Is Akali really that strong in pro play? (Warning: quite long)

Note: The statistics concerning win rates across Elo bands and results in spring season tourneys may not be accurate as of this writing. However, they have been relatively consistent since the champion's rework, and should serve well as a guideline for the purposes of this post.

Edit: Fixed some formatting issues.

Ever since the release of Akali's rework, the furor and anger regarding this champion has completely baffled me. The claims made by Riot staff have puzzled and concerned me in equal measure. I have never seen this champion do well and when answers are pursued, the explanations given are ever more fleeting and insubstantial.

She is not the first capable of harassing or diving under turret — not even close. Nor is she particularly good at it. She has very poor matchups in lane, and for an assassin, her burst is unreliable and heavily delayed. In fact, she may be the only assassin in League's history who is incapable of a full burst rotation because she is locked out by an actual mechanical timer. (Even burst mages aren't constrained like this).

I cannot explain her continued pick/ban status in competitive in light of her consistently poor performance. I have had it suggested to me that it may be she offers safe laning. But it is still something of a minor mystery to me.

#Akali's sustain

To quote Riot Blaustoise, "Hopefully we can resolve this, but her sustain + shroud are pretty big sources of her power in pro".

Are they really?

Akali's sustain being an issue or even particularly strong is deeply questionable to me.

To clarify, Akali has a small heal on her Q (it must land on an enemy and does not proc on multiple enemies). She has no natural life steal or spell vamp and any other source of healing comes from runes or has been itemised for.

I believe that the effectiveness of this heal has been greatly exaggerated.

At rank 1, her Q heals for 5 base, plus 20% total AD + 20% total AP.

With the most common rune setup (speccing for extra sustain with FF), this means it'll heal for about 19 - 25 hit points.

However, the heal is gated behind Akali being at 180 (or more) energy at the time of Q use.

Let's assume that Akali does not use her E at all (this is fairly reasonable in lane).

She has a 200 energy pool, regenerates 10 per second and her Q costs 100 energy at rank 1.

If she uses Q at 180 energy every time, it'll take 8 seconds to reach parity the first time and 10 seconds thereafter.

Given a timeframe of, say, 3 minutes, this means she can use Q with a heal roughly 18 times, which comes out to around 396 hit points, or around 2.2 hit points per second.

However, Akali does have one supplementary method of energy regen — her shroud. The shroud will restore 40 energy on use, and has a cooldown of 21 seconds at rank 1.

Assuming she uses her shroud off cooldown (which is suboptimal play) this comes out to around 8 uses in 3 minutes, for a total of 320 bonus energy. In theory, this should allow for 3 extra Q uses above the 180 gate, meaning she heals 21 times — 462 hit points, or around 2.6 hit points per second.

Is this a great deal of healing?

We should consider that Akali has one of the lowest base HP regen values in the game, as well as one of the lowest HP regen per level values (meaning it does not noticeably improve per level).

In fact, her base regen is so poor that even with the above healing from Q use, she will barely outsustain a lvl 1 Heimerdinger who is doing nothing. (He has a base HP regen of 7).

How does she compare to other assassins or mages?

She will be substantially outsustained by Talon, who can theoretically heal for 20 hit points per 4 seconds, with 22 uses in 3 minutes coming out to 440 hit points. (Talon has over twice her HP regen).

She will also be outsustained by Ahri, who can theoretically heal for 84 hit points by hitting melee and caster minions at least twice. (Total healing over time is a little trickier to calculate for various reasons).

Her sustain is not even in the same league as Morgana, Gragas or Cassiopeia. (Cassiopeia can theoretically burst heal for nearly 100 hit points upon successfully landing Q).

#Akali's shroud

The complaints about her shroud are also somewhat confusing to me.

This ability does not provide invulnerability. It does not even provide true untargetability — anything with cleave, point-blank casting or AoE can still hit her for full damage while in the shroud.

My belief is that during the rework, the design was intended to give her a means to poke and whittle down her opponents: death by a thousand cuts. This is because Akali's damage for an assassin is not particularly high and relies heavily on her ultimate, which has one of the longest cooldowns in the game.

An assassin like Fizz can also dive (and even harass) you under turret. His window to do so is much shorter, but the spell itself is far more powerful, and his damage even without R is much more dangerous. Zed is a similar champion — strong ranged harass and strong turret-diving. A skilled Aatrox player can also harass you for far more damage with proper use of his Q.

This point is more difficult to prove mathematically. However, I have simply not seen any evidence whatsoever that proves this ability is as strong as is commonly claimed. As of 8.24 it no longer even drops turret aggro, and provides a shimmer to show the direction in which Akali is moving. (Given that the shroud is a donut or a torus, this was already somewhat easy to predict as she had only two possible directions to move in).

#Akali's win rates

Ever since the rework, Akali has had a very poor win rate in ranked matches, across all regions, and across all Elo bands. In fact, as far as I can tell from the available sources — chiefly Lolalytics — she has never once broken the 50% win rate threshold. Simply put, however you may feel about this champion, you are less likely to win a game with one on your team than with one opposing you.

Globally, she has a 45.76% win rate; her best win rate is 55% on dedicated mains.

She has a 46.84% win rate in Diamond and above.

She has a 49.60% win rate in Masters. In Korea, it's 46.83% in Masters. (I should mention that tracking Masters games is largely fruitless due to the very poor sample size and overrepresentation of dedicated players, but I am including them here for flavour).

#Akali in competitive

But what about in pro play? After all, she's supposed to be "the next Ryze" or "the next Azir", right? This is where the trouble really comes into focus for me. It is my belief that there is no evidence Akali is particularly outperforming in competitive (or even performing well at all in competitive). This has become so much an ingrained truism amongst not only the community but the balance team that the absolute dearth of evidence to support it is quite shocking.

Taken from Leaguepedia:

Akali in 2019 Spring LEC: 50 WR with 6 games. 5.00 KDA. Lower KDA than Lucian, Jayce, Pyke, Olaf, Swain, Caitlyn or LB. (Jayce had an 83.3 WR with more games played).

Akali in 2019 Spring LCS: 66.8 WR with 6 games. 5.00 KDA. Lower KDA than Ezreal, K6 or Sion with comparable games. (Sion and K6 had higher win rates).

Akali in 2019 Spring LCK: 50 WR with 24 games. 3.89 KDA, mediocre and outclassed by Aatrox, Lee Sin, Lucian, Vlad, Draven, LB (with a 9.60 KDA!) and even Ornn.

(NOTE: The Spring results may be subject to change as of this writing; they should be used only as estimates).

Akali in 2018 Summer LCS: 25 WR with 4 games. 3.00 KDA. Less than half the KDA of Viktor, Lucian or LB with comparable games played.

Akali was not picked once in 2018 Summer LCK. She was picked in the regional finals twice, lost both games with a KDA of 1.25.

Akali in 2018 Worlds play-in: 37.5 WR with 8 games. 4.21 KDA.

Akali in 2018 Worlds main: 72.7 WR with 11 games. 4.00 KDA. (LB, Nocturne and Sivir all had near identical WR and KDAs).

#Conclusion

I doubt this post will affect or change the direction Riot seems to be going in with regards to this champion amongst others. But I must say that this is the first time in League's history I have been worried by — with all respect intended — the reckless and seemingly baseless actions taken by the balance team.

Will all champions in the future be at the mercy of what is seemingly a mass hysteria?