Annie

Smitemuffin·Aug 25, 2015·2 votes·584 views

Annie just flat-out needs to be reworked. Her only method of gameplay embodies everything that Riot has spent two seasons nerfing and reworking champions to stop.

was nerfed because zoning with a gold card was "oppressive", yet Annie does this indefinitely and with higher burst to follow it up. was reworked because his gameplay was a very binary litany of pain when he can reach you, but nothing at all when he can't. , and all had their silences removed because disabling an enemy and then 1-shotting them is a pattern without counterplay. Let's not even mention when became a support.

Annie is ALL of those things. If she has flash and Tibbers, anything that isn't a tank is dead with zero chance to do anything unless you have lower ping than Annie and can flash before you get stunned and take half your hp (if Annie Support) or all of it if she built AP.

4 Comments

WukongMainAug 25, 20152 votes

oh my she has to burn ulti and flash to kill a squishy. boy oh boy. whatever will she do when they're on cooldown..... boy oh boy so broken. Man oh man..... this champion is so OP she needs 1 min+ cd and a 5min cd just to kill squishies

SmitemuffinAug 25, 20151 votes

Sarcasm aside, that is exactly what I'm talking about. Annie gets to do one whole thing every 5 minutes (or ~3.5 with distortion boots and masteries). And that one whole thing she can do has exactly zero skill or counterplay involved. There's no depth to this champion. Three spells out of four do basically the same exact thing: damage and maybe a stun. Her 4th could be replaced with only it's shield graphic and stun counter: nobody would even notice. Annie is stuck in 2009, basically. She's not even in middle school and she's already outdated

ArmegettonAug 25, 20152 votes

It's the "targeted spells" and "instant" (i.e. un-dodge-able) abilities that are still being toxic in league. Currently annie still has 3 of them, and 1 useless button. (Q is targeted, and W/R can't be dodged if the spell goes off on top of you)

But for some reason, even though a long while ago, they said they wanted to remove most, if not all, targeted spell, many of them still exist on many champions. Though, new champions are having more and more skills shots, which is better, but still doesn't address many of the older champions.

And then there's the fan base for each of the old champs that'll cry tears of blood when a targeted spell is changed to skillshot (veigar Q, ryze Q). Not sure if this is factor to riot phasing out the rest.

But you're completely right, annie needs fixing, but it may end up being done in small nibbles, or not in a direction players like. Like teemo's shroom toss, but 10->5 minute duration.

It's actually a healthy direction for teemo's R, but currently the rest of his kit doesn't support it. with 1 button that can't be pushed and 2 other buttons that don't fit into 2015's league. (hello targeted Q/blind)

So, until riot decides to add built-in counterplay to these kits and makes the abilities themselves healthy, it'll stay like this.

Hail Satan. Teemo

SmitemuffinAug 25, 20151 votes

My point exactly. Riot's approach to Annie has basically been "Uh...add more damage, I guess?".

Make her more kindergarten-ey, like turn her Q into a flaming soccer ball that's a skillshot that ricochets off what it hits. Make her E a flaming toy car that rolls in a spiral and knocks up champs that move over it when they slip on that Hotwheels Hellspawn. Make Tibbers grab onto a champ with his autos (like Omen, whom they scrapped in design) and slow/burn people while he snuggles the stuffing out of them.

I feel like we've got gold here