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Akali is poorly designed and needs a rework badly

NorthWest Korea·7/1/2015, 1:31:49 PM·2 votes·1,024 views

WALL OF TEXT IM SORRY Upon looking at Riots schedule of champion updates, Akali somehow didnt make it higher on the list. Is riot working on an akali rework? I wouldnt really know but it doesnt seem to be a priority at the moment. I find it a little odd considering how i feel that akali and poppy are probably two most toxic champions in terms of game balance and gameplay. Both provide almost zero counterplay to what they do and are both very binary in what they do. There's no "outplaying" an akali. You just kind of hope you don't die and even when you somehow kill akali, the event was not very interactive other then a point click dash and you just doing more damage then the akali or vice versa. Riot almost admits this with the gimpy solution of just slowing her burst down by making you auto attack to proc the q. They even removed the E's ability to proc it. Its not fun or smooth to use, it does not even feel like a combo anymore. It just feels like a champion with a smorgues board of ideas thrown together. Akali just feels very incomplete right now and it is very confusing to why Riot would leave any champion in such a poor state. I sincerely think that Akali feels worse to play Poppy right now.

Well what is akali's problem anyway? Akali's kit is a remnant of the original champions where a lot of her skills just feel very thrown in there. Like Riot wanted to make a group of ninja themed champions and said,"Guys we need a ninja they're just so fucking cool man!", and they pooped out akali. She has a pair of kama/kai, smokescreen, AoE physical damage scaling?, a reseting gap closer, and a passive that's just kind of there and does not interact with anything in her kit. Riot kind of fucked up the ninja assassin here in my opinion. Ninja's generally are very calculated and chose the right moment to engage the enemy and pick off high priority targets, have to adapt quickly and think on their feet if something changes during the execution. Akali does none of this and has no interesting choices in her gameplay and neither does her opponent. Akali's choices boil down to waiting for someone to be out of position or just kill the thing infront of you.To be fair towards Riot she is a victim of being an older champion in that they tend to be very binary like tryndamere and taric.

                                                                                                  **THE BREAKDOWN**

GAMEPLAY/LORE Something I have found in a lot of successful characters in most video games is that when the background of a character is well interwoven in their gameplay, they just feel fun to play. You love playing Zed because you use the forbidden techniques to assassinate your enemies and manipulate the power of the shadows to traverse the battlefield. You dip in and out of safety using your shadow to kill unsuspecting targets from places they didn't know you could come from. It really feels like you are the master of shadows. Draven is a world class narcissist with a flashy playstyle using 2 epic looking axes to please the crowd and execute his enemies near and afar. Finally killing your enemy, the crowd showers you in adoration and all you can think is,"God damn its good to be me". Well designed champions feel fun to play and is what brings you back to that same champion over and over. In my opinion akali has none of these traits being that she has no real identity other then "Clean up Teamfighting Assasin". Some of this may also be due to Riots slacking in the lore department. Even Katarina has a better in game and out of game identity. Shes a reckless assassin who has almost unlimited potential in fighting power it would seem. So given Katarina's playstyle, what she does in game is almost sensible to her gameplay.

Akali's lore states she has the duty of "Pruning the Tree". Metaphor being she does the dirty work. She gets the job that forces her to make morally questionable decisions but she must carry out this work because that is what she was born to do. I Feel like there's not much lore to work with here. Akali just a typical ninja assasin i guess but she's not on the dark side like zed i guess. I just feel like none of Akali's background is portrayed in her gameplay. Well what about her weapons? The Kai as stated from wikipedia:

"The kama can be used singly or in pairs. Both the point and sharpened edge of the metal blade are called into use, Okinawan kata suggesting that it could also be used to block, trap and disarm an opponent's weapon. The point at which the blade and handle join in the "weapon" model normally has a nook with which a staff can be trapped"

So the weapon has disabling and disarming capabilities. Well Akali doesn't really do this...at all. Its just kind of a faceroll+auto attack to proc q. It feels very clumsy at the moment and is not interesting or fun at all. With Kai you think she would be able to confront her targets, disable and disarm them, and deal swift death. Almost like you interacting with a target in some way other then just outright killing them. This tells me that Akali is capable of confronting people head on and uses her cunning combat abilities with her chosen tools. But still nothing like this is ever reflected in her gameplay.

TWIN DISCIPLES DISCIPLINE OF FORCE: Akali's basic attacks deal 6% (+1% per 6 AP) of her attack damage as bonus magic damage. DISCIPLINE OF MIGHT: Akali has a natural 6% (+1% per 6 bonus AD) spell vamp.

What does this passive even accomplish. It seems in a riot studios very far away that they wanted Akali's passive to introduce player choice through item pathing. Do you want to balance both passives or tip the scales in whatever you favor more? I think while this is a good thought, something like this will never be viable in league of legends due to the way itemization works, unless you can somehow make each passive do something unique like at X amount of bonus AD/AP gain unique bonus. It even includes the vintage AP scaling with AD bonuses that you don't see on new champions today!

Force and Might go hand in hand with eachother. Might empowers your force, stronger arms, bigger sword. This passive doesn't do much for really anyone. The passive is such an afterthought for akali that most people who play akali for the first time or the thousandth time no one really ever bothers with it. It's just a ball of stats thats usually combo-d with some spellvamp. No one pays attention to "Discipline of Force" effect. Its so invisible its not even funny. Overall I think the passive needs to be scrapped and replaced.

Replace the Force passive with something like Martial Cadence. "Auto attacks and abilities on champions grant a Force stack. At 3 Force stacks Champions take bonus X %Health damage and are slowed by X. Both of these effects will scale with level. Cannot occur on the same target more then once every 8 Seconds" The numbers are arbitrary but its just an idea. Then again so is everything else in this thread

Replace Might with "Upon taking damage that reduces Akali's HP below 40% grants her 20/30/40% spellvamp for 6 seconds Cooldown is 6 Seconds" Hey a passive that lets you duel and sustain very well in lane and in teamfights but doesn't give you access to it all the time. So this gives you options to fight akali. Fight her during the windows where she cant access might. So if you all in her during the Might spellvamp window its going to be hard to all in and she can fight back considerably well.

Q)Mark of the Assassin W)Twilight Shroud Honestly I find both of these abilities just fine. I see no point into changing them. They are too iconic for Akali to remove anyway.

Crescent Slash ACTIVE: Akali flourishes her kamas, dealing physical damage to nearby enemies. PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 30 / 55 / 80 / 105 / 130 (+ 40% AP) (+ 60% AD)

What the hell. Its just an energy dump. The ability doesnt scale unless you build AD and even if you build for this ability there is no way for akali to supply the energy quickly enough for using this ability more then once. AP scaling with physical damage. So vintage it hurts. I think it should be scrapped.

I think her ultimate should be moved to her E and tone the AP scaling and base values down. I say make the Shadow dance 70/80/100/120/140 MAGIC DAMAGE, scaling with .3 AP, with a Cooldown of 15/14/13/12/8 and make it a skill shot that goes a set distance and can proc "Mark of the Assassin". Energy costing 60/55/50/50/50 with the energy being refunded if you hit a target marked with "Mark of the Assasin" and the Cooldown being halfed. Shadow Dance can activate "Mark of the assassin" and "Discipline of Force" . I don't know what the energy costs should be but i think this is reasonable considering you now have access to your jump pre 6. You should get punished for not marking targets with q and missing the dash. This also allows for more counter play to Akali if she messes up the combo, giving windows of opportunity for the enemy team to respond to your missplays

New E)Shadow Dance: MAGIC DAMAGE 70/80/100/120/140 .3 AP SCALING ENERGY COST 60/55/50/50/50

I have no idea how to tune the energy scalings to be perfectly honest.

NEW ULTIMATE FUCK YEAH FIST OF THE SHADOW "Akali focuses her self, sharpening her senses and killer instincts for 7 seconds. Initial activation gives Akali bonus movespeed for 1 second while moving towards enemies, in addition increasing the speed of shadow dance. Discipline of force can now be activated twice by "Mark of Assasin" (Meaning one Q can activate the passive twice). "Discipline of Might" spellvamp bonus is doubled during the duriation. Champion Kills extend the grant another MS buff and further increase the speed of "Shadow Dance" up to two times. Shadow dances Cooldown and energy cost are refreshed upon a kill.

Making the ultimate a steroid makes Akali much more interesting and enhances her already potent assassination abilities even stronger. But I'm somewhat against making kills extend the duration of the ultimate because then it would just be to good at clean up duty. I'd rather see Akali as a ninja that makes decisive decisions in constrained, but very effective time windows.

I'm no game designer but i think a kit like this would make Akali more interactive between Akali players and enemies. Ultimately making her a much healthier champion as well as more fun to play with and against for literally everyone.

TL;DR I think Akali is a poorly designed and even neglected champion that has been put into a timeout corner with these "band-aid" nerfs done by the balance team. I would really like to see Akali become a more unique member among her ninja counterparts and fill a role of "Ninja Assassin" much better then she currently does.

Proposed Kit:

Passive Discipline of Force Auto attacks and "Mark of Assasin" on enemy champions grant a stack of Force. The 3rd stack of force Deals bonus % Health Damage and slows both values scaling with level. Discipline of Might Upon taking damage that reduces Akali's HP below 40% grant Akali 20/30/40% bonus spellvamp for a short durtaion

Mark of the Assassin and Twilight Shroud unchanged

Crescent Slash Is now Shadow Dance Removed and replaced with Shadow Dance, Previously her ultimate. Now a skillshot that sends akali a flat distance and cooldown is refunded for hitting enemies marked with "Mark of the assassin" and can proc it as well.

New Ultimate: Fist of Shadow "Akali focuses her self, sharpening her senses and killer instincts for 7 seconds." Initial activation gives Akali bonus movespeed for 1 second while moving towards enemies, in addition increasing the speed of shadow dance. Discipline of force can now be activated twice by "Mark of Assasin" (Meaning one Q can activate the passive twice). "Discipline of Might" spellvamp bonus is doubled during the duriation. Champion Kills extend the grant another MS buff and further increase the speed of "Shadow Dance" up to two times. Shadow dances Cooldown and energy cost are refreshed upon a kill.

5 Comments

3tyson7/1/2015, 1:39:11 PM1 votes

Akali gets counterd by not being a super squeeshy target and having 100 gold for a pink ward once she goes into shroud she has nothing pink and kill ezz

TheRakkun7/1/2015, 3:45:44 PM1 votes

My problem with Akali is that ult, even if you CC her and run (Not likely you will be able to in instantly kill her in the space of 1 CC ability she will ult again, and again, and it resets it's charges on kills, she's basically taking the worst parts of Katarina and Leblanc

Hexten7/2/2015, 2:07:08 AM1 votes

I suggest reading these two threads created by Sayath, an avid Akali main and actively enjoys discussing her balance and design.

[Analysis / Discussion] Akali balance at Diamond http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3402930

[Analysis / Discussion] Akali - As balance dictates http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3485169

Unfortunately, the red tracker bookmarks have been removed, so you cannot check out the red responses to these threads anymore.

The reason why she isn't scheduled for a rework in the near future, is because Akali's kit does fit thematically for a ninja, it just lacks counterplay. This is why Riot has a very difficult time making changes to Akali - she already has a basic kit that works for her thematically, the only problem is introducing counterplay to her kit, but to introduce counterplay to her kit would mean to remove what makes Akali, Akali. They basically dug their own grave, but that doesn't mean there's no room for improvement.

Q - is just your basic damage spell using a two-part detonation system.

W - Smokescreen bomb. Every ninja uses this.

E - A viable champion needs a waveclearing spell. Akali wouldn't be viable at Diamond if she couldn't push a lane, or last hit under the tower effectively.

R - This is her identity, and iconic spell. It is on her ultimate spell, because it is on a charge system, meaning she has 3 of them. Since Akali is a squishy champion, she needs more than one dash in order to quickly proc multiple Mark of the Assassins on a target before she gets focussed and blown up. Her ultimate fulfils her ninja fantasy well, a ninja that jumps around the battlefield, evading damage and taking down high-priority targets? That feels ninja. To have only one dash just means Akali is flat-out useless. Why does a squishy want to casually walk up to a target in order to proc MoTA? Her pre-6 is already evident that without dashes, Akali has almost zero killing potential.

Every champion has a finite power budget. Her E spell is a filler skill because most of her power is loaded onto her Q and R. If E was any stronger, then her Q and R would have to be weaker to compensate for that increase in power, and that is something a lot of Akali players do not want. Although just recently, Riot buffed her E to have a much shorter cooldown. The aim of this, is so that Akali's waveclearing ability has been improved drastically. She can now participate in the game and make an impact without having to resort to training enemy champions down in order to get gold and make an impact through only snowballing. This makes her less binary, and I welcome this change, very useful to now have another way to do something in Summoner's Rift, i.e. splitpushing.

I agree that her passive could use more work. It was an attempt to create hybrid champions back in 2010, but it is very clear right now Akali is not a fully-operating hybrid champion, she's full AP.

Another point you fail to mention is the binary nature of her stealth on Twilight Shroud. This contributes alot to the frustration caused from her low counterplay abilities. Since stealth in League of Legends is binary, and Riot has not attempted to revamp the Stealth system it uses (they should), there is no natural counterplay a player can use to counter stealth. You are forced to buy items, which doesn't help because this creates the disparity seen between low and high elo, where low elo players simply do not buy true sight revealers that often compared to high elo.

InfiniteEnvy11/14/2015, 5:59:56 PM1 votes

The problem I have with her is the kinda forced AP/AD Dichotomy, she plays exactly the same way whether you build her hybrid or AP, and you can forget about building her AD. 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. 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?

Also, taking off the part where Akali's E triggers Mark of the Assassin just inherently feels clunky and less fun to play

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 counterplay (E.g, not having her Q be a targeted Taric stun ability), 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. She's not just being this annoying spell-vamping nuisance. Maybe if it all goes well we can even get rid of Guinsoos, seeing it was basically only there for her and Jax anyway.

Chaotic Sage11/14/2015, 6:06:52 PM1 votes

I agree that she needs a rework. She's just a bit lower on the balance and rework priority list, seeing as there's at LEAST 4 ahead of her at this time in reworks alone.