@Meddler: Annie. Is she simply in need of a rework? It's hard to balance her.

(This is not an Annie QQ thread. She can be beat by tanks like Leona, and Support Annie isn't good at damage output. She's also squishy even if you get Rod of Ages on her.)

Annie is a case where I feel she is simply inflexible to balance changes. Any damage nerfs you give her are pretty much negligible in that even if she's not doing much damage, she just falls back on being a stun-bot for her team. Wait until the initiator goes in, ults an enemy team cluster, and then her team cleans house. Either that or she gets initiated on and dies quickly.

When it comes to nerfing her, presently, Riot had to resort to lowering her attack range. Not that that wasn't warranted, but it shows they are having to make really unpopular nerfs just to do anything meaningful to her.

And then there's her gameplay. Simplistic, yes, but not very inspiring. Just spam spells until Pyromania is charged, then Flash in and unleash an Alpha Strike combo on your enemy, killing it instantly with low counterplay. Summon Tibbers? No travel time. Disintegrate? Direct-target, so it can't miss. Incinerate? Instant AOE cone, so you can't really react to it and dodge. If you're within her firing range, she WILL hit you, no questions asked. You aren't gonna skillfully avoid a skillshot from her because she doesn't have any.

All-in-all, I feel that Annie's present mechanics are simply... restrictive. In order to make her more dynamic and allow balance changes to be meaningful on her, she seems like she's in need of a total rework.

But that's just my opinion.