Why Are We Hotfix Buffing Akali?

Tobykachu·2/7/2020, 1:50:27 AM·3 votes·1,792 views

Akali has been an extremely week champion in regular play pretty much since her rework hit the live servers, however her dominance in pro play has caused her to receive huge nerfs despite sitting at one of the lowest win rates in the game. In recent professional play Akali has one of the highest pick/ban rates in the game resulting in, yet again, more nerfs. However she is now being hot fixed with some quite impactful buffs before we've even had the chance to see how the latest rounds of nerfs may have affected her professional priority.

21 Comments

Jamaree2/7/2020, 1:55:58 AM3 votes

She is currently sitting at sub 40%.

ZephyrDrake2/7/2020, 4:05:01 AM2 votes

The entire point of the nerf was to make her not be a pick/ban champion in pro. The nerfs also made her become a literal troll pick for everyone else. Why the hell would they not buff her? They want akali to be at the bare minimum playable in regular play while being strong but not to the point of being pick/ban in pro. That is literally the point of her changes so that they can take power from her pro play and give it to her regular play. I am sorry but they are not going to let a champion sit with a sub 40% winrate just because you don't like the champion.

Chembaron Yamada2/7/2020, 11:06:44 AM2 votes

Because Riot expects that the latest nerfs were efficient at decreasing her pro play priority.

Safety is a great strength in pro play. If a champion has many tools at hand to escape from an incoming gank, this is always an advantage there. Safety also has been one reason why Urgot, for example, has been a strong pick in pro play.

By making her ultimate enemy targeted, they took away one dash from Akali she could use for escaping. This alone could go a long way to make her less strong in pro play. So they felt that giving her hotfix buffs, since her winrate is just terrible after this, was safe to do.

We will have to see how these changes impact pro play, but I think buffing her is fine at this point.

Darkdemon6532/7/2020, 11:18:35 AM2 votes

Presumably because she's shit

Scibra2/11/2020, 10:01:40 PM1 votes

Definitely feel this could have waited for a real patch note instead of hotfix. I'm willing to bet a major reason her win rate is low is because people aren't used to the nerfs, so they aren't compensating properly, and probably going for plays that she might barely win, but now loses due to the nerfs.

myamia2/11/2020, 10:09:07 PM1 votes

the champ has been a bad champion since her R1 stun got removed. ya'll gotta stop trolling now, it's ridiculous.