Let's talk: Akali - 10.3 nerfs
For those who don't know:
And I already see so many of you jumping and getting ready to party for no reason, or well, the reason being that you don't realize these nerfs, ESPECIALLY THE W NERF, won't do much where it matters. They hurt her, way too much, but not where it should. And in some cases, especially in low elos, her R change may end up as a buff to her instead of a nerf, because what we need is bad players being given a free pass.
Why am I saying that? Simply to be honest.
The W reveal will affect team fights, sure, but not laning phase, you know, the point where she's a problem for y'all? Why is that? Unless your name is Ryze, if you manage to CC her, you have follow up even without seeing her, if you got no follow up, then it doesn't matter. All it does is remove skill expression from the Akali player without offering anything to the players against her. All it does is make her bad match-ups worse, skill match-ups turned into counters for her and the match-ups she abuses, well, she'll still abuse the same way, maybe even better in some cases.
Let's look at a few examples from both mid and top:
- Mid: Best champions according to U.GG - Diana, Kassadin, Fizz, Kat, Cass, Vlad, Ekko, Zed, Ahri, Qiyana.
Other than Diana's E, everything she has is AoE, you can still hit her with your passive if you AA a minion nearby, otherwise, you still win the trade because she has to break your shield to deal damage. Kassadin, if you get your Q off, because her W doesn't stop already flying projectiles, you can still E R her and she can't really fight back without moving out of her W as you have a shield, you got no hard CC (slows don't reveal her) to abuse it anyway. Fizz? Doesn't change trading patters as slows don't reveal her. Kat? Same as the sushi above, and same Vass, Vlad or Zed. They don't benefit AT ALL from this. Ekko is already a big counter to her in lane, same for Ahri, and now they are that more hard to deal with. A good Akali vs a good Ahri, is a skill match-ups favoring Ahri, now she's just that much more favored. Qiyana shits on Akali, now she'll do it even more easier.
If there's a match up where Akali is favored from start to finish in mid lane, she still is, there's nothing that player can do anyway.
- Top: Best champions according to U.GG - Darius, Fiora, Mordekaiser, Jax, Malphite, Kled, Ornn, Tryndamere, Shen, Camille.
Darius is already a hard counter to Akali if the Darius knows what he's doing, as he currently in higher elos has a 60%+ lane win rate against her. Fiora's match-up is the same. Mordekaiser, not sure how his R interacts, if it's considered immobilize effect on her, well, toss away one of his counters as that's a winning match-up now. Jax, was a skill match-up, now it's not. Malphite...it's Malphite, same match-up as before. Kled? His Q reveals her anyway. Ornn, Tryndamere and Shen? Same as before. Camille just got a big buff from this against Akali.
Others who can't abuse Akali anyway or who already abuse her? Nothing changed. Gnar gets the biggest buff against her, as Mega will now reveal her, but his stuff is already ground target with huge AoE, so if you were able to hit her before, you can hit her now the same way, makes no real difference. So if the "biggest buff against her" is irrelevant, imagine how it is for the others, who are affected even less or not at all.
So yes, ganking Akali or fighting Akali in lane? Nothing changed for any other champions beside Ryze.
Boards: "bUt iT cHaNgEs In TeAmFiGhTs". She's an assassin, she's not gonna initiate fights, she's gonna wait for the CC to be thrown first then go in, if you keep the CC for her, her team can kill you, so nothing changed there either.
On the other hand, now it can be a buff if I need a bit more MS to reach you and kill you, because the MS is bigger but it's on cast, meaning I can go out of my W and still keep it. Adorable huh?
The bigger changes are the R guts, as they aren't even nerfs. Her R2 is now slower than Amumu's crap, so yea....but the R1....sure, it's a nerf to her safety, but a huge buff to her kill pressure.
Yes, now if you gank her you don't have to worry she's gonna R1 away (you still have to worry about R2 to get away if you come from a dumb ass angle to allow her that, just so you know). But you know how else you don't have to worry about her R1 when ganking? Ganking within the almost 3 minutes when it's down.
So why am I saying that this is a buff? Well, because before, if the opponent knew to gank when my ult is down, I always needed to keep that in mind, I always had to consider if I need my ult to escape a gank or go for a kill, now I don't. My ult is up? I don't need to worry about being ganked and using it as an escape, I can just kill you with it. So it's less safety for you because I no longer need to worry about ganks when using it.
So yea....these changes are huge nerfs, but they don't matter outside of high elo. Bad players will perform even worse on her will racking up more kills, while the rest? It's the same in a way. She now has less skill match-ups and more counter match-ups, while her previous counter match-ups became hell. If she was able to abuse you in lane, she'll abuse you the same way, if you were abusing her, well, you'll gonna abuse her even harder now.
As for "escaping ganks with W", that was dumb decision making from the ones ganking her in the first place. If she was able to escape you with W, you done fuck up. I rarely had an Akali escape my jungle ganks with her W, while when playing Akali, if I was escaping or not with my W was totally on how dumb the gank was.
If they truly want to nerf her, nerf Conqueror, Presence of Mind and Gunblade, if they want to keep those alive, nerf her Q and her passive. Add a 1.5s cd to her passive and increase her Q to 2.5 s cd, reduce the damage on her passive.
Those nerfs would impact her more, make skill match-ups be actual skill match-ups and it would also make it so people she currently abuses have an actual fighting chance.
But hey, as long as Riot listens to Jhonny from Plastic 12 and his need to carry on everything, they won't hit damage, because then Jhonny would need to be actually good to play, and bad players should be rewarded /s.
