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The REAL problem with Akali

BetweenSkill··4 votes·1,113 views

The fact is, there is always a continous stream, sometimes thicker than others, on everyone's favorite assasin, Akali.

Whether it be her insanely low cooldowns, the resets, her point and click burst abilities, her mobility, or just her sheer damage through scaling.

However, all of those things are okay on an assasin. The thing that is not however, akin to Free Win ehem Lee Sin, is Akali's innate amount of sustain through her passive.

While it is barely noticeable, akin to the current doran's blade, in the early game, the small amount of sustain scales extremely well into the mid and late game. The fact that gunblade synergizes so incredibly well with her gives her more sustain than a Vlad once she has completed it.

An assasin out-sustaining a champion that literally drains blood? Rito pls.

That spell vamp allows her to survive in teamfights not through using her shroud like intended, but by simply dealing enough damage to sustain her healing, even through ignite. Any champion that doesn't have mana, but has innate sustain loses out somewhere.

Vlad's abilites all cost health. Pee Sin has a flat amount that does not scale. Tryndamere's is only useful post-fight, because using his heal actually lowers your damage output. Garen's amazing regen only works when out of combat, with a noticeable delay. Etc.

The truth is, Akali can outsustain champions designed around their sustain after a certain point in her build. If you build AD, her scaling is better, while if you build AP you deal enough damage with spells that you do not need that much % spell vamp to reach the same effect. And before anyone says "Just beat her early since she's weaker and end the game fast." I've heard that before. A way to counter a champ shouldn't be "End the game before a certain time or the odds drastically change for the whole game in their favor"

I feel that Akali's innate spell vamp should have flat scaling, or be changed to reflect her character more.

And yes, My highest account is gold, but i have seen this problem from bronze, all the way to playing with my diamond friends.

TL;DR assasins should not have innate sustain that SCALES incredibly well into the mid/late game, allowing them to forgo assassin-esque gameplay.

12 Comments

Abyssphere4 votes

I can actually agree with this. While I generally don't think Akali or most assassins need a nerf, sustain is definitely a healthy thing to reduce the effectiveness of. Good choice of thing to nerf.

BetweenSkill1 votes

Its just maybe they should transfer her sustain to the early game to help her transition to the late game while taking that from her powerful sustain late.

Moulin Rouge2 votes

{quoted}

Its just maybe they should transfer her sustain to the early game to help her transition to the late game while taking that from her powerful sustain late.

No, you can't give her early game sustain. Already at level 6 if you're squishy and she's at lvl6 you're forced to stay at your tower unless you're Syndra and can out burst her.

We don't need another reason why she can get to level 6 easily without hassle.

BetweenSkill1 votes

Im talking about a flat amount of sustain on spell hit for example. This would smooth out her laning phase from "useless before 6" to "can survive until 6" which then allows her late sustain to be nerfed and capped.

EndlessSorcerer2 votes

A way to counter a champ shouldn't be "End the game before a certain time or the odds drastically change for the whole game in their favor"

I'm going to have to disagree with this. Some champions excel early game, some champions excel mid-game, and some champions excel late-game; every champions scales differently. If a Poppy, Nasus, Mundo, Kog'maw, Vayne, Cassiopeia, or other late-game champions reach late game status then they should be stronger than a Garen, Caitlyn, Riven, or Leblanc (who excel in the early and mid game) at the same point, all else being equal.

Akali is a champion who is very reliant on snowballing. If you can deny her kills, she shouldn't have sufficient damage to be a big threat unless she has a lot of CS. I will acknowledge that she can be very hard to shut down on certain champions, which allow her to start snowballing without issue (She's one of the champions I have the most issue with as Nasus). All I can recommend is the have some form of true sight during fights for her Shroud (pink ward, upgraded sweeping trinket, abilities which grant vision), to use ignite or exhaust to reduce her damage/healing during teamfights, and to save CC for her when she tries to dive your squishy champions.

Akali is a great champion in solo-queue, typically because she can be crushed and starved by coordinated teams.

BetweenSkill2 votes

The problem being in yoloq a coordinated is tough to come by, simply by the communication barrier.

Im not saying champions shouldnt be stronger than others in different parts of the game. However, it shouldnt be that the entire dynamic of the game should not be changed from the overwhelming impact of a single champion out of 10 if it gets past a certain point in time. Its like Majoras Mask 75% of the time. When you run out of time its best to cut your losses and start over.

EndlessSorcerer1 votes

I know coordination is a problem in solo-queue. If you read my post, I said she works well in solo-queue because coordinated teams can crush her, which are hard to come by in solo-queue.

But there are other champions who can change the entire dynamic of the the game after a certain point:

  • If Kog'maw reaches late game, the main goal of teamfights is essential to kill/protect the Kog'maw since he will out-DPS pretty much every other champion in the game.

  • If Nasus, Jax, or Tryndamere reach late game you need to try and handle their split-pushing without losing objectives, since you typically need 2+ champions to actually stop them.

  • If Poppy reaches late game, then she can easily just zone and/or kill the enemy carries in every teamfight using her ultimate and their teammates can't really do much to stop her (unless they have walls like Jarvan, Anivia, or Trundle).

Pretty much all of the late-game champions can be bullied and denied early if you know what you are doing, which can prevent them from getting far enough ahead to be an issue until much later in the game. In addition, many of the champions are weak until about mid-game at the earliest if they aren't fed stupidly, so their opponents should be able to get ahead in objectives and use that lead to stay ahead of them.

BetweenSkill1 votes

Yes, and poppy has one of the most toxic kits in the entire game. Riot has even said it themselves but i lost the post in the old forums. The thing is that champions that can single handedly change a game are not healthy to the long term pick-ban rates of a game.

Kuroi861 votes

Poppy' kit is toxic for whole other reasons, not for her late game power.

The fact is, you've got early game champs, and late game champs. If every champ were made into an early game champ and no focus was put on the late game, then the game would quickly grow stale.

Kuroi861 votes

A way to counter a champ shouldn't be "End the game before a certain time or the odds drastically change for the whole game in their favor"

And yet it's a factor that Riot included in the game. Learn to deal with it.

assasins should not have innate sustain that SCALES incredibly well into the mid/late game, allowing them to forgo assassin-esque gameplay.

Except Akali can't forgo her assassin style. No matter how much sustain she has, the fact is her burst is outclassed by many other assassins. Akali' assassin style consists of dropping her abilities, waiting in shroud for them to come back up, then finishing the job. This has never changed. You'll never see Akali trying to tank any champ or go for dps in any given situation. DPS champs out DPS her and burst champs out burst her. Her sustain is really her only savior as it makes Akali deceptively tanky, but even that got nerfed with the change to her shroud.

67chrome1 votes

TL;DR assasins should not have innate sustain that SCALES incredibly well into the mid/late game, allowing them to forgo assassin-esque gameplay.

Most assassins are glass-cannon ADs, and as such can use life steal to great effect. With items like Hydra or Kingblade.

Akali's passive doesn't give her an edge with sustain over other assassins, it simply allows her auto-attacks and sustain to keep in line with AD assassins. Also, the magic damage on-hit she gets from her passive doesn't apply life steal or spell vamp, and life steal and spell vamp never apply at the same time.

A Slime Appears1 votes

It gives her an edge because AD assassins only life steal on autos (and if an assassin is sitting there autoing someone, he/she is dead), she is stealing life with every spell. She doesn't even need to AA to outsustain them.

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