Assasins, Akali and healthy gameplay

I was unsure whether to make this post about assassins in general and their health to the game versus the current state of her kit and how she’s been thrown under the bus, so I’ll try do a bit of both. Both would lead to interesting discussions, but I decided to focus on Akali for a number of reasons. Assassins in League of Legends have always been the focus of nerfs and hate, generally because of the snowball potential, mobility and damage. The champions labelled as assassins generally have some of the most rewarding and fun gameplay styles. Similarly, they can provide generally some of the most unfun experiences for people playing against them after getting behind, basically being killed every time you come to lane. As such, I can understand the reluctance to let assassins remain as the dominating pick. Regardless of an assassin’s snowball potential, the opposite is also true where if they get behind – they really get behind, thus having a very high risk, high reward play style. Akali is the definition of a champion who can solo carry games when ahead, but relatively useless (against a good team) when behind. I am curious to hear about Riot’s position on this high risk-high reward play style, but there are a few exceptions to all this. Both Zed and Ahri are in relatively good spots right now, avoiding nerfs that utterly gut them because despite their ability to 100-0 squishies when ahead, they have clear and coherent counterplay – Ahri being able to miss her entire combo and Zed whose late game damage can be mitigated by two different items. Skill is also a likely factor into this.

With that out the way, I personally feel the only way for an assassin to survive without being the focus on continuous or heavy nerfs is to have a balance of both counterplay and a substantial amount of skill required to make the full use of their kit. Right now, Akali has the third lowest mid-lane winrate (according to Champion.gg) with no news or focus, Riot ignoring her after their ‘fix’ by making E not proc her Q. Her kit is very similar to that of Diana’s, except is probably seen as an “unhealthy” version of it, being a point-and-click kit with easier snowballing and resets – as with Kha’zix, Tristana, Master Yi and Katarina, resets are always the case of controversy. I do think Akali deserves the focus and as such, I wanted to create a thread discussing her and how to change her kit to maintain skill, have coherent counterplay but also maintaining her identity. Before the nerfs, Akali’s kit was relatively rewarding. At higher elo, it took decision making and positioning to make use of Akali’s kit (spellvamp, shroud, etc) to effectively kill the enemy ADC and survive, however in lower elo, Akali could still thrive from simple button mashing, as with all point and click – as well as right click champions. Basically, whilst Akali can reward good players who do things right (double Q proc, shroud to avoid damage/wait out cooldowns, etc), her kit naturally rewarded people who didn’t know what they were doing.

Right now, Akali’s identity remains a high damage, high sustain reset champion that can chase down almost any champion once on them. Whilst people may complain about the inability to escape from Akali, I do think a champion that can ‘hunt’ down and chase most champions is something needed in the game (fitting both the ninja/assassin theme) to counter particular champs like Kalista, Riven and Fizz is a good niche that should be filled. I am curious to people’s opinion on this, as ‘can’t be kited’ may be seen as something toxic, but Akali falls in a similar category as Irelia and Yasuo in terms of chasing people down by jumping to minions – given they are gated whilst Akali isn’t, at least as hard (although take note, Akali’s is an ultimate over skill on E). Anyway, with making Akali take more skill, the most obvious suggestion would to add skillshots. Some people have been finding that Riot is using this as a go-to to give champions ‘health’, however I think it’s definitely necessary for Akali to maintain a health gameplay, being very mobile and a fully point-and-click champion just doesn’t mesh well and if it makes it to

Passive: Twin Disciplines Since her passive isn’t interactive, it is definitely subject to change. It’s the only reason you get Hextech Gunblade and the sustain helps her not get pushed out of lane – although maybe that could be a potential weakness that could be explored.

Q: Mark of the Assassin When looking at the Akali nerfs, it’s evident Riot doesn’t want to reduce her damage too much since she has neither utility and is a glass canon. I think the Q being a single target spell that is only useful when you proc it is somewhat problematic. It means trading with ranged mid laners is almost impossible until level 6, even with proper shroud usage and since the second proc does a large amount of damage, it means Akali can bully out and also out sustain melee top laners. It’s the reason her top winrate is actually pretty decent versus her mid winrate. Honestly, Akali’s Q being a skillshot would be a lot more reasonable. Missile speed would need to increase, a proc can remain with of course the proc damage being lowered, with the initial skillshot damage being increased as it can be avoided (creating more of a balance between the initial hit and proc, not one being useless without the other). Having it a skillshot that marks everything in its path with proper number changes also helps with waveclear, you’d need Energy costs to be changed, etc. This would of course allow for Akali's other skills to proc her Q as it is a lot more intuitive than Akali pressing R -> Q -> Auto for 70% of an ADCs health late game.

W: Twilight Shroud She falls under the same catergory as Talon and Katarina of who have relatively weak early game and then hit a heavy power spike after buying/turning level 6. Unlike them, Akali doesn’t have a blink to dash around and outplay skillshots. Instead, she has Twilight Shroud to mitigate and avoid damage, which isn’t as reliable with AoE but definitely reliable against point and click. I actually think Twilight Shroud is very unique and effective in lane, whilst it gets countered later in the game with the ward changes, it still has its uses in terms of slowing the enemy/1v1’s whom may not have a pink ward convenient.

E: Crescent Slash As of right now, it’s pretty common census that Akali’s E is one of the most useless skills in the game. Being able to proc the Q was the only reason it was relevant, as well as a relatively weak AoE clear to help kill minions. This skill can use a lot of changes too, there’s been suggestions to make it more like Katarina’s W so it doesn’t take an animation, but there’s a lot of potential for a range of ideas. I think Riot should completely change this move, maybe keeping the underlying melee waveclear move on her.

R: Shadow Dance There are a few things one could do with Akali’s R. It’s basically her chasing tool, her damage and without it, her kit would be useless. There have been multiple suggestions in terms of her R. Earlier, I made a comparison to Yasuo and Irelia. Making it like Yasuo where you can’t jump to the same person for a certain amount of times whether 3 seconds or so, or giving you the ability to use R again if you kill a minion with it or whatever, I guess these changes could work if you make other changes at the same time. Another suggestion was to make it a skillshot. At first, I thought this was an awful idea. It’d make it impossible to gank her and impossible to escape from her. However, after thinking about it, with relevant limitations, I think it could also be a possible solution. For example, using something similar to Vayne passive where if you ult towards someone, it’s simply use a stack. However if you ult away from someone, it removes all your ult stacks, which opens up 20-30 seconds or so of opportunity to once again gank Akali, whilst also removing a powerspike until she gets her stacks back. Similarly, it could be a skillshot that acts as normal, however if you ult and hit nothing, you lose your stacks. That gives counterplay and initiative to flash or dodge Akali’s ult as much as it is for her to hit it.

Anyway, I’m interested to see people’s ideas for Akali, as well as assassins ‘requiring’ counterplay to be allowed to be in a strong or even alright state.