Did the Assassin Rework really accomplish the coolness factor it was triyng to bring to some champs?

If you take for say, , is she really that viable and non-linear? Your goal for the assassin update was to make champions "non-linear" and "unique". Don't even get me started on how she had a 1.7 percent play rate and was not even viable in the first place. Let's start with her E:

E: COOLDOWN: 5/4/3/2/1 second ⇒ 5/4.5/4/3.5/3 seconds DAMAGE: 30/55/80/105/130 ⇒ 70/100/130/160/190 RATIO: 0.4 ability power + 0.6 total attack damage ⇒ 0.5 ability power + 0.7 bonus attack damage NEW ALMOST GOT THE RESET: If Crescent Slash kills a unit, its cooldown is 60% refunded

_somehow nerfing an already bland boring ability makes it unique?

W: NEW SMOKE BOMB: Now teleports Akali to the cast location, placing Twilight Shroud at her original position NEW CAN’T CAST THAT YET: Casting Twilight Shroud places Akali’s other abilities on a 0.5 second global cooldown NEW CAST RANGE: 250 NEW SPEEDY SHROUD: Akali now retains Twilight Shroud’s full bonus movement speed value until she leaves the area

R: COOLDOWN: 2/1.5/1 second ⇒ 2 seconds DAMAGE: 100/175/250 ⇒ 50/100/150 RATIO: 0.5 ability power ⇒ 0.25 ability power

Hmm something is wrong when your level 1 ult does less damage than a janna auto attack

_As I hope you can see, all there is are nerfs and nerfs. Her passive I have to admit is just awesome in change, but the rest of her gameplay just feels neglected and gutted. Somehow reducing damage is supposed to make a champion non-linear and unique to play? That doesn't make sense. _

I quote Riot Scruffy:
We agree that akali is in a pretty bad spot. Her kit is not nearly as cool/deep as it could be and playing against akali when she is strong is quite frustrating when you feel like there is nothing that you could have done to save yourself against her. We're in the early stages of some (think fiora ish scope) work on her gameplay with a few goals in mind. Overhaul and upgrade that W shroud - remove the hard counter issues with pink wards in favor of more generally accessible play, and explore cool new possibilitys for how this spell could benefit her team in a unique way Create a much more clear success path for akali that gives both an akali that is behind or an opponent vs a fed akali some way to turn the fight in their favor Amp up cool factor overall - there are some pretty bland spells in there that we can just redo for much more flexible and fun gameplay Preserve the akali core - You like dashes? You like big burst damage? You like coming in and out of a smoky shroud? Dual scalings? we want to hit on all of these things that we think akali players hold close to their hearts right now. Just wanted to expose some of our thinking on akali to have a discussion. Keep in mind that we are early on her design work so dont expect these changes to hit live in the near future, but we are getting started on what we think is a very needed update.

The problem is that pretty much none of that had been completed. Her w isn't considered an upgrade since it just makes laning phase harder as you cannot place it unless you're already there. There is no clear success path, she was already bad and is now even worse when behind. When you say that you're going to amp up cool factor, how come you didn't change her e, the most boring and needy of rework in her kit? I'm not saying that this rework has been an absolute failure, because it is pretty cool and makes her less one dimensional, but she is still just about as one dimensional as she was before the rework. If you want to give her a buff (she deserves it at 46 percent win rate), then buff her e and instead of letting it proc q, let it proc both passives to champions, aoe. Tone down her healing on her passive. It makes sense that her e procs her passive, since she's hitting them with her Kamas. Overall, Akali still needs quality of life buffs and hopefully a rework very soon to fix her problems.