Annie's PBE Changes Are Great, But She Needs a New E
As Riot is preparing AP assassins and burst mages for the removal of 
, 
is receiving buffs to her Molten Shield. Long story short, she gets 10 less armor and magic resistance from it (10/20/30/40/50 instead of 20/30/40/50/60) , but applies it to Tibbers whenever she casts it, giving her pet a short decaying movement speed boost in the process. This is a fantastic change, and one that adds both more depth to her E (it's not just there to build up passive stacks!) and to her ultimate beyond just its massive nuke. However, I think these changes need to go deeper, and Annie could probably do with a new E altogether, for the following reasons:
- Annie isn't well-suited for a tankiness steroid or damage reflection: As a fairly close-ranged burst mage, one of Annie's biggest weaknesses is her own squishiness: she's not meant to take damage, rather, she tries to avoid it altogether by staying far back and using her stun to close in or defend herself if she gets attacked, and when she does get caught she's meant to die fairly quickly. Not only is an armor/MR steroid and pseudo-
effect on her not particularly visibly appreciable (even though it does make her a fair bit tankier for a short while), it also runs contrary to her intended weakness, role and playstyle ("Why does a squishy mage child have 
's Defensive Ball Curl?"). - Molten Shield confuses incentives on both her and potentially Tibbers: Annie is a massive threat when her cooldowns are up, especially when she also has her stun available. Taking her out is a priority in most fights, because otherwise she can quickly delete VIPs on the other team and lay down potentially massive amounts of crowd control via her passive and ultimate. However, her Molten Shield goes against that by deterring focus ("I take less damage and trying to kill me will damage you"), when hard focus is meant to be one of the clearest ways of outplaying her, along with baiting her stun and cooldowns. Tibbers sort of runs along similar lines: as a big flaming bear, the clearest way to deal with him is to get out of his range and poke him from far away. While extra resistances and damage reflection would synergize better on him than on Annie, it also risks confusing incentives in the same way ("I'm out of Tibbers's aura range, why am I still taking damage from him? If I damage myself when trying to kill him, how do I deal with him or Annie?").
Here are features Annie could do with instead (Note: these don't necessarily have to all be included as all part of the same ability, though that is a possibility):
- A short decaying movespeed boost: The temporary speed buff Tibbers is getting on the PBE looks like a fantastic idea, as the big ol' bear tends to be a little slow, and has trouble catching up to most targets. On the other hand, giving him too much sticking power would also make him inescapable, so a temporary buff would let him chase a little better for short windows of time. I also think this could also be worth looking into on Annie herself: as a squishy immobile initiator, she is so heavily dependent on
and occasionally 
that she often can't function without that mobility. Giving her access to a momentary burst of speed would relax her extreme reliance on external sources of mobility, and could give her E more depth ("should I use this to initiate, or should I save it for an escape in case things go south?"). - An autoattack steroid: One of Annie's most important features in lane is her autoattack harass. Back when her bases were higher and her ratios lower, high-level players occasionally picked
on her because of how much control it gave her over her shorter-ranged opponents. I think this should be emphasized by having her E buff her own autoattacks, instead of damaging enemies who autoattack her: not only would this better initiate new players to her harass pattern in lane, which is critical to making the most of her power, it would also give her opponents a clear indication to back off momentarily. It would also synergize with Tibbers himself, and would make his own autoattacks more important when trying to micromanage him. - Free ally-targeted casting: With Molten Shield soon applying on Tibbers, I think it would be a good transition into allowing Annie to cast her E on allies in general (perhaps even lane minions). It would add a good degree of versatility and diversity to her kit, something she kinda lacks right now (she's mostly all about blasting targets in a couple of seconds), and would also cater to her Support Annie playstyle, which has been made pretty healthy following its huge burst of popularity in early Season 4. An autoattack steroid and/or a short movement speed boost would both be dream bonuses on any marksman, and even her current Molten Shield would be a great buff to allied tanks.
TL;DR: I think an offensively-oriented steroid would be better adapted for Annie than her current defense/damage reflection buff, as it would better fit her playstyle and make the ability more interesting for herself beyond just providing a cheap stack of Pyromania. Here's an example of what I think could be her new E (the numbers aren't as important as the effects, obviously):
E - Spontaneous Combustion: Annie ignites an ally or herself, causing the target's basic attacks within the next 5 seconds to deal 10/20/30/40/50 (+ 20% AP) bonus magic damage and increasing their movement speed by 20/40/60/80/100%, decaying over 1 second. Costs 20 mana, and has 10-second cooldown.
What do you think? Do you agree with this new E, or do you prefer Molten Shield? Which parts of Molten Shield or this E would you like to have on Annie, and if you wanted her E to change, how would you go about doing it?
got nerfed a while back.
's ultimate gives him great synergy with any displacement champion, for example, but he also has an inbuilt knockup that allows him to activate it alone. While Annie can still initiate and drop her bear on priority targets even without Flash, she depends on it so heavily that removing it would cripple her, to the point where she would rarely have an opportunity to ult her target without getting focused first. It's not so much part of her identity as it is a crutch to her kit. I also don't think that giving her a small movement speed boost would be homogenization, as not that many mages out there have access to mobility, let alone a movement speed increase.
is getting a similar effect on her Q in the PBE). While it's true that Annie is vulnerable to focus, especially to dive-heavy bruisers, I think that's something that should be emphasized and not mitigated: an Annie without Molten Shield would always die quickly when attacked by bruisers and assassins (a clear and constant weakness), but an Annie with a small movement speed boost would be able to outplay those opponents by repositioning or retreating in time for her cooldowns to come back up.
has nuke-type spells (not on Annie's level, though), even longer-ranged autoattacks and higher autoattack damage, plus a steroid, but she doesn't really qualify as a monster, even though her poking power is massive. This is also completely ignoring Annie losing her inbuilt defenses, so she'd be far more vulnerable to dives, engages and even poke.
, on top of her other flaws, is a big example of how unhealthy stealth-tankiness can be, since her damage reduction passive makes her much tougher in a way that's difficult to determine.
's major problems.
's shield is just about as far removed from stealth tankiness as can be (it's a clearly visible shield that even changes Malph's model when active). I'm not too big a fan of 
's spell vamp or 
's sustain, but sustain itself can be perfectly visible provided it's properly implemented. 
is a champion who lacks clarity in her sustain, because she sustains in such small amounts and from practically everything in her kit that it's difficult to see how much she's healing for at any given time.
and 
, because they've been called out by both the community and Riot themselves for having toxic kits. Perhaps frustration has a place as a gameplay mechanic in League, but frustration for the sake of frustration isn't good. If we really do want to have deliberately frustrating or trollish champions in the game, they should still be fun to play against in some way or another. Killing 
when she's in egg form, even if you die for it, is tremendously rewarding, and so is dodging a 
hook or clearing an enemy pink ward.
), they also listen to feedback (despite what the boards here may think) and improve accordingly. I think League is a better game than it ever has been, and I think it's going to keep improving. Riot announced an eventual massive overhaul to Poppy, and I look forward to it, as they did an amazing job with 
. If you keep seeing Riot as some kind of opponent trying to deceive and spite you, you're pretty much setting yourself up for disappointment with every new change they make.