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Irelia Discussion - Akali Rework - The Fear of The Irelia Syndrome

Kuro Nekoshi·4/9/2018, 7:07:37 AM·5 votes·1,663 views

Hi there,

My name is Kuro, I've been an Akali main for as long as I remember, and I've played on a lot of accounts, where I've gotten to Diamond even Master Rank. Overall on my accounts, I think I have about 2.5Mil points on Akali, and I really do enjoy her playstyle a lot.

After seeing what happened to Irelia, I've come to fear the Akali rework. Not because I don't think Irelia is a pretty awesome champion now, but because it seems Irelia has a REALLY awkward playstyle compared to the old Irelia now.

Let me break it down as how I see it, don't judge me too hard though, I haven't played a whole lot of Irelia, but I do have an account with 200k points on her.

Starting with the OLD Irelia The old Irelia had a really nice feature being almost immune to CC in teamfights, which made her a really awesome dive champion. But her W true damage and heal, also meant she did a lot of damage. The way I always thought about Irelia, was like a reverse Zed or someone like Nocturne. Just better. The fact she could go in, do insane amounts of damage without having to worry insanely about being CC'd down was something I enjoyed. Because it was unique to her, sure we have Olaf and Yi, we even got Ornn for gods sake. But, Irelia felt different, she felt skillful. She had so much outplay potential, and it really rewarded players who put time into her.

The NEW Irelia I've played the new Irelia quite a bit on PBE (19 games in total on PBE), and quite a bit on some of my other accounts. (27 games in total on Live) And to be honest, she feels... Lacking to say the least, there's so much pressure on the Q damage now. It kinda feels like it's a low damage Zoe E, it's way overfocused. In the sense that I personally feel that the Q, is quite stupid. Not Zoe damage stupid, but Tahm Kench W stupid. It feels like this ability shouldn't really need that much focus, I feel like the damage it gives doesn't make sense with what she used to be. The old Irelia was free to dive in when she felt like it, and sure some would call her unbalanced, but how often did you really see her? Not much right? The New Irelia needs to be scared of everything, every SINGLE SUPPORT can ruin her, and I mean EVERY SINGLE SUPPORT. She can't do enough damage against tanks to deal with a tank toplaner, and sure that's a counterpick, but the old Irelia was at least capable of going even on trades because she had that true damage.

Now lets talk about what I feel could be done here, not to break her, not to overly buff her nor make her a useless champion.

I feel like they should bring something to the E, more to the E.

The E feels so great to hit, but it doesn't really feel like it lives up it. The E isn't HARD to hit, but it isn't easy either, and when you hit it, honestly feels lackluster.

What I really think could make her nice to play, while putting more on E and not on Q. While having something that is connected to her Q, is this.

When you hit your E, you should get the true damage, you should get the same true damage as you had on the old Irelia W, based on E level. So when you hit your E, you'd get to deal some extra true damage on marked champions for the mark duration.

This would make it more situational because you could Q to pop the mark directly, and only deal the true damage once. OR go with the old playstyle where you Q to a low HP minion, attack until the mark is about to run out, then Q. This would make her feel A LOT more like the old Irelia, which personally I feel is lost in the new Irelia.

And I get they changed her to fit the theme, and this is more like an Aatrox style rework.

But it doesn't make sense to me, end of the Irelia discussion, now back to the main topic, the fear of the Akali Rework.

I'm scared, of the upcoming Akali rework. For reasons that she'll end up like Irelia is now, where they seem to have "Ruined" the classic playstyle of Irelia, to overall fit her theme better.

I'm tired of watching champions core gameplay and playstyle get changed so much, because riot calls it unbalanced and hard to balance. Let me give you an example of a champion I used to play alot, before she was basically killed by Riot's rework.

Quinn

I feel like Quinn's old ultimate of changing form playing as Valor, was great. Going from a DPS to a Melee Assassin really felt like something unique to her, and sure it was hard to balance. But what that Quinn built upon was snowballing and sword of the occult, or the 3 secured crits of Sword of the Divine.

She lost that nice feel of being able to fly in, and really nuke someone.

I'm tired of losing this, and for how this ties into Akali, here we go.

Akali's core right now is based on how well you can balance your passive damage and heal combined with Q, and W R mobility. This means her major kill potential is based around her ultimate and gunblade, see where I'm getting at? The old Quinn ultimate also gave Quinn a major amount of kill potential with the attack speed she gained, and the secured blind.

The classic trade/nuke combo for Akali during a lane phase, is AA a minion once to heal, then Q R AA the enemy laner. This can do a absolute ton of burst, and if they don't respect that, you can most likely kill them.

Sure Akali doesn't really feel like she fits the theme of being "The fist of Shadow".

So here's what I'm scared of: Removal of the "Newly" added heal Removal of her major mobility // Adding more conditions to her mobility Removal of her waveclear possiblities Addition of time to bursting (Making her unable to nuke, like the new Irelia and "new" Quinn)

Let me know what you feel about all of this, down in the comments, I'd love to know more.

Stay cool, this is just a friendly discussion, and you're free to tell me how you feel, but don't be offensive. Please keep it friendly.

Sincerely Kuro Nekoshi [sg-ahri-2]

9 Comments

Nut on my Butt4/9/2018, 8:51:38 AM7 votes

Wat, new Irelia has way more outplay potential than the old one simply because she has access to more Q resets now. The Q resets + her new ult and aoe stun give her so much teamfight presence that she lacked previously as well.

Also, it was widely agreed upon by her mains that her passive after being changed was pretty useless, as it was on in effect while outnumbered, so it's not like you cc was negligible. I could see a case for her old, old passive tho, but I barely played her when she had that so idk what it was like.

Tanks don't really counter Irelia now, and her magic damage passive is so much better than her old W simply because it ACTUALLY has scaling. The mixed damage still makes her hard to itemize against early. I've laned vs a Rammus toplane who rushed ninja tabi and bramble vest and was kicking my butt, but all I had to do was build a Wit's End and he simply couldn't fight me. If you REALLY want true damage so badly, conqueror is more than viable.

Her E feels incredibly satisfying to hit imo, because often that's all it takes to setup an all in kill on someone, especially squishies.

She still feels like Irelia, they simply got rid of a lot of the problematic stuff that a lot of her playerbase didn't really care about like the flat true damage as well as her problematic stun and passive.

It's hard to tell how Akali's will turn out, but I feel that Riot has been spot on with their recent reworks, as they've focused mainly on getting rid of the parts that are hard to balance, which is why Evelynn's turned out so drastic.

ankoanko194/9/2018, 1:30:49 PM6 votes

The old Irelia had a really nice feature being almost immune to CC in teamfights No that ended in 2016 (patch 6.17).

Suzumiya Haruhi4/9/2018, 10:41:01 AM3 votes

I play over 400 games with old irelia and have to say new irelia suck...

Acheron164/9/2018, 1:09:27 PM2 votes

I dont see how old Irelia was less clunky when the new one not only has extra damage to minions (not sure if the old one had that), but also can dash to enemies multiple times compared to the old one.

Yes, she lost tenacity and true damage, but she had to lose something from her kit, it simply had too much.

Ralik0984/9/2018, 2:39:12 PM2 votes

I play both of these champions also and agree with you mostly, but good luck convincing people that don't know anything about old Irelia that the new one isn't really like her tho lol. Her power curve is literally the exact opposite of old Irelia now.

MUH BLADSURGE IS STILL THE SAME!!!

And I'm worried about Akali as well since Riot has shown so many times that they really don't care about preserving old champions.

Núrse MeÐúsÂ4/9/2018, 2:17:53 PM1 votes

Riot has many incentives for the way they impacted do reworks. It generates more revenue for them and forces veterans and loyal mains to be more active opposed to being comfortable. Kind of like deliberate meta shifts that riot controls. It’s the same with all popular games but riot has become excessively greedy recently. This makes its player base more aggravated in an already toxic community and more competitive/addicted. Lol has the greatest potential to be a fun casual game too that’s not how the manipulation is played or marketed.

Now, regarding the rework - The rework that impacted me the most was Vlad. I have played over 2000 games on vlad alone and he made me invest into league. The rework was crushing!!! I pleaded my case to guinsoo who helped rework bald and Shen to no avail. The Shen rework made my friend quit and he spent more than 300 dollars on league. For nonvlad mains it may appear as if his changes aren’t bad comparatively but let me explain. They changed the life cost on r. I enjoyed balancing his life even the buff pissed me off. Constant changes to rylais. His primary item. Reduced healing ratio. What makes him... him Increases transfusions cd. This IS vlads primary poke and healing factor. It is like lowing the attack speed of an adc by 30%. And yes 1 sec makes all the difference!!!! It made you need to purchase cdr on a champ that already required too many items to be efficient. Gave him a 3 spell telegraphed interval to go in. Made him easy for first first grader to play. Before, landing phase was a taunting guessing game for when q harass would happen. Changed will of the ancients 3 time before removing it. Even made it a passive where it would disappear during pool. Made revolver a unique passive then removed spellvamp Released fizz that had a dodge ability better than pool. Then made vlads best attribute not be able to dodge fizz’s ultimate. Fizz also had grievous wounds. What an insult. Introduced Bork Nerfed vamp on masteries Nerfed e for wave clearing Took out the stack mechanic for e that was fun to maintain.

It’s too much!!! The constant insult and introduction of fizz made me quit for. A year and made me not want to fund riot. It was the beginning of the remake era.

Triumphant Glory4/9/2018, 5:15:14 PM1 votes

Irelia lost the CC passive and true damage but... she gained so much teamfight presence with her ult and her E damage reduction.. they also added conqueror keystone, wich provide a part of true damage, wich is better for New Irelia as she got her true damage removed, mean she can do way more % of her total damage, before, 75 true damage was sure to be hit so it was reducing her total damage dealt so the 20% true damage conversion was lower than it is now. They removed her tenacity passive but let's be honest, Irelia buying Trinity Force into Sterak gage, who give shit tons of tenacity while the shield is on, assuming she bought mercury thread, have potions of Iron and Legend: Tenacity... she don't need her old passive, it's completly overshadowed by the current runes system. She lacked some DPS and attack speed steroids, and her new passive provide it.. I saw alot of Old Irelia suffer from the Fiora matchup, but new Irelia can win with ease against Fiora, wich was a thought matchup before her rework... i personally love the new Irelia... as for akali... she is toxic in play pattern and deserve a rework. Spam Q during laning phase on your opponent, no way to counter it. Get ganked ? Press W and blink to safety, can even pass wall. Almost infinite E AoE damage so fairly good waveclear for barely no cost. 3 Dash so you can flash 1 dash but you will still get shit on because she can get to you anyway. Also her passive mixed with gunblade rush make her impossible to win trade because she simply heal everything you throw at her during laning phase. Akali as she is right now, need to go. Period.