Can we talk about how horribly uninteractive Akali is as a champion?

I'm not one for pleasantries, but I swear every time I play against one this happens every single time, so it's not the typical "lol you got shit on and came to complain." This is a legitimate post about a champion that has recently been turned into basically a worse Pantheon. Let's begin.

#Laning Phase Akali's laning phase pre-rework used to be about surviving. You would get harassed and would get rewarded with a sweet level 6 power spike if you trudged through it like a champ. It was actually kind of fair because you would have to shut her down pre-6 and there were counters to her that made it difficult to beat her.

Now Akali basically can have a perma-Q on you. This is not even exaggeration. She can have a permanent debuff on you via her targeted poke tool that lets her burst you down hard if she autos you. This wouldn't be so bad if she had the lack of mobility she did pre-assassin update. Now she has a near-Zed sized blink on her W that instantly stealths her. She can basically force a trade and back out into her safety zone (that you can't do anything about since stealth is impossible to reveal unless you displace them, and even then Akali's stealth re-applies instantly) negating any chance of figjting back or punishing her. You can't poke her down because she sustains, you can't fight her because of Twilight Shroud, and you can't trade with her because she can win it almost any time you go in.

And the word "gank" isn't meaningful to Akali if your jungler isn't Diana or Lee Sin.

#Post-Laning Phase

This is when the real shit-show begins. Akali now has free reign to kill your carries if she gets ahead in her oppressive laning phase. R-Q-Gunblade-auto-E in a single second will chunk your carries down pretty damn hard if they don't flat-out blow up. Unless you're playing Poppy (or a really good Tahm/Thresh) you can't stop it from happening. At all. Your carry is obliged to buy a GA or lose because of Akali's guaranteed split-second burst. And if she gets Void Staff your tanks are food too.

And if she somehow fails to kill the carry or gets caught out? W. Free blink and basically untargetability by anything that isn't a lucky skillshot. Because her W gives movement speed too. And before you argue that Zed or Talon do the same, let me remind you both of them were changed to have slower and more exploitable burst patterns. Talon with his passive and Zed with his R shadow lockout and shurikens. Akali is a better assassin than Zed and Talon. You know, the champion who "has sustain for some reason despite bring an assassin."

Not to mention unless she's contending with a DPS monster (Jax, Yi, Xin Zhao, etc.) she is amazing at sustained fights. So not only does she burst you down, but she also heals back the damage you dealt and bursts you down again. This is everything people complain about ADCs with "Burst per second) except this is a mobile version with an unstoppable escape and re-engage pattern.

Akali has all the benefits of an assassin without any of the drawbacks. Like Ekko, except he is actually fair compared to this uninteractive mess.

#Overview

Akali is wholly uninteractive both in her oppressive laning phase (Q spam, free spammable escape, sustain) and her gameplay patterns (Instant targeted burst that can almost never be stopped by teammates, free escape that lets her leave a fight and rejoin it whenever the hell she wants and at what intervals, and insane sustained damage that lets her burst you multiple times in a fight even if you are a sustained damage dealer.

I did not miss the days when Akali was guaranteed a double kill at bot once she hit 6 and roamed. I also did not miss the days when she could literally 1v5 with her insane ult resets and damage to disgusting degrees. A change needs to be made to prevent the return of that bull crap.

#Potential Solutions

To fix Akali's uninteractive gameplay, we can do one or two of several things:

##1. Remove the blink on Akali's W. She does not need a blink in a kit with 3 rechargeable decently-ranged targeted dashes. The movement speed bonus is good enough. This will force Akali to take a risk when diving an enemy or going in for a trade.

##2. Make Akali's sustain tied to her passive, and make it delayed. Akali should not heal off me unless she actually commits to a fight. Force her to stay in combat with me to get the healing. If I can end the trade or damage her badly before she can proc it, then she gets punished for being careless. Also, make it much less effective on minions so she doesn't just heal and then come back. That kind of playstyle is exactly why Vorpal Blade was removed.

##3. Make Akali's Q buff last much shorter, or give it a much higher cooldown. Akali is an assassin who all-ins to get a favorable trade. Her "poking" should be outmaneuvering you and smacking you in the face for positioning like an idiot. The buff being much shorter means Akali must capitalize on the moment of her Q. She is telling the enemy she wants to go in for a trade, much like Zed W or Ekko W. As a result, they can react. On the other hand, giving it a longer cooldown would force Akali to use it when she wants to go in. It will be a more important tool to her and, frankly, force her to interact with her opponent instead of being a targeted Dr. Mundo.

##4. Make a delay as to how long Akali needs to be in her shroud before she stealths. It is annoying to deal with an enemy that can attack faster than you can, then stealth right after, removing your agency to fight back. Make a 1 or 1.5 second delay between her last attack and when she stealths. The stealth is too strong and hitting its reliability could potentially make it less of a "get out of jail free" card and more of a "I need to drop the heat" card.

##5. Reveal Akali in her twilight shroud if she is CC'd. Most assassins are weak to tanks because if they use their stealth to engage and they get caught by CC, they will most likely die. Akali's stealth does not follow that principle and thus she does not have the weaknesses that assassins have. She can be more slippery than Fizz because of how difficult it is to catch her if she's in her Twilight Shroud. If I'm playing Rammus and my powerball collides with Akali, she shoukd be revealed. It's only fair.

##6. Add a 2-3 second delay to Twilight Shroud between cast and activation. Of course the blink will have to be adjusted as a result, but making Akali wait for her stealth is a good way to create a weakness in her gameplay. If she is creating her shroud, she is creating a threat zone like Ekko's W where she dominates. Thus, if I see her creating one, I can choose to back away or pursue. Also she doesn't get 3 forms of escape in a single button press (blink, movement speed boost, slow).

#Final Thoughts

I'm not the kind of person to cry foul over every hiccup in the game (Urgot dash and Poppy W interaction, for example), but I feel like for the sake of interactivity sometimes Riot overshoots and makes something the opposite of what they want. Akali is one such chanpion, who is a Frankenstein of stat-checks and interaction denial. I hope I didn't bore you with such a long read, and let me know if I made any mistakes or have any ideas down in the comments. And now, as per ritual, a somewhat-related poll.