[Annie] Re-Work
There still isn't much skill involved in playing this fiery little devil child and several things, even if they were to remain easy to use, need to be brought up to speed. I'll list out each and give an explanation as to why I feel this way.
Passive- At 4 stacks, her next ability stuns. Stacks are gained by using abilities. I'll start by saying that this remains one of the few passives that still stack without decay. So many Annie players sit in base and spam W and E to get the 4th stack THEN head into lane. It leaves no time-frame in which Annie's pressure will fall while her stun is up, furthermore she can wait as long as she likes before initiating. (Suggested New) Passive: At 4 stacks, her next ability stuns. Stacks are gained by using (or landing?) abilities and decay after 6/8/10 seconds (lvl 1/6/11) rapidly decaying from 4 to 0 over the next 2 seconds. In this window, Annie must choose to be aggressive and use her stun or be passive and let her stacks fall off. Good Annie players would be able to use an ability within the decay window to keep her stacks up while not using her stun prematurely. I'll circle back to her Q and move on to her W for now.
W- Cone of damage in front of her. Very basic ability with no other use than damage. I'd motion that her W gain the passive of her Q and become her main source of farm, getting more mana back from more targets killed with it, up to 110% (maybe not that much) the cost of the ability after killing 5 targets or more. This would give good Annie players more mana sustain and enemies a better chance at harass and counter-play since she'll be focused on CS. To this point, this new ability would have a slightly longer range than her current W but shorter than her current Q.
Q- High damage, point-and-click ability used for last-hitting (with a mana refund on kill) and easy, long-ranged harass. I'm not sure how this one should change, but with the above ability implemented, it frees this ability up to be something new with potential extra burst, utility, or uniqueness for this champion. I'd love to hear suggestions for this.
E- Circle of flames around her and Tibbers granting Amr, MR, and reflecting some basic attack damage. This has always been more of a throwaway ability in my opinion. Even with the addition of granting Tibbers the extra stats and damage, it's still only used to gain more stacks on her passive with such a low mana cost and such little use. So, I propose giving it a little more utility. When her E is active and Tibbers is out, she and Tibbers should gain a small amount of move-speed while walking towards each other (or instead towards enemies?). This would make it easier for her to escape bad situations (or chasing down enemies) and would require better micro-managing of Tibbers (instead of making him wander through the enemies to deal a bit more damage as you run).
R- Instantly summon Tibbers, dealing massive AOE damage upon summon and dealing AOE damage around Tibbers. This ability offers no room for outplay. Much like Veigar's old stun, it can spell instant doom for anyone who dare's step a bit too close to Annie. As well, much like Veigar's old stun, I believe it should have a short delay with an outline (summoning circle?) of where Tibbers has been cast so that flashing away the split second before he crushes your soul can be achieved. It doesn't have to be as long as Veigar's delay, but it SHOULD be present.
Note: I do not wish to take away Annie's burst, stun, or anything that makes her who she is. I do wish, however, to add more counter-play to her kit and widen the gap between good Annie players and great Annie players.
What do you guys think?
Thanks for reading.