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Hey guys, impaKt here! A lot of you have asked me about Annie but even though I understand
how she's supposed to be played, I never truly practiced playing with her so I couldn't say
anything too specific. To be completely honest, I have around 10 games with support annie
right now, so I don't feel like I'm in a good position to actually offer you a guide on
how to play her. This is why I decided to start a new series called "First Impressions".
So welcome to my first "first impressions" episode, starring Support Annie. Please note
that this is just my own opinion. I may be slightly off about some things but it's just
what I've gathered so far after playing with her for a few days.
So let's start by analyzing the basics: from the get-go I know what her strengths and weaknesses
are: she's vulnerable when she doesn't have stun, but she's incredibly strong when she
does have it. She has a HUGE attack range, but she doesn't have a lot of base damage
on her autos. She has good base damage on her skills, but kind of falls off if she doesn't
get any kills.
Skill-wise, her Disintegrate (which is usually her main damage skill and her main source
of Pyromania stacks) has a high mana cost for a support, since you can't actually last
hit in order to refund your mana, or your ADC will lose farm. It also offers a single
target non-skillshot nuke that will stun a target whenever you please.
Her Incinerate costs even MORE mana, which makes this a really costly way of stacking
your passive. However, it provides aoe damage and more importantly aoe stun when you have
4 Pyromania stacks. It's range is somewhat short though.
Molten Shield is pretty damn awesome: it increases your armor and magic resist when you activate
it, while dealing damage to enemies who use basic attacks on annie. This is actually perfect
to have on the bottom lane since the highest damage source you'll be facing is from auto
attacks. Also, it costs 20 mana to cast. Meaning this is probably the best way you'll have
of stacking up your passive without screwing up your AD Carry's farm.
Summon Tibbers has Craploads of aoe damage, especially early on. Her ultimate makes her
fit just perfectly in the concept of a kill lane post-lvl 6. It also deals damage over
time to targets near it, and blocks skillshots fired from your enemies. I get the feeling
that if you practice your micro, tibbers could be one of the most awesome skills a support
could have. Ever imagined a tibbers blocking a Blitzcrank's hook?
Let's talk about the laning phase. I have been stacking up the passive slowly while
harassing only with auto attacks because of the skills' mana costs. Then you can just
use your stun to go in on someone for quick and clean trades with no chance of retaliation.
Strong early game AD Carries seem like really really good fits for the laning phase. Have
I mentioned Jinx yet? Seriously, Tibbers (Stun) + Disintegrate + Incinerate + Jinx's Snare
and burst damage is just INSANE. She is also really really good at setting
up ganks for your jungler. Your chances of escaping an incoming gank when the enemy Annie
has her stun ready is just ridiculously low. She seems to have bad sides too though. She
doesn't seem to fare too well against sustain lanes unless she manages to get a kill at
levels 1-3. You'll have to wait for level 6 and try to get a kill with tibbers.
As for mid game, your roaming and pick-off potential is IMMENSE. And I truly love this
kind of support, something with a non-ultimate crowd control skill that allows your teammates
to pick up kills or that can completely turn around a skirmish. She has a lot of presence
in drake fights as well. Ignoring the support simply isn't an option in this case. If you
can get a kage's lucky pick at this stage and an oracles, you'll have a lot of damage
and the enemy won't be able to deal with your rotations throughout the map.
Late game wise, she doesn't have a lot of damage. It seems to me that if you pick up
annie, you should try to finish the game during mid game. But this doesn't mean she's useless,
only that she's not as good. You still have a LOT of engage or protection/peeling potential
for your AD Carry. But if you spent your game engaging and roaming, maybe you should consider
switching your role in team fights when you enter the late game. It seems to work out
more effectively that way.
Final thoughts: Thanks to the fact that her stun is actually provided by her passive,
and that her Incinerate doesn't require a target, you can actually charge your stun
up level 1 in your own base. This pretty much means that Annie's level 1 is just beyond
awesome and that you could potentially be looking for an invade. Don't forget that Incinerate
will also deal aoe damage AND stun, so you can, for instance, stun the 5 members of a
single team level 1.
Her laning phase is great, both in swap situations or standard. Like with every support, she
can be countered. If annie can't approach the enemies to land her stun or to poke with
her immense auto attack range, she'll likely fall off. So using Annie against a Caitlyn,
Ezreal, Corki, or even Fiddle, Sona, Nami may not be such a great idea. Well, unless
you're swapping or your jungler is going to gank bot lane often.
However, pair annie with a caitlyn, jinx or corki and no one will even dare to come near
you.
The greatest thing about Annie, in my opinion, is her ultimate's cooldown though. 2 minute
cooldown for an AoE stun with tons of damage seems like too good to be true. If you like
to roam, I definitely recommend you pick her up and give her a try. She seems like a really
viable and decent pick at the moment. But we'll see what Season 4 brings!
And that's all for now guys! I hope you enjoyed the first episode of the series. I'll be trying
to make more of these once Season 4 starts to let you guys know what I think about each
support after the imminent changes. I'd like to invite you all to follow my stream
as well, as I just recently started to stream regularly. I'll actually try to stream every
day so make sure you stay tuned! You can find the link in the description.
As always, don't forget to visit my website, to follow my facebook and twitter and to subscribe
to both mine and Base Desire's YouTube Channels. None of my guides would be any good without
a beast soundtrack! So once again, thanks for watching, good luck,
have fun and until next time!