This is not a guide for quick reference, so don´t use this when you are in champion select. THIS is a more general guide and will help you if you need to know what to do with Annie very quickly

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Annie excels in early to mid game. Please note, in contradiction to many believes : ANNIE is not squishy early game, if played right. Annie loves mid, because she needs massive farm and is one of the best gankers. Together with a jungler you´ll be the horror of the side-lanes. Note that EVERYTHING you do, has direct impact in the late game.

• You fed the enemy mid? GG
• You aren't fed? GG
• You didn't farm enough? GG
• You didn't help top/bot? GG

Seriously, there are only a few champions whose performances is THIS crucial.

*cough*
*cough*

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Abbreviated Terms
AA = Auto-attack [Basic Attacks]
CC = Crowd Control [Stun, fear, slow, snare, etc]
AP = Ability Power
AD = Attack Damage
MS = Movement Speed
MR = Magic Resistance
ArPen = Armor Penetration
MPen = Magic Penetration
CDR = Cooldown Reduction
MP = Mana
HP = Health
MP Regen = Mana Regeneration per 5 seconds
HP Regen = Health Regeneration per 5 seconds

Okay ima tell you what: I aint ****ing around with this boy.

I´d like to tell you story. A story my motherflippin grandfather told me once.

There once was a little girl. She had such a burst, that everyone died. The end.

BOOM! Mind=Blown

Pros:

• BURST
• Pedobear
• Strong early
• Likes the bush
• Easy to learn

Cons:

• Squishy.
• Likes the bush.
• Easily focused.
• Team dependent.
• Punishes you hard, when wrong played
• Hard to master

I dont need no man. I'm a strong black woman. So heres something for ya brains:


For more Information click THIS

It pretty much covers everything you need to know about an AP-Carry

For my graphs I used the formula: (AP*APratio+flat damage)*100/(100+(x-MrP)*(1-%MrP/100))

Pyromania - After casting 5 spells, Annie's next spell will stun the target for 1.75 seconds.

This my friend is your bread. But Note : It´s not always good to have it @ 5 stacks you are hunting. This passive decides if you are a good Annie or a bad Annie.

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Disintegrate - Annie hurls a mana-infused fireball, dealing damage and refunding the mana cost if it destroys the target.

This is your butter. Abuse the mana restoration. Last hit like a boss. With his fairly low cooldown it´s one of your best skills for farming up your passive. If you have your stun ready: Walk straight to enemy. He´ll most likely back of, use that to your advantage. Either he´s not fast enough and you hit him, should be followed by a W afterwards OR he´s fast enough. In that case last hit a minion than quickly walk back behind your minions.

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Incinerate - Annie casts a blazing cone of fire, dealing damage to all targets in the area.

I´d like to call this my "anti surprise" spell. ALWAYS and this is crucial, ALWAYS have it on standby. Means: Press W once, then wait till Minion is low, Press Q, last-hit with Q, press W again. Its so funny if the enemy blinks in your range and you W them right in their face. Most of the time, if you are a good Annie player, you also have your stun ready. W->Q->R->Q and dead Kassadin is dead

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Molten Shield - Shields Annie from harm, reducing damage she takes and returning damage from basic attacks

I´d like to call this your "Rofl-Shield". Due to this spell you won´t have to buy expensive defensive items. Also ever saw a Yi that had 2.000 Attackspeed and 0 life-steal. I didn't even use any of my spells and he was already dead on the floor.
Note: I picked Molten Shield as the spell that I level the last. Let´s be serious, in a good game the first team-fight will break out somewhere between level 11 and 15(depends how good/bad you/your teammates did).
You need to develop a team-fight sense. Always have one point in it before the first team-fight starts.

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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.

PEDOBEAR!!!! He´s your saviour. Your most precious companion....ABUSE HIM. I´d like to mention two different situations in the Tricks & Strategies Section.Also Note that your Pedobear can AND SHOULD Autoattack.
To add some nice flame damage from Tibbers Passive: R->Q->W->Q
To be sure your Pedobear 100% hits : Q->R->W->Q.

As trivial as it may sound:
R->ALT+Right Click on enemy champ->Q->W->Q will add some nice bonus damage. Sometimes the enemy flashes away with just 100 HP and I realized that my Tibbers attacked a random minion instead of the champion *facepalm*
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Her Secret Skill: Autoattacks.

Yes. How unusual it may sound, you´ll have an unbelievable range with your Autoattacks. Abuse it to last hit safely or harass enemy champion.

The following article is a quote from a discussion I had with some one who prefers W>Q

Concerning W before Q. I already told some people why I do this. Q has a 4 sec cd. W a 8sec. Your damage rota should be (at least early-mid) Q->R->W->Q. You see that I can get two Q of (this works, test it). I admit that this is very difficult to do when the enemy has flash and I fail it myself sometimes too, but 95% of the time I can get two Q's of. Now lets see our stats at level 6:

Disintegrate level 3 = 165 base damage and 70% AP ratio.
Incinerate level 2 = 130 base damage and 75% AP ratio.
Summon: Tibbers level 1 = 200 base damage and 70% AP ratio.
With my rune and mastery setup I have 32.51 AP.
Disintegrate will do 165 base damage and 22.757AP damage.
Incinerate will do 130 base damage and 24.3825AP damage. (wow. two damage more QQ).
Summon: Tibbers will do 200 base damage and 22.757AP damage.

Lets sum it up: 564.8965 RAW damage.

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Now your suggestion W before Q.
Disintegrate level 2 = 125 base damage and 70% AP ratio.
Incinerate level 3 = 180 base damage and 75% AP ratio.
Summon: Tibbers level 1 = 200 base damage and 70% AP ratio.
Again we have 32.51 AP.

Disintegrate level 2 = 125 base damage and 22.757AP damage.
Incinerate level 2 = 180 base damage and 24.3825AP damage
Summon: Tibbers level 1 = 200 base damage and 22.757AP damage.

Lets sum it up again : 574.8965 RAW damage

Thats 10 damage more with your setup (worth it?!).
But wait. I mentioned something....what was it again? AWWW Yess you can get two disintegrates off.

Two disintegrate would mean
Disintegrate level 3 = 165 base damage and 22.757AP damage. x2 = 375.514 dmg
Disintegrate level 2 = 125 base damage and 22.757AP damage. x2 = 295.514 dmg

Suddenly the difference is 70 damage for me !!!.
That can get you a kill.

With your setup you would only deal more damage in 2 situations:

• The enemy has flash
• You can't time your spells right

Let's say you skill Molten Shield at level 4.

You either have:
Disintegrate level 3 = 165 base damage and 22.757AP damage.
Incinerate level 1 = 80 base damage and 24.3825AP damage
Summon: Tibbers level 1 = 200 base damage and 22.757AP damage.

Together this would do 514.8965 dmg

OR your setup:
Disintegrate level 1 = 85 base damage and 22.757AP damage.
Incinerate level 3 = 180 base damage and 24.3825AP damage
Summon: Tibbers level 1 = 200 base damage and 22.757AP damage.

This would do 534.8965 damage.

Thats 20 damage more with YOUR setup. But let's see what you get when you land your Q twice.

Disintegrate level 3 = 165 base damage and 22.757AP damage.
Incinerate level 1 = 80 base damage and 24.3825AP damage
Summon: Tibbers level 1 = 200 base damage and 22.757AP damage.
Disintegrate level 3 = 165 base damage and 22.757AP damage.

Together this would do 702.6535 dmg

OR with your setup

Disintegrate level 1 = 85 base damage and 22.757AP damage.
Incinerate level 3 = 180 base damage and 24.3825AP damage
Summon: Tibbers level 1 = 200 base damage and 22.757AP damage.
Disintegrate level 1 = 85 base damage and 22.757AP damage.

This would deal 642.6535 dmg

Now my "build" would deal 60 damage more.

You now see that your skill order is only effective when you cant land your Q twice.... Every good Annie SHOULD pull this off. (flash is difficult, but well..it has a 255 sec CD ;) ).

And let's say you can't land your Q. What did you sacrifice for 10/20 damage.

• One of the BEST poke abilities
• Easier and therefore more lasthits.
• The enemie can harrass you better, because he ísnt afraid of a level 1 Disintegrate and dealing constant harras damage with Incinerate would drain your mana more quickly than you can imagine.

You see, I'm not a random douche that throws some **** here on mobafire without doing some research. You can trust me there. With Q you will deal more damage, harras better, lasthit better AND do more dps (4 sec vs 8 sec CD).

Flash: Pretty much a must have. Adds a huge chunk to your survivability. Either Flash your enemy mid right in their face or flash away from scary Yi. Note, Pedobear->Q->W->Ignite->Q WILL TAKE OUT EVERY enemy mid below 3/4 health. The enemy isn't dumb. So level 6+ he´ll stay out of range. With Flash at your hand, you´ll be IN RANGE.

Ignite: Like mentioned above, this adds another damage spell to your arsenal of destruction.
Here are my thoughts on other Summoner Abilities.

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Ghost: It´ll give you speed. In some situations I wished for just 30 more Movement speed.
Cleanse: Not that strong anymore, but still effective in it´s own way.

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Teleport:Saves you 12 seconds of running from base to the middle lane every 3 minutes, not worth it.
Exhaust: you shouldn't be losing the majority of your health from a single auto attacking champion, and you already have a stun.
Heal: not worth it, should i say more? okay = One Auto attack more or less from Yi doesn't matter.
Smite:Your Q kills pretty much every creep. Your W entire creep waves late game not worth it.
Clarity: if your find yourself in HUGE Mana problems a Tear of the Goddess will do.
Clairvoyance[/color]: Team based spell. not going to say it is useless, but Annie doesn't need it.
Revive: I just don't plan on dying.

Okay okay okay. I struggled with this decision. I really did.
MrPen Quints vs AP Quints.

Aaaand I must say:
MrPen Quints are good. They are fine. They are even getting "buffed" the more AP you get. Basically: The longer the game, the more powerful Mr Quints are. BUT, and this is a big but(t):
AP Quints are insanly more powerful early game. They really are. Here have some flippin graphs:


With my Setup(Blue) you´ll have:
32.1825 AP
8.55 + 10% MR Penetration

With with the MRPen Quints Setup(Red)
Boring 16.59AP
Powerful 14.22 + 10% MR Penetration.

Disintegrate hast a 0.70 APRatio and 90 Base-Damage on level 1. I did some calculations and here are my Results.


It may seem that it's not that big of a deal. But this damage gets "multiplied" for each Q/W/R you do. And this little advantage you have early game will pay of late game. Trust me here.

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So let´s compare it to "late" game. Let´s say you just bought a flat 300 AP (one Rabbadons and one normal Blasting Wand) and your Sorcerer´s Shoes which is pretty realistic. also our Disintegrate is now level 5 so it does 245 damage on its own.


With my Setup(Blue) you´ll have:
365.0325 AP
28.55 + 10% MR Penetration


With with the MRPen Quints Setup(Red)
349.44 AP
34.22 + 10% MR Penetration.



As you can see, Flat AP Quints are doing less dmg past the 31 MR mark and more dmg past the 177.45 MR mark. It may seem grand on the graph, but its really just 13 damage more (at the 34MR mark where the advantage starts to "decay").
I wouldnt sacrifice the HUGE early advantage vor 13 damage.
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I try to make it short. Basically, both Seals are playable on Annie w/o getting too mana starved early/late.
Greater Seal of Scaling Mana Regeneration will start to reg more mana past level 7 so you will benefit from it more later in the game.
You can even mix them together as you like, but I would always have at least 6x Greater Seal of Replenishment.

Offense

• Mental Force
  Pretty obvious for an AP Carry to get more AP
• Summoner's Wrath
  5 AP/AD more when it's on CD? Hell, my Ignite is on CD 24/7...gimmeh dat
• Sorcery
  CDR is always good, especially if you have a jungler that is blue dependend
• Arcane Knowledge
  Magic pen all the way
• Havoc
  • 1% sounds big...but in a 3000dmg combo it's only 30damage more. Still a better place to dump mastery points. Many suggest to put the two points in Brute Force instead of Havoc , but I wouldn't necessarily agree with it. In terms of dmg Havoc is nearly on par with a level 2 Annie. Means: If you are level two and cast one Q and one W you would have a slightly higher dmg increase from Havoc ((1.77dmg) which you would get from one Autoattack with Brute Force (1.54dmg). And thats only level TWO. And thats because Havoc scales in % and Brute Force only in a flat amount.
    Let's say it is mid game. You are level 9 and a Team fight starts. You don*t have any items, because of a difficult enemy mid which didn't allow you to back of even for a second.
    Your total dmg increas from Havoc would be 5.4. Means: You would have to do 4 Autoattacks with Brute Force ot overpower Havoc .
    BUT THATS WITHOUT ANY ITEMS.
    Let's say you could buy Sorcerer's Shoes and a Needlessly Large Rod. Now you would have to do 6 Autoattacks to overpower Havoc .
    Let's look at your full dmg output with your full combo.
    Q+W+R+Death Fire = roughly 3k dmg. That's 30 dmg from your Havoc . You would have to do 20(!) Autoattacks with Brute Force to be on par with that. And thats single target damage. Most likely will you aim your Tibbers to hit more like one enemy.
    
    Long thing short: I wouldnt recommend swapping Havoc with Brute Force . Do this only if you want to maximise your early game advantage.
• Blast
  The more AP the better
• Archmage
  +5% AP is AWESOOOOOOOME. +5% AP means dealing ~3.5% more dmg (AP ratio from every spell).
• Executioner
  Ever raged that the enemy escaped with barely any hp left? Not with this one here.

Utility

• Summoner's Insight
  15 sec less CD on flash means 15 sec less till your next surprise pedobear rape.
• Good Hands
  Well, less time playing dead is more time raping ****.
• Swiftness
  +2% movement speed is HUGE. You can reach someone faster early game, and maybe just run that 1 more seconds away from Yi till your team helps you.
• Runic Affinity
  +20% more bluebuff means +20% more harrass on enemy

Why not this and why not that

• Butcher :
  Many peeps roll with it. I understand their reasoning, but I call it bullsh't. First of you are gonna lasthit with Q 99% of the time. That one last hit you wont get due to bad timing....you really want to spend masterie points to "secure" 25 gold? Let's say you have 50dmg...4dmg more wont secure you that last hit 100%.
• Brute Force
  • Brute force is adding up if you constantly harrass the enemy with AA's.
    It scales 1:1 instead of Mental Force which scales only 1:0.7/0.75 (Ap ratio). BUT you have MRPen and no ArPen. Which alters the obvious advantage. If you do the same amount of Disintegrate and AA's the difference would only be 0.55 dmg in favor of Brute Force and only 0.42 more with Incinerate. If you add all this together suddenly Mental Force comes out victorious with 1.34dmg more than Brute Force . With Tibbers it will even be 3.1 dmg.
    So long thing short: If you do at least ONE Autoattack for every spell you cast on an enemy champion, you should go with Brute Force , if not pick Mental Force
• Transmutation
  1% Spell Vamp arent going to heal you :D
• Greed
  +0.5g every 10 sec. On an average game of 30 minutes thats 90 gold.
• Improved Recall
  Naaaa, i think even Expandend Mind is better than 1 sec less time bluepilling.
• Expanded Mind
  Well +12mana per lvl on Annie is like a drop of water in the desert. It isnt going to help you THAT much. On lvl 18 you dont need the extra 216 mana cuz after the teamfight you are going to bluepill anyway. If you plan to go for Archangel it#s +6Ap more and with deathcap ~8 AP. You can skill it if you feel comfortable with it though, I simply think that you will provit more from the reduced death time.
• Demolitionist
  • "It's such a good pusher mastery!!11" Well-Yes, BUT: You are not a pusher. And if you want to take it? What to sacrifice? You all say that Havoc is bad so what happens when you take one point from Havoc and put it tin Demolitionist Let's look at this from the mathematical point of view. With all the resistance from the tower and the +40% from your AP you will deal:
    At level 1
    
    • 44 w/ Havoc in the following named "H"
    • 48.5 w/ Demolitionist in the following named "D"
      At level 9 with one Needlessly Large Rod wich is kinda bad.
    • 83 w/H
    • 85.6 w/D
      At level 18 with only one Rabbadon's Deathcap wich is pathetic at this point
    • 130.7 w/H
    • 131.1 w/E
    Sooo, let's analyse this information. At level 1 the "10 damage" increase is effectivly only 4.5 damage. Thats 65% less than expected.
    The other two dates are only there to show you that even if you do very very very bad in the game Havoc > Demolitionist

Before I start to explain my Core build I´d like to give you a variety of paths to choose.

If you want to do a very risky start that puts you ahead of the enemy if played right, pick this baby here. It allows you do deal "tons of damage" to the enemy. Again, this is high risk game. It's basically a gamble.
Do this only if you are very familiar with the enemy lane. For example:
You faced at least 100 Ahri's in mid and you feel comfortable with her Skill-Shot speeds and you are confident you can beat her before level 6 (let's be honest: So much agility with her ult, you NEED Boots Q.Q) do this. If not, go with Boots

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Jebus McAzn suggested this and I fell in love with it :3

Let´s take a look what it offers us:

• Great lane staying power and survivability versus champions who are constantly dealing low-medium damage. Just click on a Health Potion and cha daisy 150 HP back.
  Note: It won´t help you versus a, for example, good Annie. As she will deal burst damage and Health Potion simply reg too slow.
• Great movability. You will close the gap between you and the enemy a lot faster, which means more and better harrasment. Also you´ll get to the lane quicker if the enemy kills you.
  This gives you a HUGE advantage over Champions who rely on skill-shots. Evading is much easier.

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I almost always rush these. Not only does this give you much needed Movement speed, thanks to that delicious 20 MrPen, it also allows you to deal true damage to those who are foolish enough to not buy any Mr Items to conter you.

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If I find myself lacking behind I buy one of those. From this point on your Mana will vanish like Water in the desert. You´ll start to harass more, maybe also use your full combo.
Note: It gives you more also more AP which is sometimes needed until your Needlessly Large Rod. And don't forget the 80 HP. It might not seem much, but it can help. The enemy are also going to do more damage now, so it may save your life. But remember: I dont suggest to buy it if you are already steamrolling. Buy this if you lack behind. Also: Sell it late-game as you won´t need it anymore.

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RUSH IT, LOVE IT. Surprise you mom. Surprise your cat. Surprise your enemys with the sudden burst of AP.
This guy either allows you to strenghen your advantage or catch up to your enemy who raped you mid. I never lost to any mid who bought ROA while I bought Rabadon's. ROA cant keep up with the burst coming from this baby.

This is pretty much core on every caster out there. As much as you might argue with my other items, but 140 AP and 30% more AP on EVERY AP Item is really one of the best AP Items out there. It also gives you 182 AP on it´s own.



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I did some calculation:
(Note that Void Staff + Arcane Knowledge are multiplied. Means that it won´t give you 50%, but 46% MrPen.)

Blue: Voidstaff after Rabadon's Deathcap= 337.0275 AP, 28.55MrPen, 46%MrPen

Red: Rylai's Crystal Scepter after Rabadon's Deathcap= 350.5275, 28.55MrPen, 10%MrPen



The %MrPen of Voidstaff will pay of past the 34Mr mark. Every good player will have more than 40 Mr to conter a fed Annie. So it`s in my core. BUT: Feel free to swap with Rylais. If your main target isnt stacking MR and infact gets a threat buy Rylais.
(Note that Abyssal Mask can pay off too. More to that below)


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If you plan to go for Tear of the Goddess I would suggest that you buy it right after your Boots. The earlier you start to get more mana with it, the better. Also note that when you teleport back to base, you should use your Incinerate and Molten Shield on a regular basis, as it helps greatly to get these +1000 Mana very early.
Upgrading Tear of the Goddess into another item will still retain Tear of the Goddess mana bonus allowing you to buy your Archangel's Staff, with the passive at a later time. Don´t directly buy it after Tear of the Goddess as there are Items from which you benefit more. Note that the Mana Bonus is unique. Using 2 abilities every 6 seconds, it takes 12 minutes and 30 seconds to max.
I´m not a fan of this Item as it´s another pure AP Item. I prefer the survivability other Items offer.

Well,
I believe you know how Tanks are boasting around that they have the hardest job from all as they need to buy Items which conter the enemies damage. But guess what, so does everybody in this whole ******** game.


But where´s the difference between a Tank and a Carry?
As Tanks don´t need damage, but Resistances to be effective, with Carries it´s the other way around. But AP is not equal to AP.
As Tanks need to build their resistances to conter your damage, you need to build your damage to conter the resistances.

ONLY WHEN YOU BOUGHT TEAR BEFORE. DON´T DO THIS AFTER YOU FINISHED YOUR CORE AS IT´LL BE TOO LATE!! With your 1100 Base-Mana and the 1400 from Tear Mana you´ll have 2400 Mana. 2400/100*3 +45 = 117 AP. With your Rabadon's Deathcap you´ll get 152 juicy AP from this Item. As long as you don´t plan to buy any other Item´s with Mana, this it IT. No survivability.

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I´m not really a fan of this Item. You already bought Void Staff, so this won´t benefit you in any way. But if you find yourself in a situation where 4/5 enemies deal magic damage, I would suggest to buy it because of the Magic Resist and the ( Rabadon's Deathcap included) 91 Juicy AP. Don´t be fooled by the -20 Magic resist reduce. You won´t get the enemies below 0 Magic Resist. Note : MrReduce and MrPen aren´t the same.
Also: With my build and this Scepter you´ll have 34 +15% MrPen and 20 MrReduce. As long 3-4/5 enemies don´t buy past 80Mr I would suggest to buy this one instead of Void Staff.
Also Note: You aren't going to fully engage in the teamfight, so not all the enemies will be affected by this Aura. This is a much better Item on Morgana, who´s going directly in the enemy team to get them all with the ult, as you are benefiting form it´s aura.
Although I dont like this Item, because of the reasons I stated above, I want to at least compare both Items.
So what happens if we buy Abyssal Mask(Red) instead of Void Staff(Blue).

Void Staff starts to make more damage past the 79 Mr mark. I still like Voidstaff more, as it is more general. If you buy Abyssal you need to get closer to your target, which leaves yourself in a more vulnurable position. Thats because if you buy abyssal you need to consider that your whole team needs to profit from that or its pointless to buy it. There are better items for Annie for both AP and MR. The only reason to buy this would be for the aura. So you kinda need to move around so that every target is affected by it.
Green shows you what happens if an AP-Bruiser, like Maokai, happens to buy Abyssal Mask

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Again, I´m not really a fan of this Item. As long as you are steamrolling AND get away, you are either a good Annie or facing a stupid Team. Again, this Item is a full AP Item.
With your Rabadon's Deathcap you´ll get 212 AP, I repeat 212 AP from it. This is awesome. BUT, this will also add a huge neon sign above your head which says: "FOCUS ME PLEASE OH DEAR LORD FOCUS ME". Annie is already a favored target so this will also lower your survivability. But again, 212AP is a huge amount of damage, so you´ll also take out the enemies quicker. It´s up to you. Also the 15% CDR are nothing to easily disregard, but not the main focus of this build.
Remember : You only need ONE assist per death to maintain 5 Stacks of this Item. With your Rabadon's Deathcap it´s 78 AP. So it´s worth it´s gold, but there are better Items. I suggest that you sell latest possible if you don´t perform well.

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This is like a lesser Mejai's Soulstealer. This Item will offer you a solid 75 AP (with Rabadon's Deathcap it´s 98 AP. But the +12 mana/5s and 20%CDR are not really worth it, as they are not the main focus of this build. I would rather build Archangel's Staff as it gives you enough mana/5s and more AP.

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This is one of my favorite Items. THIS Item gives you 500 Health. 500 HEALTH. This is 29% more HP from ONE Item. But wait, there´s more...It also has 80 AP (with Rabadon's Deathcap it´s 104AP). You might argue that the slow is not good. And i can understand that. You´re stun lasts 1.75 seconds and the slow lasts only 1.5 seconds. But you have 3 spells. And your cooldowns aren't that long, so the chance is high, that you´ll fire more than one spell on that scary Garen who chases you with all his might. And that slow will save your life in more than one situation.

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This is the new item. With Rabadon's Deathcap you´ll have 65 AP. But it´s not only the AP what makes this item useful. Since the patches, this Item kinda replaces Mercury's Treads, This item will reduce stuns,slows,taunts,fears and every possible CC by 25%. Veigar´s Event Horizon lasts 2.5 secs on rank 5. With this Item it only lasts 1.9 secs. Dark Matter needs 1.2 secs to land. So what do we learn? Right: This Item will save you from bad Veigars, but not from good Veigars. As this Item shortens every CC, it may come in handy here and there, but it´s not an Item to rely on.

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I´m not a fan of this Item, as it takes 10 minutes to unfold it´s full potential. But it´s situational. I would suggest to build it right after Tear of the Goddess starting with
Catalyst the Protector. Together with Rabadon's Deathcap and Archangel's Staff this Item will give you 132 AP. Also the 630 HP are quite handy. Catalyst the Protector will also improve your lane staying power greatly. But be careful: This Item is only worth it, together with Archangel's Staff so it´ll delay your core build by a huge amount of time. It´s something for late game Annie, not for early game dominance. Note : Together with Rylai's Crystal Scepter you´ll have a solid HP pool of 2870HP. This might encourage the enemies to focus another champ.

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Your basic AD is 92. Lich Bane does PHYSICAL damage.
Means: It won't benefit from MrPen, but at the same time isnt counterd by MR.

Let's say you have 500AP, Lich Bane and your normal 28.55MrPen + 46%MrPen.
The enemie has 100Armor and 100MR (It's normal for carries to have 60 to 100 AR/MR, but to simplify things I go with 100=50%reduce)
You do a full combo E-AA-Q-W-R-AA-Q
Your damage would be
Lichbane:250
Q:595
W:655
R:800

---

3145 Damage

Without LB it would only be 2645 damage, BUT(!) you need to sacrifice a slot for LB.
So what to swap for? Rylais? w/o the survivability it offers you wont live long enough to do the autoattacks.Zhonya's? -No chance.
So it would be Deathfire Grasp: BUT DFG deals damage equal to 47.5% of the enemys life.

Also keep in mind that you only have an attack speed of 0.7. Which means you need over 1.3 secs to deal that Lich Bane damage. In many fights you don´t have the time to autoattack, so thats why I dont have it in my core.

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This Item adds another huge nuke to your aresenal. I usually get this item when my main target has above 3000 HP. This item will give you 10mana/5 secs and 15% CDR. Also with Rabadon's Deathcap it´ll give you 78 AP. But what makes this Item rule is his juicy active. It deals magic damage to target champion equal to 30% of their current health (+3.5% per 100 Ability Power) with a minimum of 200 damage. 1 minute cooldown. Let´s say your target has 3000 Hp (which is the very reason you bought Deathfire Grasp) at that time you have around 500 AP. This item will deal 47.5% = 1425 damage. Now let´s put that in a Graph :



So even if the enemy has roughly 115 Mr you will stil deal 1000 damage to him, which is 1/3 of his HP. Combine that with your pedobear and he´ll be dead, roasted meat.
Rule of thumb:500AP and 100MR = 1/3 Hp damage

_______________________________________________________________________________________________ Let's break it down:
90AP - is quite good for an Item.
40MR - is a nice addition but not needed on Annie
15 Mana/5sec - not needed
15%CDR - nice to have, not needed
12%mana on kill - not needed
1% manareg per 1%missing mana - not needed.

The main reason you would built this would be an early Chalice of Harmony, but thats not needed on Annie. Your manareg is sufficent throughout the game.
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If you have the feeling that a Teamfight will break out. Use it. It grants you up to 40 AP (52 with Rabadon's Deathcap) and 10% CDR. Quite usefull in teamfights. It´ll also make you glow blue...AWESOME.

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Try to ward at least one side. Make that side your "safe side". Try to stay on that side as the jungler (apart from Nocturne) will need at least 3 secs to get across the mid lane to you. Enough time to either flash or stun the jungler with Q or stun both with W then run to tower.
Refer to "Warding" for further informations on Warding

Now this is something that I would call the "Oh i screwed up, wait I have this Item". With Rabadon's Deathcap this will give you 130 AP. But wait, +50 Armor...JUICY. Scary Yi is suddenly only average Yi. With your basic 76 Armor and your 50 armor from Molten Shield you will have 126 Armor (55%) reduction. With this Item you´ll have 176 Armor (63%). I would say that 8% less damage from Yi aren't worth 3300 Gold. What makes this Item worth the 3300 Gold? I´ll tell you. That damn fine active. 2 Secs invulnerable. R->Q->W->E->Zhonya's->Q->W.
Note : This active is only good with a decent team. It doesn't give you **** when your tank leaves you to the Yi while engaging in fight. In these 2 second your team needs to save you, or you´ll die simply after the effect ended. BUT, this leaves the YI with only two options: Either stay there to kill you, which is 2 seconds less damage your team receives OR he´ll change targets, so you can get in fight again, while Yi humps that Sion.

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Hell this is a good Item. Not only does this give you some nice 50 Magic Resist, no it also gives us 375 Health/Mana. This Item is something I prefer on late game Annie. As she will greatly benefit from the additional Mana and Health due to Archangel's Staff. But also early dominance Annie will benefit from it´s health.
Note: You can skip Rod of Ages and build Banshee's Veil directly from your Catalyst the Protector
When to buy this:

• If you have a Sion that will Cryptic Gaze/ Death's Caress combo you, this will greatly help you to avoid this.
• To hinder the enemy AP-Carry to quickly take you out.

Note: This won´t hinder Ryze(low cooldown) or a good Veigar to take you out.
Veigar´s usual combo is Event Horizon Dark Matter Primordial Burst Baleful Strike. BUT a good Veigar will change his combo to Baleful Strike (get your Shield down) Event Horizon Dark Matter Primordial Burst Baleful Strike.

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It´s an Item you won´t see very much in-game, but it is extremly cost-effcient and the active is one of the best in game in my opinion. As this Item removes nearly all debuffs it is superior to Cleanse
Here´s a little overvie of removeable debuffs:

• Ignite
• Nether Grasp
• Children of the Grave
• Hyper-Kinetic Position Reverse
• Hemoplague
• Infinite Duress
• Time Bomb
• Blaze
• Miasma
• Noxious Blast
• Grog Soaked Blade
• Malefic Visions
• Toxic Shot
• Deadly Venom
• Noxious Trap - But only the poison effect

Selling and re-buying Quicksilver Sash will reset it´s active. This will cost you 432 gold, so it´s only advised for late game.

Little Note to and
Effects like Destiny, Paranoia and Diplomatic Immunity won´t affect you. BUT the enemy will. Means :

• Twisted Fate may not be able to see you with Destiny, but will still be able to Teleport to you.
• Nocturne´s Paranoia may not alter your sight, but he´ll still be able to Teleport to you.
• Poppy won´t do 20/30/40% more damage to you, but will still be immune to other attacks.

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This is, again, an Item I would buy later in game. I did some calculations.
Assumption: Your combo of R->Q->W does 1500 raw damage.

• Blue: Sorcerer's Shoesand Void Staff
• Red: Mercury's Treadsand Void Staff
• Green: Mercury's Treads
• Black: Sorcerer's Shoes

Differences at 30 Magic Resist:

• Blue to Red = 144 damage.
• Blue to Green = 231 damage
• Blue to Black = 8 damage
• Red to Green = 87 damage.

Differences at 100 Magic Resist:

• Blue to Red = 78 damage.
• Blue to Black = 169 damage.
• Blue to Green = 260 damage.
• Red to Black = 91 damage.
• Red to Green = 181 damage.
• Black to Green = 90 damage.

You don´t need to understand what that means. I will sum it up for you:
Skipping Sorcerer's Shoes and buying Mercury's Treads directly will take a huge chunk from your early game damage.
BUT: Selling Sorcerer's Shoes and buying Mercury's Treads late game won´t affect your damage by a noticeable amount.
That's not because you get more AP, but because the enemies are getting more MR. The more MR the enemy has the less impact Sorcerer's Shoes have. At a specific MR amount Void Staff starts to kick in and thus makes Sorcerer's Shoes less and less noticable

Only last hit. You don´t deal damage. Seriously. While you Q-W the enemy Ashe you´ll deal like 150 damage. 3 Autoattacks from her and you´ll have lost more HP than her.
EXCEPTION: If you time it right, you´ll have your stun up after you hit level 2. If you are good she´ll only be at level one. immediately Q-W her. This will scare 90% of unskilled players, as they are not used to loose 1/4 of their HP instantaneously.

A good Ashe/Caitlyn or any AD Champ will try to put you in a bad position after your Q-W combo is used. Only and I repeat myself ONLY harass the enemy if he´s either holding you out of exp OR your stun is up. Try to last hit 5 times with Disintegrate then Q-W him. Repeat. As you get your mana back from last hitting you´ll reg enough mana in between to dish out a constant, high damage harass.

Here's where you decide IF you skill Molten Shield or not.
Are you f*cking them or they f*cking you? If you are dominating, why would you upgrade your defense? It´s not neccesarry. Also many guides suggest to level it, as it´s a free Thornmail.
Yes, but an Ashe will deal ~70 damage to you and recieve ~26 damage (20 deducting all resistances). This may help if he autoattacks you, but I myself would refrain from AA's. Instead I would fire a Volley or two and after Molten Shield wears off I would attack again.
And what if the enemy mid is a Malzahar? He won't start autoattack you, so the only thing left is the defense.
I would only skill Molten Shield if the enemy is pwning you. It charges your Stun more frequently.
Many also suggest to level it, because of this. But I myself have my stun up more often than I'd like. But if the enemy is dominating you, you won't have the chance to last hit with Disintegrate so Molten Shield will help you greatly.
If you skilled Molten Shield the skilling priorities are.
R>Q>W>E after that, resulting in.

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There are only 3 Options

1. You are dominating. Kill the enemy mid when you hit level 6. Try to get your stun up as fast as possible, then go ganking. It´s best to let your top know before that you are ganking, so he can fall back a little. Together with your jungler you can overpower top easily 3 vs 1. If you have no jungler, I´ll still be 3 vs 1. If both sides don't have a jungler it´ll be 3 vs 2 which is still fine. If top AND bot are ungankable, don´t force it. Teleport back, return to mid. And Repeat.

2. You are doing good. You´ve either killed enemy mid or forced him to teleport back while barely staying alive yourself. Teleport back yourself reg, if you don´t have enough money for Sorcerer's Shoes buy Boots and Doran's Ring. Boots are more important.

3. The enemy mid is dominating you. Don´t worry. I find myself sometimes in such a situation too. Especially Kassadin is my worst nightmare. Don´t force it. play more defensivly and ask for ganks. Better teleport back before he kills you. If, no one comes to gank, I myself gank the sidelanes, as that takes a huge amount of pressure from them and they can come gank mid afterwards, as they should dominating their lane now.

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This is where your hard work finally pays off.
You either run around freely, farm minions, kill enemies if you encounter one (Note: Try to avoid 2 vs 1 situations. Trust me there)
OR
You do absolutely nothing because you performed bad early-mid. Try to get back in game. Let your teammates engage and be kind of the vacuum cleaner who picks of the low HP enemies.
(Note: Your Pedobear Teamstun is still important. Try to land him. He may not make too much damage, but still stuns the enemies for 1.75 secs. Enough to 5 vs 1 the fed enemy Veigar who dominated you mid.)

In 1 vs 1 you are like a Ryze wannabe. With right timing you can manage TWO stuns. Yes TWO. Well, not like you need it against a Soraka, but what if a wild Garen appears in a bush? Well here´s what you do. (Please note that it´s crucial to have your stun already up)

1. Q->Stunned him | 0 stacks
2. R-> PEDOBEAR APPEARS | 1 stacks
3. E-> Autowhat? | 2 Stacks
4. Q-> DAMAGEZZZ | 3 stacks
5. W-> DAMAGEEEE | 4 stacks
6. Q-> Stun | 0 stacks

You might ask yourself: After I casted my Ultimate, my Q still has 2-4 secs cooldown(depends on your CDR). By now you have him around 1/6 HP. He´ll run or try his luck and attacks you. With Molten Shield you´ll survive 3-4 secs without a problem. If he runs? Well,....chase him! I heard Pedobears are pretty fast these days.
Note: Tibber´s AOE damage actually applies Rylai's Crystal Scepter. ;)

It really helps if you stutterstep. Mainly used by AD-Carries it can be really useful even as an AP-Carry. I didn't find a better video. Play Video Note how Caitlyn always moves in between her shoots. Her autoattacks are "on cooldown" so why waste your time standing around when you could already move. The stutterstep was the only reason she could get Pantheon at the end.
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Again, have your Stun up.
In Teamfights you´ll have to burst down the squishiest Champ with the most damage. Try to land your Ultimate so, that your target and as much other champions as possible are in the area of effect. The rest is up to you. Q and W to your hearts content. HAVE YOUR SHIELD UP.

As I see many Annies that either

• A: Nuke then run away

or

• B: Nuke and stay.

Both ways are not entirely right. Path "B" is better than path "A" but still not what an Annie should do.
This is an example of a Annie who chooses path "B". You see that she does a huge amount of damage and also manages to pull of a penta kill. Yes, that´s right. BUT, notice that she isn´t focused at all. She doesn´t loose any health. That leaves only one conclusion: Not the best enemy team and an Annie who knows how to stay out of range and be in range at the same time. But, and I must be honest here, the Enemy has a Kassadin whose sole purpose should be taking out a good Annie and he fails hard.

But this is still a great example of what a good Annie can pull off.

Here are some of the mistakes I noticed:

0:00-0:05 - Pedobear is out, but stun wasn´t ready. Though she has her W up she decides to stun with Q. Noone guards the Annie, if the Kassa would simply Riftwalk into her, he would have 3-4 seconds to wreck havoc until your team would, in such a clustered situation, notice.
Also: The corki uses his gatling gun, but turns away from fight...oO. Amumu left, and from your scores I see that it wouldnt be that easy if your team were stunned for 2 secs.
0:06-0:28 - That went very fast. Kassadin finally decideds to jump in, but it´s too late(to apologies~~~) and he misses his slowing wave of destruction. Corki turned around and does damage again, kils the alistair (why is alistair dead and annie full hp). Then corki jumps in again, which is a suicide mission.

That are just SOME of the mistakes I see, BUT, don´t you dare to accuse that Annie to be bad. She has done great. In a real game it´s entirely different than on a Internet guide.
And if you play ranked, the presure is even higher, the higher your ELO is.
EVERY GOOD TEAM WILL FOCUS YOU


I suggest the magically path "C"
The keyword is "kiting". That´s were your Rylai's Crystal Scepter comes in handy. You have a slow that equals the slow of Ashe. Use it, to slow that Udyr and try Juking them in the Bush. if you don´t know what juking is, here´s an example.

The main objective of juking is to decieve your opponents in thinking you are going this way, but really going that way. Disregard the complete lack of map awareness from that Annie and the fail build of that Yi. Notice how the Irelia flees with minimal HP. As Annie doesn´t have a reliable stun and except from flash no escape mechanism, her only way to juking is using the bush.

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Like mentioned above the bush offers great surviability. Simply walk in the bush and aslong as you don´t atttack, you´ll be invisible.
Note: Range Heroes like Vayne need more time to get in the bush than Melee heroes, as Melee are already right behind you, while Range shoot from a distance.
So, what are the tactic´s?
Well,

• Versus Range heroes you are 1-2 secs invisible and so like invulnurable. Time it right with your Hourglass and you´ll be 4 secs invulnurable. Long enough to shout in TS/Ventrilo/Skype for help. In solo queue you´ll need a good tank/off-tank to notice you.
  
• Versus Melee heroes your only chance is to get in the bush. The enemy will expect you to flee from him and "chases" you through the bush. But where are you? Well, right as the enemy Melee entered the bush, you left it in the exact same direction where you came from. The enemy will be confused, but´ll realize very quickly what you did and turn around. This will give you 1-2 secs at most. Again, time it right with Hourglass and you have successfully avoided damage for 4 secs.

Note: This will get less and less effective the more often you do this, as the enemy will expect you to juke him.
Also Note: The higher the ELO the less effective, because like above, good players expect you to juke.

Srsly, gothic *****es like Annie love the bush. Try to convince your Team to fight them at a suitable bush. Note that jungle is not always viable (Poppy and Vayne can stun there) Also Veigar loves crowded places, so try to avoid bad positioning. Land your R->Q->E->W->Q then get the hell out of there. BUT, be in range. Bushes are perfect places to hide and wait for your CD´s. 4 secs on your Q doesn't sounds like a huge deal, but a good AD Carry can take you out in about 3 secs and without your stun you have no chance to win this.

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Many Annie/Ap-Carry guide suggest to focus on the enemy RANGE-Carry and this IS indeed right, BUT if the enemy range DPS is underfeeded, start focusing on enemy AP-Carry or MELEE-Carry. I see many AP-Carries who get that enemy Ashe out quite fast and ignore the fed Yi who has the exact same resistances and HP. After I ask why they attack Ashe instead of rape-Yi they say: " That´s not my Job, I´ve read it in a guide that I should take you the Range-Carry.". Please guys, some common sense. Let the Ashe poke with 5 damage and rape that 10/0 Yi.

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• Buying HP early

  : Okay this might not seem like a big deal, but its why i love to fiddle around with an early Doran's. It makes the enemy seem like he does less damage. Let's say you have 400HP. The enemy does 100dmg thats 1/4 of your HP. Not only will you survive at most 5 more attacks from him, but your quickly drained HP bar will also be encouraged to attack you. The more HP you have early on, the less dmg it'll seem he does. If you buy a Doran's he only does roughly 1/5 of your HP. The advantages lay on hand. You will withstand more harrass and also wont make the enemy attack you more. Especcially if he is low on mana. Will he safe his mana for sticky situations or simply burning by doing "no" damage to you. Thats the question some players will ask themselves.
  
  Note*: This also works vice-versa. The less HP you have, the more dmg the enemy seems to make. Thus he is more easily baited, BUT look out: You might burn yourself.
  

• Being absent

  Another tactic that is very useful is faking "mia". THe way you do it is easy. Just push your lane to the enemy tower and back of to yours. You won't miss any EXP and the enemy will call mia. But what will you he do if you do this EVERY F*CKING wave? He will eventually grow tired of calling mia. This usually occurs between the 15-20 time. Then you are free to roam top or bot. This will most likely succeed only once, maybe twice in a game, but it's surprisingly useful.
  
  Another funny thing you can pull of is faking mia the whole time. I usually pull this off after I successfully ganked a lane once. Just procceed the same as before. Push and wait. BUT this time do this more "rarely" means. Not every wave, but every second or third.
  It is unbelievable how much pressure you can get of your sidelanes. If there is the rare chance that you are going to gank, most players will be more defensive. It's extremly helpfull if your sidelanes are pushed to your towers.
  Note*: Look out to not interfere with your jungler's gank oppurtunity. If you pull this off and your jungler is on the way to bot its kinda bad if the carry+sup are pulling back, not because of the steathly jungler-gank, but because of you

IF you are really interested in Warding I would suggest to visit THIS. It´ll provide you with the basic knowledge.

For everyone else let me say WARDS ARE WORTH THEIR GOLD, but don´t overdo.

Also Note: If only one player buys all the wards the gold cost adds up quickly. I would say to cover at least the KEY positions you need to buy at least 4 Wards. That's 300 Gold every 3 minutes. But divide that by 5 and that's 60 Gold every 3 minutes. That's less than you get from auto gold every second.

For all who want a quick overview (1 is more important than 2):

It´s a map from Panglot's guide for Warding. Visit it for further information.

For everyone else use this
Mid-Lane Wards, ward at least ONE bush
Sidelane Wards, ward at least the bush on the river.
Buff Wards, not necessary, but don´t wonder when enemies stole your buffs.
Nashor/Dragon Wards, ward at least dragon in early-mid, then set priority to Nashor from mid-late. Kinda nice to ward both though.
Late-Game Wards, this will greatly improve your late game performances, as you will see where the enemies are going or if they invade your territory.
Special Wards, I would suggest to place the wards there if your enemies either conter your Sight Wards with Vision Ward/ Oracle's Elixir OR it´s too dangerous to walk on the river.

• 18.07.11 - Added the "Juking section" along with more details on focusing. Also added alternate starting Items. Added Graph to Abyssal Mask
• 19.07.11 - Added FAQ. Centered Icons, deleted Guardian angel. Deleted second build. Revised first build. Added Lines for better overview
• 22.07.11 - Added more Information about Molten Shield in the lane Phase. Redone Introduction. Redone the Graphs in the Rune section
• 23.07.11 - Redone some more Graphs. Gone live with it.
• 15.08.11 - Added Q>W section
• 11.07.12 - Revamped a lot of Chapters. Added Athene's Unholy Grail

• Why no Rod of Ages? - I don´t see myself needing rod of ages. Many Annies play with it. Idk, but I somehow don´t perform well with RoA. Rylai's Crystal Scepter offers me enough survivability.
  
  
• You are too squishy w/o Doran's. -I simply don´t feel the need to buy Doran's Ring. I don't know why others need to. As I stated in the situational section guide, I buy one of those if i lack behind, or feel that I am too squishy. This happens very rarely. BUT, as I stated in the "alternate starting Item" section, it´s an Item i really like, espeacially vs champions who I have problems with. *cough* kassdin