Ever since the League of Legends 6.23 patch, a vocal group of Anivia players have claimed that they simply cannot play the champion anymore. While a bit of an overstatement for some, the merit still rings true that Anivia is now a harder champion to play. This can cause a lot of frustration as Anivia was already considered to be one of the higher skill-ceiling champions in the game, requiring you to not fall behind too far in the early game while landing unique and teamfight-changing walls in the late game.

However what these changes targeted was her simple combo of Glacial Storm (R) into Frostbite (E), which beforehand was her main source of damage on her easiest combo. What they nerfed specifically was the ability to proc her E off of an ultimate that has yet to reach its full radius, while they also nerfed the double E proc on targets that were touched by her Flash Frost (Q) but not stunned by it. While frustrating to have to adapt to, it is important to understand that Anivia is still able to execute maneuvers and strategies that didn't rely on that combo to begin with, and most importantly from a game design standpoint the combo was very unhealthy and too difficult to balance around. Luckily for Anivia players, they also halved the time it takes for her ultimate to reach maximum radius while also lowering the cooldowns on her wall, Crystallize (W) and her E to help you play around the new changes. In this article we will talk about the nature of her combos, her playstyle and what is still the same about her.

When we look at Anivia's main combos, we can traditionally look at her QE and her RE/ER. Her QE is a much more healthier combo- since her Q is a slow-moving skillshot, the reward for landing the stun means that you are able to proc the empowered targeted E, which does a lot of damage as a result. However, if we look at her RE combo, it punishes opponents just for being close to Anivia with very little reliable counterplay. When you take into consideration that her ultimate doesn't even have a cast time, this is very unhealthy from a game design standpoint but understandable if Anivia players liked to abuse it before it was changed. Taking into consideration the previous aforementioned buffs as well, the goal of these changes is to mold Anivia's pattern more towards locking people into her ultimate with the wall so that she can eventually get the double damage on the E.

Luckily for Anivia players, this is possible at all ranks in wall, as a well-placed wall will keep opponents in the ultimate long enough for it to reach its max radius, therefore allowing you to get the proc off. You can also get the stun down to hold them in place. Something worth noting about the ultimate change however is that her base damage and AP ratios have gone down for the first 1.5 seconds of the channel before reaching its full damage at maximum radius- This change actually makes the item Liandry's Torment more efficient as you are still getting the slow and burn down for each tick of damage and compensates for the damage you otherwise would've had for those first few ticks, however keep in mind it is still not the greatest of items to get if your targets aren't that tanky or if you haven't completed your mana items.

While on the topic of walls, here are some quick protips about landing walls: Try to keep your wall connected to some form of terrain if you can to act as an extension sticking out of it. In most cases this will force your opponent to either have to use a gapcloser to hop over it, or run in a single straight direction which makes landing your stun drastically easier (Blue side, but the idea is easily executed on both side):

Another protip about landing good walls is when you are chasing an enemy through a chokepoint. It is most common for Anivia players to just use the wall to completely close off the chokepoint. This is very good if the enemy does not have any gapcloser or flash, and while it is still a victory to burn a flash, there is another way to put down the wall which increases your likelihood of getting a kill and that is to use the wall to only cover up most of the chokepoint. In case your enemy flashes, this still gives you the opportunity to walk around the wall and secure the kill. In this cough maximum resolution photo, the blue line represents the wall while the red line represents your target's path to survival.

But without looking at the raw mechanical ability of Anivia, let's look at what her playstyle is generally supposed to be around- she is very good at waveclearing and the disengage. Therefore having overly reliable poke damage in lane (especially one that could chunk a squishy target for half health at almost all stages of the game) is a bit overkill. But when you are playing a disengage playstyle, the idea is that you are supposed to play on the defensive but punish people for trying to approach you and trade with you while still kiting backwards. If an enemy tries to trade with you the idea is generally to land a stun or wall off their escape before laying down your ultimate. The order of stunning and then walling them off, or walling them off and then stunning is entirely dependant on the context of the champion you are facing, as well as where on the map this interaction is taking place. However typically, your queue to put down the wall behind an enemy is when you are ready to stop kiting backwards and re-engage. Otherwise, you are putting your wall down to disengage and move away from the attacker to end the exchange- laying down your RE immediately isn't going to cut it anymore. At the very least you'll be putting down some soft cc and some damage, but if you open up with your ultimate it is still imperative that you use any of your other abilities to line up that satisfying chunk of double E damage. You are still free to try to initiate your own trades without waiting for someone to deal damage to you, but keep in mind the nature of being vulnerable to damage being returned to you while your abilities are on cooldown.

As far as the rest of Anivia's kit is concerned, she hasn't really been affected. She still has tools that punish both individuals and groups for overstepping against her and she still has her annoying and bait tool egg form passive. She still has mana-dependant item builds and she still has very reliable waveclear. You have to remember that lane phase and trading is not the true decider in most games and that you are not picking Anivia just for the early game. If you aren't picking Anivia just for fun, then you are picking her because you want to minimize and stop any potential snowball from the enemy team while providing good peel for your backline. You also have to remember that League of Legends is a team game and being able to deal damage to enemies is not the only role Anivia needs to be fulfilling in order to help her team pick up a win. She can still peel very well between her stun, wall and ultimate, and her wall is still make-or-break in many teamfights. Most Anivia players have come into the 6.23 patch recognizing quickly that most of her gameplay patterns are typically still the same and that she can still be a deadly asset to any team composition, especially once lane phase is over.

It can take some getting used to, depending on your own abilities whether it is your game knowledge, mechanical skill or previous experience on Anivia, but if your love for the bird still shines brightly, she is still very playable. Hopefully you can adapt to this change and show the world that the Freljord will not submit so easily!

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