Let's talk Akali

Great Justice·Sep 12, 2014·13 votes·2,404 views

My Summoner Name is Great Justice, I'm a Platinum 5 North American player,

I want to ask, how does Akali lack counterplay?

I'm by no means an Akali main, or Akali player. My only experience with Akali was a brief "Akali Only" phase to attempt the One-Trick-Pony route in SoloQ. While I did have relative success with Akali, I have to say I'm worried when I saw the Patch Forecast. Now, I've seen Akali played at the highest of ELO in NA and Korea. I've spent a decent amount of time watching Korean Akali mains, as well as North American Akali mains, and then attempted to emulate their play. I played Akali almost exclusively, and sky-rocketed to the ELO I currently sit at now. And from all this experience, I have to say.

AKALI IS NOT OVER-POWERED.

Does Akali have strengths? Yes, she has a stack mechanic and a reset mechanic on her gap closer. Does Akali have weaknesses? Yes, her laning phase is poppy level until lvl 6-7.

so, why is Riot looking into this champion? Are they looking to appease the trolls on GD and their daily "Akali is OP" threads? Is Akali secretly super op busted? Does this champ lack counterplay?

What's so unique about Akali that makes her need to be stomped out? Shouldn't an Assassin BY DEFINITION be able to kill a LONE, SQUISHY champion with reliability? Shouldn't an Assassin BY DEFINITION have some form of mobility or chase potential? Why is Akali special? Evelynn has a permanent stealth mechanic for ward evasion. Fizz has LOADS of mobility, allowing him to dodge with ease. Kassadin COULD cross the map in seconds. Katarina can deal ABSURD amounts of damage near INSTANTLY. Kha'zix has TEAM UTILITY in his evolved W, and strong dueling potential, with strong mobility and evasion. Leblanc has hard CC and great mobility. Master Yi can tear a high priority target in seconds and lose 0 kill potential. Nidalee has the most ABUSIVE laning phase, capable of tower diving for a kill at lvl 2. Nocturne can isolate targets using vision denial with a long range targetted dash and spell-sheild. Rengar has CC and stealth, with a conditional 0 cost and cooldown gap closer. Shaco has abusive ganks in the right hands. Talon has a silence on his blink, allowing him to fully combo with 0 counter-play from his target. Zed has such strong outplay potential it's unreal.

Akali CANNOT seige. Akali CANNOT counter-seige. Akali CANNOT dive through a proper frontline. Akali RELIES on un-coordinated play. Akali RELIES on creating picks on isolated targets. Akali RELIES on capitalizing on her teamate's initiation. Akali RELIES on a terrible laning phase. Akali RELIES on her opponents to NOT use stealth detection items. Akali is NOT a champ without counter-play, she's honestly the second-most "healthy" Assassin, right behind Zed.

If Riot STILL wants to weaken her assassination potential, put that strength into something else. Don't just Olaf her and then leave her to rot. Please Riot, I beg you, don't do this hastily. Take your time, and give us a WELL-ROUNDED, STRONG ASSASSIN WITH VISIBLE COUNTER-PLAY GIVE AKALI AN IDENTITY, A ROLE, AND A REASON TO BE PICKED, DON"T MAKE HER TARIC 2.0 p.s and for the love of god, don't force it onto the live client if you're getting an overwhelming amount of NEGATIVE FEEDBACK from the PBE testers (hi Sona)

Feel free to discuss/debate/argue with me on the topic, I'll be checking back on this thread whenever I can. Edit: My LoLKing, incase anyone wants to check my terrible Akali scores. http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/33809893

28 Comments

YGW CaspieSep 12, 20144 votes

TL;DR: What exactly does Akali have that is "low-counterplay?" Please Riot explain in detail.

While Jag is out, I think we're exploring lighter changes to give her more directionally-relevant strength while potentially giving her just a bit more opportunity for counterplay. - Riot Pwyff

What does this even mean?

That said, Akali's a tough gal to strike the right balance. Her effective all-in and reset mechanics are a very big part of her core identity, which gets really weird because that's pretty anti-counterplay. - Riot Pwyff

Now this sounds like the Kassadin statement, you know the whole Kassadin's identity is being able to jump around the map which makes it hard to nerf him effectively because nerfing him would affect his identity. In my opinion and clearly reinforced with the lack of pro play she sees; there is a lot of counter play to Akali, and I do mean A LOT. The times you do see her picked in pro play usually doesn't end well for the team with Akali even IF she was picked as a counter-pick. If you can't even pick Akali as a counter-pick in pro play and build team comps around her then clearly there is a lot of counter-play to this little assassin especially when you see other assassins do very well in this current meta.

I would appreciate if they gave some more insight with the statement "low-counterplay abilities" because as far as I'm concerned one thing Akali definitely has is counterplay. Am I an Akali fan? Yes, she's not my favorite champ but she's up there. She's really fun to play and even fun to play against. Can she snowball to a point of dear God why? Yes, but it's not easy to do because her laning phase isn't that great 1-5 and she has strong counterpicks, as well as itemization that can hurt her effectiveness by a ton and she doesn't really have an escape unless there is creeps nearby. Her shroud is countered by pinks, upgraded sweeper, Lulu, Lee Sin, even Janna can ult her out of shroud, etc.

I just played ranked 5s not long ago against an Akali and you know what happened? We got snowballed against and lost. Just kidding. http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1537390726/32883270

They even had a fairly good team comp, and even though Akali got killed for FB we ended up doing a stupid dive and getting double killed by her + giving a kill to Tristana. Fortunately we didn't tilt off it and continued to play with our early game advantage but because of our team comp we knew we had to end fairly early or risk being outscaled and losing. Akali even got most of their kills but it doesn't matter when you peel properly and lock her down + reveal her when she shrouds. This is why I don't understand what they mean by "low-counterplay abilities". CC is low-counterplay because you can't do anything when it's applied unless you have cleanse or a cleansing item. Akali doesn't have CC at all, she has to focus who she marks because that's a huge part of her damage, and she can't shroud in teamfights without being revealed.

I remember another game of ranked 5s actually where she was on the enemy team and we were able to deal with her. I remember being Janna and ulting her out of her shroud once. http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1533157923/0

And if you say oh but that's ranked 5s not solo Q, she can snowball out of control in solo Q then first... it's a team game not a solo game and eventually even the people in your solo Q game will learn how to deal with her even if they don't already know it just takes time for people to learn. Also she can just as easily be a hindrance to her team in solo Q because her laning phase 1-5 is so bad that the last time I had an Akali in ranked she went 0/5/0 at 15 mins and no we didn't win, and sure I've also had Akali's in ranked snowball out of control and be a huge factor in why we win but that's solo Q and that happens on many champions not just Akali, the problem in general is it's really hard to control snowballing when you're with 4 people you don't know and can't coordinate properly with.

Great JusticeSep 12, 20145 votes

I'd really like for Riot to really express what they mean by "lack of counterplay". Akali has very clear weaknesses which can be exploited by almost every team-comp, she has some VERY difficult match-ups ONTOP of her already beyond mediocre laning phase, and lategame her teamfight mobility is completely null if the enemy team packs a pink/sweeper trinket.

The issue with Akali having low counter-play is that players who have low experience vs. Akali. If you see a champ for the first time with such a Humongous power-spike, and you don't know the appropriate measures to handle her, yeah, she can be a bit overwhelming. Not for a moment though, do I see Akali as oppressive though. Champions with strong laning that transition to high burst champions like Syndra, Zed, Yasuo are more of an issue than Akali. Yasuo has no "weak point", why don't Riot deal with him instead of Akali? They've already nerfed snowballing, what else does Akali need before she becomes literally unplayable?

I'm going to reserved about this "change" until I see it for myself, or a Rioter goes indepth and actually explains what they mean by "lack of counterplay", because if you watch the game between LMQ and CRS in the play-offs, you can CLEARLY see an Akali being absolutely shut out of a game. The Akali (CRS Voyboy), being a long time Akali player, should have been able to single-handedly carry the game had he properly used his so called "lack of counterplay" to his advantage.

TL;DR Riot pls no

YGW CaspieSep 12, 20142 votes

It honestly has nothing to do with nerfs to Akali, my main concern is how they brought her up as apparently having low counterplay abilities. I just can't stress how much I disagree with it, her laning phases 1-5 isn't good, she has really strong counterpicks so she's risky to even pick. She gets countered by coordinated teams or just smart players in general.

I agree that her power spikes are pretty massive and she can snowball but these problems aren't inherit to Akali they happen on many other champions as well, but at least with Akali there are ways to shut her down even after she snowballs. I mentioned this in another post but if they are nerfing her they can just increase the cooldown between her ultimate stacks so her power spike at level 6 isn't as high, I also mentioned before that her W needs an energy cost decrease for the amount of counterplay that one ability has it's really punishing to use when it costs 30-40% of your energy. I would even be fine if they took away its MR/AR boost if it just costed less energy.

There are ways to nerf her in meaningful ways they just really have to look at how to reduce certain key spikes so for example level 6 she becomes really strong, when she completes gunblade, or has a sheen/lichbane. These power spikes are enormous on her and reducing these would help those with low experience against her but they'd have to give her something meaningful in return gameplay wise like reducing energy costs on W or by changing the way W works entirely.

For example:

Twilight Shroud

Active: Akali creates a smoke cloud in a 300-radius area for 8 seconds. While within the cloud, Akali is stealthed and gains bonus armor and magic penetration.

Enemies inside the twilight shroud will have their vision **reduced **to 675-range.

Basically, it's like a graves smoke screen + twilight shroud and instead of gaining armor and magic resist she would get armor and magic penetration ... to enforce the idea of fighting within the shadows and playing with stealth, the vision denial helps because even if they pink you in the shroud you still have the utility of vision denial if they dare walk in. This would have to be balanced by reducing her power spikes overall though. Just an idea for a new W but we wouldn't see anything new until she actually gets a rework anyways.

Belisarius09Sep 12, 20143 votes

I know she's not in the best place due to the binary nature of her stealth. I think I'd like to see a rework that could raise her skill ceiling someday. But in the meantime, I don't want to see number tweaking nerfs to her. I agree with you fully. If it's not a rework raising her skill ceiling, I'd rather they just leave her alone.

ZXDYKioaMxSep 12, 20143 votes

Shouldn't an Assassin BY DEFINITION be able to kill a LONE, SQUISHY champion with reliability? Shouldn't an Assassin BY DEFINITION have some form of mobility or chase potential?

Not really, an assassin is also a Lone, Squishy champion that doesn't grant them a free guaranteed win over all other lone squishies just because one is an assassin. It should still require skill and allow counter-play. And this is addressing "Assassins" in general not Akali specifically since she does have counter-play for sure.

An assassin should be able to destroy mid or low health bars with reliability not destroy any full health bar just because "assassin". They should have high mobility and large burst damage and some tricks to them. That way they can target low healthbars and blow them up.

Being an assassin should require you to choose your targets wisely and instantly shred them when they get to a low amount of health. It should NOT allow the player to choose any target at full health and all in them and allow them to solely rely on the fact that they are a "Squishy Assassin"and their target is a "Squishy Non-Assassin". And guarantee a win regardless of skill.

Agree - Akali does NOT need a nerf, not even close. Shes fine where she is

But there are a few assassins out there that could use a nerf, they seem more like Fake-Assassin with Assassin level damage and mobility yet they are given several layers of defense but everyone overlooks and allows the defenses to be just because the defenses are not specifically in health form. They just give the assassins layers of defense in the form of no cooldowns, shields, endless escapes, untargetability etc. And somehow everyone turns a blind eye.

The LexerSep 12, 20143 votes

One of the most irritating thing on forums is how everybody says either Akali is op or Akali needs buff pre-6. I TOTALLY agree with this thread. Akali is a great champion right now, in terms of balance. If she were op, she'd be played in the LCS every game. If she sucked, she never would be played. But she isn't played every game and she has been peeked up 3 or 4 times. Akali is near perfect right now DO NOT touch her.

Treize09Sep 13, 20143 votes

I'm assuming we are all in agreement that MrSc0tty is either brain dead or a brain dead troll and in both cases its not worth even acknowledging his posts anymore.

Great, glad to have that out of the way.

Now back on topic. I have an idea I mentioned in another thread. I'd like to see if I can get any feedback here. Pwyff alluded to reducing the armor/mr resistances on shroud in the patch forecast. I'm thinking they could increase the slow on the shroud as a tradeoff for the reduction of those resistances.

What do you guys think?

LinkttpFeb 24, 20151 votes

Undo current nerfs and address spell vamp ratios

MrSc0ttySep 12, 20142 votes

Simply put, there is little to no skill gap between a bad Akali and a good one.

You mash all the buttons and stealth when things go south. There you're a pro level Akali player-everything is targeted, everything is instant. From the instant Akali is in range to ult you to the instant she is out of energy there is nothing you can do to stop her killing you, no cooldown to exploit no way to burst her down thanks to her spellvamp/LS and she gets a Counterplay tool for herself if she ever gets caught.

Belisarius09Sep 12, 20147 votes

Simply put, there is little to no skill gap between a bad Akali and a good one.

You mash all the buttons and stealth when things go south. There you're a pro level Akali player-everything is targeted, everything is instant. From the instant Akali is in range to ult you to the instant she is out of energy there is nothing you can do to stop her killing you, no cooldown to exploit no way to burst her down thanks to her spellvamp/LS and she gets a Counterplay tool for herself if she ever gets caught.

^The most uneducated post I've ever read. ^

There's plenty of skill gap.

You seem to be focusing on the mechanical difficulty of Akali and nothing else. True her ult and her q are targetted abilities. K, neat. A skilled Akali player will still know how to chain those abilities and when to use them. Obviously a double proc q combo will do much more damage than hitting r three times in a row. So even simply mechanically, there's a good level of separation between the pros and the scrubs.

Next energy management. Have you ever tried playing Akali and simply "mashing the buttons?" If you have, you'd know you run out of energy and become completely useless on the battlefield. She's a mana less champion yayayaya but there's strengths and weaknesses to every resource from mana, to energy, to rage, to hp cost abilities.

And then there's timing, and then there's decision making, and both of these aspects are amplified on Akali. If she has bad decision making, she's going to get wrecked. If she has bad timing, she's going to get wrecked. There is less room for error in these aspects for Akali than there are for other champions. Want an example, oh I dunno how about Fizz. He screws up and initiates a fight at a bad moment, well he can always troll poll away, Akali doesn't have that same luxury. She can get in but she can't get out. Many other assassins have a better form of escape mechanism.

So clearly there's tons of room and skill gap seperating a low skill Akali player from a high skill Akali player.

No cooldowns to exploit? Do you know how long shrouds CD is?

You're just wrong on so many levels. You put no effort or thought into your post clearly, because it is so flawed and clearly not well thought out.

Don't post here again if you're not going to offer up something more conducive to the discussion man.

MrSc0ttySep 12, 20143 votes

I have played Akali. I honestly do not believe a lower skill floor champion exists in league. You hit six, you win, congrats. Every game I have ever played on the champ has been simply-

-Get bullied levels 1-5. Be down 15cs. Get a Hextech Revolver.

-Hit level six. Get 3 stacks. Execute some kind of combo featuring 3 R's and a bunch of targeted skills, throw in ignite, get kill no matter what opponent does. As long as you don't literally do this under a tower right from the start it should literally just take a couple right clicks to proc your marks to get your "high skillcap" kill. You're not even playing fizz, where you have to maybe aim an ult and try to land on them with E, you're playing Akali.

-Clear the wave and get a Gunblade. Then head botlane and see if you can get kills (one is free, double kill is #highskillcap)

-If anyone tries to match you damage for damage, you'll win thanks to the extra sustain. If someone is a real threat, drop stealth, walk to the edge of it and maybe #skillcap flash away.

Only spam your skills on opposing champs and remember to hit your marks with autoattacks and you should never run out of energy before your enemy runs out of health bar past that point.

So in summary:

don't die pre six. Get zoned from farm if you have to be. It's not gonna matter. Reserve shroud for ganks if possible.
don't fuck up your first level six dive. You go in full HP and full energy and you have ignite you'll get that kill.

Past that point, you win nearly any duel and can make nearly any engage thanks to Zhonyas, shroud and resets. Enjoy 100% targeted resource less pentakills.

Great JusticeSep 12, 20148 votes

Okay, lets go over your post step by step.

"-Get bullied levels 1-5. Be down 15cs. Get a Hextech Revolver." If your opponent only manages to force you to miss 15 CS less than him/her, then that is a MASSIVE mistake on their part. Akali has very weak ranged CSing capabilities with her low damage Q, and E, meaning she needs to practically use an Auto for every minion. If Akali is using her abilities on the minions to CS, she can't trade and should be zoned or forced to recall. If Akali is not using her abilities to CS, you should be zoning her from the wave, making her lose all of it.

If Akali reaches 60 CS or more by the 10 minute mark, that's her opponent, and his jungler's fault. Learn to control the minion wave better.

"-Hit level six. Get 3 stacks. Execute some kind of combo featuring 3 R's and a bunch of targeted skills, throw in ignite, get kill no matter what opponent does. As long as you don't literally do this under a tower right from the start it should literally just take a couple right clicks to proc your marks to get your "high skillcap" kill. You're not even playing fizz, where you have to maybe aim an ult and try to land on them with E, you're playing Akali."

If Akali manages to get to 3 stacks while having enough HP and damage potential to solo your champion, that's again, your fault. Akali at this point in the game cannot 100-0 a champion in less than 5-6 seconds, if her opponent who should have more gold,xp, and items dies to her in a 1v1, that is her fault.

If the jungler doesn't identify Akali's powerspike and prepare himself to counter her engage, that is his fault.

If the Laner or the Jungler hasn't killed Akali atleast once before this point, that's either an under-farmed Akali, or a bad laner/jungler.

"-Clear the wave and get a Gunblade. Then head botlane and see if you can get kills (one is free, double kill is #highskillcap)"

What wave clear? If you head bot you aren't guarenteed a kill (wards are a thing you know), and the enemy laner is likely spending this time getting gold, or pushing your tower dead. Free global gold anyone?

"-If anyone tries to match you damage for damage, you'll win thanks to the extra sustain. If someone is a real threat, drop stealth, walk to the edge of it and maybe #skillcap flash away."

Most mages have some form of CC and can burst you down before you can kill them, or stall you till their team can show up and slaughter you. Solo kills shouldn't even be happening in the first place due to wards and towers still being up in this phase of the game.

"Only spam your skills on opposing champs and remember to hit your marks with autoattacks and you should never run out of energy before your enemy runs out of health bar past that point."

The Q range is the same as the kill range of most mid laners, she can't 100-0 most champs as fast as other assassins (unless she gets absurdly fed due to her opponents being bad/unco-ordinated", she has no CC beyond a slow attached to her ONLY DEFENSIVE ABILITY so she can't make picks like Syndra/Lux/Lissandra.

Past that point, you win nearly any duel and can make nearly any engage thanks to Zhonyas, shroud and resets. Enjoy 100% targeted resource less pentakills.

You know who also wins many deuls? Most, if not all Assassins! "...and can make nearly any engage.." What kind of engage are we talking about here? I'm pretty sure you're not talking about forcing a teamfight Twisted Fate style, because that probably won't end well for you at all. Akali cannot engage a teamfight due to Oracle's lens and Pink wards nullifying her stealth, and she can't dive into the backline due to her fragility vs. CC.

Akali has significant counterplay, and is hardly oppressive

MAZZ1M0Sep 13, 20145 votes

Okay, lets go over your post step by step.

"-Get bullied levels 1-5. Be down 15cs. Get a Hextech Revolver." If your opponent only manages to force you to miss 15 CS less than him/her, then that is a MASSIVE mistake on their part. Akali has very weak ranged CSing capabilities with her low damage Q, and E, meaning she needs to practically use an Auto for every minion. If Akali is using her abilities on the minions to CS, she can't trade and should be zoned or forced to recall. If Akali is not using her abilities to CS, you should be zoning her from the wave, making her lose all of it.

If Akali reaches 60 CS or more by the 10 minute mark, that's her opponent, and his jungler's fault. Learn to control the minion wave better.

"-Hit level six. Get 3 stacks. Execute some kind of combo featuring 3 R's and a bunch of targeted skills, throw in ignite, get kill no matter what opponent does. As long as you don't literally do this under a tower right from the start it should literally just take a couple right clicks to proc your marks to get your "high skillcap" kill. You're not even playing fizz, where you have to maybe aim an ult and try to land on them with E, you're playing Akali."

If Akali manages to get to 3 stacks while having enough HP and damage potential to solo your champion, that's again, your fault. Akali at this point in the game cannot 100-0 a champion in less than 5-6 seconds, if her opponent who should have more gold,xp, and items dies to her in a 1v1, that is her fault.

If the jungler doesn't identify Akali's powerspike and prepare himself to counter her engage, that is his fault.

If the Laner or the Jungler hasn't killed Akali atleast once before this point, that's either an under-farmed Akali, or a bad laner/jungler.

"-Clear the wave and get a Gunblade. Then head botlane and see if you can get kills (one is free, double kill is #highskillcap)"

What wave clear? If you head bot you aren't guarenteed a kill (wards are a thing you know), and the enemy laner is likely spending this time getting gold, or pushing your tower dead. Free global gold anyone?

"-If anyone tries to match you damage for damage, you'll win thanks to the extra sustain. If someone is a real threat, drop stealth, walk to the edge of it and maybe #skillcap flash away." **etc... ** Akali has significant counterplay, and is hardly oppressive

I wish you worked at Riot. Akali nerfs... seriously?

If you have any sight or aoe, even a cc, or shite, Lee Sin, Akali is fresh meat for the grinder. Like any champ she will wreck if fed, but... like any champ. If underfed, she has to last hit everyone to catch up which can be a tall order if the opposing team is smart enough to focus her first. She's squishy and the W doesn't always save her.

There is absolutely no nerf needed. Every time I see Akali complaint thread I want to facepalm. There's no reason for it. She's so easy to shut down if you focus her early.

YGW CaspieSep 13, 20143 votes

I have played Akali. I honestly do not believe a lower skill floor champion exists in league. You hit six, you win, congrats.

Sometimes I hate the forums, it's like decision making and macro strategy just simply don't exist. It's as if the only thing that matters is having mechanical champions in this game and skill shots because #highskillcap.

Also as for an example of lower skill floors how about Ryze, he gets to itemize tanky while doing a ton of damage on low cooldowns + he has a hard cc with an insane late game and you know what.. all his abilities are targeted.

LinkttpFeb 24, 20151 votes

You my good sir are a Hero.

ObscureClockworkSep 27, 20142 votes

Look, if you come seeking knowledge, you don't go this:

And from all this experience, I have to say.

AKALI IS NOT OVER-POWERED.

Does Akali have strengths? Yes, she has a stack mechanic and a reset mechanic on her gap closer. Does Akali have weaknesses? Yes, her laning phase is poppy level until lvl 6-7.

so, why is Riot looking into this champion? Are they looking to appease the trolls on GD and their daily "Akali is OP" threads?

And resort to the old arguments such as:

What's so unique about Akali that makes her need to be stomped out? Shouldn't an Assassin BY DEFINITION be able to kill a LONE, SQUISHY champion with reliability? **Shouldn't an Assassin BY DEFINITION have some form of mobility or chase potential? Why is Akali special?

Look, when you have a title that invites people to share knowledge, then you do all that, it makes people immediately feel the opposite. At that point, you don't look like you are looking for knowledge. If you want knowledge, you go "lets talk akali. What do you feel?" then put information about akali that doesn't look subjective.

Then you skip a few lines, and do the triple-spaced out asterisks, and then you give your opinions.
If you don't, you only seek to drive away, or piss off people who are against your side.

now on to me. I think akali lacks counterplay. Namely i cite these connections:

level 6 is when akali reaches a big power spike. Level 9 is when i can get pink ward trinket. It doesn't matter if she takes time to burst me, her CD's are lower, her stealth protects her from my early harass and targeted spells, and she sustains harder.
Citing counterpicks should not be in a serious discussion about champion health, especially when the counterpicks are said to be what "shuts her down". All this serves to show is how unhealthy the design is, given how binary the champion is.
Her weak point isn't actually that weak. Melee champions have to deal with a 100 - 150% uptime Q. Ranged have to deal with someone who has more burst, sustain, and scaling. *citing energy inefficiencies aren't exactly true level 6 and above, given that, 3 points in Q, 1 in W and 1 in E allows you to do 3 jumps with one W and one E combo being Q-R- AA -W-Q-R-AA-Q-R - E. 3 Q's = 180 energy cost, but returns 90. R has no cost W has 80 E has 60 Total of 230 cost, meaning that she only needs 3 seconds throughout the combo to do all that. Q's CD at this time is 5 seconds. She can pull off a whole combo with the amount of energy she has. *citing a weak lane phase isn't exactly fair. Her level 1-2 (sometimes 1-3) are unsafe. Post that, akali can hide, and unless you start with a pink ward (which would be a pretty big waste) and her jungler isn't helping her (which shouldn't happen plat and above) akali doesn't have much trouble pushing through the final bits. Furthermore, her lack of waveclear is an effective weakness (given how much E costs early, and its CD) but pushing the lane only serves to put you in danger, and akali can afford to lose the tower CS and still snowball/kill you.
The biggest quip, though, is how hard it is to pinpoint her damage and sustain unless you know what her skills do. The common comparison of 2Q's and 2R's looks normal for a burst mage, until you factor in her passives and how fast she can do that, and the fact that she hasn't even used E or her 3rd round. 2Q's + 2R's at level 6 = 200 + 1.0 + 340 + 1.8
another thing worth mentioning, is that assassins shouldn't be killing teams. They should be killing squshies, then leaving, waiting for cooldowns. Akali doesn't do that. She kills teams, due to her sustain, her relatively simple energy recovery mechanics, and her mobility. she is notoriously hard to peel as well. If as janna, you do not have enough tools to peel her off your adc, i think there is a problem. Every other assassin can be peeled off using janna (2 peeling abilities). Akali can laugh at that. 2 people fighting one assassin shouldn't lose, by your definition of "killing lone squshies"

Continued on reply

ObscureClockworkSep 27, 20142 votes

Citing a weak lane phase doesn't stop a champion from not having counterplay options. counterplay should not be limited to only one of your players, and if he screws up, your team is fked. In fact, I find poppy's laning to be less safe than akali's by merits of akali's shroud.
Nor is the idea that all champs are balanced/broken because "they do their job". Currently, tristana is doing her job of being a hypercarry. She is not balanced. Pre-rework kass was doing his job of an anti-mage assassin, but he wasn't healthy.
Nor does the idea of akali doing "picks off isolated targets" really hold much water. Reset mechanics, low CD's and lack of an isolation mechanic go against the idea of akali being a 1-man killer.
The idea that she relies on a weak laning phase and a lack of pink wards also is not entirely true. As mentioned before, pink wards don't stop her damage. Nor do they make her easier to hit with skillshots (and she has 3 dashes). This is important because skillshots tend to carry the CC. Furthermore, already you mention "kills lone squishies" pretty much meaning that akali will, in the end, beat any lane opponent that is squishy. Counterpicking isn't a valid argument because that isn't always an option, and it hints at a badly designed binary nature. Not only that, her supposed weak phase (1-6) makes up a small part of the lane phase (i'd argue less than half of the lane phase).
meanwhile, for reasons implied in the "relies on enemies not using stealth detection" akali can dive through a frontline. Dashes are not interuptable unless through a knockup/knockback. Akali (with her 800 range dash) can pretty much dash to your adc if your adc is in range to hit a frontliner. Even if she doesn't, you also ignore the power of her presence granted to her by her skillset.

Ok, i think thats enough of me going about your points.

What i hope to see in what riot will do

*** Up her counterplay potential ***

I don't think akali has much counterplay between the mobility, stealth, sustain, and energy use.

Shroud restealths her too early, and gives her stealth after she walks out. 0.65 seconds is too short, especially when the average reaction time is 0.24 seconds. That is Literally no time for an animation to complete to the point the damage will be done after you move your mouse to click her. Shroud also lasts too long (8 seconds) early on.
Make her dash either slower (easier for supports to knock her mid-dash) shorter ranged (makes the "can't get through a front line point more valid.) or have a longer stack cooldown (so she can't keep jumping.

*** Remove hidden strength***

I don't mind if akali is doing well, and starts fking people. Fine, she won her lane. I do care that its so hard to notice where all the damage is coming from.

Her passive needs to be looked at. With hextech at level 9, her passive provides to her: 30 extra magic damage her autoattack, and a total of 33% spell vamp. at level 18 with hextech, zhonyas as her AP items, she gains 57 extra damage on her autoattack. Goldwise, these values are worth around 1080 and 2052 gold for just the AD (the spellvamp portion is worth 357 gold). This is why she snowballs so hard overall. She is ridiculously gold efficient in scaling.

define her role

If riot wants her to be a carry, they need to hit her early game to reflect that (see azir). If riot wants her to be an assassin, they need to cap her reset + team-kill potential. If riot wants her to be something diana-esque (ap bruiser with burst) then her raitos needs to be lowered on Q. Currently, akali is in the state of:
strong = lane-dominator post lvl 6 that transitions into hard-scaling carry (due to the gold efficiency offered by her passve). Her gold efficiency makes viktor's passive look shitty.
Weak = unfun to play against, but ultimately unable to do much.
This is because her role isn't focused or defined.

Continued on further reply.

ObscureClockworkSep 27, 20141 votes

*** what i hope riot will do *** Passive: Discipline of Force: Akali's auto attacks deal 3% (+ 1% per 12 AP) of her attack damage as bonus magic damage.

Discipline of Might: Akali gains 3% (+ 1% per 12 bonus AD) spell vamp.

Q: Travel speed reduced by 10% W: Duration scales with level (5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 seconds) and restealth timer changed to 1.25 seconds. Armor and MR removed. R: range reduced to 650 (slightly lower than kat shunpo range)

What i hope this will do: This will make her laning weak. This way, your "poppy level laning" is a valid comment. This means akali has to play well to really snowball at level 6. This also cuts down on her ridiculously efficient passive. That passive puts Viktor's new passive to shame.
W changes meant to allow people to actually react to it.

I didn't touch her Q or her R much because it seems to be core to her identity. Q changes were to make life easier for melees to deal with, yet retain the double Q that kinda separates akali's who know what they are doing. R changes make the argument that you can't bypass a front line valid, and lowers her escape potential. I like how akali doesn't insta-burst you unless you are fed. Just the passive makes her hit so much harder than it looks, and her ult makes her inescapable.

I'll add that i actually really hate akali. You love her, i hate her. I think my nerfs will be harsher than what riot will do, but i really don't think akali can be fixed without a rework. I hope however, those nerfs reflect what akali players actually think akali is (that is, a weak laning, hard scaling, high mobility assassin with resets and stealth). I'd prefer her AP bruiser (and would have prefered Q and R taking hits to ratios to encourage 3-dash plays for kills). The thing is, though, akali wins trades post-level 6 off the merit of higher mobility, better scaling, and just better tools that are hard to counter early on. Multiplying someone's damage by 3 is an insane measure. Thats one of the reasons akali feels so bad to play against even though on paper, she looks mundane.

Earl EulrichSep 12, 20141 votes

It´s not about her being OP or UP...it´s about the complete lack of counterplay. Once she gets a lead she just jumps onto you from 800range away again and again and again...not much you can do against her. And her lvl 6/11 powerspikes are just incredible abusive, if someone is not really used to the matchup he will die 100% to you at lvl 6/7, not by getting outplayed - just by being bruteforced down.

YGW CaspieSep 12, 20144 votes

Sure and playing against Pantheon/Lee Sin as Akali pre-6 is also abusive to play in but that's because they have really strong 1-5 power spikes and Akali's 1-5 is awful and that's without being outplayed they just get brute force you down and snowball against you, and then you end up 20-30 cs behind by level 6.

There's always the other side, and believe me there is enough Akali's out there who have lost the game for their team because they got snowballed against in an abusive lane but didn't know how to deal with it. The idea of counterplay is that there is something you can do about it so for Akali vs bad match ups they can run different runes/masteries and itemize differently but the same can be said in reverse for people against Akali. So there is something you can do about it, three dashes are meaningless if they still can't kill you or if you can kill them anyways and since she requires a target to dash to it's not always an option to use it as an escape.

Look at Talon, people who don't know how to play against Talon when he's level 6 are in for a world of pain because his power spike at level 6 is also incredible and can be abused. Should we just not have power spikes? Same with Syndra or Annie... I mean how do you counter a flash tibbers? Many many champions have abusive laning patterns but there's a difference between power spikes and actually having no counterplay.

Now if Akali had the strength she does at level 6 at every level then that would be something to worry about or if you couldn't peel her off, CC her, reveal her, etc. and sure some of this requires team coordination that isn't found very often in solo Q but that's why some champions thrive in the solo Q environment. It doesn't mean their OP it means we need to learn how to be better teammates in solo Q.

Earl EulrichSep 12, 20142 votes

depending on the matchup her pre 6 laning is pretty darn strong ,as it´s hard to trade with a good akali due to her high burst with q and her sustain. Sure, she struggles fighting ranged opponents pre 6...but guess what, so does almost every goddamn melee. But she has a way to just sustain herself through to lvl 6 and then kill anyone that doesn´t rush mr, she just doesn´t need any early items for her powerspike, thus allowing her to spend a lot on potions and still hit the stronger spike on lvl 6 than her opponent.

You list a lot of champs that are also problematic and probably not too healthy in their patterns overall, but this doesn´t mean anything for Akali. There´s just not much potential for outplaying her (or for her to outplay anyone), she´s just clicking you and than either kills you or not, depending on her stats and yours...actually you should be happy they want to change her patterns, as right now that is exactly her problem - she does not have anything to fall back on if she doesn´t snowball, she has to dash straight into the teamfight, leaving her incredible vulnerable to get cc´d and focused asap, as she can´t avoid anything while dashing forward. It´s not a call for a straight nerf, they want to reshift some of her power, and that can only benefit her and the game.

YGW CaspieSep 12, 20143 votes

She doesn't have a ton of winning match ups only against some melee or weaker melee can she win against. Take Irelia, Jax, Pantheon, Darius, Fizz, Gragas, Lee Sin, Riven, Olaf, etc. they can all out trade her 1-5 and sometimes all game and they too are melee. In fact most melees can out trade her early. Akali vs Yasuo is decent because at level 6 Akali's power spike is really strong but Yasuo's level 6 isn't really a big power spike and he can't really outplay Akali aside from windwalling the Q and if everything was a skillshot/projectile Yasuo would be the king of this game and anyone who masters him would have a significant advantage.

Also Tristana or any marksman for that matter just click you and you die. Ryze does the same thing he clicks on you and either kills you or not, depending on your stats and theirs. The game is built around numbers, but strategy is important in this game, it's not all just about playing mechanically demanding champions. There are many champions that can just click on you and either you die or not but it all depends on how you itemize what champions you pick, how that match up goes at every point in the game so you can then decide what to do. Split push, group, set up small skirmishes, go for picks, vision control, itemization, and so on... these are all factors that play into the whole game on every single champion and with each champion the macro and micro strategy change.

I'm not discussing her power spike because no one brought that up as the reason for nerfing Riot themselves said it was to do with low counterplay abilities, but it doesn't make sense when there is tons of ways to counterplay Akali already. Akali has to know when she can go in, if she can kill, what abilities they have up, whether or not they have pinks or upgraded sweeper, and so on. Strategy and decision making is in my opinion an important part of skill, this game isn't defined by raw mechanics nor should it be.

They never said what it was they said it was a light change and they wanted to reduce counterplay but when counterplay and Akali are mentioned together it doesn't really add up, if they wanted to talk about her power spikes being over the top at certain levels/items then sure we could have a discussion about that.

What you're talking about is power spikes, and I agree her power spike at some levels and items are really high but currently she relies on those power spikes to snowball. Also outplaying can be done with strategy and decision making it doesn't always have to be some mechanical flashy play.

This isn't about them addressing Akali this is about how they are choosing to address her.

PapaGreg21Sep 13, 20143 votes

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Earl EulrichSep 13, 20141 votes

If you play her mid you get your kills from roaming, not from winning the lane... hugging the turret isn´t exctly counterplay, and this is not about me having any problems facing akali. It´s about her core mechanics and strenghts, and they are not in a good/healthy spot at all.

420CountSalTeaOct 12, 20141 votes

I understand why people get frustrated playing against an akali she hides in the shroud when she needs to and pops up to farm with Q. As an akali player I do that all the time and yes the defense bonus is good for me because I focus on getting my damage up and only max the shroud when all other spells have been maxed thus i only get, what? 10? 20? mr and armor that aint much. and yes you get +30 or so late game (forgot exact numbers) defense. This was to make sure an akali player who has to go through the gates of hell can have some defense against aoe's or even some padding to for durability in team fights.

I was interested to have this speed buff when i gotta duck out and run when im surrounded, but what the hell is this?

1 second of 30% movement speed, come on man atleast 3 seconds.

Its not like i can place a ward and shadow dash there, lee sin can do that with a normal spell and nobody complains about that. And from what i hear lots of people in the lower elos bronze and silver are the main sources of complaint. Well i support majority rules but if the majority of people in bronze refuse to buy pink, haven't played against akali all that often or are just plain trolls then that is a problem.

Because with her defenses nerffed the gold and plat players who do buy wards just open fire on akali and she can't have an answer to that until level 6 and even then her escapes are limited to shroud, waiting for an enemy minion to come by, or flash where other champs have ridiculous mobility and even invulnerability in some reare cases (fizz and his pole, vlad pool for example) and nobody complains about that.

So i the end the boys in bronze who wont buy wards now can use aoe more effectively, and the men in gold and plat are screwed because her defenses were key in keeping her afloat in laning phase.

So pls re-peel the nerffs, she was just fine as she was. a 50/50 champ that could be made irrelevant and thats just a waste of a good champ.