[2023] 13.2 Annie Improvements

To answer some quick FAQs:

Why buff things other than burst? Isn't that what Annie is about? While I agree that Annie's primary output is her burst, further improving it after durability update was not my immediate direction for buffs. The general philosophy of buffing all burst characters after durability patch is a suspicious one, to start, and being conscious of how much we "undo" the wins of that is valuable. In addition, the QoL areas we targeted here instead are long-term problems with Annie's design that pre-dated the durability patch. If she continues to not succeed (because he burst isn't high enough) then we can readdress it.

Doesn't this make her "all about tibbers?" I believe that improving Tibbers durability doesn't suddenly make Annie about Tibbers, but instead brings him into line with other ultimate-based pets. This was likely just an overdue change that should have been included long ago.

Annie isn't a burst mage anymore! What's up with that!? Comparing Annie's burst to other mages, she continues to have among the best AOE burst, but could be improved some long-term.

1. Annie Level 11 AOE: 435 + 160% AP

2. Leblanc: 535 + 135% AP

3. Syndra (If you hit Q in AOE): 435 + 185% AP

4. Veigar: 440 + 160% AP

With that said, the feedback is heard 100% and would likely be a place to put power in the future. In this pass we are prioritizing areas that have been below the bar for satisfaction up until this point.

She is the weakest as far as raw damage goes on that list, but also has the widest AOE of those 4. Annie flash R->W is more damage in most real cases than any of those examples due to being able to hit 3+ champions in some cases, which rarely-to-never happens with the other champions in these examples.

I agree, and I originally went on this crusade to do a larger midscope. The main issue was finding a direction that resolved some of her "health" problems (like her being weaker without flash, but insane with it), without making her a champ people didn't recognize and/or making her more difficult. So with that context, until we find some direction that stays true to Annie and everyone can enjoy, smaller lists like this are more likely to be successful.

Sure I can try to fix this, no promises though as I don't want to put in a jank solution that makes it worse.

I'll look into it though for sure

Yeah I just checked the scripts and it's a nightmare. I'm gonna do some more digging to figure out if there's a less "spaghetti code" way for me to personally fix this bug, and if not, then I may have to pass it to engineers to be fixed down the line. Inhibs and Nexuses just don't play nice with pets fundamentally.

At 46% ultimate CDR he is already effectively 100% uptime. I don't think moving the needle matters much.

If I were to do a change in this direction, I would target Tibbers duration rather than cooldown, reducing how often you can cast R but letting tibbers live longer.

With that said, likely to not hit it on this pass due to trying to keep it as simple as possible in terms of lines of changes.