Reworked Akali Thoughts and Balance Suggestions
Firstly I will admit I am not the most experienced Akali player, but it seems apparent she is suffering from some gameplay and balance issues, also similarly to Yasuo she is causing some player frustration which makes sense when you examine their kits, and even with my limited knowledge thought it would be good to foster some conversation around it.
Both Yasuo and Akali are high mobility champions that rely on witling down opponents but also have windows of high burst. Furthermore they both have abilities which when used well deny a lot of enemy damage (windwall and smokescreen). They tend to both be able to build relatively squishy but due to their kits absorb a lot of damage and abilities in the hands of an experienced player, unfortunately this also means in inexperienced hands they often dive in, misuse these tools and die quickly.
Currently after two patches of learning, Akali is a bit below average in high ELO solo queue sitting relatively stable but slowly rising at 47% win rate and 60% ban rate in plat+ (https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/champion/Akali/historic/ ), yet is currently high priority in pro play. I am not just talking about Bjergson stomping in one game but also in the Asian games and LPL her presence soared in the final weeks of the season. To throw in some stats; in the LPL she had 0 picks and 0 bans pre-rework in spring and majority of summer, as of 8.15 she has had 90% presence (third highest behind Aatrox and Tahm Kench) with 5 picks and 31 bans, being almost perma-banned red side if not she was either first picked or picked blind as a mid/top flex in the final two weeks of summer (http://gol.gg/champion/list/season-S8/split-ALL/tournament-LPL%20Summer%202018/patch-8.15/role-ALL/league-ALL/ ) despite sitting between 40-45% in solo queue during this time. In the LPL it is generally accepted that her and Aatrox are must bans for red side, and based on the Asian games (where she was 100% first-pick/banned in semis and finals by both Korea and China) I wouldn't be surprised if this also happens in the finals in Korea which Meddler recently stated is not a healthy state for champions (https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/38E5AMu9-quick-gameplay-thoughts-august-29 ).
Despite this I think Akali isn't far from being a healthy champion and with a few minor modifications will feel less frustrating to play against as well as hopefully even out her performance between solo queue and pro play. I do think she definitely needs pro play nerfs but I do not think that this should heavily impact solo queue as although I do not think she is super weak she definitely has little room for nerfs (despite people not wanting to play against it with an approximately 60% ban rate even after a month, a new rework and two patches since release). One suggestion I have heard a lot is to change her shroud to not stop turret shots, although I don't fully disagree with this sentiment, it seems like RIOT likes this mechanic, which to be fair, is at the very least rather unique. With that in mind I hope to discuss alternate options.
OPTION 1: Reallocate power from her ult to her e to make her power less windowed, encourage more risk early, give her more consistent damage output and make it easier to outplay her burst with ultimate up.
As an aside, windows of power is something that can be very important both in solo queue and high ELO. Generally speaking having windows of power is important and healthy as it provides timings where a character can be strong or weak irrespective of gold differential. It also provides rewards for playing around item timings or successfully baiting out key cooldowns. The reason I am targeting this as a point of balance for Akali is historically pro play has revolved much more prominently around these cooldowns due to superior team coordination and communication. Furthermore pro play is slower then solo queue and tends to be more risk adverse meaning fights happen less frequently often meaning it is easier to play defensively to avoid being punished while waiting on a short to medium length cooldown. This has been noted as a differential between pro and solo queue in the past by the balance team, there was even a recent comment around this on the dive (when Jatt was quoting the reasons the balance team gave) in regards to Shen's ultimate cooldown, where CDR is more valuable on Shen in solo queue vs PRO play due to the lower frequency of fights in pro, meaning his ult is generally available when required in PRO play without heavy investment in CDR but not in solo queue.
Why this is relevant with Akali is currently a large amount of AP Akali's power budget is in her empowered autos and the second cast of her ultimate. So much so that even if behind in lane when Akali hits 6 with a hextech revolver she has kill pressure and thus mid lane priority into almost every non-tanky champion. If Akali is ahead, often empowered auto, second r, empowered auto is enough to 100-0 most squishy champions. This is not uncommon these days for an ultimate, however why I think this is an issue in pro play versus regular for Akali is the reliability of this burst damage when her ultimate is up verse when it is down. The first part of her ultimate is a nearly instant 650 range dash and cc, even without AD investment for more damage there is already a lot of power in this type of mobility, the second part is a nearly instant 750 range dash and execute. This combined with being untargettable in her shroud and the additional dash from her e, allows Akali to cover a lot of distance blow up the enemy carry with r,q and either buy time for her team or get out very reliably which in the right hands has very little counter play, all of this is on a 120-80 second cooldown. This I think is the primary issue in her kit, reliability is generally highly valued in pro play such as Ryze's point click root, although Akali's ult is not point and click like it used to be its speed and range makes it very close to. Without this Akali is pretty useless at assassinating people unless ahead as she only has her e for a dash which is less than 300 range on first cast and is missing a massive chunk of her damage. This can be pretty crippling in solo queue, where there are constant skirmishes and if it is used in one fight, it is likely not back for the second, however in Pro play it is rare to have such constant fighting, so similarly to Shen, Akali's ultimate is generally always available when it is required and with 1400 range 2 shot potential she is almost always going to get her man.
There are a few approaches to fix this, one is to tweak the cooldown of her ultimate, another is to change ultimate speed, the other is to take some overall damage out of her ultimate and put it into the rest of her kit. There are arguments for all but I prefer the latter. Changing the cooldown I think is problematic, lowering the cooldown to help solo queue will make her more out of line in pro, raising the cooldown will hurt solo que more. Changing the ultimate speed is promising in affecting power in pro versus solo que but it is still a nerf so will need other buffs and will have a heavy quality of life impact on how Akali feels to play, especially for people who played old Akali. Thus I believe the final option has the most promise.
My opinion is that some damage should be taken out of the more reliable second part of her ultimate and put into the second part of her e. Currently her e on AP Akali is used more for mobility or an empowered auto than anything else. Often the second part of the e is not super important for her burst in a teamfight unless you need the full combo. It is also the ability with the most counter play for the enemy being a reasonably slow skill shot. Putting a lot more damage into the second part of her e would make it feel better to use offensively as the Akali, give her more options for all in without ultimate (rather than just constantly harassing with q and auto through the wave) as well as making her burst pattern less reliable when she has ultimate due to needing to land a slowish skillshot and the predictability of the second part of the e. It also gives a clear condition to outplay the Akali. Similar to Lee Sin q, it is easy to recognise if you dodge that ability you can likely beat the Lee-Sin, or if you are hit that you should stick close to your team to deter him from going in, this easy to read win-condition when fighting Lee-Sin as a squishy is something Akali currently lacks. Having a clear win condition against an enemy feels better both when you die to them and when you beat them as if you do get hit by Lee-Sin q and die you can at least point at something and think "I could have done this better" it is also easier in pro to play around said win conditions when the team is co-ordinated enough to punish the mistake.
I think this would help address some of the difference between pro play and solo queue by making her burst damage less reliable in a team fight (targeted nerf at pro) while increasing her kill threat without ultimate at the risk of diving in with e (targeted buff for solo que).
OPTION 2: Secondly there are a few different things that could potentially be done to her shroud to maybe remove some frustration. Based on board posts and comments since release this ability seems to be the largest cause of frustration on her kit so making some modifications to it to relieve frustration and help out other areas of her kit could be beneficial.
The first idea is to make it dissipate faster (half duration) under enemy turrets like Azir soldiers. This way it can still let her reset turret aggro and go for cool turret dives when appropriate but still give the defender some more reprieve and pay off for backing off under tower against Akali.
The second one is to make it dissipate faster if there are multiple members of the enemy team in the shroud. This would mean it would be just as good for 1v1ing the enemy midlaner or in messy skirmishes but remove some of her ability to just sit in the enemy backline in teamfights and waste their time. It would also give some counterplay to coordinated teams by allowing tanky members to enter it and help dissipate it. Furthermore it would stop her from wasting 10 seconds when she is 1v5 making her less frustrating to try and punish when she gets caught out of position.
(BOTH THESE SHROUD CHANGES WOULD REQUIRE COMPENSATION ELSEWHERE IN THE KIT)
I am also interested in whether there are any other options people can think of, especially those with more experience on the champion than me.