User blog comment:Crashfan1997/ADC annie, viable in a few ways!/@comment-11759251-20130805093115/@comment-6435632-20130805235952

Any ranged champion can ADC according to build, but they will suffer against proper ADCs when fighting good opponents for a number of reasons:

-Stats: As stated above, Annie doesn't level her necessary stats so she's 100% item reliant with no help from any other source aside from Masteries and Runes. Subtle, perhaps, but a distinct disadvantage nonetheless. At level 1-18, she will do less base damage than every ADC.

-Abilities: Many people make the mistake of thinking ADCs are all about items, and while that's true, every ADC has at least one ability that buffs the hell out of their auto-attacks. Usually AS steroids or on-hit effects of some kind. Maybe flat AD boosts. Regardless, this is the key point most of these non-meta mage ADC builds miss; you can build the items but if you don't have abilities that augment those items and buff your auto-attacks, you're going to lose against equal or better players who have actual ADCs.

The only mage I'm aware of who can ADC PROPERLY anymore is Malzahar, because his Voidlings do 100% of his AD and automatically gain increased attack speed the longer they're out. Provided you have the mana, cooldown, and AD to keep pumping them out and to keep yours and their damage up, you can perform as well as other ADCs.