Hi, I'm known as risingwithhope in this mobafire and on one of my accounts. I am also known as neoemergence on my current main account. I have been playing league of legends since season 3. Currently I in the middle of the pack of diamond 5. Whether I will climb anymore this season is a different story, but all in all, I have a vast amount of knowledge and experience to share with people. This is based on my playstyle in which, I always build based on the situation and maintaining a serious attitude in holding my advantages and engaging favorably both in rank and casusal games. My mentality is to strive to always play against better players and learn to play better instead of complaining.

Annie is burst mage who role is to output huge amounts of damage to the enemy backline. Compare to many mages, you have the freedom to build a larger variety of ap items on her and still have her kit work the way you want. This is due to her ability to maintain her mana early on while most mages will run dry. In addition, she one of the preferred champs to play by beginners due to her low ip cost and easy to run kit. Despite this and the changes to her ultimate, she is still a force to be reckoned with due to her reliable stun and natural burst of damage.

Pros

+Has a reliable stun(duration increases in levels 6, 11, and 16
+Very easy to use from last hitting to harrassing
+natural burst
+versatile building path
+has early game mana refund


Cons
-can be predictable
-short range spells and auto attack
-very low base armor
-must be close to melee range to have deal damage
-squishy

(passive)

Annie reliable stun, this requires you to use 4 spells before you get a cloud around her. This means that your next spell will stun the opponent.



Most mages are require to last hit every once a in while. Annie however does not require it as much with this spell as it is literally made for farming. When using to it last hit a minion, it will cut the cooldown by half and refund your all the mana for that spell. This is the reason why she rarely run dry early on.



Annie's waveclear. Use it to clear minions in front of you or burn the opponent.



This spell only last for three seconds, but it serves as a useful tool in either charging up your stun as it cost very low mana and does not use the stun as you did not necessarily damage the opponent. It can also be use to reduce enemy damage, but this requires timing and experience. Furthermore, this is a trick spell that deceives the opponent on Annie's stun count



Her trademark bear. Due to the new changes, it has less range and does less damage upon summon. However when it does summon on top of the enemy by her stun, the bear will begin ripping apart the enemy. Be sure to drop it when your certain the guy will not only be hit, but will be lock in place.

Primary Spells

Ignite and Flash are the most common combination of spells when playing Annie The objective is simple. To kill the enemy as quickly and as efficient as possible and to close possible gaps in an instance.


The most common offensive summoner spell you will see on an Annie. Since the other guy is squishy, its design for last breath of damage to finish them off.


Because her goal and style is predicable, enemies tend to avoid you especially when you have a stun since it means certain death. This allows you to get in range in a instance to cast them to oblivion


Not a very common summoner spell as it depends on the matchup. This is based on the fact that sometimes its not all about the damage thus the Ignite, but the prevention of being cced down to deal your damage.


Anti-assassin summoner spell. Used it immediately on the would be killer that intends to decide the fight there and counter attack. Used mainly on those who deal damage in very a quick time period ex: LeBlanc


Used when you are unsure whether you will win your lane or not or if the game plan is beyond making plays at your lane. Even if its not a combat effective summoner spell, just having it adds global pressure against the enemy. Be sure to watch the map constantly for opportunities when you have this.

Knowing her role and what the mastery page is like, it is recommended that you go 12/18/0 on the points. This will give you a reason why.

Ferocity



Considering the other two options, this one is the most viable one. Reasoning include that one requires a ally which means its not for solo lanes. The other is basically a trade off between more damage and less safety. You should always play with the mindset that the other mid laner might be better you in order to become a better player yourself. In addition, a bit of sustain helps.



This will give you more damage as your level. While it is not much, compare to the other option which gives more sustain, this makes more sense for your role as Annie



In order to be better than the opposite, this requires 3 different kills before it becomes effective. The reason why I would choose this over oppressor stems from the fact that you should be getting a lot of kills. In a teamfight, you expected to kill someone people assuming you are in a good position



Cunning



This reason why you put 18 points on cunning is more it synergize with Annie's role more. Deals a bit of burst damage after casting 3 spells. This is one of the more useful keystone masteries when dealing massive damage in short time span.



I emphasize safety first since if you are not aware of a sense of danger, it will bite you back later on. The other point in the same row is for junglers and the other one is for people who tend to want to isolate others. Annie is very useful in teamfights so i would not recommend assassin.

When you first start out the game, people and even the league's recommended build will tell you what items to buy, reason behind it and what your end game should be like. That is good when starting the game, but as you get better, you will understand that some items are not as useful as others in certain situations. This section will explain the items that can be build for Annie and on what circumstances should you build them.



One of the most underrated ap items I have seen and used throughout my four seasons in league. This gives you a balanced of offense and defense. Most players will build it when they are doing poorly or when they are feeding like a shelter(which is too late), but it can be dangerous as a first buy. While most inexperienced and even mindlessly stubborn players will complain that it only has 60 ap, I would suggest they take a magnify glass and read the item word for word. It has mr reduction when close. So in other words, when you pop them in the face with tibbers, you are actually doing damage plus the amount of mr reduction it has meaning........it does more than 60 ap. Math is very op...It can effectively become 80 ap which makes this item extremely efficiently. Highly effective build against ap assassins, as a safe buy and even against Annie herself.




This is a very situational item indeed for Annie. While it is consider very strong in the meta right now since it gives one of the highest mana regeneration and cooldown reduction alongside a decent amount of ap, in addition to mana regeneration per level up...THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU NEED. If you think about Annie's role. You suppose to make a pick, burst them down and get out. This item puts an emphasize on sustain poke due to giving you more than enough mana to fight an endless grind battle and cooldown reduction so your spells come back up faster to sustain undying fight. In addition, a good Annie should be able to maintain a decent amount of mana unless there are huge skirmishes. The reason why I put this item is due to the fact that it has at least some purpose. Its passive reduce health regeneration which is very important when kill champions like Soraka, Zac and especially the noxian general Swain. My advice is build it when you need to and don't buy it when there is absolutely no reason to. If you laner is a health regenerating machine, highly recommended to rush this item. If the healing scum is not your laning opponent, build it as a 2nd item while your 1st should be used to deal with your laner.



In terms of league, I would say this is the most iconic item of league's magic damage dealer. It gives one of the most if not the most ap. Passive increase your amount of ap as you gain more ap. In a sense, this item is for dealing tons of damage. However since season 6, this item is no longer build as much due to the hefty price. In many cases, its not necessary needed to win the game as there are much better items to synergize with mages early on. However, it cannot be argue that it is the strongest ap item out there. Build whenever you have the money based on your items, but don't try to focus on it as there are times when you cannot afford it and need something really fast say for an objective.



An item that player occasionally forget to build since it doesn't look promising at first. What makes this valuable is not because of the ap which is pretty standard. Its the % magic penetration it offers. Now while it doesn't sound so important, you will be surprised at the amount of damage you do late game. The reason it because most smart players will itemized defense as one of their final items. If you are the 1 attack speed boots and 5 damage item Draven, you are either winning very heavily or an idiot as it only takes 3 ap items to burst you down especially if one of those guys are holding cc. Furthermore, this helps you deal with tanks better as it would definitely be expected that they will be in the front providing cover for their team and taking the majority of the damage. I value this item over the above Rabadon's Deathcap as late game penetration will always have greater output against having more ap. There is a calculator for how penetration, damage and effective health works, but you will just have to take me for this one since it has been true for a while.



This is not ap, but its still a very important item. While it doesn't stand out as it doesn't do any real damage, it is significant in keeping you alive. The passive is important as it doens't mitigate stuff like minion aggro or auto attacks, but stuff could potentially get you killed such as an ashe ultimate or orianna ultimate. While most would buy this as one of their last core items. You should build this after 3 damage items as there is already enough damage output and your survival is needed to make sure it happens. There are term I like to call "There's no point of bulding damage if you keep blowing up" especially in the form of cc which usually provides 1 second of free damage: more than enough for assassin to take you out of the picture. Think of this as an insurance policy to get out in case you make a mistake. Most people assume their positioning is great, but it doesn't excuse the fact that you might have to enter a crossfire and do the hard deed of turning the tides of your favor. So in a sense, this will make sure you get away even if you make a mistake, allows you a small chance to go past enemy lines unscathed for a short moment to deal a critical move to the enemy's team.



One of the newer items that made its appearance between season 5 or season 6(can't recall). It was considered the ap item for Statikk Shiv in which it procs up a certain amount of damage over time. To be fair I did not value this item as much as the passive is a burst of ap which doesn't really do much over the long term. However when I build it more often, I realized the speed it provides slow little girls is even more important both for kiting and for catching up towards enemies. Nowadays, its an extremely effective item against skillshot champions especially those that are reliant on landing something for massive follow up damage.



This is one of my favorite items due to the fact that it scales well into the late game. Like Ludens, its serves the purpose of catching up and kiting back. However it also multipurpose in a sense that it will allow you to break through that nasty banshee's or quicksilver sash meaning your "enemies" are still cced despite buying "protection". Even in the past before they gave it the "buff" which also made it more expensive, the slow it provided already made it an extremely effective item for long term duration fights. In this season, this is serves as the new Rabadon's Deathcap not for the ap of course, but as one of the items that some mages actually rush. Besides Annie especially with her new kit, this is more potent on other champions say Malzahar.

Play Video
This is a video of one of my gameplays for Annie for this season. I am not going to claim I'm the best or "this is what you should built, play....etc". This is just to give a perspective of how this champ can be played and to show lower elo and beginners from this game how they can improve their playstyle with this champ

Things to note
-I usually buy a pink if I can in order to provide vision to both my team and myself
-Picks fights you should obviously win(this is something that people say is easy, but rarely follow especially those in rank)
-Build accordingly: For this match up, I rush luden's echo since most of Ahri's damage was from her skillshots. In essence, if she cannot land her spells, I have a great chance of survival and winning the game
-Watch the map, when enemy is taking dragon, take note of it if they are healthy, if herald is taken, shift to the dragon side to decrease your chances from being ganked that side, simple as that

This guide is still a work in progress. For those who are familiar with my guild on Cho'Gath, you should know this is yet to be completed. I believe I have already cover most of the mid match ups you will see. Although there are probably more, I will leave it at that for now and focus on itemization which is even more important. Please excuse the excess of time required.

-Please support the release of a girl and her bear.