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Mar 13, 2015

FOTM Report: Annie Support

21 comments



Originally made to be a mid lane champion, Annie's role as support has gained prominence through in the professional League scene, resulting in strong increases in play rate across the servers. What makes pros pick her over other supports and what does she bring to the table though?

Introduction

Originally born as a dominant mid laner, Annie has since evolved to be a strongly contested support in the professional scene as well. Although she's not quite at flavor of the month status in solo queue just yet, there's definitely a strong push towards that direction.

Why Is Annie Good?

Dealing a decent amount of base damage and wielding strong poking power, the main draw to Annie is still her stun potential, which has decent range and nearly instantaneous travel time.

Her ability to AOE stun from a range at level 1 also makes her very good for invades and/or level 1 defends.

Comparisons

In order to understand Annie's strengths and weaknesses, the best way is to draw comparisons to other existing supports with similar AOE CC roles.

Leona: Currently the undisputed queen of solo queue lockdown, Leona uses mostly single target stuns with a slightly delayed AOE stun/slow. However, what she lacks in hard CC in comparison to Annie, she makes up for with tankiness and front lining capabilities.

Alistar: Despite lacking the range that Annie has, Alistar can also make huge plays with his headbutt pulverize combo. However, he has more readability than Annie's flash tibbers, which increases the chances of getting outplayed. Alistar does nevertheless pack impressive sustain power in lane, which allows him to sustain against most match-ups.

Why Is Annie Better?

Without the tankiness off Leona and the sustain of Alistar, Annie has little to no room for getting caught out of position. However, the speed of her Tibbers AOE stun means that enemies have little to no chance to react.

In a pivotal environment, the split second for Leona 's stun to land is more than enough for an enemy champion to quickly dash away. However, against Annie that margin is greatly reduced, which is why professionals are picking her over Leona.

Additionally, where the ever popular Janna can easily dispatch a would-be Leona or Alistar initiation, she has much more difficulty reacting to an instantaneous AOE stun.

Solo Queue

In solo queue, I personally see little reason to pick Annie over Leona at the moment, since the front line capabilities that Leona provides generally outweighs any split second coordination that your allies can take advantage of from a flash tibbers stun.

However, from a damage perspective, she does provide a more consistent stream of damage while still providing peeling and CC power that we've come to expect from supports.

Thoughts? Comment below!





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21 comments:

  1. Mike SkamatoMarch 13, 2015

    Good read. Keep up the good work, SSJ!

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  2. Anas R'ghiouiMarch 13, 2015

    IMO :
    I prefer Annie over Leona in solo queue because you can't rely on your team to dish out the damage.
    Sometimes, I jump in (as leona) Chain CC the key targets and there is no follow up from my team.
    However , when i play annie, by mid game i can easily erase the enemy adc in a 1 v 1 situation, i often get Double/Triple kills easily in dragon/baron fights.
    So, to sum this up, i think it's better to pick annie over leona in solo queue just for her carry potential, because everyone knows you can't really rely on your teammates in soloQ

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  3. love annie.. as i do not have support runes i go ad runes and just poke with my basic attks (700 range) and dont use the abilities unless in trades or if they get too close.. and then we all know abt her teamfights

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  4. *625 range

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  5. Mmyeah... Leonska leonuh is maybe slightly betta.... but both are so insane...


    Annie support is absolutely awesome, tanky a little but mostly DMG. Will deal great dmg and have that big CC, And tibbers sieges/tanks like a Mofo.

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  6. Yep, this is abolustely the reason, true.... Well I cant erase enemy adc always, if im building like a good support would be: talisman of ascension, saightstone, boots. But then I build Rod of Ages, Void Staff, rylai's, and so on later in the game... then can shrek enemies burn them hard

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  7. Honestly I dislike Annie support because its what people go when they are denied another role and are afraid of getting reported if they go Nid sup. A lot of Annie supports I see just build a spellthiefs and then go full AP without even getting a sightstone. I agree that unlike Nid she can be a great support in the right hands but at the moment I'll usually just dodge if I see an Annie support as I know that I will have to end up warding more then them.

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  8. Gabriel Thomazine DamettoMarch 13, 2015

    annie mid> annie top> annie sup


    my opinion

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  9. Anas R'ghiouiMarch 13, 2015

    RoA late game is kind of a waste of gold, unless you expect the game to go over 25 more minutes after you do complete it
    i usually go AP right after Support item and Sightsone.
    Even with just a Morellonomicon u start dealing some huge damage with your Full combo.

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  10. eugh uhm okay... ROA awesome item....

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  11. That's sad. No matter what, every damn champion, I build sightstone as support... 100% no exceptions to the rule... :p

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  12. That sounds like Annie support in bronze. Anyone above like silver 2 will always buy sightstone when they play support

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  13. annie support in my opinions is the same as zyra support where u can still hold yourself ina fight and dish out peel/cc for the team. Morgana is almost the same if u built a bit of dmg

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  14. Agreed, Annie is super strong with gold.

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  15. ROA benefits from the fact that it adds to health and mana every minute after it's complete. if you're not completing it until the 20 minute mark then it's pointless really.

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  16. Yes I know people say that. Nah its not definitely... but yeah it has those stax

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  17. I LOVE ANNIE, SHE IS GOOD IN EVERY LAIN!!!!!!!!!!!! <3<3<3 lol

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  18. Romao SabandarMarch 17, 2015

    I fully agree with this article. I always ban out the Annie just because of her gamechanging stun/burst dmg.

    More then often I see an Annie pull out the ult flash around 45-50 min. in the game and win the game while your team is 20 kills in the lead.

    Her in combination with a hard engage is just so hard and annoying to play against. I think is pretty much the case in every Elo (Bronze - LCS).

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  19. Romao SabandarMarch 17, 2015

    Well depends, if the support just keeps buying sightwards + the trink upgrade it might help your team in the long haul.


    I personally think it's ofc important to keep vision but if you do this by buying a Sightstone or several Sightwards it really is up to the support. Especially in case of a high damage/burst champ like Annie or Karma I think going full AP isn't that bad.


    In the end it all really depends what your team needs/is lacking. If you have AD mid + Top going full AP might actually be better then going the traditional support build Spellthief>Sightstone>Locket/Mikael's.

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  20. Marek Masane FoltinMarch 22, 2015

    I would actually say that with the new warding trinket, there might be some exceptions to the rule.

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  21. Ryan CheungMarch 23, 2015

    Annie is also also stronger overall as a pick due to the switch from a more assassin esque meta into a diving bruiser and sustained damage meta. (zed/fizz/akali nerfs) -> (sejuani, wukong, le blanc, katarina, vayne, twitch). And most of the dive potential although still commonly found in mid lane (le blanc, talon) has shifted to most of all lanes. (top lane diver bruisers, tricky adcs such as vayne,twitch, kalista, jungler divers).
    As the combat triangle goes... mage < assassin < bruiser < mage, with the assassin being weaker... mages have become more commonplace. Also causing comps to rely more on the top and jungle bruisers for their dive potential.

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