Annie

- by dignitas/KiWiKiD (March 2015, Patch 5.5)

We're back with new guides from our pro players, better

than before! This time we’ve got an in-depth Annie by

the support from our NA team, KiWiKiD.

Special thanks to Robert 'Roscoe' Wery for

his help writing this guide together with KiWiKiD. Related links:

Twitch.tv/KiWiKiD - @dKiWiKiD - Profile Page

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



