Can we just revert the Akali changes on PBE

Pierce The Veal·Oct 31, 2016·6 votes·713 views

She's going to get a VGU sometime this year anyway. At the moment, the changes are only half fleshed out and really clunky. They only serve to frustrate the Akali player and take her out of the game until they decide to rework her.

If the changes to pinks not revealing her during her W make her too strong we can just tinker with her W, but currently all of the changes just make her feel horrible to play, and none of the buffs on the PBE do anything to remedy that.

As it is, if she is released like she is, I'm probably going to just play Diana and Kassadin from now on.

25 Comments

hunterspecOct 31, 20162 votes

they just ruined her R with the 25% ap

Pierce The VealOct 31, 20161 votes

{quoted}

they just ruined her R with the 25% ap

Not to mention reducing its base damage to 50/100/150 and giving it a flat cooldown of 2 seconds between casts (so no dash in dash out).

hunterspecOct 31, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Not to mention reducing its base damage to 50/100/150 and giving it a flat cooldown of 2 seconds between casts (so no dash in dash out).

they got monkeys working at riot, what did you expect?

Pierce The VealOct 31, 20161 votes

{quoted}

they got monkeys working at riot, what did you expect?

I would respond to this, but I would end up being too offensive towards Riot. That wouldn't help me achieve my purpose :/

LostFr0stOct 31, 20161 votes

She's quite strong. I think she'll end up being built tank though still tbh.

Pierce The VealOct 31, 20162 votes

{quoted}

She's quite strong. I think she'll end up being built tank though still tbh.

Well that's what happen when you HALF the AP ratio on someone's core abilities, and make then wait around twice as long, and also increase their burst window to be at least 4 seconds, and also remove their sustain scaling with their ability to deal damage and instead give them a flat chunk of damage and sustain. Honestly the rework is just screaming duskblade gunblade triforce +3 tank items to me.

LostFr0stOct 31, 20161 votes

Accurate assessment tbh. I can't tell if she's more or less healthy than live. QQ Base AD meets sheen efficiency cutoff too (around the same as Udyr's).

Pierce The VealOct 31, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Accurate assessment tbh. I can't tell if she's more or less healthy than live. QQ Base AD meets sheen efficiency cutoff too (around the same as Udyr's).

I mean, healthy in that she won't ever really be assassinating anyone anymore. She used to be midgame-lategame but the changes gutted that part of her gameplay.

Triforce has always been good on her. It just usually ended up in a bruiser build, and it became less common after it lost the AP. Do note that she has the best base attack speed in the game, so she benefits quite a bit as a bruiser from the 40% AS. I'm thinking something like gunblade, triforce/duskblade (pick one to get first depending on how the game is going, then get the other), spirit visage, deadman's plate, and a final tank item, heck, maybe titanic hydra to auto proc your passive, but the final item is sort of reliant on how the game's going.

LostFr0stNov 1, 20161 votes

Nah, I don't consider that healthy either. She's supposed to assassinate but her shroud either says she does it in at least 2 bursts or does it in front of the enemy team (need to pick one tbh, and focus on that). She has always reminded me of Diana in that way. We'll have to wait for the VGU. These changes are just to go with new shroud stealth.

She'll probably going to be a more AD version of tank Ekko after the update and run people down with the phage ms. Her AD ratios are more worth than her AP ones now so you're right, I see no point going AP. She's maybe go item 3053 now too since she'll get triforce? GA just too good though...

Pierce The VealNov 1, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Nah, I don't consider that healthy either. She's supposed to assassinate but her shroud either says she does it in at least 2 bursts or does it in front of the enemy team (need to pick one tbh, and focus on that). She has always reminded me of Diana in that way. We'll have to wait for the VGU. These changes are just to go with new shroud stealth.

She'll probably going to be a more AD version of tank Ekko after the update and run people down with the phage ms. Her AD ratios are more worth than her AP ones now so you're right, I see no point going AP. She's maybe go now too since she'll get triforce? GA just too good though...

Yeah. GA seems to outclass sterak's atm. Maybe switch to sterak's while GA is on CD?

LostFr0stNov 1, 20161 votes

lol nvm maybe still switch to item 3512 I just remembered.

Pierce The VealNov 1, 20162 votes

{quoted}

lol nvm maybe still switch to I just remembered.

Yeah that sounds reasonable. With Akali's pushing power, that would be an absolute monster on her.

LimmieOct 31, 20161 votes

More like she's only gonna be viable at all as a tank actually. Specially since AP assassins are being screwed so hard by itemization right now.

LostFr0stNov 1, 20162 votes

Yeah the ratio changes is the big one. Why do you say they're screwed by it?

They have a lot of options; probably more than the AD assassins tbh since any AP assassin can also dip into the AD options if they want better empowered autos and they often have a couple AD ratios anyways. New Duskblade ward-disable is the only disparity I see really.

LimmieNov 1, 20161 votes

Edge of Night and the new Duskblade are incredibly powerful items that are tailor-made for assassins, and have really solid powerspikes in their build paths (specially with the poacher's dirk mechanics). Edge of Night in particular is a strict advantage AD assassins have not only compared to AP assassins, but against them as well because of the spellshield and the built-in magic resist.

AP items on the other hand were conceived with mages in mind, so they don't offer the same midway power-spikes, and often have unneeded stats like mana, CDR, and DoT which energy assassins still have to pay for.

Akali can get away with building AD to an extent but not really because most of her damage comes from Q which doesn't scale at all with AD, and now more than ever she can't afford to not be super-efficient with her damage.

LostFr0stNov 2, 20162 votes

I don't think Edge of Night is as broken as everyone is making it out to be. It's a 10 second lasting spellshield on a 1.5 second channel delay that is interrupted if they take any damage. I don't remember if minion damage breaks the channel. It might not but prob does.

Duskblade I agree is pretty sweet due to the ward-blocking passive; I think 8 seconds of ward disable is too long though especially with all the ms items stacking. An AP blackout item would be cool.

Mana on an item is never "good" for an energy champ, AD or AP, but the item is usually worth without it. I'd argue CDR is super good on most energy champs ('cept Kat and even then) and if the DoT item you're talking about is Liandry's, it's just in a bad place all-around right now since Void almost always outclasses it.

Yo, lemme run something by you that I think is weird, I wanna see what you think:

So, new Akali E refunds 60% cd for killing a unit, so I thought there'd be an energy refund or something like for other last-hitting tools but it just flat-out costs like 1/4 of her energy pool. I'm not sure why they shifted some of her power budget there. Am I missing something that Akali players know but I don't?

LimmieNov 2, 20161 votes

A 10 second spellshield is a huge thing, it's like you have your own Malz passive for 10 seconds. The channel delay isn't a big deal either because you can still move during it, and the damage taking part only means you can't use it reactively. But as an assassin you're not supposed to be caught out of position/out of guard in the first place, you're the one doing that to others.

And take lichbane for instance, which is a good item for AP assassins. You'll want to start it with sheen of course, but if you don't have the 1050 for it yet you'll buy the mana crystal which is 100% useless on energy champions. Yes you could buy another component, but then you're delaying the sheen powerspike. And now think of how much access to armor penetration ADs have right from the early game. Meanwhile APs have to either rush voidstaff (which only provides the intended penetration when completed, unlike armor pen items), the upgraded boots (meaning you can't go mobis, so you'll have a worse roam) and haunting guise/lyandris, which isn't a very good item anyway like you said. Haunting guise is 1600 mind you, more than 2 poaching dirks.

The E refund thing is just a wave clearing aid so she can push the wave and roam quickly. It doesn't matter that it drains her energy pool because she's not supposed to spam it in combat anyway. It's not a bad thing but I really wish they made her E more useful in combat in the first place. It's one of my beefs with this rework, it's all over the place. They want to shut down Tankali but then make it so that she has no choice but to go tanky. They give her a totally random dash when she already has 3 and tie it to her only defensive skill. And also make her sustain trigger right when she's most likely to be already at full HP. Nothing in her kit right now has any synergy with anything else.

LostFr0stNov 2, 20162 votes

Fair enough, but I'll bet you many will attempt the reactive activation for a while.

So it's the build-paths then, not the items. Mmm i'd def buy the amp tome instead and sit on the rest of the gold tbh. I'd never get the mana crystal X| next back will have sheen 100% probs then. Sheen delay isn't that bad, but I see where you're coming from in that they can stack longswords and daggers.

Poaching dirk is actually pretty hard to stack, since you have to invade and poach a camp three separate times. It has a cd on the poaching. If the enemy mid has a poaching dirk just ward your raptors and you'll get a free kill once the camp spawns. With increased jg respawn timers it's even harder to stack.

That's what I figured, but I wanted to ask anyways. Yeah E does seem just like "insert aoe here." Too much for this work-scope, sad day. At least she's still on the VGU list.^^

Optimal engage would be R-->combo-->W out--->R back in--->combo then yeah? 'cause we need the shroud on the enemies for it to be useful. I don't wanna walk back to it :3 Laziness

C'mon, we both know that the reason for the second auto to be the damage one is to separate good and bad Akali players. They're bound to hit you with something before the first auto anyways.

RalanrNov 1, 20161 votes

I wouldn't say this year. She's probably behind Swain who is behind Urgot and Evelynn.

So maybe but I wouldn't count on it.

Pierce The VealNov 1, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I wouldn't say this year. She's probably behind Swain who is behind Urgot and Evelynn.

So maybe but I wouldn't count on it.

Swain already got updated, and they already said Akali is due for a VGU later this year. Whether they're telling the truth or not is another matter.

Irelia BotNov 1, 20161 votes

Their goal seemed to be to slow down her kill time and make her shroud more reliable.

Not saying I like the changes but with all the buffs after the initial PBE changes she at least feels playable now but still off.

Pierce The VealNov 1, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Irelia Bot,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JtoY511e,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2016-11-01T14:49:11.951+0000)

Their goal seemed to be to slow down her kill time and make her shroud more reliable.

Not saying I like the changes but with all the buffs after the initial PBE changes she at least feels playable now but still off.

She's playable, but so clunky that she won't be reliable or viable.

Akali is SO HOTNov 1, 20161 votes

If they revert the shroud so she doesn't have to place it on top of herself anymore and get rid of the blink then I'll be happy. Changing her ult cooldown to 2/1.75/1.5 seconds couldn't hurt either if they are feeling generous. I do agree that the majority of these changes are just flat nerfs which is pretty lame.

Pierce The VealNov 1, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Akali is SO HOT,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JtoY511e,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2016-11-01T15:01:55.318+0000)

If they revert the shroud so she doesn't have to place it on top of herself anymore and get rid of the blink then I'll be happy. Chaning her ult cooldown to 2/1.75/1.5 seconds couldn't hurt either if they are feeling generous. I do agree that the majority of these changes are just flat nerfs which is pretty lame.

Preeetty much. Honestly with her ult they could make its damage 0 but I just don't want its cooldown changed.