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Anivia Gameplay Update Concept

Bootleg Gay··2 votes·1,339 views

Anivia Rework

Anivia is a champion that has seen the League change over the years, and with the constant change in champions and pushing the boundaries with what Riot does with champion abilities, she needs to stay modernized in order to function nicely in game. With hardly any pick rates, and even lower ban rates, Anivia is a champion that just isn’t seen a whole lot in typical gameplay. Here’s an idea created by me for a way to bring her up to speed with the rest of the champions. Note that numbers are only generalizations and are not to be taken as direct buffs or nerfs. With no way to test these numbers, this rework is theoretical only.

What makes her unique. -Passive; nice idea, but could use work. -Crystallize; popular ability. Iconic.

What makes her unpopular. -No mobility or satisfying gameplay. -Little to no counterplay. -Easy playstyle with only one true skillshot.

Central Ideas

**New Effect **Passive- Frozen Rebirth

Upon taking lethal damage, Anivia forms into an egg with full health and gives off an aura that reduces the attack speed of anyone attacking her. If the egg survives after 5 seconds, she is reborn with the same healthy percentage as the egg. If Crystallize is off cooldown, a wall of ice will surround her to help keep her safe.

Static Cooldown- 240 Attack Speed Debuff- 15/20/25/30% at 1/6/11/16 Wall Diameter-225

New Ability Q- Winter Blast

Anivia sends a freezing gust in a direction, slowing and chilling all enemies hit. Anivia's basic attacks and abilities deal extra magic damage to chilled targets and consume the debuff.

Magic Damage-60/90/120/150/180+(60% of AP) Chilled Damage-20/35/50/65/80+(25% of AP) Slow Percentage-20/24/28/32/36% Cooldown-12/11/10/9/8 ->11/10/9/8/7 Mana Cost-80/90/100/110/120 -> 70/80/90/100/110 Range-1075 ->1000

**New Effect **W- Crystallize

Anivia creates a wall of ice, blocking enemy and ally movement. If this spell is cast on top of Glacial Storm, a circle of ice will form around it instead.

Cooldown- 15 Mana Cost- 70 Wall Width-400/500/600/700/800 ->500/575/650/725/800 Circle Diameter-650 Range-950

New Ability E- Frozen Down

Anivia's feathers accumulate ice crystals. Anivia can throw a frozen feather to deal magic damage to a target. If the feather strikes a chilled target, they are stunned for 0.75 second. Anivia can store three charges of Frozen Down.

Magic Damage- 40/65/90/105/130+(35% of AP) Cooldown per Charge- 4 Mana Cost- 60 Range-700

New Effect Glacial Storm

Anivia creates a storm of ice in a location, dealing magic damage and chilling all enemies within it. While toggled on, Anivia drains her mana every second, but units that die in the storm give off moisture that refunds a small amount of mana.

Magic Damage- 80/120/160+(25% of AP) ->70/110/150+(33% of AP) Slow Percentage-20% ->15/20/25% Mana Cost- 50+ 45/55/65 per Second Mana Refund- 30/40/50 Cast Range-625 ->700 Storm Diameter-650

**Concept Changes ** For the majority of Anivia’s kit, she plays a bit the same, but has been modernized in a way that makes her a better sustained damage mage. Let’s start with each change and it’s thought process.

Her passive was nice, but it didn’t feel rewarding knowing that it was so easy to pick her off once she was down. Not to mention, she didn’t have any way of defending herself. Now the ability interacts with her ability Crystalize, and helps to keep her safe against melee champions a bit better. The attack speed debuff is meant to deter marksmen form taking her out, and encourages the mages or casters to take her down instead.

Her Q was nice, but it was really awkward to use. Now it shoots out a bit like a Galio spell and rewards her for following it up with at least a basic. It’s damage has been upped in the AP ratio portion, but doesn’t hit twice, so it’s not as effective at bursting. Although, the lower cooldown and mana cost help her use it for more damage in the long run.

Her W, Crystalize, was one of her most iconic abilities, and it was time for her to be able to use it to it’s maximum potential. Working to trap her enemies in an area that would leave them force to take magic damage, the changes are here to suggest she needs help against the mobility creep in the game. This said, it isn’t super reliable as an ability, so the cooldown was drastically lowered and width increased at early levels.

Her W was an interesting spell, one that ‘crit’ those under the chilled condition. However, it still wasn't rewarding to use. You had one shot to do lots of damage, then had to wait for cooldowns before even attempting them again. With the charge system in place, she could deal a bit more damage to multiple or even the same target more efficiently. Additionally, she is faced with a new gameplay decision. Stun the same target up to three times and deal significant damage to it, of spread out her damage and stun multiple targets.

Finally we have her Ultimate, Glacial Storm. This ability has the new interaction with her Cyrstalize, making it more reliable for team fights. It can stay on for longer by using it for wave clear that she is now missing due to her new Q, and it costs more because of it in the long run should she not be able to kill units. This makes controlling her mana pool a bit more interesting.

Let me know what you guys think of this concept. Anybody know any way of channeling these ideas to Riot? Let’s see if we can at least help Riot along with updating this old champion. She needs some love, and the scope of the update isn’t huge. Any criticism about the concept or its ideas?

5 Comments

Darkwind2 votes

Hi, Plat Anivia main here.

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with every single one of your assumptions going in.

  • Passive: Changing this in any meaningful way will almost certainly make it overpowered. The one direct nerf that Anivia has had, historically, is the her passive. It used to grant larger armor/mr amounts at all levels. Making the egg this difficult to kill kept her far too safe in lane phase and simulatenously gave her a nearly free teamfight win every time it was up.
  • Anivia's gameplay is extremely satisfying. Landing a Q on the enemy ADC for half their health and following up with an E to instantly kill them is exceptionally hard to do, but for that exact reason it's highly satisfying. Any and all E>r or Q>E combos deal massive damage, which is higly satisfying. There are a number of other particularly rewarding features of her gameplay, but I'll mention them 2 sections down.
  • Anivia has quite a bit of counterplay. Now, melee mid laners have no options to deal with her, but that's practically her identity- she destroys pretty much any and every melee champion in the game. As for others, it's really quite simple- don't randomly walk into range of her E. It's pretty low range at 650 center-to-center, and as long as you don't get that close, you'll never take significant damage. Unless of course you get hit by the Q, but you have to make a quite noticeable mistake to let that happen, assuming it wasn't from the fog of war. Furthermore, jumping her and killing her is not too difficult if you're ahead/can dodge the Q. Her E>R won't deal enough damage to 100-0, so if she doesn't land the Q, you can just kill her.
  • I take offense to this statement. Anivia's play style is anything but easy. Her Q is perhaps the most difficult skillshot in the entire game to land. The limited range on her E makes positioning correctly on her unique and fairly difficult. Unlike other mages, you cannot and do not want to sit back at 900-1000 range in fights. Instead, you want to E> R (650 range), then back off to max tether range (~900ish) while waiting 3 seconds for your next E. Then, when it's about to come back up, you'll close the gap again for another E. Keep in mind that being within 650 range of enemy champions is VERY dangerous for Anivia- many CC ranges are this long or longer, as are dashes. Something like a Cho'gath can just completely destroy her in teamfights, as his Q/W will interrupt your ult right after you start it every single time. Furthermore, the placement of your R is actually quite important and not necessarily easy. You have to predict where the fight will go and place your ult correctly for that. The cooldown on it is too long for you to be able to afford to toggle it off and then re-place it later in the fight. If the fight moves away from your ult, you're in trouble. Her W is capable of innumerable highly difficult plays. Don't believe me? here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXUSuoVdZks Anivia's wall alone makes her one of the highest skill-capped champions in the game.

Moving forward to your changes:

Rebirth: This would be entirely broken. Anivia's egg is now unkillable in most late game teamfights, meaning ez teamfight wins for her.

Q: Well, you've just nerfed her damage. A Ton. Old Q did 360+1.0AP. This does 180+.6AP. Great, basically 1/2 as much damage. In exchange for this, you've given it 25 more range, 1 second lower CD, 10 less mana cost and a slightly stronger slow. The mana, CD, and range are all negligible. The slow is nice, but doesn't make up for this ability now dealing no damage.

W: I don't particularly like the interactions with rebirth or glacial storm.The thing you have to remember is that allies cannot pass through the wall. So if I get my passive popped, I get a wall around me.... possibly trapping allies in or out, when I don't want them to be. As for Glacial Storm, I don't need a wall encircling the entire thing. They're only trying to run in one direction- either away from me or after me. Either way, a single direction wall will do, and making more terrain than that is just a bother for my own team. You've nerfed the range- for no clear reason- and decreased the cooldown by much too much. There's no reason an ability as game changing as her W should be less than a 25 second cooldown. Furthermore, the low width of the wall at low levels is actually quite useful. Again, keep in mind that allies have to walk around the wall if you miss it. Prior to its reaching full width, you can choose to only partially wall of escape routes. That way, if they then flash the wall, you can still walk around it without having to flash yourself. In short, I don't like a single change you've made to this ability. The only one I wouldn't rage about is increasing the width at low levels- that one at least has its pros and cons.

E: Please, never, ever, ever do this. You've nerfed this damage SO goddamn much. First off, chilled damage scales with points in Q. So neither her Q nor her E do anything in lane phase, because you don't have both maxed. She now has the weakest lane phase of any mid laner in the game, great. Second, you've nerfed both chilled damage and non chilled damage, EVEN WHEN MAXED. 130+.35 is less than the original 175+.5, and 210+.6 isn't even comparable to the old 350+1.0. You haven't even actually compensated her for this, because youre "charge" system has only a 1 second lower cooldown than her old E! And that's when you're sitting on max charges. I have no idea what you're supposed to do when you run out- which you will, because they don't do any damage!

R: You've increased the mana cost marginally in exchange for some mana refund. That's... fine. I don't think it should be this way, but whatever. You've changed the slow amounts to be stronger late and weaker early. Nothing horribly wrong with that I suppose. The cast range is buffed, which is pretty OP, especially if she actually still did any damage. You've also buffed her AP ratio, which in combination with the bonus range will probably make up for the reduced damage on her Q in regards to clearing the waves. It's unclear whether you want the old attack speed debuff to still exist (it was the same percentage as the move speed slow)- if so, the stronger late game slow is super powerful without feeling like it. If not, then there's yet another nerf...

Overall I strongly dislike pretty much everything about this rework. You've taken away the fun and rewarding things about Anivia's kit (landing Qs for massive damage and AoE stuns, calculated risks in approaching teamfights to E for massive damage), and even if you fixed the numbers to be more balanced, I would still prefer the current kit.

Bootleg Gay1 votes

{quoted}

Hi, Plat Anivia main here.

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with every single one of your assumptions going in.

  • Passive: Changing this in any meaningful way will almost certainly make it overpowered. The one direct nerf that Anivia has had, historically, is the her passive. It used to grant larger armor/mr amounts at all levels. Making the egg this difficult to kill kept her far too safe in lane phase and simulatenously gave her a nearly free teamfight win every time it was up.

  • Anivia's gameplay is extremely satisfying. Landing a Q on the enemy ADC for half their health and following up with an E to instantly kill them is exceptionally hard to do, but for that exact reason it's highly satisfying. Any and all E>r or Q>E combos deal massive damage, which is higly satisfying. There are a number of other particularly rewarding features of her gameplay, but I'll mention them 2 sections down.

  • Anivia has quite a bit of counterplay. Now, melee mid laners have no options to deal with her, but that's practically her identity- she destroys pretty much any and every melee champion in the game. As for others, it's really quite simple- don't randomly walk into range of her E. It's pretty low range at 650 center-to-center, and as long as you don't get that close, you'll never take significant damage. Unless of course you get hit by the Q, but you have to make a quite noticeable mistake to let that happen, assuming it wasn't from the fog of war. Furthermore, jumping her and killing her is not too difficult if you're ahead/can dodge the Q. Her E>R won't deal enough damage to 100-0, so if she doesn't land the Q, you can just kill her.

  • I take offense to this statement. Anivia's play style is anything but easy. Her Q is perhaps the most difficult skillshot in the entire game to land. The limited range on her E makes positioning correctly on her unique and fairly difficult. Unlike other mages, you cannot and do not want to sit back at 900-1000 range in fights. Instead, you want to E> R (650 range), then back off to max tether range (~900ish) while waiting 3 seconds for your next E. Then, when it's about to come back up, you'll close the gap again for another E. Keep in mind that being within 650 range of enemy champions is VERY dangerous for Anivia- many CC ranges are this long or longer, as are dashes. Something like a Cho'gath can just completely destroy her in teamfights, as his Q/W will interrupt your ult right after you start it every single time. Furthermore, the placement of your R is actually quite important and not necessarily easy. You have to predict where the fight will go and place your ult correctly for that. The cooldown on it is too long for you to be able to afford to toggle it off and then re-place it later in the fight. If the fight moves away from your ult, you're in trouble. Her W is capable of innumerable highly difficult plays. Don't believe me? here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXUSuoVdZks Anivia's wall alone makes her one of the highest skill-capped champions in the game.

Moving forward to your changes:

Rebirth: This would be entirely broken. Anivia's egg is now unkillable in most late game teamfights, meaning ez teamfight wins for her.

Q: Well, you've just nerfed her damage. A Ton. Old Q did 360+1.0AP. This does 180+.6AP. Great, basically 1/2 as much damage. In exchange for this, you've given it 25 more range, 1 second lower CD, 10 less mana cost and a slightly stronger slow. The mana, CD, and range are all negligible. The slow is nice, but doesn't make up for this ability now dealing no damage.

W: I don't particularly like the interactions with rebirth or glacial storm.The thing you have to remember is that allies cannot pass through the wall. So if I get my passive popped, I get a wall around me.... possibly trapping allies in or out, when I don't want them to be. As for Glacial Storm, I don't need a wall encircling the entire thing. They're only trying to run in one direction- either away from me or after me. Either way, a single direction wall will do, and making more terrain than that is just a bother for my own team. You've nerfed the range- for no clear reason- and decreased the cooldown by much too much. There's no reason an ability as game changing as her W should be less than a 25 second cooldown. Furthermore, the low width of the wall at low levels is actually quite useful. Again, keep in mind that allies have to walk around the wall if you miss it. Prior to its reaching full width, you can choose to only partially wall of escape routes. That way, if they then flash the wall, you can still walk around it without having to flash yourself. In short, I don't like a single change you've made to this ability. The only one I wouldn't rage about is increasing the width at low levels- that one at least has its pros and cons.

E: Please, never, ever, ever do this. You've nerfed this damage SO goddamn much. First off, chilled damage scales with points in Q. So neither her Q nor her E do anything in lane phase, because you don't have both maxed. She now has the weakest lane phase of any mid laner in the game, great. Second, you've nerfed both chilled damage and non chilled damage, EVEN WHEN MAXED. 130+.35 is less than the original 175+.5, and 210+.6 isn't even comparable to the old 350+1.0. You haven't even actually compensated her for this, because youre "charge" system has only a 1 second lower cooldown than her old E! And that's when you're sitting on max charges. I have no idea what you're supposed to do when you run out- which you will, because they don't do any damage!

R: You've increased the mana cost marginally in exchange for some mana refund. That's... fine. I don't think it should be this way, but whatever. You've changed the slow amounts to be stronger late and weaker early. Nothing horribly wrong with that I suppose. The cast range is buffed, which is pretty OP, especially if she actually still did any damage. You've also buffed her AP ratio, which in combination with the bonus range will probably make up for the reduced damage on her Q in regards to clearing the waves. It's unclear whether you want the old attack speed debuff to still exist (it was the same percentage as the move speed slow)- if so, the stronger late game slow is super powerful without feeling like it. If not, then there's yet another nerf...

Overall I strongly dislike pretty much everything about this rework. You've taken away the fun and rewarding things about Anivia's kit (landing Qs for massive damage and AoE stuns, calculated risks in approaching teamfights to E for massive damage), and even if you fixed the numbers to be more balanced, I would still prefer the current kit.

I didn't think someone would have so much to say against it. Of course, that's what I asked for.

My thought process is only my own, and it wasn't intended to be as straight forward as you've laid it out to be. Again, if this were a thing, numbers being tweaked would be the biggest thing.

The changes to the passive are suppose to make sure that ADC's have a harder time killing her than mages, and the wall created when she would be reverted to an egg is only big enough to encompass her and a few minions. Although, I suppose someone would just get really unlucky and get trapped.

The idea for the interaction with the ult was because I felt she needed to be able to save her Crystalize for either an escape- blocking a path- or a trap. Of course, I do understand where you're getting at with the functionality.

Her new E was meant to be weak, but the charges together would be much stronger if used on the same target. The cooldown change was actually really small, so if it was a charge system, it would have to reload faster.

This is my first rework concept, so trust me when I say that I didn't think everything through. I had an idea for Syndra, but now I'm afraid to put if our here just yet. My only defense is that this was supposed to be a gameplay change, so balance wasn't taken into consideration as much.

Considering you play Anivia a lot, I'll take word from you and use it for any projects I come up with in the future.

GLWuffie1 votes

Right now I love where Anivia is. She's one of the most balanced champions in the game with everything she has having a direct offset for it. With this suggested rework, I feel that not only will she be broken, but then people will complain, get her nerfed/banned/picked and just get worse. Looking at your reworks gives no offset to her actual stats.

The reason why her egg is so vulnerable is for two things: Her low health and teamwork. She has low health due to her egg, and making the right plays as Anivia that egg can be a lifesaver (keyword is CAN). It's not supposed to be a I NEED TO BE PROTECTED kinda thing by herself, which this promotes the teamwork aspect.

Q loses its skillshot and takes away the "chilled" debuff from her Ultimate. (Meaning now she's a champ who ABSOLUTELY has to have vision and now is fully vulnerable to untargetability). At least with the skill shot you can have some beautiful setups and be able to cast the spell whenever you want (instead of needing a target to cast). Though this is offset that ANYTHING ELSE she does a good extra chunk of damage. I also now see that you're taking off a lot of range which makes her more vulnerable to her low health to get close to cast it.

You're giving her W a LOT of utility. Sure it could use some love, but then again with the added bonuses this just makes her beyond overpowered especially to anyone without a dash/jump (and Flash off of cooldown). This with her ult makes Jarvan's ult look pathetic. since this has a much lower cooldown, does damage AND status effects (ult) and traps them (and potential allies as well) in. Not only that, you gave it even MORE utility which is if it's off cooldown AND her egg activate, it's protected from melee enemies/minions. This is already with the fact she can block entire jungle paths and totally repath champions in lane.

I would also like to take the time to say: WHAAAAT? E is not rewarding to use?? (which you accidentally marked as W). Do you know how much can hurt? That thing CHUNKS off life if leveled up first (which it should under her ultimate). It is probably one of the most rewarding things about Anivia since you have to apply the chilled debuff first, have vision/targetability, and get CLOSE (for a slow ranged mage) to do a ridiculous amount of damage. It's extremely satisfying and a huge help to your team.

And her Ult. Anivia hits hard, has a ton of CC... with a toggleable ult with an SUPER low cooldown. You gave it more range, more damage, and most game-breaking importantly: mana refund. This already shreds minion waves and to do that with mana refund can actually give more mana back than used while getting an good amount of gold/exp. Add with the utility of her W and BAM more OP.

As to what makes her unique and unpopular: Her passive is one of 3(4?) revive passives in the game. Crystallize is I guess popular, I guess for trolling. But what makes her UNPOPULAR?

I think she is unpopular because of these things

  • She's slow (in like, everything she does)
  • Has no jump/dash (to offset slow)
  • She uses mana like crazy
  • She uses mana
  • Her playstyle is slow and methodical
  • She can't constantly rely on only herself (to carry)
  • She can easily be killed (low HP)

I think she's great and balanced because:

  • Her slow speed is balanced by her movement CC
  • Her low health is balanced by her passive
  • Her high AP/CC power is balanced by her high mana cost
  • Her passive is also balanced around others to protect it (yay teamwork in a team-based game)
  • If her team can protect her long enough, she gets a second wind and can turn the tide around

Sorry for the long-winded post, but as far a modernizing her: I think her kit right now is fine. She has no need of buffs or nerfs (if anything just bugfixes). Also isn't Anivia kiiinda being picked a little more often lately? She's really good in the right hands.

~GL

junglerboy161 votes

The only reason I don't play her is that her model is just a major eyesore to me, otherwise, I agree with everything you've said.

vaneazy1 votes

im not going to put a huge post like the previous 2 people but yeah, anivia is absolutely fine as she is. nothing should be done to “fix” her.

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