Let’s talk about support Annie

Support Annie has recently become somewhat of a power pick since the sweeping changes of season four. The changes are pretty interesting for a few reasons that build off each other and resulted in changes all over the map. Players are ward capped, three green wards and one pink ward, which makes the vision game a team effort and not something that one player can shoulder, typically the support in the past. Gold generation items have been revamped to be unique and work in different niche ways depending on the play-style, and the addition of a new trinket slot for vision only item which works similarly. This has allowed supports to have more disposable income to buy more traditional items and increase their ap, armor, or whatever stat they chose. Enough about the changes though this is about Annie’s place in the bottom lane.

Annie has become somewhat of a power pick in the support scene right now alongside Leona and Thresh. The support scene currently consists of Leona > Annie/Thresh > everyone else which really has frustrated lots of players in solo queue. Annies high burst damage and AoE stun when she has her passive stacked has turned her into a walking terror. In the past the drawback with support has been the low gold income which has slowed their ability to buy items that don’t grant vision significantly. With those changes we have seen support changes aimed at allowing them to have increased effects of their spells with higher AP. An example might be Nami’s bubble slows for longer and her passive speeds up more as her AP rises. This affects Annie a little differently though because she was designed as an AP mage and not a typical support. 

Annie has no typical support skills, she doesn’t give a shield to anyone on her team nor does she have any ability to speed her teammates up. What Annie does is kill things; she kills them fast with fire and a bear. When her passive is stacked up initiating with a flash Tibbers(R) followed by Incinerate (W) and Disintegrate (Q) is her bread and butter. Here in lies the problem that myself and some other players have with her current state, these spells all scale like typical AP mage skills, all above 70% of her AP, which allow for massive damage almost instantly not to mention that passive stun and the ability to stack this stun up and just hold it for an indefinite amount of time. This is something that no other support can do as they typically have kits filled with utility through shields to support their own team or high CC to hinder the opposing team. The next issue is how to fix this problem without possibly eliminating Annie as a support pick.

My solution would be to put Pyromaniac, her passive that allows the stun, as a stacking buff that fall off with time. To clarify her stun would only be effective on stack four and if she doesn’t cast an offensive spell for (x) seconds she loses a stack, yes this means molten shield stops counting towards her passive.By hindering her initiation skills but make her more of a sustained utility team fighter she wouldn’t be allowed to have this high burst along with CC together at the start of the fight that currently cripples teams.  

Only time will tell how the support role will change but with the LCS starting up later today we are sure to see some balance changes coming out soon as we see the best players compete with these new strategies.

Post your thoughts on the current support scene in the comments bellow, are there any other changes that you’d like to see or would these changes cripple Annie to much?