Let's talk: Akali - Boards vs Reality

First, I want to say that I know some people will get offended, and sadly, that can't be helped, there's no putting it gently, we ain't alternating the flow, you get dissed directly. And since people will get offended, I have to ask the moderators to calm the bouncers and use the edit function instead of the delete function. Yes, moderators can edit threads and remove the the part that they find offensive without deleting whole comments or threads.

Second, since we talk about Akali, I know so many of you will rush to my OP.GG and comment how those 5 ranked games from over a year ago that I lost on her invalidate all my input from this thread. I mean, people did it 3 times so far, so I wouldn't be surprised if they do it again, so here, my actual credentials: http://prntscr.com/qms8xa

Now, let's start claps hands this one's gonna be a blast....hopefully not Team Rocket type of blast.

Note: The first part will talk about the low elo problem and the second part will talk about her main problem and why she is good in high elo right now. There's gonna be TL:DR after each part.

So, this will be a very...annoying...comment for many players, but sadly it's the truth. Most players who cry about Akali on the boards, and by most, I mean around, if not over, 90% of them, are bad at the game, and many of them have no actual idea what Akali does, and I mean it, few days ago I saw a comment saying her Obscure is too OP and it needs removing....but Obscure isn't in the game since 9.14, and we're on 10.1. Today I've seen 2 people on a Sett thread agreeing that Akali should definitely lose the healing from her Q.....again, we're on 10.1, Akali doesn't have healing on Q since 9.3, meaning that in less than 1 month it's a whole year since she no longer has healing on Q yet there still are people even to this day who believe that she still has it.

And the other part who do know what she does yet cry about her are simply too....not bad bad, just bad bad bad. Hard to explain so I'll describe. In the past, I made 2 threads regarding her, in one of which I showcased all my matches against Akali as her lane opponent, I skipped the ones where I wasn't her lane opponent, and the result....out of all the Akalis I faced, only one didn't got murdered because her jungler was hard camping, so I just kept her underfarmed. I was told that it doesn't matter that I can play against her, people shouldn't be forced to learn to play against her just to defeat her. The 2nd thread was me talking about all the mistakes people make on her and against her from 3 perspectives: as Akali, against Akali, as Akali's team mate, mistakes that should allow all those who want to defeat her, to do so. No need to say it was downvoted to hell and back and back to hell and back, and except one person who agreed with me and actually posted an opinion regarding the thread, all others comments were "you're wrong" but no info on why, or even made up reasons why I'm wrong, such as my name, or those 5 losses from over a year ago, and they would discredit all the data simply because "data doesn't matter". People would cry on the boards on how Akali beats Darius in lane which shouldn't happen, but when the data shows that Darius only loses to Akali until Platinum, in Diamond it's 50-50 but slightly in Darius' favor while above, Darius goes from a 52% lane win rate against Akali up to 67% lane win rate against her, meaning he eats her for breakfast, lunch and dinner and sometimes as a snack in between and now I'm hungry, they simply say that the data doesn't matter, yet the data showcases that it is indeed a knowledge problem not a champion problem.

What does that mean? People don't want to get better and win against her via skill, they want to win against her by playing on auto-pilot similar to how they win against other champions. They want to win against her via the flashy plays they are used to do, war of attrition via lane management? Nah, "me no able sit in W and win, W broken, me must sit and win". The feeling of "no agency" is given by the lack of knowledge. She presses pause on their auto-pilot and they no longer know what to do. For me for one, and the highest Akali I've defeat in lane was a D2 with around 100k mastery on her, Akali is one of the most interactive lanes I've played in LoL.

But why does the low elo problem regarding her matter? Because it showcases one of Akali's 2 sides. Her counterplay is not just knowledge, but team work as well, yet low elos in a lot of cases have an issue with team work, many players run from it faster than Predator Hecarim boosted by both Shurelia's and Righteous Glory while he built full MS. But the team play issue is not Akali specific, it affects many champions, so I guess that one makes less difference than just the knowledge part.

Lack of team play and lack of knowledge from players cause Akali to be stronger in lower elos than she should be, but that mostly keeps up at laning phase, as later into the game, Akali suffers from the same issue most players trying to play highly mechanical champs face: they have good mechanics but lack any sort of macro knowledge, and while true that sometimes getting fed from your enemy can win you the game, most of the time it will do little to nothing if you don't know how to spread your lead, just ask the "I get fed every game yet I'm still in Silver after over 1000 games" guy who was crying on the boards last week that he can't carry.

TL:DR p1 - How to defeat Akali in lower elos? Get good.

Now, what makes Akali strong in high elo? Well, it's not her kit alone, I can assure you of that.

Why am I so sure? Simple. During patch 9.22 she was quite meh in Challenger and high elo, 20% ban rate, around 6% play rate and a bellow 48% win rate. Then something happened in 9.23 that cause her to spike heavily in all 3 places, her ban rate going over 50%, play rate doubling and win rate going over 50%, with one more change in 9.24 that fully took her over the edge. None of those 2 patches had any direct changes to her, so if it was her kit, she should've had the same stats during 9.22 she has now, but the stats she has now are so out of proportion compared to what she had back then, ban rate is triple, win rate is almost 10% higher and pick rate is doubled (again, talking Master+ only). So it's clear that whatever happened during 9.23 and 9.24 is the cause why she is OP in high elo, so what happened?

9.23 - Current version of Conqueror was introduced, solving Akali's biggest issue. Pre 9.23, Akali would pick either Fleet Footwork or Electrocute, both runes having bellow 49% win rate, one gives sustain, the other gives damage, then in 9.23 comes the new Conqueror, giving both damage and sustain, basically, the best of both words spiking her through the roof. 9.24 furthers boosts her with the introduction of both Elemental Drakes and a certain rune, Presence of Mind. As you all know, hopefully, some of you don't read patch notes, the new PoM gives her 10 more max energy up to 50 max energy for each takedown, and 20% of her max energy for every takedown. That's between 40 to 50 for the first 4 takedown and 50 after every next takedown.

Energy champions are designed to have small windows where they do a bit of chaos, then run dry for 10-20 seconds, based on cooldowns of important spells and range. PoM changes that by making their window of power via giving them more base energy to work with, but every takedown refuels them making them have juice for even longer fights. Now, due to cooldowns and playstyle, this doesn't really affect Lee or Shen or Kennen too much, Zed is iffy, as it does lower his skill cap by a good bit by no longer having to manage energy as much before kills, and the last one left is Akali, and for her it's massive. She's designed to play in longer trades via going in and out BUT her energy is the limiting factor of how long she can do it, but PoM nullifies that weakness after the first 1-2 takedowns and even more so in team fights. Also, before Conqueror and PoM, she was kinda forced to take Ravenous Hunter just to be able to play her lanes, but now thanks to how busted Conqueror is, she can afford to take Ultimate Hunter for even more power.

Conqueror is so busted that Korean Challengers dropped so many keystones even from assassins such as Elise, Kha'Zix or Nidalee and went Conqueror on them, proof of that can be found in the "Korean meta" vids from Pro Guides or Phylol.

Currently those two runes aren't something anyone can abuse, but those who can.....holy smokes are they busted, and Akali is a special case because she uses both.

TL:DR p2 - Why is Akali OP in high elo? It's not her kit, as before 9.22, she was extremely balanced for her design, it's Conqueror and Presence of Mind that push her over the edge, couple the pressure she can create along the fact that high elo actually likes to play as a team is a cocktail for disaster.

Now, how would I nerf Akali in a way to not ruin her kit, which again, is balanced without runes or other runes that don't include Conqueror and PoM? Obviously we need to address the Mordekaiser in the room, nerf Conqueror by making it so AoE abilities grant only 1 stack instead of 2, reduce it's healing to 10% melee 8% ranged, and have it have the same AoE penalty as Death's Dance or Ravenous, the nerf Gunblade by lowering the healing to 10% and finally.....PoM.....that thing needs a rework, as it breaks so much stuff, such as Cass, Kass, Ryze and others. How I'd nerf that? Remove energy from it completely, remove the extra mana on takedowns and lower the refund from 20% to 10%. Make it the Manaflow Band of Precision.

All these things will hurt Akali the way same way she got OP, indirectly. Nerfing her kit even more will just shoehorn her into making these runes mandatory, and when they will finally get nerfed, as they will, Akali will be in the same situation Quinn was a good while ago, in need of buffs because what made her strong is gone but her nerfs are still there, and I'm sure so many of you will love to see Akali being buffed in the patch notes, right?

TL:DR p3 - How to balance Akali? Nerfing exactly what makes her OP, Conqueror and PoM. Nerfing her kit even more will render her unplayable when the runes will be finally nerfed as those two runes are what keep her afloat.

I would like to hear your opinions and suggestions, but would like to ask you to keep it friendly and civil, although I'm not the gal to get offended, some people around here have very thin skin.