Annie is getting some love in League of Legends Season 13, with Riot priming durability and crowd control buffs to give the Dark Child a fighting chance in the mid lane against all matchups.
Annie is a simple mid laner, but that simplicity has been harming her in some capacity in League of Legends Season 13. While she has high burst damage and target lockdown, her durability has suffered with the meta change, and she isn’t winning even her most favored match-ups.
As of LoL patch 12.23, Annie has a win rate of around 49.49% in the mid lane, with a minuscule 1.35% pick rate. She’s unpopular and not succeeding in Season 13 so far, so Riot wants to give her some love as the ranked season kicks off.
Coming in LoL patch 13.2 later in January, developers are giving her some extra utility to help her in melee matchups, where she should thrive with her crowd control and high burst damage.
“Annie has been struggling to convert wins, even when matched against primarily melee mid laners she should be advantaged into,” developer Ray ‘Ray Yonggi’ Williams told players on January 5.
“Overall looking to give her buffs in ways that mitigate pain points around spending mana to generate passive, Tibbers lifetime, and E usability.”
For 13.2 I'll be implementing some Annie Improvements. Overall looking to give her buffs in ways that mitigate pain points around spending mana to generate passive, Tibbers lifetime, and E usability. This should be reflected on PBE in the next few days. pic.twitter.com/RzagOXhPLf
— Ray Williams (@RiotRayYonggi) January 5, 2023
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Her passive stun, Pyromania, will now be automatically refreshed at game start and respawn. No longer do you have to build it up on the first wave, or take W in case of an invade, you can have a stun for free at Level 1.
Her E, Molten Shield, will also be undergoing another slight rework. Its shield potency will be increased, and will reflect all damage, not just auto attacks. The reflect will also be increased significantly, but can only proc once per target, per shield.
Finally, Tibbers will be tankier with AP scaling added to his health and resists, while using Molten Shield when Tibbers is on the Rift will let the damage reflect activate twice.
Some players questioned the stun changes, wondering why she gets it on game start and respawn, but not on recall. There is a specific reason for this, according to Williams.
“The reason is mainly because I didn’t want to think of the niche ways this can be abused. It’s likely fine to make it work that way, but I figured if you were recalling anyway, spamming your spells in base while regen-ing to get stun back is fine.”
The changes will be bundled into League of Legends patch 13.2, due for release later in January after the first update of the year goes live on January 10.
