Dear Riot, I Hate what You've Done with Anivia

Anivia was not in a great spot, although she was in a good spot. Not the best, but a little above average. She definitely had her shortcomings, especially being a mid-range mage in a meta of assassins. She had great strengths, however, like her ability to catch and burst someone.

The reason why her R-E combo, her primary, reliable source of damage, got nerfed (or perhaps more aptly removed) is because it "overshadows the success Anivia sees from trapping foes in Glacial Storm". If that combo is more succesful, why not let that cultivate? Riot cites it's because it's "instant, unavoidable burst" but it's NOT unavoidable. The range on it is quite small, only 600 units. To put some perspective, Annie's Q, which is a stun, has 25 more units on her. Her ultimate is 290 more units than Anivia's E. I do not see Riot doing anything with Annie, who can do the exact same thing that caused Anivia to get nerfed, have "instant, unavoidable burst". Instead, Riot seeks to change Anivia's identity to be some catch out queen, where bad positioning can be quite easily punished. Except it's impossible with her slow missile speed on Q, and it's impossible to do anything with the wall without huge mana costs for a possibility, risk, and the inabiilty to look for a perfect opportunity while the long cooldown wore off.

Catching out targets is what her old R-E combo did, it said "You were out of position, now you lose a chunk of health. Continue to fight and I will make you lose another chunk of health". It's not like this worked on tanky targets, she had to respect their ability to jump on her and instantly kill her low mobility self. She couldn't poke them, as her range was just not long enough.

This all stemmed from the original, unnecessary rework. She had a very solid position, she was the "counter to heavy sieging", with impeccable wave clear and the ability to catch out people who did not respect her. Then they tried to push her in a new direction; "a centerpiece for teams looking to seize control of the battlefield’s neutral ground". They then proceeded to do the exact opposite and made her ultimate smaller. She lost her potential to have a great fight in compact places, as most fights are decided well before the ultimate could ever mature. They then pushed her even farther away from that by removing her ability to reliably produce damage. Now she's some unreliable one trick pony that only works if you get hit by a Q. The slow moving, sad interruptible Q that can be countered in a hundred different ways.

Riot, this isn't what Anivia should be. Anivia should be an anti-siege god, an ice chicken who could catch out misplaying squishies with great burst. Now she serves as an ineffective zoning tool, some one spell character that cannot reliably produce damage. It breaks my heart you do this to my beloved Anivia, as she is no longer the champion I fell in love with.

tl;dr Anivia lost what her identity is. Please, stop it.