Hi this is Kquared2 and this is my guide on Anivia. Although I myself am not the best player out there, I've played a large amount of this champion learnt a lot of things that I hope to share with you guys and hopefully you guys will be able to get something out of it. This is my first guide so please don't flame and enjoy.

Anivia is a mid lane AP mage that is known for her unparalleled ability in controlling and zoning enemies, with her AOE and CC abilities. She has a lot of complex mechanics that can be difficult to master, but after playing her for a while you will find her to be a quite strong and enjoyable champion to play.

Pros

- Great wave clear past 6
- Good utility with cc
- High autoatttack range
- Passive that allows you to have a second chance
- Great disengage and engage with wall
- Low cooldown on ultimate
- Good burst
- Good mid to late game
- Teamfighting monster
- Fun to play

Cons
- Lack of mobility
- Vulnerable to hard CC, as you cannot pop the second part ofFlash Frost and Glacial Storm gets cancelled
- High mana costs that are difficult to control
- Reliant on Blue buff
- Flash frost is incredibly slow and difficult to hit.
- No escapes
- Difficult to master
- Difficult to CS with
- Weak before lvl 6

Normal


- Just like many other champions, flash is a must-take on Anivia. Flash can be used to escape, to engage, to secure kills and objectives, thus making it a versatile and useful summoner spell. It is specifically useful for Anivia as she does not have her own gap closers or escapes and is generally a quite immobile champion.


- Teleport is one of the other options of summoner spells that can be taken on Anivia. It allows you to increase your map pressure and help out teammates by teleoporting to their lanes to gank or to countergank. It can also allow you to back and return back to lane without missing too much farm, or to pick up early items. Overall, a solid pick for Anivia. It is also important to note that the teleport channel does not stop when you go from your bird form to your egg form - this can help you get out of a lot of sticky situations.


Situational



- Ghost is useful, especially for such an immobile champion such as Anivia. You can run it if you are confident enough to play without other summoner spells, or think the movement speed will be essential looking at the team compositions.


- Pick ignite if you are looking for early kill pressure in lane and know that you will be able to pick up some kills early game. Also can take when up against a team with lots of healing e.g. Vladimir.


- Take this spell if you know that you are able to use it in the right times. Also only take when the enemy team, especially the mid laner has a lot of hard cc that will lock you down.

- Take this summoner spell when you are not feeling very confident that you will be able to survive against assassins e.g.Zed or ]Talon

NOTE: The runes mentioned above are not the only runes that can be taken on Anivia. However these runes are probably going to be the safest runes that will work against most matchups.

Arcane comet for Anivia is the best out the three keystones for the sorcery path. When the comet strikes, it will mostly because you either hit your Q or your R on them, meaning that their movements will be impaired, guaranteeing a definite hit of the comet. This will add to your damage overall and can do a large amount of damage throughout the game.


This one is quite tricky. Some people would prefer manaflow band over ultimate hat, as it gives Anivia some more sustain in her laning phase, before she buys her mana items. However, manaflow band becomes a lot less useful in the mid to late game, where you already have enough mana and mana regen in order to use your abilities and the one free mana ability every 60 seconds barely has an impact on your game. This is why Ultimate hat is better, and at extreme late game, you can bring you can bring your ultimate down to almost 2 seconds. It also reduces the cooldown in the mid game, and it is extremely easy to stack the max of 5 cooldowns quickly due to the nature of your ultimate. This reduced cooldown allows you to easily cancel and reposition your ultimate when it is not in the best place that it could be in.


This rune is good on Anivia, due to her lack of mobility, any extra movement speed is always welcome. The AP is also an added bonus.


Gathering storm is a great rune on Anivia, who greatly benefits from the AP in later part of the game. As she already gets a power spike during the mid game, this added AP bonus at 10 minutes can help strengthen the already powerful mid-to-late game of Anivia.


Free boots. Take them.


The biscuit delivery rune is nice on Anivia. Even before preseason, I always ran the biscuit mastery - the added mana regen and health regen feels so good on Anivia, a squishy champion that uses a tonne of mana in the early game. The added permanent mana also synergizes well with Anivia's kit.


Some other options that you can consider...


Going the full inspiration tree and running kleptomancy is a tactic that you can use on Anivia. However, this should only be used against a champion that you know that you will be able to consistently harass with your auto attacks and e to get the full value out of the rune. But right now, the rune is really strong, so definitely a viable option.


Going the full domination tree, with electrocute and cheap shot, is also another viable option that provides you with more burst damage. However, this means that you lose out on a lot of the utility that you can get from going to sorcery / inspiration tree.

Doran's ring is the most viable starting item, probably bought by most AP mages as their first item. Although some people might want to start dark seal or mana crystal, Doran's ring is probably the best way to go - it gives you the most stats (AP, health and mana regen) and the mana regen passive is really helpful for Anivia.


The core item of Anivia - you don't see a lot of Anivias that don't run tear of the goddess in their item build. It is perfect for Anivia, giving you that much needed mana and mana regen. Should be bought as your first or second item, as stacking it early is really beneficial.


Eventually, in the late game, your tear would have been upgraded to Archangel's, and then seraphs. Seraphs is an amazing item on Anivia, giving her tonnes of mana, AP and an active shield that can help you survive in fights.


The age old question. Do you take your early Catalyst of Aeons and build it into a ROA or Hextech GlP? There is no definite best answer. ROA definitely gives you better stats, with full stacks giving you 500 hp, 100ap and 400 mana. However if you want the early game power spike, taking Hextech GLP for the extra active damage and no need to stack is an option. However, the safest way - and the most common way is to just build a ROA.


Zhonya's hourglass is another item that is common for Anivia to build. It is a must have against ad assassins, as the invulnerability will help you from being bursted down. You also get a substantial amount of AP and armour that is good too. You can rush seeker's armguard against some AD assassins such as Zed for some more survivability in lane.


Rabadons is not an essential item to build on Anivia, but if you get to late game and you want some extra AP burst, then Rabadons can definitely be a good item to pick up.


You will probably need a void staff at some point of the game, or else you will be doing no damage to tanks or other people that bought magic resist. Remember that everyone has basic magic resist, so even if people are not building that much MR, Void staff is a good item to pick up.


Pick up banshee's when you are up against a very bursty AP champion that will kill you very quickly if you do not have the MR that you get from banshee's. e.g.Leblanc


Liandry's torment is a solid item that you can choose to buy as Anivia, especially if the other team has a large amount of health stacking tanks such as Cho'gath.

Probably one of the hardest parts of playing Anivia is her laning phase. Before lvl 6, she is quite weak, and it is really easy to get pushed in and lose a lot of laning pressure. Before 6, it is really hard to push the wave, as your only form of pushing is your Q, which has a high mana cost and a long cooldown. So before 6, your main goal is to try not to die, and farm as well as you can.

If you are confident in your skills, or you think the other person is not good at dodging your Qs, then it is ok to look for the early kill. Anivia'sQ and E together, does a huge amount of damage, so if you hit the Q two or three times, with ignite and auto attacks, it is a easy kill. But Anivia's Q is one of the slowest abilities in the game, so it is quite easy to dodge. Here are some tips for hitting your Q.

The most basic advice for hitting your skillshots is to use them when your enemy is farming. Throwing your Q right when they are about to last hit a minion, especially a cannon, can mean that they will have a lot less time to dodge your Q, and even if they do, they will probably miss the minion.

Another way to increase the chance of hitting the Q is another very basic method that can be helpful. Before you Q, start winding up your auto attack, so your wing moves back as if to just do a normal autoattack, but right before using your auto attack, use Q. This gives the opponent less time to react to your ability, as he would be expecting a normal autoattack.

Anivia, if played right, can be amazing in teamfights and can shred entire teams.

Your main role in teamfighting is just setting down your ultimate in an area, that enemies would normally go into or are already in. When teamfights occur, there are many times people will ignore your ultimate, and this can do a huge amount of damage. Try to use your wall in order to split their team up, and isolate certain people. You can also use your wall to block off escape routes or to disengage and block off the people trying to kill you. So basically in teamfights, place your ultimate down where the most people would stand on it, throw your Q and attempt to stun a squishy target in your ultimate and if you think that it is safe enough chuck an E at people that are close to you. It is important to be positioned behind most of your team during this time, and your ultimate and Q has a large range that allows you to do so.

Your positioning is one of the most important parts of your teamfights. You have to be at a certain range where you are close enough to keep your ultimate up, but far away enough so you don't just get killed.

Because the Q is so easy to dodge without anything else, it is not the best option to just chuck a Q and hope for the best to go in. Instead think of using these combos.

The R-W-E-Q-E

This combo might take a while to get used to. Begin by placing your ultimate on the target champion, preferably so that they are in the middle. Throw an E if they are in range, but if they are attempting to run out of the ultimate, place a wall to specifically block off the path that they were running to. Now it is a lot easier to hit your Q, as they will be slowed by your ultimate, and they can only walk in two directions, the two ways around your wall. After hitting your Q, throw another E, and this will add up to a huge amount of damage, most likely picking you up a kill.

The Q-W

This is another difficult combo to pull off. You start by simply throwing your Q at the target champion, which means that they will obviously attempt to dodge it. While they are moving in a certain direction to dodge it, place your wall on them, but in a way that would push them towards, not away, from your Q. This is extremely difficult and requires pinpoint accuracy, but it can reward you with a free Q, which you can follow up with the rest of your abilities.