Annie Guide - by dignitas/KiWiKiD
|
Annie |
||
|
We're back with new guides from our pro players, better |
||
|
Special thanks to Robert 'Roscoe' Wery for |
||
|
Related links: |
INTRODUCTION
Annie has seen her fair share of solo queue and competitive play and Alan 'KiWiKiD' Nguyen has brought her to the bot lane to great success. She can be played in both the mid lane and as a support, it just depends on how much burst you want out of her. Even in the supporting role, she's liable to steal a couple kills if you're not careful.
Annie's ability to initiate fights on her terms is completely reliant on the management of her passive, but spend enough time in a fight and you'll have that feared stun up in no time. Fair warning, KiWiKiD likes to play Annie very aggressively, so don’t be afraid while playing her!
Why you should play Annie - Annie's greatest strengths are her insane burst output and her ease of skirmish and teamfight engage. She works well with any AD Carry, bursty or no. Though she's a little two dimensional, damage and stun, being successful with Annie comes down to how effectively you trade in lane and your positioning in fights. Your use of Tibbers can win your battles from the get go, especially if you're able to micromanage his movements well. The burn that comes from standing next to him can ensure your opponents don't escape with minimal health.
Why you shouldn't play Annie - Annie's greatest weakness is her squishiness and lack of mobility. Beyond winning lane, in order to not feed and snowball your opponents, you need to take great care in where you stand and what you do with your abilities. Poking with her Q is great, but if you overextend for a little bit of damage, it could spell your doom.
RUNES
I run the same runes on every game, there’s no difference, I always run for the strong bullying lane and early game roaming.
You’ll want nine Greater Marks of Magic Penetration, nine Greater Glyphs of Ability Power, nine Greater Seals of Armor, and three Greater Quintessences of Ability Power. This rune setup makes you very squishy and you need to be extremely careful if you’re laning against anything AP related, which can be devastating if they land a binding. However, I really trust in my movements, and I think with those runes you can really pressure your lane. If you dodge binds or anything spell related you can take over the lane while their spells are on cooldown.
Some average support Rune pages contain gold per second, more tank, and even a bit of movement speed. We sacrifice all of those safer options for the pure damage we can put down on our lane opponents.
MASTERIES
Though we want to invest in a lot of damage through the Rune page, we can't skimp on the essentials here in the masteries. You'll want the standard support masteries to have at least some resistances, and then to keep your income up. Make sure you get the Culinary Master (biscuits) as you'll need them to be able to trade. Put points in Fleet of Foot, Meditation and Scout for their respective movement speed, mana regeneration and trinket range.
Oftentimes supports with the ability to poke will take a point in Bandit, but I prefer to fully invest in Summoner's Insight, to get the cooldown reduction on my Flash.
The last point in utility, Wanderer, 5% movement speed outside of combat, that’s my favorite. It’s really important for every support to get that boost. With this mastery setup, you'll have all of the extra utility that supports need, some resistances to help you through the laning phase, and the ever important cooldown reduction for your initiations.
SUMMONER SPELLS - Ignite and Flash
 |
Without Flash, Annie would be half as effective as an engage tool. She can still land a Tibbers or a Q from range, but when your opponents see you coming with a stun ready, they know to back off. With Flash, you can take them by surprise or close that gap instantaneously. Annie needs Flash in order to be effective in a competitive team, I even get Distortion boots, which I talk more about later.
I nearly never get Exhaust on Annie, Ignite is just way too important. She’s a really all in champ, but I think there are some certain cases where you could get Exhaust in solo queue or competitive where if they have three assassins. Sometimes I’ve seen comps with something like Riven top, Zed mid and Fizz jungle, so in that case Exhaust would be better, but definitely stick with Ignite in all other cases.
SKILL ORDER
I max Q first to get the highest poke output possible. With the AP from my runes, I want to be able to trade well in lane, but stay on the safer side, choosing Q over W first. W is a good way to lay down damage on multiple targets during skirmishes, but we want to poke from afar more. Of course, level R at 6, 11 and 16, but don't bother with E until after you've taken care of R>Q>W.
ITEM BUILD
You should always start the Spellthief’s Edge, it gives the best stats and it’s a lot more aggressive, which is what she needs. If you’re scared of her laning or what she’s laning against, you can pick up Doran’s Ring instead. It won’t net you as much gold for when you need it later, but laning with it is much safer. If you just want to test the waters, try out Doran’s Ring first. Then once you’re confident in your laning, try out Spellthief’s and you’ll see the difference it makes in not only your gold but how squishy you are, so be careful. In an LCS mindset, I always go Spellthief’s, but Doran’s is completely fine for something like solo queue.
Ideal gold for your first back is 900, but it could be anywhere between 500 and 1000, it doesn’t always go the same. I like to roam, so if I’m stuck on the lower side of the spectrum, I go for boots. Then, depending on how much, grab a couple wards, pink and green, then a couple consumables if possible. You’d want more biscuits than mana potions, as her mana in lane isn’t much of an issue, don’t buy more than one mana pot. After that go straight to your left or right side of mid and ward.
If you’re 800 gold or above, in solo queue I’ll almost always go straight for the Mobility Boots, wards and sacrifice consumables if I need to. If you have to decide between wards and consumables, always pick wards. Now that you’ve got a bunch of extra mobility, check your team and gravitate towards whatever lane is low. Depending on a ton of other factors, you’ll head one direction or another to help your team, as commented on in the embedded video! Also, always get Sweeping Lens at this point or earlier if you’re forced back to base. If you’re not confident in your roaming or the idea of roaming in that particular game, grab a Ruby Crystal instead to rush a Sightstone.
Once you can finish your Mobility Boots and Sightstone, no matter the order, return to base and grab them. This is considered the core of the support, and anything else is a luxury, in my opinion. In situations where you get chunked down and need to back, that’s fine, but make sure you commit to one build path, don’t only pick up boots and a crystal. If you’re experienced or know that by picking up Mobility Boots you can net a kill in another lane, go for it, but Sightstone is way safer, so it depends on your preference.
Ideal Six Items: There are two build paths for Annie, the first one is the AP centric one. You should only do this if you have only one AP damage champion on your team like a Xerath mid, and an AD damage top and an AD damage jungler. I like to go Morellonomicon, Zhonya’s Hourglass, Rabadon’s Deathcap then Void Staff. Of course you can go Void Staff earlier if they’re building MR. The last two items will be Mobility Boots and Sightstone. You should never sell those unless you’re going for the final push and have Baron.
MATCHUPS/SYNERGY
I feel like you can play Annie with every champion. Graves is really nice because he’s really bursty. I just don’t want to highlight any particular champion, because she works so well with anyone, you just need to think about the other lane. If you get a lot of bully potential like Graves or Corki, Lucian and even Sivir if you can get the first push. With those lane bullying champions you can go a lot more ham and try and chunk and whittle them down, maybe look for a Flash play eventually for the kill. If you’ve got something safer that you need to build up like Kog’Maw or Jinx, you don’t need to play so aggressively but you need to apply your presence in lane.
Her laning is one of the strongest in the game, 2v2. She has such a strong ability in her Q, it does more than 100 damage plus some more from the Rune setup. Honestly she beats everybody in lane, the only reason she might not seem that way in competitive play or solo queue is she’s so easy to gank. So technically she’s weak to every jungler, but she’s also weak against people who set up ganks easily like Leona.
You want to be careful of Nami or Sona, those champions can counter you too. They poke and can out-sustain you, so you need to make sure that during the early levels you pressure them hard. If you don’t get early damage on those sustain champions, you’re going to have a lot of trouble laning.
VIDEO COMMENTARY
CONCLUSION
Annie is a champion with insane damage and engage potential. She can lane with whoever your lane partner is more comfortable with, and her build path is moldable to fit what your team needs. Even if behind, the benefit of her stun can help a team take back the game, if placed on the correct targets at the right time. Flash/Tibbers combos are nearly impossible to dodge, unless they preemptively Flash away. I like to play her aggresively, but if you're trying to test the waters, she plays just fine with training wheels. Whether it be solo queue or competitive play, Annie is my go-to support.