Annie Concept unlike any other!!!!

Hello Community,

We're all a huge fan of our penchant for arson little pyromaniac. And I have often played this character through the many seasons since season 1 and pre-season 1. Often I played her as a support to be a complete nuisance to the enemy team as a force to be reckoned with. And I got to thinking, with the recent patch known as the Lore Update. I thought, what could riot do that would make everything much more interesting for our explosive bear mastermind.

Since the idea is to move the story plot along. At some point, it should come around to look at our pyromantic girl and her time she has spent aging in the league.

I think personally, there shouldn't be a loss of the current Annie as the character is still very viable for Pro-Play and Casuals alike. Very simple and easy style with high reward when performed correctly. Instead, though I propose that a second option could be introduced in the league. Maybe storywise a future Annie was sent back in the past by Zilean for some unknown reason Riot could allude to and progress the storyline with.

I think she could have her original character's model get a visual update but with no change to her abilities and passive. But when you select Annie, there would be two options that would appear "Young Annie / Adult Annie" with the different character option having her own set of skills to show just how powerful with fire magic she has become.

I would love to hear fans give ideas for the ENTIRE ability set plus passive. And not only just critique on what I have (Though I would still love your opinion and constructive criticism.) If you've made it this far, I will show my abilities and my concept of reasoning. Why I chose this ability thematically and logically with the various types of time-skips that we could choose. The story doesn't necessarily have to be a time-skip but they wanted to preserve a piece of her younger years as a replicated shade or something. Whatever floats your boat I am interested to read.

So here we go into my idea's and creativity.

Now where I wanted, to begin with, was Tibbers. He is a core aspect of Annie in her ultimate and how impactful that can be. With Mordekaiser, Yorick, Elise, Shaco, and Ivern. There are a number of characters with a summoned pet. We haven't gotten a true pet user in the game, (Something I think the Riot Community is already in works on probably.) And this could be a more interesting way of introducing that idea. With Tibbers and Annie being older, she would be stronger at her fire capabilities and we can expound upon that and her contract with Tibbers. (Please note that all numbers or ideas could be subject to change)

Passive: Tibbers Annie has mastered summoning Tibbers that she can now subconsciously control her giant Bear. If Tibbers dies it takes 300-180 (+CDR%). HP: XXX-XXXX +(.x% of bonus Health) MR: XX-XX (+.X% of bonus MR) AR: XX-XX (+.X% of bonus AR) Damage: XX-XXX (+.x% of bonus Ability) Magic Damage Mana: XXX-XXXX (+.x% of bonus Mana) MS: xxx (+annie's bonus movespeed) Annie can cast all spells while moving. If Tibbers is given no command for a certain number of seconds, he will default to attacking who Annie attacks or stand idle by her side. When Annie damages an enemy champion under turret range, the turret will prioritize targeting Tibbers first as though he were Annie. Tibbers has a buff called "Tibbers Flames" that immolates enemies in a close range to him. Tibbers is worth 200g if Slain. Tibbers doesn't regen damage while in combat, After 6 seconds of staying out of combat. he regens 3% of his max hp per 5 seconds. Toggling passive will cause Tibbers to be Passive (Not react to alt clicks or attacks) and Aggressive (Reacting to Alt Clicks or Attacks) Tibbers will always prioritize an enemy champion with Incineration mark on them unless in passive mode. Tibbers will always target the enemy champion hit by Disintegration Blast While Tibbers is dead, Annie has the buff "Tibbers Flames" on her with a small Tibbers bear toy floating around her.

He permanently resides around Annie having a certain amount of HP per level, Possibly could be increased by the amount of bonus health Annie gets as well. Has his own auto-attack which is buffed by Annie's ability power. All Damage that Tibbers does is Magic Damage. With how her kit would work, this would really focus on how a player can properly position Annie Herself and Tibbers. It would add interesting gameplay. To not only casual play, but Proplay as well. It is like you're playing 1.5 Champions at once, but dual playing would take immense skill. To play, but to really help incorporate Tibbers into her build, her spells need to work around her passive right?

Well, I am glad you asked, I got a good few ideas that will help the AI of Tibbers assist in properly aiding Tibbers.

Q: Disintegration Blast Annie Channels in her hand a ball of fire for up to 4 seconds that she can throw to a targeted spot on the ground to cause a small explosion of flame to occur. The ball fo fire gets larger and consumes more mana for each second she channels it. If she chooses to hold it until it expires, it refunds 60% of the mana back. If it kills a minion or monster it refunds 25% mana back. If it kills a Champion or a Large/Epic Monster it refunds 150% back. Running reduces movement speed from 100% to 60% per second of channeling. If Disintegration Blast hits a Champion, It causes Tibbers to charge and attack that champion, Tibbers ignores unit collision for 3 seconds.

An empowered version of Annie's old Q. Revamped with a little style to incorporate her old style of play. Even though it has a chance to be stronger than the old Annie, it comes at less reliability and more skill. Here we keep Annie's ability to regenerate mana and keep up her aggressive play style. With a general lack in a reduction in mana returned unless a good Annie properly preps up her target for a huge mana return. Keeping her in the fight longer. With Tibbers getting to be a problem and worth using skills to prevent the beast from obliterating you early through late game. Paying attention to where the blast lands and properly avoiding the center of it is important here. There should be a good amount of time to abuse Annie when she improperly uses her primary attack skill.

Continuing on, her old W was a cone of fire. And I kept thinking about how maybe we could incorporate this. into her new kit but add some life into it to make some play potential here.

W: Wave of Inceneration Charging up an ambient amount of fire into each individual hand, Annie waves her hand across and blast the zone with an area of fire from one direction to another depending on which hand is used. 2 charges. Leaves a Mark of Flame that deals a small amount of damage for 5 seconds. If Tibbers hit's the target with his auto attack, it extends the length of the mark of flame and slows them 15% for 1 second.

What I like about this, is you can use a semi rumble style of ability, controlling the direction of the wave to assure the most amount of damage possible. Again, Tibbers being able to slow enemies makes it easier for Annie to stick to her target and do a considerable amount of damage, As a Burst/Sustain mage. The fluidity of her movement not being restricted to stop when casting her abilities makes her spells very fluid and fun to play. Giving her a good amount of mobility to outplay her opponent. With a slow that can be consistently applied if Tibbers is right on top of them.

Which leads me into my next point. Sticking onto enemies so Tibbers can do his thing, wrecking foes and getting gold. Her third ability has always been a way to simply charge her pyromancy. Well now, she can do that all in her Q. We don't exactly want to lose this effect so I have the next great thing. A good utility skill that'll make playing Annie a good amount of fun.

E: Protective Cloak of Flames Annie covers herself and Tibbers in a fiery flame and protective fire. While in it's passive state, it increases her mana regeneration and her movespeed slightly. Activating it will give her a temporary large boost to movespeed and empower her next Disintegration Blast causing the bolt to leave a trail of fire the larger it is from Annie, and causes a stun at the explosions epicenter location instead of just damaging the champion. It causes the Disintegration Blast to deal extra damage. Tibbers gains 60% damage reduction and Annie receiving half of that for 2 seconds each. While the ability is on cooldown she will lose the passive effects.

Now thematically I wanted to keep the abilities somewhat similar to what the original Annie could do with a new twist and intricate power to it. Annie is all about staying in the fray near Tibbers doing as much damage as possible. She's a very aggressive mage. And taking her usual huge shield and moving a portion of it's power into more utility rather than a damage back shell that does pretty negligible damage (That is just an opinion.) I thought giving it a mana regeneration boost (Since Fire can sometimes be attributed to recovery). Annie is supposed to be an oppressive force with her mobility and tracking of Tibbers. Now the bear keeping the damage reduction makes sense allowing him to front line and take damage for his master, especially considering that he takes the brunt of the damage during her inevitable dives.

Well, it's officially time to address the elephant in the room.

How could you replace an ult as Iconic as Tibbers?

Simply really, she's a champion who also works around her pet being in strategic places. Her burst damage with her ult cannot be lost. But it can do so much more now. And what I propose, is about the positioning of Tibbers completely. This whole kit revolves around him and Annie being a menace in the center of the battlefield.

R: Wrath of the Great Beast After a brief delay Tibbers roars causing a massive explosion of fire to erupt all around him and Annie. Enemies who are hit by this Fire Blast are stunned for a short period of time. Tibbers also Gains a Boost to Movement Speed and Slow Resistance for 5 seconds.

Now we're cooking. A really big Flashy and most importantly counter-playable ability that should literally breath fresh life into this character. There being an indicator on the Bear should make it evident as he slowly grows bigger giving it a deceptively large explosion radius. The higher the rank, the larger Tibbers gets, and ergo his attack range due to his hitbox growing larger. This gives so many playstyle chances. Learning how to properly position Annie during a team fight allows her to hide under the shadow of her massive bear. Using her smaller (Well slightly larger now that she's grown up considerably.) All this with her coming back to the past from the future makes things so intriguing as it's a trope that hasn't been played yet, but allow themselves to explore on more fire style like abilities. Also, it would be really easy to determine what skins to make for her as she already has a bevy of them. They could reimagine all of their new art style of a permanent Tibbers and Older Annie. Which they could go ham and have fun with the art for the skin.

Hell, they could make an ultimate skin on the release day of this character concept that would have wicked particle effects on the fact that both Annie's are in the same universe at the same time.

This is not the first full character concept that I have come up with. I have a Volibear one, and a Warwick one far in the distant past. I just like creating concepts. And I feel this would be a good reason to create a new envisioned version of a character that everyone loves and adores. Please give me your thoughts on this!