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I think it'd be cool if Akali revolved more around her Shroud (W)

MrBuffington··2 votes·754 views

I think Riot is generally prepping for an assassin rework, if not, Akali's been brought up as a champion they want to look at for an update in general. From what I can tell of Akali's playstyle, her W basically is just a tool to help her CS safely pre-6, and then post-6 is either just CC or something she uses to take a breather between jumping on everyone. I really like the way Trundle's Frozen Domain creates this zone of control/home field advantage, and I think it'd be cool if Akali's shroud did more of that/was this hub that her gameplay could focus around

My idea is that her ult charge cooldown is increased, but Akali regains charges twice as fast while stealthed in her W (and her W duration is extended as necessary). Akali is also able to ult to any location in her shroud, which refunds a portion of an ult charge. This isn't a full reset, so the enemy team still has a few seconds to lock down Akali if she defensively returns to her shroud, but also gives Akali a flexible defensive option at the cost of an ult charge. The rest of her kit, as well as just balance tuning, is up for debate, but giving her another defensive gameplay option may mean she doesn't need to rely so heavily on spell vamp.

EDIT: Just in case this wasn't clear, this is supposed to be like, half of a rework suggestion, where I'm just making a suggestion on a part of her kit that I think could be cool but is unexplored in her current state. I imagine her Passive, Q, and E would also change in some way to make the kit cohesive.

34 Comments

Deep Terror Nami3 votes

Well she's not gonna be invisible if she revolved around it, she's gotta be in it!

MrBuffington1 votes

(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

Pierce The Veal2 votes

{quoted}

I think Riot is generally prepping for an assassin rework, if not, Akali's been brought up as a champion they want to look at for an update in general. From what I can tell of Akali's playstyle, her W basically is just a tool to help her CS safely pre-6, and then post-6 is either just CC or something she uses to take a breather between jumping on everyone. I really like the way Trundle's Frozen Domain creates this zone of control/home field advantage, and I think it'd be cool if Akali's shroud did more of that/was this hub that her gameplay could focus around

My idea is that her ult charge cooldown is increased, but Akali regains charges twice as fast while stealthed in her W (and her W duration is extended as necessary). Akali is also able to ult to any location in her shroud, which refunds a portion of an ult charge. This isn't a full reset, so the enemy team still has a few seconds to lock down Akali if she defensively returns to her shroud, but also gives Akali a flexible defensive option at the cost of an ult charge. The rest of her kit, as well as just balance tuning, is up for debate, but giving her another defensive gameplay option may mean she doesn't need to rely so heavily on spell vamp.

Or maybe her shroud just shouldn't cost 80-60 energy? Because honestly using your shroud just makes it so that you're out of energy, and you have to wait out the entire shroud duration to gain back the amount of energy used. That or there should be a way for her to regen energy faster with her shroud.

I honestly dont like your suggestion, because instead of giving her a beneficial option it makes her reliant on her shroud.

MrBuffington2 votes

This isn't about flat buffing/nerfing Akali, it's about changing her gameplay pattern. Changing energy costs/other number changes are a given, this was supposed to be part of a larger rework; the thing I notice with Akali is that her shroud tends to become pretty useless post-6. Pretty much every other assassin uses the entire rotation of spells when they go for a kill; Akali's shroud could have a lot of combat effectiveness, but I typically see Akali snowball to a point where the spell is completely useless/unnecessary, or so under-fed that hanging out in Shroud really doesn't do anything besides prolong the inevitable.

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

This isn't about flat buffing/nerfing Akali, it's about changing her gameplay pattern. Changing energy costs/other number changes are a given, this was supposed to be part of a larger rework; the thing I notice with Akali is that her shroud tends to become pretty useless post-6. Pretty much every other assassin uses the entire rotation of spells when they go for a kill; Akali's shroud could have a lot of combat effectiveness, but I typically see Akali snowball to a point where the spell is completely useless/unnecessary, or so under-fed that hanging out in Shroud really doesn't do anything besides prolong the inevitable.

And while I do agree that I wish it was more useful, I do have to say that it uses up so much energy that it really only hurts you. That's why you see it used so rarely.

They even made it so that the movement speed you get in the shroud rapidly decays. Previously it gave up to 55 armor and magic resist, so it was pretty good, but now Riot has shown us that they don't want it to be strong or even all that useful.

And the range of her ult and her slide past enemy mechanic makes it so that you would basically never regain your charges or have the double charge gain from shroud. All that would happen is her ultimate would wrongly have its cooldown increased for a gimmick.

And that's ultimately what her shroud is, a gimmick. With what it does, it really doesn't help her all that much. Her identity really comes from her passive (esp. Spell vamp) and her ult.

Her major problems come from rapid energy loss, an extremely slow q, and an ultimate that places her off and away from her target.

MrBuffington1 votes

And while I do agree that I wish it was more useful, I do have to say that it uses up so much energy that it really only hurts you. That's why you see it used so rarely.

They even made it so that the movement speed you get in the shroud rapidly decays. Previously it gave up to 55 armor and magic resist, so it was pretty good, but now Riot has shown us that they don't want it to be strong or even all that useful.

The thing I find interesting with Energy champions is that you really only need enough energy for one full cycle of your spells; basically all your costs need to add to ~150-200, since you're also gated by cooldowns and your energy recharges basically in time for your cooldowns. The bad thing for Akali is that she's been haphazardly patched recently, and as you said, her shroud both costs too much energy and isn't useful enough to justify the cost. They turned her E into an energy dump you can just waveclear with, which means you have even less energy to even use your shroud

I think the removal of resistances and addition of movement speed was decent in theory, it just didn't do anything productive, for the reasons you stated. It was a good direction in terms of champion thematics, imo, since ninjas aren't really seen as tanky (unless you're Shen, for some reason), moreso agile.

Riot seems big on buzzphrases that define champion reworks, and what I thought would be cool from Akali (and the inspiration for this idea) is the whole "ninja that strikes from the shadows" idea, since Shen is a pretty awkward ninja, given that he is and will remain a tank, and Kennen is also not really a traditional ninja. Zed already has the shadow thing going on, but Akali just kind of dashes onto people and mauls their face off, while healing off damage done to her; not really ninja-esque. I imagine a fuller rework would amp up the whole need for cunning and finesse that is associated with a ninja, less so just brute force diving people and drain-tanking

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

The thing I find interesting with Energy champions is that you really only need enough energy for one full cycle of your spells; basically all your costs need to add to ~150-200, since you're also gated by cooldowns and your energy recharges basically in time for your cooldowns. The bad thing for Akali is that she's been haphazardly patched recently, and as you said, her shroud both costs too much energy and isn't useful enough to justify the cost. They turned her E into an energy dump you can just waveclear with, which means you have even less energy to even use your shroud

I think the removal of resistances and addition of movement speed was decent in theory, it just didn't do anything productive, for the reasons you stated. It was a good direction in terms of champion thematics, imo, since ninjas aren't really seen as tanky (unless you're Shen, for some reason), moreso agile.

Riot seems big on buzzphrases that define champion reworks, and what I thought would be cool from Akali (and the inspiration for this idea) is the whole "ninja that strikes from the shadows" idea, since Shen is a pretty awkward ninja, given that he is and will remain a tank, and Kennen is also not really a traditional ninja. Zed already has the shadow thing going on, but Akali just kind of dashes onto people and mauls their face off, while healing off damage done to her; not really ninja-esque. I imagine a fuller rework would amp up the whole need for cunning and finesse that is associated with a ninja, less so just brute force diving people and drain-tanking

I do feel that with Akali as she is her identity is a balance between damage and sustain, with added mobility because she's an assassin ninja. The shroud has become so useless that it basically is just an added gimmick, and really doesn't identify akali.

What I'm afraid of is that if they rework her they will try to pigeonhole her into gravitating around her shroud, while outright removing her spell vamp and making the dashes shorter. In essence making her a different, weaker version of Diana. I find it difficult to trust them regarding Akali's rework.

If they rework her and change her as I said, then I guess I'll have to resort back to playing only Nocturne. If he is changed as well then I'll probably just quit League of Legends. Permanently this time instead of just for a year.

MrBuffington1 votes

I guess that's the difference between a champion's theme as designed vs. their theme as what developed from play, etc. I'm not sure if Riot really planned for Akali to revolve around having high sustain, but if she's really developed to a point where that is core to her identity, I honestly think it makes more sense to remove her shroud completely and replace it with a spell that fits better with that playstyle. Either that or make the shroud more dynamic, because it's a stationary spell by nature, and Akali is one of the highest mobility champions because of her dash charges, plus resets.

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

I guess that's the difference between a champion's theme as designed vs. their theme as what developed from play, etc. I'm not sure if Riot really planned for Akali to revolve around having high sustain, but if she's really developed to a point where that is core to her identity, I honestly think it makes more sense to remove her shroud completely and replace it with a spell that fits better with that playstyle. Either that or make the shroud more dynamic, because it's a stationary spell by nature, and Akali is one of the highest mobility champions because of her dash charges, plus resets.

Yeah this is pretty much how I feel at this point. I wouldn'tmund if they changed her w and e, and I actually might not mind if they changed her q (though I might mind because they might make it worse).

MrBuffington2 votes

I think Akali sacrifices so much of her power budget for her ult and her passive that the rest of her kit is pretty lack-luster, in addition to her just being an old and somewhat clunky champion, especially with all the recent patchwork changes. I think they'll completely rebuild her, hopefully with an emphasis on what makes Akali unique

Valderis Vandala1 votes

Considering Ahri exists with her ult and excellent kit I don't see why Akali can't have a nice kit as well.

MrBuffington1 votes

While Ahri's kit is near perfect (even overloaded with the addition of her Q speed buff), I just want to point out that their ults function very differently; Ahri has to use all three of her charges or lose them, meaning she must find a way to use all three charges or lose out on potential (which is why when Ahri only needs to use one charge for an escape or something, she usually just burns two more charges just because she can).

For Akali, is she doesn't use all her charges, that just means she has more charges later. Basically, if she can kill you with one charge, she can kill you again, sooner, because she still has two charges (plus one more from the reset). This is why Akali is so incredibly snowbally; the easier she can kill you, the more opportunities she has to kill you, but the harder she has to work to kill you, the fewer opportunities she has to kill you.

Valderis Vandala1 votes

True, but Akali's ult also has limiting factors to it that make it worse, like only being able to jump to targets instead of wherever you like, and only to enemy targets, and it only damages 1 target. I'm just saying that the rest of her kit should not be ass just because she has a nice ult. Her kit is already held back by being energy restricted which is only a great thing during the laneing phase.

MrBuffington1 votes

The reason it's a big deal is that she nearly always has kill pressure; if you get Ahri to burn her ult, you have a window to fight her where it's far more difficult for her to kill you. I agree completely that the rest of her kit shouldn't suck because of her ult, but her ult is going to have to take a hit for her to be balanced. Kassadin has the same problem

Her ult also doesn't use energy, she doesn't really use her W beyond laning phase, so it's not like she uses a ton of energy in general; that's why they made her E an energy dump for her to waveclear, since she never really had a lot of problems running out of energy before.

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

I think Akali sacrifices so much of her power budget for her ult and her passive that the rest of her kit is pretty lack-luster, in addition to her just being an old and somewhat clunky champion, especially with all the recent patchwork changes. I think they'll completely rebuild her, hopefully with an emphasis on what makes Akali unique

And I honestly do believe the emphasis on balancing AD and AP, damage and sustain, alongside being a fast ninja that zips around the battlefield is what makes her unique.

What I'm betting is that they'll put forward a half developed concept built around her shroud, which will be overbuffed at first, after which they'll nerf her to the ground and she'll be more badly in need of a rework than she "is" now.

MrBuffington1 votes

That's true, she was the only champion that really used Hextech Gunblade for a long time (until they changed it most recently)

I don't expect another Cassiopeia; especially with their recent blog on Fiora, they seem to recognize that what a champion has become to the playerbase is more important than the original concept of a champion. I think they have to either find some way to make her shroud more cohesive with her kit (similar to my attempt above), or scrap it in favor of something else, since it's really the least vital aspect of her kit. Similar to Fiora, I also figure they'll have to do something to smooth out her powercurve, since her lvl 6 powerspike is cartoonish

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

That's true, she was the only champion that really used Hextech Gunblade for a long time (until they changed it most recently)

I don't expect another Cassiopeia; especially with their recent blog on Fiora, they seem to recognize that what a champion has become to the playerbase is more important than the original concept of a champion. I think they have to either find some way to make her shroud more cohesive with her kit (similar to my attempt above), or scrap it in favor of something else, since it's really the least vital aspect of her kit. Similar to Fiora, I also figure they'll have to do something to smooth out her powercurve, since her lvl 6 powerspike is cartoonish

Her powerspike is actually at 3 ult stacks. She gets a powerspike a whole minute or so after she reaches level 6. And even then a lot of champions can combat that powerspike. Funny thing is her winrate is 44-45% below 25 minutes, hitting 50% between 30 and 35 minutes, and dropping off afterwards. So while the powerspike is "cartoonish," that's not because she's too strong after the powerspike, it's because she's too weak and useless before it. (Though I do know how to fight before then, it's really tough to do so, as you basically only have 1 ability that's good for fighting with).

I think her shroud is looking like a scrap at the moment. In fact her q, w, and e should all be reworked, while keeping the mark somewhere. Her passive and ult should remain the same, or her ult should become a normal ability (reaching maximum power only at rank 5).

Although I like waveclear on her, I'm thinking she should maybe lose it altogether in favor of becoming the hypermobile kill one at a time assassin (as she's a team killer like an ADC in that she kills one person at a time).

Here's a crazy idea for her w: remove the movement speed bonus, reduce the energy cost to 40 energy at all levels. If akali is within the shroud, it can be reactivated multiple times at the cost of 20/20/15/15/10 or 25/20/15/10/5 (whichever is more balanced) energy with an innate cooldown of 2.5/2/1.5/1/0.5 or 3/3/2/2/1 (again whichever is more balanced).

Upon reactivation Akali teleports (blinks/flashes) to the target location in the shroud. It might be OK for this to deal damage in a small aoe around her, or it could deal 0 damage if having damage would make it too strong.

Essentially the point of this shroud would be to make the shroud her domain. She has the utmost mobility within it, though she has to expend quite a bit of energy to make use of it. And it would be easy to tweak to make it balanced too. Invisible teleporting too strong? Then make akali get revealed temporarily if she uses it. She zips around too much? Increase the innate cooldown, and etc..

MrBuffington1 votes

Her powerspike is actually at 3 ult stacks. She gets a powerspike a whole minute or so after she reaches level 6. And even then a lot of champions can combat that powerspike. Funny thing is her winrate is 44-45% below 25 minutes, hitting 50% between 30 and 35 minutes, and dropping off afterwards. So while the powerspike is "cartoonish," that's not because she's too strong after the powerspike, it's because she's too weak and useless before it. (Though I do know how to fight before then, it's really tough to do so, as you basically only have 1 ability that's good for fighting with).

I mean, that's more just because she's been gutted into this haphazard mess, but yes, my point is that her powerspike is "cartoonish" is that the difference between how powerful she is before and after she unlocks the full power of her ult is massive.

I think your idea is pretty cool, but I think it's a little powerful. I'd favor keeping the slow instead of giving it damage, and probably modify it so that with each successive cast, the area of the shroud gets smaller and the slow gets weaker, and recasting it removes the previous shroud, since you're almost giving her a Kassadin style mobility tool pre-6, while you're stealthed.

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

I mean, that's more just because she's been gutted into this haphazard mess, but yes, my point is that her powerspike is "cartoonish" is that the difference between how powerful she is before and after she unlocks the full power of her ult is massive.

I think your idea is pretty cool, but I think it's a little powerful. I'd favor keeping the slow instead of giving it damage, and probably modify it so that with each successive cast, the area of the shroud gets smaller and the slow gets weaker, and recasting it removes the previous shroud, since you're almost giving her a Kassadin style mobility tool pre-6, while you're stealthy.

Now that you mention it, I think that the slow could be removed in favor of having damage, but I don't think it matters either way.

I would have to argue that it wouldn't be kassadin level because the shroud itself would be staying in place, and you would be flashing around in the shroud.

But making the shroud get smaller as she flashes around is an interesting idea, that's pretty cool.

MrBuffington1 votes

Ooooh I misread your idea to begin with; I thought you said when reactivating, she throws down another shroud and blinks to that location, lol. Yea, your idea is much less broken than mine, lol

Pierce The Veal1 votes

{quoted}

Ooooh I misread your idea to begin with; I thought you said when reactivating, she throws down another shroud and blinks to that location, lol. Yea, your idea is much less broken than mine, lol

Yeah your idea would make urf mode champions look weak lol, but what do you think about my idea? I honestly think it would be a good implementation to akali, and it would make the shroud more interesting.

SwapShadows1 votes

she needs a completely different kit that revolves around her not being a disgusting champion to play against due to her oppressive ultimate.

Gigahappytown1 votes

Akali is too binary to be allowed to be good either shit because her e and w are useless

or broken and anti-fun cause spammable dash nuke

just a old champ that doesn't belong in league anymore.

MrBuffington1 votes

Riot has mentioned that among the assassins, she's one of the first they'd want to look at because she has a lot of potential but doesn't really deliver in her current form; she's probably the one assassin I'm most looking forward to Riot reworking because of this as well.

Valderis Vandala1 votes

I think that is a very cool idea and I would love to see it. But I'm also against it, stealth just isn't all that great of a mechanic in this game.

MrBuffington1 votes

I think it's a bit better with Akali since her stealth is confined to a particular location; I do agree it's a bit strange of a mechanic given how heavily it's influenced with different vision items (pink wards, other true sight). I'm not sure Riot has really perfected how stealth interacts with the game, but I think it's an interesting mechanic nonetheless

Valderis Vandala1 votes

I think Akali is one of the worst stealth champions because she can only do it in one spot, you know where she is and how easy it is to counter it, its basically worthless for her because her stealth is always telegraphed by her smoke screen. At least the other stealth champions get some value out of their stealth and don't have to show they are stealthed in the first place.

Your idea might work because the stealth field would be more then just a stealth field, it gives her dashes and better cooldowns, thats something people can work with even if they get pink warded. But it may also be problematic, having stealth in her kit will still drain her power budget and the strength she would get from it can still just be pink warded, and if she's still strong enough then with stealth she'll be oppressive.

MrBuffington1 votes

I always thought Akali's stealth was the easiest to balance because you're confined to one location. Akali also has some clever uses with her shroud where she can use it to juke, depending on your knowledge of how fog of war works (you throw down shroud as if you're hiding in it, but just walk away into fog of war/brushes, etc). Watching high level players, it's still a very powerful defensive spell even if you're confined to a particular location, especially if the enemy doesn't have powerful AoE (Gragas was my favorite Akali counter because you just ult in the center her shroud and she goes flying out. However, I've faced a few good Akali's who would ult right as I threw my ult, so I basically wasted a huge portion of my damage)

In general, I think Akali either needs to revolve more heavily around her stealth or get rid of her W entirely; if she has some stealth it needs to function completely differently, because at the moment she is one of the most mobile champions in the game post-6, but her W links her to one location. Her W and R contradict each other in terms of what they do, which is why her kit needs to be rebuilt around one or the other; my suggestion is if they decide to build a kit around her W, but I'm perfectly fine with the other way.

Valderis Vandala1 votes

I just hope they do something with her. At least get rid of her clunckyness. It's not as bad if you only play her but if you are used to other champions and go back to her its really weird, there is just something off about her.

MrBuffington1 votes

The latest Deadeye/Zed teasers could hint to some larger Ionia changes, but most likely it's just a teaser for the next champion (it's about that time). Meddler said an Assassin update could come as "early" as midway through 2016, but that's probably heavily subject to change. Akali is one champion they've mentioned they've wanted to do something with, but who knows where she is in the queue. She might be a mid-sized rework though, since they don't really need to do too much with her visuals, so she might get squeezed in a bit sooner.

Pierce The Veal1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Valderis Vandala,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=bhVRdjF0,comment-id=000400000000,timestamp=2015-12-27T02:53:04.109+0000)

I think Akali is one of the worst stealth champions because she can only do it in one spot, you know where she is and how easy it is to counter it, its basically worthless for her because her stealth is always telegraphed by her smoke screen. At least the other stealth champions get some value out of their stealth and don't have to show they are stealthed in the first place.

Your idea might work because the stealth field would be more then just a stealth field, it gives her dashes and better cooldowns, thats something people can work with even if they get pink warded. But it may also be problematic, having stealth in her kit will still drain her power budget and the strength she would get from it can still just be pink warded, and if she's still strong enough then with stealth she'll be oppressive.

Yeah this is pretty much exactly what I feel.

Hexten1 votes

When Akali receives her rework, her shroud would be an individual ability that does not interact with any of her other skills. That is because Akali works by having 3 combat spells that synergise with each other, and one left over spell for teamfighting utility. Akali doesn't need any more combat power, she already has that with Mark of the Assassin and Shadow Dance. What she needs is a required setup, either via landing a skillshot or achieving a difficult requirement inorder to pull off damage. Her damage currently cannot fail since there is nothing aim, which doesn't allow good individual counterplay.

Assassins as a class need to evolve than just do damage, because then they will always be competing with the ADC role of providing effective damage to the team. Akali could definitely use a better mechanic to fulfil the smokebomb fantasy she has going for a ninja. It doesn't have to be stealth. An idea for shroud could be following:

Shroud now works similarly to Graves Smokescreen. Shroud now conceals units inside the field, and only champions that are concealed can see each other - meaning an enemy tank cannot just stand inside the shroud to let his/her team see all champions inside. This works for all champions involved, meaning Akali now has teamfighting power so she is still useful when she is behind.

This version gives a much more stronger use when teamfighting happens, but much weaker power when used individually, i.e. in lane. This solves the pink ward issue since it doesn't uses stealth, as well as removing the frustrating case of when you don't have a pink ward and must wait for 8s for the stealth to end.

Xicashina1 votes

One other thing that i believe could be very interesting would be making her not become visible if she dashes to something in her shroud.

MrBuffington1 votes

I agree, if you dash to the shroud for safety, enemies shouldn't be able to just aim skillshots at where you'd land

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