What to do with Akali?

Oh Akali, whatever will we do with you? A champion who seems to have more problems than pixels at this point, ever since release she's never seemed to quite make it into that sweet spot of assassins where we can all feel like she's outplaying people when she's good and losing when she's bad. She seems to either get ahead in lane and dominate the game after a jungle gank, or spend the rest of the game dying. So how do we get the shiny red nose onto this unloved reindeer of a champion?

Now, better men than me have pooled their intelligence into this issue and have their own issues, (see the link), and they came to the conclusion that Akali currently lacks adequate risk with her reward, lacks viability in higher ELO's, and her Crescent Slash lacking purpose. All of these are relevant issues that I'll go over, but I think I'll get the elephant in the room out of the way first.

The problem I have with her is the AP/AD Dichotomy, she plays exactly the same way whether you build her hybrid or AP, and you can forget about building her AD. This is a shame, because it actually allows you for a really sweet dynamic in her itemization, a champion who can switch her focus from dealing AP damage to AD to try and confuse enemies buying defensive items. Instead this mechanic has been kind of left by the wayside, and to try and keep down the champion with very little opportunity for counterplay, we have to start hacking out parts of her kit that made her run smoothly and intuitively. I don't at all like the fact that her E now no longer triggers Mark, it feels like that changed lowered her power level, but also make her less intuitive and frankly less fun. Instead of working in harmony with her Q, Crescent Slash now literally feels like it does nothing but be there as a mana dump. This is not the area we should be weakening. Her lore constantly hints at this objective of balance, too, the idea that a Ninja's life is to constantly strive for balance in one's soul. The fate Ninjas fear isn't death, but the state of permanent imbalance that some ninjas like Zed fall into, where they turn into nothing but bloodthirsty killers. But again, the opportunity for her "Balance" isn't addressed in gameplay at all, beyond occasionally buying Hextech Gunblade and building nothing but AP the rest of the time.

I would rather an assassin with an AD or AP build that you can switch between IN GAME rather than just having a champion who is only ever effective when building AP, and no matter what you buy still feels exactly the same as if she were only buying AP. This goes double now that the later-tier masteries in Cunning offer the same amount of Armor and Magic pen without changing your masteries, and Thunderlord's Decree deals damage based on both AP and AD. So let's have a look at her passive and see how we could change that to suit this - Right now it gives you an AP reward for building AP, and an AD reward for building AP. I could be crazy, but would it not be better to buff her AP when she's building AP?

So I would suggest something along the lines of:

"Every third spell or attack deals extra damage equal to (AP)(AD). She then gains X spell vamp for each Y AP she has for 3 seconds, and X attack speed for each Y AD she has.

Or even better still, make these decisions part of what you're doing in game - So the passive could say:

Every second attack or spell Akali triggers on the same champion triggers Mark of the Assassin - She deals (AD)(AP) damage based on her target's missing health, and gains a bonus depending on how the mark was triggered. This mark either wears off quickly, or can't trigger on the same champion multiple times in succession.

Then, replace her Q with:

_ "Mark of Force" - She throws her Kama as a medium-range skillshot and marks her target with Mark of Force, if she triggers Mark of the Assassin on a target struck by Mark of Force, they take extra damage based on Akali's AP._

And replace her E with:

_ "Mark of Might" - Akali flourishes her Kamas in a small cone in front of her. The first champion hit (Or minion if no champions are in range) is marked with "Mark of Might". If Akali triggers this mark on an enemy, Akali gains 3 seconds of movement speed, attack speed and life steal._

True hybrid players who want to build Gunblade and Guinsoos all day can trigger both marks at the same time by striking a target with both her Q AND E and no other attacks, triggering "Mark of Balance", which gives her both the Mark of Force and Mark of Might buff, deals even further bonus damage, and stuns the target briefly.

So in my mind, this set of reworks would give Akali some opportunity counterplay (E.g, not having her Q be a targeted Taric stun ability), give us back her old sense of having her abilities fit smoothly together, give her some valid reasons to go into an AD or and AP build, and give her some real rewards for building towards "Balance". This fits in much more with this champion identity of a ninja whose life is centered around the concept of balance, fearing becoming an imbalanced maniac like Zed, yet she is actually tempted to build in an imbalanced way. She gets tempted to rush in and attack and use her R, but she's rewarded for showing restraint and not using her R and basic attacks recklessly to trigger marks. Even though you can still DO that and the old champion is still there, and in low ELO it might even be effective, the higher skilled players have a reward to work for. She shouldn't be stuck as this annoying spellvamping nuisance who is either gaining all her health back easily, or dying before she gets a chance. Maybe if it all goes well we can even get rid of Gunblade, seeing it was basically only there for her and Jax.

TL;DR: Akali needs help. Akali's nerf to her E made her less fun to play. Akali needs counterplay and not spell vamp Akali's not relevant in high ELO play Fix this with the addition of skillshots, more risky decisions, and a system that meaningfully utilizes her identity as a hybrid champion - Or something like that.

Tell me what you think anyway.

Envy.