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Fixing Akali

Spar23K··5 votes·1,475 views

Akali Akalis high banrate stems from her unfair and anti fun kit for players opposing her. I am a mid-lane main that plays many different midlaners and believe the best way to balance Akali to a non perma banned and flat out anti fun champ would be to change 2 of her mechanics.

True stealth is simply a broken concept, being able to completely remove the ability to be targeted EVEN BY TOWERS was obviously going to be a nightmare for her lane opponents. Any chance of locking her down under tower if she positions poorly or dives is basically removed and really hurts the laners who are generally weaker in combat or just takes a bad trade. Towers shouldnt be able to be ignored simply by a champions kit. So there are two ways in my opinion this could give the opponent counter play.

1. Grant Akali stealth against champions and minions but allow her to still be targeted by the tower. 2. Decrease the duration of her W if it falls into tower range (like Azir soldiers). This will make tower diving riskier for her giving her less time to do extended damage and force her to plan a dive far more.

And probably what I find to be the most unnecessary part of her kit would be her 0 cooldown passive, it gives Akali so much trade pressure. Its a passive that just goes against the Assassin burst rules because she is able to extend fights far longer than any other assassin. Lets compare Akalis trading to other assassins. Talon W Q Auto for passive and now he can either backup or wait 6+ seconds for his abilities to start coming up. Zed W E Q Auto for passive and is now left extremely vulnerable without shadow and has to wait 6 seconds for Q his main damage and having a 10s passive. Fizz W Q E and is left to auto attack with his W active being extremely vulnerable without E and now has to wait 6-10 seconds for his abilities. LeBlanc Q W E and left vulnerable without W and having to wait also 6-10 seconds for her abilities. What each Assassin has in common is after their burst they are left open and lacking dps for quite a decent window. But Akalis passive having 0 cooldown turns her trades into something broken. Q Passive E E Passive W Q Passive and a brief moment later her Q can be used again for 4 total passive procs lvl 3 all while being able to retreat to her w if she misses her combos or is about to get counter poked. I believe to balance her passive put there are a few options

1. Give her passive a cooldown on individual champions for maybe 6 seconds lvl 1-6, 4 seconds 7-11, and 3 seconds 12+. 2. Revert her passive to something similiar to prerework akali making her first auto heal(only against champions/large monsters because her Q also grants healing) and her 2nd auto bonus onhit damage. 3. Removing the energy regen for pressing W making her need to get passive procs to regain energy. 4. Increasing Q cooldown would prevent her from procing passives very quickly.

7 Comments

Dracocrash4 votes

I don't agree with a lot of nerfs you suggested, but some resonate with me.

True stealth. Why? Just. Why. Does. This. Exist. Remove it and compensate IF NEEDED.

W shouldnt give instant energy, it should restore energy over the duration you are invisble in cloud. Adds counterplay if you force an akali to low energy, she cant just shroud and continue Q spam, she has to proc passive.

Her passive is actually fine, doesn't need to be changed, and her Q spam is gated by energy (though she gets it back very quickly, which is what should be targetted)

Spar23K3 votes

{quoted}

I don't agree with a lot of nerfs you suggested, but some resonate with me.

True stealth. Why? Just. Why. Does. This. Exist. Remove it and compensate IF NEEDED.

W shouldnt give instant energy, it should restore energy over the duration you are invisble in cloud. Adds counterplay if you force an akali to low energy, she cant just shroud and continue Q spam, she has to proc passive.

Her passive is actually fine, doesn't need to be changed, and her Q spam is gated by energy (though she gets it back very quickly, which is what should be targetted)

That W change actually sounds like it would be pretty good ty for actually contributing to the discussion and if she doesnt get her energy back instantly she wont be so spam heavy in trades. I agree with you

TitanAnteus2 votes

I don't know man. I kind of lost respect for you when you wrote, " being able to completely remove the ability to be targeted EVEN BY TOWERS was obviously going to be a nightmare for her lane opponents. "

Even the most basic ass mage lux can handle her towerdiving by just snaring her under tower. She's visible, it's just that single-target abilities and auto-attacks don't work. Pantheon Q doesn't work, and ahri's W won't target her, but ahri's Q and E can still land, and it's not hard to land either. The tower grants you visibility. You can see her if she's tower diving you.

" Removing the energy regen for pressing W making her need to get passive procs to regain energy" This would utterly break her unless they buff the passive proc to regain energy. If they buff the passive proc to regain energy she gets more lain sustain and that in turn breaks her in the opposite direction. This suggestion either completely nerfs her to unusable, or makes her way to strong.

". Increasing Q cooldown would prevent her from procing passives very quickly." It's energy cost is stupid high, there's already a limiting factor to stop her from spamm... wait a sec.

All of these complaints... they barely make any sense. Don't tell me. You haven't even played the champ? Are you one of those people who calls out a champ for being broken w/o even playing them? If you play the champ and pubstomp then by all means you should ask for a nerf, but you don't even seem to have a firm grasp on how the champion works. Honestly, it should be a requirement to be at least mastery 3 with a champ b4 complaining about them.

Spar23K3 votes

{quoted}

I don't know man. I kind of lost respect for you when you wrote, " being able to completely remove the ability to be targeted EVEN BY TOWERS was obviously going to be a nightmare for her lane opponents. "

Even the most basic ass mage lux can handle her towerdiving by just snaring her under tower. She's visible, it's just that single-target abilities and auto-attacks don't work. Pantheon Q doesn't work, and ahri's W won't target her, but ahri's Q and E can still land, and it's not hard to land either. The tower grants you visibility. You can see her if she's tower diving you.

" Removing the energy regen for pressing W making her need to get passive procs to regain energy" This would utterly break her unless they buff the passive proc to regain energy. If they buff the passive proc to regain energy she gets more lain sustain and that in turn breaks her in the opposite direction. This suggestion either completely nerfs her to unusable, or makes her way to strong.

". Increasing Q cooldown would prevent her from procing passives very quickly." It's energy cost is stupid high, there's already a limiting factor to stop her from spamm... wait a sec.

All of these complaints... they barely make any sense. Don't tell me. You haven't even played the champ? Are you one of those people who calls out a champ for being broken w/o even playing them? If you play the champ and pubstomp then by all means you should ask for a nerf, but you don't even seem to have a firm grasp on how the champion works. Honestly, it should be a requirement to be at least mastery 3 with a champ b4 complaining about them.

Never complained about the champ and I also have played every midlaner aside from malzahar and zoe. You seem to be assuming I just get trashed by her in game and just want the champ gutted. I love her design and her kit is extremely fun to play, I just want her to not break the rules of being a high risk high reward champion and having a pretty forgiving risk. And her having such a disgustingly high banrate just shows shes not accepted by the community in her current state. If you want an easy way to fix the champion she'd just be reverted against the wishes of the players who find her extremely cool and fun to play.

You say the champion would be broken if her W energy regen was removed but look at all the other energy champions. Kennen energy regen after stacking passive + stunning target and by hitting a champion with his E both taking time and removing kennen ability to escape with his E. Zed has to land multiple abilities with his shadows once per cast requiring shadow placement and skill shots. Shen landing E or auto attacking with Q which takes time (hes also not an assassin) Lee Sin returns energy by auto attacking with his passive which takes time. Akali gets a large energy refund just by pressing 1 key, no time or effort required. Maybe increasing the passive energy regen would be too much but the champion shouldnt be rewarding with more offensive power just by pressing a key which just so happens to be her defensive ability. Imagine if zed were refunded energy by pressing W.

And ask anyone on their opinion about Akalis W ignoring towers nobody likes it. I personally think it should be kept the same with just a lower cd if it falls under tower range or just make it so its duration gets decreased if she gets cc'd in it

And to your last complaint about my non complaints the last option was purely if all else failed. You cant deny her passive makes her a very powerful extended trader which as an assassin just makes her super lane dominant as your windows of opportunities are cut short by her long combos. When she is able to beat toplane fighters in extended trades like Fiora or Camille. Camille is more of a burst champ than Akali is at this point. She has fighter tier combos while assassin level damage.

Even Akali mains want her changed because their champion is unplayable with her banrate. And Professor Akali a long time Akali main even explains why shes unfair to play against

Its funny how you try to attack me after giving a lacking counter arguement you seem like someone who comes on the boards to disagree and assume they have no idea what they're talking about instead of being helpful.

Dracocrash2 votes

{quoted}

I don't know man. I kind of lost respect for you when you wrote, " being able to completely remove the ability to be targeted EVEN BY TOWERS was obviously going to be a nightmare for her lane opponents. "

Even the most basic ass mage lux can handle her towerdiving by just snaring her under tower. She's visible, it's just that single-target abilities and auto-attacks don't work. Pantheon Q doesn't work, and ahri's W won't target her, but ahri's Q and E can still land, and it's not hard to land either. The tower grants you visibility. You can see her if she's tower diving you.

" Removing the energy regen for pressing W making her need to get passive procs to regain energy" This would utterly break her unless they buff the passive proc to regain energy. If they buff the passive proc to regain energy she gets more lain sustain and that in turn breaks her in the opposite direction. This suggestion either completely nerfs her to unusable, or makes her way to strong.

". Increasing Q cooldown would prevent her from procing passives very quickly." It's energy cost is stupid high, there's already a limiting factor to stop her from spamm... wait a sec.

All of these complaints... they barely make any sense. Don't tell me. You haven't even played the champ? Are you one of those people who calls out a champ for being broken w/o even playing them? If you play the champ and pubstomp then by all means you should ask for a nerf, but you don't even seem to have a firm grasp on how the champion works. Honestly, it should be a requirement to be at least mastery 3 with a champ b4 complaining about them.

Er.. you realize even if lux snares akali under tower, akali wont really take agro from tower unless shes attacking, and will just proceed to kill lux under tower after the duration of the stealth is over. And akali can still dodge the snare because she has bonus MS in shroud..

Hollowchazz1 votes

all bad ideas. a better idea is to just undo the rework entirely and pretend it never happened. but you can keep the new character model, it looks cool. Oh and change her icon, it's the worst icon in league currently. She looks like a fish.

And when you go back to the way akali should be pre-rework, make her E proc Q again.

BrightWîngs2 votes

No.

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