mental Force and Havoc.
--
Skills: W, R>W>Q>E
Note: it takes 40 seconds at level 1 to charge your stun. If you don't stay in the fountain it will hurt your mana pool a bit. If you do stay in the fountain, you handicap your team.
Maxing E over Q is like, a theory-craftishly tempting choice, since it gives pretty strong defensive buffs, but I think math will show that Q is probably better because of its low cooldown and stronger scaling (in raw damage alone).
Tibbers is a beast, even without AP. They should probably just rename it to "summon Renekton with AoE stun."
Items: You can get 3 green, 1 pink, 3 pots (455 gold). You can also get 4 green, 5 pots (475 gold). There aren't really any superior options. Pinks are also crazy useful vs Twitch.
I haven't explored itemization beyond the basics. Sighstone, boots, Kage's/Philo, Oracles ad infinitum. Mejai's could be good if you're rollin'.
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This isn't intended as a guide so much as a foundation for discussion and development. If anyone wants to contribute advice or ideas (or correct me if I messed up), please do!
On September 12 2013 13:23 ZataN wrote: Does anyone know what the Royal Support annie runs? Runes/masteries/items?
Normal masteries (1/13/16), with Hybrid pen Marks and AD Quints. Max W over Q.
Support Annie is susceptive to any gank from the jungle, and should be played as 2vs1 at mid lane. Her level 1 and 2 are monstrous.
Definitely not what this guy said.
Tabe runs balls to the wall 21/9 with some Hybrid Pen and either AD or AP quints (forgot). He doesn't do some pussy utility shit on Annie. Grab CDR, MPen, Flat AP, Flat AD, Flat Armor Pen in Offense. Take standard 9 defense stuff.
On October 07 2013 09:12 nath wrote: the rise in annie support being played allows me to counterpick leblanc support! this makes me happy. pretty much freewin even if you go support masteries and they are going balls-deep (AP) you outdamage annie hard and at 6 you both get a good spike not just her.
Don't feel like this is a correct assessment. Annie's auto attack range hits hard early on if they're able to trade efficiently and essentially insta-stun can turn any lane into a dangerous lane.
I think support masteries are completely fucking useless the more I look at it. Completely outclassed by Offense and Defense.
i have the same question, its Supp Annie viable?, her ranges its too low to really pocke (i comparation to other like lux) and his Stun its quite hard to get
I just tried it 2 times at normal, and none of those gone well lol
I don´t get how you´re able to go 21/9 without getting punished like mad level 1-4. Guess i like 13 def too much, helps alot for cheesing level 2 and getting kills
Started playing a lot of support annie this month (have not tried before), going 29-16 in total games played at diamond 1 +50lp. I have to say that she is a very good pick if you want to win games in solo queue. Even if you get a poor start or end up not getting many assists/kills or tower gold, she has huge potential to change the course of the mid game and late game with her ult+stun damage combo. Her laning phase is equally powerful. Her lvl 2-3 killing potential is huge (esp. if you help adc auto to hit lvl 2 or 3 faster than the enemy) and the spike goes up even further at lvl 6 and can easily kill most people 1v1 or 1v2.
I think it is pretty important to go 21/9/0 with very offensively based runes, although I guess 1/13/16 is okay too if you haven't tried much of her (a lot of the times I end up using it too because I'm silly and put in the support mastery page I set by default). I find her extremely strong against thresh, vayne, no dash-like ability adc, fiddle, janna, nami, and sometimes zyra. Even if the enemies have dashes you can still gib them or get them to flash (a lot of the times they are stubborn with low hp at tower and it is a free kill if you try to look non-threatening for a while and then suddenly flash combo+ignite, although sometimes you get baited and the jungler was sitting there, so be aware of what is happening in the game).
A lot of the stronger adc players tend to just shove early with support help so you don't get as many opportunities to engage (things like cait/varus+sona/nami/zyra, ez/sona, etc - push to turret and good at harassing and gaining a big lead through pressure). It's really just general laning strategy, but I think it is even more important for annie because of the fact that you have no sustain and have low range spells that don't really help you much unless a gank comes your way.
Despite her difficulties with range and mobility, I think Annie is really strong right now. Her AP ratios are extremely good and her stun is just as deadly as always.
Her Q's reset allows her to quickly regain her stun back once it has been spent. You can basically last hit all the minions at the tower using your Q.
On June 29 2014 13:11 Sufficiency wrote: Despite her difficulties with range and mobility, I think Annie is really strong right now. Her AP ratios are extremely good and her stun is just as deadly as always.
Her Q's reset allows her to quickly regain her stun back once it has been spent. You can basically last hit all the minions at the tower using your Q.
She is awfully hard to play though...
annie never changed. she still has the problem of having to hold onto stun in fights since she is actually worth alot assuming a mid role.
On June 29 2014 13:11 Sufficiency wrote: Despite her difficulties with range and mobility, I think Annie is really strong right now. Her AP ratios are extremely good and her stun is just as deadly as always.
Her Q's reset allows her to quickly regain her stun back once it has been spent. You can basically last hit all the minions at the tower using your Q.
She is awfully hard to play though...
annie never changed. she still has the problem of having to hold onto stun in fights since she is actually worth alot assuming a mid role.
Her partial reset on her Q helps her a lot by regaining her stun quickly without spending any mana. I will argue it is a HUGE change.
for sure she still murders people. its just riskier to invest a solo lane worth of gold/exp on some1 who often go for moves like flash tibber stun. ez kills in lane tho since most ppl forgot how much burst she actually has
On March 09 2015 23:40 GrandInquisitor wrote: Why do so many top players rush Rod of Ages on Annie even in mid lane? It seems weird to build such a tanky item on a burst mage.
I would think something like Haunting Guise / Sorcerer's Shoes -> Deathcap/Void Staff would fit much better into her playstyle.
Annie is kind of a weird mage in that she is a huge burst, but also has excellent continuous damage albeit at a short range. Her maxed Q is 220 base plus .8 on a 2.4 second CD. That is a nutty ratio and base damage. ROA allows her to have a strong burst but also have enough buffer health to stay in the fight and throw Q's continuously. Her E is also actually a pretty good armor and MR steroid that pairs well with the raw HP from ROA. You can build her dcap/void and just go allin burst, but you will have to skirt fights a lot more carefully.
The argument for ROA is that even with ROA, your full combo will have enough damage to explode a squishy. While with Dcap/Void/pure damage, you still won't have enough to oneshot a tank. It can be better to hit that "kill-a-mid/adc" breakpoint and then have enough survivablity to stick around and continue to output steady damage and CC to clean up the remaining frontlines. Neither build path is bad IMO. It can be very situational.
Warning: I know basically nothing about Annie, but this is just theorycrafting.
What if you did Rylai's Crystal Scepter instead? Compared to Rod of Ages, Rylai's Crystal Scepter is:
-50 health at first, -250 health later -450 mana +40 AP at first, +20 AP later +The slow +Easier build path -100g more expensive
If we assume the mana is irrelevant, you pay 100 more gold to trade 133g of health for 870g of AP, later turning into 666g of health for 435g of AP. It seems like worthwhile, particularly if you factor in the Rylai's slow.
On March 11 2015 01:10 GrandInquisitor wrote: Warning: I know basically nothing about Annie, but this is just theorycrafting.
What if you did Rylai's Crystal Scepter instead? Compared to Rod of Ages, Rylai's Crystal Scepter is:
-50 health at first, -250 health later -450 mana +40 AP at first, +20 AP later +The slow +Easier build path -100g more expensive
If we assume the mana is irrelevant, you pay 100 more gold to trade 133g of health for 870g of AP, later turning into 666g of health for 435g of AP. It seems like worthwhile, particularly if you factor in the Rylai's slow.
Isn't rylias pretty standard on support annie as a luxury item?
On mid annie the tankiness feels pretty useful though, combined with e it makes you a beast
On March 11 2015 01:10 GrandInquisitor wrote: Warning: I know basically nothing about Annie, but this is just theorycrafting.
What if you did Rylai's Crystal Scepter instead? Compared to Rod of Ages, Rylai's Crystal Scepter is:
-50 health at first, -250 health later -450 mana +40 AP at first, +20 AP later +The slow +Easier build path -100g more expensive
If we assume the mana is irrelevant, you pay 100 more gold to trade 133g of health for 870g of AP, later turning into 666g of health for 435g of AP. It seems like worthwhile, particularly if you factor in the Rylai's slow.
It sounds good, but the issue is when would you get it? Annie's mid open ROA because they tend to take a lot of harass from mids that outrange them in lane, catalyst is pretty strong against this kind of stuff. Rylais would lose you a lot of regen, and the slow is basically worthless in lane. Its only good once you get into real fights.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/aESeTRa.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/uOW6cLx.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yVZFBlD.jpg)
Passive: Pyromania - After every 4 spell casts, Annie's next offensive spell will stun its target for 1.75 seconds. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/B6J10jg.jpg)
Disintegrate - Annie shoots a mana infused fireball, dealing magic damage. Disintegrate's mana cost is refunded if it kills the target![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/b4bePIS.jpg)
Incinerate - Annie casts a cone of fire, dealing magic damage to all enemy targets in the area. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/YgS6oZW.jpg)
Molten Shield - Places a shield around Annie for 5 seconds that increases her armor and magic resistance, and also deals magic damage to enemies every time they use basic attacks on Annie.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ikTEaAg.jpg)
Summon Tibbers - Annie releases her bear Tibbers from his toy prison, dealing damage to enemy units in the summon area. For a limited time of 45 seconds, Tibbers can attack, while continually dealing magic damage to surrounding enemies.![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/f3Zrs8L.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110105233940/leagueoflegends/images/3/3f/Rabadon%27s_Deathcap.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110105233942/leagueoflegends/images/d/d1/Zhonya%27s_Hourglass.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091014194025/leagueoflegends/images/7/71/Deathfire_Grasp.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120708061846/leagueoflegends/images/f/f3/Void_Staff.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20110925003849/leagueoflegends/images/a/ae/Rylai%27s_Crystal_Scepter.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091014170161/leagueoflegends/images/7/7f/Abyssal_Scepter.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091014183630/leagueoflegends/images/c/ce/Rod_of_Ages.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091014183036/leagueoflegends/images/d/da/Lich_Bane.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091014170803/leagueoflegends/images/f/f2/Banshee%27s_Veil.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091014184304/leagueoflegends/images/9/9b/Warmog%27s_Armor.gif)
![[image loading]](http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090423/leagueoflegends/images/4/40/Haunting_Guise_item.png)
& ![[image loading]](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130319090602/leagueoflegends/images/f/fd/Liandry%27s_Torment_item.png)
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/35DSL.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/eXh0J.jpg)
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