DFG and Annie

As you all know, Deathfire Grasp is soon getting removed from the Rift. As an Annie main, I would like to speak about what Riot has said about how these changes will affect Annie.

1. "Our opinion is that Leblanc and Syndra are not hurt too hard by DFG's removal (or at least not so badly that they'd need compensation). Annie is another story. We're working through some changes that can make her still feel good about bursting people without so heavily relying on "drop Tibbers, cast spells, enemy explodes" pattern."

Here, they say champs such as LeBlanc and Syndra are not hurt too hard by DFG's removal that they would need compensation. This is true, as both champs are already very strong. However, I disagree when Riot compares Annie to them by saying she is "another story." By this, do they mean Annie needs compensation? Annie is a very strong champ, just not played much. I'd rather her not get buffs to make her too strong, resulting in nerfs.

When Riot says "drop Tibbers, cast spells, enemy explodes pattern." I wish they would elaborate. Should she not be exploding people as a burst mage? And how else is one supposed to burst someone without casting spells? Believe it or not, most champs use some combination of their spells, the Q, W, E, and R keys to kill someone]

They also say she relies on her ult too much. With her low cooldown abilities and utility with stun, I disagree. And why is someone relying on their ult, their most powerful spell a problem? Especially when for Annie, you can get her ult cooldown pretty low, so relying on it isn't too much of an issue.

2. "Annie we're trying some changes relating to how Tibbers deals damage after being summoned, see if there's a way to make that more interesting (feedback on the exact execution we've been trying's been mixed though)."

This sounds interesting. I always utilize Tibber's autos and aura to deal damage to enemies and towers, and it can be very useful. I just hope they don't take TOO much damage from her and move it to post bear hug damage. If too much damage is taken away from her burst pattern, then I doubt she will be able to do enough damage to enemies before they can escape with their gapclosers in addition to Tibber's low base movespeed.

An interesting idea I could see here is whenever Annie procs Lich Bane, Tibbers also gets the effect. This could add some good advantages to players who are able to micro Tibbers well.

Here I would like to speak more about Annie's current build paths. While DFG is one of the best current build paths for Annie, I recently haven't been building it. DFG is a good early game snowball item to help her transition into late game. It lets her have extremely high levels of burst early, and of course that is why Riot is removing DFG. I do think there are better build paths though.

However, I usually build Morellonomicon anyway. In my opinion, Morellonomicon is also an OP item, its very cheap and gives many useful stats. I find Morellonomicon to be a better item on Annie anyway. This is more of a farming item, but the CDR allows Annie to still keep satisfying levels of burst because she is usually able to get an extra Q in after her main combo. I find this item to be more useful because lategame, she usually does not need the extra DFG burst damage. The defining element of DFG becomes obsolete.

Both of these are good first items on Annie, and it also depends on playstyle. I think the community is very misinformed about Annie's reliability on DFG though, as I keep seeing posts and threads about how Annie needs buffs.

Thank you for reading.

I don't consider myself to be a good writer in terms of format, so I may have repeated things many times. As an Annie main, I just wanted to speak out on my favorite champ, who I planned on playing for a long time in her current, unchanged state in normals and ranked.

TLDR: Annie has other good build paths besides DFG. Community and Riot want to change Annie when she is perfectly balanced, which I think is false.