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Akali [Rework Idea]

Stacona··1 votes·1,335 views

For comparison between my ideas and how she is currently: http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Akali

Twin Disciples (Passive): DISCIPLINE OF FORCE: Akali's auto attacks deal 6% (+ 1% per 6 AP) of her attack damage as bonus magic damage. DISCIPLINE OF MIGHT: Akali gains 6% (+ 1% per 6 bonus AD) spell vamp.

Mark of the Assassin (Q): Cooldown: 6/5.5/5/4.5/4 seconds; Cost: 70/65/60/55/50 energy; Range: 600 units Akali throws her kama at a target enemy, dealing 30/40/50/60/70(+20%AP) magic damage (90/120/150/180/210(+60%AP) magic damage to Minions) and marking the target which grants vision for 3 seconds. Akali's basic attacks or Crescent Slash against a marked target will consume the mark, dealing 50/90/130/170/210(+70%AP) additional magic damage again and restoring 50 energy.

Twilight Shroud (W): Cooldown: 20/18/16/14/12 seconds; Cost: 70 energy; Range: 350 units Akali creates a sight-granting smoke cloud in a 300-radius area for 4 seconds. While within the cloud, Akali is stealthed. Attacking or using abilities reveals her for 0.65 seconds. Enemies inside the smoke are slowed by 20/30/40/50/60%.

Crescent Slash (E): Cooldown: 7/6/5/4/3 seconds; Cost: 60/55/50/45/40 energy; Range: 350 units Akali flourishes her kamas, dealing 30/55/80/105/130(+30%AP)(+50%Total AD) physical damage and triggering any Mark of the Assassin on nearby enemies. Every struck champion with Crescent Strike grants Akali 2/4/6/8/10 bonus armor and magic resist for 3 seconds.

Shadow Dance (R): Static Cooldown: 1.5 seconds; Cost: 1 Essence of Shadow; Range: 800 units Akali uses an Essence of Shadow, dashing to and dealing 150/210/270(+75%AP) magic damage to a target enemy. Akali gains an Essence of Shadow every 25/20/15 seconds, affected by cooldown reduction, up to a maximum of 2. Additionally, gaining a kill or assist will restore an Essence of Shadow. Akali may dash to anywhere inside Twilight Shroud with Shadow Dance.

Some feedback for my thought process here, one obvious point to point out is that I tried to make Akali commit and all-in to assassinate her prey, but I also made a unique interaction between Shadow Dance and Twilight Shroud.

So I removed the bonus armour and magic resist within her shroud, but increased the slow it grants at all ranks; I also halved the duration and lowered the cooldown at later ranks. The reduction to the cast range was because of me adding the interaction of allowing akali to dash into her shroud so that she can think ahead of placing her shroud in a safe spot, jump in burst her target out, and get the reset dash to jump back to the shroud. This makes Akali of being a squishy melee in the middle of everyone that ability to now jump in, deal damage to her target, and jump out to the safety of her shroud- but do it quickly because you only have 4 seconds before your escape disappears!

Mark of the assassin I halved the mark duration but granted vision utility to the mark, also I lowered the initial mark damage even further, but increased the mark proc duration greatly.

Crescent Slash I increased the range on this spell slightly, but lowered the total AD ratio slightly to compensate, the bonus armor and magic resist Akali got has been moved to this spell, you can get the same bonus defenses as before if you hit 5 champions, I just feel like rewarding the player for hitting as many people as she can with her only AoE spell.

Shadow Dance I lowered the maximum charges held to 2 from 3 but increased the damage to compensate, this is mainly to allow more counter play for the opponent to play around two dashes instead of three which is impossible to play around, so mainly this change is for counter play when playing against Akali.

Overall, this rework idea makes Akali a lot more all-in, but also allows her a way out for either quick harass with one dash in and one dash back out to her shroud. Or allow Akali to jump in, throw out all her burst, then escape to her shroud she left behind.

~ Stacona

5 Comments

Sayath2 votes

I consider your direction with MotA misguided. Much of the skill in playing Akali is utilizing the double detonation. Akali's skill ceiling has to increase, not decrease. While its definitely more fun to the opponent, the cost in terms of downtime is clearly not worth it. This change alone requires significant compensation and you go even further. Counterplay is a good goal. However, you have to provide viable rewards in turn. Otherwise, the champion is just significantly underpowered.

Furthermore, in the later stages of the game the duration reduction basically has no effect. While it definitely is more fun to the opponent, it completely removes Akali's fall back mechanic for skilled players. Once champions have counterplay, they have to have fall back mechanics in place. If Orianna loses lane, she still will have significant impact for her team via AoE CC. Akali has no CC. Thus, she needs to scale and have an impact. She can't splitpush like Zed either.

**Twilight Shroud. ** The range is now 350? Com'on. Once again, you restrict a player's choices significantly. Here, in terms of placement. Also static 70 energy cost? Your new Akali is heavily energy constricted. Duration 4 seconds? At this point I'm really thinking you are just introducing counterplay by cutting power. As a designer, you have to respect the power level of a champion and give them strengths and weaknesses instead. You are just removing all of her strengths. That's not how you do this. Furthermore, 20/30/40/50/60%. AoE slow? Basically, Akali now uses it to slow down the whole teamfight. It's gonna be significantly annoying to all people involved and the Akali player won't appreciate it much because it affects all players around him. However, I can see why you would want to introduce utility to her, although I disagree with this specific form.

The Crescent Slash changes I also disagree with. The Armor / MR bonus shouldn't be there at all. Remove it, give her movement speed. Something players actually appreciate instead of becoming a tank. It doesn't fit with her fantasy. An assassin is about mobility and evasiveness, not AR / MR stats.

Shadow Dance. A static cooldown completely kills her pacing in late game, at least if it isn't scaling with ult levels. In late game teamfights, Akali's ultimate needs to be more available. Ignoring that you basically did not compensate her for losing the base damage of the third ultimate stack. I can't see how Akali is supposed to work with 2 ultimate charges. It just doesn't pan out. Furthermore, given the very short range of Twilight Shroud and its mediocre duration I don't see significant plays happening by dashing to it. You just allowed her to get away and jump walls without targets - yes. However, it doesn't generate any significant skill ceiling. How is Akali supposed to kill anybody with one ultimate charge? Honestly, I once again only see a reduction of power. IMO, Akali shouldn't have an escape in the first place. She escapes through jumping to pleasantly located enemy minions / monsters and champions instead. That's way more interesting than just giving her some annoying Twilight Shroud into Shadow Dance combo.

In total, this is definitely not the direction of a rework I want to ever see on her. Counterplay is great, you have to give the champion a reward in turn though if they outplay the opponent. You definitely did not.

I'm always happy to chat about Akali, you can add me on NA or EUW (Sayath).

On my background, I have >6000 games with Akali and discuss her balance often, both in public and private, with Rioters (especially live balance). Just search for my name.

YGW Caspie1 votes

I'm not as crazy about Akali as you are but I do like her and her lore... I have a painting of her my friend did for me as well. She's in my top 5 champions that I enjoy, but I main support now and don't really get too many chances to play her. That being said I read through some your threads about her and decided to reply with a possible idea of a rework that takes a different approach.

Passive Twin Disciplines; Disipline of Order: Akali deals X% more damage to targets below 50% hp. Disipline of Chaos: If Akali falls below 50% hp she gains X% spell vamp and X% lifesteal.

Q Mark of the Assassin: Akali throws her kama at a target enemy, dealing magic damage and marking the target for 6 seconds. Akali's basic attacks or Crescent Slash against a marked target will consume the mark, dealing additional magic damage again and restoring energy.

W Twilight Shroud: Akali creates a sight-granting smoke cloud in a 300-radius area for 8 seconds. While within the cloud, Akali is stealthed and gains bonus movement speed. Attacking or using abilities reveals her for 0.65 seconds. Enemies inside the smoke are slowed.

E Crescent Slash: Akali flourishes her kamas, dealing physical damage and triggering any Mark of the Assassin on nearby enemies. If the target is a champion they will also bleed for 6 seconds granting vision of the target to Akali.

Passive: Akali's auto attacks deal X% (+ Y% per Z AP) of her attack damage as bonus magic damage to bleeding targets.

R Shadow Dance: Akali uses an Essence of Shadow, dashing to and dealing magic damage to a target enemy. Akali gains an Essence of Shadow periodically (30/25/15), up to a maximum of 3. Additionally, gaining a kill or assist will reduce the cooldown of Essence of Shadow by 15 seconds.

Context: These are just ideas that hopefully you like, just trying to help brainstorm for Akali since I see her being discussed more and more. As you can see I gave her a new passive something that is more situational power... helps her assassinate when targets are low and helps her sustain when she's low I focused on "Chaos" and "Order" because it's in my opinion a big part of her lore and training as a Martial Artist. I also moved one of her old passives to her E and tied it into a bleed mechanic very similar to Talon, I really enjoy the bleeding mechanic Talon has and I think it makes a lot of sense when you're talking about an assassin who wields bladed weaponry like Kamas. I removed her resets at early levels but it comes back at level 16 to help reduce a bit of her snowballing but keep her late game reset potential. For the shroud I basically just replaced the current MR/Armor buff with a movement speed buff instead. I kept Q the same because I feel it's really core to her and isn't really in need of changes. Would love a reply, feel free to add me on NA server if you want to discuss further.

Only Play Nid1 votes

No. Akali is already pretty strong as an all-in champ, she doesn´t need more escapes.

YGW Caspie1 votes

Interesting, usually I hear the opposite which is that many want Akali to be more about her stealth gameplay rather than all in. The problem I feel with this particular rework idea is Zed is better in every way compared to this. I'm torn between liking the idea that you can shadow dance to the shroud and not liking it, since I feel as if it detracts away from her stealth and it would more than likely just be used as a way to jump out.

Taking her dashes down to 2 is alright with proper compensation, but I feel maybe instead keep the charges at 3 but have it not affected by cooldown reduction and have it also not be able to reset on kill or assist, but instead have it so procing your Q reduces the cooldown by X amount that way it's not an instant refresh and she has to stick to her targets if she wants to keep dashing around. Just another idea though.

Stacona1 votes

the interaction and cast range nerf on the shroud is so akali needs to create more of a plan before she goes in so she can have a way out - 2 charges, but more damage per charge, is so that she doesn't deal less damage in total cause she doesn't- the 2 charges is entirely to open better counter play against akali--

these changes actually help fix akali's solo queue stomping and competitive can never get played ways- with the added utility to her kit she actually can be seen on the competitive scene, and with one less max charge she has less free solo queue snowball stomps- but with the interaction of the shroud (and stronger slow on the shroud with lower cooldown) and her dashes she can be an assassin that can go in and out by using her second charge or getting a reset- like kha'zix with evolved wings to jump in, kill target, and jump out

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