Annie's damage and indefinitely holding stun--thoughts on some changes

Honestly, I've been really aggravated by this particular aspect of Annie's kit for quite some time. It's something that I really wish Riot would change. Why is it that Annie should be able to hold a stun forever and completely suppress nearly all action from the enemy team (since there's not really much you can do against a Tibbers + stun)?

I understand that Annie has to cast spells (therefore, spend mana) to charge her stun. It takes time and it takes resources. I get it. However, a long time back, Riot made changes to Twisted Fate to prevent him from being able to pick his gold card and hold it for long periods of time. They said it was oppressive gameplay. I agreed with that change. So, if Riot was wanting to remove oppressive gameplay, then why is it that Annie still has her stun that she can hold indefinitely? During lane phase or preparing a team fight, Annie has plenty of time to charge it. Whether she's being played as a mage or support, she's going to have mana regeneration or restoration on kill somewhere in her build. Maybe this takes the form of Redemption or Morellonomicon; regardless, at max level, she spends a meager 260 mana, out of her base of 1184, that can be completely regenerated in 26 seconds with Redemption's additional base mana regeneration alone. If you consider her cooldowns (let's say she uses Incinerate and Molten Shieldtwice for charging), she will have her stun up and all spells available after 18 seconds (with the 10% CDR from Redemption). Her net expenditure is 84 mana.

Math Base mana regen at lvl 18: 19.6 per 5 sec

Mana regen with Redemption: 19.6 x (1 + 1.5) = 19.6 x 2.5 = 49 mana per 5 sec

• Note: Redemption gives +150% base, so mana regen is: (base = 100%) + (Redemption = 150%) = 250% total regen

Total mana expenditure to charge stun with Incinerate and Molten Shield: (110 x 2) + (20 x 2) = 220 + 40 = 260 mana

Time to regenerate 260 mana: (49 mp5) = 9.8 mana per second; 260/9.8 = 26.5 seconds

Time until cooldowns are completely reset and Annie has stun charged: based on her longest cooldown, Molten Shell

Time = (Molten Shell CD x (100% - CDR) x 2) = (10 x (100% - 90%) x 2) = 10 x 0.9 x 2 = 10 x 1.8 = 18 seconds

Mana regenerated in 18 seconds: (9.8 mana per second) x (18 seconds) = 176.4 mana

Net mana spent to charge stun: 260 - 176.4 = 83.6 mana

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In a long, drawn out waiting game (or even just during travel), Annie doesn't really even have that much resource expenditure to warrant her being able to hold her stun forever.

If that weren't enough, she also has both high spell base damage and strong AP ratios. The downside in her kit is the low range at which she's able to hit her spells. That would be a fine trade off if it weren't for the problem that having both high base damage and strong ratios means that her damage is relevant and just about any point in the game. There are these scenarios:

1. Annie builds like a support, typically buying Sight Stone and Redemption. She has a minimal amount of AP from items, runes, and masteries (est. 50 AP). She drops Tibbers (rank 1) and uses Incinerate (rank 1) and Disintegrate (rank 3) on the enemy carry. She does: (150 + 0.65 x AP) + (70 + 0.85 x AP) + (160 + 0.85 x AP) = (150 * 32.5) + (70 + 42.5) + (160 + 42.5) = 497.5 . Assuming the carry has about 850 HP and 40 MR (a 71.4% damage multiplier), the carry takes 355 damage (41.8% of their max health). This doesn't assume the Tibbers frenzy on stun (its auto attacks), its damage over time, or Annie's Thunderlord's Decree. In reality, The carry would take closer to 500 damage (58.8% of their maximum health). The remainder of the damage can easily be made up for their Annie's carry during the stun duration and some time after. It's also unrealistic to think that Annie would only drop Tibbers on a full HP carry; it's more likely the enemy carry has lost about 15%-20% of their HP before this happens.

2. Annie builds like a mage, rushing ability power items first. Annie would likely have close to 90 AP by the time dropping Tibbers would occur. So, she would end up dealing (150 + 58.5) + (70 + 76.5) + (160 + 76.5) = 591.5 * (40 MR multiplier) = 422 damage, not including Thunderlord's, Tibber's dot, and Tibber's auto attacks. We'd see something closer 600 damage, which is about 70% of the carry's maximum HP.

3. I could throw a bunch of mid-to-late-game numbers at you, but I think I've made the point that Annie has excessively high damage regardless of how you build her.

The point I'm making is this: if Annie is mainly being played as a support in Summoner's Rift games, why does she have such high damage on top of being able to hold her stun forever?

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In every game I play, whether it's on SR or an ARAM, whenever I see an opposing Annie, I immediately just want to surrender. Playing against Annie is incredibly oppressive. There's little counter play. She has excessive damage with her high base and strong ratios and she can bully an entire enemy team to the point that they can't make a move for fear of getting aced by Tibbers stun and engage. So, what are my thoughts on how to make Annie a more healthy champion to play against?

1. Reduce her AP ratios -- as a support, having high base damage gives you a small element of pressure and allows you to build less-offensive items while while maintaining some kind of presence. If Annie were re-tuned to be played strictly as a mage, then having lower base damage and higher ratios would make more sense. Since Annie is being played more as a support, I'd like to see a reduction in AP ratio on Incinerate (85% AP for an AoE skill). Although I think the base damage on rank 1 Tibbers is fine, I think lowering rank 2 and 3 to 250 and 350 damage would be healthier.

2. Holding a stun forever, especially when you can apply it to an AoE flaming bear that frenzies and deals a DoT when you throw it down, is excessively oppressive. I could see this being healthier in a couple of ways. One way would be to set a timer for the stun, much like how Yasuo can only use his 3rd Q within 6 seconds. I think the timer should be a bit longer (maybe 10-15 seconds), but not so long that it constantly inhibits the actions of the enemy team. The other way to deal with it would to be having it on degrading stack system, where Annie loses stacks of her passive and needs to cast spells to maintain it being up (kind of like how Ashe needs to keep auto attacking to maintain Ranger's Focus). Although this degradation system could work, I think it would be inferior to just having her passive expire.

3. Why should Annie's passive be on a timer instead of a degrading stack system? First off, all Annie would need to do is cast a spell only when she would drop a stack; her passive would be maintained indefinitely and we'd still have the same problem, except for the fact that Annie players would need to be more mindful of their stacks degrading. Having her passive on a timer is superior to degrading the stacks because it creates a window of opportunity. Currently, there is no window of opportunity to counter Annie unless the player makes a severe mistake or hard crowd control can be applied before she can drop Tibbers.

4. Annie currently needs to cast 4 spells before she can charge her stun. I could see her passive looking more like: "after damaging enemies with abilities 3 times, Annie's next damaging ability within the next 15 seconds stuns enemies it damages for 1.25/1.5/1.75 seconds." It creates the requirement, instead of merely casting the spells, that Annie has to damage enemies to get her passive up. She would also be able to hold her stun for a significant period of time, but not so long that there's no real opening. These stacks would expire in the same time her stun would expire once it's charged. Annie could quickly charge her passive again with a couple of Disintegrates and an Incinerate relatively quickly (on the order of about 6-8 seconds). That's the window of opportunity a team needs to fight back.

Overall, since Annie is being played as support, healthy changes to her damage and kit would include:

1. A reduction in AP ratio on Incinerate (probably to 0.4 or 0.5)

2. A reduction in base damage of Tibbers at ranks 2 and 3.

3. A 10-15 second timer for Annie's passive stun to be held and the requirement that Annie be damaging enemies to charge it.

I don't mean for this post to sound like I'm complaining; I have my issues with these aspects of Annie and her kit, but I genuinely think that there are healthy changes that can be made which make for a more dynamic game and healthier game environment.