The purpose of this build is to be a very effective baiting tank who can cause the enemy team individuals to over-commit, thus presenting an opportunity for the counter-commit with ae tibbers. With fast cooldowns and high ap values, you will be very effective at dishing out sustain damage, with bursts, and without dying more than an classic tank.

As this is a Bottom Lane/Support primary role, there will be a slight delay to fulfilling the tanky ap role until mid game. The use of refillable potions and the spellblade/frostfang is absolutely crucial to your gold farm and sustain in early laning. Frostfang, along with the utility tree mastery "Bandit"....will net you much gold for going into the mid game, upwards and over 1,000g.

The use of auto attacks, with Annie's far reaching range, will be your most commonly used way to farm gold with Frostfang and Bandit. Your spells will also trigger these effects, but it is advised to conserve your mana and keep your stun up to keep your enemy at bay until there is an exchange or engagement with enemy champions.

Skill progression should always be your W at level 1 (spammed at the beginning of the game to get your stun up at level 1, and hopefully unused until at least level 2). At level 2, if your stun has not been used, it is best to get rank 1 of your Q. If you have used your stun, and there is not much engagement, it is best to get your E (molten core). The reason for this is to recharge your stun without having to deal damage to lane minions, nor at the heavy cost of mana. Level 3 is always Q or E, whichever you did not get last time. From that point forward, order should be R, Q, E, W, with E and W being spread evenly. E should take precident over W in the even-upgrading of them.

The single largest "con" to this build with respect to Annie's usual role is that she will not be able to burst down enemy champions as effectively in the early game. But, being in the support role, this is not expected of the support role, and thus is not really a "true" con to playing Annie. Do not expect to make great plays in the early game. You will be playing support. It is your primary role until you get rabadon's.

The Pros:

1) Tanky as all get out, without having to overly invest in armor/magic resist items. Thus, being able to focus your itemization into health/ap without a sacrifice to overall damage. In this sense, molten core is a truly underrated skill.

2) Still insane burst damage and wombo combo potentials once you are solidly into the mid game.

3) Having Bond of Stone and Warmog's in the late game, you can effectively tank 8% of all the damage to your team, and recover from it quickly, thus bringing a huge snowball advantage, barrel rolling down to an enemy base after a team fight victory. No backing necessary. No minions to tank the turret after the fight? Let tibbers tank, and win where other teams would have had to turn back.

4) With cooldown runes, and ionian boots, there is no additional need to itemize CDR for good sustained damage.