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Let's Talk About Assassins...

ktMsgaM0Sb··88 votes·6,265 views

The following is a commentary on the upcoming assassin changes, particularly regarding Akali. My hope is that this thread makes you think critically and objectively about Akali's kit, and hopefully serves as a place where others who feel strongly about the way Akali should be handled can come together and establish a dialogue.

If you are reading through the whole post, please take time to read it in its entirety. This is a whole lot to take in, so if you can't make that commitment, I encourage you to throw this thread an upvote so others have the chance to make their own contributions.

For those of you just scrolling through, take a look at the TL;DR a handful of paragraphs away from the bottom that highlights some key points, though it is a very long post with the added degree of community-response based depth, and a TL;DR does not do it justice. Again, if you can't make the commitment, I encourage you to throw this thread an upvote so others have the chance to make their own contributions.

Before I begin, there are a few notes of pertinence I'd like to mention.

  • I have been playing Akali since the tail end of Season 3, and of course that does provide some angle of bias regarding her current state. All things considered, I am taking as objective an approach as I can in presenting a perspective as to why the upcoming changes to Akali are incorrectly targeting parts of Akali's kit, and how these changes could be handled in a more satisfying way.

  • Akali's changes as of the assassin update are temporary. They are placeholders for a complete overhaul in the future (which admittedly does scare me). While it is highly unlikely her upcoming changes will be re-assessed in the near future apart from some number-tweaks, I am hopeful that this inspires some thought towards her future.

  • Any time I associate myself with the 'Akali main' community, I am doing so in confidence that I am largely reflecting at least the major perspectives of the people that know Akali best. There may be some variance in opinion, but for the most part I have found via first-hand dialogue that we share many of the same thoughts.

  • I've already said it once, and I'm going to say it many more times - the community's responses (along with my own) to this commentary are just as important as this post itself. If you are going to make a contribution Read. Everything. Their dialogue helps clarify ideas and fill in the gaps I may have missed.

  • If you cannot be objective, this is not for you.

So grab some popcorn, find your reading glasses, put on your thinking caps, and let's dive right in.

What is the purpose of the assassin update?

Assassins are inherently tricky to balance in League of Legends. Their whole existence is to wipe important targets off the face of the map, but this can be very frustrating to deal with on the receiving end. The eternal dilemma is maintaining this function while preventing it from being an absolute nightmare to deal with. The assassin update is an attempt to eliminate some unhealthy styles of gameplay - most notably an assassin's ability to delete opposing champions before they have a chance to react. A classic example is Rengar, given his ability to leap from stealth and 100-0 any squishy target in the blink of an eye - this has been especially exasperated given some sneaky animation-canceling. As such, most of the update features damage shifts from upfront damage to delayed burst damage. This gives the opponent a reasonable amount of time to react to a situation. Generally speaking, I think the update does this very well in terms of both champion and itemization changes with very few minor exceptions that I will not be exploring in this post (obviously apart from Akali).

See the full list of updates here: http://www.surrenderat20.net/2016/10/1018-pbe-update.html#ass2

Akali's current state:

As it is now, Akali's kit has a few hallmark traits that make Akali, Akali. I will not be describing verbatim the ability tooltips. If you do not know the basics of her entire kit, stop reading this now and do some research. I will be describing their applications. Ranking them in order of importance to Akali's unique identity as a champion:

  1. First and foremost is her ultimate, Shadow Dance. It makes her one of the stickiest and slipperiest champions in the game. She can re-position very well during fights, and, when used cleverly, especially in tandem with her Twilight Shrowd, Akali can pull off some very tricky escapes.

  2. Second, Twilight Shroud. As it stands, Akali can use her shroud for exactly 6 purposes:

  3. Primarily, she uses it to stealth during fights and assassinations. This use is two-fold: First, it gives her the opportunity to stall for her abilities to come off of cooldown. It also gives her a form of evasion from targeted attacks (and a very small form of evasion from aoe attacks provided the aoe does not encompass the entire diameter of the shroud).

  4. Akali can use the ability in combination with brush vision mechanics to pull off some very tricky pathing maneuvers - this is something I think Riot is keen towards, but they've handled it in a strange way. I'm getting ahead of myself, I'll comment more on this later.

  5. Akali can use her shroud to farm in loaded matchups that are otherwise incredibly one-sided. It functions as a bit of a zoning tool, but that's not really as important as its function as a way to mitigate targeted harass. Opposing champions in lanes where she needs to use her shroud to farm more safely generally don't care about its function as a zoning mechanic anyways, because they'll usually flat out beat any form of aggression on her part.

  6. Akali can cast the shroud at range, allowing her to scout in the fog of war, in brush, and over walls. This gives her great juke potential - for example, shrouding over the rear wall at Krugs to jump to them with Shadow Dance. Again, this has been handled strangely.

  7. Akali can cast the shroud at range and deceive her opponents into thinking she is inside the shroud. Just the presence of the shroud can zone the enemy and put them on their toes, averting their focus.

  8. She can cast her shroud at range to chase down enemies (both in plain view, or in the fog of war/brush) or save herself/allies from being chased down by opponents via the aoe slow it provides. I can't tell you how many times I've used the range of Akali's shroud to get a last-second reveal on somebody in brush, or gave my allies just enough to time to escape a bad situation.

  9. Next, we have Twin Disciplines, Akali's passive. This allows Akali to heal and do bonus damage with every auto attack. That's pretty much it, but there is a whole lot to discuss later.

  10. Mark of the Assassin. This is an invaluable tool for laning, as well as her main source of damage in fights. She can cast it at range to last-hit minions in matchups where she has to play defensively (which incidentally is most matchups pre-6). She can use it to harass in a variety of ways. In combination with Twin Disciplines, she gets a portion of bonus damage when she pops the proc with her aa, and she also benefits from the resulting combined magic damage in the form of spell vamp.

  11. Crescent Slash - widely determined to be the 'meh' ability, because it's just plain boring. It is useful, though. Slash gives Akali much-needed waveclear as a result of her primarily single-target kit. At higher ranks, it is spammable at a steep energy cost. Again, as with all of her abilities, there is a whole lot to talk about in the commentary to follow.

Akali's state as of the assassin update: (This is the part that matters)

This is where I will discuss my thoughts on Akali's state as a result of the assassin update, as well as thoughts for the future. As before, I will begin with a general scope of the entire assassin update.

The way I see it, the assassin update has done exactly what it was intended to do - giving opponents a larger window of time to respond to face-melting assassinations by shifting from front-loaded damage to more delayed damage. Additionally, assassins have had their raw stats exchanged for scaling stats. As frustrating it may be for assassin-lovers to lose some upfront burst in favor of a delay, from an objective standpoint it is healthier for the game as a whole. By this measure, I (and likely Riot) label it largely a success, promoting healthier patterns of play without making assassins feel underwhelming.

League of Legends has a history of introducing new mechanics/champions/items that come out of the gates unbalanced, both in the case of being overpowered or underpowered. This is not Riot's fault. It's impossible to design any component to perfectly anticipate its application into the live game. The best Riot can do is analyze a component in as many scenarios as possible, release it, let the public use and abuse it, and work from there to make something that is generally balanced and healthy. As such, the assassin update is not perfect. That is a fact, not an opinion. Once the update is live, there will be number-tweaks and things of that sort. As I've just explained, this is always the case and the assassin update is no exception. To that point, I think most people are actually content. People seem to be fairly satisfied with the changes.

Then there's Akali.

It seems that people (especially long-time Akali mains, which I will get to) are largely unsatisfied with Akali's updates. It's my intent to hopefully voice, explain, and analyze as many of those concerns as possible in this section. I'd like to stray from number crunching and whatnot because that's something that always has the potential to fluctuate; the general kit effectiveness and fluidity is the important part. For the sake of thoroughness I will include the stats. Keep in mind that as the update approaches and PBE testing continues, some of these numbers may change, do not take these to heart.

Shadow Dance

  • Damage changed to 50/100/150 (+25% AP) from 100/175/200 (+50% AP)
  • Cooldown fixed to 2 seconds at all ranks

In all honesty, these changes are sort of expected. Shadow Dance as it stands provides a noticeable amount of upfront burst, and thus it fits with the pattern of the update to remove some damage here and shift it somewhere else in Akali's kit. The damage reduction is pretty severe, but if it proves crippling it's an easy change on Riot's part (again, I don't want to dwell in the weeds of the numbers). The main concern within the 'Akali main' community, though, seems to be with the cooldown change. The current scaling cooldown on Akali's ultimate allows her to scale with the pace of the game - generally, as an assassin's game drags on, fights get shorter. The new cooldown may prove to inhibit Akali's teamfight repositioning/stick potential. The changes aren't live, so many players haven't actually had the chance to mess with these changes themselves - they may pan out to be just fine.

Akali players are hurting over this small point - and it is small, just one second - because Akali is Shadow Dance. I previously ranked Akali's abilities in terms of their reflection of Akali's identity, and Shadow Dance was ranked number 1. It seems as though the assassin update has misidentified her Twilight Shroud as her most hallmark ability - I will explore this idea in greater depth later. This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons long-time Akali players are frustrated. We want Akali to be the assassin that dashes around fights from carry to carry. We were promised that her changes would be catered specifically to long-time Akali players, and reducing the amount of dashing Akali gets to do even by one second feels to us like a small betrayal.

Twilight Shroud

  • Now teleports Akali to cast location and leaves a shroud where she was before.
  • Range = 250
  • Cast time increased to .35 from .25
  • Duration changed to 4/5/6/7/8 seconds from 8 seconds at all ranks

Oh, Twilight Shroud. Before I get started, I'm going to point out that the duration decrease at early ranks is just a flat-out nerf. Akali's early game as of now is her weakest point, and her shroud provides a variety of necessary functions to surviving against loaded matchups. Yes, her new passive is supposed to be helpful in lane, and that's something I'll explore later.

So, what are Akali mains upset about?

Players seem to be very unsatisfied with her new shroud. Players who really know how Akali operates are frustrated over the way these changes impact her kit in a few ways. First, since it's the most generally understood, we have the impacts on her juking potential. I previously mentioned all of the general ways in which Akali can use her shroud in combination with brush and/or her Shadow Dance to pull of some great outplays. The new shroud essentially removes certain juking functions that might be considered higher-level mechanics in favor of a small dash that provides a guaranteed, immediate juke. This is a fundamentally incorrect approach to influencing her outplay ability. There may be no 'perfect' answer to Akali's kit (as of these small changes, or ever ), but there certainly are wrong ones. This is one of them - let's explore why:

First, let's reiterate (in fewer words) what her current shroud provides her in terms of outplay potential:

  1. The stealth itself inherently provides outplay potential because she's, well, invisible. She is 'un-clickable'. She can sort of dodge aoe as long as it doesn't encompass the whole diameter of the shroud itself by making it harder for the enemy to predict her position, therefore giving her a positioning advantage.

  2. She has a chance to recuperate cooldowns.

  3. Using shroud creatively with brush allows for pathing jukes and outplays.

  4. She can farm more easily in difficult matchups.

  5. Using shroud's vision by casting at range in tandem with Shadow Dance lets her hop over walls to units.

  6. She can cast her shroud at range.

  7. She can cast her shroud at range to falsely relay her position to the enemy.

  8. She can cast her shroud at range to assist fleeing allies.

Now, lets outline the mechanics of her new shroud:

  1. Same as previous 'point 1'.

  2. Same as previous 'point 2'.

  3. Same as previous 'point 3'.

  4. Same as previous 'point 4', though half as easily (8-second cooldown to 4-8 second cooldown = half as effective at early ranks)

  5. She gets a small dash upon use.

  6. She can dash over small terrain.

What's the net change?:

The updated shroud sacrifices 4 points and a nerf to a 5th, all derived from the shroud's ranged nature, in favor of an at-cast dash and the ability to cross small terrain. Before I even explain why it's an incorrect tradeoff, first note the sheer number of points being traded in favor of two other points.

So, why is this tradeoff incorrect?

Let's talk in terms of outplay mechanics, because those are the points that matter. Plain and simply, an at-cast dash doesn't fit mechanically. The most important of the previously illustrated points is her ability to vision-dash over walls using Twilight Shroud combined with Shadow Dance. It takes a higher understanding of champion mechanics to apply in-game. By replacing this mechanic with a more immediate, less-rewarding juke, Akali is being made more accessible. It's great for more people to be able to pick up a particular champion, but this is a direct contradiction to one of Riot's motivations for the assassin update, i.e. rewarding higher-level play. In this case,_ there is no higher-level play to be had_. Her higher-level play is completely removed. Ideally, the champion becomes more accessible without sacrificing higher level play, but that is just not the case here. The sacrifice of the shroud's flexibility is not only not worth the amount of tradeoffs to gain an instant dash, it just doesn't make sense. She's slipperier in her current state. Granted, other sources of vision like wards can be used to reveal units that Akali can hop to, but this discussion is purely based on a kit's independent functions (plus, this has always been true).

I'd like to bring up another small point regarding the dash. It has been explained that the dash is also intended to allow Akali to keep her opponents guessing as to where she is in the shroud, as she can dash in any direction she chooses. Its only function aside from the terrain-hopping is to dodge skillshots - there is no reason to use your shroud just to dodge a skillshot, as you'd be sacrificing all of the other benefits it provides. To that note, the only situation I can come up with where this is useful is when the opponent is going to cast some high damage aoe ability (Trueshot Barrage, Pillar of Flame, Tibbers, etc.). Even then, the likelihood that you're in a situation where it's beneficial to use a shroud to dodge that ability rather than make use of its other functions is incredibly small, especially if you are positioning correctly.

I'm getting a bit into the weeds, so let me bring it back to the big picture.

The update to Twilight Shroud just doesn't fit mechanically with Akali's kit. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the way Akali operates. Because it is such a poor change in the eyes of Akali mains - and again, I am talking about players who really understand Akali - it feels like another betrayal. You may be starting to notice a theme.

Twin Disciplines

  • Now gives Akali's next two attacks bonus effects (base values scale with lvl) then goes on cooldown.
  • First strike restores 10-130 (+70% bonus AD) health.
  • Her second strike (within 4 seconds) deals 14-70 (+45% AP) magic damage.
  • Cooldown for empowered attacks is 8-5 seconds based on level.

This one is a bit difficult. The fact that the current passive has been changed makes complete sense, at least in accordance with Riot's history. Riot doesn't particularly like 'hidden' stats - things like DoT, lifesteal - because they are hard for opponents to gauge upfront. Those things play out over the course of a fight, rather than having a stat that just grants a flat amount of damage, healing, etc. I don't want to make claims I can't justify with evidence, but it seems that in Akali's case this is exactly what happened.

Additionally, this has some other implications as a result of the cooldown and double auto-attack. Ill start with the cooldown. It makes sense that a cooldown would be associated with this new version of Akali's passive, because opponents can more easily judge when Akali's passive is going to have some sort of impact.

So, everything's going good so far, right?

Well, sort of. It's good that players will be able to gauge each other more easily. This provides for a healthier gameplay experience. But this has a few negative implications for Akali. First, as I've mentioned before, Akali has a a rough time in lane pre-6 against a similarly skilled opponent. I haven't yet run the numbers myself, but unless the heal on the updated passive is stronger than it is currently, Akali is essentially losing 8 seconds where she could be making use of her heal. And maybe it all works out, so that's not a big deal. And if it doesn't, that's a simple numbers tweak.

But what about the impact of a cooldown in the late game?

As it is now, mid-late game Akali has enough spellvamp to heal fully from a wave or two, or a couple of jungle camps depending on her relative strength. A 5 second cooldown on her healing in the late game would cripple the rate of her healing. Again, maybe the numbers are completely balanced and the healing every 5 seconds is equivalent to the spellvamp she has now. And maybe she shouldn't heal as much as she does.

On a side note, 5 seconds seems like an awkward amount of time in terms of trying to weave auto-attacks into Akali's combos. It seems that the logical cooldown would follow in suit or weave in between the cooldown of her Mark of the Assassin.

So, where does that leave us?

Essentially, the cooldown aspect of her passive is completely and totally based on numbers. Numbers can always be tweaked, so basically we can ignore it for the purposes of this commentary.

What about the double auto-attack?

This introduces the question of, should she get heal first, or should she get the extra damage first? To be consistent with the theme of delaying damage in the assassin update, Riot no doubt chose to apply the damage to the second auto-attack. This way her opponents have a small window where they can make some kind of play happen before being hit by Akali's basic attack.

So, what's the verdict?

Of all of the updated abilities, this one is sort of the hardest to pin down. It's purely based on a numbers game, and so it's impossible to draw a conclusion. It's sort of underwhelming to have to think about auto-attacking; I don't think its the perfect solution that Akali mains are looking for, but it works for now.

Mark of the Assassin

  • No changes.

It's perfect.

Crescent Slash

  • Cooldown changed to 5/4.5/4/3.5/3 from 5/4/3/2/1
  • Damage changed:
  • NEW: [70/100/130/160/190 (50% AP)(70% Bonus AD)]
  • OLD: [30/55/80/105/130 (40% AP)(60% total AD)

As with the passive, the impact of the changes here are based solely on numbers. Since the ability itself didn't change, the only conclusion to draw is that of the passive: it's fine for now, but the numbers make or break it. Slash is sort of boring, but it flows well with her kit as it stands, and things that flow well feel good.

A Summary of the impact of Akali's changes:

I think Riot is struggling at maintaining the elements of Akali that Akali mains want to see and keeping that consistent with the playstyle they would like to impose upon the assassins as a whole. You'll notice the vast majority of the content of this commentary focuses on Shadow Dance and Twilight Shroud - these are the elements long-time Akali mains feel are the hallmarks of Akali's identity. The values of Twighlight Shroud and Shadow Dance seem to have been incorrectly weighed - it seems that Akali's shroud has been chosen as her defining characteristic, and its changes have lead the Akali community to some level of frustration. I can easily see how this was done, considering the length at which I've talked about Twilight Shroud in comparison to Shadow Dance, but the shroud changes themselves are just plain nonsensical and quite mind-boggling to many of the community members. Akali is Shadow Dance, she is her outplay potential with Twilight Shroud's synergy; that's what's important to Akali players, and if you consider my analysis any indication of the feelings of other long-time Akali players, then you should have a sense for the frustration even a one second cooldown adjustment (the damage nerf doesn't help either, but I've explained my perspective on that) can make.

I'd like to make a quick side note: People are often resistant to change. The fact is, (most) Akali mains are not just whining about their favorite champion being manipulated in a way that fits with the playstyle Riot wants to see. This is clearly evident in the relative satisfaction with her updated passive. The frustration exists because the wrong approaches were taken, and Akali's identity feels like it's being lost.

Conclusion:

The primary focus of the assassin update is to eliminate some unhealthy styles of gameplay where assassins can instantly delete opposing champions before they have a chance to react. Generally speaking, Riot achieves this objective (along with a few others) pretty well. There seems to be a relatively unanimous agreement among long-time Akali players (and maybe others as well) that she got the short end of the stick with this update - whether that's based solely on bias as a result of the love of a champion, or an objective perspective, it's hard to gauge. Obviously this perspective is not shared by everyone, but it's one broad side of the spectrum. I think that Riot is at least somewhere in the ballpark in terms of how in-tune they are with the feelings of Akali mains, as they have explicitly expressed their intent to cater towards this demographic. Why does Riot want to consider our perspective? Akali has an incredibly low play rate - that community is made up of the dedicated few who are passionate about Akali's identity as a champion. Unfortunately, I, along with many others both in and out of the Akali community, feel Riot has shortchanged Akali in particular and missed the mark in a variety of ways.

I would expect most Akali mains would prefer that she stays exactly the way she is, especially considering the removal of pink wards - as much as I would like this to be the case, it cannot be (can it?). This commentary is not an argument to that end. She can't stay exactly the way she is now if she's going to fit into the framework of the assassin class as established by Riot in the assassin update, but it's important to put value where it's due in her kit, and these particular changes simply don't sit right with me and many other devoted Akali players. If I sound frustrated, it's because I, along with other Akali players, am passionate.

In a final concluding statement, if you are to take one thing away from this commentary, please consider this:

Akali players, especially long-time mains who really know the ins-and-outs of her kit, feel its hallmarks have been misidentified, and therefore the changes feel like betrayals to a specific playstyle that Akali mains have come to associate with her identity, even through the history of changes to her kit.

I encourage everyone to use this commentary to establish a dialogue to create educated, thought out discussions in regards to the future of Akali. If you love Akali and want her to move in the right direction, please share this with like-minded players who can think objectively and offer their own commentary. I understand we have strong feelings, please stray from 'Riot killed Akali' and 'RIP Akali' language - that is not constructive and will not promote a better future for the champion.

This discussion is not one-sided. Everyone has their own opinion, and everyone deserves a voice as long as it remains constructive, genuine, thoughtful, and is free of rage.

Before you post:

  1. Read the thread.
  2. Read the thread.
  3. Read my comments to some community questions and responses that bring up great points of contention and aspects of my commentary that are unclear. I cannot stress enough how important the dialogue portion of this thread is.
  4. Read the thread.

Please remember this discussion is not about the numbers, it's about champion identity and fluidity as a whole. Lots of these numbers are subject to change in small and large ways as the patch approaches (and once the patch is out).

Also note that this discussion is not just about the upcoming changes, but also the construction of Akali's final iteration in the distant future. Both timelines matter!

I will reply to coherent, thoughtful responses.

TL;DR

If you aren't going to read the commentary, you shouldn't be contributing to an informed, objective dialogue.

I said TL;DR

Fine.

  • In her current state, Akali fills her role very well - a jukey assassin that hops around blowing people up.
  • In her updated state, she jukes less, has a lower skillcap, unleashes her combo more slowly, but is more accessible to the general playerbase.
  • She can't stay the way she is if she's going to fit into Riot's new framework for assassins, but she shouldn't stay the way she's going to be either.
    • Technically she won't stay the way she's 'going to be' as a result of the assassin update forever, as Riot has expressed their interest in an overhaul.
  • Her Shadow Dance damage reduction might hurt her too much.
  • Her kit needs to highlight Shadow Dance and Twilight Shroud and their synergy to create outplay potential, not suppress it.

Just because you read the TL;DR doesn't mean you have all of the necessary information to post a thorough comment/reply/argument. If you are going to post, read the entire commentary.

If you have no idea what's going on, don't have a particular stance on the matter, you hate Akali and all assassins, you love Akali with a fiery passion, or just want to show your support, throw this post an upvote to get more people talking! The more discussion, the better the future of assassins will be!

UPDATES

Here I will simply list some of the updates to Akali's kit as the assassin patch approaches release - be sure to revisit this thread: (again, straying from the details of exact numbers unless they are significant)

  • Akali gains all of her ultimate stacks upon reaching level 6.

  • Personally, I find this fantastic. Just about every champion (transformers excluded) gets a level 6 power spike, because they have access to their ultimate ability. In Akali's case, she needs multiple charges in order to have full kill potential in the early stages. As it is currently, Akali has to think very hard about if she can fully combo her target on just a single charge. I am excited to see this update (damage nerf or not) because it gives Akali the chance to really compete with other level 6 powerspiking champions. This is a step in the right direction.

  • Stealth Shimmer - stealthed champions now briefly shimmer upon taking damage. This does not reveal, it just creates a silhouette.

  • This effects Akali directly, as she's a stealth-user. While pink wards will soon be extinct, thereby giving Akali's invisibility an indirect buff, shimmer will soon be added, slightly retracting from that buff.

10/25/2016 - Stuff is happening! Maybe not the stuff we're looking for, but stuff nonetheless!

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2016/10/1025-pbe-update.html#more

Progress!

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/qJl1FcWf-lets-talk-about-assassins?comment=0020

Thank you to everyone for your support, keep it up - revisit this thread for updates, share with your friends, keep the ball rolling!

113 Comments

Akali is SO HOT18 votes

I've already played her a lot on the PBE and I have to say that Riot is really ruining her shroud with these changes which makes me really sad because of how cool it is to use. I agree with all of the points you made about Twilight Shroud. To add to that, the instant blink also feels REALLY clunky and terrible to use and just doesn't feel right at all. Using your shroud to reveal jungle monsters or an enemy to dash to them takes a lot more skill to do than just blinking over the wall and feels much more satisfying. Don't forget that now she is forced to put the shroud over herself which feels terrible because she can no longer scout out bushes or use it as a zoning tool. Also, the cooldown nerf early game is very crippling to the ability and makes it really weak until maxed out. Overall, the only good part about this change is not being revealed by pinks anymore. Everything else is just bad.

Her new passive is kinda meh, but I think I can deal with it. They changed the cooldown down to 4 seconds late game so it's a little better now. I think 3 seconds would be a little better, but oh well. I definitely feel that the damage should come before the heal because then her burst comes together as one instead of being split up which feels awkward to use. Having the heal second is also better because she won't be at full health if the heal comes second whereas getting the heal first means it won't do anything for her due to being at full health already.

Her E changes are actually very crippling. The changes to the damage on it make it so the damage is roughly the same throughout the whole game as the live version is, but tripling the cooldown at max rank is a huge nerf. I'm guessing Riot was trying to nerf Bruiser/Tank Akali with these changes, but it hurts AP Akali much more than it does for Bruiser/Tank Akali which is sad.

As for Shadow Dance I can deal with the changes, but I think it would be better if they at least gave us 2/1.75/1.5 seconds instead of 2 at all ranks. Considering the big damage nerfs to it I don't think that's too much to ask for.

I really hope they revert the shroud changes because right now it is not fun to use at all :(

ktMsgaM0Sb4 votes

Thank you for your very thought out and constructive reply! There are a few points I'd like to address:

  • Yes, it is unfortunate that her passive splits her healing and damage to be sequential, but it's totally consistent with Riot's intention for the patch. By moving her damage back a second (or however long her attack animation is), opponents have more time to react.

  • A lot of people seem to be disheartened by the heal mechanic, namely that there's no benefit if you're at full health and you go in to full combo somebody. Consider it a tradeoff that is likely an improvement to the health of the game, though a detriment to the 'ideal' Akali us mains seek. If you look at her live passive, technically you're also not getting any benefit from spellvamp when you're a full health anyways. The fact that she can heal consistently is why it doesn't feel like a detriment to go in at full health. Again, her updated passive is not perfect.

  • In terms of her shroud, I think I've more than said my peace for now. The clunkiness is a result of the changes being flat out wrong in terms of her gameplay. I've explained this matter in detail in my commentary.

Again, thank you very much for your reply. Every bit of attention counts, especially if we keep our comments constructive and thoughtful - you have done us justice!

Don't forget to spread the word!

Pierce The Veal2 votes

It doesn't help that CDR no longer influences the ult cooldown. The difference that makes is 2 seconds (new) vs 0.55-0.6 seconds (old). That's a 1.4 second difference, and adding in all of her ults, assuming no resets, that's an added 4.2 seconds delay.

Azteryz1 votes

ummm not true this is why preseason pbe cycle takes 3 weeks unlike the usual 2 weeks because they need a lot of time to tweak all the changes they tackeled the ult im sure just give it a week and they will fix everything else as well

Shadow Dance (R) Now includes charges when first learned CDR once again affects recast time.

Pierce The Veal3 votes

{quoted}

ummm not true this is why preseason pbe cycle takes 3 weeks unlike the usual 2 weeks because they need a lot of time to tweak all the changes they tackeled the ult im sure just give it a week and they will fix everything else as well

Shadow Dance (R) Now includes charges when first learned CDR once again affects recast time.

Oh wow she's stronger for a whole 30 seconds.

But wait, the damage is halved, so it's actually a whole 15 seconds.

General Bradiken12 votes

As an Akali main since late season 2, I just want to voice my agreement with everything that was said particularly about the Twilight Shroud changes. Good shroud usage is truly the single most important skill for an Akali. Changing the mechanics to lower her skill ceiling exacerbates the perception of Akali as a pub-stomp only champion.

ktMsgaM0Sb2 votes

Thanks for the feedback! Share this post with like-minded people to get the word out.

Shen is SO HOT9 votes

I say we just classify her stealth as "camouflage" so that the control ward will reveal her in shroud and call it a day. Lol but no seriously this was a well thought out and well written post! I 1010% agree and I'll be sure to share it with all the players in the Akali main club ^.^ (as soon as they fix the issues with chat lol)

ktMsgaM0Sb3 votes

Thanks for your reply!

Unfortunately, if we left her kit that way it is now and classified her stealth as camouflage, she'd be in the same state she is now. While leaving her kit the way it is now would be 'good' (maybe 'satisfying' is a better word) for Akali mains (but bad for the health of the game), the control ward would put her right back into a situation of being countered by an extremely cheap item.

It is an interesting concept, though, to make her stealth a camouflage, but if we take a look at Riot's plan, all juke-y stealth mechanics are going to be invisibility.

Thanks for spreading the message! Every upvote counts.

Shen is SO HOT4 votes

Yeah, I know. Classifying her stealth as camouflage is a horrible idea, but it was the only thing I could think of to suggest, because I simply don't know what riot's intentions are with these changes. If they are trying to take away power from her shroud to make up for the removal of true vision wards there are a TON of ways they could go about doing it that won't completely trash her.

For starters they could reduce the range of the spell from 700 to 600. This is her defensive/utility spell and her catch potential with it was a bit too strong imo. If they are going to make the movement speed buff permanent while in shroud then this change NEEDS to happen.

Another thing they could do is change how the cooldown works. They could change it from 20 seconds at all ranks counting down after shroud is cast to 16/15/14/13/12 seconds counting down after shroud expires They could then change the duration from 8 seconds to 6/6.5/7/7.5/8 seconds In my opinion this would be way more reasonable then a wimpy 4 second duration shroud, cause it's SO important for laning phase.

If they are really trying to strip power from this spell they could simply fix the bajillion bugs it has, because all the bugs are beneficial to Akali and removing them would shave off some "hidden power" in her kit. The most obvious bug that I'm not sure is intended or not but should be removed is the baron recall bug. I.E. if u have baron buff and recall in shroud it won't break stealth. You can do the same thing with the non damaging summoner spells INCLUDING teleport and flash. Using them while in shroud won't break stealth. (Again I'm not sure if this is intended or not). You can also place your shroud in certain walls and the enemy team won't be able to see it. This allows you to hug the wall and then catch them off guard by appearing seemingly out of thin air.

I could keep going but you get the point. There are so many areas they could choose to take power from, I just don't get why they are choosing to remove some of the skill cap to a champ and replacing it with a lame dash :(

Shen is SO HOT3 votes

I also realize that maybe they are intending for these w changes to be "buffs" to make up for the passive and r nerfs but i don't think they realize how important this spell really is for Akali. I'm really surprised and actually kinda let down that these are the best "buffs" (or whatever they are intended to be) they could come up with for this spell. Adding a blink for "more deception" makes zero sense considering pink wards are getting removed and that was her biggest hindrance for deception.

If they were indeed trying to buff shroud because her damage took a hit, a better buff would have been to just lower or even completely remove the cast time of this spell.

Another change I've been wanting them to do for a long time is to undo the change they made back in 6.3 with the energy restoration her q gives back. You max Q first anyway and W is the one point wonder so it makes sense imo for this to be the spell with a flat energy cost which they should change to 60 at all ranks.

Again, it's hard for me to tell if these changes were meant to nerf or buff her so these are just kinda loose ideas in my head im throwing around in the air lol

ktMsgaM0Sb2 votes

Here's an update on stealth for you: stealthed (I believe only invisible) champions will leave a shimmer when they are hit with blind skillshots. That plain and simply is already a bit of a step backwards towards the days of the pink ward countering Twilight Shroud. That in itself should be enough reason why Akali doesn't need to see any nerfs at the moment.

It is unfortunate, but I appreciate all of your suggestions.

Shadragon6 votes

I don't play Akali, but my first thought when I read her assassin update changes was "Why would she even WANT a dash on her shroud? That sounds totally pointless." It just seems so incredibly out of place and redundant in her kit, and especially on her shroud of all things.

Anyway, was an interesting read. I wish you and every other Akali player luck in saving your favorite champion.

Limmie6 votes

Another thing that feels really off in this update to Akali players is regarding the new items. All new assassin items are AD, and while she has scalings with AD, it's not really viable to build her off of AD, and even less so now. The AD assassins were given more tools to work with on top of buffs, and the even the other AP assassins were given more lenient changes. Since for Akali this rework is a straight-out nerf, now there's really no reason to pick her over the other assassins. She's weaker, feel less rewarding to play as than before, and is outdone by her assassin competition.

People used to call Akali "bad Diana", since Diana could outdo her in most circumstances. Now it seems she's just gonna be "bad assassin" because I don't see what she can do over any other assassin anymore.

Akali is SO HOT5 votes

We could always just call her "worse bad Diana" instead :^)

ktMsgaM0Sb2 votes

Funny, but scary.

Godslayer Unas3 votes

Also, AD Assassins get a variety of Lifesteal items to buy. AP Assassins don't have any Spellvamp items anymore (And they are removing it off Akali's Passive). Not really fair in my eyes.

Also, AD Assassins are similar to ADCs in a way that, they mostly go full AD and thus will be able to deal lots of damage to towers with basic attacks, simply as a "byproduct" of their nature and itemization. AP Assassins don't get that. With all the new AD items, self-healing being practically exclusive to AD Assassins, it seems like AP Assassins are bound to go out of style (not like they were ever in style anyway).

On Akali and her changes specifically, I don't think I have ever seen or considered going full AD on her. The only AD you normally pick up on her, in a standard game is Gunblade. That's 40 AD. The rest of her items are AP/Tanky AP for the most part. So the AD ratios on her are for the most part redundant. The passive healing of "first strike restores 10-130 (+70% bonus AD) health" might as well be changed to "first strike restores 38-158 health", since everyone just rushes Gunblade on her (even more so now, and I expect Gunblade to be deleted by the end of next season) and is done buying AD for the rest of the game. The new E was actually nerfed quite significantly, switching the AD ratio from 60% total to 70% bonus AD. The increase in AP ratio increases the total damage done by E by a meager 26.2 damage, while now sitting on a 3 second cooldown rather than 1. In theory, the old E can deal almost triple the damage of a new E in the same amount of time. The bonus AD ratio again translates into flat 28 damage on the ability for the entire duration of the game, compared to the previous 91.8 damage increase on it, when considering 153 total AD.

I always get way into this stuff, bottom line I agree with you that there will be no reason to ever pick Akali once this terrible "rework" hits live, since AD Assassins have a major advantage over AP Assassins with itemization and overall utility and pushing power, and pretty much every other AP Assassin will easily outclass Akali.

Godslayer Unas5 votes

Akali main since season 2 here.

Well written post, OP, I agree with most of it.

I was thinking that rather than straight up nerf her abilities the way they did they should keep E on low CD and use it as a combo mechanic. An idea I had a while back was make her E combo with Q and W, similar to for example Yasuos Q+E combo. That way, they could make Akalis W similar to Graves E, then if used combined with a low cd E, transform it into the current shroud.

Since she lacks CC and overall utility, a small area blind based on her area would feel somewhat similar to a Nocturne ulting in. This would make E a more frequently used ability without the need to buff its numbers much, apart from some tweaking.

You could Q > R > AA > W for an initial combo and (since E usually isn't used) E whenever you need to transform the small cloud into a shroud. Possibly make it like a Morde W?

This idea of course is very basic and most likely pretty bad. But at least I feel like a change in this direction with different ability combos or some utility attached to E would probably suffice as a change to make her more playable/viable.

Thoughts on updated abilities:

Passive: I am not at all a fan of the new passive. It simply doesn't make a lot of sense for her to lose her passive spellvamp. She is already heavily cooldown based and reliant, with Q being her main damage source. Since she usually doesn't really get much CDR in a standard build path, she will remain fairly cooldown based, regardless of the game length/state. Adding an additional cooldown to an ability to keep an eye out for seems like a nerf to me. Not only that, but she's burst oriented. With her current passive, she gets full benefit from her passive, since it's active 100% of the time she's fighting an opponent. The heavy bursts of damage translate directly into heavy bursts of sustain. This not only reflects to some extend her identity, but her not having it would be really unfair compared to AD Assassins, who have a wide variety of Lifesteal items to choose from. Since the cooldown on her new passive will be something like 6 seconds, you only really trigger it once to the very most twice in an assassination attempt, before you make your escape. Even once the passive cooldown reaches 4 seconds, it will be too late into the game for Akali to have any impact in fights for the most part. The updated passive hurts Akalis already weak pushing power as well, since it won't be applied to turrets anymore. Lich Bane has fallen out of favor as a mandatory item for her over the past few seasons, which is an important tool for her to be able to push towers efficiently. With both these tools missing, her pushing power will be almost entirely nonexistent. I haven't tested it yet. But it also seems like her jungle will be hurt by the changes as well, since she might not be able to sustain herself in it anymore. Also, the order is wrong. Damage first, then healing, if they really insist on keeping the change.

W Pretty terrible update in my view. In order to make this ability better, all they'd have to do is add back some Armor/MR to it and fix the terrain bug. Combined with the change to pink wards, I feel like she'll be in a much better spot already, without the need for arbitrary "mechanics" that don't benefit her anyway. The dash is pretty redundant on her, since she is already mobile enough with the movement speed buff on W and her R, as well as Flash. Sacrificing the ability to freely and properly position your W for an unnecessary dash seems like a really terrible trade off and nerf. Now in order to place your W, which is her main tool for fighting anyone, she has to "waste" a high cooldown dash that could have been used to dodge a skillshot. It just feels very forced and the dash feels misplaced on W. The dash will most likely only be used for the sake of dashing in 10% of all W uses, the remaining 90% for the purpose of shrouding yourself like before.

E Don't really care much for E. they keep re-imagining this ability so many times, and it has always been the weakest part of her kit, regardless of what they did to it. Bringing back the Q triggers with E is probably the only way to make this ability worth anything, apart from pushing. Since her Passive has been nerfed, this is now her only pushing tool, and I don't know how to feel about it.

R Cutting off half the damage from R hurts her by a lot, since the only legitimate damage source is now Q. Passive is cooldown based, E is a meh skill to use in fights anyway. Taking away this much damage hurts, particularly since it's an ultimate ability. It isn't as impactful as many other ultimate abilities in the game. At level 1 it's 150 + 25% AP if you use 3 charges, assuming it's a 1v1 situation. At level 3 it's 450 + 25% AP. In comparison, Diana's 2 ult charges sit at 200 + 60% AP / 440 + 60% AP I am aware that they account for gaining extra charges in a fight, but first of all, Akali doesn't particularly enjoy big all out fights anyway, and secondly, even if she was to get an extra charge off of every single opponent dying, she'd be sitting at a grand total of 1200 flat damage, which Diana can easily surpass by merely using 6 ult charges, compared to Akali's 8. And this isn't even accounting for the much higher AP ratio Diana has.

Overall, the damage nerf on R seems incredibly hard, particulary the AP ratio nerf. Akali doesn't really go heavy on the AP for the most part, generally (and with changes to the passive pretty much forced to) rushing Gunblade into Hourglass/Abyssal, with the occasional Rylai's or Deathcap pickup. Lich Bane is a luxury no one can afford to build on here in this meta. Unless she is doing incredibly well, she will be sitting at around 300 AP towards endgame (just a random average I pulled out of nowhere), which with the new ratios to everything, and assuming she's sitting on 150 AD, will result in a total damage loss of at least 500 per full combo and 3 ult uses, disregarding E since it's not commonly used. Leaving the AP ratio at 50% cuts it down to 300, which I guess would be somewhat more acceptable.

Seeing how they made changes to pink wards, I feel like a better Akali could be achieved much easier:

  • Keep old passive or make new one trigger on towers and swap the procs
  • Keep old W placement style over redundant dash
  • Give W some defensive stats back (Armor/MR/% mitigation/Heal increase)
  • Keep W duration on 8 at all ranks and increase cooldown instead
  • Give her E the ability to proc Q back (mainly used for easier poke during hard lanes)
  • Keep reduced base damage on R but bring back 50% AP ratio

I had to leave halfway through writing this, so it kind of got messy and I lost a lot of thoughts, sorry for the wall of text. I haven't played the new Akali yet, but the number crunching I have done to compare her to the old Akali look really disappointing, scary and frankly, like a major nerf. The sound of the new Passive, particularly it not triggering on towers and the procs being in the wrong order again sounds like a major nerf and like it will be clunky to use. Her W I can probably get used to, but again, seems like a really poor tradeoff and nerf overall. The damage reduction on R is too heavy, in my opinion.

ktMsgaM0Sb4 votes

Thank you sincerely for your effort and thoughtfulness! This is the kind of discussion piece I like to see.

You bring up a very interesting point - I LOVE the idea of making her Crescent Slash have some kind of combo interaction with the rest of her kit. The example you bring up with the Yasuo E+Q is very interesting and makes my imagination run. Combos are good for increasing skillcap, separating the good from the bad, and the great from the good.

Another thing you've made me think about is her current passive, and the way it essentially is only effective with abilities. It's mostly dependent on the cooldown of her abilities, and therefore has a sort of inherent 'cooldown' as it is. Yes, her auto-attack applies magic damage and therefore she benefits from the spellvamp, but this is nothing in comparison to the magic damage form her abilities. This is a very interesting note that actually makes me think more critically (negatively) about the updated passive.

EDIT: Someone has suggested using her Crescent Slash to proc her Mark of the Assassin and heal her, thereby giving her the option to heal with a combo or burst with an auto-attack. It's unclear as to if this would perpetuate the whole 'instant burst is bad' concept, but it's certainly a cool way to combo her abilities. It is also a great way to push the theme of Twin Disciplines considering it's duality.

Thank you for your contribution, clearly we share some level of passion/interest. If that's the case, please be sure to spread the word, get more people involved!

Headhunterr4 votes

I agree, Akali its perfect the way she is, maby she is not part of the meta but not all champions has to be there... there is nothing op or nothing wrong with the original shroud, Akali shouldn't get any kind of damage reduction like the ultimate, I cant believe some tanks do a lot of damage, where are you positioning Akali doing that (the base r nerf)? this update is not helping her and its not helping Akali mains (I have 1.25m mastery) since apparently is not the only rework you are doing; In my opinion the pink ward its all the buff Akali needs, now with the original shroud she still has all the mobility and no more op counter vision (remember she still gets aoe damage since its a small area) so its fair the way it is now, the champ is old but gold, she used to be op years ago, no reason to rework to buff or to nerf her, the champion is PERFECT THE WAY IT IS, I am pretty sure you need to check who is reworking her because he is not a great champ reworker lol :P no offenses.

ktMsgaM0Sb2 votes

Thank you for your comment!

I, probably along with most Akali mains, would love to see her stay exactly the way she is. When I first heard about the pink ward being removed (before the assassin update was announced) I was very happy. I was finally going to be in a position where I wouldn't be instantly countered by 75g. Pink wards definitely didn't mean I was going to lose every match up, but it was a shame that her stealth was so easily countered. Unfortunately, I don't think there's any reality in which she stays the way she is now.

But hey, here's to hoping she ends up in a good place!

MtkLNd1RR64 votes

Building on what KaspWI had to say, I would really love her E to combo with something. Bringing back Q proc to her E would be going backwards and something riot don't want to do. However, realistically speaking, her Q proc is the easiest ability to combo it with from a design perspective. Instead her E will do its usual physical damage but it can proc her Q mark to heal Akali for a certain amount. Imagine lvling E second or third for sustain? Laning phase would be improved greatly. This could make her passive changes and nerfs to R damage AND the higher cool-down on her E seem fair, at least to me. However, her new shroud is still something i'm not sure i like. Nevertheless, this also feels like it would improve her theme of "twin disciples". Q+AA= Burst of Magic damage but no sustain. Q+E= Sustain but a little physical damage (relatively speaking of course).

Vikachu3 votes

As I don't have a PBE account, I haven't really been able to toy with any of the Akali changes as of yet; however a few things did come to attention. @Custom Formula pointed out some very good aspects of Akali's Twilight Shroud; at first the changes had me extremely excited. After all, as one of the last few dedicated Akali jungle one tricks in gold+, having a short dash available as a skill shot and not a targeted skill allows for a new means of either escaping or shortening the time it takes to clear. This is something that Elise, Nidalee, Gragas, Lee--to name a few--all had in common and made them such great farm junglers as well as early gankers. In my excitement, I had forgotten how integral the flexibility of Twilight Shroud as it is currently allowed me to survive. As well as outplay opponents. I take even the last game I played--I had faced a fed Eve, had I not had the flexibility of W; I would not have had the ability to outplay both Eve and another one of her laners. From both an offensive and defensive perspective; W has its uses. The dash is nice, but not a necessity. After all, how have Akali mains survived thus far? The decreased duration of W, however, certainly would make laning much harder, as well as 1v1'ing in the jungle for Akali junglers like myself.

Having the movement speed buff last throughout the duration of W while in shroud? Definitely something very nice. But limiting the range by which you can cast W is a mistake. @Custom Formula provided an excellent point in that placing down a W definitely allows for one to play mindgames with the opponent. I can't tell you how many times I've baited someone to throw down a pink into my shroud simply because they thought I was in it (but didn't really know), when in fact I had just thrown down my shroud from just over the wall.

I started playing league this season---back in early april I had picked up Akali and started playing her in the jungle. To be frank, Akali as I have come to know and love is part of the reason why I continue to come back and play league over other games. There's a certain satisfying feel to her that makes her fun to play as she is now, where getting fed and outplaying do require skill despite the overall mechanics for her as a champ not being exceptionally difficult. I believe that the hallmark of a good champ is that you can clearly feel when a certain player has skill with a champ versus that champ being ridiculously overpowered or underpowered that even the most beginner of players could trump a master; or a master losing to an absolute beginner.

Sometimes it is consistent content, rather than constantly flowing and updating content that captures gamers and players, and in my opinion this is certainly quite true about Akali as she is now.

Xipiz7003 votes

I totally agree with that. I dont have an PBE Account so i cant test it, but it sounds very weird. I think the W changes have to be reverted, i can live with the E and R changes. My Problem with the passive is, that it sounds very clunky and i loved the Healing from Spells and co.. So i thought about a passive thats fit Akalis theme and isnt bad for the gamehealth. Twin Disciplines

  • Discipline of Force: -Akalis AA dealing a fixed amount of bonusmagicdamage (scales with levels) (+30% AP), this passive is % effective depending on Akalis current HP (>80% Hp 100% effective - 0% HP 20-30% effective)
  • Dicipline of Might: -Akalis Spells healing for a fixed amount of HP (scales with levels) (+50% AD), this passive is % effective depending on Akalis current HP (<20% HP 100% effective - 100% HP 20-30% effective)
  • To negate Tankakali: -getting Bonus health lowers the healing from passive
  • to let akali has acces to itempaths with mana -Akali gets for mana a bit MR an Armor, but not to much, so it is nice to have but not worth to buy only AP items This is similar to her current passive on live Servers. Ik with this passive she still have burst, but only when she has enough HP, so bursting or poking Akali is the counterplay. When she is low live, she have to be healed or healing herself with the passive to make more dmg. The Mana Thing is just something i want to have to have options for Itempaths.
Blades in Exile3 votes

A great post about akali, I agree with what you said especially about her shroud. I cannot count how many times I've used it to reveal enemies in bushes jump them from afar and the new shroud will ruin that. I also don't see why riot would nerf her shadow dance CD but give her a second dash anyway, Just remove the dash on her W and let you choose where to cast it while lowering the cd on her ult by a bit.

ktMsgaM0Sb3 votes

Amen.

JesusCat3 votes

As a pretty avid Akali otp, myself, I wholeheartedly agree with pretty much all of your points. I understand the damage nerf to her r (although the nerf seems really extreme) it is the cooldown that gets me. The 2 seconds is way to long, and I know people are just going to say, "it's just one second!" but it truly does matter. Taking away that one second and giving her a blink is just really unneeded and, again, lowers the skill floor significantly for no reason. You could do 90% of what this blink will give you by just knowing the kit and being aware of the things you can use your r on. The shroud seems like it's supposed to be the cool new buff, but it is such a hard nerf. The short duration of the shroud will be crippling for farming in lane, where she already is one of the worst champs for that. Only having your q and a shroud good enough for maybe one minion is just terrible. You can normally get a few minions from her shroud as it is and it is much needed. The 0 range cast on the shroud is so terrible, I have no idea what they were thinking. This can be used in so many jukes and ways to mess with your opponent (again reiterating what you've already said) with just the range alone and is a very core part in hitting that skill ceiling. Taking that, along with no longer being able to scout with it, and using it with her r to jump to a camp, really just makes the ceiling the same level as the floor. Again, her r could already do things like jump over walls to camps, and it required some skill. I really do not like the passive, either. I would rather have her passive heal and dmg for a little less if it was constant like it is now, and didn't seem to be clunky with the heal being unneeded when you hit them first and then they have 8 secs of you not healing that they can kill you. I loved the splitpushing, too, as it was just another reason why I love playing her. It felt like she could do anything and be built any way you feel like, but with the passive the way it will be, it will significantly hurt her splitting, which I felt was a major reason I love her. You could do amazing things with her and the old rageblade, that it just felt so good killing towers in only a few rapid hits. I understand the rageblade change and I can accept it, but this is going too far.

InfernaI Akali3 votes

Preseason 7 Akali Thoughts

Hi there! Longtime Akali main here! I've been playing for almost four years (since the Mac release). Before I even started playing the game, I talked to a friend about it and described the sort of playstyle that I liked. He told me "you sound like an Akali player." He hit the nail right on the head, and I've been one-tricking her on and off since the beginning. I've been tracking my stats in games with her (just normals - I'm too nervous/have too bad of a connection for ranked) and over the 170 games I've played with her since I started counting this past January, I have a 60.59% winrate, 2.06 KD and 3.00 KDA. Here are my thoughts on the changes to her abilities and how they affect her playstyle.

Sorry if this seems somewhat hastily thrown together - I've had a lot of thoughts knocking around my brain for the last couple days.

Abilities

Passive

Current bonus damage on auto attack is more consistent, gives more damage overall in drawn-out duels, and helps a ton with farming, especially under turret, which is common pre-6. Effects are hard to see unless you’re looking for them but are definitely very important. This hidden power is what Riot is looking to change, but I don't think that that necessarily has to be done by making it less consistent.

Current spell vamp is absolutely huge to Akali's identity. To me, the three things that make Akali who she is are spell vamp, stickiness, and clever shroud use. The removal of revolver vamp felt like it hurt her identity enough, and this just worsens the matter.

New damage passive does fit Riot’s goal of extending burst window, but is less useful outside of laning phase where Akali can proc her first hit on a minion before going in. Also, the bonus damage not applying to towers is a big nerf, as the old passive's bonus damage to towers made her a good pusher, something that I found myself capitalizing on.

New heal passive is flat-out worse as far as I can tell. Spell vamp gives sustained and reliable healing that scaled with her AD as well as having a hidden AP scaling due to increased damage dealt. Now only scales with AD, meaning Riot can adjust the ratio so Akali either loses out on a lot of healing later in the game versus what she had before or instead becomes a sustain goddess with an AD build. This effect could be mitigated by instead offloading more of the heal onto the base component, but this would mean Akali is less snowbally, and Akali’s ability to tear teams up when far ahead is central to why mains love her. Having the first hit be a heal creates the disappointing and common situation where Akali engages at full health and the healing is wasted.

Old passive made it so your AD and AP interacted, since the effect of one was multiplied by the other. New passive separates them, eliminates multiplicative effect, disincentives building hybrid. We might even see some people just foregoing sustain altogether in favor of burst and building straight AP, essentially making her a generic assassin.

Q

No changes. I expected a QoL buff that would make it so her Q either flew faster or would proc instantly on reaching its destination if Akali auto attacked her target while it was still in the air, but no such luck.

Also, it’d be nice for the energy cost to be refunded if the initial damage killed the target. Farming from range with the ability takes great timing to pull off and should feel more rewarding IMO.

W

Small dash makes good matchups (largely melee matchups) more favorable since Akali can shroud into melee range against melee opponents for a double Q combo. Decreased uptime severely hurts bad matchups (read: ranged matchups, a.k.a. most games) for obvious reasons, and Akali’s being invisible instead of camouflaged pre-6 doesn’t help her since almost nobody starts the game with a pink ward. Reduced control over shroud placement hurts in bad matchups as it limits how close Akali can get to farm.

Movespeed buff in shroud overstates its own usefulness as if Akali uses her shroud for mobility, she’ll be placed at the outer edge of it and not benefit much (if at all) from the move speed.

Dash moving Akali over walls give more liberty in regards to what walls Akali can jump. Also creates juke potential a la Shaco. Doesn’t feel like it synergizes with kit - giving a tiny blink to a champion with three long range dashes feels unnecessary, though it does somewhat mitigate the ill effects of her ult CD nerfs.

Inability to cast shroud at range means getting closer to a jungle camp wall to jump over it. It also means missed potential to save allies with slow/grab assists/mind game enemies/reveal brush/many other things.

Increased cast time is exact opposite of what many Akali players wanted. Old shroud wasn’t useful for the speed buff at early-mid game due to cast time nullifying speed buff/slow. Removing cast time would make for better escapes (including shrouding over wall). There are many times where stopping to cast shroud has resulted in a grey screen, either due to a critical targeted CC landing or that one last auto attack connecting.

All in all far, far less versatility for shroud, and if anything, Akali players wanted to see more versatility and creative potential (which means a higher skillcap).

E

Long ago, E did not proc Q and was seen as a bland and useless spell, so Riot added Q proc functionality to it. Later, deeming her Q-RAQE combo too oppressive, they removed it again. Eventually, since a raw-damage point-blank AoE spell is boring, Riot buffed the cooldown and energy cost at later levels, giving Akali much-needed wave clear in the mid-lategame. The changes are an overall DPS and utility nerf (with a tad more upfront burst damage). Before, ability was boring but useful. Now, it’s boring and only slightly useful.

R

Severely reduced damage feels terrible but at least makes sense in the context of offloading upfront burst. May be a bit excessive, but numbers can always change.

Cooldown nerfs here are perhaps the most unfortunate change aside from the shroud. Having twice as long a cooldown between jumps at level 16 is colossal. At least the shroud changes help this.

R now gives 3 stacks at level 6. For me, this is a useless change. I’ve adapted to a style where I play safe and farm under tower before level 6, refusing to recall until I’ve hit level 6 (barring extreme circumstances). I end up hitting 6 with low hp remaining and immediately recalling to heal, stack up ultimate charges, and buy a revolver and preferably one or two long swords. Having 3 stacks when you hit 6 is useless if you’re too hurt to go for an all-in, and with the shroud uptime reduction, you’re almost guaranteed to be on the brink of death if you hang around lane until level 6.

My suggestions

Passive - Idea 1) Tweak passive so while above ~75% health, the two hits are swapped. This prevents wasted healing and creates an incentive for enemies to damage Akali before she gets her auto off to lessen her upfront burst.

Idea 2) Make the heal shield Akali for excess healing, similar to Bloodthirster.

Idea 3) Revert to live.

W - Keep same as live, with the additional change that Akali is invisible for the first 4/5/6/7/8 (or even 0/2/4/6/8) seconds but can be revealed by pink wards for the remainder of the time. This allows Akali to survive early in hard matchups but prevents her from having a really long pink-ward-proof stealth at rank 1, which would be an obvious problem.

E - Idea 1) Keep same as live - there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for the changes as they don’t seem like they were made to fit the guiding concept of extending burst patterns. They really just seem like raw nerfs.

Idea 2) Add bonus damage to minions that only scales with AP - keeps wave clear ability, prevents tank top Akali.

Idea 3) Refund part or all of cooldown/energy on killing a unit - allows wave clear, gives flavor. Would probably necessitate other tweaks to prevent abuse (looking at you, tank/AD Akali).

R - Revert cooldown.

I only just now noticed that for every single spell, I’ve included the suggestion to revert at least part of it to live. I wasn’t even thinking about this when writing these, but hey, if it fits.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Seeing this small-scale rework has somewhat demoralized me. As I recall it, the changes were hinted at as being small QoL buffs to throw a bone to the Akali players who felt that Riot had forgotten them. I believed this, and actually had a lot of faith in Riot. It felt good knowing that they still cared and were specifically trying to give longtime Akali players (is there any other type?) some new tricks without changing the identity that we love.

Well, I guess it’s the thought that counts.

Or, it would be. The actual changes make me think that they went the way of Evelynn, Urgot, and Olaf, throwing out that previously described idea and deciding instead to just gimp her until they could come out with a full and proper rework. Ask Yorick (and Sion [and Poppy {and Warwick and Galio}]) how long that will be.

Until then, Talon’s looking very fun.

EDITS: Typographical errors, slightly improved readability. Small note on passive damage to towers. Changed suggestion idea for W due to camouflage mechanics.

Dengeden2 votes

Hm. Some of the perks her Shroud offers and that are getting removed seem to be easily replaceable with wards. And the slow the shroud can provide from range is nice but I don't think giving Akali utility helps her power budget. While it would make sense thematically for her to not rely on her team, I don't think such a solo carry playstyle is feasible when she isn't a splitpusher.

I hope the changes to her passive (and damage nerfs) will give her windows of power, wherein she can sustain herself back up, similar to the way Vlad is now. That way, poking her won't be completely obsolete once she finishes Gunblade. (As an AA reset, it'll help her apply her Q and Revolver more quickly, that's a thing)

ktMsgaM0Sb3 votes

Interesting perspective, I appreciate the commentary!

HazyCloud72 votes

Upvote for well thought out objective post. As someone who plays mages primarily, dealing with Akali is always a really frustrating experience. I feel like I have to absolutely destroy her pre-6 (double cs and several kills) or I'm just going to get absolutely screwed over by her burst and can no longer really do much other than waveclear in lane. She's manaless, so often I'll have to trade through 4 potions and pray that I still have mana by then to have any hopes of killing her or forcing her out of lane, and even then her passive gives her a bit of sustain to mitigate trades. Three point and click dashes means that once she's onto you, she's going to stay onto you.

I can't speak much on the new passive (though quite frankly I think its poor design to give a champion so much sustain from the get go when their pre-6 is suppose to be the window to bully them but that's a debate for another time) but I will say I really like that riot shifted her power so heavily away from her three point and click dashes. I feel like so many players play akali just because of how cheesy she is on live, I genuinely believe Akali requires very, very little skill to get fed with. It's not a coincidence that she is #1 in kills per game among midlaners and #2 in killing spree. What differentiates a good akali and a bad akali is their ability to teamfight (or split push) effectively, and that is the part that requires skill. Get to level 6 and even if heavily behind you can outtrade and potentially solo kill any midlaner with ignite. 3 point and click dashes + burst with only a hextech revolver makes it easy to get fed simply by roaming (literally happens at least 80% of the time I see an akali on the enemy team). Laning and playing against her now should be a lot more fair I think, her point and click dashes need to be for outplay potential and mobility and now they will be. Because of that I absolutely disagree that her skill cap was lowered in this update, I think it went up quite a bit. Any time you shift damage away from a point and click 700 range ability as they did for LeBlanc too, a champion's skill cap will inherently increase. Which is a good thing, and if they find that she's too underpowered they can buff her passive or E.

ktMsgaM0Sb1 votes

Thank you for your great perspective.

My points in regards to your comments:

  • Yes, her pre-6 should be weak. Because she is energy-based, she can out-spell any mana-based champions, and therefore has essentially infinite potential to spellvamp to sustain in lane.

  • Pre-6, assuming her opponent has decent knowledge of zoning, trading, and harassing, she will be punished for stepping anywhere she shouldn't be.

  • When she hits 6, she only has 1 charge on her dash.

    I'm not sure what your experience is, but it's widely understood that her pre-6 phase is very weak. I don't think this update does much to change that. If anything, it makes farming harder given the halved duration of her shroud.

  • Yes, you're right about teamfighting differentiating the good and bad Akali players. As is the case with most assassins.

  • In terms of roaming, you're right. It is easy for her to stick to somebody and burst them down. I don't think it should be exactly how it is now, but I don't think it should be the way the update establishes for the reasons I've outlined in my post. That's where it's our job to remind Riot what her identity is (as they've said they're looking to cater towards Akali players*) - it's not a push to keep her cheesy.

*Why is Riot trying to keep the thoughts of Akali players in mind? She has a 2.5% pickrate - her devoted community is small.

My final thoughts:

I keep coming back to this, maybe I'll make a post about it; I think the best way to keep her dashes in the more satisfying damage range while maintaining a healthy playstyle is by making her kit combo-based. Combos are great for 3 reasons:

  1. They increase a champion's skillcap (i.e. Riven)
  2. They are more satisfying to pull off.
  3. They are more satisfying to play against. Why? Combo-based champions must utilize their entire kit to be effective.

Why is this good for non-Akali players?

  • Akali is harder to play.
  • Akali is harder to master.
  • It's harder for Akali to pull off her burst.

Why is this good for Akali players?

  • True Akali masters get to shine.
  • Akali gets to keep her higher damage dash at the cost of the rest of her damage being more difficult to pull off.
  • Combos scale well, being less effective in the earlier stages of the game. This stop the Akali solo-que cheese you describe.

I'd like to hear your thoughts!

HazyCloud71 votes

She is very weak pre-6, yes. I main Viktor, and any time I lane against Akali I always end up going way up in cs, harass her heavily and force her to use her abilities to cs. When you have to burn through 4 potions + deal with her sustain though, it's actually really difficult to kill an equally skilled Akali pre-6. Not to mention jungle pressure from stuff like Zac (aka Mr. Blow Flash or You Die), which can really put a damper on trying to put her behind. But even if she is super far behind in cs, she has so much inherent burst in her kit after level 6 + ignite + hextech revolver (pretty cheap item). So at this point after first back even though I've attained a large cs lead I can no longer interact with her in lane if I want to avoid dying because 3 point and click dashes means once she's on you she's going to stay on you, and that feels pretty crappy. You can't outplay really 3 point click dashes with 300 damage + 150% AP total (live) That can be alleviated to an extent by getting negatron cloak/hexdrinker, but you get the point, and after a certain point an abyssal scepter wont prevent you from getting 100-0'd. I realize this isn't the case for every mage (a well played Anivia or Syndra with ignite can definitely kill her pre-6)

In general I think shifting damage away from point and click is a great way to increase counterplay/skill cap for a champion, so I'm definitely in agreement with you in regards to changing her into a combo assassin. There's a lot of room for change on her Q and E I think.

ktMsgaM0Sb3 votes

You're comments are very well constructed and insightful - I would say in the case of Viktor, (and I know I keep getting into particulars, but I can't help it, so ignore this bit if you choose), a well-timed stun can be very punishing for Akali. But yes, I understand your point.

Generally, point-and-clicks are poor to play with and against - nobody want's Syndra to press R and click on them. In Akali's case, it is very satisfying for the player, and frustrating for the opponent. That being said, I do think there is some kind of middle ground between a point-and-click and a skillshot - this is something I've talked a small bit about with someone else on this thread.

Xipiz7002 votes

The Problem with Akali right now, is that she has 0 to poke enemys before going in, becide jumping over minions (which is literally undoable with the 2s cd at all ranks). That means when she hasnt enough burst, she wouldnt be able to kill an enemy in lane. Becide that she can be easily punished with CC, so she have to build Rylais and other tanky stuff to engage even when the enemys have all their CDs. WHen you look at other assasins as Zed, Talon, Leblanc, Kha zics, Shaco or Rengar, they all have a tool to get safe onto the enemys or out, Akali with the changes doesnt, cuz she cant jump again and have to wait 2s whats compared to a dead Akali. Akali Needs her Spellvamp or Burst to assasinate someone. And now Riot nerfs her Laningphase (W), her quick killpotential (R, E) and her Spellvamp (P) to a Level where Akali doesnt feel like Akali, cuz her kit is to clunky, have likely 0 Outplaypotential and her Playstyle is changed. When the Rework wouldnt be changed i think i will Switch to Kennen or Diana.

Pierce The Veal2 votes

Changes I want to pbe akali:

Remove cooldown on passive, make it alternate between dealing damage and healing.

W: remove all changes to shroud

E: make its scaling at least double that of live. Nerf the base damage if you have to.

R: don't change the cooldown or prevent it from being affected by cdr. And, perhaps, make the ult scale better but remove most of the base damage? My idea is keep its base damage at 50 the entire game but make its scaling go up with rank (0..25/0.50/0.75).

Potentially give her A and R AD scalings. Or maybe make her scale with a product of the AD and AP? (Like maybe 0.5xADx0.3xAP)

Zaghyr2 votes

I completely agree with your points on Twilight Shroud, and I can't really add anything else to it. But I can give my thought on the rest of the changes.

P: After testing it out, I don't think it's actually that bad, gameplay-wise or thematically. However, the point has been brought up multiple times that having the heal first is pointless if you are full health, and I agree, and that having the heal first real messes with your burst pattern and kill potential in general. My idea is that If you are full heath, the damage goes first. Additionally, some interaction could be added to Crescent Slash, with I will bring up again later.

Q: Had no changes, its perfect, even though a small part of me wants it to have an AD ratio.

W: You have already outlined the problems I have with this and more. But regardless, there is still some potential for this ability to do something more. The only thing I would recommend would be to remove the stupid blink and allow Akali to place the shroud at a chosen location again, but keep all the other changes, and maybe increase the slow percentage or give her % reduced damage while stealthed. As for potential, I can see the Shroud being a heavy vision disruption, but the specific mechanics could vary. Two ideas I've though of are reducing vision radius of somebody inside, or making whoever is inside have the Blind debuff if they attack someone outside the shroud. With the latter, it would mean that if the enemy was in the shroud, they could only attacks others in the shroud.

E: The 'meh' ability. As much as I'd love to see it proc her Q again, I don't think they will ever bring it back. If they did though, I could see it only doing a portion of Q's proc damage. Also going to note, after doing some number crunching, overall, as long as you have some bonus AD, the damage of Crescent Slash is actually buffed at all stages of the game. The main thing, however, that I would like this ability to do, which I mentioned briefly in the passive, is to switch the order of the passive after use. The current heal-then-damage of the passive is nice for laning phase because you only have to auto once to get the heal, instead of twice. But with this change, If the passive is off cooldown, and has not been triggered yet, then the damage will come first if used within a short window. The would fix her clunky and unreliable burst pattern.

R: The base damage nerf was a given, but the ratio nerf was a bit much. Only two things I would like to see with this ability, give it an AD ration, and second, allow you to dash to your shroud.

SilentSwrdMan2 votes

What I would like back is the passive. I really liked it and thought that it made her unique. If you think about it, there are other champs with similar things like Shadow Dance for example Katarina, Talon and Ezreal. It bothers me how they are trying to suppress her potential instead of balancing it. Instead of nerfing the damage and cooldown of Shadow Dance, they should pick one and stick to it. I'd honestly prefer them to nerf the damage as the cooldown for ultimate is very important. Sometimes 2 seconds isn't enough to get out of a team fight. I really don't like what they have done with the passive. Especially how it heals before doing damage. That doesn't really make sense at all. I like how mid-late game after a fight I can heal up without a delay. I know this is an unpopular opinion but I think that the new Tiwlight Shroud is actually not that bad. I honestly don't like the new Crescent Slash either as it is also a nerf. They should rework Crescent Slash like they did to the passive and bring the passive back. This would make a lot more sense as the passive is very important in Akali's kit compared to Crescent Slash. I think the current Crescent Slash has no purpose other than waste energy. What I'd like Riot to do is: Bring the old Twin Disciplines back Change Crescent Slash into something that has utility and damage Add some damage and get rid of the high cooldown on Shadow Dance

JesusCat2 votes

@SilentSwrdMan Yeah, I would almost say I would rather r do no damage than get rid of the one second on the cd. The old passive was so perfect, even if it was just some stats. I don't know how many times I have r'ed to something and I was saved off my spell vamp on my r.

Godslayer Unas2 votes

Indeed I feel like a lot of Akali Mastery comes from knowing how much you'll heal for and if you can win a fight with that or not. Unlike say, Tryndamere, who when split pushing will often have a guaranteed win on a 1v1 if someone wants to show up and stop him.

ThrowsTheBird2 votes

About the shroud:

It has become clear to me that the team responsible for the assassin class rework does not have the faintest idea on how to do their job properly.

They give a champion with 3 jumps a short range blink. It's like giving Malphite rework a single target knockup to go with his ult. IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE.

The shroud placement is of utmost importance when you are trying to master Akali. You can: reveal areas, slow enemies, place it to gain speed, place it to deter enemies etc. Ok, they have to counter somehow the fact that you cannot be detected but losing all control over placement?

I think this is another thing we should as a community protest.

Rank Battery1 votes

You have too much time lol

ktMsgaM0Sb3 votes

I have just enough time :)

The Loveless1 votes

TL;DR response here. Riot has already said that while Akali was not a big four assassin rework, they acknowledge she needs and will GET a proper rework down the line. You want changes? They coming.

Soon TM

ktMsgaM0Sb4 votes

Yes, the changes are coming. Next in line we have Warwick and Galio, though. Based on the history of Riot's rework pattern, it's going to be a while before Akali sees her time, given that there's at least two champions in front of her.

No, I don't want her to be changed. But she has to be changed if she's going to fit into Riot's framework for assassins. I mentioned this in the commentary, and how I am nervous for those changes because I feel they've mishandled these smaller ones. This is why I note at the beginning that a TL;DR is not so effective for such a long post, but I do greatly appreciate your input.

Thank you!

The Yetii Rider1 votes

Your post hinges on the idea that the data you've gathered represents a consensus of Akali's mains. I find this hard to believe.

Can you read Korean? Russian? Portuguese? We have LAN Akali mains, Chinese and Taiwanese Akali mains, people play Akali in Thailand, in Europe and in Oceania.

Sammystorm1 votes

As a person who hasn't played as akali in years. I will say the biggest thing that akali is known for is her twilight shroud and not her ability to dash a bunch of times. Her dash is not very notable as someone playing against her because it provides no interaction other then stay out of range or don't. Her dash also has a large range. Which makes that point even less interactive.

ktMsgaM0Sb7 votes

That's interesting that you'd say that. I'm going to hammer something home:

  • Akali players want the dash to be satisfying (i.e. remain how it is)
  • Everyone else wants the dash to be less effective.

You mention you haven't played Akali in years - that means you've been playing against her, and therefore fall into the category of 'Everyone else'.

Yes, she is known for her Twilight Shroud. My ranking system is not based on what she's known for by everyone else. The rankings are based on what Akali mains have come to associate with her identity. As I explained, this is why it is difficult for everyone else to understand the way Akali mains would like to see her kit progress.

I'm not trying to treat these players like they know better than everyone else or anything like that. I'm simply voicing what I've seen to be their perspectives as a fellow Akali main.

Thank you for your thoughts!

TheSingularity1 votes

I don't even play akali. And purely based on who I play mid..... I hate this champ and her "hit 6 and wreck" thingo.

But take my upvote babe. YOU'VE PUT TOO MUCH TIME AND EFFORT INTO THIS POST FOR IT TO BE BURIED UNDER EVERYTHING ELSE!!!

ktMsgaM0Sb2 votes

I appreciate the support even though you're not a fan of Akali! This thread is for everyone, non-Akali fans and Akali lovers alike.

Regarding her level 6 spike: the vast majority of champions have power spikes that are just as (if not more) effective at dominating their lane opponent. Zed's Deathmark is nothing to scoff at. Riven's execute damage with her second cast of Blade of the Exile, not to mention the bonus attack damage it gives. Ahri's Spirit rush. These are all examples of ultimates that can devastate an unwary opponent.

If you are referring to the roaming potential Akali gets with her ultimate, my point remains the same.

I'm not saying this is good or bad, I'm simply saying that she's not the only champion that functions the way that she does - it makes me sad that she happened to get sort of targeted by this coming update because she happens to fall into a particular category.

Is Ahri getting any nerfs? No. (I'm definately not saying she should, but hopefully you get my point)

Plus, on top of everything else, her pre-6 is the worst out of any champion I've mentioned (and just many, many others). I guess that's been the justification for her kit up to this point.

Thank you once again! Spread the word, get people talking. Remember, this thread is good for Akali haters too.

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