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Recommended Items
Spells:
Ignite
Flash
Items
Ability Order
Pyromania (PASSIVE)
Annie Passive Ability
Introduction

Hello there. I'm SteppenKat and I'm a mildly competitive League of Legends player. I'm currently Silver I in EUW. If you're here it means that you're looking for a noob-friendly ![]()
By no means I'm despising in-depth guides: it's just that this guide isn't meant for competitive play, just for casuals who want some tips. |
The basic things you should know about
Annie
Pros
+ Noob-friendly and easy to learn, compared to the average AP Carry. + Great AA range (625), one of the best of the game. + Superb burst potential and deceiving tankiness due to usual build options and ![]() + Hard CC, both clickable and AoE (with passive). + Her roaming potential is very high (important for success in SoloQ). + She has few negative match-ups contrary to popular belief, making her a very safe pick. |
Cons
- Her skillset range is rather short compared to most of the AP mid roster. - She doesn't have any repositioning tool (no dash/blink). - She's a combo-reliant burst mage, making her skillset less effective against HP stacking. - The previous reasons forces her to depend a lot in ![]() - She's a little girl, so no sexy skins. - Goth Annie is exclusive to Digital Pack Collectors. EXCLUSIVE! |


If you're new to League of Legends or to the AP Carry role, I sincerely advise you to start with


Breakdown: Quick Analysis of Annie's Kit
She has hard CC with




Her burst damage is incredible, one of the bests of the entire game. An average-fed





Annie's basic weakness is the short range of her abilities. This forces you to build some early tankiness by picking up



The ninja-


Ability Explanation
-
Pyromania: This is one of the best passives of the entire game and what makes
Annie hard to balance. You gain
Pyromania stacks with each spell you cast. After 4 casts, your next spell will be empowered and deal stun.
Molten Shield doesn't burn
Pyromania's charges once collected, so you can keep using it.
This passive is more effective in duels when you use it withDisintegrate since there will be no chance to miss your opponent unless he has some kind of skill that makes him/her untargetable (like
Playful / Trickster or
Blade Waltz). In teamfights, however, its more useful when combined with
Summon: Tibbers as it will make Tibbers deal extra damage with his AoE aura for the duration of the stun without taking any himself.
-
Disintegrate (Q): This is a clickable medium-range, single-target nuke that refunds its mana cost if you use it to last-hit. Max it second as you benefit more from
Incinerate 90% of the time. You can use it to poke along with AAs or just to last-hit (a better option in early lanephase).
-
Incinerate (W): This is a short-range damage cone that deals a huge amount of damage to all enemies within. As previously stated, its mostly a waveclearing tool during the laning phase and a good harass skill in close quarters.
-
Molten Shield (E): This skill, at first, doesn't look very useful. Its a shield that doesn't mitigate burst damage (as it doesn't give temporary HP), though it boosts your defensive stats and deals damage each time you get hit by an auto-attack. It's more advantageous against AA DPS champions rather than casters for this reason. In lane, you usually want to use it to mitigate some poke and to gain
Pyromania stacks.
I'll talk aboutPyromania's synergy with this skill later on.
-
Summon: Tibbers (R): You land an AoE nuke that summons a huge bear pet in the spot. Tibbers can be controlled by using the Alt Tab like
Shaco's
Hallucinate. He deals AoE damage each second when he's on melee range, making him very useful in duels. As an ultimate skill, the nuke damage is very good and its overall a good skill.
Along with other unconventional uses, Tibbers can block skills such asAce in the Hole or
Javelin Toss. He has a leash range and he'll port back next to you the very moment he steps out of it.
Ability Sequence Order
Even though ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Summoner Spells: A Song of Fire and
Flash
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() |
![]() ![]() ![]() |
Runes
Greater Quintessence of Ability Power: Flat AP is useful during the laning phase as it boosts all your abilities. You can switch them between
Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed if you're facing heavy skill-shot dependent opponents and you can't dodge them effectively (
Nidalee,
Xerath)
- greater mark of hybrid penetration: Why not
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration instead? Because these runes take advantage of your auto-attack range, which is fairly good compared to others. Remember that
Caitlyn has 650 AA range!
AA-poke is very efficient in the early-game, since you don't need mana to harass and usually as Annie, you can't 100-0 with your burst before your opponent is already chunked down. Those who are weak against sustained poke (Kassadin,
Fizz,
Mordekaiser) will find your AA poke a lot more painful and annoying.
The opportunity cost between Hybrid Marks and Flat MPen is very low. You lose about 2 MPen (which is roughly 2% less damage in abilities) while gaining 8 ArPen (which gives you about 10% AA damage increase early on). It's a personal preference in all honesty, but you'll notice that with these runes, your AAs will hurt a lot more. And every little advantage you can gain in lane isn't a waste.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power: Scaling AP is the best stat offered by Glyphs. You can trade them for
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist if you face heavy burst-poke lanes (
Malzahar,
LeBlanc,
Fizz,
Zilean).
Greater Seal of Armor: These runes offer the best mitigation against AD Junglers (which are basically the average) and ranged AA poke from the enemy laners. They're basically overpowered and should be picked with any character, regardless of the lane you play. Though if you really struggle early on with mana management you can try
Greater Seal of Mana Regeneration.
Naughty Girls are Offensive (21/9/0)
![]() |
|
I usually go 21/9/0 because even though
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Since ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The Average
Annie Build
Item Sequence

Rod of Ages
2600

Rabadon's Deathcap
3500

Void Staff
3000

Zhonya's Hourglass
3250

Deathfire Grasp
3100

Sorcerer's Shoes
1100
![]() |
This is THE item for Annie. You shouldn't skip it as it gives everything she needs: sustain in lane, damage and beefiness to compensate her squishiness and short cast range. Catalyst the Protector is the best earlygame purchase you can make: since Season 3 started, it's cheaper and there's no reason to even buy ![]() |
![]() |
"So I heard that you like AP... Then here's some AP and extra AP, so you can build AP while building AP!" This is the damage multiplier item that will make you transition to mid/lategame better. The problem about AP is that it scales poorly the longer the game is, so extra scaling lets you cope up with it. You shouldn't rush it unless you are super ahead since you'll be really squishy without ![]() |
![]() |
After ![]() |
![]() |
This item allows you to survive any kind of burst focus, gives you some resistances and it's a wonderful bait tool in teamfights. It will enhance your survivability a ton if used properly and since ![]() |
![]() |
The tank-melting can-opener. This item gives a chunk of AP, some CDR (not really needed for ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Situational Purchases
You may want Kage's Lucky Pick when you need to roam a lot. Maybe you're losing lane hard, so it's not a bad idea to try to make plays elsewhere.






You should build














If you have a lategame comp and you think that your lane will be absolutely passive, with few chances to roam, it can be a good idea to build this since it will make your damage scale a lot more than with

ONLY, and I mean ONLY in this case, I would actually suggest building a



Summary: There is no such thing as the perfect build and you must take in account that each game is different and sometimes you have to skip or delay common purchases in order to improve your perfomance. Besides the core suggested (





Getting started: Champion Selection

There are several picks that synergize with

AD Carry:




Support:




Toplane:




Jungle:






Team comps that favor

Team comps that don't work so well with

Early-Game (Levels 1-5)

The early levels are mostly a level grinding fest for both sides.


Getting kills in this stage requires a great sense of opportunism, but before 6 it's harder to do so unless you get some help from your jungler.

Your main objective as

Examples of match-ups stronger than






Mid-Game (Levels 6-11)
I consider this to be the strongest phase for


Your combo is indeed stronger now and you can duel your laner most of the time. You should try to chunk them down first using





You should ask for blue buff whenever its available (usually at minute 7, 14 and so on) and roam to apply map pressure.


Your main objective as

Examples of match-ups stronger than





Frequently Asked Questions
This wouldn't be a proper guide if it didn't take in account player feedback and questions. In this sections I shall try to explain more in-depth anything related to my guide, and it shall be updated accordingly.
If you have a question, you can post it in the Comment Section. If it adds something new to the discussion you shall probably see it posted here.
Q: Why
Liandry's Torment? Annie is a burst mage, this is an item meant for poke mages.
A: Yes and no. While it's true that











Mind that I suggest



April 24, 2013 - Beta guide created and published. Fixed Glyphs (SAP instead of FAP). Added a couple of sections (Stages of the Game, FAQ) that shall be updated pretty soon.
April 25, 2013 - BBCode and format update in order to get less hate. Also rewritten a few chapters. Added Thanksgiving section.
April 26, 2013 - Fixed some more typos.
April 27, 2013 - Major updates. Rewritten some sections, added a question on FAQ, added Early-Game and Champion Selection information in Stages of the Game.
April 29, 2013 - Updated and revised item-path in cheat sheet. Removed
Barrier from Summoner Spells and put
Teleport instead. Updated Items and Stages of the Game chapters. Masteries revised and updated.
April 25, 2013 - BBCode and format update in order to get less hate. Also rewritten a few chapters. Added Thanksgiving section.
April 26, 2013 - Fixed some more typos.
April 27, 2013 - Major updates. Rewritten some sections, added a question on FAQ, added Early-Game and Champion Selection information in Stages of the Game.
April 29, 2013 - Updated and revised item-path in cheat sheet. Removed


// SPECIAL THANKS: Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.
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