Changes to Annie that might work. Genuine critque welcomed (and desired)

Annie is a champion that many cringe at. At low elo she's considered broken cause no one knows how to fight her and at high elo, even though people know how to play around her weakness, she's just.... not fun to fight against. She's annoying. Actually she clearly has weaknesses, once Annie gets snowballing, it's gonna be burning time.

However, this being said, her weaknesses are pretty obvious. One of which, being that her range was gutted. Meaning that anyone who can just out-range her, can tear her apart while she struggles to try and hit her spells. This weakness can be (and has been) easily exploited, making her pretty weak the higher you go on the elo, once more and more people learn how to fight her and how to hit those weaknesses.

But as I look at Annie as a champion, I feel like she just needs to be reworked. Both visually and with her gameplay. Her gameplay was made around her long range, but now that the long range has been gutted, it feels a bit out of place. And I have a few suggestions that might work in making Annie feel new and somewhat balanced at the same time.

First what I think needs to change is her Molten Shield. The rammus passive that you get is... pretty much almost useless and the little armor and MR buff you give yourself is... pretty meh at best. Frankly, it's only used to gather up stacks for your stun and speed up tibbers.... that's pretty much it.

My suggestion would be to remove the MR and Armor buff and adding a more usable effect, like an AoE burning effect or even a spell shield-like effect. "The flames of molten shield burn with such intense heat that any projectile is swallowed up!" Perhaps something like the lines of that.

Next would be her Q, one of the biggest problems of her Q was that it's long range and damage and that fact that it wasn't a skill shot, made it painfully difficult to land against. But... now that the range was eaten up, it's just.... it feels lackluster. This is my suggestion to make it more usable.

Turning her Q into a skillshot. Now I don't think it should be like Veigar's Q, or Ryze's Q. However I do have an idea of how to make it, it's own feel. Make it so that it doesn't hit any targets on it's flight-path, but when it lands, instead of becoming a nuke, it combusts into a circle of flames that deals AoE/DoT of all those inside it, reducing the attack speed and movement speed of anyone that walks through it. Yes, this is a lot of Phoenix's Fire Spirits attack in DOTA2. ...but I really love Pheonix's design. >.>

Her W should stay the same, it's a pretty generic attack, nice AoE wall of flames.

Next, I feel would be her passive. Man. That passive. I have two ways of changing this move up, so please tell me which one you think is best.

First idea is a simple one. Making it so Annie can't hold her stun indefinitely. That's...pretty much it.

The second one is a bit more complex, but I think it could work.

Remaking the old passive into a new one. The newer passive could be that everytime she hits a certain skill, she places one mark of flame on a champion. (I think you know where this is going) Upon placing 4 marks on the target, the next spell done by Annie (and only Annie), will apply a stun effect that would deal an extra X% of their maximum health. (Or missing health if you want to be evil >.> )) Her passive however would not increase with her AP, like 2% + 1% AP... or whatever.

The final change I think should be her ultimate. Honestly? I think her ultimate on it's own is just terrible. The fact that you can be called a bad Annie because you ulted without your stun passive...kinda tells you how bad it is. While I think that the damage is....nice. Tibbers on it's own is just pretty meh. It's not a threatening presence like Mordekaiser with his Dragon. (What is?) And frankly I just feel like it needs to be better.

I suggest adding a wind-up time, much like Veigar's change with his stun. Giving it a split second of cast-time before it lands. Also perhaps making it so that Tibbers' actual auto attack damage scales with Annie's AP. Like Malzhar's Voidlings scale with his AD.

Also, if Annie does somehow get reworked. Make her older, like.... I don't mean like make her 18 - 20 years old. But I mean, make her like, a pre-teen or teenager or something. Since a rework would mean new spells and new abilities, I feel like her learning new things, would only mean that she's developing in her fire magic, growing more powerful with age. This is just my personal opinion.

I have a bunch of other ideas. But those are the ones that stuck out the most for me.

Critique is welcomed. Serious critique though. Like, if you don't like the idea, please tell me why. :D

And if you DO like the idea, please say why!