Annie Should NOT Get Mobility.

Heckin Support·9/5/2019, 7:19:09 PM·50 votes·14,613 views

In what world does Riot think that Annie needs mobility? Annie is supposed to be the answer to a high mobility creep. The fact that she "needs" mobility speaks volumes of the state of mobility creep, damage creep, and just overall game balance in general. Annie lacks mobility so she should make up for it with amazing burst and good CC. Annie has always been balanced around flash, and for a brief time was really good with ghost.

Believe it or not, there's an entire class of champions like Annie. They're called mages. Mages do (and should) lack mobility. What mages lack for in mobility they should make up for in other parts of their kit, like wave clear. Even on the League of Legends Wiki it states:

"Mages are champions who typically possess great reach, ability-based area of effect damage and crowd control, and who use all of these strengths in tandem with each other to trap and destroy enemies from a distance...Though mages tend to focus on killing prime targets in combat, they can also fall back to their innate crowd control and utility to manipulate key opponents, protecting their team from them or setting them up for a takedown, and in the right circumstances can damage and control multiple enemies at a time."

But apparently Riot thinks otherwise and thinks the best way to help a MAGE is to, for whatever reason, give them mobility. Annie needs help, don't get me wrong. But not like this.

44 Comments

only luciano9/5/2019, 9:39:52 PM29 votes

Sorry dude but according to Riot Blaustoise champs with mobility are more fun to play and watch and us older players have to get used it. His words not mine.

Darkstar Annie9/5/2019, 11:23:21 PM10 votes

Annie is a slow ass glass cannon, near-field ranged champion in a game full of enemies that can just frolic away out of reach like a flamboyant donkey with pixie wings.

If anyone gets caught by an Annie in her current state, they are terrible at reading some very clear intentions and/or not bothering to keep track of important information, such as cooldowns and her position at all times. Her entire utility revolves around 2 things: flash, and ult. If you know if at least 1 of those are down, her kill threat is halved, and if both are down, she doesn't even exist. Adding a spell-based movement steroid will make her a bit more fun to play while still not allowing her to lose her predictability (perhaps if its not so obvious, here's a tip: Annie will almost ALWAYS run either directly or generally towards you if she intends to kill or harass you. beat her to it and just all-in, you will most likely kill her every time).

I see nothing wrong in giving her a small boost in mobility, so that every rune page and item build usable by Annie doesn't have to be built entirely towards mobility plays. It would be nice to put some ticks into damage-based or utility runes without losing too much useful mobility for an already immobile champion. There are far more mobile or long-range mages who do just as much, if not more, damage than Annie does. Annie should be at the very bottom of your concerns for unfair gameplay and lack of counterplay. She's actually one of the few balanced champions Riot has ever achieved compared to ...many others that are broken beyond help.

In exchange of that boost, they are increasing the mana cost, cooldown, halving the damage reduction, AND eliminating Tibbers' damage reduction so he can at least die quicker in teamfights or not be able to tank towers.

That said, in all honesty, I would have preferred they fixed her bugs with Tibbers and fixed her animation delays which make her feel so incredibly clunky.

But as of current, we're stuck with those flaws. Sweet little Annie is a ranged near-proximity burst mage who has to literally either walk up to you to kill you, or flash, which can and does miss quite often, meanwhile putting herself in dangerous situations since she can't do anything else after that. Hey, really want to see Annie be useless? Formulate a team of zero squishies - bruisers/tanks with lots of CC, and see how quickly useless Annie becomes. Annie into the incredibly mobile and deadly Pyke is also a deathwish. Or literally any long-ranged "control mage" can make Annie cry black Mascara streams of tears.

Annie has many drawbacks for such a simple kit and playstyle. I don't think the tiny boost in mobility would cause her to violently skyrocket in win rates, especially as it comes with a whole slew of tradeoffs. I believe this is just a one-off attempt to help bring a champion as old as the game itself up-to-date with the insanely fast-paced state of modern League of Legends.

Typhl09/5/2019, 8:41:30 PM8 votes

Imagine how horrible it will be to play against an Annie with preda and her 50%speed boost, legit a heca able to chain cc and one-shot u and ur teamate

Dr Poro9/5/2019, 9:44:30 PM8 votes

Damn right, if you want mobility on her, you can get it through items and summoners or have an ally speed you up. Not every champ needs mobility in their kit. They probably just want to get rid of or delay her stun even further 'cause you need to be able to outplay it with your own high mobility champs right? No, not by positioning well around her immobility, that's boring. /s

Nolfinisko9/5/2019, 11:52:08 PM3 votes

Absolutely agreed. We have a lot of different mages, some extremely mobile (like LeBlanc) or not mobile at all.

I want to bring an example from World of Warcraft with what did they do to classes in retail. Compared to Wrath of the Lich King expansion, every class was unique in what they were doing. Some had insane mobility and damage, but lacked sustain damage. Some were almost undivible because of their kit and posed a decent sustained threat overall. But then, after few expansions, I come back to World of Warcraft and I see every class have almost the same kit of skills. Every single class has stun, interrupt, mobility etc.

My point is: Let's not give a champion a tool that will negate their weakness. Picking a champion is in my opinion a trade-off: What my champion wants to do, what they should excel at or what can they be weak at. Putting whole category in a spot where every single champion has a tool they can use (in that case, mobility ability) would mean that there will be a lot less different mages played. Best mages would be figured out, rest would be just "Oh, so it's X champion but without Y) Thus, disparity is good, amazing if there are a lot of champions of the same category.

That's just my take on it.

Another question is, whether generally they should lack mobility. It's both yes and no.

Currently, mages are tuned up to a point of being one shotters without any MR/hp items. Let's take Annie and Katarina.

Annie has no mobility, relies on Flash or a sneaky way to get to the target and nuke them down. I'm absolutely fine with Annie nuking my ass, that means that I have to watch my and her position.

Now Katarina. Known for pretty good burst, snowball potential and insane mobility. Assuming she got some kills in the early game and she knows what she is doing, there is little to say if you're backline. Unless of course you have a stun/silence that you can quickly do, cause your death will not be long. What's the counterplay against that if you're an ADC? Pray that anyone else will land their CC on her or just not engage and wait for her to do their first move or when she throws her Q, disengage.

That is a combo of mechanics that I'm the most salty about in LoL. Mobility and Burst Damage. Extremely snowbally, little to no counterplay if played correctly.

Back to the Annie/Katarina comparison. Annie has much higher burst than Katarina. More single target centric although still decent at AoE. Now imagine giving her some form of mobility. Of course it would mean other abilities will be nerfed (most probably). There will be another mage that wants to dive your backline and one shot the living crap out of everyone, like most mages do nowadays. Do we lack these mages? Absolutely not.

How should Annie be buffed then? She's strong at Burst Damage, Antidive, CC. Maybe buff her ult so it becomes a threat worth considering focusing on in team fights? So Annie player could consider casting an ult not to burst someone down, but for general value. Come to think of it, I would love to see a champion that uses ult for value outside of fights. Something like Yorick ult. My idea would be that her ult duration is infinite until it dies (then, cd starts). When Annie would proc her passive, Tibbers realeses an explosion that stuns all around it instead of CC on spell that Annie casted.

Sorry for the post that long. I had a train of thoughts and wouldn't feel good to abandon any points.

TL;DR: The change to Annie's mobility is lazy, give her more uniqueness.

Ionian Vulpix9/6/2019, 4:10:34 AM2 votes

I'm going to paraphrase something I said in another thread, downvotes be damned: Riot won't bring down mobility. They can't. League has changed. The playerbase won't let them. Even early on, Lee Sin, Katarina, and even Jax were popular because they could do a lot BECAUSE they were mobile. Players liked just how much they could move and what they could do with that since movement is such a critical factor in League. They'd have to nerf EVERY champion with dashes or blinks. Instead of doing that, they're trying to buff some weaker, immobile champs.

Annie is known for having piss poor engage but stupidly high burst, only really able to do the bear bomb every 5 minutes with Flash unless you screw up against her like I did. So naturally, she's weaker in a game, not a meta, a full GAME where mobility is king. So instead of changing the entire game now for the sake of some slower, weaker champs, Riot is trying to keep them relatively the same while adjusting them for what the game has become.

Linna Excel9/6/2019, 5:28:40 AM2 votes

Part of me thinks riot has basically lost their vision of the game and characters having defined strengths and weaknesses. I mean a champion with a stun that can either be point and click or two different aoe options doesn't really need in-kit mobility. That's why tibbers flashes are so big; because there's not that many per game.

Another part of me thinks that riot only cares about what looks good in the LCS.

MysticElephant9/6/2019, 7:06:38 PM2 votes

But... LC$ big plays D;

SammyDayspring9/6/2019, 9:33:47 PM2 votes

Riot has clearly lost any creativity. They will give everyone mobility and sustain until there is nothing else left.

Sowizardhologram9/6/2019, 1:19:43 AM1 votes

I think my overall issue with Annie's change to Molten Shield is that they reduced the damaged reduction and the cooldown. I know they put in MS since it is a powerful tool and "being fast is hype", but I personally don't believe she shouldn't have MS. As you said, Mages mainly lack Mobility tools besides runes and items.

I personally would have liked if they have done like a damage reflection or an increased of her dmg reduction. This will give her survivability and help her push in a different way besides MS.

Nyarlathοtep9/5/2019, 9:30:15 PM1 votes

I feel like the changes to e will basically repeat the scenario with karthus and dh. Oh man i hope history wont repeat itself.

heroikc9/6/2019, 4:31:07 AM1 votes

item 3152?

Ánnîe 9/6/2019, 10:19:48 PM1 votes

Annie needed some help and is the single most reliant champion in the game on flash. It's both her oh shit button and her only real engage unless the enemy messes up and walks into your very small range bubble or lets you walk up to them. Her player base is almost entirely mains at her 0.66% play rate. I don't think this change is going to break her or make her unfair by any means. She's trading for the movement speed with a higher cd and lots of her damage reduction its not even a flat out buff. This just helps her a little bit when the enemy misplays and helps you get into range without burning flash.

Predatorator9/6/2019, 9:24:54 AM1 votes

imagine the fun if they'll give an ms boost to xerath lol

Flemman9/6/2019, 1:44:18 PM1 votes

My guess is that they are giving her ms so she have a better time dealing with bones plating.

Unlike most, if not all, other immobile mage, she doesn't really have a tool in her kit to deal with that rune before she go for a full burst engage, leading to her burst beeing always "meh" if it's a meta were everybody take that rune. (I highly suspect it's also the reason they increase her aa range some patch ago so she can try triggering it that way)

Imo, she just need a new W (something yorick E style) to work around it, not more mobility (also having full stack passive at start or after respawning like pant should be a thing)

FSRER9/6/2019, 3:21:19 PM1 votes

A short range nuke mage who excels vs champions that other mages can't deal with (Zed, Yasuo, Fizz etc). Was she fine? Compared to other mages, yes. Did she needs any changes? Maybe, yeah, no champion design is perfect. Did she need a buff? Fack no! A reasonable buff would be to increase her health regen to do better vs poke champions or increasing her max health, not giving her the ability to run as fast as a god damn Jhin!

Vonyalo9/6/2019, 3:32:59 PM1 votes

Why not. We have so many cancerous champions, why not make another one?

Zullar9/6/2019, 4:37:46 PM1 votes

Mobility creep... Burst creep... Overloaded kits... S9...

Get Ogre Here9/6/2019, 1:07:21 AM1 votes

They're just taking the most annoying part about her kit and amplifying it. Was she even weak?

FilDaFunk9/6/2019, 1:13:19 AM1 votes

My favourite class of champions are mages, specifically those without mobility. (I am an ARAM player though, so I play a very wide variety of champs). Lux Orianna Annie Lulu Syndra are some of my favourites because of the tools that they have - not once has it come across my head that they are lacking mobility. I DON'T NEED IT.

The thigh guy9/6/2019, 1:17:24 AM1 votes

Neither should bruisers, yet here we are.