Do you think that maybe Annie doesn't have the tools to deal with certain champs? or maybe that your playstyle needs to adapt against Elise?

One example would be that Xin can win a lot of lanes brutally, but it's best not to talk about what happens if you put him up against Jax.

Yeah, no. Why does it always have to be the burden of the player to overcome something poorly balanced? Can't we ever admit that something simply wasn't balanced properly?

My point is that it may not be poor balance and just a poor match up, those do exist. Or it could even be poor play, because i would say that Annie shouldn't have any trouble with Elise. Context is key here, particularly in the bottom lane.

Sometimes it comes down to kits rather than overpowered. Nasus does extremely well against anyone who relies on auto attacks. I've easily beat the tar out of Xins, Jaxs, just about any ADC, all using Nasus.

Is he overpowered? No, he just has an ability that is amazing against a certain class of champs.

I will confess it's hard to be objective about that. When I face a champ that's a very strong counter to my champ, it's really really hard to not immediately think "That's OP!" rather than say, "Dang, that counters me". I guess in a way though you could call it situationally OP. And I think for the most part, people are ok with that form of OP.

Yes that makes sense. The thing is that she is situationally OP a little too often, if we are to go on what everyone is saying. She fails against ultra-ranged characters, and fails against melee who have sustain. But then what about the remaining 80-90% of characters?

If LoL was perfectly balanced then we would expect each character to have, say, 33% to 50% of the rest of the characters who could outplay them consistently. Elise has 10-20%.

Again, in SR she's strong. That's what the balances are made for. In Dominion she owns for free. Dominion is the red-headed stepchild and it shows.

You mentioned hard counters. You didn't actually mention heroes that have room for outplaying her. And you're overstating her presence in dominion, using SR qq to justify it.

Jayce, Lux, Olaf, Eve outplay her. Supposedly, because I've never faced her as any of them.

Zed, and Fizz can, both of them being damage avoidance heroes like Elise herself.

Nunu takes a dump on her for most of the game, until she can actually sustain herself with her spiders and push out to keep control of the health points.

I wouldn't prefer to face Elise bot lane as Annie, but I've done it. She's tough but manageable. I never had that much trouble with her top. Note this is just my personal experience, maybe I haven't faced a WTFELISE player who would stomp on my cute little Annie face.