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Annie Rework to Better Match Her Awesome Cinematic

Stacona··3 votes·431 views

Annie is great, but I do wish her in-game model was less evil looking and more reflective of her short story cinematic. Because Annie is not evil and is a good girl, but if you upset her / hurt her then she hurts you, but seeks to helps those around her by choice. She just ends up hurting those around her due to her powers and not quite being in full control of them which makes some people to treat her like a monster.

Things to address for Annie: ~ Give her tools to help her through the early game / laning phase while still being this little fire mage that is immobile and short ranged. ~ Force counter play. This means remove her ability to flash into instant stun, and in return she can have tools on her kit itself that allows her to make plays in some form. This a better design aspect because it means she does not need Flash to function and her play making ability is on her ability kit itself. ~ I would like to see Tibbers play a bigger role for Annie than being about drop the bear and let Tibbers die, Annie loves Tibbers and that should be reflected in her gameplay in some form. Same with Tibbers protecting Annie. ~ Remove Annie's thornmail effect. This makes no sense as a mage, but the shield makes a ton of sense, especially for a short range mage, so there is a better way to have the damage reduction shield and have a more active replacement for attacking Annie directly. Something like Annie's Q does bonus damage against enemy champions that recently basic attacked her for an example.

Overall, Annie will still feel like the same champion, but she should feel nicer to play as for the user and offer better counter play and clarity for the opponent as well.

If you have feedback or dislikes, then share your thoughts and let me know what is going on, the post cannot improve if you do not speak your mind and share your thoughts! Thank-you and have a nice day!

Basic Attack Range: 600 units Movement: 335 units per second

Molten Shield (Passive): Cooldown: 7 seconds (Affected by CDR, starts at shield break) Annie gains a fiery aura around her, granting herself 20%(+5% per 100AP) damage reduction, upon taking champion or tower damage this lingers for 3 seconds. This is 50% effective against minion damage.

Tibbers The Protector: If Tibbers is currently summoned then Molten Shield remains active the entire time Tibbers is alive.

Disintegrate (Q): Cooldown: 2 seconds; Cost: 40/45/50/55/60 mana; Range: 650 units Annie hurls a fireball at the target enemy, dealing 60/80/100/120/140(+70%AP) magic damage and healing herself for 5/10/15/20/25% of the damage dealt, one-third healing against minions and non-epic monsters.

Passive: If Annie was basic attacked by an enemy in the last 2 seconds, then Disintegrate deals 90/120/150/180/210(+105%AP) magic damage against those targets. Minions are always dealt this increased damage, upon reaching level 6 monsters are dealt increased damage as well.

Executing an enemy with Disintegrate refunds the mana cost.

Energized Bear: Disintegrate can be cast against Tibbers to grant him a surge of 80/95/110/125/140%(+10% per 100AP) bonus decaying movement speed and 100/150/200/250/300% bonus attack speed for 2 seconds. Disintegrate gains 325 bonus range against Tibbers.

Incinerate (W): Cooldown: 8 seconds; Cost: 70/80/90/100/110 mana; Range: 950 units / 50 degrees Annie releases a cone of fire in the target direction, dealing between 90/135/180/225/270(+105%AP) to 30/45/60/75/90(+35%AP) magic damage based on how close struck enemies were to Annie. Maximum damage occurs for targets that are closer than 500 range to Annie.

Healthy Bear: If Tibbers get struck by Incinerate, this heals him for 10/15/20/25/30% of his maximum health.

Pyromania (E): Cooldown: 6 seconds; Cost: 70/80/90/100/110 mana; Range: 600 units Passive: Annie's other ability casts grant a stack of Pyromania, up to a maximum of 4. At 4 stacks of Pyromania, Pyromania can be cast.

Active: Annie consumes all of her Pyromania stacks, after a 0.75 second delay, let's out powerful flames around her that stuns struck enemies for 1.5/1.75/2/2.25/2.5 seconds. Pyromania is placed on cooldown for 2 seconds if Annie uses Flash.

Teamwork Bear: If Tibbers is currently in play then the flames burst around him as well.

Summon: Tibbers (R): 120/90/60 seconds; Cost: 100 mana; Range: 600 units; Leash: 1200 units Annie summons Tibbers at the target location, remaining in play for 45 seconds. The initial summon deals 120/160/200(+50%AP) magic damage to struck enemies within a 300 unit radius.

Tibbers... ~ has 1000/1500/2000(+250%AP) health ~ deals 50/80/110(+35%AP) magic damage for his attacks ~ deals 8/12/16(+15%AP) magic damage per second to nearby enemies around him ~ has 40/60/80(+20%AP) armor and 20/30/40(+10%AP) magic resistance ~ has 150 attack range and 0.625 attacks per second ~ has 350 movement speed, increased further based on Annie's enhanced movement speed

Annie can control Tibbers by either ALT+right-clicking or by re-casting Summon: Tibbers.

Angry Teddy Bear: If Annie dies while Tibbers is still summoned then he lives on for 5 more seconds, healing for 50% of his missing health and gaining 275% bonus attack speed and 100% bonus movement speed towards Annie's killer, if the target is too far away then Tibbers attacks the closest enemy.

8 Comments

AmetDeCrypt3 votes

there's really no point in changing her passive and e. it makes the stun less dynamic as the one thing in her kit that skilled annies could really show off with, it makes it harder to pull off and far more reliant on her ult, and with her new passive on a cooldown she can't control she's at the whims of her lane opponent when they want to poke her out or engage after they've burned her only defensive tool. while I agree her q could use some healing and the e thornmail is really only useful on tibbers as well (but since it's not currently her most defining mechanic like her stun I let it slide) so you could take that off and replace it with something more dynamic it shouldn't be a %damage done, rather a flat heal per q cast increased if it kills the unit with some ap scalings to increase the flat amount.

I do like the "cast on tibbers" mechanics though, I'm sure that could be worked into the kit in some way.

Stacona2 votes

Stun on passive is not really a skillful mechanic, it is more like you used your abilities and by doing so they are eventually going to stun your enemies. Plus by moving the stun to its own ability, while keeping the same stacking mechanic, allows Annie to have power added to her kit like W can have a range boost, but to showcase skill the damage varies based on distance so landing your stun using Tibbers is important to get in close for max damage.

The healing should be % damage dealt, it is in a controlled state, but % damage dealt means Annie needs to build damage for the healing. Also I would like to see a traditional make like Annie be played duo-lane, replacing the marksman role entirely, with a spammable Q and spell vamp on it then this can happen, especially since last hitting grants a mana refund. She also does not need more sustain for last hits since Q is a free cost spell if she last hits with it, meaning she innately would get a bunch of sustain over time, it is something ti give her sustain against long range champions and not be over the top sustain early on either.

I want Tibbers more than a nuclear bomb, so I essentially more-less halfved the damage on his initial nuke and buffed up his other effects. So Annie gets empowered while Tibbers is alive and Tibbers gets empowered by Annie, making him a core member of the kit, and allow Annie to stay as an immobile mage and not need Flash to make plays with her stun. I think Annie's stun should be in a controlled environment, and granting it a delay represents more skill for landing it since it gives the enemy team a moment to react to what is going on rather than get ass fucked by it.

I think stun being the active ability represent more skill since there is more you can do with it and you can help out her other abilities without being dominant or unfair to her opponent, more room to improve Annie and help her out with that added level of counter play. And shield being her passive makes more sense since it requires no skill to use anyways, but is a core element to her kit, because you are going to use it whenever a champion engages on your anyways and in the middle of a fight will use it whenever you can, so might as well have it as an always on effect that lingers for 3 seconds when taking champion/tower damage since it does the exact same thing and the thing had such a low mana cost anyways it might as well been free cost.

This then allows room to do things like take the basic attack Annie and get damage by her mechanic to moving it to increased damaged on her Q against those targets, make it an active role rather than a passive one that requires no skill.

AmetDeCrypt2 votes

by moving it into her e and making it a boring aoe it takes out the only skill expression in the kit and it is indeed skill expression if not as intense as something like managing syndra's balls. it also does as I said makes it entirely reliant on her ult to be useful or as a self defensive tool.

the healing should not and cannot be based on % damage if she doesn't want to turn into the next swayne, a bruiser mage everyone hates for their healing factor. a flat amount that scales on ap not only makes it better against tanks with their resists, but easier to balance in the early game so it's not too weak then or too strong in the lategame, but scales up naturally based on her ap.

tibbers is already more than a nuclear bomb, he's a tower tank, he's a normal tank, he can chase down enemies and force them out of fights. he can keep annie safe with his threat and he can effectively spread her stun to an aoe giving her monster teamfight potential. it's also something annie can currently control and manage, which is a fair sight better than a thornmail on a timer that's super easy to poke out and bait out and would demolish her kit.

MORE YOU CAN DO WITH THE STUN AS AN ACTIVE? you know what you can do with the current stun? you can use it as poke harass on your q to bring you safely into w range while they're stunned and come out ahead in the trade. you can use it on your w and peel off several enemies that are coming after you or your ally. you can use it on your tibbers and hit a 5 man ult and win your allies the teamfight.

you know what you can do with this active stun? you can either hope someone will flash into your range (because if it's going to be a uniform range it can't be long on her person or it would be too strong on tibbers) or you can wait around for tibbers to come up at which point before then you only have two offensive abilities and a shield that will probably be down when you need it most.

the stun may be her passive, but it sure as shit isn't passive. what the swap of abilities would do would make her new passive truly passive and her e next to useless unless what you wanted to do was turn her into an ultbot.

Stacona1 votes

As someone who likes to play Annie a lot, her passive represents no form of skill. You are going to get the stun no matter what, but by swapping P and E around you now have a damage reduction shield that requires more skill since now poke damage will place it on cooldown without the free control over it, but still functions its main purpose of anti-burst / assassination attempts, while adding more skill to her stun since it now has a delay so it is harder to land. The stun is moved into a defensive role for Annie when Tibbers is not active and an active role when he is summoned since Annie can make Tibbers move very fast with a Q cast on him, run into the enemy team, and stun everyone which offers more room for counter play and skill expression on Annie's part because she also needs to manage Tibbers a lot better now and make sure he stays alive by healing him with her W since the DR shield is now only on Annie.

I still have an aggressive stun, but it is now only on Tibbers and have him run into the team, this helps Annie a lot since it removes her reliance on Flash and does not need to add unnecessary mobility to Annie.

Molten Shield's function does not change, this is something you used whenever it was off cooldown anyways, and it had no meaningful mana cost to it so you can just use it whenever off cooldown in a fight. There was zero skill expression with Molten Shield, but now there is because if you want to make sure to stay anti-assassinated and anti-bursted out then you have to avoid poke damage at all costs because otherwise that 7 - 4 seconds downtime, varying on CDR (which right now is a 7 - 3 seconds downtime because cooldown reduction is a % value and is based off a 10 seconds cooldown, not 7 seconds) is a big enough window it easily get blown up with as a squishy mage, you are only somewhat durable while the shield is active.

When Tibbers is active the Molten Shield stays permanently up making the enemy wanting to kill Tibbers and Annie to keep Tibbers alive, creating a type of mini-game of kill the bear and then Annie is a lot easier to deal with after that. That type of mini-game showcases a lot more skill than in Annie's current kit, because it does not exist. Avoiding poke when Tibbers is not summoned showcases a lot more skill than pressing E when an assassin or burst mage goes for the kill.

Also how does a stun on a delay vs instant stun showcases more skill for the instant stun? And her passive rewards Annie for constantly using her abilities, I still have that mechanic, but by making the stun its own active ability grants Annie some more power like better sustain damage with Q which tones back her upfront burst damage with the lower cooldown and allows her W to have 50% more range and add a skill mechanic to it where the damage ranges based on distance, so using Tibbers to stun enemies allows Annie to get in close for the max damage W.

The entire kit works on itself a lot better here, gives her tools to help her get through the laning phase so she can actually get to late game, offer better counter play, and makes Annie no longer reliant on Flash at all.

BainTheBanned2 votes

shes a low skill mid laner. i have no hope for your hope.

Stacona1 votes

I don't think low skill, but I like playing a champion that is simpler to play. We can easily keep the ease of play, while adding more decision making processes like with Tibbers interaction, and add proper counter play to play against Annie. Also help her early game out and help her through the laning phase to get to late game, I did this by adding spell vamp to her Q, even reducing the value against minions, you still get health sustain and properly last hitting refunds your mana cost so this interaction allows Annie to endure the laning phase period instead of of getting ass fucked against anything with range.

UnknownTerritory1 votes

Can you show some respect? Because this person shared his time writing this?

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