She forces bad trades and then relies on her ridiculous sustain to erase them and come out "ahead"
She plays more like a bruiser at this point (except bruisers generally don't have as much guaranteed sustain if they force bad trades) than a refined assassin.
La Bello34 votesManaless and Sustain were two things never meant to be combined nearly every "manaless sustainer" trades or plays exactly like this in lane
will attempt to trade on you in lane regardless of the lane situation and then just spend the next wave sustaining back. Pretty obnoxious tbh and I think nearly every champion that has this kind of design is deserving of a Gameplay update. The only real caveat is that SOMETIMEs they're forced to push lane to sustain (like Renekton for instance) but otherwise yeah. pure cancer to play against in lane and it completely nullifies meaningful interactions or trades.
Pacattack252 votesManaless and Sustain were two things never meant to be combined nearly every "manaless sustainer" trades or plays exactly like this in lane
You forgot a few: 
his w is a thing people forget about ... but his w is a THING
: Passive...
: He may have mana - but god knows he's only using it for one thing top lane - and god it's obnoxious that he has infinite sustain
DuskDaUmbreon31 votesYasuo's passive isn't sustain...It literally isn't.
You might as well call Janna's E a heal. Or Diana's W a heal.
Somebody Love Me4 votesDoesn't Yasuo take warlords now? That would count for sustain, but not his passive shield xD
DuskDaUmbreon7 votesPac said ": Passive".
And Yasuo typically runs Fervor. Warlords only in bad matchups.
Somebody Love Me1 votesOkay, fair enough, but what about 
, which he commonly starts. That gives just about as much sustain as Akali's passive, if you factor in the fact that hers is on a cooldown and D Blade is consistent life steal.
Danjeng10 votesWith that logic, every ADC has sustain. We're talking about innate sustain built into kits, you're talking items/masteries. Every champion can itemize sustain, but it takes a chunk out of their budget. Akali does not need to itemize for sustain.
Somebody Love Me7 votesAkali's in lane sustain is laughable until she has levels and items though, and yes she does need to itemize for sustain, because she needs 
or even 
for her sustain to even make much of a difference.
Before that, her heal is just about as useful as Ahri's heal, except she can be punished before and after using it.
Awoof3 votesIdk what you've been watching, but her heal is a lot better than Ahri's in lane. Especially considering how often she has it up.
DuskDaUmbreon2 votesIt's better, sure, but they're both irrelevant. It's like saying that Rakan's damage is better than Janna's, so his is strong. It isn't. Both are crap.
Akali's heal is roughly comparable to the Feast mastery. Ahri's heal is comparable to Doran's blade. Both are shit, one's just less shit than the other.
Now, of course, they do scale up, and become decent in late. But then they run into different problems, namely both passive being outstripped by Gunblade, and them just not being relevant anymore, since both are too squishy for that healing to help.
Jet Sett1 votesHuh? Yasuo's passive definitely IS sustain, unless sustain only means healing now and not increasing effective health or mana consistently.
Critkeeper10 votesHuh? Yasuo's passive definitely IS sustain, unless sustain only means healing now and not increasing effective health or mana consistently.
thats precisely what it means
Pacattack251 votesYasuo's passive isn't sustain...It literally isn't.
You might as well call Janna's E a heal. Or Diana's W a heal.
Question: What does a shield do? Does it prevent damage? Why yes it does - your telling me that being able to proc a shield that prevents damage every so often DOESN'T let you sustain? Why does Janna/Diana have a shield? Is it to make things take longer to kill (more so with janna which can put it on turrets) A shield that proks on taking damage negligating some of it IS sustain
DuskDaUmbreon1 votesIs armor sustain? Is base HP sustain? Is damage reduction sustain?
No. They aren't.
So why the fuck would you count a shield as sustain?
Pacattack251 votesIs armor sustain? Is base HP sustain? Is damage reduction sustain?
No. They aren't.
So why the fuck would you count a shield as sustain?
Armor: can be overcome - Base hp 
, you can BUILD against armor/base hp (in fact you can buy grivious wounds against most other sustain)
What do you build against a 300 hp shield that procs five times in a fight?
Edit: Armor and hp items can help you stay in lane and thus stay in fights longer as well - when is staying in a fight NOT sustain but besides the point - neither of those can be proced whenever you want and are permanent. you can't just re-apply a ruby chrystal for extra health where you can just reapply diana's w for essentially extra health whenever you want
Ultrios4 votesAkali has something else that all the melee champs in this list have in addition which is ranged poke.
The first few levels, it's chip damage. It's not entirely meaningless, because while she's chipping you, she's sustaining pretty heavily. It makes playing melee vs her tough, which is why she's so strong top right now. After a few levels and items it does start to do a chunk of damage.
Additionally, she has something no one else in the game has. She can simply use all her abilities and her passive and then stop the fight whenever she is ready with her stealth. She can always choose when to engage and re-engage. She can force you to waste your abilities and cooldowns very easily, then sustain any damage she actually took and restart the cycle. It's VERY difficult to do anything about it.
In fact, the only other champion I absolutely cannot stand laning against is vlad, who also has ranged poke and sustain. The manaless permanent ranged poke and sustain these two have makes it impossible for most the champions in my kit. IDK who counters vlad and Akali. HELP lol.
Additionally Vlad can do something similar to what akali does with her stealth, but with his pool. It's just on a much longer cooldown. But Vlad is doing almost all his damage at range without ever risking a melee.
Somebody Love Me2 votesVlad is much worse than Akali imo. Because Akali is still a melee champ. You can abuse her by knowing her passive cooldown, or even zoning her off a wave....mid lane at least.
As for top lane, I guess that's when you abuse ranged top laners, or just play a lane bully like Renekton or Darius. Irelia is basically a skill matchup.
Buying 
basically negates her Q and Q proc damage unless you've already fed her, and a 
could also be a nice alternative.
MagikarpIsBoss1 votesDarius is really bad into her. She has so many ways to get into your q shaft range so you dont do a lot of damage. She can also disengage whenever she wants to because of shroud or ulting to a minion, so she can escape every easily. Only a bad akali should really get destroyed here.
Somebody Love Me1 votesI've seen it go both ways. A good Darius I watched once abused her horrible level 1 in comparison to his, and had dominance from that point. He can easily zone her pre 6 too.
If she goes for CS, he uses his spin move (q?), and if she shrouds that and goes for a trade, he can basically unload the rest of his kit onto her.
Then he can rush to negate her Q poke. But I generally max E vs Darius, which is physical damage, but that means I have to shove and fight him up close.
After 6 is whoever fucks up less, which is usually how most of Akali's matchups go.
MagikarpIsBoss2 votesIf he misses his q, the only damage he has left is his autos and w. Akali should win the trade at this point. I do agree that it can go both ways if something happens to either of them. If any of them get ahead by a decent amount, they will destroy the other.
Somebody Love Me1 votesHis autos and W is a lot of damage, considering his passive. That's why trading with Darius is a chore.
Mentioning the earlier trade situation I used:
If Akali shrouds to dodge Darius Q, Q>AA>E's Darius, Darius could trade back with AA>W(the auto reset. Idk what move that is)>Auto, and when Akali tries to run back, he pulls her back and smacks that hoe up.
Basically, if Darius successfully baits shroud, he wins. If not, good luck. If akali is good enough to dodge Q, she wins, if not, tough shit.
But it's hard to easily dodge Q when he uses it as she goes to CS
DeathBurst1 votesHum, pretty much all manaless champs have built-in sustain or some pseudo-sustain mechanic.
The only ones without sustain I can think of off the top of my head are Riven and Katarina. Riven still has a spammable shield, though, which leaves Katarina as the only true exception.
So, saying "manaless and sustain were never meant to be combined" is... sketchy, at best.
MagikarpIsBoss1 votesIts only spammable midgame when you have full cdr and max rank. Early on its got a decent cd so you cant just use it whenever. Katarina has no sustain because her base regen is nothing and she has nothing built in.
Somebody Love Me1 votesThen theres BoxBox with the triple
build
MagikarpIsBoss2 votesI personally hate this build. It completely gets rid of your early game damage because you dont have a good starting item. I also feel like D shield over all gives you more use. You get extra hp and extra minion damage. Rejuv is only hp regen which isnt great.
Nothing against boxbox, but I feel that the build is just gimmicky when other things offer more. I dont really think that you can use this as a way to say that Kata has sustain either.
Somebody Love Me2 votesLol I don't like this either. It doesn't even work in Kat vs Kat 1v1s. Idk why he did it, but hey, he's challenger, not me.
O Fallen Scholar1 votesThen theres BoxBox with the triple
He does stuff like that for show. Idk why u all copy this guy.
Somebody Love Me1 votesI've never seen anyone replicate it lol
AFK Push1 votesgarens is out of combat sustain don't lump him into this, it is quite fair especially in lane.
Hovering Hentai32 votesThank you for saying it.
Whats the point of trading with an Akali when she's going to heal all of your poke damage then insta burst you at 6 with a chain of targeted dashes that are near impossible to escape all of them
Heckin Support13 votesShe's due for a sort of mini rework IMO. Her stealth feels really clunky like it hasn't really kept up with the times.
Then again most assassins (imo) feel bad to play right now.
kasfas5 votesMost assassins are actually REALLY GOOD (except lb) but what's keeping them back is the ludicrous power of adcs.
It's like riot thinks adcs are the übermensch of league, when no one else believes in that.
The last time someone believed in an übermensch, there was a pretty big disagreement in Europe.
ZeroAgainst3 votesi remember the one time an assassin killed an adc in the lcs they nerfed him so hard he had a 38% win rate for 2 seasons.can you guess who it was?
kasfas2 votesZed?
ZeroAgainst1 votesadc mains wish. it was olaf 38% winrate
My Heartshaker8 votesI have PTSD from lethality patch, please no.
Assassins are fine where they are right now.
SnakDatSmilesBak10 votesPlease don't use ptsd like this, doing this makes it harder to open up about it if you actually do have it. Totally irrelevant, I know, but it's important to me.
MohawkBird3 votes[deleted]
SnakDatSmilesBak7 votesIf you ever have it, god forbid, you'll remember this and probably break down. Try not to joke about it, it kinda sucks.
Brownie Elfie6 votesIf you get ptsd from a videogame forum then you shouldnt be playin the game at all
SnakDatSmilesBak4 votesYou obviously know nothing about ptsd.
Brownie Elfie3 votesIm sorry, but if you yourself have had ptsd then I believe youre not in the position to make people change the use of the way they use ptsd, for comedic reasons or not
SnakDatSmilesBak2 votesI'm not making anyone do anything, just respectfully asking. Whether I have it or not, joking about ptsd like this makes it harder to come out about it. People with ptsd worry about a lot already, let's not trivialize something that's ruining the lives of 3.5% of people.
MagikarpIsBoss1 votesI was on board until you said 3.5%. No disrespect, but that's too insignificant for people to change their word choice.
SnakDatSmilesBak1 votes1/30 people aren't significant enough to avoid unnecessary hyperbole k
And it's not even that, the real reason I asked is that it's really hard to be honest about it if you have it. When people joke about it like this it becomes even harder to seek help because you're thinking "what if they laugh at me?"
ActivatingEMP5 votes[{quoted}](name=Lives in Bin,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=53s8lfJA,comment-id=000200000001,timestamp=2017-09-21T22:20:17.044+0000)
I have PTSD from lethality patch, please no.
Assassins are fine where they are right now.
You mean not viable?
Somebody Love Me2 votes[{quoted}](name=Lives in Bin,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=53s8lfJA,comment-id=000200000001,timestamp=2017-09-21T22:20:17.044+0000)
I have PTSD from lethality patch, please no.
Assassins are fine where they are right now.
Apparently not, because not even they can keep ADCs in check
Thefrostyviking3 votesNot even marksmen can keep marksmen in check.
It comes down to the support to carry the day, or the tank depending on who lands the best CC.
Death is also a viable form of CC.
Bańg1 votes[{quoted}](name=Lives in Bin,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=53s8lfJA,comment-id=000200000001,timestamp=2017-09-21T22:20:17.044+0000)
I have PTSD from lethality patch, please no.
Assassins are fine where they are right now.
spoken like a true self centered adc main :)
must be fun knowing every game u have 4 people sucking u off and regardless of u being bad you have 50 shields being spammed on ur ass as u stand still and melt everyone
My Heartshaker1 votesoh yes assume more
then again what can i expect from a riven player
