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Akali is not as poorly designed as people make her out to be

Akali is SO HOT··17 votes·1,297 views

Sure Akali isn't the most well designed champion in the game but she's not horrible cancer most poorly designed champion ever tier either. Now before you downvote me because "Ur an Akali main stfu Xd" I'll just go over a few points as to why.

1) Ball of stats champion and if she has the numbers she can kill you That can be said about any Assassin. If Diana Ekko Fizz Katarina Leblanc Rengar Talon have enough items and are ahead and they somehow manage to get passed all of the peel ADCs get (and not to mention Sterak's Elo and Maw for AP Assassins) then they are going to kill you quickly. That is what their job is and it just the nature of their kits. This applies to all Assassins aside from Zed so Akali isn't a special snowflake in this case. Not to mention getting to that point where she can kill you quickly is actually very hard unless she really gets a big lead. Popular to contrary belief, Akali can't 100-0 you instantly once she gets gunblade unless she's somehow 10-0 by 5 minutes and actually gives enemies plenty of time to react to her burst unlike many other Assassins.

2) Never ending kill pressure :((( The problem with this argument is that she actually has no kill pressure whatsover against any enemy at all until level 6. The only time I can manage to get a kill on an enemy before level 6 is if I get a really good jungle gank or I severely outplay them. Getting to level 6 by itself is a huge chore to do to begin with so you have plenty of time to make her life miserable. Other Assassins have kill pressure before they even get their ults. Leblanc Zed get their kill pressure starting at level 2 and Fizz has one of the best level 1's in the whole game. Akali doesn't get hers until level 6 and even then it isn't as high as people make it out to be because of how far ahead she needs to burst down her target. Don't forget that Riot gutted her initial Q damage so she has to always be in melee range to do any damage to you whatsoever which lowers her kill pressure immensely.

3) Spellvamp is OP All Assassins have some form of at least semi reliable way to survive and Akali's form of survival is her spellvamp. You can't really argue that her shroud is a reliable way to survive because the hard counter to it had its gold decreased by 25 and trinket upgrades being completely free now. Unless the enemy team is bronze and doesn't buy pink wards ever her shroud will almost never be an ability. Diana is tanky af, Ekko can go back in time 4 seconds and heal himself as well as having a big ass stun that gives him a 200000 hp shield, Fizz has troll pole, Zed can juke enemies with his shadows and get out of fights by blinking back to his ult shadow, etc. Akali's is her spellvamp. Not to mention that she has to do damage for it to actually be reliable as a defensive mechanism while every other Assassins can use their form of survival whenever they want.

4) Three dashes OP One of Akali's niches is being one of the best pick/chase Assassins in the game and having 3 charges on her ult gives her that role. Now you might think that it's really OP in lane and makes her impossible to deal with but remember that the recharge time on her ult is really long early on in the game which makes getting to full stacks take a long time. There is rarely a situation where she can kill you with only 2 ult charges so you have plenty of time to wreck her before she reaches that point where she could potentially kill you. Not to mention that the range got completely gutted which makes doing her job really hard and made her teamfight so much weaker. If you are caught by yourself or she finds you out of position and kills or outplays you by using her ult to juke you around with minions and her shroud then it's on you. Although it can be annoying it's part of Akali's kit. Every champion has something annoying about then so Akali isn't a special snowflake for this.

5) She's all targeted damage and too binary with no outplay potential It is true that she is a fairly binary champion with all targeted damage but this doesn't mean that she is poorly designed. She absolutely needs her Q damage to kill you and considering how slow it travels it gives you plenty of time to react to her burst. Akali has always needed two rotations to kill you unless she is miles ahead of you making her burst very low compared to other Assassins. This means that you have plenty of time to kite her, kill her, CC her, escape, etc. Akali's kit could never function if she had skillshots and considering she only has 2 and a half abilities she really needs targeted damage to actually not be useless. The fact that she has to mark you first before going in on you to burst you down gives a ton of time for you to outplay her. Don't forget that with the bug still on her ult she travels much slower than she used to which gives you even more time to deal with her. Sure she doesn't have much opportunity to be outplayed but that applies to a lot of Assassins and champions in general and Akali isn't even the worst offender in this situation. Don't forget that Steraks elo and Maw make it infinitely harder to burst carries down now as an Assassin which gives you even more time to take care of her and once she's out of ult charges she is near useless for Assassinating squishies.

I guess I'm just sorta annoyed that I've felt like nothing but a cannon minion for these past few patches and just needed to rant a little bit. Downvote away.

27 Comments

Sire Hippington13 votes
  1. Ball of stats champion and if she has the numbers she can kill you

actually means

  1. She's all targeted damage and too binary with no outplay potential

Ball of stats means that the only two conditions for her to kill are

  • enough stats
  • get in range

There is no room for error, nothing that can really be avoided in any way, nothing you can do to outplay her. While this is true for talon and to some extend rengar, and in some matchups even kata, many other asassins have parts of tehir kits that can be avoided, which increases the needed stats for a kill by far. Sure, if they are really fed, they can kill despite missing some skills, but unless they are that fed, they have conditions for the kill and alow some counterplay.

  1. Never ending kill pressure :(((

this doesn't refer to the level where she gains killpresure, but to the fact that she has no big cd that is required for the all-in kill. There is nearly no save time where you can aproach her post 6. While some other assasins share this, many others actually do have a high cd ult that is needed for the kill unless they are ahead or manage to get you low befor.

  1. Spellvamp is OP

The differnce between the spellvamp and the other mechanics is tha it allows her to shrugg of any poke and to chain kill people if she is ahead without really feeling vulnerable at any point. Though it isn't really much worse than lifesteal on any ad-champ. And pinks countering her W has become less a thing now, as you don't have any trinkets for that and siiner or later, you might run out of inventory space.

  1. Three dashes OP this adds alot to the previous points.

Vs other assasins, if you manage to disengage their first kill atemot, your usually save and can recall or even strike back. Vs akali, very few champs have a chance to suvive 1v1 if they ever get in range of her ult, as she can follow up with another two longranged dashes, which leads to frustration.

Akali isn't strong right now, but that does in no way mean that she isn't horrible designed from the play-against aspect, makeing her insanely frustraiting to face if strong. And that other assasins have lots of issues here as well is no excuse, though akali sure is one of the worst, if not the worst in this regard.

Phoenix Kotori 1 votes

Well said.

Akali is SO HOT3 votes

Ball of stats means that the only two conditions for her to kill are

  • enough stats
  • get in range

There is no room for error, nothing that can really be avoided in any way, nothing you can do to outplay her. While this is true for talon and to some extend rengar, and in some matchups even kata, many other asassins have parts of tehir kits that can be avoided, which increases the needed stats for a kill by far. Sure, if they are really fed, they can kill despite missing some skills, but unless they are that fed, they have conditions for the kill and alow some counterplay.

There is actually a lot of room for error with Akali. Procing her Q used to not be too much of a problem because her E could proc it but ever since the removal it has become a lot harder to do it. She has one of the clunkiest/worst auto attack animations in the game which makes procing it with her auto attack pretty difficult. In addition, the strikethrough distance on her ult can really screw her up a lot because quite often I find myself out of range to proc Q after I ult to the enemy. The decreased strikethrough distance when a target is marked with Q helps a little bit but come late game you don't really get the opportunity to mark the enemy with Q first meaning you still get that extra range that can really screw you over.

So although all of her damage is targeted, the fact that she has to proc her Q with an auto attack gives you plenty of opportunity to outplay her because of how difficult it actually is for you to proc it in the first place. Play a few games as Akali and you'll see what I mean. Wiffing an auto attack, ult placing you in the wrong place, etc. all make it much harder to proc her Q damage than one would believe. So just because she is all targeted does not mean there is no room for error. Although she has less room for error than say Zed it doesn't mean that she is guaranteed to get her damage off every time.

this doesn't refer to the level where she gains killpresure, but to the fact that she has no big cd that is required for the all-in kill. There is nearly no save time where you can aproach her post 6. While some other assasins share this, many others actually do have a high cd ult that is needed for the kill unless they are ahead or manage to get you low befor.

Although she can get oppressive if she gets ahead with her ult not having a "cooldown" her rank 1 ult recharge time is a whopping 30 seconds which gives you plenty of time to punish her after she uses a charge. She may have more uptime for her kill pressure than other Assassins which can be annoying to deal with, when other Assassins have their ult up they have much more kill pressure than her in terms of their burst.

The differnce between the spellvamp and the other mechanics is tha it allows her to shrugg of any poke and to chain kill people if she is ahead without really feeling vulnerable at any point. Though it isn't really much worse than lifesteal on any ad-champ. And pinks countering her W has become less a thing now, as you don't have any trinkets for that and siiner or later, you might run out of inventory space.

I think that once Akali does get her rework the spellvamp aspect of her kit needs to be looked at because once she gets gunblade if she is ahead her spellvamp can make her unkillable but that doesn't mean it is an unfair mechanic. Although it can be annoying she still has to do damage to get that healing back and considering her E only gets 33% of the effectiveness for spellvamp the only way to get her health back is through her Q procs which, as I said before, is much easier said than done so her form of defense is much more conditional than other Assassins.

As for pinks, I don't think I have ever had enemies buy so many pink wards against me before Season 6 started. Lowering the gold to 75 was huge for buying them Early/Mid game and although it becomes harder to get them late game because inventory space running out there is always going to be at least one person who is capable of buying a pink to make her shroud useless. I've played in games where the enemy laner and jungler combined bought 10+ pink wards against me within the first 12 minutes of the game.

Vs other assasins, if you manage to disengage their first kill atemot, your usually save and can recall or even strike back. Vs akali, very few champs have a chance to suvive 1v1 if they ever get in range of her ult, as she can follow up with another two longranged dashes, which leads to frustration.

The difference between Akali and other Assassins is that they are generally much more reliable than her. Fizz, Leblanc, Talon, etc. have very reliable burst that is hard to screw up and is much harder to dodge than Akali's. As said before, even though it is targeted doesn't mean that it isn't guaranteed that she'll get her damage off and if she is able to get a Q proc off quickly she won't kill you instantly like other Assassins will. Chasing and making picks is one of Akali's strengths which is something people have a hard time dealing with which makes them dislike Akali. Don't forget that her ult range got mega nerfed which makes chasing/making picks much harder than it was before.

Edit: I think you do have good points though and I agree that Akali does have her problems mainly to me is her spellvamp becoming a little oppressive if she gets ahead

Sire Hippington2 votes

i think you misunderstand the intentions of my post. I'm not argueing that she is op or stronger than other assasins, cause she clearly isn't atm. I'm pointing out that she has the probably most opressive kit IF strong(be that by balance or by getting fed) And i find my self rarly haveing issues with proccing the Q. 3 dashes help alpt at getting in for the AA, so does rylais, and if you really have trouble, a bit AS from runes or guinsoo's(though you need to stack it on minons befor going in) help really alot by granting a faster animation.

As for her rliabillity: yes, in a teamfight she's very unreliable, which is the main reason she's weak right now, though most assasins have trouble at reaching the backline and reliably executeing someone if ther is sufficient peeling. But 1v1 or in small fights, which is what frustraights people, she is very reliable in what she does. If she gets ahead, most people are 100% dead if they get into 750 range of her without a team nearby, which especially at lower elos causes alot frustration. And again, the fact that talon does that aswell does not mean it's ok or healthy...

DorkunedAuras2 votes

The difference between Akali and other Assassins is that they are generally much more reliable than her. Fizz, Leblanc, Talon, etc. have very reliable burst that is hard to screw up and is much harder to dodge than Akali's. As said before, even though it is targeted doesn't mean that it isn't guaranteed that she'll get her damage off

This, right here, is wrong. Fizz and LB both have a skillshot or otherwise non-targetted ability that can be dodged (fizz ult, E, and Q, LB W, E and ulted WE).

What can be dodged about akali, she throws Q, jumps in, if you jump away, she jumps again, you flash away, she jumps again. You can't get away.

Her Q is going to hit you period. Then because she is nearly infinitely sticky, she will get a chance to proc that auto. The AA might be a bit clunky, but that doesn't stop her from doing it, it's a minor inconvenience.

Akali is SO HOT1 votes

Remember that she can't kill you with a Q,R,Auto unless she's really fed. She needs two rotations to kill you which makes her burst really slow compared to other Assassins. Her Q will hit you yes but her procing it is a different story completely. If you can make it so she has to use an extra ult charge to proc her Q once that's huge because if she can't hit you with that second time when she uses her last ult charge then she's donezo. If you've ever played Akali you would understand that having to proc Q with her extremely clunky auto while going passed her target due to the strikethrough while in the middle of a teamfight is pretty difficult.

Also, it's pretty hard to screw up Fizz's combo considering that his shark has a huge hitbox and slows you for like 80% and then knocking you up and slowing you some more. Leblanc's QRW combo is almost impossible to mess up unless you uses your W the complete wrong way. She can also go in and out of the team at will because of her W so she is much safer than Akali at the same time.

DorkunedAuras2 votes

While I hardly play her a ton, I've played a bit of akali (I was smurfing a week ago, call me evil), and her AA is not THAT bad.

It seems to me that you, as an incredibly obvious akali main, are trying to hyper-exaggerate her weaknesses, even when some of those are flat out non-existent, and greatly devaluing her strengths.

I don't know whether you're delusional or trying to stop the justified akali hate, but Riot themselves have said they can't make her too strong because she has next to no counterplay outside of pinking her shroud, and even then, she'll just wait 3 seconds for CDs then kill you in rotation 2.

She is not a high skill champion. She is not no skill, but she is far from difficult. Accept it. Deal with it. Play her if you want, I'm not judging that. Just, stop lying to yourself and everyone else.

Twitch Chat3 votes

i thank my lord and savior riot games every day for putting akali in the trash can.

Akali is SO HOT2 votes

That won't stop me from playing her :333

http://i.imgur.com/CDPis0d.png[/img]

Twitch Chat1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Akali is SO HOT,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=sEW8Przv,comment-id=00080000,timestamp=2016-02-16T22:33:44.336+0000)

That won't stop me from playing her :333

http://i.imgur.com/CDPis0d.png[/img]

Follow your dreams m8 god bless

Bootleg Gay2 votes

The big problem I have with her is the actual spell vamp and life steal. She has great burst, but her sustain and sustained damage don't fit well into an assassin to me. Not to mention it can turn her into more of a duelist when she can't quite kill someone right away, so she then covers another niche.

In my eyes, I feel that she should be allowed sustain, but only have it as a reward. Like most assassins, they need to complete their job before getting something in return. Plus, a higher risk could let her have a higher reward.

Quepha2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Akali is SO HOT,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=sEW8Przv,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-02-16T16:54:32.618+0000)

1) Ball of stats champion and if she has the numbers she can kill you That can be said about any Assassin. If Diana Ekko Fizz Katarina Leblanc Rengar Talon have enough items and are ahead and they somehow manage to get passed all of the peel ADCs get (and not to mention Sterak's Elo and Maw for AP Assassins) then they are going to kill you quickly.

5 out of 7 of your examples have a ton of their burst tied to skillshots that can be dodged or flashed. If you get within 700 range of Akali she is on you and you need to have 3 dashes to get away from her (assuming she doesn't have flash). All her damage is targeted and there is zero counterplay to her pattern.

Akali is SO HOT3 votes

To be fair it is pretty hard to miss the skillshots you are referring to and the Assassins in that list can use other abilities to get in range to make landing those skillshots pretty easy. Of course because Akali has her damage targeted she has less room for error than them but it doesn't mean her damage can't be dodged or outplayed.

There is actually a lot of room for error with Akali. Procing her Q used to not be too much of a problem because her E could proc it but ever since the removal it has become a lot harder to do it. She has one of the clunkiest/worst auto attack animations in the game which makes procing it with her auto attack pretty difficult. In addition, the strikethrough distance on her ult can really screw her up a lot because quite often I find myself out of range to proc Q after I ult to the enemy. The decreased strikethrough distance when a target is marked with Q helps a little bit but come late game you don't really get the opportunity to mark the enemy with Q first meaning you still get that extra range that can really screw you over.

So although all of her damage is targeted, the fact that she has to proc her Q with an auto attack gives you plenty of opportunity to outplay her because of how difficult it actually is for you to proc it in the first place. Play a few games as Akali and you'll see what I mean. Wiffing an auto attack, ult placing you in the wrong place, etc. all make it much harder to proc her Q damage than one would believe. So just because she is all targeted does not mean there is no room for error. Although she has less room for error than say Zed it doesn't mean that she is guaranteed to get her damage off every time.

Killer of Poros2 votes

I disagree with the safety portion of what you said. Pinks are a hard counter but they're harder to come by and use. You're limited to one pink and it can be baited out leaving you unable to deal with her shroud until you back and get another. Along with the fact that if you have components of an item filling up your inventory or are full build you can't get them.

Akali is SO HOT2 votes

You can have multiple pink wards in your inventory at once. Akali baiting you into wasting your pink ward doesn't make her toxic it means she outplayed you.

Akali is SO HOT2 votes

This thread has been up for about 7 hours and I'm still in the positives. Must be a new record for me

Heptapod1 votes

Everyone hates Akali, everyone keeps thinking that she is op and she will always be op... so yeah, if you post something positive about her everyone will start hating on you.

Ionian2 votes
  1. Ball of stats champion and if she has the numbers she can kill you That can be said about any Assassin

wut Ahri

Akali is SO HOT2 votes

ya Ahri is op freelo m80

Ionian1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Akali is SO HOT,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=sEW8Przv,comment-id=000a0000,timestamp=2016-02-16T22:47:48.093+0000)

ya Ahri is op freelo m80

k

can you beat this tho :^)

http://i.imgur.com/MORBk6k.png

Anu3isII1 votes

Well written post, good job! :3

Anyway, I found Akali more and more interesting this season, and in general, I found her really fun to play, but very difficult to carry the whole team with her.

Do you have any tips for finishing a game as Akali?

Hayaishi21 votes

Obviously, she isn't fucking cancer right now because Riot has made sure she doesn't see play by nerfing her hard.

All Assassins except for Zed are horribly designed, so i don't really understand the point, she's no better or worse than them, she is the same and thus deserves to stay gutted for all eternity until Riot bothers with reworking her.

So yes she is as poorly designed as everyone makes her out to be.

Akali is SO HOT3 votes

Thanks

La Barbotte1 votes

Her Q should be a skill shot and her ult should have 2 charges refunding on kill or on mark (Q) making her stick but need to actually land something and since she loses a ult charge and the Q aint 100% to hit as a skill shot her E could slow to give her more sticking potential and utility in teamfights

DorkunedAuras1 votes

You technically get time to react to her Q, but what can you do about it. Just because it's slow doesn't mean shit if every aspect of it is still going to effect you fully without a hitch.

Hexten1 votes

The changes to pinks do hurt Akali alot. Ever since S6 started, there has been far more pinks being deployed pre-6, whereas before there weren't. With how much easier it is to deploy true sight in the early/mid game, Akali would be hurt so much that late game doesn't matter, she's not a late game champ like Vayne, Kog, etc.

However having said that, Akali is poorly-designed in the playing-against department. And I am saying this as an Akali main. But that what makes Akali, Akali, reliability and sticking power.

All of her problems stem from how reliable her kit is. Abilites that cannot be dodged, low downtime on her ultimate, spellvamp being on 24/7. With how reliable the kit is, the best attempt to make it not total faceroll is to have the Q proc being balanced around a clunky autoattack, but that's just poorly designed. It feels awful to play with, and have no real control over how clunky it is. Adding Crescent Slash detonation was a mistake to begin with (Riot must of been on full drugs when they added it to her kit), since her kit is already too reliable and its why she went broken OP in Season 4, and got gutted in 5.2 (Akali has always been the victim of power creep).

PS: @Akali is so hot, do you have a lol reddit account? Can't have a private convo on the boards, would like to talk to you about Akali.

AkaIihoIic1 votes

Finally someone with brain who knows how to play my precious Akali explain her situation. I'm so freaking tired of bronzes and silvers telling me "oh she is so broken, 100-0 with 1 Q"... God!

Today in Ranked I went against Riven mid, my jg fed Riven as hell, 8 min and she has 3 kills... How would u face that?

--

Best regards from us. Syndraitem 3211Akali

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