Can Annie get a real rework in the future

Jinzo Torrance··14 votes·1,388 views

"Despite sporting a kit full of unique teamfighting tools, most of Viktor’s gadgets have been historically kept on a tight leash due to the efficiency of Death Ray’s infamous Augment: Shockwave [Last time I checked it was called "Aftershock"] . Viktor should feel rewarded for setting his schemes into motion (like trapping multiple enemies in a Gravity Field), but the ability to follow up with instant target deletion puts the ball too far in his court. By shifting Viktor’s damage to be higher over-time, we can hit two birds with one stone. Opponents aren’t evaporated for making a single mistake, and Viktor gets to carry a fight through intelligent play like the diabolical [ LUL , Diabolical] mastermind he is."

-Patch 6.9 Notes [ http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-69-notes ]

So, Viktor got reworked to make to make his opponents not be evaporated instantly because they got into his range, they could also be stunned during the burst so that was a big no-no and they shifted his damage to evaporate you after 4 seconds.

Meanwhile Annie still carbonizes you instantly it with a stun attached to the burst so you have even less time to react to it if you get into her range.

"A simple W>E>R is often enough to eliminate or remove enemies, leaving them little opportunity to act outside of not getting into his range. Malzahar is inherently low agency, and is historically balanced in a way that means he forces similarly low agency situations upon opponents."

"Because if this character needs to be played like an assassin in order to win, he's probably not healthy for the game. His only options are to walk up to or Flash up to someone and combo them, or to catch someone off guard (like in brush or something) and combo them. There are champions that are much better suited to do both of these things, and given Malzahar's kit, if that's what it took for him to succeed, he's probably just overtuned."

-Mid Year Mage Updates - Malzahar Direction [ https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/6c2r0VAc-mid-year-mage-updates-malzahar-direction ]

"Things we especially like: The flash bear drop. Annie’s bread-and-butter burst combo is a threatening affair that’s more about skirting the edges of Annie’s range than dodging a skillshot [Basically stay out of her range] . While League benefits a lot from the potential to outplay most abilities in the game, having Champions with reliable abilities is also good for the game as long as they don’t make less-reliable champions obsolete."

-MYMU - Annie Direction

So for Malzahar it wasn't fine to Flash, W, R someone and kill them over 2.5+ seconds which could be interrupted by CC while for Annie seems it's fine even though it's 0.75 seconds where you basically die regardless of having CC or teammates near since you're stunned during the burst while her other spells are already firing when she has Flash, but she's "useless" when she doesn't have flash.

But it's fine now that you can see her stun stacks (which you could also see before by clicking on her) we can buff everything in her kit so her bear becomes an actual threath even if you kill her.

20 Comments

Teridax687 votes

I mostly agree with this. Annie's mini-rework improved her by slightly toning down her instant burst and giving her more things to do afterwards, but I think failed to address her core problem, which is that she isn't interactive, and her counterplay mostly just boils down to staying the hell out of her ability range at all times (until she pops Flash, in which case it's just tough luck). Her MYMU update tried to preserve her reliability under the assumption that it would be okay in a larger competitive environment, but that didn't at all answer to the majority of players who play against her, and feel terrible because they're up against a champion who can bully them in lane without really giving them the option to fight back, and randomly blow them up from there on after.

The big issue with Annie's core design is that it's very tempting to make her completely aligned with her theme, i.e. make her personally quite weak and fragile, and focus a lot of her power on Tibbers so that they're always a threat together, but that clashes with her well-established playstyle as a burst mage who just happens to have a pet bear. Making her kit make better thematic sense could seriously upset her core fans, but keeping her kit along its current design has made her very unpleasant to anyone who has had to play against her. The fact that this is such a tough decision to make, one that would likely require many more development resources, is likely why she wasn't given a fuller treatment during the MYMU, where a rework of that kind of scope would have been impossible and likely disastrous if attempted (i.e. Mordekaiser).

rhintheminstrel2 votes

this. NTM the added delay Incinerate and Summon:Tibbers got. I love playing Annie but even when they mini-reworked/updated her, she still feels old. She doesn't have what most midlaners need to be good at right now, waveclear. Her waveclear is really mediocre and midlaners need to roam. While Annie is good at roaming, her mediocre waveclear mitigates it. Popular midlaners right now have a very fast wave clear and then would proceed to roam while youre just finishing your melee minions.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

The big issue with Annie's core design is that it's very tempting to make her completely aligned with her theme, i.e. make her personally quite weak and fragile, and focus a lot of her power on Tibbers

?? no, in her lore she's stronger than tibbers

Teridax681 votes

I mean weak and fragile as in physically weak. She's a powerful mage who basically enslaved Tibbers, so that's not being questioned, but currently she has a defensive steroid for herself, and in terms of power budget most of it is put on her and not her bear, who still doesn't feel as integral to her kit as he could be. Many players suggested the idea of a "lantern-bearer" champion before, where a fragile player-controlled character uses their powers to guide a much tougher creature around, and that's basically Annie's original theme, even if she ended up becoming a burst mage.

ModAcademy Kayn1 votes

The survivability is put in there so they can take damage from elsewhere in her kit, and make her less of "I die within this range, but so will you".

Teridax681 votes

I get that, but in the end that's still the net effect of her E, which makes her even less approachable to autoattack-based characters. It's not a particularly well-designed ability, as damage reduction is most effective on tankier champions (this is true for all damage reduction too, including Phantom Dancer, Death's Dance, etc.), and generally it's only used to generate stacks or surprise-stun the enemy at 3 of them. Its form as implemented means Annie immediately gets a lot of not-too-visible durability once jumped on, when she really should be completely defenseless against enemies who do manage to get that close to her. She should probably not get another nuke as a replacement, which is why I think she could stand to have more power diverted towards her pet.

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

if i recall when her rework was announced some suggested to change her kit when she ult. could be great... maybe.

THE RlVER KlNG6 votes

Annie is a terribly and hypocritically designed champion that is complete hell to lane against for most of the mid lane roster.

The blatant hypocrisy and favoritism with which Riot treats Annie as opposed to other mid-range mages is astounding.

Kloqdq1 votes

What? She is pretty easy to deal with in mid, IE why she went support for nearly a year. Annie is an old champion and has a lot of the short comings of those champion designs. She does need a rework, but she isn't as in need of one as say Path, Nunu, etc.

Rainfall1 votes

annie does not need another rework,the entire point of the rework was to take away some damage from the cast of tibers and put it on tibers autoattacks,in that the rework succeeded.

Kloqdq2 votes

That was an update, not a rework. Nothing in her kit really changed when you consider her kit. It's all the same. The problem with Annie is her design is very aged. It has a lot of the problems that champions like WW, Galio, Poppy, Garen, Karthus, etc all face. There isn't anything wrong with simplistic designs but Annie is often considered the easiest mid laner by people. There isn't much expression of skill when all you do is flash ult someone (Just an example).

She needs to be "modernized" as Riot puts it. Changes that keep the original idea of the kit but change it to be a modern design.

Automated Riven8 votes

Annie has the lowest range out of all of the midlaners barring some melee ones. Her max range is tibbers with 600 range with a slight maybe 50 range over if you just clip them with the edge of the bear. most midlaners can poke her from outside of that range with relitive ease. IN order for annie to win against most midlaners she simply has to be better or get ganked for.

BIue Monk1 votes

Lol, sorry, but Annie is clearly not a very good champion.

DaNinad3 votes

Just play some poke champion and proceed to destroy her

Sun Wu Ryuumoku2 votes

I really hate point and clic... mainly on mage. I like Annie (just speaking about her theme, don't call cops). I think they could rework her easly.

Btw for Malzahar... his ult need to be reworked too. A f*cking point and clic forcing u to buy item 3140

Stand Behind Mé1 votes

I mean thats the point of Malz though, you play him solely to kill off mobility, and those flashy LC$ plays

Same reason you play rammus against full AD teams

Sun Wu Ryuumoku1 votes

and flash point & click isn't even flashy. His R is outdated IMO. U can keep his antimobility without keeping this point & clic style. Look at Cassio she c*ck block mobile champ too. Rammus taunt is stupid too, bro.

AmetDeCrypt1 votes

play poke mages. she's slow and has no poke or trading power against them and they can one shot her from a range far greater than even her flash distance.

malz and annie were two differently designed anti assassin type mages, you don't get in their range as a squishy no matter how much lethality you have because that's how they work.

now you want to talk about unbalanced kassadin is just as tanky as those two and has mega mobility and more damage due to lower cooldowns.

ModAcademy Kayn1 votes

Viktor has more range, and better Zone control than Annie, whose Zone control is a moving 600 Radius circle around her.

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