Boards›Gameplay

As someone who loves Akali...

OblongOtter·1/21/2015, 5:35:27 PM·13 votes·2,117 views

She needs nerfs. She can be insanely overbearing. Making her more assassin-y with the Twilight Shroud changes a while back were great, because assassins shouldn't just gain a ton of tankiness all of a sudden. It also makes her harder to play without just being like "she's worse so it's harder to make her do well." However, these new changes do just that. They don't do anything thematically. They don't give her meaningful strengths and weaknesses, they just make her strengths less strong. (Also hitting Q, then pressing R and then hitting E while yelling WHAPA is more fun than that weak-feeling auto animation.) Also E uses up energy, has a cooldown, and can be missed, unlike auto attacks. It almost feels like making it so that only her E will proc her Q would be a better nerf.

Anyway, the main reason for this thread, is that these Akali nerfs just feel like taking away power as opposed to meaningful changes. However, do you know what's a part of her kit that's insanely stupid, even as an Akali player? I'll give you a hint, it has way less interaction and skill required than her E and even her R.
*It's her spellvamp. * Her spellvamp is stupid. After winning or losing a trade, I can just press Q Auto E on a minion wave and get a ton of health back. That doesn't feel thematic, it doesn't feel meaningful, it doesn't make me feel more powerful. It's just really stupid and doesn't make any sense. It makes her really strong with something that, if she were made now, wouldn't even be in her kit, despite the new League of Overloaded Kits because it literally makes 0 sense. I can't talk enough about how much I hate that spellvamp when playing against her, and even while playing as her from a design standpoint. She has her W to survive. That takes skill. Her passive making her just sorta automagically outlast everyone doesn't take skill, and it isn't very fun.

So, I propose, instead of giving her stupid nerfs that make an assassin less of an assassin, and that also make her just feel worse to play, why not, oh I don't know, MAKE IT SO THAT AN ASSASSIN CAN'T BE A TANK. So my three propositions for this are as follows:

  • Remove the passive Spell Vamp altogether, which doesn't make any sense with her two Kamas passive
  • Change it so that building AD gives her some other stat, like movement speed, lifesteal, or CDR. (Note, CDR from AD sounds very OP)
  • Remove her passive altogether and replace it with something that isn't invisible power.

Sorry if this whole thing sounded ranty, I just really love this champion. Don't take away random visible meaningful strengths to make her awful. Take away invisible power that shouldn't be there in the first place.

30 Comments

Laustin Space1/21/2015, 9:23:13 PM5 votes

I personally love the spellvamp passive. Something unique that i always loved about her mechanics. So simply put I'd prefer non of the above for your proposed nerfs. ^^

HandsomeStreamer1/21/2015, 7:21:35 PM5 votes

I honestly don't think she's too bad, unless your team is trash and doesn't ward, then she's a problem. Only in low elo is it a real issue when your whole team is incompetent vs a roaming mid. It's not just akali.

Fizz/Zed/Katarina (if your team is really bad)

Akali isn't that bad when your mid isn't losing too bad, and your other lanes are pretty even or fed.

The issue here, is stop taking ap mids when you see her being picked, and pick a dueling champs, go mid with that champion, and make sure she sees the respawn screen as much as possible.

3UAqcYDA7s1/21/2015, 6:47:16 PM3 votes

by removing the passive spell vamp from akali you would just make her a new lb/veigar, press on everything, kill and do nothing else for some time. but they will be sage because one has a stun and the other has 2 dashes, while akali has to go in and kill with no back off. Why i say this, because if you remove akali spell vamp passive, she won't have a need to build ad so she can just straight up go full ap and be another ap bursters, but then what would be the point of her if there is already lb which would do her job but better, because if akali loses the spell vamp she will lose the only that makes her able to survive in tf's.

MotherChurch1/21/2015, 10:09:48 PM2 votes

The "e" nerf seems out of line to me. I don't play Akali, but that seems silly.

NorthernDruid1/21/2015, 10:44:12 PM2 votes

But Akali's spellvamp isn't an issue, so much of her burst is front-loaded, and she's so squishy anyway. plus she only gets about a third of it from her passive. So she'll still grab gunblade and have heaps of sustain, just ~13% less spellvamp, and then she'll still have to be compensated for the innate 6% starting spellvamp, and whatever she could pick up from other sources (runes+masteries for instance).

So she still sustains herself greatly with spellvamp, but gets something else cool in addition.

Is that what you want?

Akali's obnoxiousness doesn't come from her passive or her mark procs (ok well kinda a bit because of the mark proc i guess in a slightly roundabout way) but from her E and R. And how they're for the most part just extra spam without much actual play to them (they've got counterplay however, her dashing to you can be counterplayed by faceshotting hard to hit skillshots (Morgana's Dark Binding for instance, laughs at her) and her E can be avoided as part of her melee reportoire).

Her E is just there to spam for more damage and for easy mark procs, and doesn't really yield anything else.

Her R is mostly a gap closer but has decent damage, it also has spammability and resets (something which might not be the most balanced combo if she can be played as a spambot).

As I made a thread about the other day. Change at least her E around, so it's not so mindless to use. Make it a wide cone based skillshot, easy to hit maybe one or two champions with, but not really the sort of thing you mindlessly hit an entire cluster with just because you pressed R a moment before.

Any tweaks to R should be changes to how much you actually want to spam it (whether it be about cooldowns, max charges at once, resets or adding an energy cost to it)

Removing her spellvamp would be removing part of why people play her, without really removing the advantage of spellvamp from her (and once again, she'd have to get something else in trade for it).

P.S. Note that if you heal up to full from a single Q then either you hadn't really lost that much health to begin with, or ,if you've already built your gunblade, you'll note that since roughly 1/3 of it's damage was enough to heal you so massively as you feel it does, Akali must not have much health to begin with.

P.P.S. I'm not a pro or an expert, or a long timer or anything, I just know that when I play Akali, the sustain feels like it's keeping me sort of afloat and my E feels like it's not much play to use.

P.P.S. Please Riot, give us an iconic cone for our E, as wide as unbreakable at base, and with a range maybe 10% greater than the current E.

Hard Penetrator1/21/2015, 11:18:37 PM2 votes

You don't need to fear because if current Akali changes on PBE hit live her popularity and viability will drop dramatically. If you want nerfs so bad for your favourite champ, better prepare yourself because I seriously doubt you will be able to enjoy playing her against ANY decent opponent.

3UAqcYDA7s1/21/2015, 7:57:18 PM2 votes

you just said it all chromatic eagle. Plz vote on this petition, let's reverse this akali nerfs https://www.change.org/p/riot-games-remove-the-upcoming-nerfs-on-akali

B3ER1/21/2015, 6:11:32 PM2 votes

I wish Riot would just give her the outplay mechanics they promised 2 whole years ago. Still hate you for brushing it aside, Statikk. I guess it was already time for her yearly nerfs. She must've been one hell of a contested pick at World's.

3UAqcYDA7s1/21/2015, 7:05:44 PM2 votes

but removing the range + e proc is a tremendous nerf to the same level of removing the scaling of spell vamp with ad on akali. Akali only gets to live in team fights thanks to her spell vamp and zhonyas, if she doesn't have those 2 she is like, useless.

Surr20plz1/21/2015, 7:16:38 PM2 votes

I played her before all the whining.

You can be blown up by the other team late game. There is a reason she isnt played at high elo.

Cindikle1/21/2015, 9:55:14 PM2 votes

Give her ult the Yasou dash treatment. Procing Q on a target removes this cooldown. Ult has counterplay

This would likely require some buffs. Maybe not to damage, but to survivability and lanning. They could give her Q's first damage more of it's damage back. And I'd really like to see her shroud allow her to move through forest walls.

Linkttp2/25/2015, 6:16:34 PM1 votes

How about we just lower gunblades spellvamp to 10% and increase the Ap and ad it gives? Then Undo the nerfs that make her so clunky and Un-Ninja.

Nybx4life1/21/2015, 6:07:48 PM1 votes

I dunno...I think assassin champs are good enough having really high mobility that can engage, close gaps, and dash off (Lee Sin, to a point, is an assassin too). Since most of them do their thing off abilities, the passive sounds fine, if it was minor. EX: 100 atk damage would give 1% cdr.

Too much and then Akali loses that identity of being viable with both ap and ad.

j j1/21/2015, 7:08:30 PM1 votes
  • buff her early game.
  • When akali dies have her lose all her stacks. (make them recharge only when she is alive)
Drunk Rummate1/21/2015, 8:12:43 PM1 votes

I think a major issue with the champ right now is her level 6 power spike with just a seekers or revolver. Removing the Q proc on her E gives people more time to react to her all in and gives them more opportunity for counterplay in my opinion. I'd like to see this change in action before I call it bad.

The main issue I see with this change is in her pre-6. Her laning was already weak, but good akali players could use Q + E in lane to harass their opponents effectively, depending on the matchup. I don't want to see this kind of skill based stuff disappear completely, so I'm torn.

Kuroi861/21/2015, 8:30:39 PM1 votes

Walrus

Giovarco1/21/2015, 8:44:11 PM1 votes

I like this guys +1

Are1/21/2015, 9:53:25 PM1 votes

The reason why she has spell vamp is because her full burst takes 12 seconds to complete. If she and the carry are both equal in gold, she will need all three rotations to kill them. Because three rotations is 12 seconds, she needs the spell vamp in between to keep her alive. This is the same reason why Fiora/Yi/Tryndamere are all allowed to sustain very well, keep in mind that they are all melee. This would be a different story if it took only one rotation to kill them (she will never drop you with one rotation unless you are like five levels behind). Her burst isn't like Lux's or Talon's. Don't forget that she has no reliable escape.

I think her ult range nerf is fine, but they aren't compensating her. Her Q's CD should be reduced by 0.5 seconds with energy cost decreasing by 1 on each rank, or they could add some more MS boost in her W.

CalciferHowel1/21/2015, 11:19:11 PM1 votes

Would you call the removal of Mark triggering on E enough, or no?

Monotachi1/22/2015, 3:10:40 AM1 votes

Spellvamp works on Akali. It's her trademark. She is a melee AP hypercarry. Basically an APC that uses AP skills to deal sustained damage over time and healing from those skills via spellvamp, just like an ADC uses their autoattacks to deal sustained damage over time and healing from autoattacks via lifesteal.

Akali doesn't have 100-0 potential, therefore sustain is the key to help her survive for the next rotation. With her shroud not working due to true sight, Akali cannot rely on her W to avoid damage therefore needs another way to stay alive, which is spellvamp. Hitting her spellvamp would actually destroy Akali, not removing Crescent Slash detonating MoTA, because Akali did not have that in her kit on release for 2 years, until they added it in 2012 July. Riot already knew it was a problem but held back on removing it until Akali became a problem again, which is right now.

TehNACHO1/21/2015, 5:42:55 PM1 votes

I'd just like to point out that CDR from AD, while sounding op, is mechanically correct.

One of the most common trends between AD and AP is that the former favors DPS and the latter favors burst. If AD granted Akali CDR, then AD builds would be nudged towards a more DPS based play style.