Are we finally happy with Akali?

Akali is a controversial champion nowadays. No kidding. That's one of the easiest remarks to make about this game. I want to know something. Now that she's been toned down so heavily, what is it we don't like about her? After her most recent batch of nerfs, the ones with the first Ult cast being targeted, they hotfix buffed her numbers so she did more damage. I think that's a valid complaint, her doing even more damage. I no longer think that the complaints of Akali being annoying really apply in many other forms.

Her Shroud no longer diminishes the value of turrets, true sight, and spells cast before she goes invisible. These changes were incredibly necessary and I'm still stunned to this day that they let that through for as long as they did.

Her Q now costs more energy than ever to combat Presence of Mind being extremely useful on her. This now means she gets a single Q, wait four seconds for a second Q and then another twelve seconds for a third. Of course, you can use her passive to reduce the time between to three seconds for your second Q and eleven for a third. Her early game clear and trading are not incredible. They're serviceable, but not the best.

She no longer has the same three dashes that let her escape from most scenarios (Vi ult, anyone?) because the first ult cast is targeted and you need to use that before you get your free-targeting second dash. It doesn't micro-stun anymore (thankfully). The time between casts was increased by 0.75 seconds.

The recent changes really put a damper on my enjoyment when playing Akali. Yeah she does a lot of damage, but plenty of other characters do that too. If you care to read it and/or contextualize where I'm coming from, here's my story. I tried playing Akali when she was first reworked and I hated it. I didn't realize she had a bit of depth to her. I thought I would pick up this broken kit and maul these poor people with her. I did a lot of the opposite. I didn't pick her back up until her W was changed to be more healthy. By that point, I had learned that she had a bit of a skill floor to adapt to. Her skill ceiling? I'm not sure whether it's that high or not. I don't think it's that high but I digress. The micro-stun was removed soon after. I felt completely fine with losing that. I felt it made her ult a little too integral in the outcome of a fight. I thought she was mostly fine at that stage. The worst I could say was that it felt like she could lose some numbers to her base damages. I could pick her in ranked, play safe, pressure my lane, respond to my teammates all if need be. She's a big part of why I was able to climb at the tail end of Season 9 after not wanting to play ranked for most of the regular Season. After her most recent changes, I stopped playing her. I no longer have the tools to play safe in a unique way. I have some damage early, but I'm not really winning early trades. I can still respond to my team. That part hasn't really changed. Overall, I still lost a couple different things that made me really enjoy the character. I know I'm not the only one with an opinion on this. That rank I climbed to at the end of the season? Gold IV. Yeah. Not good. She really did have a seat reserved for her in the pick or ban club at the highest level of the game. I can understand why she got more nerfs even if I didn't think they were necessary. I'm not going to hold my breath until the changes get reverted. I've got other toxic characters that I enjoy playing, much to the general disdain of the playerbase, but I've lost an enjoyable character that I really didn't mind. I've already had a character get toned down to the point of unintentionally troll picking in the form of my dear old Kalista.

So are we happy with Akali in her current state? It seems like she's not on everyone's radar anymore as a most hated character now thanks to some new suspects ( ) but if and when they get nerfed and if Akali gets some love, will we go back to hating her as vehemently as we were in Season 9?