Akali nerfs are missing the point (again...)
TL;DR: changes are bad, Akali's problems, how you solve them.
By now, I think it has come wide and clear that the balance team simply don't know what to do with Akali. Since release she was nerfed several times and even after her broken functionalities were removed there's no balance still. No healing, no obscurity and she's around 40% ban rate, 87% presence at Worlds. More nerfs are coming to gut her though,a champion that barely ever reached 48% win rate. Everything until now has been a roundabout way of dealing with the problem.
W changes are just ridiculous because they just break the rules of invisibility (Akali is getting good at it) and takes away reward for playing effectively with the shroud. R changes are a step in the right direction, however, and I'll explain more about it below but this alone is not enough. I wouldn't have the right to criticize if I hadn't thought about some changes myself, so let's see.
The good: Akali's kit is an excellent adaption of her old self, everything feels intuitive and her gameplay is very fluid with all the Passive's back-n-forth. After the superficial parts of her kit were removed (Q heal, W obscurity), it now feels more acceptable from a balance perspective (because criativety-wise it's a great success).
The bad: Akali dwells in an crisis of classes and learning curves. Even after the removal of certain effects and so many nerfs she still hasn't reached a balanced state. I believe to have understood why. From what I can tell, here goes the core of Akali's problems:
-Class conflict: Akali is an Assassin. But she herself does not follow the rules of the class. The defining trait of her class is for a combo of bursty abilities on higher-than-average cooldowns. This means little-to-no sustained damage. If we look at Akali, however, it's easy to notice how she's quite the opposite. The heart of this problem lies in her Q -> Passive ->repeats ad infinitum gameplay. Current Akali has more sustained damage than a lot of Juggernauts while outtrading Divers (more power than the Fighter class).
-Unpunishable: Everyone that has played against Akali at least once knows the pain. Akali is... rather unpunishable. There's always a maneuver up for her to avoid you. The smoke, the E, the untargeted Ultimate. She's never really in danger, so one of these must go for her to feel more like a skilled Assassin. There's also an aberration in her kit: while most Energy users restore their resource through conditions, Akali's W grants 80 Energy for free. This rewards Akali for misplaying the rest of her kit. Not fair.
-Learning curve: It has been said before, but Akali's learning curve is huge. And there's two of them: the one where she learns her laning pattern and the other where she learns how to teamfight. The point is, while Akali's lane is way too strong because of the two problems above, her many tools are just too hard to use effectively during big fights. So only the best of the best Akali players get to abuse her and it becomes too big of a difference for balancing. Lucky for her, my way of solving the other two problems solves this one too.
What should change:
Passive: Changed.
--New effect: maximum of two applications. --New effect: enters cooldown after applying twice. Cooldown equal to 10/8/6 seconds at levels 1/7/13 (if too weak, can be 8 at all levels). --New effect: first attack restores double the Energy. --New effect: second attack deals double the damage. --Base damage: lowered from 39-180 to 35-160, based on level (if too weak, revert this). --Damage AP scaling: lowered from 50% to 45% (if too weak, revert this). --Energy restore: increased from 10/15/20 at levels 1/8/13 to 20/30/40 (if too weak, can be 40 at all levels).
Little-to-no sustained damage, more Assassin-oriented playstyle. Less applications also softens the learning curve for laning AND teamfighting. Ability's core stays the same
W: Nerfed.
--Effect removed: no longer restores 80 Energy on cast.
No longer rewards Akali for free. Combined with Passive changes, this means less Q spamming. Because changes are to reward gameplay, this must go
Ultimate: Adjusted. Not sure Riot's current plans for the Ultimate would fit the rest of the changes. Anyway, this should do it.
--Effect changed: cast is now targeted at enemy champions (if too weak, can be any enemy). Other effects unchanged: dash distance is fixed (if targeting any enemy, remove this), deals damage to all enemies in the line. --Effect changed: both casts now have the same range (625 (if too strong, can be 600)). --Recast window: lowered from **7.5 **to 5 seconds. --Minimum interval between casts: lowered from 2.5 to 2 seconds. --Second cast minimum damage: lowered from 75/145/215 to 70/135/200 (if too weak, increase AP scaling from 30 to 35%). --CD: reduced from 160/130/100 to 120/100/80 seconds (if too strong, can be 140/110/80 or even 130/110/90).
Because Ultimate is targeted, damage is guaranteed but escaping is limited. More reliable, smoother teamfighting. Ability's core stays the same
