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@Meddler - Akali QOL gifts?

Hawke Solaris·9/2/2015, 10:02:44 AM·4 votes·573 views

Can be addressed to anyone on the Live Balance team, but I saw Meddler post recently so directing to him.

What's the team's stance on maybe for 5.18 throwing in extremely small amounts of love towards our favorite (to love or hate) Akali whilst she's waiting for the team to do a larger amount of work on her like it's been mentioned before? I'm extremely wary of any kind of changes that can be directed at her as she's extremely feast or famine and I don't want her nerfed again just because of some small love-taps sent her on a killing frenzy again. No direct number buffs, just pure mechanical love aimed specifically to help her feel more fluid and responsive rather than cold and clunky:

  1. Speed up her auto-attack. Similar to the Katarina change made, I think this would help her when CSing or hitting a marked target. Currently, her attack is rather slow, leaving her a lot more vulnerable when she goes for a CS with her AA. Also, detonating the mark on a target feels just a tiny bit too slow when you try to combo extremely rapidly. This is a very small change that I feel could have a big impact on how she feels to combo and lane with. Her laning pre-6 is already rather vulnerable in my opinion to off-set her major powerspike, but she currently feels (especially compared to more modern melee champs) rather slow, which doesn't fit her when she's an assassin who's trait is to be extremely mobile and nimble.

  2. Speed up her Q projectile. Another possible little adjustment that could be made is to help Akali do better in situations where she's being zoned away from CS. Her Q cooldown is high enough that zoning does a lot to stop her farming adequately, but I feel that when zoned, Akali's Q is her only option to last hit and the speed of the projectile is EXTREMELY slow, almost as bad (if not worse) than Anivia and Karthus' old auto attack projectiles. It also would be dangerous though as it'd increase the reliability of the Q -> R -> Auto combo. Currently that combo isn't as efficient as it could be as Akali reaches and strikes the target before the Q has even arrived and marked the target. With a faster Q, it could be carried out more reliably which might be dangerous, but I also think that giving her more speed in execution of abilities would feel nicer for the Akali player (but definitely not for her victims given her assassin nature).

Of the 2 gifts here, I think 1 is the most important and it's a similar change you have done in the past to a similar (in my opinion) champion- Katarina. Whilst Akali definitely needs some love through a rework, I think that giving her extremely minor gifts that wouldn't take too long to implement would help her out drastically. She MIGHT need animation adjustments to fit which could push these changes out of 5.18 entirely. What are your thoughts? :)

5 Comments

Valderis Vandala9/2/2015, 10:14:19 AM1 votes

Isn't she the champ with literary the highest attack speed animation out of all champions? I think I read that somewhere.

I do like the idea of more speed on her Q, its point and click anyway and it fits better with her because everything else she does feels so damn fast. Other than her E which has a short delay, speeding up the cast time on that one would also be nice. That way Akali will truly feel like you're playing with lightning.

Penns9/2/2015, 1:04:37 PM1 votes

I havent read everything since Im lazy but Akali is literal cancer. If she gets buffed, she get played again (mainly just because she was in the patch notes) and no one wants that lol.