Annie Build Guide by sweodigaming

Hello, my name is Oscar, IGN, sweodi. This is my first guide and I am honored to have you here, reading this. I am born in Sweden and I love playing league of legends. I started playing season 6 where I got Platinum 5 and Season 7 where I got Plat 4 (topped at Diamond 5). I had played some Annie during season 6, but became a main under season 7. My current rank is Diamond 4 and this year I aim at Diamond 1.

:)
So why would you want to play Annie. Well to summaries Annie is a mega burst champion, squishies fear her. She is able to one-shot many champions, and dishes out very good CC for a mage. Annie's best time is probably mid/late game, where she gets tibbers and can really start to become a monster.

So I myself have noticed that many people do not run Electrocute on Annie, I personally will explain how Electrocute, or the Domination rune tree is better than sorcery or Inspiration.
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IMPORTANT. IF YOU ARE STARTING CORRUPTION POTION. TAKE Biscuit Delivery AND Time Warp Tonic AS SECONDARY RUNES
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These pictures above are the runes I personally run
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Electrocute Electrocute is super good for bursting down enemies, it's basically identical to the old Thunder Lord's. Basic attacks and abilities generate stacks on enemy champions hit, up to one per attack or cast. Applying 3 stacks to a target within a 3 second period causes them to be struck by lightning, dealing them 30 − 180 (based on level) (+ 40% bonus AD) (+ 25% AP) Attack damage. Electrocute outshines other options that you might take.

Taste of Blood Cheap Shot works both in the laning phase and stunning people is something that you will do all the time. It also does more damage than Sudden Impact do to the nerfs of Sudden Impact. However, I think that Taste of Blood is crucial for sustain in the lane.

Eyeball Collection Here I think it's just a matter of personal perference. Eyeball Collection works a little bit like a Dark seal or Mejai's Soulstealer if you will. Except that you don't lose your stacks. Zombie Ward is overall a good rune that you can consider. It raises a Zombie ward that lasts 180 when you destroy a ward or when your own ward expire. I do however see no reason to take Ghost Poro since Zombie Ward is better by far.

Relentless Hunter Gives amazing roam possibilites and dodging abilities. Ingenious Hunter is a poor choice and is currently not a good choice for most champions, Ravenous Hunter however is a rune to consider. It has good potential that could give you higher sustain and healing in team fights

Future's Market This is another rune that comes to personal preference. I really think this rune is great since it's both useful when you are behind and ahead. Other runes such as Perfect Timing and Magical Footwear are to consider and are good choices as well. Perfect Timing will help you build Zhonyas which could be used against champions such as Zed and Syndra. Magical Footwear will help you get Sorcerer's Shoes faster and get ahead.

Cosmic Insight A overall great rune, helps with CDR 5%, max CDR 5%, Summoner spells 5% and Item CDR 5%. Can't think of any other option that could replace this rune and still be useful.

Dark Harvest Recommended to take with my Protobelt build. Dark Harvest dishes out epic damage in the late to mid game. And come really usefull bursting down targets with massive damage. However, I do not recommend this rune if you are new to the rune or Annie

Playing jungle as Annie is actually pretty under-rated if I have to be honest. Usually I go good when I have played Annie in the jungle . She does have pretty useless clear in the early game though.

Firstly you want to start Blue Sentinel as expected, starting Hunter's Talisman and Refillable Potion as your item choices. After blue buff go straight to the wolf camp, then you want to continue to Red Brambleback . Red buff is going to be hard to kite but just keep spamming Disintegrate and Incinerate. You want to Smite Wolves and Red buff by the way. Moving on to raptor 's after Red, this will be easy as you have Molten Shield. You want to start with Incinerate to get aggro then continue spamming your Molten Shield as it will kill the little raptor's really quick. Carrying on to the river and killing Rift Scuttler will help you regain HP and get vision for your team, I suggest smiting this for the HP. Carry on ganking mid or bot depending on your situation.

After level 6 you mainly want to focus on ganking and getting kills, which in return will stack your Dark Harvest or Eyeball Collection depending if you went Dark Harvest or Predator. Jungeling won't benefit you that much as going for kills would, But if you have to jungle, do it. Try to level up your raptors a lot, you do this by simply killing them.

FLASH: Basically a no brainer. Has good synergy with Sudden Impact, and you have to get Flash because of your Flash Summon: Tibberscombo. Is going to be useful if you are getting ganked and have to escape since Annie has very poor escape already as a champion.

SMITE: Ignite is the most common summoner spell when playing Annie. It has great pressure and helps your burst by a lot. It's also good against healing champs like Vladimir. Take Ignite when you are confident in your lane.

TELEPORT: Teleport is an extremely good summoner spell for Annie. You can use it both defensively and aggressively, for example if you met a Karma I would go Teleport because it is very hard to kill her, and I am going to focus on lane pressure instead. Teleport can be used to Teleport bot lane and get some easy kills when or if your bot lane deep wards.

GHOST: Ghost is really good for mobility and escape, good for roaming. Ghost when bot or top is pushed in to your teams turret then follow up with a stun. Probably a guaranteed kill.

EXHAUST: Exhaust is a little bit like Barrier. Exhaust is a very defensive summoner spell and should be used for high burst melee champions like Zed, could also be used against AP melee champions like Fizz

BARRIER: Barrier is great against champions like Syndra, Vel'Koz or other high burst champions. This is a passive summoner spell, use it for playing safe.

Pyromania After casting four abilities, Annie's next damaging ability Stun icon stuns enemies it damages for 1.25 / 1.5 / 1.75 seconds. Annie's passive Pyromania contribute a great deal to team fights, you can easily lock down their mid laner or ADC and let your team follow-up. Can be used to stop the enemy jungler ganking and getting under turret safely. This will be one of the abilities you will use the most. If you master the art of keeping track of your stun stacks this will be a powerful tool to dish out some amazing CC.‏‏‎ ‏‏‎‏‏‎
Disintegrate Annie hurls a Mana infused fireball, dealing damage and refunding the Mana cost if it destroys the target. Deals 80/115/150/185/220 (+80% Ability Power) magic damage. Mana cost and half the cooldown are refunded if Disintegrate kills the target.
Your go to damaging spell, offers good damage. Great for sustain and farming. A must use ability if you are planing to play a more sustain-ish Annie style, where you just farm and get ahead on gold.‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‏‏‎‏‏‎
Incinerate Annie casts a blazing cone of fire, dealing damage to all enemies in the area. Casts a cone of fire dealing 70/115/160/205/250 (+85% Ability Power) magic damage to all enemies in the area.
Incinerate can be used to stun multiple enemies at once since it is a AoE ability. Can for example go through Wind Wall. Great for clearing waves of minions. Gives a instant stun to target in the cone, similar to Summon: Tibbers. Sometimes you want to use W to stun instead of Q since it is instant and could save you when being ganked.‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‏‏‎‏‏‎
Molten Shield Grants Annie and Tibbers increased percentage Damage Resist and damages enemies who attack with basic attacks. Annie grants herself and Tibbers 16/22/28/34/40% damage reduction for 3 seconds.While the shield is active, enemies who basic attack it take 20/30/40/50/60 (+20% Ability Power) magic damage. Molten Shield does not wast the stun when activated on 4 stacks, you can easily trick opponents by having two stack then E, W, Q them, or E, Q, FLASH, W. Another important thing to keep in mind is to E when you've casted your Q when you only have 3 stacks. This makes for
a surprise stun. Sometimes when I cast Q they will either flash or escape, this gives a little window where you can press E when you have 3 stacks, which will result in the target getting stunned than you can easily catch up and kill the target.‏‏‎‏‏‎ ‏‏‎‏‏‎
Summon: Tibbers Annie wills her bear Tibbers to life, dealing damage to units in the area. Tibbers can attack and also burns enemies that stand near him.
Summons Tibbers, dealing 150/275/400 (+65% Ability Power) magic damage to enemies in the target area. For the next 45 seconds, Tibbers burns nearby enemies for 10/15/20 (+10% Ability Power) per second and attacks for 50/75/100 (+0) as magic damage. Annie can control Tibbers by reactivating this ability.
Tibbers Enrages when: summoned; Annie uses Pyromania on an enemy Champion; and when Annie dies.
Enrages: Tibbers gains 275% Attack Speed and 100% Movement Speed, decaying over 3 seconds.

Does instant AoE, and stun if you use it when you have 4 stacks. Try using it after stunning someone with your Q, since your Q is a guaranteed stun. Summon: Tibbers can sometimes be predicted by the enemy and they flash away, resulting in a failed ultimate.
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Pros + Easy to pick up + Good AoE + Contribute with CC and Damage + Can 1 shot ADC's + Good harass

Cons - Low range on abilites compared to other mages - Low mobility - Low to no escape unless flash is up - The skill cap is very low on Annie - Weak if falling behind

Now playing Annie is not hard mechanically. Now I personally think it's stupid to tell people what to do since everyone has different play styles, but I am going to give some tips and tricks! When you first come to lane with Doran's Ring or Dark Seal you want to farm a lot so you get to level 6 soon as possible. I usually go for a burst poke at level 3 by Q, W and finishing with an AA to trigger electrocute.

Put wards level 3 when the enemy jungler is most likely to gank you. It depends what side you are on, but try to getting information where the enemy jungler started. Early ganks mid are unusual but can happen, so do care for that.
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When you have your ultimate it's probably a good time to roam, you want to have gone back at least once before roaming. If you run Teleport it is good to stay in lane and look for a opportunity to counter gank or going behind the enemy bot lane and securing kills. However tell your bot to deep ward before teleporting, so the enemy bot has no chance to escape.
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Well to start off everything, let's talk about how Annie preforms in teamfights. She is a burst monster and contributes with a lot of CC with her passive Pyromania. In late game and mid game teamfights you generally want to try to Flash and Summon: Tibbers in the back-line. This is why Flash is such a critical thing to have as Annie when teamfighting.

You could compare Annie's Ultimate like Malphite's Unstoppable Force. You need to wait and look for a slip-up on the enemy team that you can use to your advantage. As I have mentioned both in my build and other chapters I really recommend Hextech Rocketbelt. This item can bring very unexpected dashes/leaps that the enemy team won't see coming. Another thing that is critical when fighting as Annie that not other players mention is that DO NOT HESITATE TO USE YOUR ULT! This is extremely important. If you get caught you can very fast die since you are not the most tanky champion. So if you find yourself not getting to the back line, use your Summon: Tibbers on the front line. Late game your combo can easily do over 5000 damage. So you will get a hefty amount of damage on their tanks, which in result leaves their back line open.
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Fighting 1v1's can be a little bit scary as Annie, don't get me wrong she has a lot of bursty-ness and can easily one-shot someone. But she does lack the outplayish ability. With that said, Annie can easily be outplayed sometimes. Try to use Disintegrate to get a guaranteed stun on the enemy. However if you know that the opponent does not have flash up, you can easily follow-up or just surprise the enemy with a flash Summon: Tibbers or just Incinerate to get a instant stun, and if they somehow flash away from it you won't be wasting your ultimate.
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For team fights dealing much damage and outputting a lot of CC
Also for 1v1's against enemies with low mobility or no flash
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For 1v1's when the enemy has flash
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For a surprise Flash stun combo. Or if you want to stun melee champions.
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Combine these with Hextech Rocketbelt for surprise range and burst-damage.
Also combine these with Molten Shield to stack up your passive at the right moment

2020/02/24

+Changed Electrocute runes to better ones, however I do recommend going the old ones aswell. See more in the runes section of the guide
+Changed builds and starting items to more updated ones
+Updated the "Runes" section of the guide
+Updated build descriptions
-Removed the legacy style of the guide and changed to the newer version as it looks nicer

2020/01/08

+Changed Dark Harvest runes to better ones

2019/11/14

+Changed the support role runes

2019/09/11

+Added new build and Inspiration runes (Protobelt is back baby)
+Switched place of Dorans ring and Corruption Potion since I now recommend it

-Removed old build and Inspiration runes

2019/07/26

+ All runes collected in the main build. Find them all by pressing the numbers besides the runes title
+ Fixed some spelling mistakes and old tips that are not recommended anymore
+ Added Change log chapter to be able to track changes myself and for others
+ Added some new threats and synergies!

- Removed separate rune builds to give a more neat and clean look

+Support Annie guide
+Video of me talking and showing some tricks and tips on playing Annie!

Thanks to jhoijhoi's Making a Guide guide! Helped me a lot, since this is my first time making a guide and I am a bit of a noob!

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