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Potential for an AD Akali build

LankPants·May 5, 2015·1 votes·1,226 views

I think Riots changes to Akali's E will do very little to help out Akali's more common builds, the ult change may help out a little but the E change will do nothing due to its super high energy consumption.

There is however a way to build Akali that abuses the new lower E CD, AD Akali. This build is going to be focused around a top lane Smite/TP Build as I generally consider flash mostly unnecessary on Akali, but if you wanted to run flash or even Ignite you could easily just sub out for a . This build is also most likely to excel with a customised rune page, it may work with a standard rune page but I think you may run into a few too many problems with energy when you don't have blue.

Runes: 9 Flat AD Reds 9 Flat/Scaling Energy Regen Yellows 9 Flat MR Blues (VS AP) or 9 Flat/Scaling AP Blues (VS AD) 3 Flat Armour Quints (VS AD) or 3 Energy Regen/AD Quints (VS AP)

Masteries: Nothing Quite so complex here, Standard 21/9 AD masteries should be fine

Build: Start / / Rush , and Then and From there other good items are , , , , (should go Ignite/Flash with Youmuu's if building IE) , , , and .

For anybody who's doubting what this build could bring

Your E can deal around 450 damage with a full build on a 0.75 second CD (0.65 with blue)
You can get just over 75% Spellvamp at full build along with a good amount of lifesteal
You can spam your 40 energy cost E for about 4 or 5 seconds before running OOE as long as you don't have to shroud
You regenerate 18 energy per sec at level 18 with blue and scaling yellows effectively allowing you an extra E every 2 seconds and prolonging your faceroll session.

8 Comments

LilxPaprikaMay 5, 20151 votes

IMO hybrid is still the way to go, because her passive is like a built in wits end. Attack speed helps but she needs ap to complement her passive (reffering to the ap on auto part). item 3153 item 3071 item 3001 item 3157 item 3116 item 3020

I'm a bit worried as to how fast she'll be able to apply black cleaver stacks. Since she can trigger e so fast

Also spamming e will get you out of energy fast so you rely on auto attacks. Could go hybrid runes or ad.or even some attsckspeed marks

Zhonias can help her if she's out of energy too.

Can replace rylais with gunblade

LankPantsMay 5, 20151 votes

Also spamming e will get you out of energy fast so you rely on auto attacks. Could go hybrid runes or ad.

You can focus your build around energy regen and not use Qs. You actually end up getting off about 7 Es before you run OOE, about 4 or 5 if you need to shroud depending on shroud rank, but in that case you also have the shroud to hide in.

IMO hybrid is still the way to go, because her passive is like a built in wits end. Attack speed helps but she needs ap to complement her passive (reffering to the ap on auto part).

Blade really wouldn't be that good, even with the build I put up you don't AA that much, you tend to actually fight a lot like Hecarim, weaving autos inbetween your Es. For this same reason you don't really need much AP to increase your magic damage on hit.

If you're going an E centric build then both Sorc shoes and Abyssal are going to be fairly bad. 80% of your damage winds up being physical when you itemise for more AD. I'd say its fine to get sorcs/abyssal or black cleaver but never both. The type of pen you get should dictate whether you're going a more traditional AP build or a E-spam build.

Zonyas would be an option in the build I'm suggesting, but I wouldn't put it as core. It's more of a defensive item than an offensive one, admittedly it's probably the best armour item but there's better items for the strategy I'm going for.

You forgot to put Gunblade into your build. Gunblade always has been and always will be the best item for Akali, She just scales so well with all the stats it gives.

An Example build for what I'm thinking is item 3714 , item 3071 , item 3146 , item 3078 , item 3074 , item 3158

It's literally a 100% different playstyle to current Akali. It's more based around crazy AOE damage and stupidly high sustain than being an actual assassin. You know how people complained about Akali's sustain pre nerfs, that was 35% spell vamp, this is around 70%.

Meep ManMay 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

IMO hybrid is still the way to go, because her passive is like a built in wits end. Attack speed helps but she needs ap to complement her passive (reffering to the ap on auto part).

I'm a bit worried as to how fast she'll be able to apply black cleaver stacks. Since she can trigger e so fast

Also spamming e will get you out of energy fast so you rely on auto attacks. Could go hybrid runes or ad.or even some attsckspeed marks

Zhonias can help her if she's out of energy too.

Can replace rylais with gunblade

This makes me wonder if a: item 3020 item 3091 item 3115 item 3146 item 3124 item 3078 ... could work.

DJ Di0May 5, 20151 votes

So I tried it against 3 intermediate bots on the pbe (Trundle, Udyr, and Renekton)

My build was item 3158 item 3146 item 3074 item 3078 item 3031 item 3072

I had around 88% spellvamp, and 45% lifesteal. I could 2 vs 1 pretty alright as long as I managed to keep my energy up (E does a lot but drains your energy quickly) Crits and lifesteal help you sustain if you run out of energy, and you can kite much easier around minions with your ult (Irelia Q style).

If they were to lower her E energy cost I think this can actually be viable against a team without a lot of targeted cc (good luck finding that though).

LankPantsMay 6, 20151 votes

If they were to lower her E energy cost I think this can actually be viable against a team without a lot of targeted cc (good luck finding that though).

You could always throw a QSS into your build to help deal with CC, item 3139 is a fairly good item anyway, I'd maybe look at running it over BT.

DJ Di0May 6, 20151 votes

{quoted}

You could always throw a QSS into your build to help deal with CC, is a fairly good item anyway, I'd maybe look at running it over BT.

Hm, that may be a good idea.

BluePolarizerMay 5, 20151 votes

You need Flash otherwise you'll be 0-5 by the time laning phase ends. What are you thinking, not taking flash on an escapeless squishy?

Also needs some AP to compliment her autoattacks. Pure AD isn't as good as hybrid bruiser IMO.

Akali item 3146 item 3157 item 3071 item 3078 item 3065 or item 3001 item 3020 . Even though this is a very expensive build, all she really needs is or to start rolling, then she can facetank anything while dealing absolutely ridiculous mixed damage.

I really think that hybrid bruiser Akali is gonna be big after these changes. Bigger than AD Fizz since she deals more mixed sustained damage as well as having her own sustain, which AD Fizz didn't have much of.

LankPantsMay 6, 20151 votes

You need Flash otherwise you'll be 0-5 by the time laning phase ends. What are you thinking, not taking flash on an escapeless squishy?

once you start playing top lane without flash you start to learn how to play far more safely and how to not die even as a squishy without flash.

The thing with running smite on Akali with huge amounts of AD is you can smite a creep. Sounds trivial until you start to think about spellvamp. With 75% spell vamp at level 18 your smite heals you for 750 HP twice in 15 seconds, that's just insane and it's worth giving up flash for.

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