Opinions on Annie. Post yours

mom im on acid·May 28, 2015·10 votes·1,321 views

My opinion on Annie: She needs some sort of rework/change because she is way too easy to get fed with/play. My personal thought is that her Q needs to be a skillshot just like the Ryze rework and almost every other champion. Also her stun needs to be changed somewhat maybe even make her E not count towards the stun buildup. I just don't understand how riot is releasing a champ who can travel through time for god sakes yet annie is sitting over here one shotting everyone with two skills that aren't even skillshots. Just my opinion. Annie OP.

40 Comments

AnidanMay 28, 20157 votes

My opinion on her? She's fine.

There, done.

Adding skillshots to things that don't need them just adds difficulty for the sake of adding difficulty. Why does everything need some arbitrary difficulty? Some champion HAS to be the easiest in their class, and right now it just happens to be Annie, who also happens to happen to get a lot of that ease of use. So what? She's also fairly one-dimensional and predictable as a result of that, unlike champions with more complicated kits. She's immobile, she has no sustain, and so on. She's fine. Quit targeting Annie just because you don't like someone easy being as effective as someone more difficult to use.

Teridax68May 28, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Adding skillshots to things that don't need them just adds difficulty for the sake of adding difficulty. Why does everything need some arbitrary difficulty? Some champion HAS to be the easiest in their class, and right now it just happens to be Annie, who also happens to happen to get a lot of that ease of use.

With that said, just because there has to be a champion who's easier to play than others doesn't mean they strictly need a really low skill floor. Generally, when a champion gets a simple point-and-click ability turned into something else, it's to make their damage less guaranteed, especially in lane. Sure, it tends to make champions more difficult, but it also allows them to be more powerful, and while Annie is powerful (or at least feels really strong, which is even better), she's also pretty binary, and has trouble functioning without external aid via summoner 4 (as opposed to champions like Yasuo or KogMaw , who rely heavily on ally synergy but who can function well on their own).

Overall, I agree Annie's likely not the most problematic champion out there, since she needs Flash to do stuff that champions like Leblanc and Katarina can do unaided, but her main selling points are also issues that have gotten other champions severely nerfed or changed: her always-on stun lets her put a lot of pressure, but also tends to make the laning phase pretty oppressive alongside her point-and-click damage, especially since she can have it back up extremely quickly. Her Tibbers + stun combo is crazy powerful, but is basically Veigar 's old delay-less cage with even greater ease of use and massive damage. Despite having the potential to do awesome and unique stuff with her bear (e.g. using her E and good micromanagement to focus targets), she's mostly still a burst mage who unloads everything at once whenever she gets in range, and Tibbers serves mostly as a nuke. She likely deserves to still be bursty even if she does receive changes, but I think it would also be worth shifting some of her power away from her kit's reliability, and towards more things to do, whether it's micromanaging Tibbers in new ways or landing her combo against enemies without having to burn Flash or invest heavily in roaming gear.

AnidanMay 28, 20151 votes

Her Tibbers + Stun Combo is also on a base cooldown of 120-80 seconds, respective to rank. Veigar's stun was 18 seconds. You can't compare tibbers to Veigar's stun, because Veigar's stun in practiced hands was just as reliable and much, much, much shorter cooldown, letting him effectively dictate what would happen in teamfights or ganks. It was better than a lot of ultimates, and everyone knew it (there's a reason there was so much uproar about its nerf, after all). Annie can feel oppressive because, really, what else does she have? She has a stun, burst, and a bear for pimpin' around after she tried to burn everything in Hellfire. What kind of utility or specialized use would you even give her in return for lower reliability? Her reliability is 90% of the reason to pick her, with her damage being the other 10%. That sounds perfectly fine to me. Ease of use (low skill floor/ceiling), reliability, AoE CC/burst. Sounds 100% fine to me.

Also everyone is 'oppressive' if they're ahead, I'm not sure how she's any more oppressive than anyone else if she's ahead just because she can potentially have a stun up in addition to her burst.

All things considered though, I would love if they changed Tibbers so he wasn't attached to me via invisible leash. I would give up some reliability for some good ol' fashioned DotA-style minion management if I could. If I use my Tibbers on an enemy and he does or doesn't die, I want to send Tibbers elsewhere. Like the enemy jungle.

Teridax68May 29, 20151 votes

The increased cooldown on her ult still doesn't entirely justify its reliability. Even something as reliable as 's Assault and Battery, or Malphite 's Unstoppable Force, which are both super-reliable, super-strong dashes with crowd control, aren't there to let those champions insta-kill opponents unless they're extremely far ahead or their targets are low on health. Unlike those champions, it's also easier for Annie to snowball, since her binary playstyle means it's not easy dealing with her when she's in range of you ("don't get near that champion" is also not particularly interesting gameplay, and was one of the reasons why Sion and Ryze received major changes to their kit). Everyone can be tough to deal with when ahead, but at the same time most champions are designed with outplay potential in mind (both ways, too), so there are still ways to deal with them, whereas the biggest counterplay to Annie is to just not interact with her at all. Veigar's stun may have a shorter cooldown, but the end result is the same: that instant-cast stun allowed him to kill enemies without them being able to do much about it, and Annie's own mixture of burst, hard crowd control and point-and-click abilities gives her the same problem.

While reliability can be a factor when picking a champion (which is why Ryze kept his point-and-click root), there has to be some justification to that reliability beyond that champion not being worth picking otherwise (that's just bad design), and that reliability shouldn't come at a greater cost in overall fun and interactivity. Again, champions like Vi, Malphite and even MasterYi have pretty reliable kits, and Yi has one of the lowest skill floors in the game, but there are still plenty of ways of playing against them. I think it's possible for Annie to still maintain a degree of reliability (it would make sense for her to easily lay down crowd control), but also present more options to her opponents.

AnidanMay 29, 20152 votes

You have a good point. I have to say, I enjoy discourse with you. Very easy to stay calm talking with someone also willing to stay calm and explain their points rationally.

I agree that reliability shouldn't be the entirety of a champion's design, and that her playstyle fills the enemy with dread from just being in her range, forcing a level of non-interactivity if she's ahead. But there are counterplays to her, such as zoning to keep her away from the squishy made of cardboard that shoots out carefully carved, drill-shaped diamond bullets into the enemy team, and items such as Banshee's which help stymie her more than most champions that it helps against. I could agree to a reduction in reliability as long as they provide meaningful play for both sides, rather than just forcing her to be less reliable simply because reliability can be a pain to fight against. Adding difficulty for no real gain is just as bad as keeping her as she currently is.

I still think she's fine right now, but I could see her reliability getting reduced with her potential power being increased as a result if all things go in her favor. Granted, I do believe it probably shouldn't be too big of an increase, because she is pretty powerful as is right now, and giving her more potential power at the cost of reliability could just make people seek out the optimal situations for her via team comps and try to break her.

I still want my un-leashed Tibbers. T-T

Teridax68May 29, 20152 votes

{quoted}

You have a good point. I have to say, I enjoy discourse with you. Very easy to stay calm talking with someone also willing to stay calm and explain their points rationally.

Thank you, and the same to you!

I agree, difficulty for the sake of difficulty is bad, and I think it's been an issue with a few recent champions ( Bard especially doesn't have that much of a payoff for how easy it is to mess up with him), and I agree that not all older champions need to be super mechanically intense, or even that complicated at all. On the flipside, I think Annie's huge reliability is also weighing her down somewhat, since it limits the amount of stuff both she and her opponents can do. As you mentioned, item 3102 messes her up pretty hard ( item 3140 / item 3222 as well, to some extent), but it's also one of the very few ways of surviving inside her range if she gets ahead (item-based counters are also inherently less good than broader counters, since their associated counterplay only becomes available once you purchase those items). Her inability to quickly reach her target on her own does enable some higher-level counterplay, but it also makes her far too dependent on summoner 4 , which also temporarily removes her main weakness, and thereby a lot of her counterplay. An Annie who could be dealt with even when she Flashes towards her target would likely no longer have to be dependent on that spell to combo properly. Even if she loses some reliability on parts of her kit, it would also be possible to add some to her other abilities in order to preserve her overall ease of use while making her less binary (Her abilities could have more range, for example).

With Tibbers having close to 100% potential uptime, given the right build, it would be interesting to see him have a lot more freedom. One of Annie's greatest points of mastery is her ability to micromanage Tibbers, and it would be cool to have him do more stuff after he's been dropped into combat.

DedriusMay 29, 20151 votes

I agree with you saying some champs need to be easy and fairly one-dimensional, a good example being garen. However I find it difficult to grasp why she should do the same amount of damage in her combo as someone like Lissandra who is harder (obviously not very hard but harder than annie) but has skillshots and her stun is shorter ranged on her ult.

AnidanMay 29, 20151 votes

Annie can do that kind of damage since she's so one-dimensional that the damage and her potentially AoE CC are all she has. She doesn't have mobility she can fall back on, she doesn't have any outright durability outside of whenever her shield is activated (and even then it isn't as much as one would've hoped when they activate it), she can't peel for allies without using that same CC she'd rather use on a grouped bunch of enemies, so she has to commit to a mental triage for her stun. If she blows that stun on a person hitting her in the face then she can't use that same stun on someone beating somebody else's face on her team.

Lissandra on the other hand can fall back on her mobility, more reliable CC, one of which is a point-and-click stun on the enemy that provides AoE damage and slow against the target's team, AoE snare, or she can use that stun on herself for a Zhonya's effect with damage and a slow around her for outright survivability for initiation or emergency. She also has a slow attached to every ability that doesn't have a differing effect. Annie doesn't have the potential versatility to fit into as many situations as Lissandra does as a direct result of the simplicity of her kit. Hence why her damage is higher than, say, Lissandra's damage.

BluePolarizerMay 28, 20153 votes

Maybe you should learn the game and stop losing consistently to a champ whose been around since 2009 and been a competitive pick only in bot lane.

mom im on acidMay 28, 2015

I'm in gold one i know the game decently well and i don't know where you got "losing consistently" from because that isn't in my post like at all but um okay i will try to i guess if thats what your dearest wish is.

BluePolarizerMay 28, 20153 votes

You got stomped by an Annie because you don't play mid and first timed a champ. Shit happens. Learn from your mistakes. I'm mid-plat and I still don't know the game. There's still champs I don't know how to beat. But that's because I'm not good enough, not because they're OP, because those champs are nowhere to be seen in pro games.

mom im on acidMay 28, 20151 votes

actually i main mid and was playing swain which is my most played champ and i am quite fond of him... where are you getting your facts from exactly?? your just kindof assuming things and pulling this out of your ass xD its funny

Angry MonsterMay 29, 20151 votes

Lol u better want swane changed then

CrazedPorcupineMay 28, 20152 votes

honestly, the only thing she needs is for her Ult to have a delay. Right now, if you're in the AoE at any point during the cast time (which is like .5 seconds) you end up stunned, even if you flash out before tibbers actually appears.

ErockandrollMay 28, 20151 votes

{quoted}

honestly, the only thing she needs is for her Ult to have a delay. Right now, if you're in the AoE at any point during the cast time (which is like .5 seconds) you end up stunned, even if you flash out before tibbers actually appears.

Problem with this is, You literally destroy her Identity of being team engage, removing her reliable play making tool. (and it's about as reliable as a sona crescendo) The only way to compensate for that is giving more engage power elsewhere, or shifting her Identity. Either of which could require a full rework.

If Annie does get reworked, I would like to see more puppet Master elements added to Tibbers. Give Tibbers more power when he's actually on the field, and not just when he's off cooldown.

CrazedPorcupineMay 28, 20151 votes

except, she still has really good AoE stun in the form of her W. It also becomes WAY more risky for Annie to actually be used. Honestly, if Tibbers took .5 seconds to appear, and they added in an extra 200 range to the ability, I'd be perfectly okay with it.

Singing LarkMay 28, 20152 votes

Yet Annie mid almost never shows up in the LCS. Not saying that the LCS is the only way of defining an OP champ, but Annie has quite a few weakness that you can bully. She's immobile, she had no sustain, she's immensely squishy and she's extremely reliant on having the Tibbers, especially out of lane.

Recently everyone's been having the "this is too OP, let's make it a skillshot then!" mindset. Great, yes, skillshots are dodge-able, they aren't point click, you can miss, but is there a point in making Annie harder to play just because she's OP when fed? Yes she's easy to play, but she's also easy to play against. Her combo is never going to change from stun + rest of her skills faceroll. She's never going to juke you like a Leblanc. Yes Annie OP, but I think she had plenty of counterplay as long as you respect her range and her stun. Her AA range nerfs have already weakened her early game bullying.

Plus Annie vs Brand is already a hell lane for Annie. Don't make it any harder for her. item 3070

Jungle Lux GodMay 29, 20152 votes

Balance-wise, she's fine.

Gameplay-wise, she has some really big problems, such as a lack of counterplay specifically for her stun (not her damage, which I think is fine if her stun has counterplay) and a lack of interesting gameplay with her E that isn't "use E to gather passive stacks".

I personally would like to see her passive fall off after not using it for a few seconds and see a buff so that her E has a greater impact than just offering passive stacks.

Bears Dont CareMay 29, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Balance-wise, she's fine.

Gameplay-wise, she has some really big problems, such as a lack of counterplay specifically for her stun (not her damage, which I think is fine if her stun has counterplay) and a lack of interesting gameplay with her E that isn't "use E to gather passive stacks".

I personally would like to see her passive fall off after not using it for a few seconds and see a buff so that her E has a greater impact than just offering passive stacks.

How about no we don't screw her over with a change that would break her as a support.

Jungle Lux GodMay 29, 20151 votes

It's not a question of breaking her support, because that change would probably be implemented at some point.

It's just a matter of when, and how does Riot compensate her.

Ideally, she would get this change and other changes so she doesn't get completely destroyed, or she gets massive buffs to her solo lane at the expense of her support, which I think is perfectly reasonable for someone who is intended to be a mid lane mage.

Bears Dont CareMay 29, 20151 votes

{quoted}

It's not a question of breaking her support, because that change would probably be implemented at some point.

It's just a matter of when, and how does Riot compensate her.

Ideally, she would get this change and other changes so she doesn't get completely destroyed, or she gets massive buffs to her solo lane at the expense of her support, which I think is perfectly reasonable for someone who is intended to be a mid lane mage.

My concern is that they have already hit Annie support by attacking her AA range without any compensation whatsoever. On top of this, for her to become a viable mid lane mage would requre an increase of range and allowing her stun to be usable on command as the current meta favors high mobility champions with on demand AOE CC. If she cannot do the same it becomes an issue.

Chong WoMay 29, 20152 votes

don't you know she is already been changed like last patch? her basic attack has been shorter ( she has the longest basic attack distance among all APC) Annie is fine, talking about stun, have you even think of Veigar ? or maybe Cassiopeia ulti?her Q's CD is short thats right, but her W AND E are both pretty long comparing with other APC. MY OPINION? SHE IS FINE BEFORE, after the change last patch, not as strong.

NazZomLordMay 29, 20152 votes

She is perfect, She is not OP in any way, her recent AA nerf actually did a bit to my play style. A rework completely unneeded. Just learn how to counter her, its actually really really REALLY easy.

SoulwakeMay 29, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Bulk Barn,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=L8gJyp3r,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-05-28T22:35:06.990+0000)

Also her stun needs to be changed somewhat maybe even make her E not count towards the stun buildup.

I main Annie mid and making her E not count towards her stun would make that ability entirely useless then. Her E really does do much else besides provide a cheaper way to build up to her stun. Also Riot nerfed her auto range which has made a difference to her. It has given mid laners more breathing room to not get poked constantly from afar. It also seems that Riot is beginning to move champions toward skill shot based abilities. I'm fine with that because I am better with skillshots than the average player but we would see a large part of the silver and down players suddenly start losing with her badly since it's not an auto hit for them. I think Tibbers is fine the way he is. He is already a short range and stunning with him is no worse than a malz ult, Cass ult, Ori ult, and so on. You have also really done something bad and fed the annie if she is really two shotting people. From what I've seen I need at least 3 abilities to potentially kill someone if I am not fed. If I'm fed I should be two shotting people (same as any other fed champ). I also think that with the mana changes Annie may become even a stronger pick with her Q refunding her mana but time will tell.

Faith BreakerMay 28, 20151 votes

Got rekt

DanofDemaciaMay 28, 20151 votes

I believe annie is up but i think rightfully so. Annie does what assassins do to all mages but instead to assassins. They need to emphasize more on her short range. Making her movement speed slower is all she needs tbh. Cuz the only reason long range mages have trouble is cuz before they know it shes in there face. Idk if anyone else realize how quickly she seems to move i think its her animation.

SnugglePuggle94May 29, 20151 votes

She needs a MS buff not a nerf. She's already slow as it is.

mom im on acidMay 28, 20151 votes

Okay i guess Annie is fine according to all of you guys. We will see what the future brings us.

#Bannie2015

DrukyulMay 29, 20151 votes

She was fine before the weird changes so she can have a 100% Tibbers uptime. Now she's on the OP side.

Bears Dont CareMay 29, 20151 votes

{quoted}

She was fine before the weird changes so she can have a 100% Tibbers uptime. Now she's on the OP side.

Errr, i do not recall her having any change that allowed 100% up time on her Tibbers. The only recent change was AA range reduction, and molten shield giving Tibber's a speed boost. Annie is quite balanced in her design.

She is low mobility. Low range Low utility Burst mage.

Her entire kit makes her incredibly predictable.

BârdMay 29, 20151 votes

Passive is awesome, kit defining. Q is fine W is powerful, but its short range can get you killed if not careful E is one of those invisible power things. Massive gold value, and good for getting your passive up. R is close to being balanced. I have no problem with it dealing tons of damage and stunning. However, they should take a hint from their cinematic, and instead of it being "Poof Bear in yo FACE", make it so that Annie THROWS a bear into yo face, like a slightly faster Maokai sapling. Doesnt have to be a long delay, but enough that you can flash to dodge it.

SexyTaylorSwiftMay 29, 20151 votes

Just add a delay to her ult. #balanced

JefftiffyMay 29, 20151 votes

My problem is Annie has been way too safe as a mid laner ever since her Q refunded its cost and CD for getting kills. As a support, it's her ability to instant stun and burst you if you don't have bush control which zones you from most of the lane and she has a flash combo on top of this if you ever poke out from tower past level 6.

She needs her Q in lane to have a downside and her ult to not be as obnoxious. Her Q should only reduce its CD itself by 1s while reducing her E's CD by 1s and her ult should have a .5s to .75s projected cast animation to emphasize her "short range" nuke. Her passive should only be up for a maximum of 15s without casting spells. So she is forced to at least burn her E to keep the stun stored for longer than 15s.

Now to a full rework, it would be interesting if she could cast her spells on Tibbers for all different effects that he can do, etc. while having the current kit including changes above giving her more range but also not breaking her by making her entirely burst. She would choose do I want to full on burst someone close range or have Tibbers put out DPS from range and keep me a bit safer.

TilomentryMay 29, 20151 votes

Annie only has 1 targeted ability. With exception to her shield, the rest of her kit is all skill shots. They just have no travel time. Adding a missile with travel time to her abilities might be fine but I think its important to keep her kit as is

SnugglePuggle94May 29, 20151 votes

I think she is perfectly fine besides her short range, I would love to have a longer range on her. Thats about it.

Slamurai JackMay 29, 20151 votes

There are only 2 problems I have with Annie. The first is that her E charges her passive, which makes her window where her stun is down very small. You would think that engaging on an Annie team when she has no passive stacks would be the proper strategy, but she will still have that stun ready in less than 4 seconds.

I also have a problem with how her ult functions. Personally, I think too much of the ults power is loaded into its burst because of its AP ratio and not enough of its power is loaded into Tibbers itself. I also feel like, for Tibbers damage, it should be his auto attacks that do most of the damage to me, not his AOE damage aura. I should be afraid of Annie's ult because I'm now stunned with a giant bear beating on me, not because she just pressed R and 1 shot me with her absurd burst.

KivolanMay 29, 20151 votes

Azir Heimerdinger Orianna Syndra Zyra

Any of these can easily shut her down.

Counter's simple: Play anything that can outrange her Q and she's not going to be able to farm worth crap.

No farm = worthless Annie.

RevenixMay 29, 20151 votes

She has no counterplay, tanky, more burst than almost anybody in the game, and wins teamfights by pressing R. Honestly what they need to do is up her mana costs by a lot, get rid of that dumb q passive that restores mana when you kill something, and reduce the stun duration, an aoe stun instant 1.75 stun is just ridiculous

SnugglePuggle94May 29, 20151 votes

Hell no. She's fine as is.

manbearswineMay 29, 20151 votes

I think annie is like batman,she is the guardian we need,not the one we deserve.(silly joke ends here)

Do you really want yasuo and kalista running rampant? Screw them,I'll take annie over any of these cancerous trashes any day. you solve their problems first,then we can talk about annie.