It's easy, but there is a lot of room to perfect the gameplay of this build. I would say a glass cannon Annie is very possible, but it is also very difficult to learn because of how important careful positioning is. With this build positioning is still very important, but it is more forgiving if you take a little bit extra damage. Being more forgiving allows you to focus on other aspects of your play which should allow you to climb ELO. :D
But also, I think that Annie is a mage who has very efficient defensive scaling simply because she really does not have to worry too much about building any resistances due to the effects of her E. Basically Annie is able to become an effective bruiser without really building any resistance items (though Zhonyas is a possible option). Similar to how Ryze's passive allows him to build Frozen Heart for increased damage, Annie's E allows her to benefit particularly well from building Haunting Guise since health is just more effective on someone who gets free resistances.
I like to go into the utility tree for the CDR on summoner spells since Flash is so useful for your initiations. If you feel like being more bratty to your jungler and ask for blue buff then you can take Rune Affinity, but I personally choose to go for Culinary Mastery to help me sustain early - and you never know when a jungler will just want to take their own buffs! Honestly I think that in solo queue the junglers should almost always have double buffs unless another champion really benefits from the buff (Think blue on Xerath or Ziggs) since junglers are really poor in this meta
I think offensive tree is pretty standard.
Skill order
R>Q>W>E
Max your Q first since it makes farming easy and provides some great damage. Your W comes second because even though you get a lot of great stats from your E, the extra damage from W is probably better early on. Finally, you max your E last because eventually with this build you will start to stack up some nice HP which will energize greatly with the free resistances that you gain from maxing E (also, your E will almost be able to be on permanently with CDR).
Summoner spells
Ignite and Flash if you wanna play aggressively in lane get possibly get some solo kills.
Teleport and Flash if you wanna play a little more farm-focused in lane, but you can still go for some solo kills if the conditions are right. TP + Flash allows you to roam more so you get kills that way rather than in lane.
Item build
1.) ROA
You want to go for an early ROA since it gives you a lot of health and AP.
2.) Haunting Guise
Annie has some pretty high base stats so some early magic penetration can go along way for her. The additional health will also be amazing for her since she gets free resistances from her E.
3.) Lucidity boots
I think that CDR is really valuable on Annie because Tibbers is such a useful ultimate for pushing, shoving, and obviously team fights. The extra CDR also has the advantage of making her E up more frequently to get stun stacks more quickly and just give her those great resistances.
P.S I think that distortion enchantment is a must later on in the came since Flash is so great for initiations. However, Teleporting in with homeguards can be fun, so you can try that if you want.
3.) Rylais
Next is Rylais because it gives you a ton of CC. Now not only do you have great CC from your passive, but you also have a single target nuke slow (Q) and an AOE close range slow (W). Also, yet again the health that Ryalis gives you is extra efficient for Annie's durability because her E gives her so many free resistances.
4.) Zhonyas, Abyssal, Aegis (Pick 2)
A.) Zhonyas - If there is a key skillshot or ability (Zed's Deathmark) that you just feel like it's super important to dodge or the enemy just has a lot of strong AD, this is a great item. However, the active of Zhonyas might be a problem in that the purpose of it is to divert attention away from you when in many cases Annie would want to be attracting attention herself. Still, Zhonyas can be really good if you are one of the main sources for magic damage on your team and need to maximize your life.
B.) Abyssal - If the enemy team is stacking MR as a response to your team's AP then this might be really beneficial to your team. It's a pretty nice aura item.
C.) Aegis - If there is a really fed Xerath or Orianna or just AP champion on the enemy team that's really giving you trouble this might be a very helpful item.
Banner of Command - I like the new Banner of Command as well because it gives you a minion advantage in one lane that needs to be answered by the enemy team which just provides a little bit of extra pressure that might tilt the game in your favor
Locket - This good be a good choice if you want to be more durable and protect your team from magic damage. I still prefer Banner of Command for the active and the AP it gives in most situations though.
There is absolutely zero reason to get a Tear/Archangel/Seraph's on Annie. Annie gets free Qs to last hit with in lane, and doesn't suffer from mana problems anyways since she's more focused on burst in teamfights. Health and AP should be prioritized above all else, you get more than enough mana from a RoA.
On January 11 2015 15:16 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: There is absolutely zero reason to get a Tear/Archangel/Seraph's on Annie. Annie gets free Qs to last hit with in lane, and doesn't suffer from mana problems anyways since she's more focused on burst in teamfights. Health and AP should be prioritized above all else, you get more than enough mana from a RoA.
if you are playing bruiser annie you are not as focused on burst and will often run out of mana because you stay in lane/fights much longer. Plus the shield you get is really excellent for your tankiness.
On January 11 2015 15:16 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: There is absolutely zero reason to get a Tear/Archangel/Seraph's on Annie. Annie gets free Qs to last hit with in lane, and doesn't suffer from mana problems anyways since she's more focused on burst in teamfights. Health and AP should be prioritized above all else, you get more than enough mana from a RoA.
if you are playing bruiser annie you are not as focused on burst and will often run out of mana because you stay in lane/fights much longer. Plus the shield you get is really excellent for your tankiness.
If you're playing bruiser Annie, you really shouldn't be spending 2700g on an item that gives you no survivability at all until it transforms into something that gives you a variable shield. That gold would be much better spent elsewhere for this playstyle. I'm not convinced that you need more than RoA mana to expand your base mana pool.
I've seen people go for something like Morellonomicon for the regen, but a Tear is a bit much.
On January 11 2015 16:33 Sufficiency wrote: Free Q -> free tear stack, I guess.
But in general I am skeptical. There is nothing she can do Ryze/Cass can't do bettr.
? Annie gives you the potential of having insane aoe burst engages. Ryze doesn't even remotely offer the same things as annie. Ryze's early game is super weak and he is more of a sustained damage type of mage ( even though he can burst like a monster late game ) and annie is the complete counterpart to that.
Cass on the other hand, is just meh vs all the gapclosers and high mobility champs that are played now.
Not saying i love annie top, just saying well... She offers a LOT that they dont.
On January 11 2015 16:33 Sufficiency wrote: Free Q -> free tear stack, I guess.
But in general I am skeptical. There is nothing she can do Ryze/Cass can't do bettr.
? Annie gives you the potential of having insane aoe burst engages. Ryze doesn't even remotely offer the same things as annie. Ryze's early game is super weak and he is more of a sustained damage type of mage ( even though he can burst like a monster late game ) and annie is the complete counterpart to that.
Cass on the other hand, is just meh vs all the gapclosers and high mobility champs that are played now.
Not saying i love annie top, just saying well... She offers a LOT that they dont.
I believe what sufficiency is saying is that if you want to build Archangel's on a hero you should not be doing it on Annie.
Finally, you max your E last because eventually with this build you will start to stack up some nice HP which will energize greatly with the free resistances that you gain from maxing E (also, your E will almost be able to be on permanently with CDR).
This seems like a reason to max E, y'know, not last. Unless you mean to say that you eventually max E as opposed to the alternative of not ranking it up at all ever?
This guide seems pretty minimal in content, and not a huge divergence from normal styles anyway. Is there a reason you forgo void staff completely? Haunting guise / optional abyssal 5th item is not really good enough on paper.
Archangel is a very cost efficient item when combined with RoA. A Tear lets her use her Q to poke without running out of mana which lets her bully many toplaners.
I agree, Forbidden Idol gives you more value for gold when you are buying it, but when you are aiming for a scaling build that includes RoA, Tear IS a viable item.
Annie Top is a lanebully that scales into a very tanky CC machine, not a burst-mage like Annie Mid/Support.
On January 11 2015 16:33 Sufficiency wrote: Free Q -> free tear stack, I guess.
But in general I am skeptical. There is nothing she can do Ryze/Cass can't do bettr.
? Annie gives you the potential of having insane aoe burst engages. Ryze doesn't even remotely offer the same things as annie. Ryze's early game is super weak and he is more of a sustained damage type of mage ( even though he can burst like a monster late game ) and annie is the complete counterpart to that.
Cass on the other hand, is just meh vs all the gapclosers and high mobility champs that are played now.
Not saying i love annie top, just saying well... She offers a LOT that they dont.
I believe what sufficiency is saying is that if you want to build Archangel's on a hero you should not be doing it on Annie.
Well, I just think top lane Ryze/Cass are better as "ranged AP bruiser" than Annie.
Why am I contradicting myself? Tear is an item that scales pretty hard but also gives more lane power by providing mana for harassment. Keep in mind that most Toplaners are melee champions. Those can be harassed over a long period of time if you got enough mana.
Now the question is: Morellonomicon or Tear?
Morellonomicon gives Annie more power in the midgame, but less scaling. Tear on the other hand is way worse for laning, but scales really nice. I would argue that Tear is already enough in the mana department and therefore I go for a better scaling over a stronger midgame.
Especially with a tanky Annie, which does not aim at bursting people down but rather plays a role similar to Shyvana, Mundo and Maokai in S4 or Zac, Shen in S3: Providing CC while being durable in teamfights with constant damage output.
About your slightly different role for Annie Top (compared to mine): There are a other factors like teamcomp, strategy that play a role here. Therefore I can't say which one is better in general, I can only say we both have our prefered playstyles.
Tear is a terrible item. It is a mana item that is designed to power up as time goes on and spending a chunk of money on non-combat stats is pointless on Annie who is not a champion whose power scales of mana the way Ryze, Kassadin or Anivia do. If you are desperately in need of mana in lane for whatever reason, you can either buy a mana pot or just learn to manage your spells better.
Annie has no MS boosts, a conditional defensive steroid but has no way of actually being a frontline champion, no sustain, and is reliant on Flash for initiation. Her role as a tank is as effective as using a Randuins rush Katarina who uses Shunpo's blink+damage reduction to initiate. Not to mention Tear Annie is just asking to be blown up.
You can run weird stuff in your solo queue or 5s with friends, but that's about all it is. Weird stuff. It's still ineffective and a waste of the champions potential.
Some combination of DFG/Hourglass/Rylais -is- a legitimate build on Annie, but the playstyle isn't that much different from normal Annie, and the DFG should tip you off that your'e still focused on burst initiation.
That's the closest thing to "bruiser Annie" that has been proven at a competitive level, in this case LPL.
@MoonBear: From your wording alone it seems like you don't know what you are talking about. I already explained why tear is a strong item and what her role is (in my way to play her top).
You don't seem to understand what a tank needs to offer to be viable. Why do you even compare an AoE stun to a Katarina shunpo + randuins? I bet you can do better than that.
By the way, every defensive steriod is "conditional".
Everyone else in this thread seems to agree that Tear on Annie is awful. A lot of the players are long time TL posters and recognized for playing at an acceptable (Plat+) level. In addition, the empirical record of professional games on bruiser Annie reveal that no one has built Tear. The last 2 months of probuilds data indicate no one has built Tear on Annie in SoloQ either. I'm sure Suffiency could pull data and discover that in aggregate, Annies with a Tear built early have lower winrate than baseline Annie.
Saying the final build of Tear synergizes well with RoA ignores the fact that 1) You lose a ton of gold efficiency building more mana than you will ever need 2) You lose a ton of power by sinking gold into something that's totally useless until it is fully bought and fully stacked
Champions that built Tear (Ryze, Kassadin, Cassio, Anivia, etc) deal with these issues because 1) They actually need giant mana pools 2) They can actively convert mana into damage whether through direct mana scaling (Ryze, Kassadin) or damaging spells that are gated by mana rather than cooldown (Cassio, Anivia)
I'm sure Tear on Annie is passable (i.e. better than Ravenous Hydra) enough that you can have fun and get by. However, if you're going to convince us that Tear on Annie is actually a good idea (i.e. worth passing up RoA/Rylais/Liandries/Deathcap/Void/Hourglass/DFG/Morellonomicon/Sorc Shoes) you're going to have to post some more evidence than general theorycraft.
Is archangels really that cost effective if you don't need the mana?
It definitely won't be cost effective until you fully stack it, and even then I don't think it's impressive enough to justify delaying your powerspike so much.
Annie is a champion that should have a powerful spike in mid game. But you won't get that spike with both tear and RoA.
If you assume that you have absolutely no need for the mana/regen, Seraphs gives an ROA Annie about 144 AP at level 18, and at full effectiveness the active shields for 710, but we can really probably expect it to shield for more like 500. Makes things easier. It costs 2700g.
Rylais is about the closest comparison to that, at 100 AP 400 HP for 2900g, plus the slow. But it has the added effect of doing something prior to a 2k gold investment.
You could also compare it with Liandry, which would probably be similar to the Rylais comparison.
Another way to compare it would be to compare with Void Staff.
Deathcap by itself gives about 156 AP. Void Staff basically always outdamages Deathcap on every champion. I haven't ran numbers for Annie specifically but I'd be willing to bet this is true for her as well. So Void Staff probably also outdamages Seraphs, at 2295g, letting you start building some defensive item, and again has the added advantage of doing something prior to a 2k gold investment.
So, no, if you're not getting anything from the mana regen, Seraphs is likely not a cost efficient item at all, or at least not until very late in the game.
As an addendum, I'm also very very skeptical as to how Tear could possibly be a good item on Annie, and am looking forward to clarification on this.
On January 12 2015 09:22 _merK wrote: @MoonBear: From your wording alone it seems like you don't know what you are talking about. I already explained why tear is a strong item and what her role is (in my way to play her top).
You don't seem to understand what a tank needs to offer to be viable. Why do you even compare an AoE stun to a Katarina shunpo + randuins? I bet you can do better than that.
By the way, every defensive steriod is "conditional".
No need to get hostile. People have differing opinions.
You describe Annie as a tanky CC-bot, which is fine because people have played her that way and her kit is able to provide that. But then you advise getting a tear on top of a Rod of Ages, which lets be real is essentially overkill on any champion not named Ryze. You already have huge amounts of mana from the Rod, you don't need the tear. Tear doesn't give anything else besides mana and some sort of AP. You can get AP from other items. If you need some health, get it from Liandrys or Rylais. If you need CDR for more utility and cycling, get Morellonomicon or a DFG. If you need pure AP, get any item that builds out of NLR.
I cannot think of a worse build on a champion that has good base damages and high utility to waste her early/mid game to "scale" better. Just off stats alone, you get the following from Rod of Ages + Archangel's Staff:
140 AP 650 HP 1640 MP 20% of max mana shield (Roughly 800 shield after items/masteries/base stats off ~3300 Mana) 3% of max mana to AP (Roughly 100 if you have ~3300ish Mana) 50% Base Mana Regen
Then you have to consider that you want to get Rod charging as fast as possible, but also tear stacking as soon as possible, so you're pretty much useless until 30-35 minutes into the game because you're basically playing off low amounts of AP, no resists, and not that much HP while you're charging up like Ryze, all while not scaling with Mana unlike Ryze. Ryze gets away with it because he still does a lot of damage with just mana items, while you on the other hand have AP ratios. While Annie's base stats are decent, they did get nerfed and more emphasis was placed on her AP ratios.
So my question in the end is: Why? Why are you advocating and saying tear is very good when let's be real you're just a walking stunbot that doesn't soak much damage. If you choose to level E, then you're a walking stunbot that doesn't do any damage because you're missing a skill. Off a 0% CDR build, you also don't have much utility because your cooldowns are fairly high still and you need to cycle through skills to get a stun.
Building tear means that you aren't actually doing what you want to be doing.
If the point is to get lots of defensive stats while still doing decent damage, then opening tear -> RoA delays your tank stats for a long time. An unstacked RoA is not great tank stats, and an archangels staff isn't anything until it changes either. Even then, a fully stacked RoA and a Seraphs (alongside maxing E last) is still only decent tank stats.
You claim that you don't need the tank stats in lane, with tear / catalyst being more than enough to win lane. Spending the same 1920 gold would give you a NLR + 9 potions, two blasting wands + 5 potions, or a blasting wand and 30 potions (the latter two are obviously bad comparisons). Building AP and managing your spells better is at least as effective as building mana over-sustain for winning your lane, and is generally considered better.You're buying more sustain than you need and it is lowering your ability to win lane, not raising it.
It's not an issue of scaling either, as Ketara said earlier Seraphs is not slot-efficient relative to Deathcap or Void Staff, the latter of which is cheaper. You're sacrificing your early and especially midgame power for a sub-optimal lategame. Tear isn't good for Annie early or late.
@ Zess: I don't see how "everybody agrees on X" is a real argument when you are not talking about the best players/analysts. As you can see I am no long time poster on TL, but how does that change the content of what I am talking about? It does not. Many are plat+? So am I.
When you talk about empirical data I agree that there is no evidence on this matter. That is an argument against my claim, even though it is not a strong argument (just compare it to evidence on viability of support Annie before she was played on a pro level - there was no evidence either, but it still worked).
Now about cost efficiency: Tear is already 94.4% cost efficient at its base value. It increases to 302.8% at its max. There are very few items that can get close.
I would rather argue (in your case) that it is not slot efficient, because Annie does not need that much mana. My argument against it would be: I only get 3 to (4) damage items (RoA, Archangels, Void Staff (5th or 6th) and Frozen Heart which will give AP via Archangels.
I also claim that you can absolutly can use so much mana if you have a constant damage output and are not bursted down quickly. Her manacost for one burst combo are 310 and she uses 290 mana every roughly 5 seconds afterwards. Her Mana pool of 2050 will allow her to 6 spell rotations after her initial burst. That is 30s of damage. In my opinion, building mana for 30s of constant spells (also AoE stun every 5 seconds) is completly justified on a tank/bruiser.
I come to 1761.575 Burst Damage (before resistances) + 83.8 Damage per second of Tibber AoE + 975 (when getting hit, 875 when not) every 5 seconds.. I am aware this is no a lot for a champion that can be played as a high burst mage, but again, this is about what items to go for when you already decided you are playing a tank/bruiser and not a burst mage.
Your comparison to Ravenous Hydra is as bad as MoonBears comparison to Randuins Katarina. I chose not to comment on that one for obvious reasons.
@Ketara: I hope this clarifies it for you: Annie top has a range advantage in most matchups. She can therefore harass extremely easily, but is limited by mana during laningphase. There are two ways to combat this without giving up your advantage: Mana reg and flat mana.
For mana reg morello is the go-to option which gives her a very strong laning phase and midgame power, but it will fall off later on.
For flat mana you can go RoA, Tear or both. Those two both scale really hard. I chose to get both because I don't build much AP and Archangles is very cost efficient when paired with other mana items (like frozen heart in my case).
It is true that it takes time to get stronger than morello, but I value lategame stats more on tank/bruiser Annie than midgame powerspikes.
@krndandaman: Tear is enough to give her lane power. As you said, morello is more than enough and scales less. Therefore Tear a superior item in my opinion.
I also see very little evidence against it other than "there is no evidence for it" and "a high damage build is better" so far in this thread. I have the impression that many of you don't (want to) understand that my way to play Annie top is not about going the damage route but rather a tank route that still gives AP.
Make no mistake Annie can be built in a defensive manner due to her passive and fire shield. However, suggesting things like Tear is misguided. Annie is not a mana starved champion, she is a suggested hero to learn mana management due to her forgiving nature in this respect.
Ignoring the fact that going both Rod of Age's and Seraph's increases the time for both of those items to reach the peak of power. Saying you do end up with these items in a timely manner how exactly would she fair against popular top lane picks? Gnar, Rumble, Sion, Jayce seem all more then able to exploit the weakness of running around with just a starting buy and a tear or catalyst. It just doesn't seem like it'd end well for the Annie having as you yourself stated a focus on lategame stats vs any midgame power.
I mean I'm sure it works in some cases, Solo-que is quite forgiving in that aspect but in a competitive environment I'd think Annie top going double mana items would be nothing short of declaring to the other team your intent to offer them a feast.
On January 12 2015 21:32 _merK wrote:I also claim that you can absolutly can use so much mana if you have a constant damage output and are not bursted down quickly. Her manacost for one burst combo are 310 and she uses 290 mana every roughly 5 seconds afterwards. Her Mana pool of 2050 will allow her to 6 spell rotations after her initial burst. That is 30s of damage. In my opinion, building mana for 30s of constant spells (also AoE stun every 5 seconds) is completly justified on a tank/bruiser.
Even if you build her tankier, her base defensive stats are middling at best without molten shield active and you're never going to live as long as traditional tanks that have 3-5 defensive items- actual resistance items, not hybrid AP items like RoA/Archangels that happen to give incidental defensive stats. You're almost never going to live 30 seconds without a break in a team fight. You can realistically afford one mana AP item as Annie, any more than that is overkill and pretty much a waste of stats late game (not to mention a waste of gold early game).
The fact you think RoA/Archangels/Frozen Heart is okay from a cost efficiency point of view is sheer lunacy. It's only cost effective if you actually make use of the stats, and 99% of the time you're not going to be using all of your mana pool when you have that many mana items. You're dumping like 3400 gold on mana and mana regen, thats insane. That's like 1.5 defensive items tied up in mana. Realistically you're using maybe half of that? At best? Oi.
If you're running out of mana in lane as Annie, you're doing it wrong.
Also, max W, get better at last hitting with a low damage Q.
Caveat - I don't play this game anymore, but even through S3 and the latter part of S4, I always built RoA on Annie first. Molten armor is oodles of free defensive stats, the increased health and mana pools are really nice (I know I just said mana shouldn't be an issue. Shut up. This is part of the reason why.) There is no need for further mana items. Full stop.
I have always maintained W is the better skill to max on Annie, except maybe in the really shitty matchups where you're purely outranged at everything.
Lucidity is unnecessary, Sorc boots are better. I generally got them with distortion for the more frequent flash bears. Tibbers is an incredibly short cooldown late game, especially if you utilize his entire life on screen.
edit - I suppose, if you're playing top lane, I could see the argument against maxing W first so that you don't super push and lose lane control.
So, I took the time to watch that hour long Lastshadow coaching video.
He tells the guy to buy Tear at 15 minutes.
After that, at no point does he ever go below 1000 mana.
The game ends at 27 minutes, his Archangel has 577 stacks.
LS also tells him to buy an Iceborne Gauntlet after Archangel.
After that, at no point does he ever go below 2000 mana.
Based off of this, I feel fairly safe in the assumption that the mana and regen on Tear were 100% wasted, and the build would have been stronger if he had gone for Rylais or Void Staff instead.
On January 11 2015 16:33 Sufficiency wrote: Free Q -> free tear stack, I guess.
But in general I am skeptical. There is nothing she can do Ryze/Cass can't do bettr.
She can tank a lot harder than Cass, and Ryze. She has the best non-ult defensive steroid in the game.
On January 13 2015 01:39 jcarlsoniv wrote: If you're running out of mana in lane as Annie, you're doing it wrong.
Also, max W, get better at last hitting with a low damage Q.
Caveat - I don't play this game anymore, but even through S3 and the latter part of S4, I always built RoA on Annie first. Molten armor is oodles of free defensive stats, the increased health and mana pools are really nice (I know I just said mana shouldn't be an issue. Shut up. This is part of the reason why.) There is no need for further mana items. Full stop.a
I have always maintained W is the better skill to max on Annie, except maybe in the really shitty matchups where you're purely outranged at everything.
Lucidity is unnecessary, Sorc boots are better. I generally got them with distortion for the more frequent flash bears. Tibbers is an incredibly short cooldown late game, especially if you utilize his entire life on screen.
edit - I suppose, if you're playing top lane, I could see the argument against maxing W first so that you don't super push and lose lane control.
W max first is best on Annie, on most match ups. You can always force lane pressure by waveclearing really hard. But, I would suggest 2 points into Q before starting the W max (since you want the ability to have strong ranged harass in earlier levels, but want to start wave clearing when roaming becomes more of an issue (usually lvl 6+).
On January 13 2015 01:39 jcarlsoniv wrote: If you're running out of mana in lane as Annie, you're doing it wrong.
Also, max W, get better at last hitting with a low damage Q.
Caveat - I don't play this game anymore, but even through S3 and the latter part of S4, I always built RoA on Annie first. Molten armor is oodles of free defensive stats, the increased health and mana pools are really nice (I know I just said mana shouldn't be an issue. Shut up. This is part of the reason why.) There is no need for further mana items. Full stop.a
I have always maintained W is the better skill to max on Annie, except maybe in the really shitty matchups where you're purely outranged at everything.
Lucidity is unnecessary, Sorc boots are better. I generally got them with distortion for the more frequent flash bears. Tibbers is an incredibly short cooldown late game, especially if you utilize his entire life on screen.
edit - I suppose, if you're playing top lane, I could see the argument against maxing W first so that you don't super push and lose lane control.
W max first is best on Annie, on most match ups. You can always force lane pressure by waveclearing really hard. But, I would suggest 2 points into Q before starting the W max (since you want the ability to have strong ranged harass in earlier levels, but want to start wave clearing when roaming becomes more of an issue (usually lvl 6+).
I've heard this opinion a few times before as well. I don't want to say it's bad, because I've only tried it a few times, but I'm not a fan. I understand the thought process behind it, but what do you trade off for that?
An early point in E? Absolutely not, the early resistance + damage on hit, as well as the added stun cycle utility is way too good to pass up, imo.
An early 3rd point in W? It could just be that I'm used to how much damage I do with W at certain points in the game, but I find it really awkward not having that 3rd point at lvls 5/6 (when you become REALLY scary). Again, I can see the argument for Q here (it's shorter CD, a bit longer range), I'm just not a fan.
I personally love to abuse the long range AA as my general harass (which is why I ended up having a lot of issues with minion aggro when I came back late S4 - they apparently changed something and it's stupid), using Q as super easy, free mana cs + stun cycling, and popping people with max range W when they think they're being cheeky. You really only need your opponent to be somewhere around 2/3 HP by the time you hit 6, maybe a bit lower if they're tankier.
On January 11 2015 16:33 Sufficiency wrote: Free Q -> free tear stack, I guess.
But in general I am skeptical. There is nothing she can do Ryze/Cass can't do bettr.
She can tank a lot harder than Cass, and Ryze. She has the best non-ult defensive steroid in the game.
On January 13 2015 01:39 jcarlsoniv wrote: If you're running out of mana in lane as Annie, you're doing it wrong.
Also, max W, get better at last hitting with a low damage Q.
Caveat - I don't play this game anymore, but even through S3 and the latter part of S4, I always built RoA on Annie first. Molten armor is oodles of free defensive stats, the increased health and mana pools are really nice (I know I just said mana shouldn't be an issue. Shut up. This is part of the reason why.) There is no need for further mana items. Full stop.a
I have always maintained W is the better skill to max on Annie, except maybe in the really shitty matchups where you're purely outranged at everything.
Lucidity is unnecessary, Sorc boots are better. I generally got them with distortion for the more frequent flash bears. Tibbers is an incredibly short cooldown late game, especially if you utilize his entire life on screen.
edit - I suppose, if you're playing top lane, I could see the argument against maxing W first so that you don't super push and lose lane control.
W max first is best on Annie, on most match ups. You can always force lane pressure by waveclearing really hard. But, I would suggest 2 points into Q before starting the W max (since you want the ability to have strong ranged harass in earlier levels, but want to start wave clearing when roaming becomes more of an issue (usually lvl 6+).
I've heard this opinion a few times before as well. I don't want to say it's bad, because I've only tried it a few times, but I'm not a fan. I understand the thought process behind it, but what do you trade off for that?
An early point in E? Absolutely not, the early resistance + damage on hit, as well as the added stun cycle utility is way too good to pass up, imo.
An early 3rd point in W? It could just be that I'm used to how much damage I do with W at certain points in the game, but I find it really awkward not having that 3rd point at lvls 5/6 (when you become REALLY scary). Again, I can see the argument for Q here (it's shorter CD, a bit longer range), I'm just not a fan.
I personally love to abuse the long range AA as my general harass (which is why I ended up having a lot of issues with minion aggro when I came back late S4 - they apparently changed something and it's stupid), using Q as super easy, free mana cs + stun cycling, and popping people with max range W when they think they're being cheeky. You really only need your opponent to be somewhere around 2/3 HP by the time you hit 6, maybe a bit lower if they're tankier.
So W->Q->Q->E->W->R->W->W->W or Q->W->Q->E->W->R->W->W->W or Q->W->E->Q->W->R->W->W->W
Whichever of these three would be how it plays out.
It depends on the matchup though imo. If you're against a roamer, straight W max right away might be better to shove earlier.
On January 11 2015 16:33 Sufficiency wrote: Free Q -> free tear stack, I guess.
But in general I am skeptical. There is nothing she can do Ryze/Cass can't do bettr.
She can tank a lot harder than Cass, and Ryze. She has the best non-ult defensive steroid in the game.
On January 13 2015 01:39 jcarlsoniv wrote: If you're running out of mana in lane as Annie, you're doing it wrong.
Also, max W, get better at last hitting with a low damage Q.
Caveat - I don't play this game anymore, but even through S3 and the latter part of S4, I always built RoA on Annie first. Molten armor is oodles of free defensive stats, the increased health and mana pools are really nice (I know I just said mana shouldn't be an issue. Shut up. This is part of the reason why.) There is no need for further mana items. Full stop.a
I have always maintained W is the better skill to max on Annie, except maybe in the really shitty matchups where you're purely outranged at everything.
Lucidity is unnecessary, Sorc boots are better. I generally got them with distortion for the more frequent flash bears. Tibbers is an incredibly short cooldown late game, especially if you utilize his entire life on screen.
edit - I suppose, if you're playing top lane, I could see the argument against maxing W first so that you don't super push and lose lane control.
W max first is best on Annie, on most match ups. You can always force lane pressure by waveclearing really hard. But, I would suggest 2 points into Q before starting the W max (since you want the ability to have strong ranged harass in earlier levels, but want to start wave clearing when roaming becomes more of an issue (usually lvl 6+).
I've heard this opinion a few times before as well. I don't want to say it's bad, because I've only tried it a few times, but I'm not a fan. I understand the thought process behind it, but what do you trade off for that?
An early point in E? Absolutely not, the early resistance + damage on hit, as well as the added stun cycle utility is way too good to pass up, imo.
An early 3rd point in W? It could just be that I'm used to how much damage I do with W at certain points in the game, but I find it really awkward not having that 3rd point at lvls 5/6 (when you become REALLY scary). Again, I can see the argument for Q here (it's shorter CD, a bit longer range), I'm just not a fan.
I personally love to abuse the long range AA as my general harass (which is why I ended up having a lot of issues with minion aggro when I came back late S4 - they apparently changed something and it's stupid), using Q as super easy, free mana cs + stun cycling, and popping people with max range W when they think they're being cheeky. You really only need your opponent to be somewhere around 2/3 HP by the time you hit 6, maybe a bit lower if they're tankier.
So W->Q->Q->E->W->R->W->W->W or Q->W->Q->E->W->R->W->W->W or Q->W->E->Q->W->R->W->W->W
Whichever of these three would be how it plays out.
It depends on the matchup though imo. If you're against a roamer, straight W max right away might be better to shove earlier.
I mean, I understood what your options would be. It's more of a disagreement in play style, I suppose.
My usual setup was:
W (get lvl 1 stun in fountain because it's op) Q W E W R, W>Q>E>R
I can't actually see a reason you'd ever, ever want to start with Q.
Hi I'm challenger/diamond/challenger and this guide sucks. Max W, 2 ranks in Q to last hit if you can't do it with just one in Q (higher burst damage for fights and better AoE), take teleport if you're top lane and ignite only if you're mid, don't build tear that's retarded just RoA is good enough.
And holy shit this new site needs to give us some kind of badge indicating which of us had veteran status =/.
On January 12 2015 09:22 _merK wrote: @MoonBear: From your wording alone it seems like you don't know what you are talking about. I already explained why tear is a strong item and what her role is (in my way to play her top).
You don't seem to understand what a tank needs to offer to be viable.
Yeah, tanks need massive mana pools to draw health and resistances from. When playing tanks, make sure to buy items that give no tank stats. That's how you know you're tanking. When you buy shit that does absolutely nothing for your damage or tankiness.
Now about cost efficiency: Tear is already 94.4% cost efficient at its base value. It increases to 302.8% at its max. There are very few items that can get close.
But that's assuming that you actually use the mana. Annie doesn't (especially not if she's already going RoA)
If you don't need the mana, tear is 0% cost efficient and archangels is 70%-92% efficient (though you'll probably get up to 100% or a little better with a few more mana items like RoA).
This isn't very good compared to the other options that:
1. Don't require ramp time (giving you better lane phase and earlier power spike) 2. Give you more gold efficiency
On January 11 2015 16:33 Sufficiency wrote: Free Q -> free tear stack, I guess.
But in general I am skeptical. There is nothing she can do Ryze/Cass can't do bettr.
She can tank a lot harder than Cass, and Ryze. She has the best non-ult defensive steroid in the game.
On January 13 2015 01:39 jcarlsoniv wrote: If you're running out of mana in lane as Annie, you're doing it wrong.
Also, max W, get better at last hitting with a low damage Q.
Caveat - I don't play this game anymore, but even through S3 and the latter part of S4, I always built RoA on Annie first. Molten armor is oodles of free defensive stats, the increased health and mana pools are really nice (I know I just said mana shouldn't be an issue. Shut up. This is part of the reason why.) There is no need for further mana items. Full stop.a
I have always maintained W is the better skill to max on Annie, except maybe in the really shitty matchups where you're purely outranged at everything.
Lucidity is unnecessary, Sorc boots are better. I generally got them with distortion for the more frequent flash bears. Tibbers is an incredibly short cooldown late game, especially if you utilize his entire life on screen.
edit - I suppose, if you're playing top lane, I could see the argument against maxing W first so that you don't super push and lose lane control.
W max first is best on Annie, on most match ups. You can always force lane pressure by waveclearing really hard. But, I would suggest 2 points into Q before starting the W max (since you want the ability to have strong ranged harass in earlier levels, but want to start wave clearing when roaming becomes more of an issue (usually lvl 6+).
I've heard this opinion a few times before as well. I don't want to say it's bad, because I've only tried it a few times, but I'm not a fan. I understand the thought process behind it, but what do you trade off for that?
An early point in E? Absolutely not, the early resistance + damage on hit, as well as the added stun cycle utility is way too good to pass up, imo.
An early 3rd point in W? It could just be that I'm used to how much damage I do with W at certain points in the game, but I find it really awkward not having that 3rd point at lvls 5/6 (when you become REALLY scary). Again, I can see the argument for Q here (it's shorter CD, a bit longer range), I'm just not a fan.
I personally love to abuse the long range AA as my general harass (which is why I ended up having a lot of issues with minion aggro when I came back late S4 - they apparently changed something and it's stupid), using Q as super easy, free mana cs + stun cycling, and popping people with max range W when they think they're being cheeky. You really only need your opponent to be somewhere around 2/3 HP by the time you hit 6, maybe a bit lower if they're tankier.
So W->Q->Q->E->W->R->W->W->W or Q->W->Q->E->W->R->W->W->W or Q->W->E->Q->W->R->W->W->W
Whichever of these three would be how it plays out.
It depends on the matchup though imo. If you're against a roamer, straight W max right away might be better to shove earlier.
I mean, I understood what your options would be. It's more of a disagreement in play style, I suppose.
My usual setup was:
W (get lvl 1 stun in fountain because it's op) Q W E W R, W>Q>E>R
I can't actually see a reason you'd ever, ever want to start with Q.
Well, just look at the math of it, and you'll see the 2nd level in Q is actually pretty comparable to the earlier level 2 W.
the only difference is 5% AP ratio, but a 4sec CD difference, and 15 mana difference. So for the most part in early level 1-6, there's no roam, so you can comfortably harass and poke, without worrying about getting pushed on. Post 6+ then you can W max, which is where level 3,4,5 of W start outstripping the damage of Q in their respective levels.
Based on my data, top lane Annie seems to be winning quite a bit.
Out of 500k games from various levels of NA ranked solo queue games (v4.21), I found about ~5.4k games of top lane Annie played by Plat+ players. These ~5.4k games were played by ~3k different players.
Here's a breakdown:
Win Rate, Overall: 55% over ~5k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10+ Times: 62% over ~1.2k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10- Times: 54% over ~4.2k games
So, this may have its merits. However, keep in mind that:
1. 5.4k top Annie over 500k games is 1.4% popularity. She is a niche pick. 2. When I say a player who played top lane Annie X times, it's an underestimate, since I may have missed some of their games; also they may have played top lane Annie many times in a previous patch which I don't have record of.
Despite the fine notes, I think this looks so positive that I will definitely be interested in trying it myself in the future.
Here's a selection of players who played a lot of top lane Annie in 4.21:
On January 13 2015 02:42 Ketara wrote: So, I took the time to watch that hour long Lastshadow coaching video.
I don't know why you bothered; the guy is a known fraud.
I agree with the whole, tear on Annie is pretty silly. And I skimmed through one of his pick/ban coaching tutorials once and I wasn't very impressed. In any event, isn't he a challenger level player in Korea who does coaching/analyst work for European teams? He's rather respected in the pro community. I don't think he's a fraud, unless you have some information I'm unaware of.
On January 13 2015 09:46 Sufficiency wrote: Based on my data, top lane Annie seems to be winning quite a bit.
Out of 500k games from various levels of NA ranked solo queue games (v4.21), I found about ~5.4k games of top lane Annie played by Plat+ players. These ~5.4k games were played by ~3k different players.
Here's a breakdown:
Win Rate, Overall: 55% over ~5k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10+ Times: 62% over ~1.2k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10- Times: 54% over ~4.2k games
So, this may have its merits. However, keep in mind that:
1. 5.4k top Annie over 500k games is 1.4% popularity. She is a niche pick. 2. When I say a player who played top lane Annie X times, it's an underestimate, since I may have missed some of their games; also they may have played top lane Annie many times in a previous patch which I don't have record of.
Despite the fine notes, I think this looks so positive that I will definitely be interested in trying it myself in the future.
Here's a selection of players who played a lot of top lane Annie in 4.21:
BTW, a quick scan over their match history shows essentially no Tear being built on any of these 3 players.
Just to make sure I understand this correctly, this in combination with the people who played annie more than 10 times means that essentially nobody played Annie top more than twice, and very very few played it more than a single time, yes?
On January 13 2015 09:46 Sufficiency wrote: Based on my data, top lane Annie seems to be winning quite a bit.
Out of 500k games from various levels of NA ranked solo queue games (v4.21), I found about ~5.4k games of top lane Annie played by Plat+ players. These ~5.4k games were played by ~3k different players.
Here's a breakdown:
Win Rate, Overall: 55% over ~5k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10+ Times: 62% over ~1.2k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10- Times: 54% over ~4.2k games
So, this may have its merits. However, keep in mind that:
1. 5.4k top Annie over 500k games is 1.4% popularity. She is a niche pick. 2. When I say a player who played top lane Annie X times, it's an underestimate, since I may have missed some of their games; also they may have played top lane Annie many times in a previous patch which I don't have record of.
Despite the fine notes, I think this looks so positive that I will definitely be interested in trying it myself in the future.
Here's a selection of players who played a lot of top lane Annie in 4.21:
BTW, a quick scan over their match history shows essentially no Tear being built on any of these 3 players.
Just to make sure I understand this correctly, this in combination with the people who played annie more than 10 times means that essentially nobody played Annie top more than twice, and very very few played it more than a single time, yes?
I am not sure what you are getting at, but I just want to reiterate that I can only say "Player X has played AT LEAST Y games of top Annie on Patch Z. I can, however, tell you that top lane Annie has around 1.4% popularity (no "at least" here) and it is indeed a rare pick.
On January 13 2015 09:46 Sufficiency wrote: Based on my data, top lane Annie seems to be winning quite a bit.
Out of 500k games from various levels of NA ranked solo queue games (v4.21), I found about ~5.4k games of top lane Annie played by Plat+ players. These ~5.4k games were played by ~3k different players.
Here's a breakdown:
Win Rate, Overall: 55% over ~5k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10+ Times: 62% over ~1.2k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10- Times: 54% over ~4.2k games
So, this may have its merits. However, keep in mind that:
1. 5.4k top Annie over 500k games is 1.4% popularity. She is a niche pick. 2. When I say a player who played top lane Annie X times, it's an underestimate, since I may have missed some of their games; also they may have played top lane Annie many times in a previous patch which I don't have record of.
Despite the fine notes, I think this looks so positive that I will definitely be interested in trying it myself in the future.
Here's a selection of players who played a lot of top lane Annie in 4.21:
BTW, a quick scan over their match history shows essentially no Tear being built on any of these 3 players.
Just to make sure I understand this correctly, this in combination with the people who played annie more than 10 times means that essentially nobody played Annie top more than twice, and very very few played it more than a single time, yes?
There is a small core of dedicated Annie top players with significantly more than 2 games. "essentially nobody" is a meaningless qualifier because you don't indicate what you're comparing it to, and what "essentially" means.
On January 13 2015 02:42 Ketara wrote: So, I took the time to watch that hour long Lastshadow coaching video.
I don't know why you bothered; the guy is a known fraud.
I agree with the whole, tear on Annie is pretty silly. And I skimmed through one of his pick/ban coaching tutorials once and I wasn't very impressed. In any event, isn't he a challenger level player in Korea who does coaching/analyst work for European teams? He's rather respected in the pro community. I don't think he's a fraud, unless you have some information I'm unaware of.
Afaik, he was elo boosted while in KR. Regardless, he has a pretty poor history of effective coaching starting from BW days, from deliberate fraud back then to the rather useless coaching you can see in the posted video. I'm not sure how much respect he commands in the pro community either, because he had a very short stint on SHC where he buddied up with the paragon of LoL virtue XJ9.
On January 12 2015 21:32 _merK wrote: Your comparison to Ravenous Hydra is as bad as MoonBears comparison to Randuins Katarina. I chose not to comment on that one for obvious reasons.
Here's the thing, in League of Legends you have around 40 mins to finish the game (given how pacing normally happens) and only 6 item slots. So in that amount of time, you want to be doing the most you can with your items.
Tear on Annie isn't bad like Ravenous Hydra is, where you are just straight up wasting gold. But is it better than the alternatives? You have effectively 3 tiers of items: "Build these all the time" "Build these some of the time" "Don't bother building these"
Annie has more than 6 items that already take up the first 2 categories. Tear is not good enough to supersede those and falls into the last, at which point it basically is the same. Who cares if Tear Annie is better than Warmog's Annie or Randuin's Annie or Sunfire Annie. They're all not as good as DCap/Void/RoA/Liandries/Sorc/Lucidity/Morello/Zhonyas/DFG/Frozen Heart/Rylais or even Abyssal/WOTA Annie.
On January 13 2015 09:46 Sufficiency wrote: Based on my data, top lane Annie seems to be winning quite a bit.
Out of 500k games from various levels of NA ranked solo queue games (v4.21), I found about ~5.4k games of top lane Annie played by Plat+ players. These ~5.4k games were played by ~3k different players.
Here's a breakdown:
Win Rate, Overall: 55% over ~5k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10+ Times: 62% over ~1.2k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10- Times: 54% over ~4.2k games
So, this may have its merits. However, keep in mind that:
1. 5.4k top Annie over 500k games is 1.4% popularity. She is a niche pick. 2. When I say a player who played top lane Annie X times, it's an underestimate, since I may have missed some of their games; also they may have played top lane Annie many times in a previous patch which I don't have record of.
Despite the fine notes, I think this looks so positive that I will definitely be interested in trying it myself in the future.
Here's a selection of players who played a lot of top lane Annie in 4.21:
BTW, a quick scan over their match history shows essentially no Tear being built on any of these 3 players.
Just to make sure I understand this correctly, this in combination with the people who played annie more than 10 times means that essentially nobody played Annie top more than twice, and very very few played it more than a single time, yes?
There is a small core of dedicated Annie top players with significantly more than 2 games. "essentially nobody" is a meaningless qualifier because you don't indicate what you're comparing it to, and what "essentially" means.
On January 13 2015 02:42 Ketara wrote: So, I took the time to watch that hour long Lastshadow coaching video.
I don't know why you bothered; the guy is a known fraud.
I agree with the whole, tear on Annie is pretty silly. And I skimmed through one of his pick/ban coaching tutorials once and I wasn't very impressed. In any event, isn't he a challenger level player in Korea who does coaching/analyst work for European teams? He's rather respected in the pro community. I don't think he's a fraud, unless you have some information I'm unaware of.
Afaik, he was elo boosted while in KR. Regardless, he has a pretty poor history of effective coaching starting from BW days, from deliberate fraud back then to the rather useless coaching you can see in the posted video. I'm not sure how much respect he commands in the pro community either, because he had a very short stint on SHC where he buddied up with the paragon of LoL virtue XJ9.
The Brood War stuff was a long time ago. He's clearly had some success coaching in LoL, so to just completely disregard anything he has to say by going "Well he scammed some guy in Brood War, so he's just a fraud," is kind of silly. XJ9 was one of the top solo queue players before he was banned and he was just helping out as a proxy analyst, so I don't see how bringing that up is relevant.
Argue what he actually says, not who he is as a person.
On January 13 2015 09:46 Sufficiency wrote: Based on my data, top lane Annie seems to be winning quite a bit.
Out of 500k games from various levels of NA ranked solo queue games (v4.21), I found about ~5.4k games of top lane Annie played by Plat+ players. These ~5.4k games were played by ~3k different players.
Here's a breakdown:
Win Rate, Overall: 55% over ~5k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10+ Times: 62% over ~1.2k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10- Times: 54% over ~4.2k games
So, this may have its merits. However, keep in mind that:
1. 5.4k top Annie over 500k games is 1.4% popularity. She is a niche pick. 2. When I say a player who played top lane Annie X times, it's an underestimate, since I may have missed some of their games; also they may have played top lane Annie many times in a previous patch which I don't have record of.
Despite the fine notes, I think this looks so positive that I will definitely be interested in trying it myself in the future.
Here's a selection of players who played a lot of top lane Annie in 4.21:
BTW, a quick scan over their match history shows essentially no Tear being built on any of these 3 players.
Just to make sure I understand this correctly, this in combination with the people who played annie more than 10 times means that essentially nobody played Annie top more than twice, and very very few played it more than a single time, yes?
There is a small core of dedicated Annie top players with significantly more than 2 games. "essentially nobody" is a meaningless qualifier because you don't indicate what you're comparing it to, and what "essentially" means.
I think it's pretty clear that I was pointing out the following: 3 thousand players played less than 6 thousand games, meaning that it's not possible for everyone to have played 2 games (Sufficiency clarified why I was wrong to think this). The three people with 93/47/57 games (total of 197) are about 190 games over a par of 2, meaning that approximately 190 other people would have 1 game played instead of 2. Following this, I deduced that the large majority of players had played only a single game, with few playing more than 2.
By "essentially nobody" I meant to convey the idea of a group of people with a number of included people so low that that the essence of the group is similar to or indistinguishable from a group containing zero people ("nobody"). Because this group is so low in number and impact it almost doesn't matter what their "essence" is because it's tiny enough to be negligible or near-zero. Perhaps essentially was a poor word choice? Effectively or basically are closer to what I meant to convey, I feel.
Obviously I wrong to think this, but I also think it's fairly clear what I erroneously meant by the unqualified terms you pointed out.
tl;dr thanks sufficiency
EDIT: Also of interest to me is the person sufficiency linked to that builds frozen heart for mana instead of RoA, but still builds Deathcap and such. I'm not sure I understand this, given that Annie's defensive steroid creates desire for HP instead of resists and the lack of AP (with similar cost) seems significant early, as I do agree with the tear-person that Annie wants at minimum some kind of mana item alongside whatever AP. It seems to be glacial shroud -> AP -> finish FH later. Is glacial shroud considered a good laning item elsewhere?
I'd much rather get RoA, but if you're against an AD lane and need mana, glacial shroud is very cost effective. That being said, the guy doing it is plat 4 with a 54% win rate on Annie, so I wouldn't read too much into it. RoA's just better.
On January 14 2015 03:10 Sufficiency wrote: My concern is why she seems to be performing so well top. Is she simply a bad mid laner now? Oe maybe she is strong vs the current top meta pick?
I'll load a bit more data tonight and compare top lane Annie to mid/support Annie.
Just look at her E, she's a maokai with ranged aoe initiate. It's pretty insane how much free defensive stats she gets, that combined with good burst. The only issue I could see her running into is having to play around her flash CD for initiates.
On January 15 2015 11:06 Sufficiency wrote: Here's a summary from 178k platinum games on patch 4.21:
Looks like Annie mid also has around 55% win rate. Annie support looks pretty lackluster though...
It's not like every Annie support is basically Annie mid with slower leveling-up, lol. I seriously think that i'm only one who plays Annie support by building talisman, crucible, locket and mobis instead of going dfg/deathcap/void staff like every cool guy does.
On January 15 2015 13:04 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: You're telling me for every two top Annies we see there's a jungle Annie? Is this real lief?
Annie can range abuse the jungle to take very little damage early, and actually has a kit pretty well suited to jungle clearing after a few levels. It didn't stand out to me when I tested ranged junglers at the start of the pre-season (I vaguely remember being frustrated that I had to get hit for E to be useful), but I suppose it may scale better than, say, Gnar or Kalista, which doesn't say a whole lot but I wouldn't have tested this given I was using bots primarily. I doubt it's better than Twitch, TF or Kayle, but I will look into this more (hopefully before the reset changes).
I did some testing with jungle Annie as well after seeing that chart, and the first clear is rather awkward (you need a really good leash at Gromp or else it takes forever), because you want Q to kill Gromp ASAP to have its buff for blue and wolves, but you want E and W for every other camp, and you'll go OOM with one point in each. My best times for 6 camp clear came in at 4:35-4:40, which is definitely subpar, but it's definitely feasible... until they decrease the leashing limit. Oh well.
Having such a strong engage as flash Annie ult out of the jungle is definitely a nice tool to have in a team comp, and other ganks with a pre-charged Q stun don't seem awful either if the enemy is far enough forward that you can go through another stun cycle during the gank.
Yeah, I'm doing a full clear starting from Blue to rocks at about 4:35, with enough for Rangers + boots + red/red/blue pots or blue+ward if you're confident I guess. Second clear is super easy, but you'll only hit lv.5 from it and you do have to manage mana decently if you want to gank after.
This guide: has some really nice range abuse that I'm not good enough to replicate on the frog, but I didn't exactly practice it. I anticipate the reset reduction nerf to only really affect wolves and red for annie, for what that's worth. I might actually add this to my pool, depending on how the reset changes work out...
That blue leash behind the camp wall is really cool, I'd never seen it before. I usually prefer to put the first trinket ward father into the river, but I'll have to keep that pattern in mind.
On January 15 2015 18:09 MidnightGladius wrote: That blue leash behind the camp wall is really cool, I'd never seen it before. I usually prefer to put the first trinket ward father into the river, but I'll have to keep that pattern in mind.
I learned it from some of that person's other videos. Notably it only works on the one side of the map, the other side is glitched. You can also lead red buff around the side by the dragon pit, but it's a little less effective due to MS differences. Still very worth doing if your goal is damage mitigation without risking hard resets, but it does move you further away from Rocks whereas the blue tricks moves you closers to wolves.
Okay, that guide is outdated due to changes in soft-resetting neutral monsters. Please don't give people dumb ideas anymore. This isn't Mobafire...
Just because people can play it doesn't mean its good. Also, if the enemy jungler decides to step into your jungle, you die and most likely lose your camps too because you clear mad slow while kiting stuff around.
I am the person getting coached here. I have since dropped the tear even though there are obvious benefits (seraph's works really well with roa). I like to go roa, zhonya, morello, thornmail.
I am the person getting coached here. I have since dropped the tear even though there are obvious benefits (seraph's works really well with roa). I like to go roa, zhonya, morello, thornmail.
Seraphs does not work really well with ROA if you don't need the mana.
A Seraphs with ROA gives Annie 144 AP at 18. Without ROA it gives 124.5.
That's a good chunk of AP, but it's similar to the amount that you'd get from DFG, Deathcap or Zhonya, all of which give some other awesome thing as well (actives or a lot more AP) without sacrificing early game power.
If Seraphs was a good item just on the merits of how much AP it gives, you would see it on every AP mid. You take Seraphs because you need the mana it provides, which is why you only see it on Anivia, Ryze, Cassiopeia, and the occasional Lux and Swain or whatever.
Basically, even if you have Seraphs, buying mana to get AP is still inferior to buying AP to get AP.
Likewise, ROA is only an efficient item over Rylais if you need the mana. If you're going ROA + Morello + Thornmail, I'm wondering why Rylais + Void Staff + Frozen Heart wouldn't be more efficient. Based on that video, ROA + Morello seems like overkill on the regen.
Also, why not get Lich Bane on bruiser Annie? She's got crazy low cooldowns and a crazy high AA range, and it gives her tower pushing, movespeed, and mana.
Rylai + Lich Bane + Frozen Heart, seems prettigud. Check out this comparison:
ROA + Morello + Thornmail 160 AP 20% CDR 600 HP 650 mana + 100% mregen 100 armor Grievous wounds Thornmail damage 7200 gold
Rylai + Lich Bane + Frozen Heart 180 AP 20% CDR 400 HP 650 mana 100 armor 5% movespeed Rylai slow Lich Bane hurtyhurt damage Frozen Heart aura Don't have to build ROA efficiency over 10 minutes 8250 gold
Okay so it costs 1000 more, but then you get crazy Lich Bane damage. Your Q and auto have the same range, so you can think of it like adding 161 damage to every Q. That's as much of an increase as 200 AP.
I am the person getting coached here. I have since dropped the tear even though there are obvious benefits (seraph's works really well with roa). I like to go roa, zhonya, morello, thornmail.
Why did you decide to drop the tear? I feel like that is tons of late game damage?
I decided to drop the tear because the tear is useless until you have turned it into a seraph's. I didn't necessarily say it worked well with roa because of the additional AP (although this is obviously a +), but because of the additional shield strength you get.
Either way, I couldn't find a good place in games to spend 720 useless gold just to get extra lategame power.
I've tried playing Annie top sionce I've seen this topic and would like to share my results:
- Generally 2 or 3 points in q then w max feels a lot better than maxing q straight up
- Building both Roa and Rylais costs way too much gold and I'd rather buy some more Utility/Damage items. I absolutely dont want to drop the rylais so I dropped Roa instead and cover my mana problems with 2 dorans in the early game and a morellonomicon later on.
- Annie works pretty well against a lot of the ranged top meta and can surprise kill them after 6 without ignite if your enemy isnt careful
- TP Ganks are prettty good, but you can be outrun super hard if you TP at a slightly bad position
- You are pretty damn beefy and still strong once you have e levels.
My build in most games:
2x Dorans Rylais Sorcs Morellonomicon Voidstaff Zhonyas Banner of Command (super good vs 2 ap)
Looper also leveled R>Q>W>E, which is a little different from what I'm hearing here. It looked like his overall goal was to be able to 100-0 Kass or Corki before they were able to do any significant damage. M3 didn't have the vision control to set up any effective picks while Cola and Zero on Gnar and Thresh were able to engage or keep Annie off their carries. It's not hard for Corki and Kassadin to simply stay out of Annie's range.
Overall, it wasn't a very inspiring Annie top game.
I think Annie's build varies heavily by situation and depending on your play style, but generally you should try to take advantage of her shield (aka building some HP) so that poor positioning is not so easily punished. I mean at the end of the day Annie's primary form of engage is using her flash into the enemy team and she has no way of escaping quickly.
RoA on top Annie is the only thing that I absolutely think should be "standard" Experiment for yourself, but always keep in mind that she is really hard to position well and that she scales well with health.
On January 13 2015 09:46 Sufficiency wrote: Based on my data, top lane Annie seems to be winning quite a bit.
Out of 500k games from various levels of NA ranked solo queue games (v4.21), I found about ~5.4k games of top lane Annie played by Plat+ players. These ~5.4k games were played by ~3k different players.
Here's a breakdown:
Win Rate, Overall: 55% over ~5k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10+ Times: 62% over ~1.2k games Win Rate, Players Who Played Top Lane Annie 10- Times: 54% over ~4.2k games
So, this may have its merits. However, keep in mind that:
1. 5.4k top Annie over 500k games is 1.4% popularity. She is a niche pick. 2. When I say a player who played top lane Annie X times, it's an underestimate, since I may have missed some of their games; also they may have played top lane Annie many times in a previous patch which I don't have record of.
Despite the fine notes, I think this looks so positive that I will definitely be interested in trying it myself in the future.
Here's a selection of players who played a lot of top lane Annie in 4.21:
R - Summon: Tibbers NEW - When Annie casts Molten Shield, Tibbers gains +300 bonus movement speed, decaying over 0.75 seconds NEW - Tibbers now also receives the benefits of Molten Shield when Annie casts it while he's up DIET TIBBERS - Tibbers' collision radius has been reduced to let him move past minions easier
While I worry about losing 10 AP/MR, I think overall this will be a buff to bruiser Annie, who didn't rely on DFG anyways.
Tibbers does 35 + 20% AP damage per second as an Aura, and with him becoming tankier, it will be much harder to displace him. At rank 3, he has a whopping 3,000 HP, so getting these bonus resists will do him wonders.
It feels like there may be some potential with Rylai's; Tibbers can chase somebody down, then slow them enough for Annie to land a stun.
Lastly, I think this may incentivize CDR heavy builds (scaling CDR blues, Lucidity boots, Frozen Heart. etc) since at max CDR, Tibbers lifespan (45s) is about the same as Annie's ult cooldown (48s).
Anybody else have thoughts / reactions to this change?
R - Summon: Tibbers NEW - When Annie casts Molten Shield, Tibbers gains +300 bonus movement speed, decaying over 0.75 seconds NEW - Tibbers now also receives the benefits of Molten Shield when Annie casts it while he's up DIET TIBBERS - Tibbers' collision radius has been reduced to let him move past minions easier
While I worry about losing 10 AP/MR, I think overall this will be a buff to bruiser Annie, who didn't rely on DFG anyways.
Tibbers does 35 + 20% AP damage per second as an Aura, and with him becoming tankier, it will be much harder to displace him. At rank 3, he has a whopping 3,000 HP, so getting these bonus resists will do him wonders.
It feels like there may be some potential with Rylai's; Tibbers can chase somebody down, then slow them enough for Annie to land a stun.
Lastly, I think this may incentivize CDR heavy builds (scaling CDR blues, Lucidity boots, Frozen Heart. etc) since at max CDR, Tibbers lifespan (45s) is about the same as Annie's ult cooldown (48s).
Anybody else have thoughts / reactions to this change?
R - Summon: Tibbers NEW - When Annie casts Molten Shield, Tibbers gains +300 bonus movement speed, decaying over 0.75 seconds NEW - Tibbers now also receives the benefits of Molten Shield when Annie casts it while he's up DIET TIBBERS - Tibbers' collision radius has been reduced to let him move past minions easier
While I worry about losing 10 AP/MR, I think overall this will be a buff to bruiser Annie, who didn't rely on DFG anyways.
Tibbers does 35 + 20% AP damage per second as an Aura, and with him becoming tankier, it will be much harder to displace him. At rank 3, he has a whopping 3,000 HP, so getting these bonus resists will do him wonders.
It feels like there may be some potential with Rylai's; Tibbers can chase somebody down, then slow them enough for Annie to land a stun.
Lastly, I think this may incentivize CDR heavy builds (scaling CDR blues, Lucidity boots, Frozen Heart. etc) since at max CDR, Tibbers lifespan (45s) is about the same as Annie's ult cooldown (48s).
Anybody else have thoughts / reactions to this change?
Yup, only 15%. So I'm not sure if it will really be that impactful. But I definitely am going to be giving bruiser Annie another look once this patch drops.
I don't think lich would be very good in that build, its quite weak with very low AP, her base damages are so good I would say finishing the other 20% CDR would be way better.
Annie with spellvamp and CDR is pretty sick too, with max you can Q every minion with a CD of 1.2 seconds for free....thats a fuckton of sustain.
Yeah you're right, I guess Lich Bane is not a good item on the longest AA range AP champion who just happens to have a skill with a 2.4 second cooldown with CDR.
On January 28 2015 12:41 Ketara wrote: Yeah you're right, I guess Lich Bane is not a good item on the longest AA range AP champion who just happens to have a skill with a 2.4 second cooldown with CDR.
And you can't get CDR from runes or anything.
On January 28 2015 10:08 Ketara wrote: I'd really like to see somebody go Frozen Heart + Rylai + Lich Bane in some order and tell me how it works.
Please save the sarcasm for the off topic thread and keep it out of strategy. Mocking somebody because he didn't agree with your post while you didn't provide any evidence yourself isnt good for discussions.
Recommending Lich Bane on Annie to take advantage of a 2.4s CD spell (which isn't even attainable without runes/masteries, that itself a problem as addressed later) is fundamentally misunderstanding what people actually build Lich Bane for. The champions who use Lich Bane do not do it to artificially add "sustained damage" over a 10+ second team fight, but rather do it to add burst to their combos, necessitated by their kits requiring an auto-attack. See: TF, Fizz, Diana, etc. Lich Bane is not built on any casters who do not need to auto attack as a part of their spell kit.
While it is true Annie has really long range, her auto attack animation isn't great, and an extra bit of range from what is primarily a caster is completely irrelevant in a teamfight situation. It is further negated in team fights because in order to proc LB, you need to cast a spell first, and Annie's spells are actually lower range than her autos. Auto, Q, and W are all 625 range, but because auto range is calculated from edge of the character model while spell is from the center, the actual range of Q is a bit lower than the auto.
By recommending Rylai/FH/LB, you are paying 1400g for a .5 AP ratio on a low-AP build. In addition, requiring extra runes to reach max CDR means sacrificing laning potential by giving up AP/MR/whatever for something that doesn't kick in until 3 full items are completed. An 80 AP item that gives no CDR and no raw damage hurts your initial burst combo, which is what is most important. No matter the role and build of Annie, Annie's teamfight playstyle is always to start off with casting RWQ in rapid succession. Thus, it is much better to get raw AP and penetration to maximize your initial damage and to prioritize CDR for sustained damage. Lich Bane does not help with either of these goals. In addition, the burst combo is a "sure thing" whereas for any number of reasons (focus fire, CC, postioning, team fight ending earlier), you might not be able to guarantee sustained Q-auto after every cooldown during the course of a teamfight to make the LB "outdamage" an alternative.
This is all on top of the fact that Rylai/FH/LB is a very expensive core set-up that doesn't even synergize much. You are overpaying for mana and the LB damage while lacking in burst damage and CDR, as well as other effects/bonuses that alternatives would give you. With the Rylai/FH core, any number of other items are superior choices over LB: Void Staff, Morellonomicon, Deathcap, Hourglass, just to name a few of many examples.
But Chexx, we are not talking about burst damage in this thread.
This is a bruiser Annie discussion, whom I'd presume would be 1v1ing and pushing towers, both of which Lich Bane would help a lot for.
If you're talking about a Rylai/FH core, lets look at the other example items you listed.
Since we already figured out that ROA gives all the mana you need, FH gives comparable mana, so I can assume that Morellonomicon would be overkill on mana. You already have an armor item, so Zhonyas would probably be overkill on armor, although I could definitely see getting Zhonya/Void/Deathcap for a 4th or 5th item.
So lets look at damage of Lich Bane for a third item vs. Void Staff or Deathcap. Void Staff and Deathcap both only give damage, while Lich Bane gives damage, tower pushing power, mana and movespeed, so we'll make an assumption that Void and Deathcaps damage have to be clearly higher, and not just sorta closely higher, in order to be better choices. Void and Deathcap will do dispraportionately more AOE damage, but this is not mid lane teamfighting Annie we are talking about, it is top lane Bruiser Annie who will care more about her 1v1 ability than her teamfighting ability, or so I would assume.
We've already got Rylais and probably a Dorans Ring, so we're talking something like 143 AP base. Deathcap costs a lot more and has a more cumbersome build path, so I'm going to add a Blasting Wand to Void Staff and an Amp Tome to Lich Bane (this makes the Lich Bane route 100g more expensive than the other two, but I'm gonna call that fair since Lich Bane has the best build path of the three anyway). So here's the AP values we're looking at.
Void: 258.5 Deathcap: 341.9 Lich Bane: 248
Based on that, here's burst damage figures for her R W Q combo, which at level 16 is 930+2.65 AP. We'll add one Lich Bane proc into it.
So, Deathcap is about 3% higher than Lich Bane, which I can presume will not be good enough to be worth 5% movespeed, 250 more mana and much (much) better tower pushing capability, especially not when you look at sustained damage figures which we'll check out below. But before we do that, lets look at Lich Bane vs. Void Staff because for that we have to look at enemy MR.
We'll assume you've got Sorc Shoes and hybrid pen runes, and see how Void compares against different MR values.
50 MR target (lowest you're likely to see in top lane) Void: 1530 Lich: 1456.7
100 MR target (tank who rushes like a banshee or something) Void: 1186 Lich: 1051.59
So, against a low MR target it's again, like a 5% difference in burst, which still would I think make me lean towards Lich Bane for more mana, movespeed and tower pushing power. If you're playing against a tank who rushes big MR items right away, Void is probably going to be better, that is true.
I'd also like to point out that if you get a second Q in your burst combo (I think you can do this? I don't know. You can Q R W Q if you have CDR right?) for a second 190 damage Lich Bane proc, Lich Bane will outdamage both Void and Deathcap.
So, lets also look at some sustained damage ratios. I'm gonna put out some DPS figures for these three items, and I'm going to assume that you can do a Lich Bane auto off every Q, since they have the same range. I'm gonna count Q DPS, W DPS, and the aura from Tibbers.
Void: 271 Deathcap: 322 Lich Bane: 327
This is actually closer than I thought it would be (Tibbers Aura is pretty sweet DPS), but it still shows that Lich Bane is clearly equal or better than the other two, while providing movespeed, mana and tower pushing capability. Note that higher CDR would benefit Lich Bane more than the other two, since Tibbers aura DPS wouldn't increase with CDR but the Lich Bane proc DPS would increase substantially.
I'm curious though because I want to look at that vs. a Morellonomicon. So we'll look at a Morello + Blasting Wand + AP/level runes, vs. a Lich Bane + CDR/level runes. Said Morello build would have 272.895 AP.
Lich Bane: 433 Morellonomicon: 379
So, as we can see the Lich Bane build is much better at sustained damage, and would also be much better at burst damage (Morellos burst figures would be lower than Deathcap), while providing movespeed and tower pushing ability. Morellos gives more mana probably, which Annie doesn't need.
So, in conclusion.
Lich Bane is actually the best sustained damage of all the items you suggested, and fairly equivalent or slightly better at burst damage depending on what sort of a combo you're talking about, unless you're against a tank who rushes big MR items in which case Void Staff is probably better. You could make an argument for the AOE damage on Deathcap/Void being very strong, but I thought we were talking about top lane Bruiser Annie, who I'd assume is most concerned with her 1v1 and tower pushing ability and not with her teamfight ability. Maybe I'm incorrect in understanding how you play Top Annie.
Lich Bane also gives the best utility of all the items you suggested, due to providing movespeed and a lot of extra tower pushing ability, as well as just the right amount of mana she would need. It's got a better build path since it builds out of smaller components, you never have to wait for 1600g. Zhonya provides good defense, but it's not really seen as an offensive item.
I do think Void, Zhonya and Deathcap would be great as 4th or 5th items. I think Morello seems a little silly on her if you're already getting Frozen Heart, you don't need both.
Realistically, I think the item you're looking for as being better than Lich Bane when considering these things is Deathfire Grasp, which you can't buy anymore. DFG would be similar in terms of everything but tower pushing ability, but just better in every way.
But, all that said, I don't play Annie, top or otherwise. I don't have a clue lol. I'd be interested in somebody trying it and telling me what they think though instead of just saying it's wrong.
Mostly I just think it's weird that Lich Bane was a 1st or 2nd must have item for top Lulu in season 4, but in this thread for top Annie it's not even being considered.
I think one of the most crucial components to this is how easy it is for Annie to weave auto attacks in with her spells. Assuming we hit 40% CDR, her spell cooldowns look like this:
Q: 2.4 W: 4.8 E: 6
Considering her spell animations aren't the cleanest, and she honestly has a pretty bad auto attack animation too, I am skeptical that you'd be able to (1) properly rotate all of your spells for maximum stuns, (2) weave in enough auto attacks to make the lich bane worth it, and (3) actually move around and stuff.
Regardless, this is cool theory crafting. If anybody gets a chance to try these things out, definitely report back with your findings!
I mean, the thing for me is that if you're playing a top lane bruiser, you want to be a strong split pusher, right? Annie has some of that because she has real good 1v1 and Tibbers is good at pushing because he can tank tower hits.
Lich Bane gives her movespeed to engage on people and avoid ganks, as well as really good 1v1 damage and tower pushing. I also feel like a Sheen rush would be really strong on her. It has mana on it same as that ROA part whatever it's called, but it'd let you Q minions and have the empowered auto to poke the enemy champion or scare him away from creeps. If you went Lich+Rylai+FH I'd probably suggest rushing Sheen, then building Rylai/FH in whatever order, and finishing Lich Bane after Rylai when you have the Rylai AP.
It's probably not the best teamfighting item. I wouldn't suggest it for a mid lane build, or if I did it wouldn't be until 5th item probably, and only then because DFG isn't in the game anymore.
But for top lane I'm not sure how it doesn't make sense. But again, I don't play Annie in general, I'm just theorycrafting.
It's worth noting that I don't understand ROA on Annie at all. It seems like ROA is an item for people who are not strong early game and ramp up into a late game threat, especially if they get damage from mana like Ryze. Annie isn't like that, she's a super strong early game champion who if anything falls off later in the game because she becomes real dependant on Flash to do damage, even though her damage admittedly stays pretty crazy high.
I feel like buying ROA on Annie is some weird season 2 legacy buy from back when you bought ROA on everybody, coupled with the fact that she might need a little bit of mana but doesn't actually need very much, and that's exactly what ROA gives. I don't think it's actually a good item for her and I think if you did the math you could come up with something better, or something that would at least be equivalent without sacrificing early game power.
On January 29 2015 07:28 Ketara wrote: I mean, the thing for me is that if you're playing a top lane bruiser, you want to be a strong split pusher, right? Annie has some of that because she has real good 1v1 and Tibbers is good at pushing because he can tank tower hits.
Lich Bane gives her movespeed to engage on people and avoid ganks, as well as really good 1v1 damage and tower pushing. I also feel like a Sheen rush would be really strong on her. It has mana on it same as that ROA part whatever it's called, but it'd let you Q minions and have the empowered auto to poke the enemy champion or scare him away from creeps. If you went Lich+Rylai+FH I'd probably suggest rushing Sheen, then building Rylai/FH in whatever order, and finishing Lich Bane after Rylai when you have the Rylai AP.
It's probably not the best teamfighting item. I wouldn't suggest it for a mid lane build, or if I did it wouldn't be until 5th item probably, and only then because DFG isn't in the game anymore.
But for top lane I'm not sure how it doesn't make sense. But again, I don't play Annie in general, I'm just theorycrafting.
It's worth noting that I don't understand ROA on Annie at all. It seems like ROA is an item for people who are not strong early game and ramp up into a late game threat, especially if they get damage from mana like Ryze. Annie isn't like that, she's a super strong early game champion who if anything falls off later in the game because she becomes real dependant on Flash to do damage, even though her damage admittedly stays pretty crazy high.
I feel like buying ROA on Annie is some weird season 2 legacy buy from back when you bought ROA on everybody, coupled with the fact that she might need a little bit of mana but doesn't actually need very much, and that's exactly what ROA gives. I don't think it's actually a good item for her and I think if you did the math you could come up with something better, or something that would at least be equivalent without sacrificing early game power.
The RoA buy is to mirror the same reason toplane Maokai gets it, give you aggressive early game stats, and tankiness, all while giving you constant map pressure with large mana pool. Also before the E nerf, 20mr+20armor makes the health a lot more efficient.
"Bruiser Annie" is a misnomer because while you do build some HP, Annie will never be a Ryze, Alistar, or Maokai. This guide/discussion is for a more HP-focused Annie that shows up predominantly in Top lane due to the mandatory Catalyst. I have renamed the thread so we can avoid the confusion and spreading of misinformation such as thinking that after you have 10k gold worth of items the other team is still going to let you sit in lane and try to harass your likely melee opponent down with Q+AA harass.
Looking at non support build orders in probuilds, I see zero Catalysts, and zero ROAs. I see Righteous glory on support Annie a few times but that's it.
On January 29 2015 08:56 Ketara wrote: But why is the Catalyst mandatory?
it's not mandatory, but it's probably the best buy for toplane Annie. Unless of course you're okay with getting your poo poo shoved in on toplane from a ton of matchups.
On January 29 2015 08:50 Zess wrote: "Bruiser Annie" is a misnomer because while you do build some HP, Annie will never be a Ryze, Alistar, or Maokai. This guide/discussion is for a more HP-focused Annie that shows up predominantly in Top lane due to the mandatory Catalyst. I have renamed the thread so we can avoid the confusion and spreading of misinformation such as thinking that after you have 10k gold worth of items the other team is still going to let you sit in lane and try to harass your likely melee opponent down with Q+AA harass.
The entire discussion is centered around how if you build Annie tanky, she becomes a bruiser. This feels like you're editing the original post to fit your own views which is ridiculous.
On January 29 2015 08:56 Ketara wrote: But why is the Catalyst mandatory?
it's not mandatory, but it's probably the best buy for toplane Annie. Unless of course you're okay with getting your poo poo shoved in on toplane from a ton of matchups.
That doesn't actually say anything. I'm still not convinced you need it especially if you start flask.
On January 29 2015 08:50 Zess wrote: "Bruiser Annie" is a misnomer because while you do build some HP, Annie will never be a Ryze, Alistar, or Maokai. This guide/discussion is for a more HP-focused Annie that shows up predominantly in Top lane due to the mandatory Catalyst. I have renamed the thread so we can avoid the confusion and spreading of misinformation such as thinking that after you have 10k gold worth of items the other team is still going to let you sit in lane and try to harass your likely melee opponent down with Q+AA harass.
The entire discussion is centered around how if you build Annie tanky, she becomes a bruiser. This feels like you're editing the original post to fit your own views which is ridiculous.
On January 29 2015 08:56 Ketara wrote: But why is the Catalyst mandatory?
it's not mandatory, but it's probably the best buy for toplane Annie. Unless of course you're okay with getting your poo poo shoved in on toplane from a ton of matchups.
That doesn't actually say anything. I'm still not convinced you need it especially if you start flask.
Flask might be fine if you're playing against a top laner that can't all-in you, and you just need to sustain through early levels, but in reality by level 3 or 4, most bruiser kits in toplane should be able to all in you successfully if you don't build early health. IMO the alternative to RoA first, is probably double dorans + armguard, is probably a decent alternative, giving you enough tank stats to survive early, and get another item isntead of RoA first, like zhonya's
So you're saying that a Catalyst gives you better all in pressure than a Flask + Blasting Wand?
Catalyst gives you 200 HP. Blasting Wand gives you like 100 minimum extra damage in an all in fight. That's maybe not completely comparable, but I feel like there has to be some reason why pro players appear to have stopped buying ROA on Annie altogether.
On January 29 2015 09:50 Ketara wrote: So you're saying that a Catalyst gives you better all in pressure than a Flask + Blasting Wand?
Catalyst gives you 200 HP. Blasting Wand gives you like 100 minimum extra damage in an all in fight. That's maybe not completely comparable, but I feel like there has to be some reason why pro players appear to have stopped buying ROA on Annie altogether.
No, I'm saying catalyst lets you stay alive in all-in pressure, and allows you to stay in lane after someone tries to all in you.
On January 29 2015 09:57 Ketara wrote: I don't understand how a Flask and a damage item don't do that. Maybe I'm missing something.
Because a flask doesn't heal you instantly, it's good for sustaining in lane after small trades. Problem is if they all in you, you don't get to count the efficiency of the pot, cuz you just got all-in'd, you get maybe 50hp during that all-in from the flask. Which really isn't enough. Meanwhile, a catalyst will let you stay alive, and then continue staying in lane. Flask doesn't give enough upfront defensive capabilities to let you survive the all-in.
The alternative to Catalyst is a shitload of biscuits (potions); no one gets flask. However, don't read this as a defense of wei2coolman.
No solo-lane Annie build involving either RoA or Rylai's goes mid (Morello, DCap, Zhonyas, Haunting, Void and rip DFG are all much higher priorities), so the HP-focussed Annie is a top lane exclusive.
Of the Top lane Annie games, at Gold+ most of them have RoA, probably to make lane sustain better. At the pro level no one plays Top lane Annie so the data isn't meaningful, but it's about 2-1 split of RoA -> Rylais vs straight Rylais. Also there is just some pure AP Top annie without any HP at all.
The OP is not very useful anyways because ignoring support shenanigans Haunting Guise fits better in burst-focussed Mid lane Annie. Even with the larger HP pool, Annie is still played like a burst caster (in the LPL Top Annie was built with rip DFG). Extremely defensive Annie builds in an attempt to fix her base stats and turn her into a true bruiser are basically mobafire tier.
On January 29 2015 10:25 Zess wrote: The alternative to Catalyst is a shitload of biscuits (potions); no one gets flask. However, don't read this as a defense of wei2coolman.
No solo-lane Annie build involving either RoA or Rylai's goes mid (Morello, DCap, Zhonyas, Haunting, Void and rip DFG are all much higher priorities), so the HP-focussed Annie is a top lane exclusive.
Of the Top lane Annie games, at Gold+ most of them have RoA, probably to make lane sustain better. At the pro level no one plays Top lane Annie so the data isn't meaningful, but it's about 2-1 split of RoA -> Rylais vs straight Rylais. Also there is just some pure AP Top annie without any HP at all.
The OP is not very useful anyways because ignoring support shenanigans Haunting Guise fits better in burst-focussed Mid lane Annie. Even with the larger HP pool, Annie is still played like a burst caster (in the LPL Top Annie was built with rip DFG). Extremely defensive Annie builds in an attempt to fix her base stats and turn her into a true bruiser are basically mobafire tier.
It's sort of popular in China, also saw it from looper in LPL (but he did non-RoA build and got dumpstered on, so there's that.)
For what it's worth. Quas just rekt as toplane Annie in soloqueue, by going Rylais first (Fills the same idea as RoA, but just supplemented lack of mana with better mana management, and supplemented health regen with tons of biscuits). Eventually getting DC+voidstaff+zhonya's+Banshee. Which is quite defensive considering the amount of raw defensive stats he's getting.
On January 29 2015 10:36 Ketara wrote: Rylai DC Void Zhonya Banshee makes sense to me for a final build. But that would seem to suggest that you don't need any mana from items at all.
Which would be even more of a case for never buying ROA. Would also probably cut out things like Frozen Heart and Lich Bane.
On January 29 2015 10:25 Zess wrote: The alternative to Catalyst is a shitload of biscuits (potions); no one gets flask. However, don't read this as a defense of wei2coolman.
No solo-lane Annie build involving either RoA or Rylai's goes mid (Morello, DCap, Zhonyas, Haunting, Void and rip DFG are all much higher priorities), so the HP-focussed Annie is a top lane exclusive.
Of the Top lane Annie games, at Gold+ most of them have RoA, probably to make lane sustain better. At the pro level no one plays Top lane Annie so the data isn't meaningful, but it's about 2-1 split of RoA -> Rylais vs straight Rylais. Also there is just some pure AP Top annie without any HP at all.
The OP is not very useful anyways because ignoring support shenanigans Haunting Guise fits better in burst-focussed Mid lane Annie. Even with the larger HP pool, Annie is still played like a burst caster (in the LPL Top Annie was built with rip DFG). Extremely defensive Annie builds in an attempt to fix her base stats and turn her into a true bruiser are basically mobafire tier.
I hate to be that guy but why is this thread still open then?
Yeah I kind of agree. The OP is very clearly about tanky bruiser Annie. In fact, there is not a single pure damage item suggested.
Not that I think that's good I don't know, but if it's idiotic shouldn't the thread be closed and discussion of AP Mage Top Annie be moved to a legacy Annie thread?
Seems like if you're worried about "spreading misinformation" then a misinformative OP would be the place to start, rather than the replies that try to make the OP better.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MiRPE4u.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/NRzNHuP.png)
