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If Annie's kit is to be given more counterplay, she will need a full-scale rework

Abyssphere·7/15/2015, 5:27:56 PM·3 votes·596 views

Everyone hates Annie and that's cool because she blows people up very quickly and that doesn't feel very nice but the suggestions people keep making to fix her are ... really bad. Primarily, putting a delay on Tibbers or making her Q a skillshot. Offering more counterplay to a champion isn't usually such a big deal because you can just buff them moderately to make up for their newfound lack of reliability and that's fine, but Annie's different.

Annie does basically nothing. Q does damage, W does damage, E makes her tankier, R does damage (both burst and DOT, also does interesting stuff like turret tanking but not the biggest deal ever). Passive makes all of her offensive abilities capable of stunning. You only ever pick Annie for one thing: extremely reliable crowd control with attached burst. Her E is not a reason to pick her, neither are the perks offered by Tibbers being a pet. The problem here is that reliable crowd control with attached burst is... kind of shitty to play against. Everyone's been nuked by Tibbers both in lane and in teamfights and it doesn't feel good.

So you can take away what makes Annie feel bad to play against... but in doing that you've also taken away the only reason to pick her. Making her stun unreliable would be a more extreme version of what was done to Veigar because he actually has other niches (punishing high AP teams, for example), whereas Annie's only strength is what people want to get rid of. Getting rid of that strength isn't a bad idea, but she desperately needs new ones to replace it and ... probably quite a few new strengths given just how strong her stun is.

So rather than propose really small changes that will effectively delete her like putting a delay on Tibbers and making Q a skillshot, can we suggest Riot gives her a proper rework? She really needs one, and I say that as someone who likes Annie quite a bit. If her current kit has counterplay it'll never be good, while if her current kit is good it'll never be fun to play against. Give Annie new things to do other than flashing onto a team and stunning them all, she'll probably be more fun after it to play and face after it.

15 Comments

Snowball4u7/15/2015, 5:39:18 PM2 votes

No counterplay

Sinc when did they remove qss?

There is very little counterplay... Not none

agbudar7/15/2015, 5:56:40 PM2 votes

i think there are plenty of ways to counter annie especially if she goes mid.

Mew Goes AD7/15/2015, 6:01:17 PM2 votes

Or, you could, you know, just pick Lux or Xerath or any of the long range champions in the game.

People crying for Annie nerfs are only doing so because they are too lazy to stop playing their own assassins (that Annie counters) and refuse to play the champs that counter Annie.

Griefer7/15/2015, 5:31:02 PM1 votes

If the fact that her "flash and r" has no counterplay then just give it a delay like ekkos w lmao

Abyssphere7/16/2015, 2:51:41 AM1 votes

I'm not sure if people understand what I'm saying but this isn't a "nerf Annie" thread. I like Annie and... I don't really think she's a problem. But a lot of people do, which is what I'm addressing.

I do think Annie's kit is lacking in counterplay, but I don't massively care about that. I'm just saying that if you DO want to give Annie more counterplay it's not just a case of "put a delay on Tibbers and give her some number buffs, she'll be fine", and it's not a case of "make Q a skillshot and reduce its cooldown and she'll be fine" either.

The purpose of this thread is to let people know that if you want to give Annie more counterplay you need to give her a lot of compensation. To the point that a lot of her abilities would function almost completely differently from how they do now.