1. Introduction
I'm writing this guide mainly because I know some point in the future, Anivia will be a free champion for a week and people will start to queue-dodge me because of all the beginners being horrible. While I cannot guarantee you to get scores as 10-0-11 or 5-0-5 every game, I can sort-of guarantee you'll never get a negative score. You may think of me as a k/d-*****, only caring about kills, but this is not the case. Yes, I care about my Anivia stats but I don't die and get kills by 'running away from teamfights and killstealing'.
Anivia is horrible at solo-play, and you should never not be around at least two others unless the game is still at it's 'laning-phase'. Take this rule as the law, and throw yourself in jail if you do not abide it. I will try my best to explain to you how to win most matches, while not dieing, while getting tons of kills of which most are your responsibility and still be the greatest team player that game. Basically, being awesome.
I will cover most things that are relevant, explain you how to solo mid and which champions Anivia is great at laning with. Let us move on to descriptions of her abilities and how to best use them.
2. Summoner Abilities
I highly recommend you to take Clarity. Generally, earlygame, you should be spending mana at the same rate as your cooldown is on Clarity. Before level 6, your not doing a massive ton of damage (this does not mean you can't get any kills, hell no.) so you might aswell just play it safe and be gentle.
The second skill is up to you. Either Ignite and kill off those pesky runners, or Flash and make some awesome moves with it. It's great for survival, too. You may think all your abilities are great for survival, but they won't let you get away from like a 4v2. Flash might do that though. I therefor recommend Flash.
UPDATE: While I find Flash quite the must, but I've been playing with Clairvoyance a little bit. Having someone on the team get Clairvoyance is a great bonus to map control. It's quite interesting on how I'm not missing Clarity. I used to play my game as such, that I'd spend my mana with the knowledge I can use my Clarity for more fuel. Instead, I'm being slightly more conservative with the added bonus of seeing a large plot of the map, including brush, every 50 seconds or so. It's awesome. I might try Ignite instead of Clairvoyance just to test, stay tuned. I feel so stupid to never have switched around my summoner spells. I have tried to play once without Flash. It was horrible.
3. Abilities
Rebirth
On dying, Cryophoenix will revert into an egg. If the egg can survive for six seconds, she is gloriously reborn.
You can see how far you are from being reborn by a blue orb coming down. The cooldown is ~4 minutes, remember this as well as you remember you have five fingers on each hand. You play AGGRESSIVE when you have it, you play DEFENSIVE when you do not. This is one of the reasons why your always near someone. He can help you when your defenseless, the egg is a great lure. You are ALWAYS either safe or guaranteed a kill when your near a tower. They cannot kill your egg and survive the tower's damage at the same time.
Flash Frost
Anivia brings her wings together and summons a single piercing lance of ice that flies towards her opponents, chilling and damaging anyone in its path. When the lance explodes it does moderate damage in a radius, stunning anyone in the area.
I can write a book on how to properly use this. At levels 1-4, don't waste your mana trying to hit champions, your frostbite isn't strong enough yet to follow up with and your just going to waste your Clarity. The stun on explosion is supreme, and is one of abilities you have to run away from danger. The range is huge, and it's larger than the circle. Keep in mind that the edge of the radius is not the maximum range of where you can hit stuff. The explosion radius makes it even larger. The best way to hit a target that's laning against you, be it mid or sides, is to not move. He's probably always kind-of in range of it. Just auto-attack away, and fire it so, that Anivia won't move forward, and scare them away. They generally won't react fast enough because they're watching your movements, not a blue orb of death that looks very much like the rest of your physical attacks. I will explain how to use this in correlation with Frostbite, your nuke, in the Frostbite part.
Use it to run away. When they're far or close, fire it and predict where to let it explode by pressing Q again. Chances are huge they'll be slowed and stunned for 0.75 seconds. You can even follow this up with a Frostbite while running away. You may think this is suicide, but think of it this way: he's chasing you, your running. You suddenly FlashFrost and Frostbite his face, taking off quite a bit of health. Do you think he will continue his pursuit? Your pretty much bluffing that your allies are near you, and before you know it, he's the one running. Do not pursuit yourself unless you have allies with you or it's a deathtrap.
Note that it does damage when it goes through things, and the explosion itself does the same amount of damage. Always let it explode behind your target for it to take double damage and have it get stunned.
One more trick on how to get a runner. If he's still up close, just fire it at where you think he'll be running at (such as towers or other allies). More often than not, your getting the kill because he went exactly where your Flash Frost did. It exploded in his face, and you just totally skillshotted his grotesque demeanor. Got carried away. On to Crystallize:
Crystallize
Cryophoenix condenses the moisture in the air into an impenetrable wall of ice to block the movement of her enemies. The wall only lasts a short duration before it melts.
At rank 1, a well placed wall can still block off the smaller paths, such are the small ones the river area has on Summoner's Rift. This ability is incredibly useful, mostly a lifesaver either for you or your allies. It can also mean death for the other, it is so much fun placing a wall in front of a running enemy, block him off and have his face pierced by millions of blades. Some tricks and tips:
How to use this when your running: place it exactly behind you and your enemy. To get this right, every pixel closer to your origin but not actually in front of you is better. If you do this in your enemies direction, but extremely close to you, you'll be bumped forward, giving you a minor speed boost. He of course will have to run around it, giving you valuable time to get away. The range on this is massive, and note that if a runner is really far away, placing it juuuust in front of him using your max range can even push him back. Follow up with a Flash Frost and let heads roll.
Remember that some champions cannot get through a blocked off path, while other, smaller champions, such as Teemo or Tristana, might still get through the small cranny. Take extra care when pursuing them, for you might just only block off your allies and let the enemy get away with it all.
The fun doesn't end here, you can also use this just to intimidate the enemy. More often than not, if your solely defending mid tower for example, and there are four attacking, fire off a wall at a random position in front of them and they'll instinctively run back a bit, giving you time.
Lastly, the wall is supreme for scouting and predicting ganksquads. Jab a wall in the brush, you can see who's hiding. Condense a wall in the jungle, see who's snooping around. If anyone's in there, follow up with Flash Frost and the grass blades won't be the only blades they see.
Frostbite
With a flap of her wings, Cryophoenix blasts a freezing gust of wind at her target, dealing a medium amount of damage. If the target has been slowed by an ice effect, the damage they take is doubled.
Ah yes, the nuke. With a flap of her wings, Cryophoenix melts faces and let's Death do his bidding. This ability is why people should fear you more than the Grim Reaper. The range may be short, but let that not get in your way. If you hit something at max range with Flash Frost, you can still catch up to him and Frostbite.
The damage is terrible without the target being chilled, therefor should only be used when everything is on cooldown and the enemy has 2 millimeter left on his healthbar. He might still even survive.
I'll get ahead of myself and also explain great combo's with Glacial Storm, but let's start with Flash Frost. As said previously, you can catch up with pretty much everything that's stunned by Flash Frost and hit him with Frostbite. It does nuke-tastic damage at rank 3 and above. Chilled means anything hit by Flash Frost (the snare or stun), Glacial Storm, Ashe's frost arrow or Volley, Nunu's Ice Blast and Frozen Mallet. Probably a few more things, too. The external sources of frost aren't too important, and it's more luck if you see an opening to use it without any of your own abilities.
When you have Glacial Storm up and multiple targets are chilled, pick the target that is of greatest threat. It's a no-brainer, but people still go for tanks and the like.
A great trick is, when a champion is in range of your Frostbite, to just fire and immediately pop Glacial Storm on his position. If done fast enough, he'll be nuked in the fastest way possible.
The cooldown is very short. When your in a fight, don't use Glacial Storm and Flash Frost at the same time. Having Frostbite up and the rest on cooldown is horrible. Don't go cooldown reductions for this reason, instead, time the abilities right so you can nuke stuff twice.
Glacial Storm
Cryophoenix summons a driving rain of ice and hail to damage her enemies and slow their advance.
The chill effect it brings is instant, so if you don't see the large circle of frost yet, the enemy is already chilled. Once your level 6, this is where you can now nuke as you please. A few tricks come with this ability, though I do want to specify something in bold letters first:
Do not forget to turn this off.
Anyways, Glacial Storm is horrifying to the enemy. You can use it to intimidate enemies attacking your tower in the same way as you intimidate them using Crystallize. Anything walking into it anyways should be Frostbitten to get the message. When your comfortable with you manapool, don't be afraid to keep it on a little longer than the usual second. Hell, try it out at level 10 or so, when your mana shouldn't be the largest problem anymore. See how fast your mana is drained, it's actually not that bad. Always pop it on anything that has low life, the slow effect is awesome and you might just get the killing blow. I know, cheap, but we all know that we care little.
The damage is quite hefty when your slightly fed. Add in a Flash Frost + Frostbite and they'll get the picture.
Always use it when your being pursued, the same way you'd use Flash Frost. Follow up with a Frostbite if it's not too much trouble. All your four abilities can be actually used to get away. This is a great asset on how to get 0 deaths. Flash Frost to stun and slow, Frostbite to scare him. Glacial Storm if he still didn't receive the message, wall off if you running in the jungle.
Glacial Storm has a hidden range. If you have it up, and your moving away, it'll deactivate if your too far. The range is about as far as the range on Flash Frost. A quick tip against Heimerdinger, use it to destroy his turrets. Pop it, run off, get to max range, wait, laugh. You may have to blue pill, but it's truly worth it.
Don't be afraid to use Glacial Storm against creeps if nothing interesting is going on. Add in Flash Frost and everything except those cannon minions should be dead. Frostbite those cannon minions, it doesn't cost a lot of mana. You may not realize, but your one of the fastest minion killers in the game. Large quantities can all be exhumed of life by a simple Glacial Storm.
Lastly, if you have chosen Flash, you can use the Frostbite/Glacial Storm combo and kill off a low-life enemy in mere seconds. He will run away if you move towards him, but he can't outrun Flash. Flash > Frostbite > immediate Glacial Storm. He should be dead and crying for overpoweredness. That, or accepting your professionalism.
4. Items
I religiously feel that every Anivia player not taking Boots of Speed (350g) first is making a big mistake. Anivia is, without boots, one of the slowest champion in the game. You cannot follow up your Flash Frost with a Frostbite without, at the start. Since Anivia is a great survivalist, I generally buy the boots and two Health Potions then wait until I get 1610 gold. I proceed to buy both Sorcerer's Shoes (750g) and Blasting Wand (860g). With these, and assuming you have not fed anything yet (you shouldn't die even once all game long in a perfect world), you are now a killing machine already. You can outrun most people, because not everyone goes for Movement 2+ this fast and your abilities penetrate about 90% of their resistances including the ~40 ability power gained. Use this advantage well, you might get kills and feed yourself. Get a Sapphire Crystal (400g) first, because your mana pool is indeed fairly saddening. Continue to get a Rod of Ages. Your doing good if you have it before the 20 minute mark.
The Rod of Ages is all you need for your survival. You can now happily go for mass ability power (and some mana).
UPDATE: I've tried also tried getting Mejai's Soulstealer (1235g) right off the bat, after my Boots of Speed. If you succeed in getting a few kills, I've been able to carry my way to victory. Do this with caution, because if you fail you'll be at a disadvantage.
UPDATE: I often find myself getting the Catalyst the Protector (1325g) first, continuing to Rod of Ages (1510g) before even getting Sorcerer's Shoes. While this does indeed impede on my ability to strike, it does increase my survivability by large amounts, which should also count for something. I advise you to get Catalyst when the enemy is playing aggressive, or has champions that you have a hard time with (such as Ashe or any silencing champions).
This is where you are at a crossroad. You can now either go for the endless mana pool, with Archangel's Staff, making your Clarity fairly obsolete. If your awesome, I recommend getting Mejai's Soulstealer. Follow either up with Zhonya's Ring. If your this far and the game is not over, get magic penetration, such as a Void Staff.
I bet a few of you are thinking items such as Lich Bane are great or Deathfire Grasp, but they are not. The range of Deathfire Grasp is the same as Frostbite. Getting in range for Frostbite is very dangerous, and you shouldn't stay in that range any longer than required. The cooldown is horrible, too. Lich Bane is a fair choice, but everyone always has more armor than they have magic resist. Your giving up some ability power to dangerously attempt to auto-attack something. In large teamfights, you don't want to stay longer in the fray for more than one second. You'll have to stay longer for your auto-attack. Had you gone for more ability power, your Flash Frost, Glacial Storm, Frostbite all do more damage instead of one attack you may or may not use, depending on the circumstances. Your just making it harder on yourself. Why would you make it harder on yourself? I'd recommend this only to masochists.
One last thing. Don't buy Mana Potion. 100 mana for 40 gold is never worth it. Your Flash Frost is about 90 mana. Is one Flash Frost worth 40 gold? You'd have to make at least two minion kills with it to only get even.
5. Masteries & Runes
I think this build is one we can all agree upon. The Offense tree requires no more explanation. The Utility tree is pretty **** obvious. I just get Greed because I think it's cute. Mastery in LoL is pretty boring as of January 2010 because there aren't any other interesting choices. Oh well.
Here's my Anivia build with the runes, mastery and items I have. My games stop right before I get Zhonya's though. I sometimes make small changes in my item build based on what I'm up against, but this is my rule of thumb. Runes are pretty straightforward: health and ability power/magic penetration. More nuking and surviving. If you disagree on any of these runes, that's fine. Just be sure to get the Mark of Insight.
6. Skilling Order
Frostbite needs to be rank 5 as fast as possible. Never skip a rank on Glacial Storm. Flash Frost is quite powerful at rank 5 too, don't underestimate it at that point. Underestimate rank 1 though, don't rely on any kills with it. Crystallize rank 5 is ridiculously huge, it's a one-point wonder though. The second rank is nice because you get to block off all jungle paths with it. Rank 5 even blocks off the river if placed well at the sides. Hilarious results to be ensued.
7. Working in the team
It's important to know that you should never be alone come midgame/endgame. Never defend any tower alone unless it's mid, which is relatively safe. Even when your at 15/0, heavily fed and can dispatch anything that comes at you, never go for a 2v1 or even 1v1. Do not panic when your attacked by heavy damage dealers like Twitch, Teemo or Ryze. They die instantly and are actually walking free kills. Any Twitch ambushing you is a dead Twitch ambushing you, as long as you don't panic or run away. Flash Frost. Frostbite. Storm. Wall. Frostbite. Dead Twitch. Never jungle or push towers. You can't push towers, at all. Always stay with your team, follow them around. Don't be a hero. Don't take initiative. If your team isn't pushing, don't show them how. You'll die. At all points must you know your boundaries. You are still very brittle and can die easily if you give them the chance. Never give them that satisfaction. Stay behind your tank. Target low health champions, you excel at that. Use your wall effectively to scout for ganksquads. Use your Flash Frost through trees to stun things unseen. Never accept tower damage, don't try to kill things that are at a tower.
Stay with your team, if someone alone is being ganked, help them by pinging out a route they should be taking, so that you can help them by scaring the pursuers off with a wall or storm. I have saved so many allies I lost count.
tldr; stay with your team
8. Laning
Top or Bottom
To effectively lane top of bottom, our partner should be able to stun or snare. Wait for them to stun, then Flash Frost and Frostbite they're faces. Tell them when you have no mana and discourage them for attacking when this is the case.
Examples of great partners to lane with are:
Blitzcrank - Can pull and stun things, doing lots of damage along with your own nukes. Anything pulled can be considered dead. Let him initiate his pull, there's nothing worse than throwing a Flash Frost, missing because he was pulled at the same time and then having nothing to chill him with (provided you don't have Glacial Storm yet).
Ashe - Can constantly chill and snare enemies, giving you great openings for a free Frostbite without using your Flash Frost. Her stun is even better, because I believe it's also giving a chill effect.
Morgana - If she hits her trap, the enemy is in for a world of hurt.
Ryze - If he hits his trap, the enemy is in for a world of hurt.
Rammus - His spin attack is a great initiative for hitting your Flash Frost.
I can continue, but you get the idea. Anything that can stun or slow is awesome. It is however, better to lane with something that can soak some damage.
Mid
Soloing mid is fun because most opponents are low-health champions such as Teemo, Twitch or Ashe. Be aggressive, you can take off half they're life with a well planted Flash Frost and Frostbite. They'll run. You'll get XP and they will not. Remember to lure them to towers, even to kill you. Most players forget Anivia has her egg. They'll go too far, and die by the towers while you are gloriously reborn. Play defensive when you don't have an egg. Mid is very dangerous otherwise. Be sure to help out top and bottom once you have Glacial Storm, preferably after you got Blasting Wand and Sorcerer's Shoes. Look for half-health enemy champions that are in range of you jumping them from the river brush. Don't make it too obvious for the mid player, he might warn your target of they're impending doom.
9. Summary
I hope I did not forget anything, if I have, I'll come back and write that right up.
About me:
I'm playing Anivia exclusively at the moment, and I don't plan to quit any time soon. If you see me as your opponent, prepare to get slaughtered. Hehe. Do say Hi though, that's pretty cool. Actually, s**** that, prepare to slaughter me with my own tricks. That would make me so proud.
If you have enjoyed this guide, please uprate here or preferablyhttps://leaguecraft.com/strategies/gu...g+a+teamplayer (account required).
10. Questions & Flaming
Do you have a question or wish to open up discussion about a certain point I have made? I regularly will check out this guide to see if any comments have been made. I will happily answer your question and talk about your statements. They matter, I might have overlooked things.
I'm writing this guide mainly because I know some point in the future, Anivia will be a free champion for a week and people will start to queue-dodge me because of all the beginners being horrible. While I cannot guarantee you to get scores as 10-0-11 or 5-0-5 every game, I can sort-of guarantee you'll never get a negative score. You may think of me as a k/d-*****, only caring about kills, but this is not the case. Yes, I care about my Anivia stats but I don't die and get kills by 'running away from teamfights and killstealing'.
Anivia is horrible at solo-play, and you should never not be around at least two others unless the game is still at it's 'laning-phase'. Take this rule as the law, and throw yourself in jail if you do not abide it. I will try my best to explain to you how to win most matches, while not dieing, while getting tons of kills of which most are your responsibility and still be the greatest team player that game. Basically, being awesome.
I will cover most things that are relevant, explain you how to solo mid and which champions Anivia is great at laning with. Let us move on to descriptions of her abilities and how to best use them.
2. Summoner Abilities
I highly recommend you to take Clarity. Generally, earlygame, you should be spending mana at the same rate as your cooldown is on Clarity. Before level 6, your not doing a massive ton of damage (this does not mean you can't get any kills, hell no.) so you might aswell just play it safe and be gentle.
The second skill is up to you. Either Ignite and kill off those pesky runners, or Flash and make some awesome moves with it. It's great for survival, too. You may think all your abilities are great for survival, but they won't let you get away from like a 4v2. Flash might do that though. I therefor recommend Flash.
UPDATE: While I find Flash quite the must, but I've been playing with Clairvoyance a little bit. Having someone on the team get Clairvoyance is a great bonus to map control. It's quite interesting on how I'm not missing Clarity. I used to play my game as such, that I'd spend my mana with the knowledge I can use my Clarity for more fuel. Instead, I'm being slightly more conservative with the added bonus of seeing a large plot of the map, including brush, every 50 seconds or so. It's awesome. I might try Ignite instead of Clairvoyance just to test, stay tuned. I feel so stupid to never have switched around my summoner spells. I have tried to play once without Flash. It was horrible.
3. Abilities
Rebirth
On dying, Cryophoenix will revert into an egg. If the egg can survive for six seconds, she is gloriously reborn.
You can see how far you are from being reborn by a blue orb coming down. The cooldown is ~4 minutes, remember this as well as you remember you have five fingers on each hand. You play AGGRESSIVE when you have it, you play DEFENSIVE when you do not. This is one of the reasons why your always near someone. He can help you when your defenseless, the egg is a great lure. You are ALWAYS either safe or guaranteed a kill when your near a tower. They cannot kill your egg and survive the tower's damage at the same time.
Flash Frost
Anivia brings her wings together and summons a single piercing lance of ice that flies towards her opponents, chilling and damaging anyone in its path. When the lance explodes it does moderate damage in a radius, stunning anyone in the area.
I can write a book on how to properly use this. At levels 1-4, don't waste your mana trying to hit champions, your frostbite isn't strong enough yet to follow up with and your just going to waste your Clarity. The stun on explosion is supreme, and is one of abilities you have to run away from danger. The range is huge, and it's larger than the circle. Keep in mind that the edge of the radius is not the maximum range of where you can hit stuff. The explosion radius makes it even larger. The best way to hit a target that's laning against you, be it mid or sides, is to not move. He's probably always kind-of in range of it. Just auto-attack away, and fire it so, that Anivia won't move forward, and scare them away. They generally won't react fast enough because they're watching your movements, not a blue orb of death that looks very much like the rest of your physical attacks. I will explain how to use this in correlation with Frostbite, your nuke, in the Frostbite part.
Use it to run away. When they're far or close, fire it and predict where to let it explode by pressing Q again. Chances are huge they'll be slowed and stunned for 0.75 seconds. You can even follow this up with a Frostbite while running away. You may think this is suicide, but think of it this way: he's chasing you, your running. You suddenly FlashFrost and Frostbite his face, taking off quite a bit of health. Do you think he will continue his pursuit? Your pretty much bluffing that your allies are near you, and before you know it, he's the one running. Do not pursuit yourself unless you have allies with you or it's a deathtrap.
Note that it does damage when it goes through things, and the explosion itself does the same amount of damage. Always let it explode behind your target for it to take double damage and have it get stunned.
One more trick on how to get a runner. If he's still up close, just fire it at where you think he'll be running at (such as towers or other allies). More often than not, your getting the kill because he went exactly where your Flash Frost did. It exploded in his face, and you just totally skillshotted his grotesque demeanor. Got carried away. On to Crystallize:
Crystallize
Cryophoenix condenses the moisture in the air into an impenetrable wall of ice to block the movement of her enemies. The wall only lasts a short duration before it melts.
At rank 1, a well placed wall can still block off the smaller paths, such are the small ones the river area has on Summoner's Rift. This ability is incredibly useful, mostly a lifesaver either for you or your allies. It can also mean death for the other, it is so much fun placing a wall in front of a running enemy, block him off and have his face pierced by millions of blades. Some tricks and tips:
How to use this when your running: place it exactly behind you and your enemy. To get this right, every pixel closer to your origin but not actually in front of you is better. If you do this in your enemies direction, but extremely close to you, you'll be bumped forward, giving you a minor speed boost. He of course will have to run around it, giving you valuable time to get away. The range on this is massive, and note that if a runner is really far away, placing it juuuust in front of him using your max range can even push him back. Follow up with a Flash Frost and let heads roll.
Remember that some champions cannot get through a blocked off path, while other, smaller champions, such as Teemo or Tristana, might still get through the small cranny. Take extra care when pursuing them, for you might just only block off your allies and let the enemy get away with it all.
The fun doesn't end here, you can also use this just to intimidate the enemy. More often than not, if your solely defending mid tower for example, and there are four attacking, fire off a wall at a random position in front of them and they'll instinctively run back a bit, giving you time.
Lastly, the wall is supreme for scouting and predicting ganksquads. Jab a wall in the brush, you can see who's hiding. Condense a wall in the jungle, see who's snooping around. If anyone's in there, follow up with Flash Frost and the grass blades won't be the only blades they see.
Frostbite
With a flap of her wings, Cryophoenix blasts a freezing gust of wind at her target, dealing a medium amount of damage. If the target has been slowed by an ice effect, the damage they take is doubled.
Ah yes, the nuke. With a flap of her wings, Cryophoenix melts faces and let's Death do his bidding. This ability is why people should fear you more than the Grim Reaper. The range may be short, but let that not get in your way. If you hit something at max range with Flash Frost, you can still catch up to him and Frostbite.
The damage is terrible without the target being chilled, therefor should only be used when everything is on cooldown and the enemy has 2 millimeter left on his healthbar. He might still even survive.
I'll get ahead of myself and also explain great combo's with Glacial Storm, but let's start with Flash Frost. As said previously, you can catch up with pretty much everything that's stunned by Flash Frost and hit him with Frostbite. It does nuke-tastic damage at rank 3 and above. Chilled means anything hit by Flash Frost (the snare or stun), Glacial Storm, Ashe's frost arrow or Volley, Nunu's Ice Blast and Frozen Mallet. Probably a few more things, too. The external sources of frost aren't too important, and it's more luck if you see an opening to use it without any of your own abilities.
When you have Glacial Storm up and multiple targets are chilled, pick the target that is of greatest threat. It's a no-brainer, but people still go for tanks and the like.
A great trick is, when a champion is in range of your Frostbite, to just fire and immediately pop Glacial Storm on his position. If done fast enough, he'll be nuked in the fastest way possible.
The cooldown is very short. When your in a fight, don't use Glacial Storm and Flash Frost at the same time. Having Frostbite up and the rest on cooldown is horrible. Don't go cooldown reductions for this reason, instead, time the abilities right so you can nuke stuff twice.
Glacial Storm
Cryophoenix summons a driving rain of ice and hail to damage her enemies and slow their advance.
The chill effect it brings is instant, so if you don't see the large circle of frost yet, the enemy is already chilled. Once your level 6, this is where you can now nuke as you please. A few tricks come with this ability, though I do want to specify something in bold letters first:
Do not forget to turn this off.
Anyways, Glacial Storm is horrifying to the enemy. You can use it to intimidate enemies attacking your tower in the same way as you intimidate them using Crystallize. Anything walking into it anyways should be Frostbitten to get the message. When your comfortable with you manapool, don't be afraid to keep it on a little longer than the usual second. Hell, try it out at level 10 or so, when your mana shouldn't be the largest problem anymore. See how fast your mana is drained, it's actually not that bad. Always pop it on anything that has low life, the slow effect is awesome and you might just get the killing blow. I know, cheap, but we all know that we care little.
The damage is quite hefty when your slightly fed. Add in a Flash Frost + Frostbite and they'll get the picture.
Always use it when your being pursued, the same way you'd use Flash Frost. Follow up with a Frostbite if it's not too much trouble. All your four abilities can be actually used to get away. This is a great asset on how to get 0 deaths. Flash Frost to stun and slow, Frostbite to scare him. Glacial Storm if he still didn't receive the message, wall off if you running in the jungle.
Glacial Storm has a hidden range. If you have it up, and your moving away, it'll deactivate if your too far. The range is about as far as the range on Flash Frost. A quick tip against Heimerdinger, use it to destroy his turrets. Pop it, run off, get to max range, wait, laugh. You may have to blue pill, but it's truly worth it.
Don't be afraid to use Glacial Storm against creeps if nothing interesting is going on. Add in Flash Frost and everything except those cannon minions should be dead. Frostbite those cannon minions, it doesn't cost a lot of mana. You may not realize, but your one of the fastest minion killers in the game. Large quantities can all be exhumed of life by a simple Glacial Storm.
Lastly, if you have chosen Flash, you can use the Frostbite/Glacial Storm combo and kill off a low-life enemy in mere seconds. He will run away if you move towards him, but he can't outrun Flash. Flash > Frostbite > immediate Glacial Storm. He should be dead and crying for overpoweredness. That, or accepting your professionalism.
4. Items
I religiously feel that every Anivia player not taking Boots of Speed (350g) first is making a big mistake. Anivia is, without boots, one of the slowest champion in the game. You cannot follow up your Flash Frost with a Frostbite without, at the start. Since Anivia is a great survivalist, I generally buy the boots and two Health Potions then wait until I get 1610 gold. I proceed to buy both Sorcerer's Shoes (750g) and Blasting Wand (860g). With these, and assuming you have not fed anything yet (you shouldn't die even once all game long in a perfect world), you are now a killing machine already. You can outrun most people, because not everyone goes for Movement 2+ this fast and your abilities penetrate about 90% of their resistances including the ~40 ability power gained. Use this advantage well, you might get kills and feed yourself. Get a Sapphire Crystal (400g) first, because your mana pool is indeed fairly saddening. Continue to get a Rod of Ages. Your doing good if you have it before the 20 minute mark.
The Rod of Ages is all you need for your survival. You can now happily go for mass ability power (and some mana).
UPDATE: I've tried also tried getting Mejai's Soulstealer (1235g) right off the bat, after my Boots of Speed. If you succeed in getting a few kills, I've been able to carry my way to victory. Do this with caution, because if you fail you'll be at a disadvantage.
UPDATE: I often find myself getting the Catalyst the Protector (1325g) first, continuing to Rod of Ages (1510g) before even getting Sorcerer's Shoes. While this does indeed impede on my ability to strike, it does increase my survivability by large amounts, which should also count for something. I advise you to get Catalyst when the enemy is playing aggressive, or has champions that you have a hard time with (such as Ashe or any silencing champions).
This is where you are at a crossroad. You can now either go for the endless mana pool, with Archangel's Staff, making your Clarity fairly obsolete. If your awesome, I recommend getting Mejai's Soulstealer. Follow either up with Zhonya's Ring. If your this far and the game is not over, get magic penetration, such as a Void Staff.
I bet a few of you are thinking items such as Lich Bane are great or Deathfire Grasp, but they are not. The range of Deathfire Grasp is the same as Frostbite. Getting in range for Frostbite is very dangerous, and you shouldn't stay in that range any longer than required. The cooldown is horrible, too. Lich Bane is a fair choice, but everyone always has more armor than they have magic resist. Your giving up some ability power to dangerously attempt to auto-attack something. In large teamfights, you don't want to stay longer in the fray for more than one second. You'll have to stay longer for your auto-attack. Had you gone for more ability power, your Flash Frost, Glacial Storm, Frostbite all do more damage instead of one attack you may or may not use, depending on the circumstances. Your just making it harder on yourself. Why would you make it harder on yourself? I'd recommend this only to masochists.
One last thing. Don't buy Mana Potion. 100 mana for 40 gold is never worth it. Your Flash Frost is about 90 mana. Is one Flash Frost worth 40 gold? You'd have to make at least two minion kills with it to only get even.
5. Masteries & Runes
I think this build is one we can all agree upon. The Offense tree requires no more explanation. The Utility tree is pretty **** obvious. I just get Greed because I think it's cute. Mastery in LoL is pretty boring as of January 2010 because there aren't any other interesting choices. Oh well.
Here's my Anivia build with the runes, mastery and items I have. My games stop right before I get Zhonya's though. I sometimes make small changes in my item build based on what I'm up against, but this is my rule of thumb. Runes are pretty straightforward: health and ability power/magic penetration. More nuking and surviving. If you disagree on any of these runes, that's fine. Just be sure to get the Mark of Insight.
6. Skilling Order
Frostbite needs to be rank 5 as fast as possible. Never skip a rank on Glacial Storm. Flash Frost is quite powerful at rank 5 too, don't underestimate it at that point. Underestimate rank 1 though, don't rely on any kills with it. Crystallize rank 5 is ridiculously huge, it's a one-point wonder though. The second rank is nice because you get to block off all jungle paths with it. Rank 5 even blocks off the river if placed well at the sides. Hilarious results to be ensued.
7. Working in the team
It's important to know that you should never be alone come midgame/endgame. Never defend any tower alone unless it's mid, which is relatively safe. Even when your at 15/0, heavily fed and can dispatch anything that comes at you, never go for a 2v1 or even 1v1. Do not panic when your attacked by heavy damage dealers like Twitch, Teemo or Ryze. They die instantly and are actually walking free kills. Any Twitch ambushing you is a dead Twitch ambushing you, as long as you don't panic or run away. Flash Frost. Frostbite. Storm. Wall. Frostbite. Dead Twitch. Never jungle or push towers. You can't push towers, at all. Always stay with your team, follow them around. Don't be a hero. Don't take initiative. If your team isn't pushing, don't show them how. You'll die. At all points must you know your boundaries. You are still very brittle and can die easily if you give them the chance. Never give them that satisfaction. Stay behind your tank. Target low health champions, you excel at that. Use your wall effectively to scout for ganksquads. Use your Flash Frost through trees to stun things unseen. Never accept tower damage, don't try to kill things that are at a tower.
Stay with your team, if someone alone is being ganked, help them by pinging out a route they should be taking, so that you can help them by scaring the pursuers off with a wall or storm. I have saved so many allies I lost count.
tldr; stay with your team
8. Laning
Top or Bottom
To effectively lane top of bottom, our partner should be able to stun or snare. Wait for them to stun, then Flash Frost and Frostbite they're faces. Tell them when you have no mana and discourage them for attacking when this is the case.
Examples of great partners to lane with are:
Blitzcrank - Can pull and stun things, doing lots of damage along with your own nukes. Anything pulled can be considered dead. Let him initiate his pull, there's nothing worse than throwing a Flash Frost, missing because he was pulled at the same time and then having nothing to chill him with (provided you don't have Glacial Storm yet).
Ashe - Can constantly chill and snare enemies, giving you great openings for a free Frostbite without using your Flash Frost. Her stun is even better, because I believe it's also giving a chill effect.
Morgana - If she hits her trap, the enemy is in for a world of hurt.
Ryze - If he hits his trap, the enemy is in for a world of hurt.
Rammus - His spin attack is a great initiative for hitting your Flash Frost.
I can continue, but you get the idea. Anything that can stun or slow is awesome. It is however, better to lane with something that can soak some damage.
Mid
Soloing mid is fun because most opponents are low-health champions such as Teemo, Twitch or Ashe. Be aggressive, you can take off half they're life with a well planted Flash Frost and Frostbite. They'll run. You'll get XP and they will not. Remember to lure them to towers, even to kill you. Most players forget Anivia has her egg. They'll go too far, and die by the towers while you are gloriously reborn. Play defensive when you don't have an egg. Mid is very dangerous otherwise. Be sure to help out top and bottom once you have Glacial Storm, preferably after you got Blasting Wand and Sorcerer's Shoes. Look for half-health enemy champions that are in range of you jumping them from the river brush. Don't make it too obvious for the mid player, he might warn your target of they're impending doom.
9. Summary
I hope I did not forget anything, if I have, I'll come back and write that right up.
About me:
I'm playing Anivia exclusively at the moment, and I don't plan to quit any time soon. If you see me as your opponent, prepare to get slaughtered. Hehe. Do say Hi though, that's pretty cool. Actually, s**** that, prepare to slaughter me with my own tricks. That would make me so proud.
If you have enjoyed this guide, please uprate here or preferablyhttps://leaguecraft.com/strategies/gu...g+a+teamplayer (account required).
10. Questions & Flaming
Do you have a question or wish to open up discussion about a certain point I have made? I regularly will check out this guide to see if any comments have been made. I will happily answer your question and talk about your statements. They matter, I might have overlooked things.
