In depth guide : Annie Speedster - Diamond guide

Kreezhem·Mar 26, 2019·6 votes·3,383 views

Annie Build Guide: Annie Speedster - High Elo Guide by Kreezhem

Hi,

I just finished my Annie guide. The build revolves around predator and spellbinder to make up for Annie's lack of mobility and increase her number of engage opportunities.

You can also check out my stream, I will very likely play some Annie games tonight. I you have any questions about the build I'll be happy to help you out.

https://www.twitch.tv/Kreezhem

I also made a youtube video explaining the runes and showing a game to demonstrate the power of this build :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPXNokpjPmM&t=1s

I'd appreciate feedback if you got an opportunity to try this build out !

6 Comments

IfnethMar 26, 20193 votes

Really good play, dude! You made Annie look easy. I like watching streams and seeing what could be improved. I wonder if your items could have been better. Tell me what you think.

Like you said, Annie relies on snowballing a burst advantage into repeated kills. Buying more AP is nice, but early magic penetration is even more combat efficient, and a Dark Seal can offer ability power for waveclear while you buy it. So, the 1,700 gold of your first back could have been Boots, Aether Wisp, and Dark Seal plus a Control Ward and Health Potions.

You would have had safety against Fiddle from the ward, HP to trade to whittle down Ziggs from the Potions, more movement speed from Aether Wisp, and snowball potential from Dark Seal. From there, you could have stacked the Dark Seal off your snowball, getting free AP while buying Sorc Boots to reach your burst threshold faster.

From there, farming a Needlessly Large Rod would have been largely free, accomplished either by exploiting your lead or getting kills and plates. Spellbinder would have come just as your Dark Seal stacked, letting you follow up with Mejai’s to send your snowball out of control.

Finally, rather than opting for Luden’s Echo, you could have instead chosen Oblivion Orb, gaining even more MPEN off a fast 1,600 gold powerspike after which you could finish Deathcap.

With the money saved, your snowball could have finally been locked in with a Potion of Sorcery + Stopwatch buy. You would have been insanely strong yet also safe.

Hope you liked this! :)

KreezhemMar 27, 20191 votes

I use the build you recommend on a lot of champions mid. But because Annie get such high ratio on her spells I prefer to rush large Rod, which adds 150 damage on a burst combo. Also a lot of people are taking mercs against annie. Making the magic pen build not as effective. You basically pay 1600 gold for an item countered by 450 gold.

Mejai is also an item I love taking on Annie, but I wouldn't recommend it. One single mistake becomes so costly.

Overall I think your build is good but easy to counter and therefor less effective against good players.

IfnethMar 27, 20192 votes

Yay, you replied, and it makes me glad to hear that my MPEN-Utility Snowball build is viable.

So, is Annie past that breakpoint where the waveclear and damage on her ratios is more valuable than pushing more base damage through her opponents’ base magic resist?

I’m only Gold, so maybe my perception might be skewed about Mercury’s Treads. The enemy Mid would buy them to survive your burst and mitigate your stun. The enemy Top might buy them regardless for a little MR plus necessary Tenacity. The enemy Jungle might also buy them, especially to threaten you during the 2v2. That leaves the Bottom and Support players as targets, and even the Support might see the fed Annie and buy them. Is 1,600 gold of build deviation worth a little extra burst onto one or two enemies? Indeed not.

Onto Dark Seal and Mejai’s. Dark Seal is cheap and very gold efficient, even without stacks. Mejai’s is also cheap and requires only a few stacks to be efficient. A kill and a few assists will also restore the movement speed passive on an empty Mejai’s. Dying with stacks loses you little to no spent gold, even though it feels terrible. Also, the AP compensates for decreasing kill bounties as you repeatedly kill enemies, and getting the maximum from a lead might become the different between victory and defeat.

Still, even if you only buy Dark Seal after an early kill, and Mejai’s only after stacking or nearly stacking the Seal, you have invested over 1k gold that could have gone into your core build into snowball items that could be repeatedly de-stacked. Maybe if you’re fed enough to afford them, you don’t need them. Is that how you see it?

Thanks again for replying! I love learning about mid lane itemization. (By the way, I never have bought Dark Seal: I would lose the stacks and mentally boom).

KreezhemMar 27, 20191 votes

Thank you for the interest you put in that guide, I appreciate it.

Itemisation depend of the matchup. So in some games getting Oblivion Orb will be worth it, in other games it will be a waste of gold. With high AP ratio champs I tend to go for pure AP and no MR until Void staff. If I know I will be buying Void Staff i do not get Oblivion Orb.

Also you were comparing who will take mercs or not. You need to also expect AD champions to get a Hexdrinker quite fast in the game. It's not rare to face an AD mid like Zed with Hexdrinker first item, and I often see adc get it as second or third item after I roamed on their faces. AP champions take banshee and tanks take Spirit visage or other MR items. Annie's damage are absurd against opponents that do not take MR. The higher elo you get the more you see people taking MR item early in the game to deny the oneshoot.

That is why I love Annie in soloQ. If you have 4 AD in your team you put the enemies with an unsolvable dilemma. Get MR for 'only' one AP champ or ignore you and get oneshoot. Forcing people to take defensive items only against you gives you team a lead in gold efficiency.

For the Dark Seal, I take it only if I need to back before 1K5 gold, as you NEED boots on first back with that build and as you said Dark Seal is very cost efficient, especially when coupled with refillable potion. I upgrade it to Mejai only when I'm ridiculously ahead and after Zhonyas. The reason I don't really like Mejai, it's because it makes player play too safe. KDA players. I do not care about dying, I want to get my job done and maximize the chances of winning the game. Being 5/0 and losing is worthless. I very often engage a dirty way, flasing in 5 people then trying to tempo for my team with Zhonyas, but I regularly die for plays like this. As long as I do a positive trade i'm fine with it. Maybe i've been playing too much Rammus lately and it got to my brain [sg-shisa]

Playing for the win = No mejai Too high risk too low reward. Forces player to change playstyle and run away from winnable fight.

BTW, I have been testing Ingenious hunter with that build quite a lot and I LOVE it. I need to do more testing but I believe it is a better rune overall.

I might make another video with that rune to demonstrate how it works, what do you think ?

IfnethMar 27, 20192 votes

Of course I’m interested. It was a thought-through guide and very clean play. Even the shutdown could not stop you.

Aha, so hard-ratio champs must stack as much AP as possible as quickly as possible. MPEN is not as important for them because their base damages are lower to compensate for their high ratios. Annie has high ratios and just needs as much AP as possible as quickly as possible.

200IQ: Can’t face Zed with Hexdrinker if you ban him almost every game.

But seriously, are your enemies all regularly rushing MR just to deny you the one-shot? You must be quite fed regularly: they are delaying their builds considerably. And indeed, on a team with many AD threats, Annie becomes very efficient because she can deal magic damage that ignores the armor that the enemy must build. Standard draft damage type mixing but with ridiculous one-shot potential.

Coming back to Mejai’s, you could even opt for Perfect Timing and upgrade your stacked (or nearly stacked) Seal once your Commencing Stopwatch is ready. The stasis will let you play more aggressively, and the rune accelerates your Zhonya’s Hourglass, which is actually a core second item on Annie according to op.gg. That said, she has very few games to judge that by.

Ingenious hunter could be pretty good for tempo play, turning Zhonya’s uses into turret dives and backline clearing engages. Annie is a very aggressive mage who must play forward to deal damage. Please do make another guide, my man. :)

KreezhemMar 27, 20192 votes

Yeah, basically with high ratio champ you prioritize pure AP rather than magic penetration. It makes it harder to counter and you can "counter counter" by getting only a item 3135 . If I see 3 or more item 3111 before I finish my boots I sometime go for myself or item 3117 , as I won't gain much damage by using item 3020 . I wouldn't say that your base damage are much lower as Annie , It's quite average. But her ratios are insanes.

I don't find Zed a really bad matchup with Annie , I much prefer banning Sylas for obvious imbalance reasons. [slayer-jinx-unamused]

It depends at what Elo, from Plat and above people start building MR quite fast against Annie , Especially when you get a few early kills, it gets scary for them. You usually see item 3102 and item 3155 as second or third item. You are forced to play safer since you don't one shoot they can retaliate. Btw against you want to throw your Q with 3 passive stacks, then pop your W. Since W will connect first it will make you gain your 4rth stack and make your Q stun the target even if they dash or summoner 4 away.

For the perfect timing runes I don't like to go inspiration, on any champions. I don't find it worth it. I much rather get celerity / waterwalking or gathering storm. But I do use item 3157 a lot. It is usually my third Item depending on the matchup. It allows you to engage with your stun and as soon as the stun fades tempo while your team does the cleanup.

Ingenious hunter brings your Predator item 3157 item 3907 item 3364 to such a lot Cooldown. You really gain a lot of vision denial and engage possibilities. I might make another youtube video with Ingenious hunter to show how it's advantages.

If you haven't and it interest you you can also check out my rammus guide. It is again an unusual build. I kind of like to get pinged my item followed by 5 question mark and then carrying the game. I get pinged my predator on Annie almost every games.

https://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/rammus-heavy-sustain-high-elo-guide-547244

If you have any suggestions on what champion I could do my next guide on let me know. I haven't decided what's next yet.