Annie should literally throw Tibbers for her ulti. Not instant casting it

Macilento·Apr 23, 2015·79 votes·8,042 views

Basically as title says, i don't think that those istant stun with 0 counterplay have a healthy space in the game anymore.

Annie is too much of a terror when her stun and ulti is up, becouse well, you don't have any reaction time (especially if she flash + ult). Not only that but she has insane burst damage and insane AA range.

So i list here my fix for that.

For supp: • AA range should be lower • Tibbers should be a casted spell and shold be thrown in the air. When it lands you got tibbers (remember the cinematic?)

For midlane: • Tibbers should be a casted spell and shold be thrown in the air. When it lands you got tibbers (remember the cinematic?)

102 Comments

RaptameiApr 23, 201524 votes

I remember when Annie was strictly stronger and considered useless because she was too slow.

"Mobility creep".

OrangesilkApr 23, 20156 votes

No, that's exactly why, now that mobility creeped champions are a thing, we need someone who can just click on them and make them sit still for a goddamn second.

Annie Irelia Kennen Lulu Lissandra . And the like.

Davy CrockettApr 23, 20153 votes

Veigar 'Sup

UncensoredAngelApr 23, 20154 votes

Bye

OrangesilkApr 23, 201518 votes

But tibbers burst is the ONLY thing Annie has going for her, her range is terrible for a midlaner, her peel is mediocre for a support. Her main niche is using flash-tibbers, and that's burning a FLASH just to do the thing your champion is supposed to do, because AP short range squishies are almost impossible to work without mobility. It has zero counterplay, but that's it, that's all she does. Not to mention, point and click CC is important to keep mobility creep in check, not EVERYTHING is supposed to have counterplay, Annie is one of those champions you can only counterpick, and that's good, otherwise how do we deal with the assassins if not with point and click CC?.

exiledFromBadmenApr 23, 20155 votes

{quoted}

But tibbers burst is the ONLY thing Annie has going for her, her range is terrible for a midlaner, her peel is mediocre for a support. Her main niche is using flash-tibbers, and that's burning a FLASH just to do the thing your champion is supposed to do, because AP short range squishies are almost impossible to work without mobility. It has zero counterplay, but that's it, that's all she does. Not to mention, point and click CC is important to keep mobility creep in check, not EVERYTHING is supposed to have counterplay, Annie is one of those champions you can only counterpick, and that's good, otherwise how do we deal with the assassins if not with point and click CC?.

Her targeted skills are toxic to play against.

AnidanApr 23, 201518 votes

Reliability in a game like League is always a necessity, even if it means the person on the receiving end of it happens to get shafted.

Even if Annie's Tibbers was changed, people would just use Q at the start of a one-man burst, and W for multiple people and throw tibbers ontop of their heads while they're stunned, effectively changing nothing but reducing upfront damage ever so slightly because they'll miss a single tick of Tibbers' sunfire-esque effect.

As mobility becomes more and more prevalent, Annie is more and more needed, whether you like it or not.

EvilRabbittApr 23, 20156 votes

That's why I added her. She shuts mobility down. The people crying about Annie don't realize this is a MOBA or are people who want to protect their mobility- you are supposed to pick effectively. Not pick something and outplay- thats an RPG. Annie counters mobility because she has a targeted stun and 2 (yes her W is instant, even if you flash out- the animation starts after the damage is dealt) instant aoes. Sorry for my slight rant, but you get it. =) and I like that. And you get an upvote.

IllusoryLuminesApr 23, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Reliability in a game like League is always a necessity, even if it means the person on the receiving end of it happens to get shafted.

Even if Annie's Tibbers was changed, people would just use Q at the start of a one-man burst, and W for multiple people and throw tibbers ontop of their heads while they're stunned, effectively changing nothing but reducing upfront damage ever so slightly because they'll miss a single tick of Tibbers' sunfire-esque effect.

As mobility becomes more and more prevalent, Annie is more and more needed, whether you like it or not.

"Skills are tools. Players count on them to do a job. When a skill is highly unreliable, we have to overpower it to make it 'satisfying enough'. Let me give you an example: Let's say Kayle's targeted invulnerability ult had a 95% chance of working, and a 5% chance of doing nothing when cast. We'd have to make it a LOT stronger to make it 'good enough' because you could not rely upon it... and it would be a lot less fun. Random abilities have this problem on reliability -- they tend to be a lot less satisfying, so you have to overpower them a lot more. Small amounts of randomness can add excitement and drama, but it has a lot of downsides. There are other examples of non-reliability, but randomness is the most obvious one. Abilities that require peculiar situations to do their jobs tend to run into the same problems, such as Tryndamere's shout that only slows when targets are facing away from him."

-Zileas

This is pretty ironic honestly considering how skillshots became super common and abilities have to be unreliable to be "counterable", which led to yasuo/kalista's broken states.

RunawaydevilSep 19, 20161 votes

ik its a year old post but holy shit you guys are pissing me off,

There is 0.1 counterplay to annie the .1 stands for when you have flash and great reflexes

if im an assasin, i can't kill annie, if im an adc i cant kill annie, if im a fucking tank, i cant kill annie. Hell if its a 3v1, guess what, i cant kill annie

if she does, by the will of god, finnally die. Tibbers will go Ham on my ass, and i'll die.

skillshots and cast times are what make counterplay, it doesn't make it unreliable it just makes it fair The only reason Annie is 'reliable' is because her stun and damage is almost impossible to miss. that doesn't make it fun or fair for the opposing team

XtremeyApr 23, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Her targeted skills are toxic to play against.

zed main detected

exiledFromBadmenApr 24, 20151 votes

{quoted}

zed main detected

I don't play any assassin... You're looking for the wrong person.

Best Darius KRApr 23, 20158 votes

because AP short range squishies are almost impossible to work without mobility. It has zero counterplay, but that's it, that's all she does. Not to mention, point and click CC is important to keep mobility creep in check, not EVERYTHING is supposed to have counterplay, Annie is one of those champions you can only counterpick, and that's good, otherwise how do we deal with the assassins if not with point and click CC?.

Am i the only one who thinks this sentence has "Veigar" writen all over it?

OrangesilkApr 23, 20152 votes

I'm very against the Veigar re-work too o.o.

MelledoneusApr 23, 20151 votes

I mean, I don't mean to sound rude, but you required little to no skill to land Veigar 's ult before unless you had some REALLY shaky hands...

OrangesilkApr 24, 20151 votes

Veigars skillcap was entirely decided by your fast reflexes and good aim when placing that cage when you got jumped on. As in, if you were too slow or missed by a bit, you got creamed.

Now it's...uh... you need to be very skilled to survive long enough to be relevant with that champion?.

ChaosThiefApr 23, 20152 votes

I would say you could bump tibber's range to ludicrous levels to compensate. Could be a really fun minigame for annie (PIN THE TIBBERS ON THE CARRY)

WakamuneApr 23, 20151 votes

{quoted}

But tibbers burst is the ONLY thing Annie has going for her, her range is terrible for a midlaner, her peel is mediocre for a support. Her main niche is using flash-tibbers, and that's burning a FLASH just to do the thing your champion is supposed to do, because AP short range squishies are almost impossible to work without mobility. It has zero counterplay, but that's it, that's all she does. Not to mention, point and click CC is important to keep mobility creep in check, not EVERYTHING is supposed to have counterplay, Annie is one of those champions you can only counterpick, and that's good, otherwise how do we deal with the assassins if not with point and click CC?.

Perhaps she could use a rework, and by rework I don't mean making her a syndra clone because point-click is needed. But if you need flash to be valid then something is off about the design.

AnidanApr 23, 20152 votes

Flash making someone valid doesn't necessarily indicate a design flaw - it gives clear moments of comparative weakness and clear moments of comparative power.

She has an effective short-to-medium range, and for her to make the most of her power she needs to be kinda close, so Flash gives her an immediate push in the direction she wants. The problem for Annie comes if the target is long-ranged consistently (Ziggs, Xerath come to mind) she can ONLY do anything if Flash is up - but that's just an aspect of MOBAs: counter-picking, so that's not a big deal overall. The other problem, this time for the enemy, is that if they have to be close themselves to do anything to Annie (especially if they're melee) then it's very difficult for them to do anything, but again, that's just counter-picking. Xerath and Ziggs don't make life any easier on melee champions than they do for Annie.

Flash is integral to League at this point, so making someone seemingly reliant on it isn't even that big of a deal. It's like making someone reliant on Blink Dagger and/or Force Staff in DotA (of which there are many) - they're weak when they don't have it or don't have access to its use, and strong when they do.

IllusoryLuminesApr 23, 201511 votes

What if it stuck to the target for a few seconds and amplified damage the enemy takes from annie by 20% while it's stuck? Fizz

Mike KachowskiApr 23, 201516 votes

pedobear

TonyTonyMordecaiApr 23, 20152 votes

You have officially ruined my experience while playing as Annie XD

Mike KachowskiApr 24, 20151 votes

My joke is hardly new though :)

GooberpApr 23, 20159 votes

I don't think Annie needs to lose her instant stun; not only is it important that SOME champion has one to counter extremely high mobility (which also Annie can fail at countering anyway because only her Q isn't a skillshot) but there's no reason for it NOT to be Annie. She's always been categorized as having less upfront burst than most burst mages because she has AOEs and the utility of an instant AOE stun, and with Riot having shifted a lot of her power out of her skills into Tibbers-the-pet, she has a fairly healthy gameplay pattern. The only time it resembles toxicity is when she gets monstrously fed early and can legitimately 100-0 carries, but in most games Annie cannot 100-0 anyone with the removal of DFG. She counters ADCs fairly well with upfront burst plus her E shield, but so what? Most mages counter ADCs.

With her tiny tiny cast ranges, you can't even claim that her instant stun makes her especially safe, either. It gives her the ability to trade by dumping HER output FIRST, but then she's still left being extremely close to her opponents, and anyone with a gapcloser or a well-placed skillshot CC can outtrade or just kill her.

TenSlashTenApr 23, 20151 votes

annie has the msot upfront burst right now out of every mage Her base stats are like 240/240 max rank with .8ap scales. In what way is she " weak" lmfao.

her skill cap is so low its disgusting. You have to literally be shit to lose lane as annie in any match up besides an artillery mage in which case the mage just refuses to interact with you unless you have flash.

GooberpApr 23, 20151 votes

You're completely ignoring build paths. Annie in 80%+ of situations will start with RoA because she is a frontline mage and must have the defenses, (and it complements her E shield well) which requires ample time to scale up. By the time it has finished stacking, the enemy mage has had more AP than her through the entire game. (discounting severe gold differences)

Also, Annie's damage IS low among burst mages, are you insane? Here's a quick comparison of level 6 burst on some burst mages: Annie: 450 + 2.45AP (assumes no points in E, rank 3 W for max base damage) Brand: 506 + 2.45AP (assumes rank 3 W for max damage, only ONE hit on ult, so with bouncing much higher) Syndra: 650 + 2.5AP (assumes combo of Q->E->W->R OR W->Q->E->R for one hit of each ability, total of 4 spheres on ult) Veigar: 450 + 2.6AP + 0.8*enemyAP (assumes one Q cast, one W strike, and ult)

Notice how her damage is lower than all three of them even at the absolute minimum damage dealt. Now tack on that she has less AP as a direct result of having most likely a catalyst and a Doran's ring vs. Fiendish Codices or multiple Doran's rings on the other mages, and her damage is even lower by comparison. Annie's main advantage is reliability but it comes at a huge cost to both her power and her reach.

IllusoryLuminesApr 23, 20152 votes

{quoted}

You're completely ignoring build paths. Annie in 80%+ of situations will start with RoA because she is a frontline mage and must have the defenses, (and it complements her E shield well) which requires ample time to scale up.

...what? No, she doesnt. She goes straight raba/luden/zhonya's/etc

Mao RyuApr 23, 20159 votes

ZPIN2WINApr 23, 20153 votes

"Die, and be silent" Sion

Poptart EvelynnApr 23, 20157 votes

Reducing her AA range would break her mid lane just fyi.

Rinky DinkyApr 23, 20155 votes

SO you want to make her tibbers targeted, on top of nerfing her auto attacks.

lol ok.

How about we take zed, and change his ulti into a stun that deals no damage? Seems legit

TerntApr 23, 20154 votes

OMG DUDE, I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS THE OTHER DAY. Cause I saw a picture of Annie and I thought to myself, "What if she threw the Teddy bear where she casted, then people would know when Tibbers was coming too." Then I thought, NAH, they wouldn't do that. Funny stuff though haha.

EDIT: It was when I was looking at the new Riot headquarters photo's and the display they have of Tibbers and Annie. Since she was still holding the bear, I thought that.

MacilentoApr 23, 20155 votes

{quoted}

OMG DUDE, I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS THE OTHER DAY. Cause I saw a picture of Annie and I thought to myself, "What if she threw the Teddy bear where she casted, then people would know when Tibbers was coming too." Then I thought, NAH, they wouldn't do that. Funny stuff though haha.

EDIT: It was when I was looking at the new Riot headquarters photo's and the display they have of Tibbers and Annie. Since she was still holding the bear, I thought that.

Well but in the end, it's how it should be. Like Annie thematically should throw the damn bear and the bear transform, precisly as you see in the cinematic.

The fact that Big tibbers stuns 4 people from thin air is kinda bullshit

MelledoneusApr 23, 20151 votes

Or instead, she has the animation throwing Tibbers really fast, but Tibbers would still insta-cast.

ArtaccusationsApr 23, 20154 votes

See, imo, Annie is in a pretty good spot. All her spells, including Tibbers, are fairly low range. If she went midlane, against say Azir, she would be out ranged and out poked. It's not that she has no counter play, range is her counter play. She is also very squishy, meaning any gap-close could kill her. Inb4 the argument is that she can stun so gap-close is ineffective, don't dash in on her while her stun is up or about to be. If Tibbers became a throw, I feel like it should be a quick throw, with reduced damage, longer range and the stun should still happen. But honestly, I don't think she needs it. Any Annie player knows they have to think about how and when to cast Tibbers, and if they make a mistake or get too close, they die before Tibbers is even cast. It's all about knowing how to play against an Annie to determine if Tibbers is strong or not. It's no different than Diana's Q+R, Akali's R, Zed's R, and Fiora's R to name a few. And they are all much stronger than Annie right now.

BluePolarizerApr 23, 20154 votes

Guess I should go back to DOTA where heroes don't take 23414234 years to do anything.

This is why I only play bruisers and assassins, they actually don't have to wait 234134314 years to land an ability.

Very Hard EngageApr 23, 20153 votes

literally said this the day 5.4 hit =/

Blaine TogApr 23, 20153 votes

{quoted} For supp: • AA range should be lower • Tibbers should be a casted spell and shold be thrown in the air. When it lands you got tibbers (remember the cinematic?)

For midlane: • Tibbers should be a casted spell and shold be thrown in the air. When it lands you got tibbers (remember the cinematic?)

She really, desperately needs her AA range to survive in mid lane. Since she only gets CC if she sits on her spells, she can't use her spells to poke or farm, which means she needs to rely on her autoattack for both those things. No other ranged AP midlaner is anywhere near as reliant on their autoattack as Annie is.

I like the idea of Tibbers being thrown from a thematic perspective, but Tibbers instantly stunning the entire enemy team is the only reason Annie is even remotely viable lategame. Without the ability to decide teamfights reliably, Annie's usefulness will succumb to her low range and lack of mobility. If Tibbers were to become less reliable, you'd have to move that reliability into some other part of her kit and it's hard to think of a good way to do that that wouldn't delete counterplay.

For example, you could make this change to Tibbers if you allowed her passive to only proc on enemy champions, but then she'd become far too good at pushing and farming and her opponent wouldn't get to play around her moments of weakness when her passive is down. Or I guess you could try adding some mobility onto her E (maybe a decaying spike of movespeed), but then you've just beveled away both her strengths and her weaknesses (the exact opposite of Riot's design philosophy) while also making her generally more terrifying outside of teamfights.

She's far from the only champion with instant AoE spike damage with a stun. She's fine as-is, barring a more extensive rework.

IcyPepperApr 23, 20153 votes

In that case, it should have a bit more range then. It's 600 currently, so perhaps it could get bumped to 700 for the price of having a slight delay.

Er...

istant stun with 0 counterplay

You can see if she's holding onto the stun. item 3102 item 3156 The range is outranged by several spells, particularly from midlaners (Even Zed!) It's difficult, but there is some counterplay beyond 0.

Captain VolibearApr 23, 20151 votes

She can hide her stun by casting her shield right before, can't she? I don't think it has cast time. If I remember that right, the warning particle for the stun doesn't help counterplay.

IcyPepperApr 23, 20152 votes

She can, but not Annies do it. But if you see the warning particle... that is counterplay. Some Annie players just abuse it to take that part away, but at least it exists.

But seriously, there's items to protect you against the flash+Tibbers stun and her maximum range is 625 around the board, which is outranged by Zed's kit (even his ultimate barely outranged her, 625 compared to 600). Range is a part of counterplay, and Annie gets cc for the price of a lower range. Can she use some fixes? Yeah. But she's not as broken as people think she is, and there's counterplay to her kit.

Come on, Zed outranges her, and he's supposed to be an assassin.

Blue KaoziApr 23, 20152 votes

I have seen this idea posted on these forums at least 5 times. Its a great idea, but nothing has happened so far. She could still flash-w and then throw tibbers but that has a slightly shorter range.

Curling VeigarApr 23, 20152 votes

her cc also does a huge chunk of damage unlike someones'...

1st HanarSpectreApr 23, 20152 votes

It's not fair that someone can flash and kill me. however.. It's completely fair that** I** can flash out of their spell to live.

RikariApr 23, 20152 votes

Do you know what this will do to the #LCSBIGPLAYS? Also,Why Not show a range indicator ?

iainB85Apr 23, 20152 votes

I made this exact same thread about a month ago and got down voted into oblivion. It was mostly people still raging about Veigar's stun change at the time, I think.

Death by KaynApr 23, 20152 votes

I feel like Tibbers should be thrown but should have a VERY fast travel time. That way she doesn't lose functionality (looking at you veigar) but players are also rewarded for paying attention to the little pyromancer

RisenDarkKnightApr 23, 20152 votes

I agree with you on the ult nerf (especially since she can still stun with w), but is it really necesarry to nerf her auto attack range too? She'll already be losing utility by the ult nerf. She has the lowest attack speed and attack speed growth in the game to compensate for her range iirc.