Regarding "Tank Akali"

Sulghunter··3 votes·578 views

It has been recently, that Akali players have taken to building solely tank items on her, instead of any damage items what-so-ever.

The first few times I have seen this occur, I chocked it up to mere coincidences, and simply thought that I have not seen this build enough to determine its effectiveness. Now, I have seen enough games where tank Akali was present, and I have determined that this, of all things, is the most broken build at this time.

My most recent sighting of tank Akali, I was playing Syndra. Now, an allied Riven faced off against her, and did not feed any kills early in the game, but Riven was dominated by Akali. This Riven was unable to even farm, due to the poke Akali posses, and whenever Akali decided to fight, Riven always lost the trade due to Akali's base damage, and the armor items Akali had built first. It wasn't until mid game that Akali built any offensive items, and by then, she had already gotten no more than 6 kills, with no deaths on her part.

Now, if I stop here, this post would be nothing more than a cry of how powerful or unfair tank Akali is, but I do have a proposal.

NUKE HER BASE DAMAGES on her abilities. Make it such that Akali will need to build offensive items to deal any meaningful damage past the early game. This is aimed towards making sure that Akali can't have her cake, and eat it too by being able to rush early tank items, and still win lane.

6 Comments

Vesarixx2 votes

the most broken build at this time.

You're gonna be real disappointed when you find out about tank Ekko

TheJinxedOne1 votes

her base damage isnt that great at all until 6... her poke is nothing, its letting her hit the aa off her q that hurts.. i mean personally i build akali damage oriented anyways with only 1 tank item being SV because it is mr and helps her omnivamp. if i need any more itd be rylais or something. I personally just dont like tank akali.. maybe its the runes and amsteries people are picking on her to tank with idk. but I dont think i would ever play her as one. at most a bruiser...

Raeyxx1 votes

I generally stay out of threads like these, but for once, I actually agree with one.

I've seen this on Akali, Zed, Yi, and Fizz lately and it's been obnoxious.

An assassin is supposed to be a champ that is high risk/high reward. They do insane burst, but are supposed to be able to be easily killed. This sort of negates that.

However, I don't know if nerfing damage is the best course. Perhaps it might be time to check out the tank items again instead?

I'm sure there are other options too.

Nahui1 votes

Her issue, at least in lane, isn't her damage. That is normal and can even be mediocre. It's her sustain. She simply out sustains most trains. A combination of Grasp of the undying + her passive makes it so it's insanely hard to come out better in a trade without straight up nuking her. And even if you do that, you need to press your advantage or she will sustain it all back while CSing. Punishing her while CSing can be hard as she has her shroud that she can safely sustain in/CS in, and when you do punish her while shroud is on CD, the most you can do is throw a couple pokes that she will sustain back on creeps quickly unless you want to risk an all out confrontation with her which results in Grasp and even more sustain.

And once she hits 6, she can now pick and choose when to engage on you and win any sustain engagement. Her ult being on a charge system means that each individual cast is weak but all combined does more damage than most other rank 1 ults, hell sometimes even rank two. Combined with how it synergizes with her passive and Q and that her sustain tank build allows her to keep alive so long, she will win most engagements at 6 as she can space out her ults unlike assassin akali that is burstable so she has to use her ults in rapid succession.

TheJinxedOne1 votes

and the issue with killing her sustain... is damage akali.. thats how she can even live to do anything past one ult.

Rand0mH3r0X1 votes

If you're playing Syndra or Riven into Akali, then you don't understand champion coutner-picking. Pick Brand for mid, or Gnar for top.

Akali is DPS oriented, she needs to be able to dish out her damage but survive long enough to do so. She's not as bursty as she use to be, and much tougher to handle. If you're 1:1 with her, carry a pink ward and drop it on her whenever she tries to all-in because she can't afford to take a lot of damage quickly.

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