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Akali

Laustin Space··11 votes·1,609 views

As an Akali main for the greater majority that I've played LoL I figured I'd give my 2 cents. Probably going to get a lot of people disagreeing on my opinion here but I really hope they don't nerf Akali any further. I don't think many people realize how many recent indirect nerfs she's gotten. For one with all the new objectives solo queue has become a lot more organized and Akali needs chaos to do well which is why she was so popular for solo queue but considered weak else where because if the team play. They changed the buff potions which slightly nerfed her late game considering in my opinion she benefited the most of any champion for having both red and blue pots with her passive. Last and most important they just made upgraded pink and scanner trinkets extremely cheap to get and any half witted team will easily shut her down with this... :/ whelp here comes the hate~

Edit: Well it looks like the nerf on Cresent Slash went through and now I'm feeling with all these changes overall Akali is getting gutted. The sad part is i can imagine you could still easily dominate with her in lower brackets not because of the champions design but simply because of skill difference. Where as in higher elo she is simply looking useless.

19 Comments

S0NA9 votes

Nah I actually agree with you.

For the most part, the only people who think she's super OP are those in low elo who don't know how to ward or call mia.

She's really pretty useless if you get vision in her shroud. Grievous wounds makes short work of her, even when fed.

Laustin Space6 votes

"Grievous wounds makes short work of her, even when fed." This is so true and with the chalice nerfs most mana hungry mages now run morellonomicon even against heavy ap comps.

MotherChurch8 votes

Yea.... Honestly the only Assassin that seemed to need a nerf was Zed. The rest are/were relatively balanced.

MotherChurch4 votes

The recent changes to the upgraded warding totem and sweeper (only costing 275g) seems to make Akali even easier to counter.

Keevalroy4 votes

Akali players: Why do you think she's broken?

Community: Because the pros said so! Ba-a-a-a-ahh!

Akali players: How many pinks did they buy that game they faced her?

Community: 1 ward for the river! Broken! Ba-a-a-ahh, Ba-a-a-a-ahh!

Are4 votes

As an Akali main, I think that she's fine as she is. She's indeed a pub stomper (come on now, everyone is viable until Plat), but she's really well balanced in higher elos.

It doesn't seem like much, but I'm pretty sure that the ult nerf is going to hurt her a lot. Mainly because she takes so long to kill people (12 seconds). Losing 100 range on her ult is going to frustrating because if you're trying to do her CORRECT combo, that 100 range is going to be factored into those four seconds you wait on Q.

The only reason why she's getting nerfed is because "Omg I can't spam skills in lane with Chalice anymore, non mana champions are so strong now!!1", but Akali was never strong pre-6, and anyone who loses to Akali pre-6 is doing something wrong.

Ezx4 votes

As someone who has played a significant ammount of akali but switched to other champions I completely agree with you. She has strong counters in both top and mid (Garen, Darius, Rumble) and (Malzahaar, Swain, Leblanc). In higher ELO's all it takes is MIA pings and bot lane warding correctly and akali can be effectively shut down for the entire game. The reason lower ranked people complain about her is because vision and game knowledge tend to be lackluster anywhere below plat (Not that plat is great on that count). If people know when to play agressive against her and have an idea when she might roam she can be easily shut out of the game.

Serage4 votes

Akali RIP 5.2: She got so many nerfs, but the one on the PBE will shut her down for a long time: E doesnt proc Q anymore R range from 800 to 700 -> 700 range on her R is like appr. 580 autoattack range. (That why you can attack baron with a autoattack range with 700 but cant jump to baron with 800 range) -> With these changes Akali will reach about 42% winrate and will not be viable anymore.

You need the E proc to play her top and you need the 800 range of R to play her mid...

Aetherius661 votes

Wow you have really accurate predictions...... Rito should hire you man. You could tell em how their changes will pan out.. dang tho.. scarily accurate.

Ayame Isaki3 votes

I also main Akali. The range is a serious nerf when you factor in you can't proc mark with e. So if you are cc'd mid combo you can't hit e to proc from a small range. This along with the indirect nerfs via vision item changes are really going to hurt.

Additionally, as much as I hate Katarina, she looks like she we will be in an equally bad place if not worse. This just makes me sad. Nerfing Akali's kit should not have been the answer. Nerfing Gunblade would have been better. Just like a nerf to BotRK would fix several champs including Zed without touching their kit.

Laustin Space1 votes

With giving Katarina some of her ad ratios back I'm actually curious to see how the new Kat will fair with the new Gunblade changes~ :3

Ayame Isaki3 votes

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.

I think the balance team needs to stop caving into the whines on the forums. The more things are nerfed, the harder the balance is to maintain as the slightest change has a bigger relative impact than at higher power levels. I think the ideal should be to pick a pool of champions that are "healthy" and slowly dial up the under powered champions and slowly dial back the over powered champions.

Making these sweeping changes to Akali, Fizz, and Katarina are a knee-jerk reaction that uses a reciprocating saw when a scalpel is required.

I also would like to understand why some complaints are heeded as gospel (Assassins are too OP) yet others, such as the dominance of AD based champions and items (BotRK, LW) or certain champions in various roles (such as the lack of viability for most champs in the jungle) are ignored.

It is quite frustrating.

SouL1ess2 votes

Last and most important they just made upgraded pink and scanner trinkets

You pretend that most of the League community understands how to counter stealth...

And from my experience no matter how much you advertise stealth counters people still remain oblivious.

Laustin Space5 votes

But most of them do in my experience. Not sure I've gone a single match without the enemy dropping pinks as Akali in a long while.

TrentBatNA2 votes

Akali is only weak in Diamond +, because people actually buy pink wards there.

Are2 votes

I don't think that Akali is getting any compensation buffs, but that ult range nerf is really going to hurt her combo, I hope they don't go through with it.

They should reduce the CD of Q on all ranks by 5, and have it cost one less energy on each rank up. At the very least, her combo won't be as affected and her ult isn't as "OP" as it was before.

Linkttp2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Laustin Space,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NjGFfABQ,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-01-20T23:10:09.051+0000)

As an Akali main for the greater majority that I've played LoL I figured I'd give my 2 cents. Probably going to get a lot of people disagreeing on my opinion here but I really hope they don't nerf Akali any further. I don't think many people realize how many recent indirect nerfs she's gotten. For one with all the new objectives solo queue has become a lot more organized and Akali needs chaos to do well which is why she was so popular for solo queue but considered weak else where because if the team play. They changed the buff potions which slightly nerfed her late game considering in my opinion she benefited the most of any champion for having both red and blue pots with her passive. Last and most important they just made upgraded pink and scanner trinkets extremely cheap to get and any half witted team will easily shut her down with this... :/ whelp here comes the hate~

Edit: Well it looks like the nerf on Cresent Slash went through and now I'm feeling with all these changes overall Akali is getting gutted. The sad part is i can imagine you could still easily dominate with her in lower brackets not because of the champions design but simply because of skill difference. Where as in higher elo she is simply looking useless.

100% Agree

Aetherius661 votes

likewise.

RicRoll1 votes

They buff back Azir and Kassadin for the latest patch after the nerfs were too harsh, and they completely ignore Akali. Typical Riot... :/

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