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So is Annie's Tibbers just an afterthought that exists for the sake of flavour?

5G8Nri0B54··3 votes·1,016 views

I'm not denying that Annie's R is really powerful, a little cheesy in fact considering how it's INSTANT and AoE, especially deadly combined with that Passive of hers.

But ignoring balance for a while, let's talk her Summon.

I have no idea how much damage Tibbers even inflicts against champions, if it really inflicts any at all. The majority of the time, once Annie hits 6, she just flashes in to unload her full combo with an Ignite and chances are the opponent is dead.

And if the opponent isn't dead? It'll land a hit and the opponent either gets away or unload his/her burst onto Annie and then Tibbers dies automatically because he's a Pet that was created before Riot realized Pet's who automatically die the moment the champion does tends to be a bad idea.

Other times opponents simply ignore Tibbers to go after Annie, or if they're in a losing fight, run away as Tibbers absolutely can not chase enemies. Or worse, if the opponent wants to, they can quickly take out Tibbers as he's not all that sturdy despite his appearance.

Ignoring all the balance BS for a while (the fact that she's a better Support than mid already hints at her failure as a mage already), I'm more interested in her R's gameplay. Considering that teddy bear of hers is her key-defining feature beyond her under-agedness, you'd think it's be a little more prominent in her gameplay.

But as is, she's just....a really generic nuke mage.

Know what Post-Game could REALLY use?

STATISTICS FOR PETS

I know Yorick players would be interested in whether his ghouls even do anything beyond charging his Passive up. Those things are so buggy that often times they'd sooner just sit there and die rather than attack.

21 Comments

Rebonack3 votes

If I could make one change to Tibbers, it would be that he also gets Annie's Molten Shield when she activates it. That would improve his durability pretty substantially without having to just dump some portion of Annie's tank stats on him.

WereScrib3 votes

...Well. To be honest? Its because she's a really, really old champion. They were often either an assortment of 'cool' powers, similar to old DotA champs, or had a very clear identity. In Annie's case...

Annie IS the generic Nuke Mage. That was literally her design goal. She has a stun because fire has a history of proccing stuns in games. Literally that is her design. Like, everything about her kit was about being a, well, generic burst mage.

Much like how...

Morgana was the control mage.

Sivir (originally) was the "Pushing champion", who's Ws permanently bounced between minions, her ultimate made her faster and minions faster and everything AA faster, she dodged minions literally by walking, and her Q was always her Q.)

Ashe was the auto-attacker ranged thing. Drow influenced thingy.

Soraka was the healbot.

And Alistar was the tank.

Velasan1 votes

I didn't play this game when it came out, but I did want to add that I played dota when it was on warcraft III. A lot of the same characters made it over.

Like there WAS a character that matched vlad exactly, but he was called something else and still had the blood pool ability. There wasn't an Annie exactly, but there were a couple of similar characters.

Ashe is basically (well actually she totally is) tyrande from the original series right down to her scout which works in exactly the same way. You know, the tiger riding night elf princess.

Having not played league back then when it was first made into it's own official game though I don't know who the first champions were.

Llanite1 votes

Guinsoo is the original designer of dota allstars who handed it over to Ice frog when he left for Riot. Some heroes will bear resemblance, especially older champs, because they come from the same creator.

5G8Nri0B541 votes

If I had to compare Annie to any Warcraft 3 hero...she's just a really generic nuker with the Dreadlord's Ultimate.

Of course whereas the Dreadlord's Infernal spell summons him like a meteor from the sky, Annie's Tibbers just..."happens". Select an area, click button, and Tibbers appears.

5G8Nri0B541 votes

Annie IS the generic Nuke Mage. That was literally her design goal. She has a stun because fire has a history of proccing stuns in games. Literally that is her design. Like, everything about her kit was about being a, well, generic burst mage.

I can see where you're going with there, but I dunno if that's even a good thing at all.

Besides, if you want a boring generic nuke mage, you already have Brand for that. Unlike Annie, Brand's entire personality and theme literally begins and ends with "FIIIIRREEE!!!!!!". Atleast other elemental mages have a little more going to them beyond being hot for their own element.

I guess my gripe with Annie then is, her design is lazy and rather uncreative. In this case, should probably be updated to atleast have something to let her stand-out amongst other champions.

Hell, even her particles could use some touch-ups. Her Incinerate's animation is horribly inaccurate when compared to her hitbox. Her R, despite how freakishly powerful it is, "just happens". No explosion befitting an explosion, no seeing Tibbers be thrown as it's an instant spell. Artistically, her R is literally just Tibbers appearing there with a small fan of fire.

Then I guess there's the rather one-note pattern of hers where her entire MO is to wait till level 6, then Flash+Burst opponent to death. Unless there is a huge power imbalance going on, the only counter-play possible in most scenario is just to never get into Annie's burst range, and Annie's only scenario to get her damage in is to blow a Flash.

I guess what I should say is...asides from how uninspired her kit is now, there's little to no interactivity between her opponent and her.

bob0002 votes

Tibbers does a lot of damage if he is ignored in the fight.

Sailor Mint1 votes

This.

If anything Tibbers should at least benefit from Annie's movement speed bonuses.

5G8Nri0B541 votes

Yet there's practically no interactivity with him and the kit.

He's literally just "throw him down there and let him do his thing".

Zero synergy with the rest of the kit. Zero plays to make. He's just lazily thrown in there.

For a champion whose key-defining characteristic is that she's a little girl with a demonic teddy bear, that's one hell of a let down in terms of pay-off.

Meep Man1 votes

Tibbers is really good for finishing off bearly not dead units. His fire aura also contributes a decent bit more than you would think in a teamfight, barely scoring those kills. He also is incredible at tanking towers.

5G8Nri0B541 votes

Unless it's for pushing a turret, I wouldn't exactly call him all that great a tank...

Since Tibbers dies the moment Annie does, the counter-play against him is to either run like hell knowing he'll never catch up, or immediately kill Annie so Tibbers disappears too.

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

i personaly think that riot should kick her out of the role of short range assasin without a gapcloser because all that annie realy does is unloading tibbers as a nuke instead of summoning a pet, the pet is there just to fit the theme (she carries a teddybear after all) maybe this would even introduce her to mid lane again (since support annie is picked there for that burst that does not require items)

Sailor Mint1 votes

If stats are to be trusted, Annie is seeing quote a bit of action in the mid lane. I doubt Annie Bot makes up for ~9% global picks.

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

she makes most of it

Sailor Mint1 votes

He plays her a lot, but I don't think Annie Bot's 2398 ranked games this season make up for a large number of games in the grand scheme of things (~17000 daily ranked picks). :p

Annie is sitting on a 11.22% global pick rate at the moment and it seems support makes up for less than 25% of her picks.

Rebonack1 votes

For the record, Captains Boots boosts Tibbers' movespeed up to about 415 or so. That's plenty enough to keep up with most champions.

Only downside is that Captains Boots are silly expensive.

Velasan1 votes

I'm not sure I get this post. Annie is played plenty at higher tiers (no I am not just making this up, check her numbers for higher level ranked games). Tibbers is actually almost the same kind of ulti that Viktor uses with a different graphic. They both do damage on entry (summon) and damage when they are next to or on top of an enemy (aura).

Annie is indeed a generic nuke mage in her most base sense, but she also has a great deal of utility. I know most mages would kill for her fire shield since it gives her an AR/MR steroid. She's one of the few mages who can tank an AD bruiser and then drop a tibbers on them.

As for tibbers himself (beyond that I wish they would change it to an actual teddy bear made magically huge vs a bear enslaved in teddy bear form for the lore) he benefits from all sorts of items that affect allies. Also, he does have statistics which are listed on the league wiki page. Annie is not the only one with a summon after all (malzahar says hi).

Not sure why you would think her balance is off though. She's super simple. Close range burst mage with a temperamental stun. She's very weak to long range, but if she can get her stun up and close on you she will unleash her barrage. In essence a one trick pony, but one that does it well.

5G8Nri0B541 votes

I'm not sure I get this post. Annie is played plenty at higher tiers (no I am not just making this up, check her numbers for higher level ranked games). Tibbers is actually almost the same kind of ulti that Viktor uses with a different graphic. They both do damage on entry (summon) and damage when they are next to or on top of an enemy (aura).

Except unlike Vik, Annie's entire identity begins and ends with her being a little girl with Tibbers. And pretty much none of her kit reflects that one bit.

For Viktor, his Ultimate isn't the greatest in design. It's just a BOOM, a nuke out of no where that has nothing to do with his technology augments. But design-wise it isn't nearly as bad, why? Because Viktor's identity is rooted to his Passive and how it augments his abilities. His kit has more decision making and intricacies than Annie's generic nuke kit. Viktor's Passive both provides an identity for him and plays a massive role in his success.

Annie doesn't have that luxury. Her identity revolves around the fact that she has Tibbers, yet Tibbers is nothing more than an afterthought in terms of gameplay. There's zero interactivity. Once he's thrown out, there's not much more to do.

In this case, the main difference between Annie and Viktor? Lazy uninspired design vs. one that is far better thought out.

FarRockBF1 votes

Annie main here. There is a big risk with Tibbers: let me explain.

Tibbers does 0.2AP damage per second. That is HUGE in a 5-10 second teamfight. Assuming he is near 3 enemies and you have flat 400 AP, that would be 3,600 DMG just from having Tibbers alive. Here is the conflict though:

In 1v1 or even 1v2 scenarios, when you have your stun up how do you initiate? If you Tibbers the enemy and MISS, you lost your stun AND your ult. Then enemy will likely win the next trade. So a majority of the time I will Q first which is a guaranteed hit. Then walk closer, Tibbers and W.

But if you are confident that Tibbers will land nicely (usually Flash + R into enemy turret) , aside from your R-Q-W burst, you are doing 0.2 AOE dmg to the enemy while they are stunned. That adds hundreds of HP points in damage during the fight.

I like where Annie is now and see no need for any change.

5G8Nri0B541 votes

You're...kinda missing the point...

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