1 percent pick rate. 45% Win rate. Plus she is just not nearly as much fun as she was in season 4. I hope somebody is working on her and that she will be competitive again without us having to wait 3 years for some kind of rework or meaningful buffs.
YumaS2Astral4 votesWell, Akali was really powerful back in season 4, and this had nothing to do with "bronze tears". Sure, she had counterplay, but back at time, tanks were unviable, and most champions that could deal with her were nerfed. Also, Akali was mostly played at top, where she could harass other champions with the combination of her Q and her E. She couldn't be harassed because most top laners were melee.
Her shroud allowed her to drain tank everything due to the resistances, which you could not get rid of even with pink wards.
The problem with Akali is that she is too binary. Also, her passive prevents her from being powerful enough since if she even gets a lead, she is unstoppable. She is difficult to outduel if you are not tanky. Also, she is entirely point and click, she lacks counterplay options that are not obvious (CC, pink wards, etc). So she needs to be weak otherwise she is overwhelming.
She needs a rework, to be honest. Get rid of that spellvamp passive, assassins do not need to have sustain to be reliable. That passive is just taking away a lot of her power budget.
Rand0mH3r0X2 votesI like her spell vamp passive. After messing around with minions, I'm basicly ready for another fight. No need to go to base to refill mana either. She's awesome and self sufficient.
YumaS2Astral1 votesI like her spell vamp passive. After messing around with minions, I'm basicly ready for another fight. No need to go to base to refill mana either. She's awesome and self sufficient.
And that's one of the reasons why she was nerfed. You would need to all-in her and kill her, else she would just spellvamp all the damage back and while she was ready for another fight, you still had the scars from the last fight so you would need to recall or Akali would kill you.
Also, it made poking her basically useless. It is still useless but at least now you have other ways of counterplaying her.
Rand0mH3r0X1 votesThat's the global taunt passive I was talking about earlier.
She has to have some weakness. Akali doesn't really have a poke, it's either spam buttons and hope the don't feel like trading, or just throw a Q. There is no poke with Akali -- she's short ranged and melee.
Miraweave2 votesWell yeah riot gutted her for no reason because bronze tears.
PapaGreg211 votes[{quoted}](name=ME AM SMART,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=kEKAh16A,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2015-09-10T19:29:18.489+0000)
Well yeah riot gutted her for no reason because bronze tears.
She was actually close to 50% win rate last year and saw brief appearances in LCS. I blame Ascension for the gigantic nerfs as everybody went up in arms about her being broken in that mode and shortly after she got nerfed.
MLDzXnRRR2 votesShe is kind of boring to play (binary playstyle and keyboard smashing) and requires 1v1ing people - you could blow her every time in teamfights even when the shroud was giving resistances...
PapaGreg212 votesThere is no way that you would ever have enough energy in your bar to complete that combo. Your abilities would be silenced before you could use your second R because of energy depletion. 6 autoattacks in a team fight! Are you trolling me right now?
Rand0mH3r0X1 votesHit reply not quote.
Animation cancelling isn't new. Akali is really intensive now, but very rewarding.
Blade of Justic2 votesI don't understand the whole "Pink Ward" thing.
If you're afraid that Akali is going to blow you up, getting close enough to her shroud in order to see her in it won't stop her from tearing you a new one.
At the same time, if you're pink warding her shroud with the intent of killing her in it, you're probably beastly enough to wait out her shroud's duration or just watch for her to leave it.
Rand0mH3r0X1 votesI can take some responsibility for that. Everyone knows now to drop a pink ward, or to force her to use shroud near turrets. A year ago people complained about how op she was, and I spread out her weakness so that it would be common knowledge. Akali is stronger than she was before, but if you merely spam her abilities without much thought, Akali isn't that strong at all.
Akali can still dominate the team, but she has that "Global Taunt" passive all of a sudden and people move quickly to shut her down. In the new Juggernaut meta she fails to 1v5 the team anymore, so she has to settle for just getting the ADC and then the hell out of there.
LadyRenly1 votesI take responsibility for that. Everyone knows now to drop a pink ward, or to force her to use shroud near turrets. A year ago people complained about how op she was, and I spread out her weakness so that it would be common knowledge. Akali is stronger than she was before, but if you merely spam her abilities without much thought, Akali isn't that strong at all.
Akali can still dominate the team, but she has that "Global Taunt" passive all of a sudden and people move quickly to shut her down. In the new Juggernaut meta she fails to 1v5 the team anymore, so she has to settle for just getting the ADC and then the hell out of there.
How was it your responsibility? All us Korean challengers know to pink ward any stealth champ. Not to diminish any possible effort you may have made spreading the good word, though.
Also, what is this "global taunt"?
Serevas2 votesGlobal taunt meaning that everyone wants to go straight to akali to kill her no matter where she is on the map.
3tyson1 votesglobal taunt is a real thing
champs that basily require to be shut down the entire time
i agree on the pink ward part more people understanding that putting down a pink ward wil basicly shut her down this does make her a bad pic
Rand0mH3r0X2 votesIn higher ranks, everyone knows how to pink ward. Gold(Bronze 5) actually just knows how to play 1 champions really well sometimes, and doesn't really understand the game completely. I took me a couple years to understand the game and all the champions. There's quite a lot to learn, read, and do on a game that's merely the same map 5v5 over and over again. Sometimes people share, sometimes people seek, but a large majority just needs information served on a silver platter.
"Global Taunt" is a hidden passive that characters have, like Teemo, Ahri, or pre-rework Evelyn (Typically squishies). It can be the strongest passive in the game, or the most annoying. Basically, "Global Taunt" is a name for the odd attraction players have for dropping their laptops to chase these characters. If you are the person with "Global Taunt," laners leave lanes to come and get you. The amount of dives is increased specifically against you. People willingly walk into your attacks so they can attempt to nuke you. Usually, a 5 mid push will turn into a 2 mid push and 3 people scrambling to find you. Either way, "Global Taunt" can be used to concentrate a focus on you while you confuse the enemy team, meanwhile your ADC and whomever else has the opportunity to make plays happen. As far as up to platinum players still fall for "Global Taunt" passives. I couldn't say whether or not it happens in challenger.
Edit: I'll also say that the majority of players are still learning the game, and aren't that highly skilled. Little hints sometimes can go a long way. When you help start the chain-reaction spread of knowledge of how to counter-champions, then everyone will know a champions weakness. Common knowledge isn't common unless it's commonly known.
LadyRenly1 votesWow, I had actually never heard of that, but have witnessed the gameplay pattern before, thank you!
PapaGreg212 votesI take responsibility for that. Everyone knows now to drop a pink ward, or to force her to use shroud near turrets. A year ago people complained about how op she was, and I spread out her weakness so that it would be common knowledge. Akali is stronger than she was before, but if you merely spam her abilities without much thought, Akali isn't that strong at all.
Akali can still dominate the team, but she has that "Global Taunt" passive all of a sudden and people move quickly to shut her down. In the new Juggernaut meta she fails to 1v5 the team anymore, so she has to settle for just getting the ADC and then the hell out of there.
How is akali stronger than she was before? I don't think I agree with that statement at all.
Rand0mH3r0X1 votesShe now appears behind her opponent. For champions like Xerath, Viktor and Vel'Koz this is especially frustrating because she can move slightly in either direction of her opponent, and appear on the opposite side. Think of it like an extremely short ranged version of Ahri. On top of that, her E is on a 1 second cooldown, which would encourage spamming, but I recommend never doing this inside of the shroud because it would reveal you. Instead, you it as a part of button-spamming when CD are down. When not in her shroud, E can be both a good or bad thing, disabling her movement in favor of damage.
A lot of times, adjusting to a champions new play-style after a rework is difficult, and most people will give up. That's how I feel about Darius. Although, to be honest my first game with new Darius was against Vladimir, and that was just an awful experience, but a great show of counter-play available against Darius.
PapaGreg211 votesShe now appears behind her opponent. For champions like Xerath, Viktor and Vel'Koz this is especially frustrating because she can move slightly in either direction of her opponent, and appear on the opposite side. Think of it like an extremely short ranged version of Ahri. On top of that, her E is on a 1 second cooldown, which would encourage spamming, but I recommend never doing this inside of the shroud because it would reveal you. Instead, you it as a part of button-spamming when CD are down. When not in her shroud, E can be both a good or bad thing, disabling her movement in favor of damage.
A lot of times, adjusting to a champions new play-style after a rework is difficult, and most people will give up. That's how I feel about Darius. Although, to be honest my first game with new Darius was against Vladimir, and that was just an awful experience, but a great show of counter-play available against Darius.
I don't think you have ever played akali before as your arguments don't hold real life substance. You can't spam e because you only have limited energy in a fight so that is a useless argument. You shouldn't even be wasting your energy using crescent slash because your q procs do significantly more damage and e no longer procs it, making her burst much worse than Season 4 akali. Her range has been nerfed so badly that you are never going to be in range to use it against a xerath or another long bomber unless they are just horrible so that goes out the window as well. Plus you now have a boat load of pink wards/red trinkets to deal with once they get upgraded so you don't even need to remember to buy pink wards once you get to level 9 if you are facing an akali.
Season 5 akali stinks. STINKS!
Rand0mH3r0X1 votesAkali is a lot more intensive than just pressing R-E-Q now... If you get it right, It'd be R-AA-Q-AA-E-AA-R-AA-E-W-CD's-AA-Q-AA-E-R. She does a hell of amount of damage, over an extended period of time. In comparison to champions like Brand who just spam with very little thought, she does do badly. But that's a strength in Brand more than it's a weakness in Akali.
SwapShadows1 votesgood, I honestly hope she stays unviable until they fix her cancer kit
PapaGreg212 votesgood, I honestly hope she stays unviable until they fix her cancer kit
I think a lot of people like myself that used to play akali a lot would be thrilled with a kit rework as long as it allowed you to get the tools to be competitive. Right now it is very difficult to use her competitively in comparison to other champions.
PapaGreg211 votesIf you look at it as a 1vs1 tool you have a good point. I always assumed it's more for teamfights where akali can sit in the shroud as a safety zone after assassinating an adc or other squishy and wait for her energy bar to fill as well as letting her team knock off the health of other targets so she can pick them off soon after. It is big enough so that you can run away from danger after an assassination too and get to safety from the rest of the enemy team, especially now that it slows the enemy if they enter it.
Ideally it is more of an escape tool than a fighting tool.
Yordle Xayah1 votesAkali is a horrible human being
Cindikle1 votesShe's an assassin that snowballs hard on her first item and has very little real counterplay outside of her bad laning phase. Only downside was that she had no reliable escapes. But she'd probably kill her target at least.
Her ult needs to mark the target like Yasou's dash. Procing Q removes the mark. R now has counterplay. (Peel, mobility, removing the mark.) Now she can see buffs because the part of her kit that was a problem has been dealt with. Something Riot seems to keep failing to do. They keep playing with numbers, when numbers is not the problem.
Fizz was another perfect example of this. Outside of his ult and E he didn't have a lot of kit-based damage at all compared to assassins. But he would still assassinate just as well as anyone else with just his Q and E(and usually didn't even use E for damage). Making his ult more important was a huge step in the right direction.