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@Riot Can we please get some context on the upcoming Akali changes?

Monotachi·1/23/2015, 10:06:08 AM·22 votes·3,549 views

Akali changes on PBE currently:

  1. Cresscent Slash no longer triggers Mark of the Assassin on targets.
  2. Shadow Dance range reduced from 800 to 700.

I'm not complaining about the changes to Akali, she obviously needs changes, but I would like to know the reasonings behind the changes made to Akali and why these changes were specifically chosen.

The main concerns for each of the change are as follows:

Cresscent Slash no longer triggers Mark of the Assassin on targets.

  • Wouldn't this make Akali's kit feel clunky to play? Nothing ruins a champion than simply making them feel clunky. Not sure if nerfing numbers would of just been a better route if Riot thought proccing Mark of the Assassin with Crescent Slash was an issue.

  • It removes kit synergy with the rest of Akali's other spells. If it wasn't obvious, Crescent Slash is a 'filler' skill in Akali's kit. The skill itself is extremely underhwelming. Having Crescent Slash proc Mark of the Assassin atleast added synergy with the rest of her kit. Now with that gone, Crescent Slash feels really bad to use.

** Do you have any plans to add a skillful replacement for this removal? Something that would add gameplay and interaction, rather than just press E whenever Q is applied. **

Shadow Dance range reduced from 800 to 700.

  • Everyone remembered what happened to Diana when they nerfed her ult range from 900 to 750? Range nerfs are rarely done because of how much of an impact they do to a champion's viability.

  • Plus nerfing her ult range won't solve her problems. If you outrange her right now, you will still outrange her after nerfs, if you cannot outrange her, she will still chase you down, so nothing has changed.

It simply hurts Akali's strength, without adding any real weaknesses or new ways to counterplay her. This looks like a lazy nerf from Riot that doesn't addresses her core problems, one of them being her sustain.

It would be appreciated if a red could explain why they chose these changes and not other better suited ones.

43 Comments

Siriner1/23/2015, 10:16:59 AM13 votes

I tested her in PBE, nothing has changed much, if you get within 700 range you will just point and click them death. With Gunblade 700 range point and click slow and maybe a rylais for overkill you can still kill them the same way.

Where is the outplay in these changes? Was expecting much more counterplay options, all riot has done is shoving this counterplay theory to players face "STAY OUT OF RANGE"

Them removing CS detonation is just them admitting that they made a mistake adding it in the first place.

Testalyrica1/23/2015, 11:49:18 AM5 votes

{quoted}

Akali changes on PBE currently:

  1. Cresscent Slash no longer triggers Mark of the Assassin on targets.
  2. Shadow Dance range reduced from 800 to 700.

I'm not complaining about the changes to Akali, she obviously needs changes, but I would like to know the reasonings behind the changes made to Akali and why these changes were specifically chosen.

The main concerns for each of the change are as follows:

Cresscent Slash no longer triggers Mark of the Assassin on targets.

  • Wouldn't this make Akali's kit feel clunky to play? Nothing ruins a champion than simply making them feel clunky. Not sure if nerfing numbers would of just been a better route if Riot thought proccing Mark of the Assassin with Crescent Slash was an issue.

  • It removes kit synergy with the rest of Akali's other spells. If it wasn't obvious, Crescent Slash is a 'filler' skill in Akali's kit. The skill itself is extremely underhwelming. Having Crescent Slash proc Mark of the Assassin atleast added synergy with the rest of her kit. Now with that gone, Crescent Slash feels really bad to use.

** Do you have any plans to add a skillful replacement for this removal? Something that would add gameplay and interaction, rather than just press E whenever Q is applied. **

Shadow Dance range reduced from 800 to 700.

  • Everyone remembered what happened to Diana when they nerfed her ult range from 900 to 750? Range nerfs are rarely done because of how much of an impact they do to a champion's viability.

  • Plus nerfing her ult range won't solve her problems. If you outrange her right now, you will still outrange her after nerfs, if you cannot outrange her, she will still chase you down, so nothing has changed.

It simply hurts Akali's strength, without adding any real weaknesses or new ways to counterplay her. This looks like a lazy nerf from Riot that doesn't addresses her core problems, one of them being her sustain.

It would be appreciated if a red could explain why they chose these changes and not other better suited ones.

I don't think the nerfs were justified at all, for one real reason dfg was removed. Which in turn is lowering her damage a lot removing a large amount of her burst. So champions like zed and talon will be the go to champions if people want to play assassins.

In fact they may as well just delete the whole ap assassin sub class, as it stands. There's no use for them riot stated they don't want 100%-0 well that is what an assassin is and is meant for. If the assassin can't do his job he is dead, well in theory champions like leblanc, zed, fizz, and talon can more or less get away. Where as akali isn't getting out of that team fight if she doesn't kill the adc/midlaner. It's just that simple so she is the highest risk highest reward assassin. Her escape is basically her life steal/spell vamp passive. Katarina is another one that's kind an extreme she can however be more useful than akali, yet she has more counter play to here. Simply putting exhaust on her as soon as she ults pretty much stops her dead in her tracks.

Come to think of it that's all an adc needs exhaust and maybe heal, but at last we only use flash where akali counter's people who take flash. Sigh how there is a lot of counter play to akali yet no one seems to use it. I am getting tired of the people complaining akali has no counter play when people are playing the game wrong against her. She is by far the most balanced assassin because, unlike everyone else she doesn't have an escape. And she also has counter play even if it's non meta counter plays. People just hate to adapt and rather than adapt they scream x is op nerf now! >:3

Leti the Yeti1/23/2015, 11:41:03 AM3 votes

heres what i think about her E change proccing her mark.. kinda does shit tons of damage... atleast I think it does, she kinda just kills erryone

only way to proc it would AA or E E is point blank with some range... its alot easier than if you used AA... which has abysmal range and kinda harder to get on with everyone moving around... I like how proccing her marks is no longer pressing E in the general vicinity of who you threw a boomerang at but of course.. now her E doesnt really serve much purpose ;l

Kingsgrave1/23/2015, 11:31:29 AM3 votes

The duration of her Q mark should probably go down

Ultîma1/23/2015, 5:28:15 PM3 votes

Using Diana's nerf on her ultimate as an example for Akali is taken woefully out of context - after the nerf Diana's range on Q was superior to that of her ultimate, which made her completely unable to combo. Tack that on top of the fact that Diana's shield proc had less range than her autoattacks, Riot literally broke Diana, in that her skills were impossible to use in spite of their simplicity. Comparing those nerfs to Akali now is gross sensationalism.

Akali has a similar pattern as Diana with Q-R, except her ultimate still vastly outranges her Q. This will not mess up her combo, except maybe this time if someone uses flash they'll be able to avoid the remaining 2 shadow dances. This nerf is meant to hurt some of Akali's reliability because as it stands, as soon as she has an item advantage over anyone she facerolls them. They're the worst kind of nerfs because they simply hurt the mechanical feel of the character, but until they manage to implement some measure of counterplay in her kit Riot will never be able to place Akali in a spot that feels "good".

In short, Akali doesn't need a nerf - she needs a rework.

PentaJump1/23/2015, 3:15:04 PM2 votes

Akali is my highest win rate in ranked on my smurf (Aside from AP Trist but she doesn't count because I nearly got to master with her when I was a one-trick-pony) I honestly don't think the range ult on her nerf is a huge issue. As it was, Akali, despite being a melee champ, had a larger zone of influence than most range champs. There's not many melee champs in the game who could zone an enemy as far back as Akali did.

I agree with your point about the e nerf though. Akali needs a small rework, cuz that skill is useless. Like, unless you have blue buff, it might not even be worth using it, lategame. (not saying Akali will be underpowered. But having only 3 skills [old Skarner] is poor design.)

ImHerVoice1/23/2015, 4:13:13 PM2 votes

riot doesn't know shit about balance. They're nerfing champions that have more than enough counterpicks lmfao

While keeping shit like zed/fizz/graves/lucian/thresh/nami/gnar/jayce/lee in the game who have next to zero counterpicks and even less counterplay with I-frames on their kit or some quick dash or some burst or xxxx other broken mechanic that "outplays" the other champions in the same class as them

dunk is my life1/23/2015, 4:59:20 PM2 votes

good riddance akali abuser HA!

BrutalCabbage1/23/2015, 1:51:39 PM2 votes

I'd honestly just olaf Akali until she gets a decent rework. I don't think Riot is trying to fix her for good with these changes, they just want her to be significantly weaker until she gets reworked because the only counterplay she gets right now is not 1v1ing her after level 6. Other champions like Irelia who have the same counterplay problems are not as dangerous because they don't even remotely have the burst Akali has. Fizz has little counterplay (the fish is a skillshot but he will most likely get into melee range first so he can't miss, so they're basicly forcing him to give you a chance to dodge it first by giving his ult the damage amp to compensate a general reduction of damage on his other spells) and he's getting changed for such reason, Kata has actually no form of counterplay in a 1v1 scenario if your champion doesn't have proper CC to deal with her ult and is therefore getting changed (things are different in teamfights, but so are for every champion). LB is going to get nerfed for sure sooner or later, because again she lacks counterplay 1v1. Akali is getting some changes on the meanwhile, just to make sure you can still play her without her getting banned.

Talamare1/23/2015, 10:15:29 AM2 votes

I support the R change, she flies too far across the team and makes it nearly impossible to get far enough away from her

Her E change is insanely stupid!

Makes her clunky and doesn't even nerf her properly!

Reduce the damage on her damn Q or reduce the scaling of her passive Hell, you can even compensate her Q/Passive damage being reduced by increasing the damage on her E

Nagirah1/23/2015, 1:18:14 PM2 votes

I agree, these nerfs were actually pretty bad. The range nerf is okay I think, but the Cresscent Slash not triggering the mark is not. That spell is starting to feel like a waste of energy now.

MotherChurch1/23/2015, 5:33:05 PM2 votes

I would really like to hear from Riot on this. I understand the Ult range change (sort of anyway). I would even understand tweaking her numbers a bit. The E nerf just seems a little extreme. I don't play Akali but I've always liked her style.

Ayame Isaki1/23/2015, 3:10:22 PM2 votes

They have addressed her sustain with the Gunblade nerfs. So she is being nerfed on two fronts. I feel like Riot is maybe pushing towards AD based assassins (Yi, Yasuo, Zed) as the theme for S5 mid. AD itemization is fantastic (BotRK and LW) and AP itemization is lackluster (especially with the DFG removal). In fact, Gunblade is now a viable choice for AD champions that have one ability that scales off of AP.

I made a post about this in another Akali thread about what these changes mean for Akali:

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/NjGFfABQ-akali?comment=000700000000

The relevant part quoted below.

I missed the Gunblade changes. While the added AD makes the spell vamp loss not as big a deal on Akali, the fact her only AD scaling ability (E) is being made less useful makes this pretty impactful; especially on the one item Akali needs to even be useful.

So we have:

  • Reduced range on R.
  • E can't proc Q... this makes CC even more dangerous to Akali, who already is kill or die (no escape)
  • Gunblade has been nerfed, reducing Akali's survivability and reducing the damage on most of her abilities from this item

So... basically mobile ADCs will destroy her, anyone with a CC and reasonable damage output will destroy her (Annie, Morgana, Veigar, Lux, etc...), and anyone with CC in general will more easily be able to mitigate her Q, which will hurt Akali from both an energy standpoint and a "kill or die" standpoint. Finally, anyone with CC or mobility will be able to more easily run away.

TwoD1/24/2015, 5:43:37 PM1 votes

gut her spellvamp and hp that should fix it

Lichblade1/23/2015, 10:09:45 AM1 votes

Hm, very well written.

The changes on the PBE do help with reducing her threat zone and making her damage less reliable but part of it is removing a mechanic that they added in since S2.

I remember in S3 that when Statikk was asked how come they didn't remove CS detonation was because of player attachment.

But pretty much the reason why Akali kept getting nerfed post CS detonation buff was because of that, it makes her burst gating time really low and guarantees a proc.

Vistha Kai1/28/2015, 2:52:35 PM1 votes

First of all lower mark duration. It's stupid that with 0% cdr she can zone you permanently just by throwing Qs at you.

Then give her Ahri-esque ult so she doesn't have 100% uptime.

Even better remove her passive or bring back "a gate" it used to have - need to buy X AP to get bonus damage and X bonus AD to get spell vamp.

Problem solved.

USG Morta1/23/2015, 12:02:10 PM1 votes

e is her only ability that hits more then one target, its her only real way of clearing waves but i typically use it more to detonate q then to farm with because if you qr quickly your r will actually land before the slow moving q, and then e do detonate it. so i think this will reduce her burst if you are too impatient.

you know, to separate the good akali from the great akali.

Long Dong Wukong1/23/2015, 3:47:04 PM1 votes

Yes, it spreads her damage out even more than it was before.

Her passive double scaling it what makes her ridiculous, not the rate at which she damages you. Now she pretty much adds another second+ onto her combo and more or less does not have an E.

It's not about whether or not she needs to be tweaked, it's about the fact that she quite literally has a useless skill. It's now one of the skills you wouldn't even level up in DotA in favor of just pumping stats.

WeedTits1/23/2015, 5:49:04 PM1 votes

As a mid laner and occasional Akali player, the change to her E isn't going to affect anything. at. all.

You should be auto attacking them when you're on their face anyways.

The ult range nerf was deserved. Consider poor Lucian's attack range (ha, poor Lucian, yeah right. :P )

It also won't change anything, as mentioned earlier in the thread.

Slap on the wrist nerfs that people are overreacting about.

Imagine you were a LeBlanc main for 2 years and suddenly they remove your silence and give you nothing in return. There are more painful examples but I'm not going down that road.

Hard Penetrator1/23/2015, 5:58:22 PM1 votes

Context is that Akali is not too popular champion that people hate to play against. She is pretty easy to use and deadly when fed. Pro players aren't using her in LCS so even heavy nerfs won't change much to anyone outside of very dedicated Akali players fanbase.

Gunblade, item Akali is balanced around, also got few changes but its hard to predict if its buff or nerf.

MotherChurch1/23/2015, 6:08:30 PM1 votes

Question: With the increased focus on auto-attacks, would Lichbane now be a strong item on Akali?

Cindikle1/23/2015, 6:29:25 PM1 votes

Give her R the Yasou dash treatment of a cooldown on the target before it can be used again. Procing Q on the target resets this cooldown.

Ult has counterplay.

She'd probably see some lanning buffs for this. Making her feel better as a champion as a whole.

ULTRAF0RCE1/23/2015, 9:26:34 PM1 votes

Akali used to not trigger mark of the assasin with Cresent Strike, a person gave some really good reasons why to remove it http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/hMJmmtbp-a-really-simple-change-to-add-finesse-into-playing-akali

The Ellimiist1/23/2015, 10:51:50 PM1 votes

It's pretty much the exact changes the community asked for. Crescent slash procing the mark just made it too easy to regain that energy no matter what.

agbudar1/24/2015, 12:48:16 AM1 votes

twin disciplines (mayor change) AP portion unchanged AD portion now adds movement speed 2% for each 10 bonus ad

mark of the assassin. now does 15/30/45/60/75 +0.5 ap +1.0 ad and the mark proc's for the same and restores 30/40/50/60/70 energy

cooldown 6 seconds at all ranks range 700

twilight shroud unchanged.

Crescent slash 15/30/45/60/75 +0.5 AP +0.7 ad

Shadow dance range is now 900

the problem with akali is not her ability to take people down

ITS THE FACT THAT SHE GETS SO MUCH FUKIN SUSTAIN. let her do her job but don't let her be a bruiser at the same time

Stephenizgod1/24/2015, 12:54:37 AM1 votes

I agree with your opinion of the first change, but i like the ult range change. A lot of the times i feel like she can ult from ridiculously far away, sometimes when im juuuust barely still within her reach. 100 range isnt much but it should help with a lot of her chasing without effecting her laning. The first change is kind of ridiculous though, i feel like they let her have her moment in the sun again and now want her to go away in favor of someone else. BTW i dont main or play Akali im just sick of her hitting 6 and then going on a kill spree whether im laning against her or not.

Icedteaisgood1/24/2015, 5:22:14 AM1 votes

I definitely agree with this post, especially with regards to the change on her 'e'. I realize they have to nerf Akali, but do they really need to make her clunkier, simpler, and less fun to play in order to do so?

I get that not every champion can be a priority, and I get that some are just going to be stuck waiting for their much needed reworks, and that's frustrating enough on its own. To see her actually moving backwards after all these years, rather than actual improvement in some way, is really tough to swallow.

Yfrappefort1/24/2015, 6:31:36 AM1 votes

They are nerfing her the wrong way. What they actually need to hit is her massive free sustain. Nerfing her ultimate range will only make her more feast/famine and will not fix the problem of her blowing people up when she reach them.