Akali Balance
So I'm not coming here to say Akali is brokenly OP and needs nerfs, nor am I coming here to say she sucks terribly and needs buffs, but rather talking about both of those and how they correspond to Akali's general state in relation to her kit.
So, I could be entirely wrong on this, as I've never been a big Akali player, but I feel like that as long as her kit retains a point-click, 3 charge ult, she can never face true balance. It seems to me, and please correct me if I'm not understanding the champion, that she goes through phases of gross overpowered, raw domination into just flat out uselessness to the degree of Talon's old passive. I've never really seen Akali in a state where she is doing well or just alright, you know?
When the meta heavily favors her/she gets buffs to her/items, she becomes this monstrosity that, once jumps on you, gray screens follow shortly. Now yes, the typical "CC her" argument comes up, and yes that works. I haven't met a champion in this game that CC doesn't work, aside from the very short few that can become immune to it. Otherwise, her counter is the generic assassin "She must commit and go in, CC her, peel, shield ADC, exhaust, x,y,z." Great. We all know that's not how any game really goes. It's like planning out a play in sports and expecting it to work like it does on paper. So, she is strong and has a kit that has no way of escaping or really even dealing with effectively. In the case of assassins like maybe Zed, Ekko, Fizz (This one will get hate), there seem to be brief set up times followed by a necessity to land certain aspects of the kit. Akali is not like this, and that's why when she is strong, she is about unbearable and actually takes away from the game itself. The damage in her kit is all point and click on an assassin. Now this isn't me saying make everything a skillshot, but a point-click kit should never be a nuke kit. But it is, on top of the amazing synergy she has with additional damage adding items, like gunblade and lichbane.
Now, when Akali isn't in the meta, my god I'd rather remake then play the game. She is just terrible. She can't go in on anything, she can't kill anyone aside from a damaged, lone ADC and honestly ruins the game for the team she's on. And from what I see, she can't be given great power elsewhere in her kit (I can't even believe E is a real spell after it stopped proccing Q) because her ult is just terribly overloaded in power. It's not the damage, but rather that it takes the option of escape from the target. So when you give an assassin character that sort of stickiness, as opposed to more tame characters like Ivern, Nunu, Nautilus, etc, you have this problem where if she jumps on you and no one is near, you might as well take your hand off the keyboard and mouse, alt tab, and go grab a drink of water really quickly. But when you have this character that does nothing, all it is is a shitty tank that's only purpose is to absorb some CC/damage because of the image that you are an effective assassin and a threat, but in reality are useless and only stopping those spells from being directed at valuable members.
I know they reworked Akali because she was utter trash earlier, but they didn't address the core problem of her kit. Just like Fizz's shark will always be a point of contention in his kit (As his entire kit is based around it from a power budget perspective), so to is Akali's ult.
The whole point of this post is for insight. Is there something about Akali I'm missing, or maybe I'm not seeing it from the right perspective? I just don't see how one can justify that sort of ult, you know? When she's strong, the ult makes her the worst champion in the game. When she's weak, you don't even get to use all of it. Can anyone shed some light on this issue, preferably some Akali mains mixed in?
