Akali's current situation

Before I move on to everything else, I should probably start by saying a few things first:

1.) I do not think akali will be reverted. This post is meant to give insight to people that didn't main her, because out of all the posts i've seen of people wanting a revert, they never give much reason.

2.) The game used to be a lot different than what it is now.

3.) This is based on mid lane, because old akali was not a top laner for most of her lifespan.

Old akali:

Her early game was bad, and she was one of the weakest champions in mid lane. She got bullied by just about every champion quite hard; a good comparison would be the reworked kayle. Her passive was meant to help this and gave her some healing to survive the poke.

At level 6, you had the chance to outplay the opponent, and many match ups were based on skill. Back then not every champion in the game had assassin level damage, so you could make small burst attacks at them while using your stealth and extra ult charges to get away, then after this, use your passive to heal up a bit for the next trade and wait for your ult stacks to come off cooldown. You couldn't just straight up one shot someone like you can now unless you got really fed, which wasn't an easy thing to do. This is what made her somewhat enjoyable in the laning phase. Once you survived the crappy early game, you could have a chance to outplay and start snowballing.

A typical trade at 6 would be q, ult, auto to prock q, e, w, and then you could ult away to a minion if you were smart with it (old e procked q, but that was removed so i'm going with this version). The counterplay to this is the fact that many champions in the mid lane had a cc ability (ahri, anivia, annie, brand, cho, heim, etc...) and all it took to come out on top of a trade would be a cc ability landed and then some follow up damage. Akali was quite squishy, and almost all of her survivability was her healing, meaning that if you hit her with a combo, she would be very low and either forced to recall or play very safe for the time being.

Her mid to late game was definitely her most fun, but I think many people over exaggerate how strong she actually was. In most games you couldn't just dive in and one shot someone. You could burst them with a lot of damage, but even with gunblade + her whole combo, it wasn't very common for you to straight up one shot someone like a diana or katarina would do now. Her main strength was how slippery she was in a teamfight, using her spell vamp healing, stealth and many dashes to dance around a fight and do small chunks of burst damage to people during the fight. You relied on your movement to survive, and any well placed cc in a fight would completely shut you down because of how squishy you were.

The problem with akali and the reason many people hated her was the fact that much later into the game you could straight up just one shot someone, paired with how slippery she was. It was pretty much a diana diving at you, but akali had her w as an escape (her later iteration had a dash added to it), and extra ult charges that had a reset on champion kill. It wasn't uncommon for a 45 minute game to be ended by one person getting one shotted by an akali with little reaction time because they were mispositioned. The issue now is the fact that this exact same thing happens, but the games are 20-25 minutes instead of 35-45, which makes it a lot less impactful now than it did years ago.

It's hard to compare the old akali to anyone, but the closest is the current kha zix. Kha zix is high risk/reward with him either one shotting and resetting/ulting away, or him getting completely fucked by a well placed cc ability. They are both risk/reward when diving in, but kha zix does less damage and can have troubles killing a squishy if they are not isolated. Akali had more movement in her kit, and much less reliable escapes. A pink ward could completely ruin an akali's day.

New akali:

Her early game is one of the strongest points for her. She can bully many champions with her level 1 power spike. She now has no healing in her kit making her sustain non-existant. In many match ups, you will be able to kill your laner pre 6 with how powerful her kit is early. Her q is very good poke paired with your passive, and your e gives you a very consistant trade with how it gives you a free passive prock, and how it lets you stick to the enemy quite easily. A good trade is e'ing backwards into the enemy with an instant q + w to restore energy and give you movement speed to walk past them for your passive, auto with passive, then another q to prock electrocute. Your w in lane gives you massive amounts of lane priority due to being able to drop minion agro, and the fact that the enemy will have a tough time trading with a champion that is constantly dropping in and out of stealth with poke.

At level 6, you are fairly strong and your ult gives you good kill pressure if you are able to poke the enemy down to allow for an all in. Your ult has a 160 second cooldown, so for nearly 3 minutes, you will need to play safer in lane due to the enemy having an ult advantage. Her q is incredibly strong at pushing minion waves, which allows her to not be pushed under tower very often, and in some cases allows her to quickly shove and roam.

Late game her w gives her a lot of pressure, and this is the main reason people hated versing her. Her combo is decent at assassinating people, but her main strength is her sustain damage, giving her more a much different play style than before. She can use her stealth in a teamfight to force the enemy into poor situations because of how long it lasts, and how fast she is inside. If used properly, she can become one of the most annoying assassins in the game due to how slippery she is, and how much damage she deals. This is a problem though, because not every game is a professional match of 5v5 teamfights, where she can be super impactful, and in many cases, you can trade 1 for 1 and then die, which is not very fun and is very different from old akali.

Conclusion:

Akali completely lost her identity of being a late game hyper carry that needed to outplay her opponents by dancing around fights, and became a somewhat abusive early game champion that has a harder time carrying games. I think if akali were added into the game right now as her old self (no nerfs or buffs) she would be considered somewhat weak. She has a lot of movement to jump on the enemy squishies, but due to the fact that there is so much cc in the game currently, she would be extremely easily countered and shut down. She is a lot like the current katarina, but katarina is more of a one shot assassin that will wipe a team in seconds, whereas akali is more of a single target assassin that uses movement more than full one shots. This is somewhat hard to tell though because of how much power creep there has been since the old days of akali (2015, 2016), and how many new champions and mechanics have been added.

Right now, as previously stated, akali is sort of a cash cow for riot, with new skins being released all the time, constant nerfs/buffs to her to try and push her to a point where they can milk her for money without her being considered toxic to the game. I think an easy way to go about this is keeping her looks (which is what a majority of people like her for), but give her back her old kit. I know this will probably never happen because a lot of people like her kit as it is right now, but I think it should have been given to a completely new champion instead of ripping an existing champion out of the game. Also, nothing comes close to the satisfaction of her old q procking.