I know people say she is easy, but I just can't get the hang of her. The champions I have played before her with some success are Fiddlesticks and Zilean.

I think a big part of the problem with her I have is first off, survivability. Fiddlesticks can lock someone down for nearly five seconds of a fight, WHILE putting out decent damage (make that DEVASTATING damage in the earlygame) AND healing himself. Zilean doesn't even have to be on their screen to be doing damage when I get tossin' clocks like Flavor Flav, and if I accidentally go to far, I can pop back up like Jesus and sprint out like a fat man to his breakfast (the fastest four steps you will ever see!). To counter Annie's lack of survivability, I start with a Sapphire Crystal and two health potions and rush for a Catalyst the Protector. Then I begin working on my Sorceror's Shoes. At this point, my teammates are *****ing at me because I'm not putting out insane burst damage (I think because I work on Molten Shield before Incinerate?), so I go finish up Rod of Ages to increase my survivability more and put out a bit more damage. At this point, the game usually ends.

Another problem I am having with Annie is her stun. I find I have trouble keeping track of it unless I count it off out loud. My teammates usually don't take advantage of it (sometimes they aren't in a position to, others they just fail and let it go). I feel it is just to short compared to Fiddlestick's Terrify and Dark Wind, and the stun symbol over their head probably isn't as obvious as it should be for some people.

Could Annie just not be the character for me, or is there some way I can get her the survivability/support ability I want, AND keep my teammates off my ass with some decent damage?

PS I hear Twisted Fate is a crazy harasser, and I am getting a bit knocked up by him. Should I make an effort not to lane against him?

First of all, if you aren't already you need to be using disintigrate to last hit creeps. You get your mana refunded everytime you kill a minion and you can farm really fast this way. I see tons of people playing Annie who either don't realise this or just think it's good to stand there storing a stun for 5 years even if they might not be using it any time soon. Another thing, to check the progress on your stun buff you can highlight the buff icon and it will tell you how close to the stun you are.

I personally go for boots / 3 health pots as my starting items, which I personally believe is a really viable starting option in LoL. The only problem with this is it's not going to really help you in the level 1 team fights. Where it does help you is getting off those early stuns on your opponents because they tend to play like scared chickens any time they see the buff on you. Catalyst is a good choice but I don't ussually rush it, however with a starting saph geting it as your first item is probably the best choice. I always always aim to have a rod of ages by mid-game with annie, no exceptions if I don't have it I was doing something seriously wrong that game.

Often when I get the stun on annie I'll run right past my creeps, and the enemy will ussually run from you. If you're in a dual lane obviously your team mate is going to have to cooperate with this or you'll be one very dead annie. After this stay behind the creeps and attack from their side. If they want to come back and farm they're going to have to eat your stun. Obviously there are situations or enemy heroes you won't want to do this against, but Annie with a stun up (especially when shes level 6) can basically instagib most enemy heroes early game if you have an ignite. Really it's all about aggresiveness and doing more damage to them then they can do back to you. This is how Annie survives, she survives because no one can survive taking her full level 6 combo this early in the game.

Edit: Oh and DON'T bother with molten shield AT ALL early game. Annie needs to blow stuff up, thats how she survives. If you're putting points in molten shield you won't be able to blow things up as easily. With just disintegrate last hitting creeps and incin you'll be procing your passive a lot. Don't get it until later game as using it early game is just wasting mana and skill points you could place elsewhere.

The build you're describing is a fine starting build. But yeah, while you do want one point in Molten Shield early on, don't level it past that first rank until your other abilities are maxed.

Annie will do fine early/mid game without much AP investment, and if you're not already taking it, Ignite helps a lot for the early kills. I go,

1. Incinerate/Disintegrate (depends on if there's likely to be a level 1 teamfight)
2. Disintegrate/Incinerate
3. Molten Shield
4. Incinerate
5. Disintegrate
6. Tibbers!
7. Incinerate
8. Disintegrate

And so on from there. Incinerate has better returns from rank, so it's generally the better choice to level, but if you're having a lot of problem with survivability, you may want to prioritize Disintegrate so you're more effective at range.

Melonyan, I do a lot of farming with Disintegrate early on. I run out of mana trying to harass the enemy early on without a Crystal, and people whine when I don't harass, so that is why I have been getting it. Also, I know that you can highlight it, but it just feels clunky to do so midfight. It really should say on the buff icon or something. I don't sit on a stun, I'd rather waste it and earn an extra hundred gold than do nothing. I often just ignore it completely, and pretend it is an onhit proc. "Oh, a stun? Well isn't that nice...GO TIBBERS GO!"

Lack of Incinerate is probably the problem for me. I have been doing this.

1. Disintegrate
2. Molten Shield
3. Disintegrate
4. Molten Sield
5. Disintegrate
6. TIBBERS!!!!
7. Disintegrate
8. Incinerate

And then max out Disintegrate, then Incinerate with Tibbers as he comes up, and finish Molten Shield last. I suppose I need to stop at rank one Molten Shield though, rather than two, and move it back to my level 4 skill.

For Summoner Spells, I use Ghost and Exhaust as I did with Fiddlesticks.

And Melonyan, I get the WORST luck with teams in soloqueueing. I can't rely on them worth a ****, 80% of the time. My ELO is in the ****per, and I am getting matched with ****ty teammates as I should be...but the enemy team is significantly LESS ****ty for some reason. Nobody great, but less bad than my team. And the enemy won't "play like scared chickens" because they kinda suck. They will be aggressive no matter what, and push me to my turret hard. Maybe with Incinerate, I can turn them right around and kick their butts back to the shop?

The biggest problem for you is probably your skill build and summoner spells. Always take ignite on Annie, with a full stun combo at level 6 and an ignite basically any enemy hero is going to die even if they're full hp.

I seriously build my annie just getting disin then incin, and of course her ult at 6. I don't get her shield until mid-game, ussually around level 11+ when I have tear and a ton of mana to blow casting incin and molten shield just to get my stuns up faster.

Also I don't really bother harassing much unless I can get a kill with my ally, and/or I have a stun up. Harass a bit to keep some lane control, but definately watch your mana. Remember you can use your normal attacks for some extra damage when harassing too, especially after a stun.( don't sit there and trade hits with it, though im sure you know that much ) You need your mana to drop your full combo as soon as the opportunity arises. If you're herassing yourself out of mana thats another problem.

Also, don't worry about doing the past-their-creeps stun pressure thing if you can't trust your ally or you don't have a lot of hero experience. You have to know the in and outs of your hero, your lane partners, and those your facing. Sometimes even the opponents talents or item choice can affect the outcome of an aggresive play like this(basically any talents/items that add +hp = bad for you). You also have to be able to trust your partner not to screw up, and to especially not just leave you standing there alone looking stupid and dead.

If you're solo or you're laned with someone reliable it can be a great way to completely shut your lane down. They have to choose between only farming when pushed next to their tower or to feed you the kills you should be craving for playing Annie. Basically it's the kind of extreme aggressive play that Annie is capable of but never stop thinking, you can't do this all the time. Really the reason I mentioned this is a testament to my belief that "Annie survives because her enemies are dead."

http://leaguecraft.com/strategies/gu...%20Jail%20Bait

1. (W) Incinerate
2. (Q) Disintegrate
3. (Q) Disintegrate
4. (E) Molten Shield
5. (Q) Disintegrate
6. (R) Summon: Tibbers
7. (W) Incinerate
8. (W) Incinerate
9. (W) Incinerate
10. (W) Incinerate
X1. (R) Max Summon: Tibbers
X2. (Q) Max Disintegrate
X3. (E) Max Molten Shield

you get molten shield for stun counter only. you never allow yourself to get attacked unless you can kill them first.

every hero is easy to play poorly. playing it well is difficult. annie has a lot of quirks. she is relatively easy because you don't have to multi-task like anivia or twisted fate.

if you get good with her, you have to learn to waste spells in order to charge up counter as well as keep track of counter without diminishing your judgement during combat. it's not that easy.

if you can tell me you do that perfectly, then you're a pro annie.

plus, annie is one of those characters that is pretty good at soloing golem/dragon/etc. not everybody is good with wards. even in high elo games, roughly half the players are great with wards and the other half rarely use them.

if you rock the clairvoyance, it takes a lot of time before you use it well.

annie also has some visual related glitches where auto-attacking right after a spell increases her range by a lot.

farming with annie requires a bit of timing with disintegrate. you can play annie without farming heavily but getting the timing right, switching between auto-attacks for efficient farming is also something that takes skill. annie's delayed auto-attacked causes problems when farming for beginner annies.

so if you ignore all these factors, annie seems easy. but to get it all right isn't very easy.