Akali rework in progress

There have been numerous threads regarding the numerous ongoing changes to Akali for this Assassin patch. While there have been numerous interesting changes and for the most part buffs to other champions as a result of reworks Akali seems to have been hit with a nerf bat. I'm going to compile those changes, chronologically. This will hopefully illustrate Riot's thought process so we can get an idea what their vision for Akali is. I will also seek to establish a consensus within the community, so that we may more effectively communicate with Riot what it is we would like to see. I have been playing Akali since S2.

First, lets establish some truths.

1. Akali is an assassin with feast or famine tendencies.
2. Feast or Famine and other binary aspects are not healthy for gameplay. Everyone loses, Akali players, and those playing against akali. Counter-play is important.
3. Akali is a pub stomper that falls off at higher elos. She has a low ceiling, but a high floor.
4. Akali is not your typical assassin. Having next to no cc, no effective escape, and one of the the slowest "bursts" she has to be strong in other aspects such as her ability to chase/stick to a target and avoid damage via shroud.
5. Tank Akali is undesirable, Akali's identity is that of an assassin.

I don't think any of that is too controversial. Since a rework is occuring the goals should be:

1. Raising Akali's ceiling, in return for taking away some of her raw power.
2. Offering opponents counter-play, while giving Akali players the capability to achieve an outcome other than feast or famine.
3. Encourage assassin Akali, discourage tank Akali builds.

Again, I think we can all agree.

Now lets examine the ongoing changes on the PBE. (Note, none of this is etched in stone, it is all subject to change, as we have seen happen three times already.) Also take note, Riot has said these changes are aimed with Akali players in mind, not the masses or low elos.

10/18 PBE changes

Twin Disciplines (Passive) - [reworked into a two hit passive]:

Now gives Akali's next two attacks bonus effects (base values scale with lvl) then goes on cooldown.
    First strike restores  10-130 (+70% bonus AD) health.
    Her second strike (within 4 seconds) deals 14-70 (+45% AP) magic damage.
Cooldow for empowered attacks  is 8-5 seconds based on level.

Twilight Shroud (W):

Now teleports Akali to cast location and leaves a shroud where she was before. 
    Range = 250
Cast time increased to .35 from .25
Duration changed to 4/5/6/7/8 seconds from 8 seconds at all ranks

Crescent Slash (E):

Cooldown changed to 5/4.5/4/3.5/3 from 5/4/3/2/1
Damage changed:
    NEW: [70/100/130/160/190 (50% AP)(70% Bonus AD)] 
    OLD: [30/55/80/105/130 (40% AP)(60% total AD)

Shadow Dash (R):

Damage changed to 50/100/150 (+25% AP) from 100/175/200 (+50% AP)
Cooldown changed to 2 second at all ranks and is no longer affected by CDR from 2/1.5/1.

There's a lot to unpack here so bear with me. I'll try to breeze through with tldr analysis.

Passive/Crescent Slash I think its safe to say by increasing the damage of the passive for 1 auto attack while reducing the sustained damage from the passive as a result of repeated auto attacks is an attempt to discourage tank Akali by lowering dps while encouraging assassin Akali by increasing her burst. I think we see evidence of this again when we examine the changes to E where the damage has been raised by the CD tripled, increasing burst but lowering sustained damage over time. I appreciate riot's intent and it's efforts, while the execution and implementation is still subject to criticism. For example: The new passive seems clunky and counter-intuitive, shouldn't the damage portion come first and the heal second?

Also important to note, the changes to passive and E effectively nerf Akali's ability to waveclear, and damage towers, reducing her viability as a split pusher. This must be recognized and taken into consideration. Nerfing one aspect of a champions game is fine so long as another aspect is buffed in return.

Moving on.

Pinks: The changes to pink wards, and differentiating between stealth and camoflauge was a needed change. At low elo's opponents weren't smart enough to buy pinks, and high elo's everyone knew to buy them and shut Akali down. Old pinks/shroud was binary, and change was needed. This change should make akali playable at higher elos (raising her ceiling) and in return akali should lose some damage as a trade off. It's only fair.

Shroud: The rest of the shroud changes are a mess. First off, no one asked for the dash, Akali is already mobile with her ult and her shroud's slow/movespeed buff. Perhaps this was Riot's attempts to give Akali an escape like LeBlanc/Ahri/Kassadin have. Regardless its largely useless. Also, Akali should be high risk/high reward. If this dash was intended to give her an escape similar to the above mentioned champions, then it is contradicting Akali's identity. Live shroud can be utilized for a number of purposes, thrown back to slow the enemy team and peel for an ally, thrown forward to slow a target and cut off their retreat, used in lane to secure some farm, placed on a bush to grant vision. New shroud is extremely restrictive, and it's traded all that utility for the ability to go over small walls. -_- I'm not amused.

It's important to note that shroud is leveled up last, so shroud's duration has effectively been halved for the majority of the game. As previously stated Akali has the slowest burst, she akes the longest to deal her damage out of all the other assassins. Rengar/Kat/Leblanc/Khazix etc all do their damage very quickly. Akali has to use multiple rotations of her skills to kill someone, hence her shroud granting her stealth so she doesn't get killed by dps while she waits for her cooldowns, and her ult helping her stick to her target. So halving the duration of Akali's ult really hurts. This "buff" giving her a dash is really over shadowed by all the nerfs that come along with it.

Ult: We knew Akali had to give up some damage to make up for the changes to pink wards. This is where that largely comes in. It seems to be rather heavy handed and I'm willing to bet Riot will tweak the numbers down the road. That said power has been moved away from R, it will deal less damage, hopefully we see some damage moved to her Q to compensate or some other ability. The Cooldown nerfs really suck. It hurt's Akali's ability to stick to her opponent, an Akali that really needs to stick because she's now doing less damage and now definitely needs multiple rotations of other skills to get the damage out to get the kill.

As stated above Akali can't split push as well, nor can she 100-0 a target given her reduced damage, nor can she farm as effectively, nor can she utilize her shroud for the benefit of her team in teamfights as effectively. So we have nerfs to split pushing, assassinating, laning, and teamfighting. If someone isn't a good team fighter they should be a decent split pusher, or vice versa. So I can't emphasize the CD nerfs to ult enough, because it takes the last thing Akali has going for her and nerfs that too, her ability to chase has been diminished. She's good at nothing following this patch.

10/20 PBE changes

Twin Disciplines (P) 
    Cooldown lowered to 8-4 from 8-5
    AP ratio (damage) increased to 50% from 45%

Shadow Dance (R)
    Now includes charges when first learned
    CDR once again affects recast time.

Here we see Riot recognizes they may have gone over board in a few places. They increase the damage and lower the CD on passive and they return some long lost power to R.

I've been playing Akali since S2, and I remember a long time ago, might have been in S2 or S3 they nerfed Ult by taking away charges and only giving 1 charge when you hit lvl 6. I remember people suggesting blue pot builds for the CD reduction to try and get the other two stacks up more quickly. This was a dumb change way back then and it's nice to finally see the ult stacks restored at lvl 6. Seriously, name me one other champion who only gets 1/3rd of their ult at lvl 6.

Allowing players to work around changes is imperative. Giving players license to mitigate the ult CD nerfs by buying CDR should never have been denied in the first place. Good on riot to return this possibility (even though cdr isn't really built on akali outside of zhonya's maybe).

10/25 PBE changes

Mark of the Assassin (Q) [new] Now adds Grievous Wounds for 4 seconds when target is below 40% health.

Twilight Shroud (W) cast time back to .25

Crescent Slash (E) now refunds 60% cooldown if it kills an enemy

We continue to see Riot offer up paltry buffs to mitigate the trainwreck of the Akali "rework."

The change to Q could be interested, and as I suggested earlier, one thing Riot could do to compensate for the nerfs to R was to put more power into Q.

The change to shroud is just restoring the cast time to what it currently is on live.

The E changes are dumb. E is getting a reset mechanic. Reset mechanics, as Katarina players know, are very powerful at lower level play, but less useful at higher elo. As we adressed earlier, Akali needs her ceiling raised. She needs to be viable at higher level of play. (She's only been picked once that I can recall at 6 world's tournaments). Akali is already a pub stomper, and she doesn't need this. No Akali player asked for or wants this. This is more pointless power being given w/o effectively increasing her potential when put in skilled hands. This is the opposite of what needs to be done. This is counter intuitive.

In conclusion: If Riot was really taking into account the wishes of Akali players they wouldn't be hamfistedly giving us a dash we didn't ask for and an E reset mechanic we didn't ask for at the expense of heavy handed nerfs to other skills (passive/ult) and rob us of our discretionary use of shroud.

Akali's skill cap needs to be raised, so she may be viable at higher level of play and not stomping lower level play ruining the fun for those lesser skilled opponents facing her. This is a concept that was made ever so plain over two years ago by Sayath.

Her identity as an assassin needs to be reinforced by increasing her burst, her chase, and her split pushing to set up duels. The tank build needs to be discouraged. This is something the entire community, akali players and akali opponents alike have expressed. Akali is SO HOT comes to mind.

I'm not the first to say these things. None of what I have said in this post is really novel or ground breaking. Its all rather straightforward. Hear us out Riot. Here is your free blueprint to solving what is quickly becoming your biggest debacle of the pre-season.

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3402930

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2u6uuu/why_is_no_one_being_more_vocal_to_akali_nerfs/

UPDATE

10/27 PBE changes

Mark of the Assassin (Q) no longer applies Grievous Wounds when target is below 40% health.

Twilight Shroud (W) cover of smoke now lasts 8 seconds at all ranks from 4/5/6/7/8

We see the experimental application of grievous wounds to Q had a very short shelf life. It was intriguing, but hardly integral.

Riot rectifies the mistake of halving the duration of W. A move in the right direction.