Akali Nerf Incoming?

Psýcho·9/28/2014, 3:29:10 AM·2 votes·1,266 views

So with the PBE update, the extra armor/magic resist that Akali gets while in her shroud has been removed and replaced with a movespeed buff. While this of course is not final yet, it is troubling as an Akali player. Akali is one those champs that is really good in solo queue, but really bad against higher tier organized teams, so I understand that nerfing her solo queue dominance is a good thing. The problem is that this nerf just destroys her power against those higher tier teams.

Akali is one of few assassins to have no natural escapes. This is balanced by her W and the spell vamp from her passive. The problem is that the invisibility part of Akali's shroud is completely useless against higher tier teams due to the fact that pink wards exist. While her laning phase won't be hugely impacted by this nerf (maybe even helped with the movespeed buff to escape ganks), her power in mid-late game fights takes a huge hit. Since a single pink ward makes invisibility not an option, the extra armor and magic resist is the only thing that kept Akali alive during mid-late game fights.

This movespeed buff may help a little early, but now Akali is just as squishy as other assassins, yet has no escape like most others, and can't even hide in her shroud due to pink wards. Yes, Akali was a bit too strong for solo queue, but at least balance her out so that she has a fighting chance against higher tier organized teams. Talon was my second favorite assassin and last week he got nerfed without much compensation (the slow on E hardly helps), and now it looks like Akali might get nerfed even harder than Talon was.

I understand that assassins are the hardest champion type to balance. They need high single target burst damage and generally high mobility, but also need to be countered in some way. That doesn't mean taking away their specialties though. Talon was really good against most mid lane mages because of his silence, now he is not. Akali is a more durable assassin that can stay in the fight longer with her W, but she won't be anymore if this nerf becomes final. I'm not trying to flame Riot for trying to balance out Akali, I just think that you need to make her equally usable in both solo queue and against organized teams. This nerf just makes her weakness to a 100 gold pink ward even greater than it already was.

7 Comments

Tapu Fini9/28/2014, 4:12:31 AM1 votes

Much like Poppy now, and Evelynn before, there is/was no counterplay to their kits. If they are strong, they are overwhelmingly strong without any hope of being outplayed, so they cannot be allowed to get strong. Until she can get a full rework which introduces counterplay to her kit, she needs to be underwhelming.

Lichblade9/29/2014, 10:27:55 AM1 votes

The change that is happening is not a flat nerf, its called a tradeoff, they are swapping the resists with something that is more fitting in its theme.

Also those iterations are not final yet, currently imo the lvl 1 strength of the MS is too strong while ranking it up past lvl 1 feels impact-less.