Anivia's R needs to be reverted to a much earlier time
Hello, my League name is Schrammster and I am a Diamond V Anivia main. I say this merely for credibility, and I still have a lot to learn about the game. I do believe, however, that I am a decently skilled Anivia player and have noticed that Anivia has gotten considerably weaker over the course of preseason and Season 6 (in particular patches 5.24 and 6.9). Why am I waiting until now to complain about her kit (particularly her ultimate)? Because now she's in a nearly unplayable state except in very niche comps that fit to her excelling, when even still there are usually better picks. After all, why play Anivia if there is a better champion to accomplish nearly the same purpose?
I have a lot to explain here, so it will inherently be a tad bit long, but please hear me out. I do have a Tl;DR at the bottom which I would highly recommend reading if you don't have the time to read all of this.
For those of you who don't know, Anivia's kit works so that you chill an opponent (either with your Q snowball or R storm) to proc magic crit damage on your icicle E (her primary damage source).
So what exactly is wrong with her? The recent changes to her Q and E are absolutely fine. An increased stun damage of up to .5 seconds more (1->1.5 seconds) for a trade of .5->.4 (1.0 -> .8 on double proc) is completely worth it for her Q. Increased missle speed and range (on her E) never hurt anybody on a skill, either (although this does give you less time to chill the opponent if you have not already). Overall these are buffs.
But now her ultimate. As of 6.9, I played a few games with her yesterday and picked up the new ultimate pretty quickly, so I would not say it is too early to judge despite the patch being just yesterday. Her ultimate is garbage. Completely useless. -you cannot use it to waveclear effectively which is what she has always been picked for (it takes too much time to ramp up, and even if this ramp up speed was increased, it still would only push effectively as ~80% as well as before) -it feels really clunky to use because the enemy literally has to be standing still for it even to expand enough to where it's more than a sidestep out -she has to be in the face of the entire enemy team to basically get out this full man ult in a teamfight, something a mage carry should NEVER do -she's a zone mage and doesn't even control a zone for 4 seconds... only a very small piece of one
Yes, Anivia is not a COMPLETELY useless champion now, but picking Anivia at this point is actually not that far from trolling your team; allow me to explain. Compare Anivia to Annie for a moment. Annie has a much more reliable stun and much more reliable damage. She can 100-0 squishies where at the same level of gold, Anivia would 80-0.
Where does this 20% damage difference go, especially considering Anivia's damage is much less reliable than Annie's? Into utility. This is what should balance Anivia relative to Annie in a competitive environment, or else why pick Anivia over Annie regardless of team comps? Anivia has a wall that can put someone in a bad spot (which is primarily the reason she is picked now). The wall has a huge cooldown, however, and if a team decides to then engage on Anivia's team, she does not have it to disengage. Basically it is a strength if used well, and a weakness if used poorly (especially if you trap teammates on the other side). Anivia's ultimate also used to be extra utility to up her to the level of Annie, but now it is a laughable skill for an "ultimate." It simply is not reliable enough to do what she wants to do, and there's one last thing I haven't mentioned about her ult that is a huge problem for Anivia players.
Anivia has basically no damage to an enemy who is not chilled. For a 500 AP Anivia who throws an E (frostbite) you're looking at about 475 unmitigated damage (about 300 damage after you factor in resistances that lower your damage output by 30%, basically low mr). So why do I bring this up?
There was a nerf back in patch 5.24 where the chill duration on Anivia's ultimate was lowered from 2->1 and the leash range was reduced to 1000 range from 1200. The reasoning? "Anivia’s synergies with the new Keystone Masteries are pushing her to pretty absurd levels of power, especially in a metagame where teams primarily rely on sieging towers to succeed. These changes are all about forcing Anivia to commit herself to danger if she wants to command the same level of respect in controlling and defending objectives." Basically, she was too good at sieging. I hate to be blunt, but... well duh... Part of her kit is that she is a zone control mage who has to scale up very well. This was one of her core strengths, and she has been noticeably weaker since this change came about. Maybe everybody was playing her BECAUSE XPEKE PLAYED ANIVIA AT WORLDS AND EVERYONE JOINED THE HYPE TRAIN. Not that she was inherently OP at anything. But even if she was OP (because balance ONLY balances OP things, not strong things) at sieging, what does nerfing the chill duration have ANYTHING to do with sieging? The leash range may be nerfed for this purpose which would address her sieging if it was deemed as OP. But the chill duration? This has a significant impact on her gameplay at a cost of not even affecting her sieging all that much anyway.
Just about anyone with a dash can escape Anivia's E in time to remove the chill duration and take laughable damage. -Leblanc can distort away (if timed well) or even double distort to be sure the E does not hit her in time and she will likely get away unharmed when she just murdered your adc -Ezreal can arcane shift away and almost always avoid the double damage E -Tristana can rocket jump away and not be hit by the double damage E -Katarina can shunpo away and not be hit by the double damage E and the list goes on for just about anyone with a dash. These are from champions I've eye-witnessed personally, but I believe a lot more (even champs like Sejuani) could probably avoid the double damage E (a dash and a flash WILL if this alone doesn't). Hitting 300 damage (even less if they have MR) with 500 AP for someone who just jumped in the face of an AP carry midlaner (who is supposed to be a zone control mage) is just unacceptable. 300 damage for 500 AP (and they just dodged your Q by jumping away as well). You have NO ANSWER because that literally is your kit, and they just jumped in your face probably popping off ~600-1.5k damage. Is this right for any AP carry?
I believe I share the sentiments of a lot of Anivia mains out there, or anyone who has picked up Anivia recently. What do we want? We want the reverted size ultimate along with a 2 second chill duration. The tether range can be left as it is and I don't think anyone would mind. But Anivia's core gameplay has been nerfed to the ground where she really is not viable and won't be in the foreseeable future.
TL;DR -Anivia was weakened heavily for little reason by changing her ult's chill duration 2->1 back in 5.24. My honest belief is that a lot of people were playing her because xPeke picked Anivia at worlds so everyone tried it out, and because of her popularity she was deemed as being strong and oppressive -Anivia's changes, other than her ultimate, for 6.9 are fine -her ult cannot be used to effectively waveclear and provides VERY unreliable damage and utility unless you have a comp specifically built around it -her more reliable damage and utility before 6.9 (and even 5.24) is what balanced her compared to someone along the likes of Annie who has more reliable damage and more reliable utility but less overall combined utility -Solution: Change Anivia's ult back to the old size ult and remove the extra damage/chill/slow, and make the base chill duration be 2 seconds again instead of 1 to prevent champions to dash out (receiving 300 damage from a 500 AP Anivia for being in the direct face of Anivia)
